Aspects of wash technique

by Tissa Hewavitarane

The first technique a beginner needs to know to get started in watercolour is wash technique.

The principal of watercolour painting is simple. All one needs to do is to wet the brush with colour and water and spread it over the paper.

Before painting with all colours, I recommend that you practise the basics of the wash technique with a single colour.

Once you understand the possibilities that the technique can offer, it will be much easier to try out complex procedures.

A small amount of paint can be placed on the palette. Watercolour paint from the tube is denser and more concentrated than solid colours which are wetted and softened by running the brush back and forth across the paper.

Application

When the colour is on the palette, water is added with the brush. The more water you add the more transparent the tone that appears.

When the colour is on the palette a little is placed in a compartment. Then a little water is added with brush to lighten the colour. Moisturing the paper before you apply colour is the best way to execute gradation. Paint is applied where the gradation begins.

Since the paper is wet, the colour will spread much more easily. The more you extend the paint, the more transparent the colour becomes. With a clean brush you wet the area where you want to paint the gradation. In this way, the colour seeps into the wet area, since wet paper allows the paint to spread on its own.

Pure wash paintings on dry paper are seldom done anymore, though British artists in the past used the technique almost exclusively.

Washes are large areas of colour applied evenly to the paper, producing flat colour shapes. Usually several loaded brushes are required to cover the area.

Use the largest brush possible and load it with the mixture applying it quickly in long even strokes. Clear skies and large flat shapes can be achieved only by using one of the wash techniques.

The easiest to apply are washes that can be laid on from top to bottom. Start on a slanted surface and mix enough colour to cover the surface.

Coloured washes can be applied over dry washes to attain luminously contrasting shapes or to darken the previous wash.

Touching up

Be careful not to scrub or even to go back over a wash to touch it up while it is drying because the smoothness will be irreparably damaged. 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.

A wash of any colour is made preferably an intense bright colour to colour to contrast with the paper's whiteness. The most difficult aspect of this test is to capture the same amount of paint on the brush for each strokes. You should try to make each brush stroke identical to the one before.

Overlay washes often result in fascinating colour changes. A knowledge of using colours is essential to making watercolour overlays work.

Muddy colours result from overwork (too many washes) from scrubbing using the brush too much or from using the more opaque colours.

Do not scrub or brush back in the process, just use one stroke washes. When dry, notice the quality of colour when one wash is put over another.

Washes should be prepared in containers that will hold plenty of water, not only thimbles full.

Painted washes are continuous areas of watercolour that take more than a single brush stroke to apply. Succeeding strokes of either colour or water should be made at the wet edges to spread the colour area.

Tones

Everything must be done rapidly to keep the tones of the wash even. Some papers help this process while others hinder it. Colour and value changes can be made while applying washes, but try not to scrab or overwork a good wash it will just be destroyed.

Applying a loaded brush to paper is a delightful experience and should be experienced for itself. Let the loaded brush explore the paper.

Watercolour on a wet background allows all manner of techniques. Colour blend together could extend with practice. The paper is highly important when working in watercolour whether the painting is on a wet or on a dry background.

Watercolour paint is transparent and the paper's texture remains visible. The colours required by the watercolourists depend on what they want to paint.

Artists who enjoy monochrome wash paintings will not need a wide range of colours. But they should at least have a minimum range of paints on the palette which allows them to create necessary tones. Observe the painting I have done titled "A Buddhist temple in the village". You can see the result of the application of warm cool colours on another.

Transparent

A very transparent wash of sienna is applied on the wall of the temple on the left. The trunk of the trees on the right are painted with sienna mixed with little umber.

Observe how the colour yellow light stays on the ground and a yellow strip infront of the Bhikkhu. White does not exist in watercolour, it is represented by the colour of the paper shown on the wall of the hut.

To give more life to the painting I have introduced a Bhikkhu reading a newspaper. Often human figures are used in watercolours to show a scale or relative size. But, whether used alone or in combination with other media, figure paintings offer an exciting challenge. The colours I have used are cadmium yellow, light orange, carmine red, cobalt blue, hooker's green and burnt sienna.

The brushes used are flat brush or round. Round brushes allow fine strokes and flat brushes allow thick or fine lines depending on how the brush is applied to the paper.