There is a lot of planning and preparing in watercolor painting. A good rule of thumb is to always mix more paint than you think you’ll need on your palette. If you run out of a color, it can be really difficult to mix the exact same shade again, so you want to be prepared.
Painting for Beginners: Choosing the Right Medium
✓ Showcase your talent and win big in Artists Network prestigious art competitions! Discover competitions in a variety of media and enter for your chance to win cash prizes, publication in leading art magazines, global exposure, and rewards for your hard work. Plus, gain valuable feedback from renowned jurors. Let your passion shine through – enter an art competition today!
Medium Madness: How to Pick the Right One
New to painting, or wanting to test the waters with a new medium? Well, you’re in luck! Below is a sneak peek excerpt pulled from Create Perfect Paintings: An Artist’s Guide to Visual Thinking by Nancy Reyner. This roundup includes lists of pros and cons for the most comment painting mediums. In addition to those listed below, paintings can be made with many other mediums such as gouache, oil pastel, ink, pencil, markers, spray paint and silkscreen among others. Experimenting with new mediums, even for a short period of time, can be fun and inspiring, and expand how you use your current medium once you return to it. Enjoy!
Pros: Oil paint is slow drying, allowing for more time to make changes and to blend colors. Oil refracts the color pigment in the paint for a beautiful, rich glowing color. Great for realism, blending and detail, oil can also be used for experimental and playful methods of abstraction. Cons: Working transparently (such as glazing) requires the use of oil mediums that often contain toxic solvents. Oil paint alone is not toxic, but some mediums used to extend oil paint are toxic. Reduce toxicity by using non-toxic mediums in the paint and baby oil to clean brushes. Oil paint never fully cures even when dry to the touch, so correct care must be taken for handling and storage. The painting must not be shipped or varnished too soon. Layering requires correct chemistry so a more flexible layer is always applied over a less flexible one. Oil has the potential to crack, especially if used thickly. Most oils turn yellow over time, dramatically reducing luminosity in white and light value colors.
Painting with Acrylic
Pros: Acrylic paints, media and products are almost all nontoxic. Acrylic is known for its fast drying qualities but is also available in slow-drying forms. A wide variety of acrylic products are available to customize paint and to personalize preferences in surface absorbency, texture and sheen. Fast-drying acrylic paints are great for layering while slow-drying acrylics imitate the look and feel of oil. Paints are available in varying consistencies (viscosity), so acrylics can imitate both watercolor and oil in look and feel. Acrylics can be as thin as ink or thick and heavy bodied for textural effects. This medium offers the widest range of possibilities and is now considered more archival than all other mediums. When used correctly it will not crack or yellow, and fully cures in about two weeks. It can be used in conjunction with many other mediums such as creating a fast-drying underpainting for use under oil paint. Cons: Acrylic binders usually contain ammonia. And although considered nontoxic, this can cause sensitivity with some people, especially when used without proper ventilation.
Pros: Watercolor naturally creates transparency. This medium’s water-soluble nature allows for some changes even after it has dried. Cons: Because watercolor is usually applied to paper, the paint will sink into and stain the surface, making the paint difficult to remove fully once dry. When finished, watercolor paintings need protection, such as being framed behind glass, due to paper being not as archival as panel or canvas as well as the nonpermanent nature of the watercolor paint.
1. PROPER ART MATERIALS
Having the right tools in your toolkit makes a world of difference. Using quality materials is essential to give you results you’ll be happy with. Poor quality materials often just plain don’t work and cause frustration, wasted time, and wasted money. It may also deter you from wanting to continue painting as the results just won’t be the same as if you use quality materials. Lets break it down by paper, paints, and brushes:
Paper:
Not all paper is created equally! If you’re going to watercolor, it is essential that you use actual watercolor paper. Below is a comparison of a watercolor wash on regular copy paper, and another on watercolor paper with the same paint mix. The copy paper isn’t made in the same way as watercolor paper and results in a buckled, wavy wash. The copy paper also pills, meaning the fibers start to tear and ball up on the sheet. The watercolor paper is heavier weight and is made with additives called “sizing” that allows it to absorb moisture in the proper way. It remains flat, has an even color tone, and doesn’t pill or tear.
In general, we recommend a watercolor paper that has a weight of 140lb. (300gsm). Our 300 Series Watercolor paper is a great, economical place to start that will let you practice, experiment and create beautiful work.
Paint:
Watercolor paint comes in both tubes and pans. Either works depending on your preferences, but making sure to use quality brands makes a difference. Low quality paint can become crackly and chalky versus having smooth, even color.Brushes:
You don’t need to start with a huge assortment of brushes, but a few key types will help as you try to achieve different results. A small, medium and large round brush, a flat brush, and a mop brush is a great way to start. Each brush is created for an intended purpose. Check out Princeton Artist Brush’s page to get a good idea of the types of brushes available and what each does.
2. WORK FROM LIGHT TO DARK
With watercolor it’s important to lay down your light colors first and work towards the darker colors. Have patience – there’s no rush. We start with the light colors first because once you lay down the dark colors, it’s hard to undo. Due to the transparency of watercolor, your light colors won’t show if they’re covered up by dark colors. Also, the white and light areas of your painting are coming from the paper, so plan ahead and keep in mind which areas you want to keep white. Masking fluid is a great way to reserve areas of white on your painting.
Artwork by Steve Mitchell. Follow along to the tutorial here.
3. WATER TO PAINT RATIO
The water to paint ratio will change depending on what you’re trying to achieve.
Too much water can result in colors that are too light. It can also make paint spread more than you’d like and cause colors to mix and become muddy.
Too little water can result in thick colors that don’t flow or lay down properly, or cause visibly streaky brush strokes.
Take note of what you’re trying to achieve. Large washes require more water, and detail spots require less water. Notice how Eleanor Mill uses more water for the light yellow and pink backgrounds, and less water for the details in her ranunculus flower painting below.
A general rule of thumb is to always keep A LOT of water on hand and a palette for mixing paints. Use the palette to mix your colors and add the appropriate amount of water. Check the color saturation on a scratch piece of paper to see if more color or more water needs to be added before painting on your piece. Always make sure to wash your brush well between colors so you don’t get muddy mixes.
