WaterColor Lessons

Watercolor Lesson 1: The Basics and Materials

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So you want to get into watercolor and try your wings, but you don't want to spend a fortune before you find out if it's for you?

VERY IMPORTANT - Watercolor need not be expensive. The biggest problem for some who love to buy gadgets is to realize that they are not needed or necessary for watercolor. You only need a few basic items.

Water - Old cups, paper cups, glasses etc hold water. I personally use 3 tuna fish cans soldered together. You do need a squirt bottle of some kind, like a used windex-type.Rinsed out thoroughly, it will work fine.

Paper - If you want to be successful, spend your money here. Do not use typing paper or other smooth, thin paper as it just won't work. You need a thicker, rougher paper. Watercolor paper comes in three surfaces, hot pressed, cold pressed and rough. Hot pressed is probably too smooth to start with. Go with cold pressed. It comes in several weights. 140lb is best for your serious efforts, 70-90lb will work for practice. Paper comes in sheets, pads anorts, 70-90lb will work for practice. Paper comes in sheets, pads and blocks. Blocks are pads that are glued together on the edges, which prevents most buckling and eliminates the need to tape the paper down.There are some very good student grades of paper available in pads at low cost. Check out Strathmore300 series.

Piece of heavy cardboard, or piece of plywood - This is used to tape the paper to so it dodoesn buckle when wet. Anything lighter than 140lb will buckle. Simply tape all edges of your paper down with masking tape. Some artists wet the paper completely and let it dry before painting and others don't.

Brushes - You need a flat brush, 3/4 to 1 inch in width. If you can afford it, get a regular flat watercolor brush. It needs to be fairly soft. Also a round brush, No. 8 or 10 is good to start. The very best is a Kolinskyable. Next best is probably a good synthetic sable. I've have some inexpensive Liquitex Golden Sable brushes I bought at Office Depot that perform admirably and as well as lesser light real sable. If you decide to pursue watercolor, then invest in a good Kolinsky sable, there is nothing like it.Two brushes are all you need. If you MUST have more brushes, number 3 should be a fine rigger and number 4 should be a two inch soft varnish brush.

Palette - You'lllleed one of these to mix paint on. A white butcher's tray, or any white tray you can steal from the kitch any white tray you can steal from the kitchen works fine. There are regular watercolor papalettesf you decide to stick with watercolor. REMEMBER - you will NOT be throwing your paint away so avoid disposable papalettesOnce the paint is on the palette, it will be there until it is used up.

Pigment - In other words, the paint. Low budget? Get a set of Prang or Crayola paints from any department store. Throw the brush away and use the paint. Next step up is the Grumbacher Academic, Liquitex or any other "student" colors in tubes. Going all out? Then try Windsor & Newton, Rembrandt, Shiva, Grumbacher and other "professional" pigments at $6 to $14 a tube. It is important to realize that the cheapie paints work well to start with, and it would be better to spend the money on better paper than paint if your budget is limited.

Misc. Painting Tools - Sponges, cardboard edges, toilet paper, razor blades, etc. These are used to sop-up paint, scratch white lines in the dried picture or apply interesting textures. Anything in this category should be virtually free.

IF MONEY IS TIGHT - Spend as much as you can on paper. If your paper is poor, nothing will work, no matter how fine a brush or pigment you have.

Philosophy of Watercolor

There is ONE IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE between watercolor and oils/acrylic. In oils, YOUYOU control not only the pigment, but also the binder. In other words, the paint tends to stay where you put it on the canvas. It doesn't generally flow off in it's own direction. As a result, you build the painting by adding layers of paint in some fashion.

In watercolor, the WATER controls YOU! You must attempt to control the water - where it flows, how it flows, and at what rate. With the exception of dry brush technique, you have no guarantees that the paint will stay where you put it.

Watercolor is like building a stream. You sop up the water if it goes where you don't want it, and you use tools to make a path for the water to flow where you do want it.

In oil/acrylic, the pigment is primary and the binder is secondary. In watercolor it is just the opposite - the binder (water) is the primary object of our attention.

In a watercolor we begin with a wet or damp surface (usually) which is analogous to the "stream". We use tools (brushes, sponges, t.p., knives, etc) to control the flow of water in the "stream" and see that it doesn't exceed its banks. After that is under control, we add pigment to color the water and make it look pretty! Remember that in watercolor, control of the water is everything, and controlling the water is about the equivalent of housebreaking your cocker spaniel!

Having said all this , grab a piece of paper, dampen it some (with yrab a piece of paper, dampen it some (with your squirt bottle, of course), get some colors and let them flow on the paper.

Watercolor - Beginning your work

Most folks begin their watercolors by dampening the paper and then working some pigment into the damp paper, roughing in the design. After the paper has dried a bit, another layer of pigment is added to further define the areas. This process is repeated until the image is as detailed as you want.

After the paper is dried, fine details are added by brushing a bit of color here and there as needed (dry brush techniques). Of course, the paper can be re-dampened as needed.

HINTS

Some folks lightly pencil in the basic shapes first. Whether you erase the pencil lines is up to you; some do, some don't.
Keeping WHITE SPACE is very important. You cannot paint white in watercolor. You must leave the paper white for highlights, or scratch white highlights in with a razor after the paper has dried. In order to keep white space, you can mask off portions you don't want painted initially by using masking tape, liquid mask (basically liquid latex rubber), or rubber cement. A water color without white spaces is a pretty dull watercolor.
You cannot paint light spaces over dark spaces. Watercolor is not opaque like oils/acrylics, therefore DO NOT paint dark opaque like oils/acrylics, therefore DO NOT paint dark tree trunks and expect to cover them with green leaves. It won't happen. Paint from light to dark.
For example, when painting trees, first define the leaf area on the damp paper. When it's dry, paint in leaves with a brush or nice textured sponge. After that you can paint in bits of dark tree trunk where they would show. Click here to see this principle in action.
It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to eradicate serious errors in your painting. So plan ahead and don't make them. You can soak a watercolor in the bathtub and remove most of the pigment, but that's usually a last gasp effort. If you feel this is not true, paint a dark brown tree on your painting and try to cover it up or wipe it away.
Always paint from light to dark.

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