Bd James Strepar part 11

Over the weekend a neighbor of mine mentioned that an empty store in a shopping plaza near a place I used to work was now occupied by a branch of a national arts and crafts chain.  This is noteworthy for two reasons.   First, there are no places with an equivalent selection of art materials within the same distance from my current home.  Second, this location had been occupied previously by a big regional arts and crafts chain (bankrupt) and then another national arts and crafts chain (moved five miles further away).  So yesterday I drove up there, verified it was true, and picked up a few cheap watercolor brushes that will allow me to do some detail work.  I wish them better luck.

Today I took those brushes with me to the Studio to continue work on the latest print.  I had thought the first attempt on the color was pretty good. but had room for improvement.  Standing out in that regard was the canteen, which I felt should be darker.  Making the gray darker is a simple enough task with more black, but all my tubes of black were completely dried up.  Must be something about that pigment, since I have many much older tubes of other colors that are still in good shape.  I didn't like the watercolor options at the store yesterday, but I had another plan.  Unlike oils or acrylics, watercolor can always be resuscitated by adding water.  I couldn't squeeze it out of the tube, but I broke off a piece, used a hammer to pound it into a powder, added a little water, and stirred.  Added some of this the gray I had mixed on Monday and I was all set.  Used it wherever I had the metal of the canteen.  A few other adjustments- darkened the brown in the upper right corner (piece of wooden table under the map), added a little brown to the strap on the canteen (warmer tone helps it separate better from the gray metal), added a hint of blue along the river lines running into Galicia (very subtle- doesn't really show up in the photo), and a few minor touch-ups in the map colors.  I think this is the final version, so in the next few days I'll stretch the better proof and color it to match this one.  I will need to print at least one more good proof and color that one to match, but that can wait until next week.