Painting 101 :

Wet into Wet

Novel techniques in watercolour painting :

by Tissa Hewavitharane

There are many techniques in watercolour paintings. One should learn to use them at the appropriate time. It is widely believed that when watercolour is put on paper it cannot be altered. Therefore, many would-be watercolour painters do not try it. The truth is quite different. Whole areas or the whole painting can be washed off and repainted.

In painting a picture you will often encounter problems - the top half of the painting may be fine but something awful comes over people when they put in the foreground. They are unsure of themselves and it shows. It very often turns out to be an over-worked mess. First, let the whole painting get dried completely. This is very important. Next soak the paper in water and turn the tap gently until the whole thing is immersed and the water flows over it.

Distant hills

Surprisingly, nothing happens to the colour until it is touched and then if flows away. You may use the brush gently to take away the damaged areas. It often, happens that distant hills or trees are painted in dark colours bringing them forward. A gentle touch with the naked brush could fade away until they are about right. Of course, if the whole painting has been overworked and is muddy, you can remove it, just leaving a faint image of the original. Lift the paper out of the water and put it on a drawing board to dry. When it is dry you can paint over it. Some colours have a stain on the paper that no amount of washing can remove. Many watercolour papers respond differently, to the treatment.

I never use white because it is opaque. I always try to keep watercolours transparent. In watercolour, you may have to decide where your whites are to be before you start your picture. Either paint round them or mask them out. I always keep the white paper open without introducing colour. You usually start by painting the light tones first and work through the middle tones to the darker.

Line and wash

With skies the chief fault is nearly always timidity. Don't play about with skies pushing the paint around too much. Sometimes, painting a blue sky all over and then jabbing out their clouds with different colours will always spoil your picture. My own feeling is the less you touch and torture the surface the fresher and more professional the painting looks.

It is a perfectly legitimate technique to draw your picture first with a pen and water proof ink. The first technique a beginner needs to know to get started in watercolour is the wash technique. The principle of watercolour painting is simple. All one needs to do is wet the brush with colour and spread it over the paper.

Before painting with all colours, it is always better to start with one single colour to practise the basic of the wash. Then you will understand the possibilities that the technique can offer much more complex procedures. Once the colour is on the palette a little paint is placed in a compartment and water is added with the brush to lighten it. The more water you add, the more transparent the tone will become. A tone is made more transparent by adding water to it. By repeating this procedure, adding more water each time you can obtain a gradation of the tone. Moistening the paper before you apply colour is the best way to execute gradations, but it is difficult to handle the colour using this technique.

Drawing and wash

The colours achieved in the painting shown here, a lady with saro, is the extensive use of wet-into-wet technique on hair and observe the dress, draped around her body. Study the colours used, when and how they're applied with dark shades. The quality and depth of colour gained are shown in this way.

Despite the fact that the wash is executed with water colour it is really a drawing technique. No matter whether you are experienced or not, you will see how closely wash is linked to drawing. The brush is used to apply lines the same way one forms lines with a pen. A wash allows the artist to paint different tones of the same colour according to the amount of water that is added to the paint on the palette.

Use these effects with discretion

Do practice those techniques although it probably won't come off at first. In any case, it's always a good thing to have a spare piece of paper by your side so that you can try the effect to see if you have got just the right amount of moisture in the brush before you put on your painting.All the techniques when combined in one painting provide a whole armoury of textural contrasts. The combination overcomes the inherent limitation of each, and they all complement one another. The drawing is the foundation of watercolour painting. It is used as a guide as to where to apply the various tones or colours. Therefore, it is essential that the artist draws the lines correctly before starting to paint.

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