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Watercolor Technique

Nothing is more surreal or beautiful than a delicate watercolor painting that openly invites the eye to float into the image and conjure up soft visions of peace and tranquility. Watercolors are one of the most beautiful artistic styles, one based upon layers and layers of diluted pigments. Keep conscious of a number of techniques to stay better acquainted with the paints, as that adeptness will allow for more precision and a higher quality product.

The kind of painter one is determines the specificities of watercolor qualities employed. For instance, one whom likes to build the painting slowly requires highly transparent pigments in layers. Impressionistic type work would call for more opaque paints and a heavier hand in application. Perhaps your style is undetermined, but in your experimental stages you find paints bleed into one another. Thus, staining and tinting strength, as well as saturation intensity are vital knowledge to use.

To retrieve the transparency of each color in your palette, draw a wide line with a permanent marker on a piece of watercolor paper, making sure it is completely dry before testing each color. Then, brush a saturated amount of each color across the marker line. After it dries, note that where the black line is still visible, the color is considered transparent. Generally speaking, cooler tones are the most transparent. Should you choose to venture into more opaque colors, remember that these hues do not glaze or layer well, thus, use them independently of other colors.

Staining quality is vital to understanding retaining the quality of your painting. This determines whether the paint can be rewet once dry and blotted or lifted to lighten its value. To test, paint a brush mark of each color, letting them dry fully before continuing. Stroke back and forth 20 times with clean water and a stiff brush, like one used for oil painting, then blot with a towel or tissue. If they lift off easily, these paints have the flexibility to be lightened and lifted after the paint is dry.

Sediment quality is another important term to ingratiate in your brain before selecting paint. No matter the kind, all paints are derived from a mixture of finely ground pigment and binders like gum arabic. The pigment particles vary in weight. Heavier particles, when thinned with water, separate from the water and binder, quickly permeating the surface of the paper. To test a paint's sediment weight, make a half-inch brush of each color on watercolor

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