Projects, Skill Level 0
General Project Notes
Last updated 19 July 2018
The projects that start with the easiest and grow increasingly more difficult. In general, they are organized in the following eight sections.
1. Skill Level (e.g., 0 to 4)
2. Source Photo
3. Photo of Watercolor
4. Pigments ( e.g., coded as VDBr, PeM, etc.)
5. Elements
6. Paper or Other Supplies
7. Techniques
8. Differences Between Source Photo and Finished Watercolor
I discuss each section in turn.
Skill Level (0 to 4)
0 = debutant (no experience)
1 = novice/beginner (up to 100 hours; i.e, 3 - 6 mos. painting 4 - 8 hrs/wk)
2 = intermediate (100 to 200 hours painting; i.e., 6 - 12 mos. painting 4 - 8
hrs/wk).
3 = intermediate (1 - 2 yrs/ more than 200 hours painting/ greater
than 6 - 12 mos. painting 4 - 8 hrs/wk)
4 = advanced (> 2yrs/ more than 200 hours painting/ greater than 6 - 12 mos. painting 4 - 8 hrs/wk).
Nothing in these projects presumes more than a year or two of painting skill. But every project requires practice. To quote Bob Ross, "Talent is interest pursued." One develops talent by doing something, not merely by thinking about it. It's like a gym membership. You don't lose weight unless you go. Also, like a gym membership, the process isn't self reinforcing until three months after you start. In the beginning, it's frustrating with seemingly unrewarded effort. But after awhile, you begin to notice changes.
Source Photo
I generally (but not always) post a source photo that you may download as a source and aid in helping you paint your watercolor. In essence I am granting you a royalty-free license to use the photo for that exclusive purpose. Because I own the copyright for the images on this website, you can't sell or publish these photos or even the same image as a watercolor without permission; and this is true in general for most of what you see on the web. You can of course, paint from them for practice, and that is the point. But as you will see, there is nothing spectacular about these photos. In fact, that is the beauty of watercolor vs a photo. With a photo it is very difficult to add or subtract elements unless one digitally manipulates the image with special tools. However, with watercolor, the artist has complete control to add or subtract elements or change hue. I have no doubt that you will be taking your own and better source photos in short order.
Photo of Watercolor
I post a photo of the finished watercolor, so you can get an idea of what you should expect to produce.
Pigments
I list all pigments used. Abbreviations are always explained as presented, but if you want to see most all of them in a single collection, please refer to Table 1 in About Pigments.
Elements
Elements are particular items in a picture. They can be as small as a grain of sand or as large as the sky. For example, a beach scene has at least three main elements: sky, water, and sand. Often, each element is a mixture of pigments. The Elements section will describe the pigment recipe for each. When I list pigments, I list them from greater to lesser concentration. For example, PeM + PhB has more Perylene Maroon than Phthalo Blue, while PhB + PeM has more PhB than PeM. How much more or less? That is for you to decide, and it is a skill you will perfect over time. This is not difficult. If you are trying to mix a gray, you just add PeM and PhB until the color looks about right to you. If it's too blue for your liking, add more PeM and vice versa. If you want a pink-gray, you add more PeM; a blue-gray calls for more PhB.
Paper (or other supplies)
Under this heading, I will tell you on what paper I painted the scene. Usually this is Arches cold- or hot-pressed paper, 300 gsm or so. You don't need to use the exact same paper as I do to achieve similar results. And as a general default, 300 gsm cold pressed paper will suffice for any project in this series. However, you MUST use watercolor paper, NOT butcher paper, computer paper, notebook paper, wrapping paper, brown paper, toilet paper, etc. See Vignette 3, About Watercolor Paper for more information.
For some projects, I list the particular supplies I used. You don't necessarily need to use what I use. If you have good paper, synthetic brushes will be fine. And if you have a choice between two tubes of student grade paints or one tube of professional grade paint, buy the professional grade stuff. My chapter About Pigments will tell you why if you are curious.
Techniques
In the Technique section I describe the particular methods I used to achieve a particular result. I don't supply intermediate photos because I don't find them very helpful pedagogically. You have the source photo and the finished watercolor. Those are the starting and ending points. That's all you need. Ultimately, the finished watercolor will be in your mind before your begin. Every creative work requires an artist to see the end from the beginning. The stuff in between is called practice, and like learning any new skill: you'll need to do things over and over to begin to get them right. Don't get frustrated when colors run, lift unintentionally, etc. It still happens to me from time to time as well. But with practice, you'll get better at fixing things and making fewer mistakes.
Differences Between Source Photo and Finished Watercolor
Most artists are hypercritical of their own work and far less critical when viewing the finished works of others. Also, when artists publish a watercolor book or collection, they don't usually include their failures. (Would you?) So the feedback you are getting — that everyone's work is great except yours — is false. So I thought I would point out the differences between the source photo and the finished watercolor for my stuff, including any mistakes or changes that I made along the way. If I didn't point these things out to you or share the source photos for my work, would you ever know about them? In fact, all of the "finished" works in this section have potential for improvement. You will rarely see another artist's source photo or have an intimate knowledge of his mistakes or know how many watercolors were tossed in the rubbish bin before he displayed the successful composition. Go easy on yourself. Paint more. Worry less. Everything will work itself out over time.
Other Considerations
Last updated 23 December 2018
Plan, Prepare, Execute
Watercolor is all about planning and preparation. You have to plan ahead, then prepare, and finally, execute your plan. Of course, all painting requires a vision in the artist's mind, at least in a rough sense. But watercolors are especially sensitive to this because timing is so important.
TIMING!
Watercolor painting is a dynamic process – the water is continually evaporating from the painting surface and different water loading affects the behavior of the paint. Water concentration is a continuum, but there are four main stages of wetness in watercolor; in seriatim they are wet, damp, and dry. How quickly the paper passes from one stage to another depends on your room temperature and humidity and on the paper itself. Hot press dries the fastest, followed by cold press, followed by rough (unpressed). However, these stages are indicated by appearance and feel, which I show how to gauge below.
Wet stage. This is where water has just been applied to irrigate an area in preparation for the application of pigment. The wet stage is characterized by high gloss on the page as the surface water reflects incident light. Any paint introduced in the wet stage spreads immediately and makes for many beautiful effects and happy accidents. However, if the effect is unexpected your disaster will be colossal.
Damp stage. Several minutes after irrigation, the paper approaches the damp stage. The damp stage is characterized by a matte appearance; the reflection is now tempered by the appearance of surface features of the paper that have been uncovered due to evaporating water. Paint applied in the damp stage will result in blurred edges. The amount of blurring depends on the amount of water on the brush when the paint is applied and the dampness of the paper: more water = more spreading. Note that it can take some minutes for the full effect of pigment spread to be felt. Gary Spetz chooses to allow the process to unfold and "freeze" it at the right time by using hot air from a hand-held hair dryer to evaporate the remaining water more quickly.
Dry Stage. By dry, I mean "bone-dry," a term evocative of sun-bleached bones long-dead and resting in a desert land. It's an over-the-top description, but now you will remember what dry means! An hour or so after the initial application of water to the page, the moisture level of the paper has nearly equilibrated to the level of moisture and temperature in the room. Dry-stage paper is characterized by a paper that has lost all sheen and more importantly, is room temperature. The reason this latter characteristic is important is not because temperature affects any important feature of paint application, but because the only way to differentiate the near-dry from the dry stage is to be sure that all the liquid water is gone from the subsurface of the paper. The surface will appear dry long before all the subsurface water is gone. But, if water is evaporating, it will be carrying away heat and lowering the surface temperature. How do you measure it? Almost the same way you test baby formula; by placing your wrist very close to the paper surface you can feel if the paper is cooler than the environment. (If you really want to get scientific, Seek is a brand of infrared camera for your smart phone. It may be purchased for under $200. Though fun for its own sake, this is otherwise unnecessary.) Obviously, virgin paper is in the dry stage. Any paint added wet-on-dry tends to limit its travel to within and around the track of the brush. Dry-brush effects (a.k.a. dry-on-dry applications) are possible only on dry-stage paper. To create a dry-on-dry effect, wet the brush, pull off enough water such that the brush bristles may be separated by hand, then pick up some pigment directly from the pan (or tube paint that has been allowed to dry in the well) and brush it onto the page. Keeping the brush at a low angle to the paper will cause the brush to skip over the tooth of the paper and exaggerate textural effects whereas higher brush angles will mute this effect. Dry-on-dry is useful for creating bark, rock, wood, and other textured surfaces. An advantage of the dry-on-dry technique is that it does not load the paper with a lot of water and can be used on unstretched paper even in large sizes. Cold press paper may be used dry-on-dry to create wonderful textural effects. It is more difficult to do this on hot-pressed paper (but not impossible, though it requires a light touch). Rough press paper will create larger texture effects, and is especially useful for large works or intense colors using high pigment loadings. For example, Vernon Washington paints wonderfully vivid watercolors of wild animals on rough press paper.
Project 0-1: A Beach Scene
Last updated: 8 June 2018
Skill Level:0
Your first watercolor.
Probably the easiest watercolors to paint are beach scenes. They are also good practice for blending and lifting and the use of the wet-into-wet technique. The one below won't win any watercolor contests – it's composition is too simple and uninteresting. It could use a few birds or a figure on the beach. But it is good beginner practice.
Pigments
Sea: Prussian Blue (PB 27).
Sky: Phthalo Blue (PB 15) [or optionally Cerulean Blue (PB 35)].
Sand: Raw Sienna (PBr7).
Paper
Arches Hot Press Paper, 7" x 10", 300 gsm.
Supplies
A small sheet of watercolor paper, at least 300 gsm/140 lb. I prefer Arches 7"x10" block because it won't ripple much, but ripples are not too devastating for seascapes, so almost any watercolor paper can work. Some prefer to tape a dry single sheet to a board. This will not really keep the paper from rippling, but it will keep the edge from curling. If you really want to minimize ripples, you will need to stretch your paper, which is the term of art for taping wet paper to a board and letting it dry. This puts the paper in tension and is the most effective way to minimize ripples. For more about that procedure or paper in general, see my blog post Vignette 3: About Watercolor Paper.
A 1" or 2" hake brush to wet your paper. Almost anything works, even a 1" house-painter's brush, but I prefer a wash brush made for watercolor. Hake brushes are usually less than $10 even for large sizes.
A 6" bowl for water about 2/3 full. White ceramic or white porcelain enamel works well, but whatever you use, dedicate it to watercolor and never use it for food.
Someplace to mix your paint. This can be a pallet, a prep bowl, a flat white dish, etc. Again, dedicate this to watercolor service. Do not use it for food.
Paper towels. Try to get a brand that doesn't have fancy patterns embossed in it. I like Viva brand for this purpose.
Elements
>Sea
Tip: if you paint the sea first and let it dry then you can paint the sky and the sand without worrying about colors running into one another.
Wet the sea area with your flat brush.
The sea is applied wet-into-wet; i.e., pre-wet the area with water, wait, then drop in the paint in a serpentine motion from left to right without lifting the brush from the paper. Start at the horizon with wide strokes narrowly spaced and make the spacing larger as you approach the foreground.
For the white caps use a damp brush to lift out pigment. You can also use a cotton swab or even dab with a corner of a paper towel. You may use these techniques in the body of the water as well to lighten areas and roughen the sea to create a different mood.
If you lighten the water in a narrow corridor from foreground to horizon (not shown) you can simulate sun glare. There are all kinds of interesting effects to be learned and practiced and a seascape is the most forgiving place to experiment.
>Sky
Wet the sky area with a flat brush. A natural skyline is always lighter at the horizon because more light scattering occurs there, so keep this in mind when you lay in the color. I paint on a flat table. Many watercolorists use an incline. If you prefer that, turn your paper upside down so that you start at the horizon and work your way "down" to the top of your paper. That way, gravity will pull the water and color away from the horizon line. Also, the paper needs to be wet only on the top surface, not drenched, so you don't have to use a lot of water.
If you have trouble seeing the water you are putting on the page, an articulated light is helpful. Then you can adjust the light or move your head to see the glare on the wet page. Alternatively, you can add the tiniest bit of pigment (Phthalo Blue in this case) to your water. By "the tiniest bit" I mean just enough color to be able to distinguish the wash from the paper and no more.
Then lay in the Phthalo Blue you have already mixed. Add it in streaks and and touches. (This is the so-called wet-into-wet technique.) The color will be the blue sky and the interleaving and interspersed wet paper will be the white clouds. If you feel the color is too intense or you have too much blue for your liking and not enough clouds, you can blot color up with LIGHT touches of a crumpled paper towel while things are still wet. Timing matters. You will get different effects depending on when you blot. Some artists prefer to just wash the entire sky in blue use this blot-and-lift technique exclusively place the clouds.
Let the color diffuse by itself on the page.
Don't touch it. Don't fuss with it. Let it dry.
>Sand
The sand is just raw sienna, wet into wet. As the paper begins to dry, you can add more touches of it here and there or just place it unevenly to begin with. When you think you are done, you are done. Don't go back and try to "fix" things. What you see now will not be what you see once the paper is dry and things will tend to self heal. This is a learning exercise after all. Give it time. In watercolor as in life, patience is a virtue. You will have another try another time... maybe even 5 minutes from now if you repeat the exercise.
When things don't go right
If you are new to watercolor, you are likely to fail, mostly because your definition of failure has been corrupted. You are not going to the moon. Lives are not in danger. You are not disarming a nuclear bomb or deciding whether to cut the red or blue wire. You are just learning to paint. One cannot learn without error. If a mistake leads to learning (and it will) it is not a failure in the ultimate sense, unless you quit forever. So go easy on yourself.
If you are unhappy with anything, try it again in on the backside of the drawing or on another sheet of watercolor paper. Then try it again. And again. That is what learning looks like. People with "talent" became talented by tolerating failure. One should emulate that. Keep your eyes on the prize and celebrate your victories along the way.
Project 0-2: Escaping Flatland
Last updated 19 July 2018.
Skill Level:0
Your first watercolor.
Without some technique to create the illusion of a third dimension, watercolors will look flat and "unrealistic." Of course, watercolors ARE flat. When we say a watercolor looks "unrealistic," we mean that it looks like what it is – a flat piece of paper – instead of what it is supposed to fool us into believing – that it is a three-dimensional scene. So in a weird way, flat is actually what is real and three-dimensional is unreal. To create the illusion of a three-dimensional surface, the pigment must be graduated from light to dark and this is fairly easy in watercolor.
You will soon see a picture series. I rarely post intermediate photos, but this is an exception. Notwithstanding, please remember: your goal is to get to the last picture in the series. Except for the first picture in the series, the others are just there to show you how things progress. They are not there for you to imitate; that is a fool's errand.
Okay, so here we go.
In the picture below, I made a rough pencil sketch of a cylinder and then added burnt umber (BtU) to each edge to simulate how a cylinder will graduate light from dark at the edges to light at the center (1.). Of course, this transition is too abrupt to be convincing. So add some clear water to the middle of the cylinder and allow it to touch the pigment so that it begins to diffuse (2). That brings us to (3), or if you let the edge pigment dry a bit more than I did, you might find that when you add water, you will get slower diffusion and something that looks more like (4). If not, you can lift out some pigment with a damp brush (4). If you wait too long, you might find that you need to use rub your wet brush over the pigment to unsettle it so that it will diffuse sufficiently. I added my clear water a bit too early so I had to lift out some pigment with a brush. After using a hair dryer to dry the cylinder, I added a spot of BtU for a shadow (5). (Obviously, if you add wet shadow to a wet cylinder, it is going to go everywhere instead of staying where you want it, so don't do that.)
The shadow has a hard edge. I could have allowed it to dry and then used a damp brush around the edge to lift some pigment, blotting immediately after lifting to keep the pigment from migrating further. Instead, I just used a paper towel to directly pull pigment from the edge (6). The way the shadow is placed presumes that the light is coming from above left, so the right side of the cylinder should be a bit darker, so I added a bit more BtU to the right side of the cylinder (7) and then added clear water just to the left, to allow the pigment to diffuse. After everything was dry, I used a scrubber brush to gently fuzz the edge of the shadow, blotting with a paper towel immediately after lifting the pigment to keep it from migrating. I also lightened the top of the cylinder in the same way since the light is coming from above. That got me to (9).
If this were actually part of a finished painting instead of a demonstration exercise, I would have had a much more accurate starting sketch (the most important thing); I would have added another application of BtU to the right edge to darken it even more; I would have added some Van Dyke Brown to the BtU to create a darker mix for the darkest shadow and shade; I would have allowed some of the shadow to form a bit of shade at the bottom of the cylinder; and, I would have allowed for some reflected light from the surface to the cylinder bottom by lightening the forward-facing part of it with a wet brush. That really wouldn't have taken much longer – about double the few minutes I spent on this exercise. But the point is that we started with a flat sketch and got to something that looks three dimensional in just a few minutes. This is a good demonstration exercise to try over and over. Do this exercise ten times, tops, and your watercolors will never again be trapped in flatland.
