6 ms·
On practical how to: 1. Keep two water reservoirs for cleaning your brushes. One for warm colors and one for cool. (This prevents muddiness in your palette).
by bradford 4y ago
On practical how to:
1. Keep two water reservoirs for cleaning your brushes. One for warm colors and one for cool. (This prevents muddiness in your palette).
2. Knowing when to let the layers on your paper dry before further progress is vital.
3. Carry pigment from the bricks to your palette, don't mix pigments in the bricks.
On technique:
1. Experiment adding water to a pigment on your palette (More water == thinner with less Saturation and vice-versa).
2. Experiment with how wet pigments interact with other wet pigments on the paper. (More water == better flow).
3. Experiment with the paper tilt direction (water flows under the force of gravity and this can be used to create a desired affect).
4. Know how to layer (i.e., 1st layer low saturation, broad areas with high water/flow, final layer is fine detail lines with low flow/higher saturation).
5. You must understand the color wheel and how pigments may mix.
I have beef with this guidance:
> let your palette and paint bricks get dirty
Keep your bricks clean: Let your palette get dirty (if you so choose).
- kawera 4y agoDon't ruin your acid-free paper by using tap water, use bottled water for everything, including cleaning your brushes (valid for every water-based technic like acrylic, tempera, guache...).
- tux1968 4y agoIsn't most bottled water essentially the same as tap water? What is the problem with tap water that needs to be avoided?
- 323 4y agoBottled water typically doesn't have chlorine, through I'm not sure what that does to water-coloring.
- waynesonfire 4y agoor floride -- oh crap, actually, i'm wrong. lots of bottled water has floride. https://fluoridealert.org/content/bottled-water/ https://fluoridealert.org/content/bottled-water/
- stewbrew 4y agoThis really depends on where you live. Consider yourself lucky if it is the same.
- CharlesW 4y agoBy "bottled water" do you happen to mean "distilled water"?
- waynesonfire 4y agopellegrino
- kawera 4y agoNo, just mineral water.
- gilleain 4y agoThis all seems like sound(er) advice. On color : I recently realised (or read somewhere) about the simplest color wheel- if you divide a circle into 6 segments and paint the primaries : {R, Y, B} in non-neighbouring segments, then the ones in between are the secondaries: {R+Y=O, R+B=P, Y+B=G}. Then if you combine primaries and the 'opposite' secondary, you get brown/grey like colors. Also, I get quite good combinations (palettes) by using a mixture of the same colors, like a red and a green and then a mix of the two to make a grey. I've thinking about using https://github.com/scrtwpns/pigment-mixing https://github.com/scrtwpns/pigment-mixing to go from a desired RGB output to the {RGB1, RGB2, percentage) inputs somehow. Would have to be quite rough estimate though, as mixing real paints in exact proportions seems hard.
- Tao3300 4y ago> primaries and the 'opposite' secondary The fancy color theory word for this relationship is "complementary". > a red and a green and then a mix of the two to make a grey. If you need a black (though you seldom do) it's a good trick to mix one from the colors you're already using.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoIs it Red/Yellow/Blue? I believe we were lied to in elementary school — Magenta/Yellow/Cyan are the real pigment primaries. I always wondered why when we mixed blue and yellow it made for a really muddy green.
- naters 4y agoRGB are the primary colors used in additive color mixing, CMYK are used as the primary colors for subtractive color mixing which is used in offset printing and similar processes.
- elcapitan 4y agoIn reality, artists often use different base colors anyway. One way to do it is to have 2 versions of the base colors, one warm, one cold. The reason is that for example a greenish blue like Cyan would make it harder to mix vivid violets (by adding a red on the other direction of the color wheel). So you use a greenish blue (Cyan) and a redish blue (e.g. Aquamarine), a blueish red (e.g. Magenta) and a yellow-ish red, and so on.
- egypturnash 4y agoMy experience in physical media makes me want to add 1a: Keep your water reservoirs well away from your drinking water. This prevents drinking paint. :)
- mike_ivanov 4y agoCats will drink it - regardless
- panzagl 4y agoIf by drink you mean 'knock over then lap at the mess', then yes.
- geokon 4y agoDo you have any advice on how to deal with paper warping? The paper getting sobby and uneven often quickly brings a painting session to an end :) And yet in tutorial videos I often see people paint a whole background section in one go (even as much as half the page) without any issues. Do they glue the sheet down to a board?
- coder-3 4y agoGet thicker paper
- LegitShady 4y ago1) look up videos of "watercolor paper stretching" on youtube, and clamp the paper down if you can (I'll tape all way around a sheet to make a nice border anyways). 2) alternately use watercolor paper blocks (which have adhesive on all sides of the sheet, which minimizes curling) 3) get heavier paper (thicker), use less water, and don't let water pool anywhere.
- gilleain 4y agoI use flat magnets in pairs - like neodymium ones, but disc shaped. Like these (although I don't know the exact brand of mine): https://www.eclipsemagnetics.com/products/magnetic-tools-and-standard-magnets/neodymium-disc-magnets/ https://www.eclipsemagnetics.com/products/magnetic-tools-and...
- geokon 4y agoOh very clever! Less of a mess than tape. Thanks for the idea :)
- Tao3300 4y ago> Keep two water reservoirs for cleaning your brushes. One for warm colors and one for cool. (This prevents muddiness in your palette). I used to do a cup of designated dirty water and a cup of clean water but I can't think on that level when I'm painting. I'm close enough to a sink that I just change it out as needed. Any cup near me when I'm painting is going to get all manner of brushes dunked in it. Yes, I've dunked a paint-loaded brush in my coffee before. > Knowing when to let the layers on your paper dry before further progress is vital. Only slightly less vital: knowing when not to let the layers on your paper dry before progressing. But yeah, that one first.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoSomewhat like your #4: Paint light areas first, dark areas last? I'm not a watercolor painter but have heard this before — since watercolors are transparent, not opaque like gouache/oil/acrylic.