Today's challenge was graded washes, using Opera magenta, prussian blue and permanent yellow, and allowing the colors to blend on the paper.
My friend Patricia Scarborough says it's good to "allow" things to happen and not force them, to let things happen at their own pace. She'd be good at watercolor painting.
The technique of watercolor is that you dissolve in water the pigments and dyes and binders of the paint, and then you allow the colors to disperse on the paper according to their own characteristics.
Some watercolor paints have particles that settle on the paper and emphasize the texture of the paper or the trail of the brush.
Some are made of floating powders that dry in a dusty layer wherever the water carries them.
Some watercolor paints stain the paper permanently, and some are vulnerable to smudging anytime at the touch of a moist fingertip.
Watercolor paintings keep on painting themselves long after the brushes are rinsed and the rags are hung to dry.
That's the key to understanding watercolor technique.
And the hardest thing about using watercolors is allowing them to respond, on their own, to the physics of the fluid surrounding them.
No meddling, no touching-up, just letting it happen.
My friend Patricia Scarborough says it's good to "allow" things to happen and not force them, to let things happen at their own pace. She'd be good at watercolor painting.
The technique of watercolor is that you dissolve in water the pigments and dyes and binders of the paint, and then you allow the colors to disperse on the paper according to their own characteristics.
Some watercolor paints have particles that settle on the paper and emphasize the texture of the paper or the trail of the brush.
Some are made of floating powders that dry in a dusty layer wherever the water carries them.
Some watercolor paints stain the paper permanently, and some are vulnerable to smudging anytime at the touch of a moist fingertip.
Watercolor paintings keep on painting themselves long after the brushes are rinsed and the rags are hung to dry.
That's the key to understanding watercolor technique.
And the hardest thing about using watercolors is allowing them to respond, on their own, to the physics of the fluid surrounding them.
No meddling, no touching-up, just letting it happen.
No forcing it.
Allowing it to happen.
