Vignette 2: Lifting and Blending Techniques
Last updated 13 Sep 2020.
There is a fine line between lifting and blending. Technically speaking, whenever pigment is first placed on the paper and subsequently removed, it is known as lifting. Lifting can be done on wet or dry pigment.
For example, clouds are often made by lifting wet pigment. A background wash is made using some combination of sky colors – e.g., phthalo blue or phthalo turquoise (staining), or non-staining pigments such as cerulean, cobalt, or ultramarine blues, etc. Raw sienna and burnt siennas often add yellow and reddish hues respectively for sunrises and sunsets. Whatever the case, Immediately after laying down the wash, a paper towel is crumpled and to lightly blot the paper to lift the pigment. This leaves the white of the paper to give the illusion of clouds. When blotting in this way it is important to use a paper towel (called kitchen paper in the U.K.) that has no pattern – for example, Viva™ brand. Granulating pigments such as the siennas and cerulean and ultramarine blues lift more easily, but even staining colors lift well if blotted immediately after being laid down.
Often, some or all of the hard edges are then softened. This may be done wet, by laying clear water in contact with a hard edge that is not dry – a blending technique. If the pigment is already dry, it is rewet and disturbed with a damp or wet brush and blotted immediately. If the pigment is removed with a paper towel, cotton swab, or dry brush then the technique becomes a lifting technique.
Basic Wet Lifting Technique
Sometimes more extreme lifting is required, for example to paint the white of ocean waves. This is much more easily done before the paint has dried or the pigment has settled into the paper fibers. For example, to paint an ocean wave, lay down your basic color – let’s say Prussian Blue, wait a bit (say 15 seconds), and pull out the pigment where you want the white using a dry brush or cotton swab. Since the remaining pigment is still quite wet, it will want to flow back into the lightened area which is still damp – remember wet always flows into less wet. So, you will need to baby sit, periodically lifting intruding pigment. This process will continue until enough water will has evaporated from the surrounding pigment such that it is no longer very mobile. At that time, the diffusion process will have slowed to a crawl. You can then freeze the process with a hair dryer (start on the low setting), or allow the paint to dry on its own. If you wait longer before lifting, you will get less encroachment on your white space, but you will lift less pigment.
Paradoxically, you can also add clear water to the lifted section to keep the pigment from flowing into lighter section. The water will act to push the encroaching pigment away – this is essentially the wet blending technique revisited. However, if this is your plan, you should add water fairly soon after lifting the pigment; otherwise, as the surrounding paint begins to dry and concentrate the pigment(s), the clear water is likely to bloom into the dryer layer. Blooms are a great effect if wanted and a tragedy otherwise.
Rewet and Lift Technique
Occasionally, one wishes to remove an area of pigment as a final act to create the illusion of sheen or reflected light. I say “final” because this technique will remove the maximum amount of pigment, as well as most of the gelatin sizing, and some underlying paper. Without a gelatin barrier, any additional pigment will soak deeply and more darkly into the paper. So the idea is to pull the pigment off and not fuss with it afterward – ever! For example, this technique can be used just once to pull off unwanted spatters on a white border. I rarely use this technique because it is hard on the paper (and yes, you can thin the paper or create holes if you are not careful).
Negative Painting With or Without Edge Softening
Hey, here’s an idea! If you really want to preserve white space, don’t paint it in the first place. (This requires that you plan ahead – a recurring theme in watercolor). Then add clear water for blending (essentially, wet blending) or let the surrounding pigment dry completely (e.g., overnight) and come back with a damp brush and soften the edges. Painting around an area to preserve whitespace is known as negative painting. If the whitespace boundary is too harsh, it may be softened with a damp brush.
Blending Watercolor Pigments for Graduated Effects
The power of watercolor is in the water. Due to osmotic and hydrostatic forces, more dilute washes will flow into more concentrated ones – always! Beyond this, some pigment vehicles include additives that make pigment more or less mobile and this depends on the manufacturer, the pigment, and the additive. This can make watercolor painting maddening as you begin your journey, but once understood this very thing will transform your painting from appearing flat and listless into an illusion of three-dimensionality. This page gives some basic blending techniques that I have learned the hard way and have found helpful.
The most important thing to remember about graduating shadows (and watercolor painting in general) is TIMING. For whatever bizarre reason, this important fact is omitted from most beginning watercolor texts, but it is critical. From the moment you mix your paint, it is changing. Water is evaporating and the pigment is becoming more concentrated. For paint in a well, this is a slow process; for paint on the pallet, it is quicker; and for paint on the page, it is quite fast. The evaporation rate is a function of surface area exposed (more surface = faster evaporation), temperature of the room (higher temperature = faster evaporation), and room humidity (higher humidity = slower evaporation). It also depends on the thinness of the wash. Thinner (more dilute) washes evaporate faster than thicker, more concentrated ones.
Finally, the surface-area-to-volume ratio of the wash is important. If you load your brush with a large volume of wash it will take longer to evaporate than if you paint with a dryer brush. Over time you will develop an instinctual feel for how wet your brush is, how much fluid it will transfer to the page, and how long you will need to wait before applying subsequent technique. If you wait only a minute or two while the paint still appears shiny then any additional pigment you place on the surface will be dispersed to color the wash. As a rule, staining pigments disperse widely and granulating pigments disperse more locally. If you wait longer, the sheen is no longer noticeable and you will get a blurring of any lines you paint within the wet pigment. The longer you wait, the less blurring/dispersion occurs. If you wait until the pigment is dry and paint with concentrated pigment you will have quite distinct lines. For thin lines I use a particular brush known as a rigger (a.k.a. liner) but more typically (and especially for very thin lines) I use a dip pen.
Wet-Float-Blot Technique for Graduated Shadows or Softened Edges
If the wash is already dry, the pigment needs to be floated before any gradation may be attempted. Floated pigment is pigment that once was settled but has been brought back into suspension. Pigment is heavier than water and doesn't actually float, so perhaps suspended is a better term; notwithstanding, the term of art one sees in watercolor texts is floated. This is done by wetting the area one wants to lighten or blend and disturbing the pigment with a brush. Once the pigment is floated, it may be lifted (by blotting with a dry brush, paper towel, or cotton swab) or blended. If you are electing to lift pigment, use the brush to loosen the settled pigment, and then blot with a paper towel. Between each blot, the brush must be rinsed in clear water or the brush will just lay down the pigment it already picked up and usually not in a flattering way.
I typically do not use a scrubber (hard nylon bristle brush) for this technique unless absolutely necessary. I rather prefer synthetic watercolor brushes such as Dynasty's Black Gold™ brand. They are much easier on the paper, removing less of the gelatin sizing than scrubbers, but they still manage to disturb enough pigment for my purposes. You may also use a cotton swab in lieu of a paper towel. Regardless, the only area that will lift is the area that has been rewet and floated. Some pigments are more staining than others. Pigments that tend to granulate are less staining because they have larger particles that do not settle as deeply into the overlapping mat of fibers in the paper. All pigments lift more readily the sooner they are blotted because the pigment has had less time to work its way into the mat.
