Watercolor
Every art form involves discipline unique only towards its application. In the visual arts for example, like oil, acrylic, pastels, charcoal etc., there are the basics that are common. Some of the basics may include the ability to interpret images into visual form, intrinsic artistry, and skills gained and learned. As the discipline widens and develops, the unique quality of the medium that is used is addressed according to the quality that makes it unique.
Likewise, watercolor painting poses challenges addressed differently. For example, watercolor is a transparent medium making it unique when compared to other mediums that are opaque. To address this, the following are the watercolor basic painting techniques developed and used over the years and which no watercolor artist can do without.
• Dry Brush – the dry brush technique is good for creating textured surfaces. Samples of dry brush technique are often seen in watercolor paintings of tree barks, rocks, twigs, foliage etc. creating a visibly dominant textures. Dry brush painting relies on painting with a brush that is just about moist and often charged with a thick paint. The dominance or the subtlety of the effect will depend also on the grade and quality of the paper used and the angle and stroke applied.
• Lifting Wet Watercolor – The tools to use when applying this technique are soft tissue paper, sponges, paper towels, or brushes. Lifting is a negative painting tool where instead of applying color, you diminish the color that is applied. It creates a dreamy effect and is widely used when painting clouds where the paint, while still wet is dubbed with the absorbent tool to create the image desired. Twisting is done to create more texture in the paint that is left on the paper as well as scrubbing. When doing the actions though, especially when scrubbing, care must be observed that the paper underneath is not damaged.
• Lifting Dry Watercolor – One of the greatest challenges in watercolor painting is its being a transparent medium which makes it very difficult to remove or blot out. Once it is in the paper and dries, removing the paint is difficult if not impossible. Painting over will hide it partially. Just the same, sometimes a pigment has to be lifted from the artwork and for lifting dry watercolor, what is normally used are acrylic brushes or sponges. To lift the dry pigment, the sponge or the brush is cleaned thoroughly with clean water and applied very carefully to the surface. The process is repeated until manageable tinge of color remains.
Other tools used are razors, sandpapers, penknives, and sometimes X-acto blades. All of which are destructive. Blades are used but then the texture of the artwork is altered. In skilled hands highlights will be created when using a blade but as mentioned it is a risky process.
• Wet in Wet – is another watercolor basic painting technique where the paper is brushed wet before applying pigments. This technique produces a very different texture and appearance that is unique only to watercolor paintings.
Watercolor washes are some of the basic watercolor techniques that all watercolor painters has to execute very well before building on more complex and painting techniques using the medium. Before a watercolor wash is done well, it will be good to try out first and practice how the brush is held. Most beginners hold the paint brush much like a pencil, that is near the ferrule without variation on the grip.
To get the most out of the brush and execute washes and details, it will be well to practice and notice how paints and strokes behave differently when other points in the handle of the brush is used. Varying the grip from the base of the ferrule to the tip of the handle creates different strokes. The farther away from the handle one goes, the smoother and finer lines are produced. That said, the following are watercolor washes that watercolor artist applies in their work in varying degrees and that no effective watercolorist cannot do without.
Flat Wash – There are three basic variations of a flat wash, the flat and even wash where the color is applied entirely without variation in shade, a light to dark wash and a dark to light wash. To do this, charge the flat brush with a liberal amount of paint starting in a corner (no matter which, work for conveninece as this depends on whether you are left handed or right handed), touch the paper gently with the brush and pull the paint to the other corner. Execute the brush stroke so that the paint flow as even as possible. The next brush strokes must overlap near the edge of the preceding stroke. If the paint does not flow evenly, increase the angle of your board.
Always keep a blotting paper near to control the flow and when there is too much dripping, work faster and blot the drips away. Refill the brush as needed and keep the tone even. Repeat the process until you have achieved the wash desired. To "cut" the edges, use the flat edge of the brush. If beads run downwards, pick this using the wick action of the brush. Every color in your palette has their own drying properties so try different washes using different colors. Try also drying out the paper at an angle as this technique tends to settle out the pigment with the paper texture.
Graded Wash – The aim here is to achieve a wash where the value of the color changes smoothly from dark to light. Graded washes often used in landscape painting to paint an open sky, although there are lots of other applications for this technique. The process is very similar to the flat wash except that in creating a graded wash you could either start by painting the paper with a darker value working yourself to the bottom with lighter paint (or water) to decrease the intensity of the color.
Glazed Wash – This technique uses another color as wash over another color to arrive at a glazed over effect. Basically glazing is painting a transparent color on top of another that produces different effects and values to the color underneath.
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