Watercolor painting

PAINT

Watercolor paint is made by mixing powdered pigments along with a water soluble binding medium. In the beginning you will do fine by using a cheaper brand of paint, but you will definitely enjoy a much better painting experience if you use artist quality paints. Artist quality paints use more high quality pigment and are noticeably richer and more vibrant. After you become more comfortable working with watercolors, you should then consider upgrading to artist quality paint. Paint is available in both pan and tube form. The main difference between the tube and pan paints is that the tubes have more glycerine and they tend to be more water soluble.

BRUSHES

There are generally two types of brushes that are available to artists: your soft hair brushes like natural sable and squirrel hair and your hard hair bristle brushes. Soft hair brushes are the most popular choice amongst artists and highly recommended. Bristle brushes are sometimes used with techniques that require you to scrub the paint into your paper or other support. Among the soft brushes used by artists, sable is the most popular. These soft hair brushes are resilient and effective at holding a lot of paint. Because of the high quality of these brushes, they also come with a high price tag. This of course leads artists to seek a cheaper alternative. This cheaper alternative comes in the form of synthetic soft hair brushes. As the name implies, these brushes are not made with animal hairs. They are made from man made materials and consequently, are not of the same quality as the sables. They are still a pretty good alternative and many artists use them.

BRUSH SHAPES

Now that you are a little more familiar with the types of hair brushes are made with, lets us cover the shapes brushes are available in.

Round Brushes

As the name implies, the hair of these brushes are round and can be shaped into an excellent point. Depending on the size of the round brushes, they can be used for detailed work or for applying washes.

Wash Brushes (or Mop Brushes)

This is a brush that forms a mop like shape and is used primarily for applying washes.

Flat Wash Brush

The flat wash brushes are square and flat in shape and closely resemble the brushes you use for house painting. These brushes are made for applying washes over large areas and can also be used for modifying existing washes.

Large Flat Wash Brushes

The large flat wash brush looks very similar to the regular flat wash brush only its a little larger, usually about 2 inches wide. This brush is also excellent for laying down washes over large areas.

PAPER

Watercolor paper comes in a variety of different sizes, weights and textures in order to accommodate the various preferences artist have. Whatever paper you decide to use, it needs to be very strong and have a certain degree of absorbency to prevent breaking and tearing.

Absorbency

Watercolor paper is made to have certain degree of absorbency depending on the amount of sizing used in the manufacturing process. The more sizing used, the less absorbent your paper will be. If you are not happy with the level of absorbency in your paper, you can always purchase your own sizing and apply it yourself.

Acidity

You should look for papers that are acid free with a neutral PH. This will lessen the darkening of your paper as it ages.

Weight and Surface

Watercolor paper is available in three different surfaces: Hot pressed, cold pressed and rough. Hot pressed paper has a smooth surface, cold pressed paper has a semi-rough surface and rough paper has, you guessed it, a rough surface. The weight of the paper refers to the weight of a ream (480 sheets) of paper.

Below is a wonderful step by step watercolor painting demo by the very talented artist Alistair Butt. Please take a moment to visit Alistair’s site when you are finished reading through this demonstration. There a handful of other demonstrations on his website, tips on painting supplies, limited edition prints for sale and more.

	Alistair Butt’s paintings are principally of coastal and landscape scenes, with a distinctive feature of his work being the skilful way that he includes interesting detail yet without compromising the sense of mood and the special qualities of light. His style is true to the great traditions of British landscape painting, and indeed all his inspiration comes from subjects within the UK. “From Cornwall and Kent to Cumbria and the Yorkshire Dales, each area provides an endless source of material for my paintings, and each has its own identity and feeling,” he says.
Stage One
A drawing of the subject was produced on pre-stretched Bockingford 250lb watercolour/watercolor paper. Before any painting is started all the white areas of the painting are masked, in this case all the swans (I used colourless masking fluid from Winsor & Newton). Next the whole paper area is given a wash with plain water and while this is soaking into the paper I’ll pre-mix the first wash colours/colors on the palette. The first wash is to establish the sky and remove the remaining white areas of paper. A light grey/blue for the sky which was extended down to the river as this colour/color would become the highlight areas on the river and the beginnings of the shadows placed in the foreground.
Stage Two
Two methods can be used for the this stage. The first is to mask all the foreground leaves and paint the background first or second (as I have done here) is to paint the leaves first and then mask before painting the background. The leaves are created from three washes, each of changing colours/colors working from light to dark.
Stage Three
All the leaves painted in stage two had masking fluid painted over them plus highlight areas on the water were also masked. Having pre-mixed the colours/colors needed, the background was painted using two wet into wet washes, the first wash was allowed to dry before applying the second, softening any edges that were too sharp using clear water. I also painted the reflections while the correct colours/colors were on the brush. Some loosely applied detail was added to the middle distant trees.
Stage Four
With the masking fluid still on the leaves I painted the foreground tree trunk with four washes. Starting with the highlight colours/colors then starting the modeling with a mid to dark colour/color wash followed by adding the details, like the branches, splits in the bark etc before the final shadow wash. The masking fluid from the leaves was then removed and some softening of the edges is done. More detail for the reflections on the river is added before a darker version of the sky colour/color is washed over the whole river.
Stage Five
Moving to the foreground. The whole area is given a wash to establish the sunlight parts of the grass and tree on the right
Stage Six
Two darker washes followed in the tree and on the grass to start creating the shadows cast from trees to the right hand side. The washes were a mixture of wet into wet and wet on dry.
Stage Seven
Further detail was added to the tree on the right. The final grass shadow wash was added and as sharper edges were required the details like the twigs on the grass, gate and the plants by the river edge were painted last.
Stage Eight
The final part (having removed the masking fluid that covered the swans from the beginning) was to paint the swans. The swans were painted with four washes, the first being a warm wash to capture the sunlight on the swans with the following three for the modeling and shadow areas working from light to dark and allowing each wash to dry before progressing, whilst being careful not to paint a shadow wash over a swan standing in sunlight. The details for the heads and legs being the last parts to be painted.

All Images and Text are © Copyright, Alistair Butt