Watercolour Series: Lesson 13 – Buildings, Sponging, Splatters & the Beveled Brush

Methods / Painting Buildings, Focus: advantages of the beveled brush, Partial wiping, Splatters and projections, Colorful jellyfish

Painting buildings

The Taj Mahal

Prepare your color mixes in the palette in the form of creams. Moisten the sheet in all directions.

Applying a multicolored wash on a wet sheet of watercolor paper

Let a multicolored bluish and pinkish wash bleed with magenta and cobalt blue.

Applying a dark green cream pigment into the wet background to form distant trees

If the paper has dried, rewet it moderately before depositing the colors. In the wet, deposit a dark green cream for the tree masses on the right (Schmincke orange and cobalt blue).

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Still in the wet, deposit silhouettes of distant and blurry buildings. Little by little, the paper dries and your brush strokes will be increasingly precise. Start the dome of the Taj Mahal.

Applying the final precise washes to define the Taj Mahal structure on dry paper

Quietly finish the silhouette of the Taj Mahal with a wash on dry paper.

Focus: advantages of the beveled brush

The beveled brush is perfect for buildings. It allows you to easily make right angles. It will allow you to draw oriental buildings and domes (see Taj Mahal here) by turning the brush tuft like a compass.

Demonstration of a beveled brush being used to paint precise architectural angles

For domes, rest the gesture on the base of the tuft and turn it 180 degrees.

Rotating the beveled brush like a compass to create perfect watercolor domes
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Partial wiping

Colombine

Partial wiping is a way to obtain effects that watercolorists are often fond of. It is used to make clouds... but not only!

Carefully sketching the Colombine character with a light mechanical pencil

Start by carefully drawing the character with a light mechanical pencil.

Applying a generous wash of Winsor blue over the entire figure on dry paper

On dry paper, generously spread the Winsor blue wash in all directions with the large brush. Without waiting, let a little violet bleed (Winsor blue and a little magenta) in spots in places.

Using paper towels to partially wipe away wet watercolor pigment

With paper towels, gently pump the ruffle collar and Colombine's face.

Wiping down vertically to create clothing folds using a paper towel on wet pigment

Then, with a faster and more determined gesture, remove the blue vertically on the costume, following the direction of the folds.

Adding fine dry brush details to Colombine's collar and face

Let it dry and finish all the small details dry: the edging on the ruffle collar in ultramarine blue with a little Mars black, the two red spots on the cheeks, the hair...

For the eye sockets and the neck, prepare a skin color with a droplet of Winsor blue in very diluted Schmincke orange.

The completed Colombine watercolor painting featuring shadows, highlights, and crisp details

Use the initial violet wash to accentuate some shadows in the folds. Add a few spots of orange to illuminate the shadows.

Finish the stockings and shoes with a Mars black and a touch of magenta in a wash.

Splatters and projections

Cliff

On dry paper, place the vegetation at the top of the cliff with a yellow-green wash.

Starting a cliff painting with a yellow-green wash on dry paper

With the frayed spalter, make a few irregular vertical marks of burnt sienna (you will then complete them with Winsor blue following the same method).

Creating vertical rock textures on the cliff face using a frayed spalter brush

Protect the areas not affected by the projections with paper towels.

Masking the paper with towels before splattering watercolor pigments

Project by successive tapping (tapping the frayed brush against the handle of a pencil) shades of green: sap green and yellow, then sap green and Winsor blue. Let it dry between each pass.

Splattering green and yellow shades to build up foliage textures

Finish with Schmincke orange which must remain bright.

Adding vibrant orange highlights to the splattered foliage
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Painting the small figure of the climber scaling the watercolor cliff face

Paint the figure of the climber on the cliff.

Finish the vegetation at the top with passes of greens (from lightest to darkest) that you will let melt into the wet.

For the darks, add a touch of perylene maroon to the green.

Colorful jellyfish

Start by depositing the Schmincke orange in a dense wash with the medium brush along with a little burnt sienna.

Beginning a jellyfish painting with a dense orange and burnt sienna wash

Follow up with light cobalt turquoise then finish with ultramarine and/or cobalt blue.

Layering light cobalt turquoise and ultramarine blue to the jellyfish shape

Proceed in the same way for the second jellyfish.

Applying the same colorful wash technique to a second jellyfish

Carve out light areas without rubbing, using the beveled brush loaded just with water, to recover "almost whites" in the oranges and wherever you deem it necessary.

Lifting pigment to create light reflections on the watercolor jellyfish

Finish with the light cobalt turquoise filaments and projections in green and blue droplets.

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