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Overview
Tony Couch emphasizes practice as the key to developing watercolor skills. Starting with equipment choices and methods for controlling paint on wet paper, he proceeds to discussions and illustrations of the elements and principles of design. Other topics include working with color and value, pulling together a composition, and acquiring techniques for handling watercolor. Easy-to-follow examples chart the progress from a rough sketch into a finished painting. Watercolor: You Can Do It! is an ideal companion for beginning to advanced artists, suitable for individual study as well as a text for art students and teachers.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780486834313 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 05/15/2019 |
| Series: | Dover Art Instruction |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 176 |
| Sales rank: | 231,230 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.20(w) x 10.70(h) x 0.50(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Equipment
What I Use and Why
In general, watercolor artists use the same equipment and supplies, with differences dictated by personal taste.
Here's a list of what I use — you may want to add to or subtract from it. While good equipment is a help, there is no magic in tools; award-winning paintings have been painted with the most simple of them.
PALETIE
You can paint with only a plain white plate or a butcher tray for a palette. Put a puddle of each color near the edges, and use the middle for mixing. There's an economic advantage, however, in using a palette with a cover: it will keep the pigment moist and soft so you can paint another day without first scraping off and throwing away the old paint. It's impossible to get the dark, rich values and bright chroma you need when working with dried, hard pigment.
Paint will normally stay moist in a closed palette for four days or so. Keeping a moist sponge in the palette will keep the paint moist a little longer, but mold may form on the paint.
Painting every day is the best solution. Few can, so the next best course is to keep a spray bottle (hardware store variety) of water near the palette. If you haven't been painting, open the palette every fourth day or so and spray the paint. It only takes seconds, and your paint will remain soft indefinitely; you'll never again have to waste it.
Keep the spray bottle with you when you paint. The pigment has a way of drying as you paint-particularly outdoors.
Beyond this, you'll need a palette with deep wells-about one-inch square or larger-so plenty of pigment can be kept in each. There is no way you can paint broadly and boldly, as you should, without a large brush, and a large brush is useless unless it has a large well from which to pick up paint! Keep the well at least half full. I use a Robert E. Wood palette.
BRUSHES
There are two principal shapes: flats — which have square, chisel-point ends, and rounds-which are round and end in a point. They come in all sizes, but I use only a two-inch, a one-inch, and a one-quarter-inch in the flats and a #8 round and a "rigger." The rigger is a small, round brush with longer hair. Since many art store clerks don't know the term "rigger," you'll have to be more specific. Grumba-cher makes one called "series 4702." A #3 or #4 is good.
The flats are used for angular shapes and particularly for sharp, crisp corners. The rounds make curved shapes easier to paint. I use a rigger for the thin lines (calligraphy).
In general, I paint with as large a brush as possible for the shape being painted to force myself to paint broadly and boldly. Still, there are smaller shapes that require smaller brushes. Buying a brush size to fit every possible size shape would delight the brush manufacturers, but it is neither practical nor necessary. I find the few I mention here enough.
I start with and probably paint 90 percent of most paintings with the large two-inch and one-inch flats. The smaller shapes and details are painted last with the smaller brushes.
Brushes are made of various types of hair, the optimum being red sable, which has become expensive. White nylon brushes are now available, however, and work every bit as well, but are priced lower.
The store clerk may not know them as "nylon," but rather by the trade names, such as Erminette, White Sable, etc. You might recognize their snow-white appearance.
PAINT
Tube paint is the best, as its tooth- paste consistency readily allows varying amounts of paint to be scooped onto the brush. Of several brands on the market, I know Winsor & Newton is good, as are Grumbacher and Liquitex. I'm not familiar enough with the rest to comment, which is not to say they should not be used. What you need is transparent watercolor. Gouache, tempera, and casein are also water- color, but they're opaque, and in this book, we're concerned with transparent painting. In general, the brand isn't important as long as the paint is permanent — that is, it should not fade on the painting in a few years.
The colors I use a re all permanent in the major brands. They are
lemon yellow or Hansa yellow
New gamboge or cadmium yellow
raw sienna or yellow ochre
burnt sienna
cadmium orange
cadmium red
alizarin crimson
Thalo purple
viridian or Thalo or Prussian green
Winsor or Thalo or Prussian blue
ultramarine blue
ivory black
How the pigment is arranged on the palette is unimportant as long as each ca n be located readily while you're painting.
Since you'll be thinking "cool or warm" and "light or dark" as you paint, it makes sense to arrange the palette that way. Put the cools on one end and the warms on the other, and within these groups, arrange them from light to dark.
PAPER
Watercolor paper is available in four weights (thicknesses) and three textures. The weights are 400, 300, 140, and 75 pound, or close variations thereof. The thickness of the paper increases with the weight. The textures are hot-pressed (smooth), cold-pressed (medium/rough), and rough. Texture does not influence the price, but weight does; the price increases with the weight. Watercolor paper comes in 22- by-30-inch sheets, loose or in a quire of 25. It is also available in a larger 25-by-40-inch "elephant" sheet, and in a roll of 43 inches by 10 yards.
You will find paper in "blocks" in sizes smaller than 22 by 30 inches . These are pads of the same paper, usually 140 pounds glued a t the edges on all four sides. They ca n be separated with a knife.
There a re several brands of paper on the market, and each produces slightly different painting results. Since this could be confusing to a novice painter, I recommend picking a brand and staying with it until you've reached a degree of proficiency. If you paint very long, you'll learn to use the best you can buy — for better results and because the difference in the price of papers is not great.
Since a given texture is the same in all weights, there is little advantage in using one weight over another, except for price. Some painters, however, prefer the thick 300- and 400-pound sheet because it won't wrinkle as they paint. But this minor handicap is easily overcome in the 140-pound sheet by "stretching" it as some painters prefer or by simply ignoring the slight wrinkling as many others do, including myself! Wrinkling is a problem with 75-pound paper, and although it can sometimes be stretched successfully, it too often tears away from the tape, staples, clamps, or whatever is used to fix the paper to the board. For this reason, I avoid 75-pound paper.
Stretching is a process of soaking a new sheet of 140-pound paper in water and then fixing it on all sides to a board. The board can be made of anything, and the "fixing" medium can be tape, staples, clamps, tacks, or whatever you can think of. If you use tape, it should be brown paper tape, such as a butcher might use, and not masking or "freezer" tape. The glue on the masking tape is too weak, and the paper will pull away from it as it dries.
The theory is this: when paper is soaked, it will expand. After allowing about five minutes for expansion, the paper is fixed to a surface. The paper will try to contract to its original size as it dries, but, being fixed, cannot and will instead dry stretched to the expanded size. The advantage is that the paper cannot expand when wet again (as when painting on it), avoiding wrinkling .
Although there is nothing wrong with "stretching," it is time-consuming and entirely unnecessary, because you can either clamp the paper as you paint and accomplish the same thing or ignore it altogether. If you ignore the slight wrinkling that may occur as you paint, you'll find it makes no difference, and the 140-pound sheet will revert to a perfectly flat condition as it dries.
In any case, a completed painting can be placed in your framer's dry mount iron (don't let him dry mount it!) for two minutes, and it'll be as flat as it was when it came out of the quire.
I use 140-pound cold-pressed 22- by- 30 full sheets or cut them in half for a 15-by-22 half sheet. I either wet both sides and clip the sheet to a board so it will stretch as I paint or clamp it to the board and ignore the stretch. It dries flat either way.
BOARD
You'll need a board to support the paper while painting. Any size board will do if you tape, pin, or staple the paper to it, but if you clamp it, the board must be only slightly larger than the paper you use. This is so that the clamp, which fits over the edge of the board, can reach the paper. I use a 16-by-23-inch board for the half sheets and a 23-by-31 for the full sheets. Of course, if you're painting on a block, no support is necessary.
It is best if your board is water-proof so that it doesn't suck the water out of a wet paper from behind, causing the paper to dry sooner.
You'll find, as you learn, that the water colorist's eternal problem is keeping the pa per wet enough long enough.
Plexiglas, Lucite, Formica, or any smooch plastic surface works well. One-quarter-inch plywood, scaled with waterproof spar varnish on both sides will d o. You must coat both sides, or the board will dry warped. A fair substitute is Masonite, which is slightly porous. This surface ca n also be improved by sea ling both sides with spar varnish. I use Formica, Masonite, and plywood.
EASEL
You don't have to have an easel — I painted for years without one — but easels are practical outdoors, even if expensive. You'll find them in art supply stores and advertised in art magazines. I use a French easel.
The simplest way to paint without a n easel is to lay your board on the ground, with a small rock under the far end to tilt it toward you . Then sit on the ground and spread your gear around you. Better yet. bring a folding card table with you outdoors and paint standing u p. You probably wouldn't wane to use the easel indoors, as it's more convenient to paint standing at a table.
MISCELLANEOUS
You'll find a n old towel or rag useful for spills and so on. You'll need a sponge and facial tissue to dry brushes and blot areas of the painting. Artificial sponges are available at hardware stores, but be sure you get one made of cellulose. Anything else artificial is not absorbent enough. A small, elephant-ear-shaped natural sponge is useful for lifting out light areas in a wet painting.
Two tin cans, such as coffee cans, are good for holding water. I use one for clean water and the other to wash brushes between color selections. Plastic canisters like those used for refrigerator food storage are also good.
Metal clamps from an office supply store are ideal for clamping the pa per to the board-you'll need a t least four. If you tape the paper, use brown "butcher" gummed paper tape.
Any tool that will scrape or otherwise make a mark on wet pigment on the paper is part of every watercolorist's personal gear; all painters have their favorites. I use a pocket knife, the end of the brush handle, or a razor blade. You'll find these and others useful as you learn .
An ordinary #2 "office" pencil is fine for sketching in your sketchbook and on the paper. Don't use #3 or "H" series art pencils as they a re too hard and can damage watercolor paper. A wide "carpenter's" pencil makes filling in large dark areas in you r sketchbook sketches faster and easier.
The best eraser is a soft one like t he new plastic eraser or the old art gum. The plastic erasers leave less debris.
You'll need a sketchbook for recording ideas, notes, and sketches. Mine is a n 8½-by-11 bound book of bond paper.
Although I've settled upon these materials after considerable time painting, this is not to say you must use exactly the same to succeed. In fact, the unfailing mark of fledgling pa inters is a preoccupation with equipment; they often buy too many brushes, too many hues of paint, and so on. I suspect this is because they secretly hope good paintings are merely a matter of proper (or enough) tools. Of course we know better; if this were true, anyone with an art supply catalogue and a steamer trunk would be hanging paintings in the Louvre. What does make the work beautiful is what you do with the tools. And that requires your heart, your mind, your determination, and your time-none of which a re available in anyone's art supply catalogue. This equipment resides within you right now and with time and practice will make any brush produce beautiful paintings upon any paper!
Read on. Let's find out what to do with these "supplies" you've been hiding within yourself all this time.
CHAPTER 2Controlling Paint
Make It Behave on Wet Paper
I have sometimes heard watercolor described as "the master's medium" (whatever that is). I have also heard others say "painting with watercolor is much more difficult than painting in oil."
What frightens these sages, no doubt, is the fact that, while oil paint will remain just where you daub it on canvas, watercolor takes off in all directions as if it had a mind of its own ... and who can control that?!
You can control that-as can anyone — with just this little bit of information.
There are only four ways to apply paint to paper:
1. Dry on dry
2. Wet on dry
3. Dry on wet
4. Wet on wet
Dry on dry is a procedure in which a dry brush is used to spread pigment on dry paper. Safe as it is, this method is a trap. We have none of the advantages of transparent watercolor; we may as well be painting in oil. As with oil painting, the paint goes onto the surface and dies there-it moves not a hair. (There will be times we'll find this useful. It is also called "rough brush" or "dry brush.")
Wet on dry is similar. The paper is dry, as before, but now we have paint in a wet brush. Like dry on dry, once the paint is on the paper it moves not a t all, but we can vary the value (lightness or darkness) of the mark by varying the ratio of water to pigment in the brush. It will produce a sharp, knife-edged shape. We'll use this procedure often.
Dry on wet is painting upon wet paper with a brush loaded with pigment and very little water. It produces the glorious diffusions of color and value that are characteristic of watercolor, yet it allows precise control of a shape. We'll use this most often.
Wet on wet is the same as dry on wet, except here the brush — as well as the paper — is very wet. It's used when soft diffusions are required, but when retaining a particular shape is not such as when painting a soft sky or a high-key (light) underpainting.
Most novice painters have no trouble at all controlling shapes when painting dry on dry or wet on dry; the paint goes right where they direct it and stays there. But few of the advantages of transparent watercolor are available with these two techniques. On the other hand, all of the control problems occur when painting on wet paper, back runs and lost shapes paramount among them. Yet dry on wet and wet on wet produces all the glorious, soft diffusions that make watercolor beautiful!
So our task is clear: we must learn to control the pigment on wet paper!
To this end, it is helpful to review the characteristics of the sponge:
1. A bone-dry sponge will pick up no water.
2. A saturated sponge can pick up no water (it's already full).
3. A damp sponge does pick up water.
Also, all the sponge has to do is touch the water, and the water will travel up into it!
That much you knew — now here's a bit of news : damp paper and damp brushes act exactly like sponges! Why shouldn't they? Pa per has the same texture as Sponge — as far as water is con- Cerned — and this is also true for a brush. Any time the brush touches the paper, water is going to move either from the brush to the paper or from the paper to the brush-it'll move into the drier of the two. However, pigment on the brush will be deposited onto the paper no matte! which way the water flows.
One other thing : the term "dry," when applied to a brush, is misleading. The brush is never bone-dry, since we always wet it before picking up paint from the palette. When we then take all the water out of it that we can, the brush is called "dry," but it is really damp. Not so with paper, however. "Dry" paper means the paper is bone-dry.
DRY ON WET
Armed with this knowledge, let's wet a sheet of paper and see what happens when we paint "dry on wet." Wet the paper thoroughly with a sponge or brush or even soak it in a bathtub. If you wet both sides of the paper, it'll stay wet longer.
We want to paint with a "dry" (damp) brush, so jab the brush into the water can. What we have now is a dripping wet brush. No one can control anything with that much water. So keep a sponge — natural or Cellulose — or a rolled wad of facial tissue next to the water cans and always la y the brush onto this before dipping into the palette. Leave it there long enough to see some of the glisten leave the brush as the water is transferred into the sponge . Now we have a controllable wet brush. We need only this much water in the brush to get paint out of the palette.
Scoop the paint out onto one side of the brush, only. Now roll the brush over and lay the clean side onto the sponge again to remove the rest of the water, but none of the pigment. The pigment stays on the brush because that side of the brush doesn't touch the sponge. It may take a few seconds for enough additional water to transfer from the brush to the sponge. Now we have a "dry" (damp) brush, loaded with pigment.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Watercolor You Can Do It!"
by .
Copyright © 1987 Tony Couch.
Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
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