Methods / Painting without a preliminary drawing, Painting with a spray bottle, With a sponge
A method implements a set of concrete techniques in an orderly and chronological manner to achieve a defined result. Methods for painting with watercolor are so numerous that I know of no book that gathers them all! I have therefore selected a few that you will often use...
Painting without a preliminary drawing
Like a fish in water
To test different techniques, start by practicing with a simple shape that you like (for example, a fish!): Dry paper, Medium wash brush, wash in the Palette...
Deposit the color starting from the center and moving outwards.
Try to maintain a constant level in the coloring of the fish with a dense colored wash.
Then try painting only with water in the brush, no color, on a part of the fish (here the goldfish) and practice creating halos on matte paper.
Rinse the beveled brush well to make a perfectly clean removal!
Painting with a spray bottle
Titi the hedgehog
Spray the sheet entirely. Hold the spray bottle about 40 cm from the sheet with your arm raised. Do not make too many passes; this would produce puddles. You need to create a multitude of small, spaced-out droplets.
Deposit little sticks of orange mixed with burnt sienna using the beveled brush. The pigment in the palette is creamy. The water on the paper will dilute it.
Close-up of the droplets, rather fine and close together. Continue to make juxtaposed passes with the beveled brush.
Nuance with perylene maroon and ultramarine blue.
Some spots that are too strong can be stretched with the beveled brush loaded just with water.
Dry progressively as you achieve the effects you wish to keep; otherwise, the water will continue to wash away the pigments and turn your watercolor into a wading pool!
You can, when the paper is dry, refine the drawing a little. Still on dry paper, deposit rosy gray washes with the medium brush for the nuances of the face.
With the beveled brush, perform a few removals to recover almost white spines in the orange-brown mass of the quills. Accentuate the almost black grays of the eyes and under the paws, to suggest the depth at the belly. Draw the whiskers with a light brush.
With a sponge
Birch trees
With a large wash brush, wet the paper abundantly everywhere, then empty the excess water.
Let the Winsor red bleed in a dense wash in the upper part of the paper.
In the middle, let a dense Schmincke orange wash bleed, then an anise green wash with yellow and Winsor blue. Finally, an ultramarine wash on the sides, especially on the left. Tilt the paper slightly to make the colors bleed into each other a little, while keeping a white area at the bottom.
Careful! When wet, red is very bright, but once dry, it is much duller. Remember to densify the pigment!
On matte paper, perform the removals with the beveled brush for the birch trunks (right part of the watercolor). Continue the removals dry (on the left).
When the removals are finished on the trunks, nuance them with a little ultramarine blue and Mars black to represent the spots on the bark. This is an opportunity to use the card trick (see here). With a sponge dipped in ultramarine blue and a little Mars black, create the foliage effects. The small bushes are made dry with the tip of the medium wash brush.
Do not overload. You can add a doe (see Focus opposite) or a figure, but be careful to respect the scale!
