Thursday, May 24, 2018

Beginning Watercolor 5/24/18 Wet into wet into wet...


In Class yesterday you all began working on images that suggested an approach that involves making more than one layer while the paper is still wet from a preliminary wash. In some cases the whole paper would be wetted. In others, such as the Palouse scene, above, only the hill shape (not the road or the sky) would need to be wet.

After painting the sky in this scene and allowing it to dry,  the hill could be painted with 3 or 4 layers of green, each one darker than the last. The profile of the hill against the sky would have a hard edge. If you applied layer number one of the greens (the lightest) very wet you might have enough time to add some pigment to the brush, paint the mid-value shadows, add some more pigment and paint the trees and bushes and have them all come out with soft edges.  There would be no need to wash the brush between layers, since they are all green. Adding pigment but no more water ensures that the brush is dryer than the paper, thereby precluding any chance of blooms.

The following images feature areas where the wet into wet into wet approach could be used. You can just practice these areas, or complete the whole scene. Remember, whether you wet the page or just the area that will receive soft-edged marks, that wet area is your water supply. If you must wash your brush, be sure to dry it, too. Observe the viscosity of the paint on the palette before trying it out on the painting.


The background across the water could be made to separate better from the foreground trees by adjusting the value and/or the color, and making it all soft-edged.







The road starts out as an overall pale, warm local color, which then gets two more layers while the first one is still wet (shadows and tire tracks).

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