Process strategies every watercolour painter needs to know!!

Have fun!!

With a new term of watercolour classes starting soon, here are a few simple tips to help you start your watercolour journey!!

​Always ...

1. Have plenty of drawing paper handy for practicing.
2. Take notes in class, always carry a notebook or sketchbook.
3. Squeeze out new tube paint at least weekly so that you don’t have to scrub at dry paint (aka bird-poo) and damage your brushes.
4. A white porcelain dinner plate is the best palette ever, use cling film to cover when you have finished.
5. OR use a palette with a lid to avoid dust and stray animal hairs in your pigment (my Bertie loves sitting in blue!!).
6. Prepare your brushes with a quick swill in water so they’re ready to load with paint.
7. Use a kitchen sponge or old tea towel to moderate the water content in your brush.
8. Keep a hand towel close-by to control stray drips of water from your hands.
9. Paint standing up for as long as possible.
10. Sit for more control when adding calligraphy and detailed strokes.
11. For tubes proving difficult to open, run the cap under hot water and then use pliers gently.
12. Practice drawing; if your shapes aren’t quite right your picture won’t look right.
13. Keep spare sheets of watercolour paper handy to practice washes, colour dropping, shapes and investigate new pigment before you venture onto your painting.
14. Make colour charts with your pigments – colour wheels, value scales, practice mixing greys and greens, opaque, staining and transparent pigments and brands.
15. Wash out and dry your brushes gently, lay them flat to dry.

 
 ciao bei pittori!!

KM says …
Mixing pigments! Trying to learn off You tube as best I can. Also paying for a few zoom sessions. No one mentions pigment numbers. I hear a name, but different brands use different pigments and different names and granulation varies for same pigment but different brand! I've mixed a lot of Mud from not paying attention to the number of pigments. I have a mostly transparent palette. I know, I know. Learn by doing and learn from experience. Love your positivity! Have a great time in Italy. Cheers KM
 
The problem with pigment numbers is that every manufacturer has their own recipe for a colour starting with a particular pigment, numbered and annotated on the colour label. And that’s pretty much where it ends!

Each manufacturer’s recipe will include other processes (eg kiln firing) and other additives and binders that, in varying quantities change the appearance of the colour name, making each a unique blend resulting in a unique colour.

For example Transparent Orange is the same pigment as Light Red but light red undergoes kiln firing which alters it’s characteristics to create a different colour, level of opacity, granulation etc etc. somewhat similar to Winsor Blue red and green shades.

Sometimes a pigment number can help you find a hue in another brand – one of my favourite painters uses a different brand to me, I love her colours – what’s more, I managed to find them using the pigments numbers cited by the manufacturer. This was a lucky find as I discovered I had the correct colours already in my favourite brand – they’re close enough given different computer monitor settings etc.

There is much discussion about only using “single” pigment colours. This is really a misdirection … I regularly use 6, 7 and 8 colours to achieve the value and temperature my painting needs. I also regularly use a brand known for combining 3-4 pigments – I’ve never had a problem mixing their colours.

This leads us to colours labelled as “hue”. In other words, a combination of pigments to achieve the colour of a particular pigment, eg Cobalt blue hue. The characteristics may differ ever so slightly from the genuine pigment, I assume this is to keep prices down for very expensive pigments eg cobalts, or reduce reliance on increasingly rare pigments eg quinacridone gold.
​
Focus on irrelevant elements just take us away from painting and feeds our fear with details that may or may not impact our painting - we just need get on with it!!

non ferma cari amici!!