Watercolour Tutorial

Watercolour is a versatile and flexible medium that can yield a variety of results. Also known as aquarelle, it’s a Painting Techniques in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle.

We can’t play with one technique while making a watercolour painting. I would suggest don’t restrict yourself, just enjoy the medium with no fear just paint, paint and paint with artist quality material. Just explore yourself through painting and creating your own painting style.

Make sure you always use the best quality watercolour paper I don’t advise using the student quality watercolour blocks made from wood pulp sold at most art stores. The exception of this would be Arches blocks made from 100% cotton.
Artist quality watercolour brushes. To the get subtle brush stroke I always use pure sable hair big brushes because they hold maximum amount of water.
Master the Medium By using few simple techniques.
Once the paint is applied to wet paper you only have a couple of minutes to play with it. Once the paper loses the glisten resulting from the water not being totally absorbed, you run a big risk of ruining that area. So make sure what you will put on. At this stage I try not to improvise.

WATER COLOUR TECHNIQUES

DRY ON DRY

Dry on dry is the procedure in which a dry brush loaded with thick and barely moist paint is dragged over the grain on the surface of the paper to create texture and is not being absorbed within the fibres. (More easily done with rough paper). This is used to make objects look weather beaten such as old wooden doors, textures on rocks, etc.

WET ON DRY

Here the paper will absorb the wet paint. We have absolute control and can determine exactly how far to go. However here we will get hard edges, which is all right in some areas but if you want to convey the feeling of distance you will have to rely solely on colour and value, not diffusion. Personally I feel that if the whole painting is done on dry paper, it gives a cut out and pasted on feeling, at times a cartoonist look.

DRY ON WET

This is done with moist paint on a damp brush with all excess water squeezed out painted on wet paper. With this means of application we have general control over the edges. Exact shape is not a concern. We get nice diffusion that will push elements back into the distance making it belong to the background. Good for background mountains and foliage.

WET ON WET

This is the same as dry on wet, except here the brush-as well as the paper is very wet. It is used when soft diffusion is required, but when retaining a particular shape is not a concern, the paint will go where it pleases. This way we will get “happy accidents”. All edges will be lost. This is when a painting looks fresh. Particularly a good way to paint clouds in a sky. The sky will paint itself.

NEGATIVE PAINTING
Think about where you’d like your whites and lights before you apply paint.
Watercolour is about planning. Think about where you’d like your whites and lights before you apply paint. It’s vital to keep control of your brush as you paint in the edge of where you’d like your negative space to begin. Load it with semi-wet pigment and paint along the edge of where you’d like your negative space to begin. Then pull the colour away from the edge of the stroke to fill in where you’d like pigment.