Techniques and techniques in watercolor painting. Watercolor Painting Techniques - Tips and Tricks

To the official heyday, which came on a foggy London morning only at the beginning 19th century. The frightening abyss of centuries gradually changed the materials and techniques of watercolor painting: the paint “came to life” on papyrus and rice paper. Later - in the working sketches of the artists or a ghostly "haze", almost an illusion, subtly hidden on the sheets under the confident drawing of the lead and pen.

Basic watercolor painting techniques

True work in watercolor technique is akin to a nascent bright morning: it smells of fresh grass, flowers, overturning the subtlest images and thoughts on us from its soft depths. But roses have thorns too! Despite its velvety, watercolor is bold and capricious. The nervous graphic lines, the rigidity of strokes and the density of tone are quite acceptable to her. It all depends on the tasks set by the artist.


Amazing watercolor by Japanese artist Abe Toshiyuki.

A la prima technique. The Italian energetic approach to solve everything "in one sitting" responded primarily to french painting impressionists. In fact, this is the “one-touch” technique, writing pictures on wet paper immediately, without alterations and additional overlays. colorful layers. The bewitching effect of the work is in the unpredictability of the final result. This technique of painting exists remarkably in landscapes, assuming the skill and dexterity of the artist. Although this watercolor technique for beginners is also good lesson to “fill your hand” and “hone your eyes”.


Watercolor cityscapes American artist Thomas Schaller.

Technique of painting "raw". The plot is written on abundantly moistened paper. Most often, the master touches the paint to the sheet, which has already absorbed water well. The degree of filling of the brush bundle with water is also controlled. Depending on the tasks, the author writes either with a dry brush on a damp background surface, or “wet-on-wet”. The essential difference of this technique is that the artist can carry out a separate drawing of details already on dried paper, complementing and refining the plot. Such watercolor “sinking” on the wet surface of the sheet allows you to achieve a lot of impressive moments: picturesque softness, the finest color transitions, lightness and transparency.



Rain in watercolor paintings by Taiwanese artist Lin Ching-Che.

Multilayer painting technique. Reception is carried out due to transparent color glazing - fillings and strokes of paint, which are superimposed on each other in layers. Each layer must be dried, avoiding mixing. As a result, correctly filled paints form a gap, filling the depth of painting with transparency. Multi-layered watercolor creates rich reflections and deep shadows, striking with realism and special color sonority. The technique is excellent for depicting multifaceted complex landscapes, still life productions and portraits.



Watercolor still life by artist Elena Bazanova.

Dry paper painting technique. In watercolor, it is sometimes difficult to understand where painting ends and graphics begin. The "dry" method is just the case for those who want to control the spread of paint on paper, drawing thin linear and clear contours. But there are other options as well. One of the popular ones is one-layer painting with a well-moistened brush. Each fill forms a water streak that mixes with the next strokes. Thus, the connection of colorful islands gives a pleasant softness and beautiful kneading.


Realistic watercolor painting by Steve Hanks.

Mixed media painting. If you want to get away from classical watercolor and learn to paint outside the box - a combined approach in painting is an indispensable assistant. The picture combines both a variety of artistic materials and techniques, sometimes even mutually exclusive. For example, in one work, the author is able to combine the method of writing on wet and dry paper. Mix watercolor with ink, wax, pastel, watercolor pencils, gouache, achieving amazing effects, but sometimes - to the detriment of the "purity" of the watercolor sound.



Cityscape in watercolors by Heinz Schweizer.

Notable schools and watercolorists

Before the advent of paper, watercolor made itself known in an almost inaudible whisper on thin canvases of Chinese silk. Spilling in laconic graphics of hieroglyphs and stunning Asian landscapes, the paint has long been entrenched in this poetic genre. Paper made in China contributed to further development Eastern watercolor school with a special personality and national flavor.


Delicate floral watercolor by French artist Sylvie Fortin.

Classical multi-layer painting - brilliant creation English school of watercolor. Distinguished by its filled depth and thick tonality, it was not inferior to the “oil” paintings, and even surpassed them in its lightness. The second half of the 18th century is a time of great change and the flourishing of English watercolors. Bold innovative artists such as T. Girtin, D. W. Turner, D. Constable and many others left a deep mark on its history.

Watercolor came to Russia late. Dense, multi-layered writing on dry paper was used by the brothers Karl and Alexander Bryullov, creating "live" images of their contemporaries. The legendary A. A. Ivanov turned to this technique for quick, sketchy writing, creating small masterpieces of painting. P. F. Sokolov is an artist of marvelous miniature portrait watercolors - symbols of an elusive era.


Watercolor still lifes with flowers by Korean artist Yi Seong-bu (Lee Sok Bo).

IN late XIX- the beginning of the 20th century, translucent paint gained great popularity among Russian artists. M. A. Vrubel, I. E. Repin, V. I. Surikov often worked in this technique. St. Petersburg artists (A. N. Benois, A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, K. A. Somov, L. S. Bakst and others) were especially fond of watercolor.

Later, the technique of watercolor glazing was forgotten for a long time, existing only in England. Today, multi-layered painting is reborn again. Watercolor schools are opening, exhibitions, competitions and training courses for fans of this thoughtful artistic technique are held in Moscow.

Watercolor painting has its own history and traditions. It first appeared in China in the 12th century, although back in Ancient Egypt used opaque watercolors with the addition of white.

Interestingly, one of characteristic features watercolor paints is their transparency, and there is never white in the sets. IN medieval Europe, as in Rus', opaque watercolor was used for coloring church books or manuscripts, in which capital letters or ornaments stood out with watercolor.

water paints

Ancient Egyptian, medieval and later paints have in common that the solvent for them is water - aqua. Hence the name aquarelle, or watercolor. This term is applicable both to the actual paints and to the type of painting made by them. The main features of pure watercolor are the transparency and purity of color mentioned above. Watercolor painting is usually delicate, fragile and airy. But until the middle of the XIII century, it had a purely applied character, it was mainly used for coloring drawings, engravings, frescoes. Although such a masterpiece as "The Hare" by Albrecht Durer, which is considered a textbook work, was written as early as 1502.

From single hobbies to universal recognition

Remarkable isolated examples occurred later, but this was an exception to the rule. Such generally recognized masters of the brush as Van Dyck, Giovanni Castiglione and Claude Loren dabbled in watercolor. In England, however, she received a special development thanks to Joseph Turner. Although even before him, watercolor painting was promoted by quite venerable English artists. Under Turner, watercolor became the leading art in this country, and in 1804 the Society of Watercolorists was created in England.

Excellent foreign watercolors

Watercolor came into fashion in France, other countries of Europe and America. It can be added that with the filing of the Argentine artist Rojo, the International Day of Watercolors was declared. It was first celebrated on November 23, 2001.

In the public domain you can see the amazing watercolors of the Japanese artist Abe Toshiyuki, who achieves photographic accuracy in his extraordinary paintings.

Great Russian masters

But how did watercolor painting develop in Russia? The first major master in this art form was P. F. Sokolov (1791-1848), who is considered the founder of the Russian watercolor portrait genre. Academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts, he left to his descendants a slice of the era, as he captured contemporary Russia in his landscapes, portraits, everyday scenes. Karl Bryullov and A. A. Ivanov paid tribute to watercolor. IN XVIII-XIX centuries she becomes very popular, especially her miniatures. But wonderful and major works created with water paints. Particularly good are the paintings by Ilya Repin, Mikhail Vrubel, Valentin Serov, the artists of the World of Art. The Society of Russian Watercolorists was founded in 1887.

The beauty of watercolor landscapes

Water paints are capable of all pictorial genres, but landscapes are especially good. Watercolor can convey subtle color transitions, the saturation of space with air, the richness of each tone. That is why the flowering gardens in the landscapes made by aquarelle are so uniquely beautiful and multicolored.

Particularly good are the works of the English artist Beatrice E. Parsons (1870-1955). Landscapes in watercolor, in particular winter landscapes, made by Russian masters, are unique and unrepeatable. A selection of Russian winter landscapes created by various watercolorists is widely available.

Characteristic tricks

How are the effects inherent only in watercolor achieved? It is characterized by special techniques, it has its own rules and, of course, its own, prepared paints in a special way. Blurring and streaks are specific techniques of this genre. We must immediately make a reservation that watercolor painting is a rather complicated matter, requiring special skill.

Nowadays, with a huge number of master classes and tips on the Web on how to replace virtuoso brush skills with various tricks, you can come across the statement that everyone can draw. Not all. And such a technique as glazing is available only to strong professionals. And there are also such techniques as “washing”, “alla prima”, “dry brush”, “drops” and “wet”. Only virtuosos master them to perfection.

Painting on paper

In the second half of the 19th century, easel watercolor developed, the works of which are not inferior to oil painting. Their significant difference is not only in colors, but also in the material on which the works are created. In watercolor, this is paper, less often silk. And this makes watercolor painting related to graphics.

When creating paintings with water-based paints, the paper is sometimes pre-moistened (“wet” technique), while the smear acquires a special spreading shape, and the one applied next forms, merging with the previous one, a new shade, which is sometimes even difficult to predict.

Special fixtures

Paper dries quickly and warps. Therefore, the sheet must be stretched. This is achieved in several ways. You can put a wet sheet on the glass and then in the process of working tilt it at the right angle in order to save more moisture in the right area. It is clear that this method is not available to a beginner. There are special frames for sheet tension. They are called erasers. Place damp flannel under the paper to retain moisture. It all depends on the ratio of paint and water, and completely different shades are achieved. For different methods, different aids such as tablet and watercolor blocks.

Tools

Each watercolorist has his own technique. It is not so easy to master watercolor, all its virtuoso techniques, you need to lime a lot of paper, which is divided by quality into several types - Bristol cardboard, Whatman paper, torchon and many other types adapted for frequent wetting. Watercolorists use brushes made from delicate squirrel hair. Such brushes are used even in forensics. Suitable hair marten, ferret and badger.

At work water-based paints There is a lot that is included in the concept of "technique". You can work with watercolor, as mentioned above, both on dry paper and on wet paper. In the first case, there are methods, in the second - their own. When drawing directly with paints, paper, even initially wet, is still dried. The application of several layers to obtain depth and iridescence of color (glazing) implies only dry cardboard.

The most common technique

Drawing in watercolor “on wet”, or “on wet”, or “wet on wet”, is unique and inherent only in this pictorial genre. True, the frescoes are applied to damp ground, and some experts consider them to be the forerunner of watercolors, made using the “wet” technique. A soft stroke and a one of a kind texture of the paint layer are the specifics of working with watercolors “on wet”. In addition, in these works there is an effect of trembling and mobility of the image. Then you can introduce a drawing with a pen or pencil into the dried watercolor, especially since watercolor pencils appeared not so long ago. The essence of watercolor is that a white or light tone is obtained due to cardboard appearing through a transparent layer of paint.

Actually paints

And what about paints? Their quality is achieved by a special grinding of the pigment and its quantity in the original product. To prevent the pigment from rolling into balls, ox bile, which is a surfactant that reduces tension, is added to the paint. Easily water-soluble adhesives gum arabic and dextrin (processed corn and potato starch) are incorporated into paints as binders.

To give them elasticity and plasticity, plasticizers such as glycerin are added to them, and invert sugar retains moisture well. The most important claim to water-based paint is the uniformity of the coloring pigment. Bad colors remain on paper in the form of grains of sand. This is an indication of bad paint.

Watercolor marinas

It was noted above that water colors are unusually good for depicting landscapes. The sea especially wins. With watercolors, with all the techniques and methods available only to her, you can depict all the exciting beauty of the water space. And then, maybe there is something in painting water with water colors? Maybe that's why there are so many lessons for beginners to paint with watercolors on writing exactly the sea? And how consonant with the expanse of water such watercolor techniques like "drops" or "bloat". In addition to them, in the marina you can use wax crayons to close the cardboard in order to preserve the white areas.

All sorts of different ways

Methods such as bleaching, punching, spraying, applying masking tape and many others used by watercolorists, especially beginners, will help not only depict the sea in watercolor, but also turn work into a fun activity, especially if you draw with a child. But in serious adult works, different techniques are also used. Sometimes, to achieve the desired effect, you can put the brush aside and try something else. What masters do not resort to: cling film, foam, salt, stamping and much more - the imagination of a person, especially an artistically gifted one, is limitless.

In our time, when the information field is so wide, when in any genre of fine or applied art that you have never heard of before, you can not only try yourself, but also exhibit your work, a great many people have discovered talents in themselves and have decided on the direction development of own skills. Moreover, on any issue there are a lot of available tips, master classes, recommendations and opportunities to purchase the items and tools necessary for this type of creativity. Painting with watercolors for beginners does not stand aside. Dozens of lessons step by step descriptions absolutely everything related to water-based paints is widely available.

Purpose of today's lesson: Learn 5 watercolor techniques, learn how not to mess up your work, and create fantasy art on A4.

Watercolor- adhesive water-soluble paint. The binder for watercolors are transparent vegetable adhesives that are readily soluble in water. As a plasticizer, glycerin and invert sugar are introduced into them, which retain moisture. Without this, the paints would easily dry out and become brittle. Another surfactant added to professional watercolors is ox bile. It prevents paint from rolling into drops, making it easier to draw.

WATERCOLOR TECHNIQUES

Multilayer watercolor technique (glazing)

This watercolor technique can give the green light to realist paintings. Glaze- a multi-layer technique, applying watercolor with transparent strokes from lighter to darker, one layer on top of the other.


Features of the multilayer watercolor technique:
  • realism of the image: a picture in bright, saturated colors;
  • the bottom layer of light and transparent strokes should have time to dry before the next application;
  • borders of smears are visible;
  • paint does not mix in different layers;
  • strokes are done carefully, plans are airy, painting in a soft style;
  • you can divide the process into several sessions, perform a large canvas.

Glazed watercolor works look like oil or gouache painting. In order for the work not to have such a drawback, one must be able to work with light, apply glazing thinly and accurately.

To draw, you need brushes, paints, knowledge of technique and special effects. You can draw with a dry (wrung out), semi-dry and wet brush (core or squirrel).

Wet watercolor (English watercolor)

The French call this technique "working on water" (travailler dans l'eau, fr.)

A sheet of paper is abundantly wetted with water. In this technique main feature- unpredictability of the result. Even if the artist has correctly calculated the tone and color, the drawing, before it dries completely, may change more than once before taking on the final form. The contours of objects in this technique are vague, the lines smoothly flow into each other and are airy. A picture made in this technique is thought out and imagined by the viewer.

Wet watercolor artist steps:
  1. adding water to paints;
  2. mixing paint, no matter where, on the palette or on the sheet;
  3. wet the sheet abundantly, then smooth it so that there are no irregularities;
  4. remove excess water from the sheet with a piece of cotton wool so that it stops shining;
  5. perform the drawing, making extremely precise strokes;
  6. drying the picture from 2 hours;
  7. elaboration of foreground elements (if required).
Mixed media watercolor

Many artists combine several drawing techniques in one work.

Methods of combined (mixed) technique:
  1. put the first coat of paint on a wet sheet;
  2. elaboration of plans, creation of the required degree of blurring;
  3. drying the drawing;
  4. lay out the next layers of paint in stages;
  5. elaboration of medium and near plans.

Basic rule of technology: paper is wetted not all, but in the right area (reserve); the pigment is applied to the surface from top to bottom.


The paper may be wetted in fragments. The artist himself decides which plan to work out by creating watercolor stains. With the help of a sponge, excess water must be removed so that water does not seep into those areas that should remain dry according to the artist's intention.

You can also combine coloring materials and create special effects:
  • Mixing watercolor with whitewash, gouache, watercolor pencils, ink, pastels. This is no longer a pure technique, but a mixed one. What does it give? - clarity (pencils), shading (pastel), wash (ink), book illustrations(pen), reserve (whitewash), linear strokes (watercolor pencils).

  • Special effect " drawing on crumpled paper» gives an amazing effect of chiaroscuro on the folds of paper.
  • Special effect with salt: salt crystals are applied to the drawing, fantastic stains appear as a result of friction with paper. Suitable for drawing a starry sky or water meadow.

Exercise number 1.

Divide the sheet into 4 rectangles (leave gaps between them), three of which will be underpaintings and three performances in watercolor techniques.

Stages of the task:

  1. .In the first rectangle fill with one color
  2. In the second, we make a tonal stretch with any color
  3. In the third transition from color to color
  4. In the fourth, we use the technique “In a raw way”
  5. We correct everything, finish where we waited to dry.

TECHNIQUE OF PAINTING WITH WATERCOLOR "WITHOUT DIRT"

1. USE QUALITY MATERIALS IN PAINTING WITH WATERCOLOR

The quality of your work will depend on the colors. Avoid sets of paints that are in their own way appearance whitish, with pastel shades. They will give haze in batches.

2. MAINTAIN THE TRANSPARENCY OF THE WATERCOLOR LAYERS

Remember that through a layer of paint in watercolor, the paper should shine through.And this does not mean that the colors should be pale, light!Even the black color in a watercolor painting can be transparent, while remaining rich and deep.

3. DO NOT MIX WATERCOLOR WITH WHITE

Even if there is white in your paint set, this does not mean that they need to be mixed with other colors or applied in a large layer in order to get a light shade.Paper plays the role of white in watercolor. To get a light shade, we simply dilute the paint with water.​

4. USE COATING PAINTS CAREFULLY

Covering colors include yellow, orange, iron oxide red, cerruleum and other shades.Remember that in watercolor you can not achieve resonant brightness due to the density of the layer.To make yellow glow, be bright, it must be put in a transparent layer!In most cases, layer density = opacity = dirt.

5. DO NOT WRITE WITH LIGHT SHADES ON DARK

If you paint with watercolor in layers, apply one shade to another, then go from light to dark.First paint all the light and distant areas, and then gradually go to foreground and darker shades.

6. DO NOT MIX A LARGE NUMBER OF COLORS IN ONE BATCH

We have already found out that gray can be sonorous and beautiful.It becomes ugly and dirty when it loses its transparency.Remember, the more colors you mix, the more different pigments that make up them are involved in the batch. And the less likely you are to get a more sonorous and transparent color.

Basic techniques in watercolor. How to apply?

Have a great Thursday! Today we have a topic about the basic techniques in watercolor. And the most interesting at the end of the article)) Well, the main techniques.

Here I can say that they are painfully known to everyone, but I can’t skip this topic and not cover it))

In my works, I mainly use the wet technique, plus a dry technique for the main elements (we will talk about this later), sometimes fillings and even less often glazing, which are more like a multi-layered watercolor technique, but still I will highlight them separately.

So, let's get started))

  • the most common and one of the main pouring technique. It is carried out on a dry surface due to a large brush with a lot of water and paint. There are fills monochrome And gradient when one color changes to another. The fill can be both for a large space and for a small object of a complex shape, where a uniform flow / transition of color without layers is necessary. (sky, sea, illuminated and shadow parts of buildings, etc.)

It is due to the filling that watercolor lightness is manifested, since it is performed in one layer and at the same time it can be multi-colored (i.e. there is no need to get color by layering many strokes, thereby complicating the work)

gradient a 2-3 color fill is most often used in the sky to show the color change towards the horizon (sunrise/sunset blue sky becomes yellowish and pinkish towards the horizon) You can also add more colors to the fill alternately (5...6) more will be not very harmonious, but we will talk about color in the next issues.

Such a change of colors is achieved texture, realism, volume of shadow areas. It turns out that you change the fill color without much hesitation (within the selected colors for work) and you can get diverse, heterogeneous areas that the eye will complete other objects. It turns out a kind of imitation and realism at the same time. If the shadow, for example, you will have a uniform color, it will be flat. Therefore, for any shadow areas, I use a gradient.

What is the best way to fill? For it you will need a large squirrel brush, preferably with a French mount. We will talk in detail about brushes in a week in one topic to fit everything. It is important to remember that on different paper all techniques and techniques will look different. Somewhere the filling lays down evenly, but somewhere it does not. Therefore, it is worth choosing paper also based on whether you need or do not need some kind of effect. Below in the photo the same techniques are performed on different paper.

  • Next is my favorite technique raw. It can be applied both separately - all work is done in a raw way, and for the first layer and objects in aerial perspective (work above), but more on that later))

We talked a lot about the wet technique in #harmless_tips part 2 paper, how to work with it on various papers and in topic 3 about moistening the sheet. Therefore, I will not dwell on it, the most important thing here is that due to it we can get objects with blurry contours, as if in "out of focus"

Further, not everything is very unambiguous, since something is tricks, but something technique, but whatever you call it, these points still apply to dry work and should not be confused. Therefore, I divided in a similar way (for a simpler perception) the technique in a dry way can be

  • in one layer - "a la prima"
  • multilayer
  • glazing

In general, technology a la prima any work can be called (wet, jellied and dry) but in one layer, or in the minimum number of layers. This technique is the most airy, but not everyone can achieve realism in it. When we work in one layer in a dry way, we must immediately guess the tone and dial the required amount of paint, if this does not work and we need to add a couple more strokes on top, then this is no longer a la prima, but a classic multi-layered watercolor

multilayer is the one that is taught in special universities. Due to it, you can achieve maximum realism, since an unlimited number of strokes of paint are superimposed on the object, starting with subtones, reflexes and ending with bright and dark areas in tone. With this technique, you can get the greatest realism in portraits when a bluish-violet undertone is applied and there are already beige-red shadows on it and you get the feeling of "peeping through" the layer, as if blue veins under the skin. But, as a digression, since I touched on the topic of the face, then in general it does not have a beige pink color, and different zones have different undertones from green to purple (if you are interested, I will talk about this in a separate issue.)

Let's get back to layered watercolor. For a beginner or self-taught, oddly enough, it may turn out to be the most difficult! Although often considered to be the opposite, they say that such put smears and put. But no, here you need to be well versed in tone and color, and if used incorrectly, most often you can learn dirt and pellets on paper.

An important note here is that I don’t mean that the technique is crudely light, and even more so a la prima, in any technique it will not be possible to achieve accuracy, lightness and skill in a couple of months, but I often see how beginners try multilayer watercolor , tortured, get dirt and disappointed.

That's why, my advice is here

  • try reduce the number of layers , let it be unsaid what tortured.
  • try think over Your layer
  • master gradient fills, which make life easier just by creating color transitions in one layer.

Then you will definitely understand with paint, paper, basics and your work will be lungs, and multi-layered watercolors, portraits in this technique, etc. will turn out not dirty, but thoughtful. I am based on personal experience, since I myself do not have a classical academic education. In any case, I understand that there may be disagreements, but this method helped me personally.

In summary: layered watercolor is not a very simple technique, it also needs to be approached meaningfully, then there will be no dirt.

  • Now let's talk about glazing. They are used mainly in botanical illustration.

I am not an expert in it, but I know that to give hyperrealism there can be up to 50-70 layers. But you can use glazing in any other technique, in the event that if you didn’t get the tone right away, but the layer itself turned out beautiful and you don’t want to overlap it.

Glazing is a translucent layer of one or more shades, thanks to which you can gain tone, but not close the previous layer. In fact, this is one of the techniques of multi-layer technology, just the layer should be transparent and "fade away". The trick is to not see the edges of this layer, so it is always blurred. clean water. Below I show an example of glazing, through which the previous layer appears, preserving all tone relationships.

  • There is one more technique (well, in general there are many more, but not all of them are used), which I want to highlight here - this is flush.

It is rarely used, but I even found an old job with it. Here the point is to draw objects keeping them in tone, and then wash them off with a damp brush or under running water. upper layer paint, then the entire drawn part is lightened, the color is muted, but the tonal ratios are preserved. Can be used for distant objects, used to be used for objects in aerial perspective, now most watercolorists use a raw technique for this, which does not injure the paper like a wash.

The background behind the girl is made with a wash

And so we come to interesting moment. Well, actually, there are a lot of tricks, well, so what to do with them? When to apply which?

I will now, of course, generalize. Of course, there are exceptions, but even 80-90% of my work is done this way.

  • to start you choose the main object the one you are talking about. Any picture should tell about something, otherwise there is no point in drawing. It could be one or a group of objects the main ones for you.Choose.Remember. As a rule, these are either the darkest or the lightest objects in tone;)
  • now you have to choose objects next in importance, which are important, but not very important)) 1...10 objects, but don't choose everything, there should still be something left;) Chosen. Remembered. These objects are usually medium in tone.
  • well, what left, usually somewhere far away, sky, distant background, etc.: non-essential objects. Found them and remembered.

When did you do this work? it can be either in the head or as a tone sketch) then everything will fall into place for you. Look, let's go from the end:

  • what the least important You are drawing raw or big fill, these objects go into aerial perspective (when distant objects, out of focus, have blurry edges)
  • what medium importance you can draw or raw but with a richer tone and add details, or multi-color and complex fill and also add details.
  • And, finally what is most important you will have the clearest outline, because this subject is in focus, you tell the viewer about it. So it fits right here. dry work(a la prima, multi-layered or glazed - it's up to you)

The girl above illustrates this moment well and simply (the long-range plan is with a wash or wet, the middle plan is with a multi-color fill, the girl is clearly multi-layered watercolor)

It is important to remember that it is not necessary, it will be a long / medium and near shot. If the main object for you is in the middle (in the work below, this is the house in the middle), then it makes sense to defocus the distant plan, and fill the near one with a fill.

It is necessary to start from the idea.

Thus, by combining techniques with the mind, focusing the viewer's eye on the main thing, you get meaningful work, and even if technically, you still have room to grow (everyone has;) that is the most important - this is the story, feelings, thoughts that you convey to the viewer.

creative success!

The next issue will be on Thursday technical reasons, but it might be mini bonus issue I will share photos of my work on Instagram

watercolor painting is a technology for creating artwork with water-based paints. familiar to most of us since childhood, when we used dry paints in cuvettes. However, such paints do not give the rich effect that the work of experienced watercolorists demonstrates.

Watercolor paint consists of a binder, a filler and the pigment itself. Glue of vegetable origin is most often used as a binder: gum arabic, dextrin, tragacanth, fruit glue, molasses or glycerin. When applied to paper, the water evaporates and the binder fixes the pigment and carrier. Watercolor paint is produced in semi-dry cuvettes and in tubes. To work with watercolors, artists use round brushes for the main work and flat brushes for other manipulations, such as corrections or flushing. The watercolorist needs a palette - plastic, white. Palettes that have recesses can be used as cuvettes: the paint from the tubes is squeezed into the recesses and allowed to dry. Some artists use the paint in a "raw" form, in their opinion the colors in the picture will be more fresh. The choice of paper is important. The watercolor sheet should have a well-defined texture and not spread (swell) after wetting with water.

Watercolorists use a variety of techniques for applying paint to paper. The most common is the method, which is called "raw". Initially, the paper is moistened with water and then a paint layer is applied. Thus, the applied paint begins to spread over the sheet, blooming in unexpected patterns, merging with other paints and forming new shades. The "raw" method is quite complicated and requires skill, but it gives an amazing result. In watercolor painting, the glazing method is also used, when the artist applies layers of paint one after another onto a dry sheet. Glazing allows you to achieve a special accuracy of details. If there is a desire to add some accents to his wet-on-wet watercolor work, the artist can apply further layers of paint after the sheet has dried.




If you want to learn the technique of watercolor painting, so to speak "for yourself", you should choose paints for classes High Quality. Most often, cheap watercolor paints do not provide sufficient color saturation and the desired texture, which can be disappointing for a novice artist. Don't buy a lot of watercolor colors, it's better to have a set of primary colors, as almost any shade can be created by mixing two or more other colors. For example, a black tint is obtained from a mixture of red and green, and watercolorists do not use white at all (after all, White paper shines through the paint layer, and the artist simply bypasses the color of those areas on the sheet that should remain white - this technique is called "reservation").

Speaking of watercolor painting, we most often remember the most delicate flower still lifes, permeated with light and glare. But look how versatile the use of watercolor painting in various genres! Beautiful miniatures and sketches, portraits, landscapes, unexpected avant-garde images.

Valeria Ann Chua

Valeria Ann Chua

Valeria Ann Chua

Malgorzata Szczecinska

Malgorzata Szczecinska

Malgorzata Szczecinska

Elena Shved

Elena Shved

Elena Shved

Roland Palmaerts

Roland Palmaerts

Roland Palmaerts

Roland Palmaerts

Are you interested in high quality creative stickers and stickers? In this case, you should know that a sticker for a smartphone, skateboard, car, refrigerator and any other purpose, in the largest assortment, is waiting for you on the Parazita Kusok website. Check out the store's website for an incredible selection.


Top