Painting in Watercolour
Watercolour painting is a process of mixing colours with a large amount of water, loading a brush with this mixture and laying down a wash of colour over the paper. Further pigments can be dropped into a wet wash , allowing the colours to mix on the paper. Colours can also be mixed on the palette and applied individually. So far so good but here is where most new watercolour painters come unstuck.
Watercolour is a medium which is essentially very simple both in its nature, and in its execution. Once a person has grasped the basics in watercolour it is simply a question of practice to bring about ever more satisfactory results. However there is no point in practising erroneous technique , because then you will go around and around in an ever widening pool of despair at your lack of ability to ‘control’ what is happening on your paper- and there is no point at all in not being willing to practise all aspects of a watercolour technique. With such a transparent medium (literally) there is no hiding if you will not apply yourself to all of its fundamentals.
First principle of watercolour: It’s WATER colour, that is – it is water mixed with a little colour, not the other way round. Colour mixed with water yields a much more intense mix and is a quality found in Gouache, Poster colours, Acrylics and Tempera.
If you think in terms of taking clear water and gradually adding more colour until the intensity of desired tint is achieved then you will arrive much more quickly at the theory and practice of watercolour. This doesn’t mean that watercolour is a medium in which you cannot paint deep and vibrant colours – just that however intense or dark your tones are in watercolour they should still be transparent. As soon as you try to make a colour ‘darker’ by greatly reducing the amount of water in the mix and therefore making the paint thicker to the point of opacity, you have stepped out of watercolour into gouache painting and your washes will have a ‘muddy’ look.. Always make sure that even fine detail has the quality of watercolour in the brushstrokes.