Watercolor: The Art of Light and Transparency

Overview

Watercolor is a fast and fruitful process that allows the painter to enrich his repertoire of elements, otherwise too fleeting to be fixed by the slow labor of oil painting. Georgeta Peleanu – Romanian Watercolor , Ed. Meridiane, Bucharest, 1986

The support can be paper, cardboard or canvas. Paper is perhaps the most common support in the case of watercolor techniques, but it has the disadvantage of being fragile and sensitive to moisture. The best paper is that made of linen, it must be pure white, with a special grain.

Instead of a palette , you can improvise, either enameled porcelain or earthenware trays, as well as a piece of glass, placed on a white paper. The water with which the colors are diluted must be clean and preferably distilled water. This will be placed in two containers, one for mixing the colors and the other for cleaning the brushes. A cloth or paper towels must be available during work to keep the brushes clean. The brushes will be made of soft and elastic hair, round, of different thicknesses.

Technical processes of watercolor.

• The process on dry paper – The paper is fixed on a horizontal support, after which the drawing is carried out lightly with a hard pencil or even blue. Before starting the work, the paper is wetted with a brush or sponge, after which on a paper called sous-main (under the hand) different shades are tried before being put on the final work. The colors are applied without too many repetitions, because the paper gets clogged. You can work with spots or, in the case of some artists, with a hatching. It is preferable to leave white areas uncovered by color to increase the aeration and picturesque effect of the painting. In the case of the watercolor technique, the white color is not used, but the white of the support.

Watercolor in dry paper technique

• The wet paper process – It is more spectacular but also more difficult to execute. The paper remains wet throughout the work. Here, the fusions of shades can be truly spectacular and can be stopped by the painter with a clean and squeezed brush. Some areas can be erased and eliminated by dabbing with an absorbent paper the places where we want to eliminate a color.

Watercolor in wet paper technique - detail

• Over the watercolor painting , pastel can also be used for certain details, lights and shadows desired by the author. This is already considered a mixed technique.

Watercolor with pastel intervention

• Fake watercolor is actually done in oil but in the watercolor technique. It is painted with washes and not with thick color paste and just like in the case of watercolor, the white of the support is taken into account, not using the white from the tube.

Fake watercolor

Little secrets:

• Did you know that if you sprinkle salt over a freshly painted area with watercolor and let it dry, a snow-like effect remains.

The effect of salt on watercolor

• Another little trick you can use is to use a drawing made with wax crayons on top of the color layer. The effect is special.

Watercolor combined with wax crayons