Watercolor Painting: A Comprehensive Approach to Mastering the Medium (19 page)

How wet you make the paper determines how long it will stay wet. When you lay down a wash you are “setting the timer” for wet-on-wet opportunities, so ask yourself:
How much time do I need to complete this task?
If you plan to make a complex series of soft-edged forms within a wash, such as the rise beside the house in
Land’s End Farm,
shown above, it will be smart to give yourself more than enough time to mix all the colors, select all the brushes, and apply all the paint while the initial wash is still wet.

Remember that when you apply the initial wash you don’t have to exhaust your brush by covering the maximum amount of territory before you reload it. If you want the wash to stay wet for a while, dip into your reservoir of paint frequently, so that each movement of the brush is depositing wet, juicy paint. This way, you won’t find yourself saying, “The paper got too dry.”

Think of the initial wash as your water supply for all the soft-edged work to come, then stay out of the bucket. In the sequence on
these pages
, you can see that as the successive layers become more color-saturated, the brush gets drier, but the edges that appear on the paper are still soft. My intention with this demonstration was to keep all the edges soft until the painting revealed the need for
hard edges.

Apply a warm base color.
To provide enough time for several layers of wet-on-wet work, I make sure to wet the paper thoroughly. Then I add a warm base color for the clouds, suggesting the late afternoon hour.

Add cool color to the first-layer strokes.
I then begin to describe the shadows on the clouds by introducing some cool color. I do not add water to the brush, but the paper remains wet enough to provide soft edges.

Darken the shadows.
I add more color to the brush, but not more water. A layer of darker strokes makes the cloud shapes more three-dimensional. At this point all edges should still be soft, but work must proceed quickly to put in more soft layers.

Add a final layer of shadow.
Enhancing the shadow gives the clouds density. Up to this point, the initial wetting of the paper and brush has provided all the water for four layers. I decide to introduce the blue later, so the clouds can be painted freely at this stage.

Wash your brush!
For the first time since starting this exercise, I wash my brush before introducing the blue. This allows the color to be intense. I pay close attention to the first blue stroke I make to be sure the brush is not wetter than the paper.

Check the wetness of the paper.
At this point the edges of the paper had begun to dry, so I let it dry all the way, and rewet the lower third to ensure soft edges for the landforms. Then I apply the first layer for the ground—a simple rectangle of late summer grass.

Try some soft-edged shapes on the ground.
I introduce a distant hill and a few soft-edged firs to provide a definite feeling of space. Notice, however, that the diagonal forms of the clouds still dominate the composition.

Redirect attention to the foreground.
To offset the strong diagonals, I incorporate some hard edges in the foreground. Now the bold pattern of the clouds can enliven the scene without taking over completely.

TOM HOFFMANN
CLOUD DEMONSTRATION,
2011
WATERCOLOR ON ARCHES COLD PRESS PAPER
15 × 22 INCHES (38 × 56 CM)

It is liberating to know that you are largely in control of drying time. Atmospheric conditions vary widely from day to day, and the paper you use can have profound effects on drying, but a little practice will reveal whatever adjustments need to be made. As with every aspect of watercolor, thinking one or two layers ahead is the key to taking the panic out of the process. Stay calm. Even if the paper dries before you are finished with your soft-edged work, you can probably rewet it later. This is discussed in greater detail on
this page
.

How much paint does the job require?
When you mix up the puddle of paint you will use, be sure to make more than enough to do the job, so you won’t have to stop in the middle to make more. Ask yourself this critical question, then use the biggest brush with which you can comfortably do the job. That brush is the unit of measure for determining the right quantity of paint. When you know your brushes well you will have a sense of how much paper one loaded brush can cover. Ask yourself how many brushfuls the task calls for, and then mix up that many, plus an extra one.

If you want to extend the quantity of paint by adding more water, don’t forget that you also need to add more pigment. Conversely, when you discover that the paint on your brush is too dark, you will naturally add only water until it is light enough. Remember, though, that your brush will now be fully loaded with the paler paint. You must still decide how much of that paint you want to carry to the paper. If you try to use a full brush for a small stroke, you will end up depositing an unruly blob. Shake the brush, or wipe it on the edge of your bucket. This is the step that, when forgotten, leads to the feeling that “the brush got too wet.”

TOM HOFFMANN,
SOMBRAS FUERTES,
2008
WATERCOLOR ON ARCHES HOT PRESS PAPER
16 × 18 INCHES (41 × 46 CM)

In this painting on hot press paper, I did not make enough paint for the large shadow on the street. The puddle ran out halfway across, and although I added the rest within 30 seconds, it still led to a patchy-looking result. Even so, I would rather leave it “wrong” than try to correct the mistake.