with
Painting Lessons
My studio, with a
wonderful desk made to my design by carpenter Frank Garrett! Notice the
upright brush holder and wide mouth water container (so brush does not
get damaged); 2 art lamps from opposite directions (no shadows); and
the shallow side palette drawer - very convenient.
Images and ideas I admire on a bulletin board, mostly Sargent
watercolors...
Painting in progress is Biking Lucca.
Child up to trouble is Edwin...
How do I stretch paper?
First, why would you want to stretch paper?
When you don't stretch the paper it buckles and leaves puddles of water and pigment all over - looks dreadful. So you stretch it, it's taut and smooth and the pigment stays where you paint it, doesn't travel off on its own. Use at least 140# paper, 90# paper will puddle & get damaged no matter what you do.
You need:
- paper (I use Arches 140# hot press).
- stapler
- water (tub, shower, sink, or sprayer)
- gatorboard (very thick foam core) (there are other choices - this is what I like)
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Soak the paper until it's sopping
& limp; be careful not to crease it while wet (or dry) as the
sizing will be damaged and show up on your finished work as a line with
too little or too much pigment.
Place it smoothly on the gatorboard and staple it around the edges
every 4 inches (approx).
L et it dry until it's dry (it will shrink taut and smooth).
If it buckles, take it apart & do the whole process again - your
paper is the foundation of your entire painting. If it's buckling, the
entire painting falls apart.
Before you start mixing colors in watercolor, you have to get the raw tube pigment ready to mix. But just how much water do you add?
Unfortunately, there is no secret formula. It just depends on your style & what you're painting. There are as many ways to mix paints as there are artists.
I use a
Robert Wood palette because it has deep wells. I keep paints in these
wells from painting to painting, keeping them about 1/3 full of water
& pigment, depending on how often I use a color & how strong it
is. (i.e.: Aureolin is a weak color, I use it frequently, so I keep
more in that well. Pthalo blue is intense, I keep less of it.)
When I begin painting, I replenish the individual pigments that are low
and spray water (about 2 squirts from a spritzer) into each well. If I
wait a minute, the pigment dissolves, loosely dissolving.
Since most paints are lumpy, as I need an individual paint, I dip in
the well with a wet brush and stroke it into a puddle on my palette,
making an intense pool of paint with no lumps in it. Move your brush
quickly in a small area and the lumps will quickly disappear.
Watercolor paint dries quickly and some paints (i.e.: viridian) are
known for getting flaky or lumpy even after mixed. So keep the real
mixing until right before you need it!
Tip:
If I'm painting dry brush strokes, I use pigment almost directly from
the tube with barely any water. This is the only way to get lots of
color in dry brush strokes. Otherwise, you get texture with faded
colors.
How do I keep the painting from getting muddy?
Mud is that awful grayish or multicolored sludge that forms on your paper instead of your painting. All transparency is lost. Artists do use mud as a tool. More often, it simply appears where least wanted.
Some potential causes:
- Water or palette dirty.
- Not waiting for one wash to dry before you slap on another.
- Mixing too many colors together on your palette - try letting colors bleed together on your paper instead of mixing on your palette.
- If you're a beginner - mix a maximum of three colors together to start, then let it dry completely before you add more paint.
