Watercoloring-Long
Roger & Anne
I wrote the following in response to a question about watercoloring.
Several people wrote me and said that it was helpful to them, so I thought I
would share it with this this of rubber stampers too. Hope it will be
useful to some of you too!
Roger Tanner
"Invest in Kindness"
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I am assuming that by "pencils", you mean watercolor pencils, e.g., Derwent
watercolor pencils; and by "paint palettes", you mean something like the
round plastic tray with all the little circular "puddle" holders.
As for paper: Among the best to use for watercolors is Arches 140 #
watercolor paper, either cold pressed or hot pressed. The cold-pressed
paper
has a rougher surface than the hot-pressed paper and will absorb colors
better. Since this is a group of rubber stampers, I suggest that you use
the hot-pressed paper. I paint with watercolors and I use watercolors with
rubber stamps, and I use both types of paper depending on the effect I
desire. I also use the rough-pressed paper for some paintings. The paper
comes in various sizes: individual sheets 22" X 30" as well as blocks and
pads 9" X 12", 11" X 14" , 16" X 20", etc. and are available at Michael's,
Ben Franklin, or your local art store (usually cheaper, believe it or not).
It's also available on-line from sites such as http://www.artpaper.com
which happens to be a new site and is my favorite art store here in
Asheville, NC. As far as I am concerned Lana Aquarelle is just as good as
Arches paper and it's a lot less expensive. Of course, that is an
individual artist's preference.
I like to use the 22" X 30" 140# hot-pressed paper for rubber stamping cards
for several reasons: Any kind of lighter-weight paper will ripple when you
wet it. The 140# paper will ripple too if you wet a large area (this is why
watercolorist usually stretch 140# paper before painting on it), but this
is generally not a concern with rubber stampers because they (we) are
usually wetting only small areas of the paper at a time. Of course, you can
do a wash (a wash generally means you are applying pigment to a wet area of
the paper) on the entire piece of paper and it will ripple, but it will
still likely be fairly flat when it dries. If not,flat, turn it over and
iron it. Since hot-pressed paper doesn't absorb wetness as readily as
cold-pressed paper, it won't generally ripple as much. (After much
practice, you can do a lot more with a wash using cold-pressed paper, but
unless you are an experienced watercolorist, you probably won't want to do
this. On second thought, go ahead and play with it -- you might learn a lot
and it will only cost you a bit of paper.) Anne
and I do Christmas cards on 140# hot-pressed Lana Aquarelle paper. The 22"
X 30" paper comes with two deckled edges and I usually use a straight edge
to tear out 13 card-sized pieces from each sheet. This will probably leave
you a small piece of scrap paper which is great to use for testing your
colors. You can also cut the paper with Friskars scissors to give it the
edge you want. You can also use card stock paper, but it won't likely turn
out as well.
Another nice thing about good watercolor paper is that you can lift
non-staining colors even after these have dried by simply applying water to
the area you want to remove, let it set for a moment and place a tissue
(Kleenex) on it. Do this as many times as necessary to lift the color.
With some pigments, you can remove nearly all the color using this method.
You can also scrub this paper a little while the water in on it, but be
careful that you don't scrub too much or you will end up with an ugly spot
on the paper. With the paper and paint dry, you can remove some spots, etc.
with an industrial razor blade, but be careful to hold the blade fairly flat
against the paper when scraping or you will have another ugly spot or a hole
in the paper. You will just have to experiment to learn to use these
methods correctly. In time, you will learn to avoid most of the problems
before these happen.
Watercolor pencils:
All you have to do is color in the stamped area, dip your brush in water,
and apply the water to the area that you just colored. That's it! You can
mix colors by overlaying different colors before applying water, but DON'T
do this unless you are very experienced at mixing colors -- you can get into
trouble real fast.
I suggest you that you go to somewhere like Wal-Mart and get a package of
inexpensive brushes to start with, e.g., Plaid (brand name) offers a pretty
fair package of brushes at a good price. Get the brushes that form a
pointed end, NOT the chopped-off-end type (strictly craft brushes) and get
small brushes to start. There's no point in paying a lot of money for nice
large
brushes with good points until you get hooked and starting painting large
pictures. However, I do recommend that you get the Plaid brushes that claim
to be made of sable hair. The synthetic fibers are okay too, but DON'T get
the squirrel hair!
Pigment (non-pencil) watercoloring:
I suggest that beginners start with a few tubes of pigments (student grade)
that are inexpensive, e.g., Winsor & Newton Cotman, Grumbacher Academy, or
the dry pan pigments like the Prang watercolor set which includes a couple
of nice brushes (a blue plastic tote box and is widely-available).
Actually, for about $15 this Prang kit is great! I think it has about 10
pans of watercolor pigment (excellent selection of colors), two or three
brushes (quite good quality), several small jars of poster paints, four
color
mixing areas, a good drawing pencil, and when you fold it to close it, it's
about 9" X 12" and has a handle. I think there's something else inside, but
I can't remember what. (No, I don't have stock in this company, but might
be a good idea since they have become very popular. BTW, their
non-watercolor pencils are great too and are very reasonable -- I use these
interchangeably with Berol Prismacolor pencils.
Mixing color is fun! If you've never done it you will either get totally
frustrated or you will thoroughly enjoy it. The first time I did it, I was
totally fascinated. I think it would be far too much to get into much
detail in this writing, so I will only "skim the surface" of color theory.
All colors are may be mixed from the three primary colors: magenta (red),
cyan (blue), and yellow, plus white and black. It is not always easy to
find
exact primary colors in tubes or pans, but you can get pretty close.
However, if
you are really interested in mixing your own colors from primary colors,
don't even bother to try unless you've been mixing colors for a very long
time. For a beginner or even an intermediate watercolorist, I recommend
buying a good variety of basic premixed colors. Then if you want a
variation of these get an inexpensive artist's color wheel (made of card
stock) and play around with it until you get what you want.
Many watercolors are "transparent" and others are known as "opaque". As far
as I am concerned, ALL watercolors are transparent -- it just depends on the
amount of water you add (I am sure that a lot of purists would argue that
point, but I am totally self-trained, I have sold my work, other of my works
are presently displayed in galleries, so the purists don't bother be at
all). Some pigments such as white are more opaque than other pigments such
as cerulean blue, but if you mix enough water with white, it will appear
hazy, but it WILL BE transparent. Purists do not use white pigment for
anything -- they let the white of the paper show. I agree that this is
best. I do use white, but not as white. I mix white with a little yellow
or green, or both (this basically produces gouache and is opaque) to paint
the
veins of leaves. If I want an area, say a portion of a rose petal, to
appear that it is in bright sunlight, I mask off that area before I paint to
preserve the white of the paper. I will say more about "masking" later
in this dissertation which is already much longer than I intended. (I'm a
true Southerner, so I always tell the long story and since I am writing
rather than speaking, you Northerners shouldn't have any problem
understanding me.)
Often, beginning or "wanna be" watercolorists tend to use too much pigment
when mixing, whether mixing more than one color or just mixing with water.
I think that only experience can get you past this waste. Just remember a
minute amount of pigment will go a long way on paper when mixed with water.
If you mix too many color together, you will get "mud". In fact, if you mix
equal portions of the three primary colors together, you will have a nice
black.
Masking fluid is used to mask off areas of the paper to preserve the white
of the paper. It is a rubber-cement like substance, but thinner. It is
usually available in small bottles and can be bought at art stores and craft
stores. I use Winsor & Newton masking fluid and find that it works quite
well. A bottle will generally last a long as long as you make sure to put
the lid on or cover it in some manner each time you dip you brush in it. Do
not use a good brush for this because it will ruin it soon. However, it
will last a lot longer if you will dip the brush in liquid hand soap each
time before you dip it in the masking fluid. Once the masking fluid dries
you can paint right over it without affecting the paper. When the painting
is finished, the mask may be easily removed with a mask remover which
appears to be a piece of white or translucent latex or a chunk of dries
rubber cement. You can also rub it off with your finger, but this is not
recommend because you will leave oils from your skin on the paper. The mask
remover is available at art stores.
I often use the graphite paper that I described in an earlier tip rather
than a stamp pad for transferring the image on the rubber stamp. I usually
paint each area of the image with two or three transparent layers of each
color, wetting the paper before applying the paint the first time. The
graphite may often be erased after the first application, but it's a little
hard to do without ruining the paper with some colors. If yellow is used,
the graphite cannot be erased.
Well, that's probably more than anyone wanted to know about watercoloring.
I hope it will help someone!
Roger
"Invest in Kindness"
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