Watercolor Painting for Dummies (17 page)
Read Watercolor Painting for Dummies Online
Authors: Colette Pitcher
Tags: #Art, #Techniques, #Watercolor Painting, #General
You can, and often will want to, paint on top of other paint. You usually wait until the
underlayer
is dry before adding another layer of paint.
What you put on top influences what is underneath, and layering is one way to mix colors. Keep the paint transparent so you can see through it and into the layers. This makes deep, interesting paintings.
Create several rainbows of color with this layering exercise.
1.
Get a quarter sheet of watercolor paper.
This can be a square piece of paper.
2.
Activate all your paints.
You want to become familiar with the entire palette of colors, so use them all.
3.
Paint a stripe of each color on your palette from the top of the paper to the bottom, leaving a small stripe of white between each color so they don’t mingle (see Figure 3-8a).
A 1/2-inch flat brush is just the right width for each stripe. Keep the colors strong by not diluting them with too much water. You could make another chart with pale colors and see what happens with those, too.
Figure 3-8:
Exploring your palette by making a layer chart.
4.
Let the stripes dry completely.
Use a blow-dryer, or be patient and make a cup of tea.
5.
Paint a stripe of each color horizontally, moving left to right across the paper (or right to left, your preference). See Figure 3-8b.
This puts each color underneath and over the top of all the others.
6.
Let the paint dry and analyze the results.
7.
Label the paint names for a handy reference chart.
This simple chart gives you a wealth of knowledge about colors and color combinations. Each intersection displays a new color. Look at the differences when a color is on top of rather than underneath another color. Some colors are
transparent
(see-through); others are
opaque
(solid), no matter how much water you dilute them with.
For bonus points, try lifting a small area out of each stripe of color (the previous section tells you how). This shows you which colors are easy to remove and which are staining. The staining colors never lift back to white.
A
glaze
is a very transparent layer of paint applied over an area that’s already painted. Glazing has lots of possibilities. You can glaze over an area to make it less or more prominent. If you’re painting a landscape and the background isn’t staying far enough back, you can glaze over the whole area with a cool color, like blue, because cool colors recede. Conversely, you can glaze over the foreground with a warm color, like yellow, to make it come forward. (I talk about color temperatures in Chapter 5.) You may find other reasons to add a glaze over something. I added a yellow glaze to the foreground of the painting in Figure 3-9a to add depth to the painting. Figure 3-9b shows the result.
Figure 3-9:
Before (a) and after (b) a yellow glaze was applied to the foreground.
To glaze:
1.
Mix enough paint so you don’t have to stop midway and mix more — that’s a sure recipe for hard edges where you hadn’t planned any.
2.
Make the paint as transparent as possible.
Glazes are usually very transparent (add more water for more transparency) unless you want to obliterate what’s underneath.
3.
Use the biggest brush you can manipulate into the space and apply the transparent glaze.
Don’t go over the area more than you need to avoid disturbing the layer underneath. If the layer beneath starts to move, stop or endure the change.
Some colors run when you put water on top of them, so work very quickly and use the lightest of touches so as not to disturb what lies underneath.
Some papers tolerate glazing better than others. Glazing requires a paper with less lifting ability (see the “One, two, three, lift!” section for more on these papers).
When you finish your painting, you can do several things with it. No, you can’t toss it. How will you know how you’ve improved if you don’t keep your early works to measure your progress? Keep building that stack of paintings. The great artists you admire have really big stacks that you never see.
If you produce a painting that you want to present properly, here’s a quick bit about the final presentation of watercolors. Works on paper usually get a mat, glass, and frame around them to preserve them for posterity. Work with a professional framer for the latest trends and choices.
A
mat
is cut from mat board and makes an aesthetic border around the painting. You can have more than one mat to provide a transition from frame to painting. The mat color can set the painting apart from the wall, match the sofa, or be neutral.
The mat is functional as well as ornamental. It creates a pocket of air between the art and the glass. If the glass were allowed to touch the art, it would harm it in time. The proper amount of mat for conservation purposes is 8-ply. One mat is 4-ply, so a double mat is the best choice for conservation.
The width of mats can vary. Don’t scrimp. Set the painting apart with a 3-inch width. More can look even better depending on the statement you want your artwork to make.
When choosing a mat, decide on the purpose of the painting first. If it’s decorative, you can consult the interior decorator and mat with a color that works for the room. If you’re entering the painting into a juried show, the mats should be white or off-white. Some shows even dictate what colors are acceptable. After you know the purpose of the painting, you can choose a mat color that best shows off the work.
Regular glass is for the budget conscious. Conservation glass prevents ultraviolet light from penetrating the glass to fade the art. Reflection-control glass is nonglare. And museum glass does it all. The down side is cost. More is more. But it is original art, and it deserves to be treated with respect.
This wood- or metal-border molding holds everything in place and adds an artistic element of its own. Tour a frame shop to see what’s out there, and don’t be afraid to ask for advice. Professional framers have a lot of experience to offer and can help you make a good choice.
Whatever touches your art should be acid-free. If you go cheap, you may get a cardboard backing, which will turn the paper brown in a short amount of time. Cardboard, masking tape, and newsprint are the most acidic products available. They should not be near your art. Make sure your art is backed with Artcare board, sealed on the back, and has a wire for hanging. You are ready to hang in the Louvre!
This quick painting project puts the techniques in this chapter to use making a miniature landscape. In fact, you can mount this little cutie on cardstock and send it and its cousin paintings as holiday cards to your closest friends. That would be great practice, especially if you’re popular.
1.
Get a 4-x-6-inch piece of watercolor paper and turn it so it’s taller vertically.
See Chapter 2 for tips on dividing a sheet of paper if you’re starting with a larger sheet.
2.
Activate and mix two batches of blue-gray paint (see “Activating Your Paint” earlier in this chapter).
Mix ultramarine blue with burnt sienna to make a blue-gray. Add a little water to make it the consistency of ink. Mix another puddle of blue-gray with less water so that the paint is almost black.
3.
Dampen the background down to the hilly horizon — roughly the top half of the paper.
Use a 1/2-inch flat brush to quickly dampen paper with clear water. Dip the brush in the water and apply it to the paper until it’s damp. Leave the foreground dry.
4.
Using a 1/2-inch flat brush, paint a graded wash for the background.
Brush on the diluted blue-gray near the horizon and let it get lighter as it rises toward the top of the paper by diluting it with more water (see Figure 3-10a). Tilt the paper slightly so gravity helps you with the proc- ess. At first you may need to tilt the paper one way, then the other, so the darker paint accumulates toward the horizon. When the background is the way you want it, leave it flat to dry, but don’t let it dry completely before moving to the next step.
Figure 3-10:
The finished background and background trees.
5.
Paint the background trees wet-in-wet.
Before the background you painted in Step 4 dries completely, add the gray trees in the background, using Figure 3-10b as a guide. (You add the dark trees in the foreground later.)
Pick up some blue-gray paint and touch the base or heel of the hairs to the sponge to absorb excess water. Touch the tip of the brush to the background. If the paint disperses into the background too quickly, the paper is still too wet, so let it dry a bit so the paint can hold a soft (slightly blurred) edge. You want the paper wet enough so the trees hold an edge, but not dry enough to hold a hard (crisp) edge.
To make a tree, paint the trunk the full height of the tree and then dance the brush down the trunk, sweeping it from side to side and gradually increasing the size of the foliage from a point at the top to wide at the bottom. Leave some spaces on the trunk. Repeat this process, making the trees different heights and leaving different amounts of space between them.
6.
Paint the stream while the background trees dry.
Use the same blue-gray with a flat brush. Make a backwards “S” shape, starting with the thin side of the brush placed at the horizon near the center. As you pull the brush down and make the first turn, allow the shape to widen by turning the brush. Make one more curve and let the brush be at its widest point. Figure 3-11 shows a curvy stream. If you don’t make the shape quite right on the first pass, go back and touch it up so it’s the shape you want.
Figure 3-11:
Adding the stream in the foreground.
7.
Lift some color in the center of the stream near the foreground while the stream is still wet.
While the stream is still wet, touch a damp, clean brush on the paint to absorb it and leave a lighter area in the center of the stream (see Figure 3-12). If the paint dries too fast, lift the color after it’s dry by dampening the area with clear water and blotting with a towel. (For more specifics on lifting, see the “One, two, three, lift!” section earlier in the chapter.)
Figure 3-12:
How to lift color from your wet painting.
8.
Let everything dry.
Start another painting or drink a latte, but let everything already painted dry completely.
9.
Add rocks.
Using the dark paint and a #12 round brush, make a couple of rock shapes along the stream (see Figure 3-13a). When the paint is almost dry, try scraping the top of the rocks flat, using a chisel handle or a credit card. Figure 3-13b shows how it’s done. (For more details on scraping, see the “Painting with the Brush’s Other End” section earlier in the chapter.)
Figure 3-13:
Adding some rocks along the stream.
10.
Paint the dark trees in the foreground.
Use a round brush and the dark mixture of paint to paint the trees. First, make the trunk the full height of the tree. Then, starting at the top of the trunk, sweep your brush back and forth to make branches that gradually increase in size as they near the bottom.
11.
Paint the grass and the reflections in the water.
Using a liner brush or the end of the brush handle, make some dark blue-gray lines resembling grass. Soften the bottom edges with some water. Paint the lighter blue-gray in the water to represent the reflection of the pine tree. Figure 3-14 shows these details.
Figure 3-14:
Painting in some grass and water reflections.
12.
Paint a tree of twigs using the lighter blue-gray paint.
Use a liner brush to practice making lines. Make the lines get smaller as the tree grows upward. Hold the brush at the end of the handle and flick the stroke away from the tree trunk. By doing this, the part of the branch nearest the trunk will be thicker, and the part that reaches toward the sky will be reduced in size. Avoid making branches get wider as they grow taller. See Figure 3-15 for guidance.
Figure 3-15:
The final details of a landscape suitable for sending.
You use just two versions of one color to create a multihued landscape. As the two colors separate and mingle in the painting, they seem to make more colors. If you had used one gray color out of a tube instead of mixing it yourself using blue and brown, the color wouldn’t be nearly as interesting. The white of the paper makes snow with no painting effort. Magic.
