Colors to Glaze With

   This entry was originally posted on Saturday, September 8, 2012

 

I have mentioned this in a previous post but I feel like it is important enough to repeat.

It is easier to glaze with staining, transparent colors.

Opaque colors tend to lift with each wash, mix with your new color(s), and create mud. 

Stay away from the opaques until the very end.

Glazing For Detail

  This entry was originally posted on Friday, September 7, 2012

Glazing is a great technique for getting crisp clean detail.

For instance, in the above painting, the iris is done mostly with washes or glazes of color.

This made it the focal point since it kept it crisp with sharper lines and more detail.

The background is done wet-in-wet to create a softer look and to separate it from the focal point.

Glazing

 This entry was originally posted on Thursday, September 6, 2012

Glazing in watercolor is a type of layering of colors.

It is where a color is painted in an area then is allowed to completely dry.

Another color is then layered or glazed on top of that color.

It is also called wet-on-dry painting.

 

For instance, below I have painted an area yellow. 

 

When it is dry, I will glaze a red on top of the yellow. 

 

This will create an orange.

 

So why do I not just mix an orange?

Because in glazing, the colors of each layer come through and give a beautiful glow.

In this example, the orange on the left is glazed and the orange on the right is mixed.

There is more of a stained glass effect with the glazing and light seems to shine from it more. 

Receding A Background Another Way

 This entry was originally posted on Tuesday,  August 28, 2012 

A mixture of French Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna can also be used to recede a background. It can also be used on another part of the painting that you don't want to emphasize or compete with the focal point.

 

For instance, on the painting below, I felt like the trees in the background and behind the bridge were competing with the bridge.

I ended up putting a pale wash of the French Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna to tone down the trees, even out the texture of the trees, and recede the background.

I also did this to the rock beneath the bridge.

Now that orange doesn't compete as much with the red.

 

Make sure your wash is pale (think weak tea). If it doesn't work the first time, it can always be done again.

Final Jeopardy

  This entry was originally posted on Monday, May 7, 2012

Sometimes it can be hard to be patient when painting, especially with wet-in-wet washes.

Try playing a little ditty in your head as you wait for your wash to dry.

For me, it is the Final Jeopardy song.

It seems to be just the right amount of time to let my wash dry enough before I drop in more color.

 

Lifting with Wet-in-Wet

 This entry was originally posted on Friday, April 20, 2012

With wet-in-wet painting, not only can you add color, but you can take color away. 

For instance, in Beginnings, I did the background wet-in-wet.  

I was able to lift some of the color out while it was still wet to create the soft effect of the fluffy down from the milkweed.

 

To do this, wait till your wet-in-wet painting is just damp.

Usually I do this part after I have put in all my color.

Rinse out your brush, dry it off, and then carefully drag it through your painting.

You will need to rinse and dry off your brush often when doing this because the brush ends up picking up paint.

Just remember that when lifting, sometimes you won't see the full effect until the painting is completely dry. 

 

 

 

 

More Paint Than Water

  This entry was originally posted on Saturday, April 14, 2012

The most important thing to remember when painting wet-in-wet is to have

MORE PAINT IN YOUR BRUSH THAN WATER 

If you don't, the extra water in your brush will push out the paint already there and make a bloom or blossom.

Drying Paper

 This entry was originally posted on Friday April 13, 2012

When painting wet-in-wet, the paper will start to dry.

As the paper dries, your paint will not spread out as far as when the paper is really wet.

Wait for the gloss or shine of the water to leave the paper before adding paint if you don't want the paint to spread out too far.

Wet-in-Wet Painting

  This entry was originally posted on Thursday, April 12, 2012

Milkweed

21x29" 

(The background on Milkweed was done with wet-in-wet painting.)

Over the next few days I will be giving a few tips about how to master wet-in-wet painting. 

The first thing to remember is that the more wet the paper, the further the paint will spread.

 

(Wet paint dropped into a wet water wash)

 

Since there is more water in the paper, the color becomes quite diluted. Once dried, the color will look much lighter.

 

This is how the above streak of paint looks after it has dried.

 

Creating Softness Using Wet-in-Wet Washes

  This entry was originally posted on Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Tofino Fog, 7x10" 

One way to create softness in your watercolor painting is to paint wet in wet.

Wet in wet painting is the most often used technique in watercolor and is the hardest to master since there is less control.

This technique depends on the wetness and saturation of the paper and the amount of pigment added to the wet paper. 

Colors can be placed side by side and allowed to flow together or  

Color may also be dropped into another color.

 

In Tofino Fog, I wet the sky with a grey and added the trees in the distance to the wet paper.

This created a wonderful softness that indicates the mist and fog on the beach that morning.

 

Sunday Secrets #7

  This entry was originally posted on Sunday, March 4, 2012

The Sunday Secrets question for the week is from Marney in Surrey, BC

It is: What would you suggest for a good brush for putting down a wash?

Thanks for the question, Marney.

I actually use a few different types of wash brushes depending on what I am doing.

My favorite one is just a 2" hake brush.

I like this type of brush for a nice even wash and when I layer my washes. For instance, I use it for my layers of poured watercolors when I wet the paper before I pour the paint. The reason for this is that it is soft enough not to scratch the surface or lift the layer of paint that is already there. I find that the synthetic wash brushes tend to lift the underlying layer of paint when you stroke it across the surface, no matter how soft it is.

The hake brush is a Japanese brush made with soft white goat hair.

 

This painting was wet with a hake brush before the paint was poured across the surface. The surface was wet again with the hake brush before another layer of paint is poured. 

 

I also have a couple of synthetic brushes. A 2" and a 1" brush.  I use these when I want texture, usually in my backgrounds. I tend to use it in a criss-cross pattern. The larger brush is used for larger paintings, the smaller brush for smaller paintings.

The wash in the background is done with a 1" synthetic wash brush.

*Update: I still use my hake brush for my poured watercolor paintings but I have since discovered how useful  a 1/2 inch or 1 inch cat's tongue can be in creating backgrounds.

Adventures in Hand Modeling

Mixing Paint Illustration

As I mentioned in my book, I have always wanted to be a hand model. This came about years ago when I read an article about a woman who did hand modeling. In the article, she mentioned that she wasn't allowed to do the dishes since it ruined her hands. That idea sounded fantastic to me at the time. Washing dishes is one of my least favorite chores because I suffer from eczema and the soap always irritates my hands. Now if I could use the excuse that my hands were too important to do such a mundane chore that gave me itchy hands, I would definitely use it. Hence, my desire to be a hand model. 

So with this book, I became a hand model. I also got to show off my skill of sketching hands from years of sketching my own hands in church, sports events, boring meetings, etc.

Unfortunately, I still have to do the dishes.

The above illustration is from Chapter 5 of Watercolor 365. The chapter is on washes and this is an image of me mixing some paint. 

Here is the painted version:

And the photo:

Hake Hake

Illustration of Hake Brush

Another illustration that did not make it into my book is of a hake brush. I use this brush when I am applying large washes of water and/or color. The above illustration is the combined one of photo and painting.

Here is the painted version:

And here is the photo:

It was a challenge to recreate my supplies as they were in the photograph so I could seamlessly combine them. But as with all challenges, there is an opportunity to learn. Not only did I have the opportunity to perfect painting and drawing skills, but I also had to think about photography, layout and design, and the technical skills involved when playing and working digitally. 

Although I am not a book designer, my editor, Kristin Conlin, requested that I do a rough layout of each one of my pages and entries. I really enjoyed figuring out what to place where and if it was going to work. Once I did the layouts, Kristin sent them off to an actual book designer, Breanna Loebach, who cleaned it up, tweaked it, and did an amazing job of creating such a super awesome looking book. 

Through all this, I discovered how much I enjoy book design and layout as I played around in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. 

I also rediscovered how much I love color. I tended to paint my supplies just a bit brighter and more colorful.