Getting the most out of your palette

by Tissa Hewavitarane

Since the time man first made his mark on the walls of his cave, the art of creating paintings has been in transition. Over the past centuries many giants have experimented each adding a distinctive touch to the application of paint to a surface.

In watercolour painting my aim is to help you identify some problems in your own work and to provide logical solutions to them. For ease of reference it is divided into three sections colour, composition and problem subjects. Colour mixing in watercolour can be both fascinating and frustrating. Sometimes magical things happen, other times a colour will turn to mud for no apparent reason.

A watercolour painting.

This deals with the practical problems involved in controlling such an unpredictable medium as watercolour and shows how to avoid the pit falls of both muddy colour and weak, wash out colour.

Magical effect

You will discover how to improve the vibrancy of your colours by mixing them wet-in-wet or applying or mixing them transparent glazes, and show how to control relationship to create better painting.

In watercolour there is no more thrilling sight than that of large soupy washes of colour being brushed onto a sheet of sparkling white paper and allowed to defuse softly together. The effect is magical and I consider wet-in-wet washes are the very foundation of water painting.

Yet, so many beginners miss out on all this fun because they are afraid that they won't be able to control wet washes. Instead they sit tightlipped and hunched over the page, making dry little marks with dry paints on dry paper.

Then they wonder why their watercolours do not look like watercolours. Learning to control water washes can be name-rocking at times, but it is always exciting and exhilarating.

Composition

Composing a picture in watercolour painting presents its own particular problems. One has to plan things carefully in advance because you can't paint over mistakes as years on oil paint. The scene related to this article titled 'misty morning'. You will observer it is a village scene supported by a composition of other characters, as a tea boutique, bullock cart, people on either side and with trees which gives a balance and unity to the painting. The main idea is to capture the mist in the early morning which carries the main theme of the painting. The way side boutique and the cart give a good composition using lightest and darkest tones which a viewer's eye is always attracted by a strong contrast and forms a focal point of the picture.

Centre of interest

Also note the sweeping curve of the road that leads us to the centre of interest, instead of veering of the picture.

In this painting the use of strong contrast of light and dark tones are applied on top of the other to build up depth of tone and colour to make the painting more exciting and dynamic. Light is one of the most important part of a painting.

The main focus is on light and how it affects the painting in colour, its effects on the atmosphere and the pictorial space.

Without this one element in the painting, there is nothing. One who expresses himself in the medium of water-colour has to know before he begins and before the brush stroke touches the paper.

Difficult medium

The watercolourist cannot guess, and while, he may make minor corrections that is all. He works by elimination, by paring a subject down to its essentials. Watercolour, therefore is the ideal medium for capturing the effects of light and is a medium that is fresh, alike and responsive to the moment and the shifting moods of nature. Watercolour painting is said to be a difficult medium in art, because is said to be a cover up your mistakes as you can on oil painting. Watercolour painting like other arts needs practice. The more one practises, the better artist one becomes. My advice to any beginner is that you should never give up or get depressed if you paint a bad picture. If you want to become a successful painter, never ever give up.

First class water colour painters make mistakes, but they try and try again, and only then do they succeed. By relentless hardwork and constant practice one will become a master of this medium. One of the greatest attractions of a good watercolour painting is its lasting freshness for many years after it has carefully preserved by good framing.