Watercolor - The Basics
Watercolor - the most intimidating of mediums, or is it? As you read on I will give you some tips and tricks to becoming a watercolor artist. It won't happen over night, but it will happen over time. It took me years to get where I am now and I'm still growing and learning. It's all a part of the process.
Concept & Composition
Step 1.
You need to think of a concept. Pretty obvious right? Well, you must consider the object(s) vs. the space you have provided on your canvas/paper.
Composition is everything! Make it interesting! What I enjoy doing is trying to make the subject close up, off center with a good amount of negative space. This allows the visual to work for their subject matter to figure out what I was trying to convey. The amount of negative vs. positive space allows the visual to focus more on the subject matter itself.
Drawing & Sketching
Step 2.
Begin to draw your subject - lightly. (See Materials Matter for a basic list of materials that I use).
If you do not desire an outline to your subject then you do want to use a light hand in drawing. When you use watercolor it will be more on the translucent side and pencil lines will show up. It can be hard to get rid of these undesirable lines! Note - its good to do a rough sketch and create line and contour where you are going to shade with your watercolor paint.
Determine technique
Step 3.
Now the fun part! It's time to paint. Depending on your subject and how loose you would like to paint, there are different techniques you might want to consider.
Wet-on-wet - wetting the paper first and adding paint to the wet paper. This technique is good for backgrounds, skies, loose flowers/leaves/plants, galaxies (anything loose!) Wet-on-wet is very spontaneous! It is hard to control but if you do happen to add too much water, just use a paper towel to sop up the access.
Wet-on-dry - working with a wet brush & paint on dry paper. This technique is good for smaller details like hair, lips, eyes, fur. It gives you a lot more control over the paint. I like to dip my brush in the water, then into my paint. This technique can be layered or washed over the wet-on-wet once that wash has dried.
Washing and painting
Step 4.
Washing is another word for layering in the magical world of watercolors! You want to start by doing your lighter colored layers first and working your way to deeper, pigmented layers this helps give your subject depth. Like acrylics and oils its best to do an under painting in the color of your choice. Sometimes you may want to have a cool toned under painting, sometimes a warm toned under painting but it's all up to you and the subject. Begin to layer and let dry between layering. As shown in the photo above, you can create special colors by layering on top of complementary colors!
Watercolor is all about maintaining a balance of water and pigment. The more paint you use, the more vibrant the color will be. The more water you use, the more translucent it will be. There is no true method to this madness. It's trial and error and also just an all around fun learning process.
I hope you enjoyed these tips and tricks!
Cheers!