The Weird, Wonderful Wandering Ways of Watercolor.

Clean water

soft brushes

heavy paper

Cool vs Warm

Pthalo vs Ultramarine

Primaries,  secondaries, tertiaries, complements

and a huge variety of grays.

A brush charged with  water can lift a clean line or destroy a wash

A spray of rubbing alcohol doesn’t make a dent on a dry wash, but drip it onto wet paint and you have fantastic, blobby bullseyes.

A sprinkling of salt makes “stars” on a damp night sky.

Crumpled plastic wrap makes blocks and angles

Your smooth, even wash depends on keeping a wet ‘bead’ moving along under your brush.

Glazing color over color makes every possible combo, yet all you really need to make a whole spectrum are

Red          Yellow       Blue

Then layer red over blue, over yellow to create simple “shadow paintings”

Or use a “negative” painting technique that layers from light to dark to create a deep, mysterious painting.

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  make a simple design and float watercolors onto wet paper.

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  Paint around the positive shapes , adding more and more and darkening your washes each time.

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  keep adding more layers by drawing details into the negative spaces.

Or use a resist medium to create a design, then pour the paint on top .

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  draw with waterproof resist medium on clean paper.

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  pour a mix of red, yellow and blue watercolor over the resist drawing.

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  rub off the resist medium with a fingertip.

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  this simple owl is just a resist medium drawing with a single pour of watercolors.

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How I Paint with Gouache in my Brown Paper Sketchbook

A friend asked me to do a step-by-step on my sketchbook painting technique.

The point was made that one rarely sees the underlying drawing or the build up of paint in an artist’s work–just the finished product. I have posted step-by-steps of my niece’s murals and cottage cards, so here goes another.

I drew the pony with a 3H pencil. It is hard and light and good for the underlying sketch.

Using gouache as if it were watercolor, mainly burnt sienna and cobalt blue, I added the 1st set of darks.

I use a smallish palette of colors, mainly primaries. I love gouache because it works well both transparently and opaquely.

Using cobalt blue and yellow ochre I filled in a background.

The pony’s spots seemed kind of flat, so I washed some orange over them and added darkest darks using  a small liner brush with indigo and burnt sienna.

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