Brushes On Watercolour - Wet On Wet

I had an interesting question the other day about watercolour paper and whether it is used wet or dry. Well, it is used both ways depending on what you are painting and the effect you want to make.

If you are going to paint a detailed painting, which needs to be accurate to scale (like mine) you will have to work on dry paper. The reason for this is that you will need to make your pencil drawing on your paper and as we all know - you can't draw with an ordinary lead pencil onto wet paper. A long time ago I did try drawing on my paper before soaking and stretching it. Unfortunately I discovered that when you do this, you also stretch your drawing and even when the paper has completely dried, the drawing is not absolutely as it was when you drew it. So for my purposes where accuracy is vital, it was useless. If however, 100% accuracy to scale is not needed, then you can certainly do this.

You may wonder why anyone would want to draw first, soak later. The reason for this, is that when you have a sheet of wet paper on your board (not completely, dripping wet but still soaked through) you can lay your paints onto the paper and get some wonderful effects. You will need to practice to see what I mean, but essentially the paint will mix in with the water held in the paper and spread out into wonderful shapes and patterns. When you then add another colour to the mix - oh lovely! Do be aware though, that where the paper is holding a lot of water, you will need to put reasonably strong colours on your brush.

If you need to let your paper dry so that you can put on an accurate drawing, you can however, wet areas of your paper with clean water (make sure it is clean!!) and then drop your colours into that area. No doubt you will find some frustrations. Quite often the paint will collect to the edges of its spread and when dry, creates and thickish hard line which most often you won't want. If you try and lift some of the paint when you see this happening, you will find to your dismay that quite often you get a 'floral' effect and most of the time you won't want this, although in a looser painting, it can be utilized to become a useful part of the design.

The picture at the top shows a small part from the background of one of my paintings (ignore the piece of dog neck) which shows granulation. Granulation occurs when some paints are mixed together - I usually make mine happen by adding ultramarine to my mix. I love the grainy effect it gives.

So to summarise - your paper can be worked dry, damp or wet. It will depend on your requirements and may well differ from painting to painting. Just keep going and don't give up if your efforts appear amateurish to begin with. Enjoy what you're doing. Don't make it an effort but look forward to it as an enjoyable discovery. Apart from learning to draw and paint, you will also begin to see differently. Yes, you will. Where once you would just look at an object, now you will start to really see it. You will notice it's shape, colour, the way the light falls on it. Yes, life will become more fun!

Talking of fun, did anyone notice the heading of this piece? If you take the initials it reads BOW-WOW - perfect for a dog obsessed person like me!

Talking about drawing

Now that you have your paper and paints and have practised a bit, you will probably want to paint a picture and in all probability, you will want to make a drawing on your paper before you start - unless you are a very free-spirited painter! How do you erase any mistakes you make? - you don't!

One big problem with watercolour paper is that the surface is delicate. This means that if you start erasing your pencil marks, you will damage your paper and when you paint over the area, it will leave an unsightly mark where the paint reveals the scrubbed surface. You might try the kneadable putty eraser rather than the normal type of rubber (whoops, sorry I think that's rather rude for my US friends!) - I mean of course eraser. I can't get on with this type of eraser myself as I find it leaves a slightly greasy surface to the paper so just use a small, soft rubber eraser. Why not get a piece of pre-soaked paper (make sure to use a piece pre-soaked as it's surface is more delicate then and will give you an accurate result) and try varying degress of pencil pressure and then erase them (I keep having to change my wording to 'erase' with this piece!!) When you then paint over these areas you will see how much you can get away with. You will be all right with very light pencilling. However, after much trial and error, I now draw onto tracing paper instead and then just transfer this to the paper as I had too many sheets of paper wasted when I drew straight on to the paper. Now I can erase my pencil marks to my heart's content!

Watercolour painting entails a lot of control - even in apparently free-flowing pieces, so all the practising you do now will really pay dividends. You will have a lot more confidence when you feel even just a little bit in control of those beautiful watery colours. If you have practised you will already have made some discoveries - that watercolour dries lighter than when you apply it, for instance, unlike acrylics which dry darker. You will probably have found that when you start to mix more than two or three colours together you always end up with mud! One of the challenges of watercolour is to retain its vibrancy - particularly difficult in paintings like mine which are made up of many layers, as of course the natural tendency for the paint when overlaid with another layer of paint, is for the two lots to dissolve together and it is very easy when layering watercolour to end up with an opaque, muddy mess, but don't worry, with a little help, you will soon be producing paintings you are proud of.

The pictures I am including today were originally intended to be for my website but I forgot to keep taking photos as I went along!! The 4 photos show a) the pencil drawing (I hope you will able to make this out), b) a few washes in c) more work on the eyes d) the finished article. For those who wondered, he is a lurcher - a really lovely friendly boy I had the pleasure to meet when his owners came to pick up the painting.

Painting hints and tips - brushes

Before we talk about brushes I will just quickly mention gummed tape.

The tape I am talking about is what you will need to stick your wet watercolour paper to your board. Quite obviously ordinary sticky tape or masking tape won't do, as this would just peel away from the damp paper. You need the kind which needs to be wetted to make it sticky. I am mentioning this as someone told me that they weren't quite sure what tape I meant. I have found this site by googling it - http://www.artdiscount.co.uk/acatalog/Brown_Gummed_Paper_Tape.html and it does show what I mean. I haven't used this store personally as I buy mine from my framer.

Okay, back to brushes. A very difficult subject for me to be able to make any recommendations to you. Artists vary widely in the sort of brushes which they like and use. For my own work, I mainly use a size 3 pure sable. I like two makes in particular - Rosemary & Co and Premier Brush (www.premierbrush.co.uk) - perhaps my favourite of these is the P33? Maybe and then maybe not - each brush varies quite a lot and I have to spend a long time in my local art shop trying them out to find out which one suits my needs. In any art shop worth its name you will find a small pot of water beside the brushes. This isn't for thirsty tiny people, but it is for you to try out the brushes in. When I buy my brushes, I am looking for several attributes. Firstly I need the brush to hold a reasonable amount of paint - bearing in mind that due to the small size, this is still a very small quantity. It must be springy and not flop when wet. When I say springy, I mean that when you press the brush against the paper and then lift it off, it springs back into shape. When my brush is wet, I like it to come to a fine point with no odd little hairs sticking out further than the rest. But now comes my own peculiar brush requirement! When I press the brush down against the back of my nail, I want the brush to fan out so that the bristles make a straight edge. The photo above shows what I mean. I use the brush like this to make the fine coat texture in my paintings. Unfortunately, due to the way I use these brushes, they only last for about one or two paintings before I need to use a new one as they become blunt and therefore the coat texture in my paintings would become coarse unless I changed the brush for a fresh one. I have only found sable to meet my needs with the exception of the brush I use for laying in the backgrounds which is a Daler Rowney Dalon D88 1". I also have a very old and worn half inch brush which I use for scrubbing out areas of colour (or should I say reducing areas of colour as you can never get back to the white paper once it is painted on). Of course if you looked in my paint box, you would find it full of all sort of brushes which I have collected over the years and which have been discarded but not completely, as you never know when I might need it!!

So, you have your paper on your board, you have your paints and now your brushes. All you need to start your painting is some clean water and a piece of kitchen roll to wipe your brush on, and you're off!

I really would suggest that you spend more of your time finding out what the paints do, rather than rushing in with painting a picture. I only say this as I don't want you to become discouraged. It is so easy to start full of enthusiasm and quickly come to the conclusion that you can't paint, when had you only taken things more slowly, you would have seen that after all you can paint! It isn't only being an 'artist' that makes you able to paint, it's much more about learning the skill of how the paints work which will enable you to produce paintings you will be proud of. Everyone can paint - we all just need confidence and practice. Also, don't worry about what you paint. Paint what intrigues and satisfies you. Don't worry if it isn't fashionable or if the cognoscenti would turn their noses up at it - if you like it, it's ART!!

Paints

Did you enjoy your visit to the art shop? Have you had a go at sticking your paper to your board? Perhaps you've even attempted splashing some paint onto the paper - I hope so!

Talking about paints - which type should you get? Watercolour is available either in pans or tubes. I used to prefer the pans as I felt the paint was a little more 'pure' without the running agent which is in the tubes. However, as I gradually worked my way through the pans which came with my ready filled watercolour box, I started to replace the colours with tube paint. I squeeze a small amount into the empty(ish) pans as I need it and find I am happy with this. The brand I use is Winsor & Newton - for no other reason really than that my art shop has a large selection of their paints! I would suggest you buy the paints which are easily available to you - no point in making life harder than it is!

Winsor & Newton has an Artist range and a cheaper range called Cotman. Both of these are good quality paints and I know that there are some professional artists who are extremely happy with Cotman paints. I have a couple of tubes myself, but most of mine are the Artist range as I find the colours cleaner.

In traditional watercolour, white and black paint is not used. If you want white in a painting you have to reserve the space i.e. don't paint on it! or scratch it off with a blade. You can use masking fluid to help keep the paper clear of the paint - it's a rubbery fluid which dries where you paint it, and is rubbed off when the paint above is dry. When rubbed off, it leaves the untouched paper underneath. I have tried on several occasions to use masking fluid and in fact only threw away a dried up bottle the other day - which I think demonstrates quite clearly how I got on with it - or rather didn't! I struggled for several years not using white or black, not liking to break the watercolour 'rules'. Then one day, I just thought to myself that my sort of work was not the common application of watercolour paint with gorgeous washes and light brushwork. My paintings are built up of many layers - again a 'no no' in traditional circles, and I do now use both white and black! I must admit however, that white, in my experience, has to be used very carefully indeed if the painting is not to become chalky and dull. Despite the many layers of paint in my pictures, I still like to see the paper glow through and it can't glow through a thick layer of opaque white! What colours to buy? Well, this really does depend on the subjects you like to paint. My own most often used colours are Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Raw Umber, Lamp Black, Mars Black (I love the way this granulates in background washes), Winsor lemon, Alizarin Crimson, and Cadmium Red. I have several other colours but the ones listed are the ones I tend to use most often.

Next time, we'll talk more about brushes and erasing pencil drawing on watercolour paper (don't!!)

I remember at the beginning of this blog I said I would post a Tervueren I was painting - well, here it is finally!

Have fun painting!