Painting Tips
My studio, with a wonderful desk made to
my design by carpenter Frank Garrett! Notice the upright brush holder
and wide mouth water container (so brush does not get damaged); 2 art
lamps from opposite directions (no shadows); and the shallow side palette
drawer - very convenient.
Painting in progress is Mountain Laurel, stretched on gatorboard.
How do I stretch paper?
First, why would you want to stretch paper?
When you don't stretch the paper it buckles and leaves puddles of water and pigment all over - looks dreadful. So you stretch it, it's taut and smooth and the pigment stays where you paint it, doesn't travel off on its own. Use at least 140# paper, 90# paper will puddle & get damaged no matter what you do.
You need:
- paper (I use Arches 140# hot press).
- stapler
- water (tub, shower, sink, or sprayer)
- gatorboard (very thick foam core) (there are other choices - this is what I like)
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Soak the paper until it's sopping &
limp; be careful not to crease it while wet (or dry) as the sizing will
be damaged and show up on your finished work as a line with too little
or too much pigment.
Place it smoothly on the gatorboard and staple it around the edges every
4 inches (approx).
L et it dry until it's dry (it will shrink taut and smooth).
If it buckles, take it apart & do the whole process again - your paper
is the foundation of your entire painting. If it's buckling, the entire
painting falls apart.
Before you start mixing colors in watercolor, you have to get the raw tube pigment ready to mix. But just how much water do you add?
Unfortunately, there is no secret formula. It just depends on your style & what you're painting. There are as many ways to mix paints as there are artists.
I use a Robert Wood
palette because it has deep wells. I keep paints in these wells from painting
to painting, keeping them about 1/3 full of water & pigment, depending
on how often I use a color & how strong it is. (i.e.: Aureolin is
a weak color, I use it frequently, so I keep more in that well. Pthalo
blue is intense, I keep less of it.)
When I begin painting, I replenish the individual pigments that are low
and spray water (about 2 squirts from a spritzer) into each well. If I
wait a minute, the pigment dissolves, loosely dissolving.
Since most paints are lumpy, as I need an individual paint, I dip in the
well with a wet brush and stroke it into a puddle on my palette, making
an intense pool of paint with no lumps in it. Move your brush quickly
in a small area and the lumps will quickly disappear. Watercolor paint
dries quickly and some paints (i.e.: viridian) are known for getting flaky
or lumpy even after mixed. So keep the real mixing until right before
you need it!
Tip:
If I'm painting dry brush strokes, I use pigment almost directly from
the tube with barely any water. This is the only way to get lots of color
in dry brush strokes. Otherwise, you get texture with faded colors.
How do I keep the painting from getting muddy?
Mud is that awful grayish or multicolored sludge that forms on your paper instead of your painting. All transparency is lost. Artists do use mud as a tool. More often, it simply appears where least wanted.
Some potential causes:
- Water or palette dirty.
- Not waiting for one wash to dry before you slap on another.
- Mixing too many colors together on your palette - try letting colors bleed together on your paper instead of mixing on your palette.
- If you're a beginner - mix a maximum of three colors together to start, then let it dry completely before you add more paint.
Painting green trees:
Green trees, huh? Sounds easy... all you
have to do is slap on some green paint & you're there. You look at
the forest you're painting. Only colors you see are green & brown.
So you paint the painting green & brown & you end up with a muddy,
blotchy mess that has no depth & looks nothing like a forest scene.
First mistake - you may only see green & brown,
but there have got to be some other colors in there - red, blue, black
are safe bets - and trees generally have yellowish highlights somewhere.
So emphasize these, not just greens.
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You can't see the forest if you can't see the trees. The trick is, not every tree, just a few. Paint in layers, blurring an individual tree in and out of focus, merging it with its neighbors. Use negative painting (outline the object you're painting with a wash). | Good tree pigments: Aureolin Use
these only as possibilities |
- Sargent Abroad: Figures and Landscapes
The best & most comprehensive book I've ever read on the greatest watercolourist of all time! This book actualy has Sargent's watercolors as the focus, not as an aside. - Gary Faigin Facial Expression
If you want to paint portraits, you need this book. It's an excellent book on drawing people. - Robert Wade Painting More Than the Eye Can See
- Wilcox Wilcox
Guide to Watercolor Paints
It's a good idea to know what you're using to paint with.
For information about specific paints, try using the "Wilcox Guide to the Best Watercolor Paints." That will give factual information on each paint from transparency to lightfastness. Do take the subjective information with a grain of salt - that's different for each aritst. For example, I use W&N's quinacridone gold because makes interesting, non uniform washes.
