Knowing when a painting is ‘finished’ depends on the goals you establish before beginning to paint. There is no obvious point at which you know a picture is complete. But there are tips to help you decide; choosing your goals and being aware of your painting approach will help to insure that you meet those goals by recognizing when you’ve achieved them.

Some painters may start to paint before they have a goal, instead seeing where the painting process leads them. Other painters are moved by a vision of where they want to go in a painting and they plan ahead to get there. At some point in the process, all good artists connect with their painting in an emotional way and become aware of why they chose to paint what they did.

By clarifying for yourself why you want to paint a subject, you begin to know what is important for you to get across in the painting. You can better develop a composition that effectively creates a center of interest that moves the viewer’s eye to focus on your emphasis. Decide what to include in your picture and what to leave out! A painting should have only one center of interest to avoid confusion. Surrounding areas in a picture will be made less important by using different values, less detail, fewer hard edges, etc.

Be clear in your own mind why you want to do a painting. What am I painting this picture for? What do I find most interesting about the scene? Is it the subject itself that I like, the weather, colors or contrasts, the effect of the light and shadows?

Having a plan before beginning to paint does not mean you can’t experiment or change your mind as you proceed. Painting should be a process of trying out your ideas and evaluating as you go along how well your techniques are achieving your goals. If something doesn’t work as well as expected, by all means, try something else. Improvise!

The following two paintings were well planned, yet as painting proceeded, changes were necessary to achieve goals. In the yard of ‘Pepperell Relic’, the fading rays of sun were not bright enough initially, and a glaze had to be added. The background for ‘Apple Blossoms’ was too strident and intrusive at first, requiring toning down with a blue glaze.

Pepperell Relic.

Apple Blossoms.

By choosing a center of interest, you can easily make decisions as you paint. You’ll have some idea of what you’re trying to accomplish. You’ll know where your focus is. Knowing your focus will help you judge when your painting is finished. Usually you will reach a point in painting when you realize that you have got down on paper the main things that you wanted to include. If you find yourself starting to be fussy with small details, then you should probably stop painting. Take a break, step back, and evaluate your work. Return the next day when you may be quite satisfied that your work is complete. Try not to risk overworking in an effort to achieve perfection.

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Watercolor painters learn many different ways to combine and paint color to produce varied effects. While color can be mixed ON THE PALETTE, single colors can also be added to and partially blended ON THE PAPER (as in wet-in-wet, or charging). Adding single colors to paper tends to create lively and vibrant color mixes with lots of variety. (See my recent blog post titled “Charge Ahead and Mingle: Blending Colors on Watercolor Paper,” published June 4, 2019, to learn more about ways to mix color on the paper.)

Glazing is a somewhat more advanced variation of altering color ON THE PAPER. Colors are NOT mixed! A glaze is a transparent wash of color over another (thoroughly dried) layer of color. This stacking or glazing of pigment modifies the underlying color to create a full range of interesting values and colors. (A simple example would be a glaze of pink painted over a layer of yellow to create an orange or peach color.) Glazing can be done on large wash areas or on smaller parts of a painting. Often the light-value colors are applied first, but reversing the order of color application can affect the final appearance in interesting ways. Under most conditions, a painting also progresses from large general areas of light washes to small specific areas of darker washes. When you glaze over only part of your work, try to avoid hard edges left from the glaze by softening or fading out the edges with a clean, damp brush. (See my blog post titled “Softening an Edge or Fading Out”, published October 23, 2018, for more information on softening an edge.)

Ford and Footbridge (Glazed water).

Strive to use only fairly pale mixes of color in glazing. If a glaze color is too intense, the underlying layer will have difficulty showing through. By properly applying a glaze, in pale transparent layers, an artist can achieve a “glow” of light as the white of the paper and the colors of lower layers show through later layers of color. Stop adding layers when you have arrived at your desired visual color, because painting too many layers will eventually cut down the amount of light reflecting back from the paper and will deaden any glow. Be careful about using more than three or four glaze layers.

The End of the Day (Glazed sky,  buildings, and snow).

What specific pigments work best for glazing? Most often, the best artists use the three primary colors and make sure their pigments are transparent. Specifically, you might use non-staining Aureolin or Hansa Yellow Light, Permanent Rose Quinacridone or Permanent Rose, and Cobalt Blue. If possible, avoid using transparent, staining pigments such as Indian Yellow or Gamboge Hue, Winsor Red or Permanent Alizarin Crimson, and Winsor Blue, which tend to dye the under layers and start to dull or destroy glow or translucence. If you must use staining colors, make sure they are quite diluted (unless, of course, your intention is to revive a dull dark).

Glazes are most effective when the colors used contrast with each other — e.g., warm over cool, blue over orange, etc. The farther away from each other the chosen colors are on the color wheel, the more dramatic their glazing impact on each other. A beautiful, luminous gray can be created by layering yellow, then red, then blue.

A soft brush (often a large flat) will give the best results as it disturbs previous layers of paint less. Layer each wash gently in a smooth, even application over a dried surface, and DO NOT scrub. (If the first layers of color are still wet, the colors can blend and not stay in the separate layers that you are aiming for — you will not be glazing.)

Remember that if the colors you use in glazing are transparent (NOT opaque), the colors beneath will continue to glow through glazes laid on top. Colors will appear to be mixed even though each is in a separate layer. These layers are more luminous than colors mixed on the palette because light passes through each separate layer and takes on each color’s characteristics. (NOT all watercolors are transparent! Cerulean Blue, Indian Red, Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Orange, Payne’s Gray, and Yellow Ochre are some of the opaque watercolors in common use.)

 

Mating Season (Glazed background).

With glazing, you have to think ahead and in layers of color. As you draw your picture on watercolor paper, plan the white areas to be saved. Further, also determine where you DON”T want your first glaze to be painted. (Often the first glaze is yellow, which is relatively light and does not readily cover other pigments.) If you planned a cool section for your painting, you might not want to cover that area with your warm yellow glaze. (You needn’t apply glazes over your whole paper.) Once you have applied your yellow glaze, evaluate whether it is too light, too dark, or just right. Adjust color intensity NOW, before adding a second color, by lifting lightly with clear water to lighten or by darkening with a second yellow layer.

While waiting for the yellow glaze to dry, plan ahead and consider what areas you want to cover with the pink (red) glaze. Will you paint some of the white areas with pink as you work to a final lavender color? Will you leave a snowy area untouched by this pink glaze? Will you still preserve some white paper to ‘pop’ in the final image? Paint a layer of pink, saving all areas as planned.

While waiting for this layer to dry, plan for the next glaze. Decide which areas of the painting will be covered by the blue glaze. Glaze some of the white with a layer of blue —  for example, in a snowy area or a shadowed  space. Avoid painting the blue glaze in a sunlit spot, ending the blue glaze and then softening with clear water into a sunny field or sunlit side of a building.

Finish your painting when the blue glaze is dry (or drying) by adding mid-tones and darks. Strive to preserve a good deal of your glazed area, however, to maintain the luminous, clean color mixes created by glazing.

Paintings with problem areas can often be rescued by using glazes. You can adjust and improve a painting that may lack mood, unity, or focus. Painting a thin, pale wash can add mood to a foggy scene. A single layer of color over the whole painting (or some parts) can add unity by giving all the colors a similar flavor. Further, darkening a section of a painting with a glaze can urge the eye to focus on more important and lighter areas. In the painting below, all of the background was glazed with Ultramarine Blue to tone down and bring more unity to disparate colors as well as help the background fade away and frame the center of interest (i.e. the blossoms).

Apple Blossoms (Glazed background and shadowed buds/blossoms).

Glazing can also help you avoid muddy, opaque, or dull shadows. Bring a dull dark back to life with a glaze! To create a luminous shadow, first paint the subject (through BOTH the light and shadow side of the object) with the same local color. (In the above apple blossom picture, the buds and blossoms were painted with varying amounts of pink.) Then, when the first layer has dried, glaze a shadow color over the portion of the image in shadow. The first (local) color will show through the transparent shadow glaze (mixed in this case from yellow, red, and blue to create a transparent gray).

Transparent glazes applied separately change the colors under them. Color is built up optically on the paper by layering instead of mixing color on the palette  prior to painting. Learn to overlap your glazes to produce satisfying colors. Develop your glazes from transparent watercolors, preferably non-staining. Begin with your lightest pigment, usually a yellow. Keep your washes diluted and pale. Remember to dry the previous layer before painting a new glaze. Always use the three primaries — don’t eliminate a layer! Instead, control the final appearance of color by strengthening one or two of the three primary colors. To create interesting, vibrant color, avoid making all three layers equal in intensity (which  instead would produce a dull neutral).

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As an artist, you have the opportunity to improve a composition before you paint it! Don’t be tempted to merely copy what you see before you. Instead, change an ordinary scene into an extraordinary painting. If you just paint what you see, without thinking, evaluating, or redesigning, you may end up with a painting that has no “WOW!”

But how do you go about improving the subject you want to paint? How can you make your image better and design stronger? What should you do to create a painting with impact? Wouldn’t it just be a lot of work, especially if I don’t know how to improve my image? How do some artists create an exciting painting about a mundane, everyday subject? Copying is NOT enough! But, the answer may be, at least in part, to use interesting SHAPES!

While you may think that most artists begin their paintings by drawing LINES that represent objects to be painted, this is often NOT the first thing that they do to prepare for painting. Instead, an artist usually looks for or tries to compile a strong composition. One of the best ways to plan a composition is to reduce a scene to its essential or most basic components, to cut out distracting details, to simplify.

To help you simplify and reduce distractions, squint your eyes. Then look for the dominant shapes in the scene. Some artists SIMPLIFY by limiting the number of dominant shapes that they focus on to three, seven, or twelve, no more than fifteen. Evaluate and think about what shapes you could rearrange or emphasize, which shapes are important and which provide support for the other shapes. For instance, should the house in your painting be moved closer to or even overlap the barn? Should you remove that distracting tree? Are there too many cars in the image – they don’t add any helpful information?

The relationships of the interlocking shapes in a picture will determine balance and interest. Good painters make more interesting shapes!

 

Try to see the world around you as made of shapes, and you will find it easier to become an arranger of shapes. Make an effort to avoid focusing on drawing or painting ‘a tree’, ‘a boat’, ‘a dog’, ‘a car’, or ‘a streetlight’. Paint what you ’see’, not what you think you see. (Check out my related blogs “Avoid Painting Lollipop Trees – Part I, II, and III”, published March 13, March 19, and March 26, 2019.) Beginning painters can get so preoccupied with NAMING details (“Is this a tail?”, “Are the feet crossed?”, or “I can’t tell what this is!”) that they forget to look at shapes and their relationships to each other. You need to paint SHAPES!

One way to define shapes is to think about their geometric form. Are they circles, squares, rectangles, triangles? These are simple shapes, but very static and dull. They should be improved and made more dynamic by varying their size and shape contour, connecting two or more shapes together, overlapping shapes, avoiding symmetry. A building is much more interesting when viewed from an angle, as opposed to looking at it straight-on. Don’t forget that skies, shadows and reflections are also shapes. Interesting and unusual shapes are better than regular or precise shapes!

Once you have selected your scene to paint, simplified, rearranged and refined the dominant shapes, then choose one shape to be more important than the others. This shape will be your center of interest, what you want your viewers to notice. There can only be one center of interest in a painting. Plan how you will arrange your values (lights/darks) to highlight the most important shape for more emotional impact. More impact can also be created by the skillful use of color. White paper, for instance, can be a luminous and striking unpainted shape!

Then, finally, having completed your planning for the best composition, by simplifying shapes and perhaps sketching out a couple of different arrangements of shapes in a black & white thumbnail sketch, it is time to carefully draw your shapes (not merely the outlines of specific objects) onto watercolor paper in preparation for painting.

In summary, everything has a shape! We tend to want to paint shapes just as they are, without changing them or making them more interesting. This can, however, lead to busy and confusing, static, or just perhaps even dull and boring paintings. It’s important to be able to conceptualize flat shapes for your flat watercolor paper, rather than just to think about three-dimensional objects (such as “mountain” or “boat”). When you can focus on shapes, it becomes easier to change shapes to suit your painting, move shapes to improve your composition, and remove clutter (get rid of boring or poor shapes), and add different colors to highlight certain shapes. So, strive to create simple but exciting paintings by making dynamic shape combinations.

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Artists often concentrate far too much on replicating the exact colors they see. You don’t have to use the same color specified in a lesson or on a mixing chart. Usually you can mix a very similar color using a paint from your palette with a similar ‘color bias.’ (Or even pick a color of your own choosing.) Substitute one cool red (with a blue bias) for another. For instance, use Permanent Rose or Quinacridone Rose for Permanent Alizarin Crimson. Try not to worry about exact colors or matching particular brands. Good tonal (light/dark) value is far more important than finding the perfect color match!

The basic color wheel contains the three ‘primary’ colors (red, yellow, and blue) and various intermediate colors which can be mixed from the primaries. ‘Warm’ colors (yellow-green through red to red-violet) are on one side of the color wheel, while ‘cool’ colors (yellow-green through blue to red-violet) are on the other side.

The color wheel enables painters to  recognize ‘complementary’ colors, direct opposites on the color wheel, more easily. Such complements are red and green, orange and blue, yellow-green and red-violet. If you add a bit of a color’s complement (e.g., a bit of red to a green wash), the color will be grayed and start to lose its intensity. When mixed together, complementary colors produce grays and browns. The three primaries mixed together will also create grays.

By placing complementary colors next to each other in a painting, artists can achieve maximum color contrast. Complements sometimes create a kind of color vibration, or dancing, that tends to attract the viewer’s eye.  A color will make its complement appear more intense.  Therefore, this maximum color contrast can be quite effective around the center of interest in a painting.

However, almost all paint colors are ‘biased’ in that they lean toward (or contain some of) another primary color. Few paint colors can be described as a pure, neutral color. This is ‘color bias’ – that is, most paint pigments are not perfect spectrum hues or colors, but contain some amount of another color. A warm red contains some yellow – it ‘leans’ toward and is biased toward yellow, whereas a cooler red would have more blue and would lean toward blue, or have a blue bias. In general, all (grayed) dulled COOL colors are warmer than their original hue, and dulled WARM colors are cooler than their original hue. For example, a grayed Blue-green (as described by Bruce MacEvoy on the “Color Theory: Color Temperature” (c. 2015) page of the handprint.com website) is warmer than a saturated Blue-green, because  some Red-orange has been mixed in with the Blue-green in order to gray it. Also, Burnt Sienna is cooler than Cadmium Scarlet, because it is less saturated (closer to gray). Similarly, Ultramarine Blue becomes grayer (and warmer) when Burnt Sienna is added, while Burnt Sienna is made cooler by adding some Cobalt Blue.   

               

Each ‘color’ of paint, then, will have a warmer and a cooler version. (See my related blog published here 12/11/2018, entitled “Adjust Your Color Thermostat.”)

Examples of relative warm and cool colors follow.

COOL COLOR:                                            WARM COLOR:

Quinacridone Red (PR209)       vs.         Napthol Scarlet (PR188)

Hansa Yellow Light (PY3)         vs.          Hansa Yellow Deep (PY65)

Viridian (PG 18)                          vs.         Chromium Oxide (PG 17)

Cobalt Teal Blue (PB 50)            vs.         Cobalt Blue (PB 29)

Ultramarine Violet (PV 15)       vs.         Cobalt Violet (PV 14)

Why does color bias matter in painting? Color bias affects how a pigment mixes with other paint colors!!!

You can’t pick any yellow to mix with any blue and expect to get a desired green. A cool yellow (with a blue bias) will behave very differently in a color mix than a warm (red bias) yellow. Mix Hansa Yellow Light (or Winsor Yellow) with Phthalo Blue (or Winsor Blue) to create a bright, spring green. Or combine Quinacridone Yellow with Ultramarine Blue to achieve a warm, olive green. (Also see my related blog published 11/27/2018, entitled “Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter Palettes.”) Another hint to help you create a brighter mixed color is to use two colors biased TOWARD each other on the color wheel (e.g., a yellow situated closer to the blues mixed with a blue situated closer to the yellows) to avoid adding any of the third (red) primary color (which would gray the mixture).

The most important information for the person mixing color to know is the actual paint pigment used in the manufacture of the paint that is to be used for mixing (NOT the name of the color on the paint tube). Each pigment has been assigned its own letter and number to distinguish it from other pigments. (See my related blog published on 8/28/2018, entitled “The Paint Colors and Brands On My Watercolor Palette.”) For example, Cadmium Red is made from PR108 (Pigment Red #108), while Pyrrol Red and Winsor Red are made from PR254 (Pigment Red #254). Each paint pigment has an individual personality and IS NOT interchangeable with or an exact match to other similar-looking pigments. Since each paint is unique, different mixtures will vary in their characteristics, even though they are mixed to represent a ‘certain’ color. Color appearance is affected by pigment used, as well as by the quantity of pigment and added filler, and by how the pigment was milled. Further, pigment used will also determine whether the paint is lightfast or permanent, whether it is transparent or opaque, and whether the paint is staining or not.

Depending on the specific choices of paint, a whole range of possibilities exist for creating color. Change one ingredient in a mixture to achieve different results. Knowing the color wheel doesn’t necessarily allow you to predict what each paint or mixture will do. You will need to experiment and learn from experience!

While understanding how the color wheel works can certainly help you with the mixing of paint colors, color mixing is not an exact science. In fact, to complicate color mixing further, you need to understand that color is a function of human perception. Color is in the mind and can vary depending as much on the individual viewing the color as on the specific pigments used in mixing. Further, perception of color is affected by the amount and direction of light on the color. Viewers always make a judgement about the color seen based on their expectations and understanding of the world around them. And, your eyes can play tricks on you! Thus, ‘color’ is an interpretation by each individual.

If you are looking for possible paint color substitutions to try because you don’t have a paint color recommended by someone for a color mix, the following chart might be a place to start searching. Just remember, however, that there are NO exact matches! Each color pigment has different characteristics, AND paints will vary by manufacturer even if the pigments used suggest they are similar. However, feel free to experiment with the warm/cool colors that you have on your palette now. Use what you have! There is often no need to rush out and buy a tube of a suggested color, unless, of course, you think it might be fun.

APPENDIX A: WATERCOLOR PAINTS GROUPED BY COLOR BIAS/TEMPERATURE

COOL (Blue Bias) REDS: Quinacridone Red (PR 209)

Perylene Maroon (PR 179)

Permanent Alizarin Crimson (PR 206)

Quinacridone Rose (PV 19)

Quinacridone Pink  (PV 42)

Permanent Rose (PV 19)

Red Rose Deep (PV 19)

Quinacridone Magenta (PR 122 or 202)

Carmine (use Daniel Smith only – PR 176)

Crimson Lake or Scarlet Lake

Pyrrol Crimson (Use Daniel Smith – PR 264)

Opera Rose (PR 122)

Potter’s Pink (Winsor Newton – PR 233)

 

WARM (Yellow Bias REDS: Cadmium Red (PR 108)

Pyrrol Red, Winsor Red, or DaVinci Red (PR254)

Permanent Red (PR 254)

Venetian Red or Indian Red (PR 101)

Light Red (PR 102)

Vermillion (Holbein or Schmincke – PR 108 or PR 255)

English Oxide Red (PR 101)

Perylene Red (PR 149 or 178)

Pyrrol Scarlet (PR 255)

Transparent Pyrrol Orange (PO 71)

Cadmium Scarlet (PR 108)

 

COOL (Blue Bias) YELLOWS: Hansa Yellow Light (PY 3)

Winsor or DaVinci Yellow (PY 154)

Nickel Azo Yellow (Daniel Smith – PY 150)

Cadmium Yellow Pale (PY 35)

Cadmium Yellow Lemon (PY 35)

Benzimida Yellow (PY 154)

Lemon Yellow (PY 3)

Aureolin (PY 40)

Primary Yellow (Maimeri – PY 97)

Flanders Yellow (L&B – PY 3)

Transparent Yellow (Winsor Newton – PY 97)

Hansa Yellow Medium or Deep (PY 97)

 

WARM (Red Bias) YELLOWS: Gamboge Hue (PY 153/PY 3)

Cadmium Yellow Medium or Deep (PY 35)

Indian Yellow (PY 153)

Permanent Yellow (DalerRowney – PY 138)

Mars Yellow (Daniel Smith – PY 42)

Nickel Dioxine Yellow

Golden Yellow (Grumbacher – PY 3/PY 65)

Yellow Lake (Sennelier – PO 49/PY 153)

Brilliant Yellow (Schmincke – PW 6/PY 3)

Quinacridone Gold (Daniel Smith – PO 49)

Naples Yellow (PBr 24/PW 6)

New Gamboge or Gamboge (PY 150/PR 209)

 

WARM (Red Bias) BLUES: Ultramarine Blue (PB 29)

Cobalt Blue (PB 28)

Indigo (Daniel Smith – PB 60/PBk 6)

Verditer (Holbein – PB 28/PW 6)

Mountain Blue (Schmincke – PW 5/PB 29/PG 7)

Permanent Blue (PB 29)

Indanthrene or Indanthrone (PB 60)

Cobalt Teal Blue (Daniel Smith – PG 50)

Cyanine (Winsor Newton – PB 28/PB 27)

 

COOL (Yellow Bias) BLUES:Phthalo or Winsor Blue (PB 15)

Monestial Blue (Daler Rowney – PB 15)

Prussian Blue (PB 27)

Antwerp Blue (PB 27)

Compose Blue (Holbein – PB 6/PB 15)

Cerulean (PB 35)

Intense Blue (Winsor Newton – PB 15)

Paris Blue (Lukas – PB 27)

Peacock Blue (Holbein – PB 17)

Touareg Blue (L&B – PG 7/PB 15)

Cobalt Turquoise (DaVinci – PB 36)

Manganese Blue Hue (Daler Rowney – PB 15:3/PW 5)

 

ORANGES: Burnt Sienna (PBr 7)

Light Red (Winsor Newton – PR 102)

Quinacridone Burnt Orange (Daniel Smith – PO 48)

Burnt Umber (DaVinci or Daniel Smith – PBr 7)

Quinacridone Brown Madder (PV 19/PR 101)

Permanent or Benzimida Brown (Daniel Smith – PBr 25)

Transparent Red Oxide (PR 101)

Quinacridone Orange (PO 48)

Brilliant Orange (Holbein – PO 62/PO 73)

Brown Madder (Schmincke – PR 206)

 

COOL GREENS: Phthalo or Winsor Green (PG 7)

Viridian (PG 18)

Shadow or Perylene Green (PBk 31)

 

WARM GREENS: Sap Green (DaVinci- PG 7/PY 42)

Green Gold (Winsor Newton – PY 129)

Rich Green Gold (Daniel Smith – PY 129)

Copper Azo Green (PY 129)

Olive Green (varies)

 

PURPLES: Mineral Violet (PV 15)

Mauve (DaVinci – PV 19/PB 29)

Quinacridone Violet (PV 19)

Permanent Mauve (Winsor Newton – PV 16)

Permanent Violet (Daniel Smith – PR 88)

Ultramarine Violet (PV 15)

 

YELLOW EARTH COLORS: Monte Amiata Natural Sienna (Daniel Smith – PBr 7)

Raw Sienna (PBr 7)

Yellow Ochre (PY 43)

Gold Ochre (PY 42)

Transparent Yellow Oxide (PY 42)

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If you have ever tried to paint with watercolors, you know how difficult it can be to estimate amounts of water accurately. Some beginners may use too much water and lose control of their painting or paint overly pale colors. Other beginners are inclined to use rather dry, stiff color in their work creating uneven, streaky, or possibly even muddy passages. How wet is too wet?

While many people feel watercolor is difficult and uncontrollable, once you understand how using the right amount of water can give you control, you’ll begin to have more fun painting.

BASIC RULE.

A basic (and unbreakable ) rule of watercolor is that the wettest area of paint (or water) ALWAYS flows into a less wet (damp) area, whether you are placing paint next to other paint on the watercolor paper or touching a wet or paint-filled brush to paint already on the paper.

Further, there are different degrees of wetness, and these differences affect the success of the techniques a painter uses. Whether a technique works or not will depend on your ability to observe and control the amount of wetness involved.

THE SECRETS.

The secrets to controlling the application of your watercolor paint are 1.) TIMING, and 2.) LEARNING TO JUDGE THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF WETNESS for the job you want to do. The moisture comes from several sources, including the mixed puddles of paint, the degree of dampness of the watercolor paper, and the amount of water/paint in the brush.

When you want controlled, clearly defined brushstrokes and a hard edge, paint on a dry paper (wet-on-dry). On dry paper, paint will only go where you put it. Keep in mind that after you have put paint down, you have created a wet area into which you can charge other colors or paint wet-in-wet. (See one of my related blogs, “Charge Ahead and Mingle: Blending Color on Watercolor Paper”, published June 4, 2019).

It can be difficult to paint large, complicated areas wet-on-dry because some sections of paint may dry too much before you can finish painting the area. This can create problems such as ‘cauliflowers’, ‘blossoms’, or ‘backwashes’ as you place wetter paint next to a less wet (damp, starting to dry) wash. (Remember that wetter ALWAYS flows into less wet!) Try to paint leaving a ‘bead’ of wet paint on the edge of your painted area (i.e. keep your paint edge wet) while you pause to reload your brush with color, to avoid having a drying edge of paint. If you have trouble maintaining a ‘bead’, you might want to pre-wet the area to be painted.

Make sure you mix a large enough puddle of paint so that you don’t need to skimp on paint or run out of mixed color partway through a wash. Also use a large enough brush to get paint down quickly, before it starts to dry and creates unwanted brush marks or ‘cauliflowers’.

One important point to remember is that watercolor fades as it dries and color that looks just right when it’s wet, can often look weak and unconvincing when dry. Try to mix your colors darker than you think you need. Getting the color right the first time looks fresher (and often less muddy) than trying to adjust color with a second layer over the first. If possible, try to avoid unnecessary over-painting.

THE PAINT ITSELF.

Only experimentation will tell you what your paints will do, which is why you hear so much about the need to practice painting and to get to know the colors on your own palette. Paint behaviors depend on the type of pigment used in manufacture (organic, mineral, chemical, dye), how finely the pigment is ground (how it is milled), and also whether or not paint contains fillers (as many student grade paints do). Different brands may use different ingredients in different proportions. Generally, experts say that the more transparent a pigment, the better its flow on a wet surface.

PAPER AND TIMING.

The wetness of the watercolor paper itself also is a factor in how paint behaves. When water is first applied to paper it can be described as FLOODED with a sheet of water. After a short time, a WET sheet of paper becomes evident, as water starts to soak into the paper. On wet paper, you see a shine but the texture of the paper can be observed. As time goes on, water continues to soak into and evaporate from the paper. On DAMP paper the shine becomes dull and the watercolor paper is ready for the artist to put paint to paper. Here is where TIMING becomes so important! If the shine disappears from the MOIST paper, it can be a problematic time to paint. The paper may not be wet enough for paint to move smoothly or may be drying unevenly, which can create unexpected streaks or bleeds. (Note that the time it takes for these processes to occur can vary quite a bit depending on weather conditions, such as humidity, and even the type of watercolor paper in use.)

 

THE BRUSH.

Similarly, through practice, you should learn how to control the amount of water on your brush. Small brushes don’t hold a lot of water or paint, especially synthetic brushes, so it is difficult to overload them. But they also cover a limited area when painting, making it very unlikely that you will be able to paint a smooth wash with them. Large brushes will quickly cover the paper and keep your painting looking spontaneous, however, they can sometimes hold more water and paint than you want. “How much water should I use?” Not too much.

A SOPPING brush, which goes directly from the water container to the paper, is only okay when you are pre-wetting your paper! You will probably NOT want to paint with a dripping, sopping brush because too much paint will flow onto your paper and you will have little control. Instead, a WET brush is wiped once or twice on the edge of the water container or tapped lightly on a paper towel to make it more manageable, and can be dipped into the paint and used for painting. Before applying the paint, check your brush again to see if it is dripping with paint, and, if so, gently squeeze a small amount off on the edge of the palette or on a paper towel, as before. A DAMP brush is wiped on the edge of the water container and excess moisture is squeezed or blotted away. A damp brush can still moisten your paper and would be ideal for ‘softening an edge’. When softening a just painted edge, the painted edge should still be wet AND the brush MUST be less wet than the painted area. (See my related blog “Softening An Edge or Fading Out”, dated October 23, 2018.) Finally, a MOIST brush has only enough moisture to hold the brush in shape and would be perfect to use for lifting color.

TO SUMMARIZE.

While nothing is simple in learning to paint, attention to detail and practice WILL lead to your success. Everyone can learn how to paint. Keep in mind the basic rule of hydrodynamics in watercolor – that the wettest area of paint (or water) ALWAYS flows into a less wet (damp) area. And also try to remember, the secrets to controlling the application of your watercolor paint are 1.) TIMING, and 2.) LEARNING TO JUDGE THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF WETNESS for the job you want to do. The moisture comes from several sources, including the mixed puddles of paint, the degree of dampness of the watercolor paper, and the amount of water/paint in the brush. Enjoy!

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