Watercoloring is the art of using a brush and water to paint on a particular paper. As for drawing you need to use a pencil or a special pen on paper. You need to pick up your brush to control it and practice using brush exercises and continue painting.
With confidence and focus, you can learn how to watercolor and become an expert. Below are things you need to consider if you are interested in painting. It can take you three to six months to be able to paint comfortably and get good results. It will also depend on your ability to learn quickly or slowly.
Table of Contents
Set Your Goal For Learning Watercolor
Choose to learn and be focused on following the instructions. Inspiration is a keyword for every artist as most of what they do is out of deep passion. Make it your objective to learn and practice consistently, which means creating time and being committed.
Get The Right Paper
Ensure you buy quality paper meant for water-soluble mediums. It will make your work significantly more straightforward. It can become frustrating to use the wrong piece. Don’t attempt to use cardboard or regular paper for painting. Once you start painting, you will get experience with writing and see which suits you best. You have the preference for thinner, thicker, hot press, or cold press paper.
Heavy-handed artists are rough with paintbrushes and paper and would prefer thicker paper and vice versa. The best brands for watercolor painting are Strathmore and Canson, with friendly prices.
Arrange Colors And Paper
You need to arrange your colors before painting. It may sound like a bother when you are set and ready to paint. However, you can ruin many drawings out of anxiety and ignore planning while creating watercolor artwork.
Always keep in mind that compelling artwork is accompanied by unity, coherence, and harmony. To attain this, the artist must give thoughts on how you will compose different elements to relate with another and complement each other. It applies to the colors you use.
Remember, there is much value in starting with a limited color palette. You can plan and limit the colors you are painting with and decide how you can be creating shadows and the darkest mixture-for instance, mixing complementary colors, earth tone, analogous, and others. Keeping colors in order and planning ensures a professional outcome.
Make Light Pencil Sketches
Learn to keep your pencil sketches as light as possible as watercolor layers are pretty transparent and thin. Hard pencil marks can be visible through the paint on your final product. It is recommended that your pencil be lightly used while creating the initial sketch and partially erase afterward.
Any extra graphite may have accidentally smudged on the paper while drawing to be erased using a clean, soft eraser. Your end product will be good-looking.
It is beneficial and advisable to create your initial sketch using a water-soluble gray colored pencil. The lines will disappear slowly and entirely as you paint.
This method is workable and recommended if your observation and drawing skills are good. Also, study more on pencils, watercolor paper, erasers, and other essential tools.
Protection on the Whites: It is hard to protect the white parts as a beginner. However, as you continue learning and become an expert, you still need to be conscious of the whites. When creating the initial sketch, ensure to indicate where the darkest and lightest areas will appear. After completing your drawing, ensure that you try your best to protect the white parts till you finish.
Tips to Protect Your White Areas
Work large if you are creating a painting with a lot of details. Water gives watercolors a mind of their own, and you should learn to work with it.
b. Using masking fluid can add extra steps to your work and ensure that your white areas are fully protected throughout the painting. You don’t have to be anxious about spoiling your paint.
Start With Light And Transparent Paint
It wise to begin with a transparent paint mixture that is watery and good. Continue painting up towards the darker values adding layer upon a layer as required. It will allow layers to dry as you continue to paint.
This tactic allows you as a beginner to have more control as you learn to master the medium. Place the darkest values with large amounts of pigments. Be cautious when placing the darkest or highly saturated mixture of paints. Otherwise, you risk having imperfect quality paintings.
Allowing Layers To Dry
You are now half the battle. Be conscious about being patient with your painting and allow each layer to dry before applying the next layer. Otherwise, you may end up messing your layers. The only exception is painting specific areas where you need to have wet on wet results.
Minimize The Number of Colors
When attempting to create a painting, it’s vital to learn and understand how different colors are mixed. Ensure preparing and mixing them, then test them before starting to use them on your watercolor paper. You can choose to mix analogous colors when painting middle values. However, be careful when creating dark hues as they need different colors to be mixed.
You can choose to keep a rough watercolor paper by your side to test your colors first before applying it to your main artwork.
Clean Brushes
Ensure that your brushes are kept clean between different colors. Do gentle blotting with your brush on a rag after rinsing to see if it is well cleaned. It will help you avoid having mud on your paintings that is hard to remove. Make sure you swivel the brushes gently in the water while cleaning them.
Clean Water
Use different water cups to ensure you have clean water throughout. Also, ensure to change your water when it gets murky to avoid having dirty work.
Quality over quantity
Research on quality watercolor sets that will give you the best effects even though a bit pricy. Choose a smaller group of colors with better quality and paint that blends well while mixing and has an intense color payoff.
Recommended brands are Sakura Koi Watercolors and Winsor & Newton, available on Amazon. In summation, anyone can become an artist by following the above tips. Being patient and having a commitment to practice till you become perfect is the key.
Also, keep researching and learning online as new tactics are realized every day.
