Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Ironing Your Watercolors


A repeat from June 2009 - An excellent reminder!

Ever paint a very wet watercolor painting on 140 lb. paper only to end up with a warped wobbly painting? There is a very simple cure to this problem. Iron the painting! This works well with paintings done on quality 100% cotton rag watercolor paper. That is 100% cotton rag ... cotton ... yes, you can iron cotton. Just iron on the back.

1. Starting with a wavy watercolor painting, place it on the ironing board, or multi-folded smooth cotton material on top of art table. Preheat your iron, NO steam.

2. Flip the painting upside down and iron.

3. Allow painting to cool and you will have a flat painting ready to frame!

Give it a try! 

If you're nervous about it, test it on a practice painting.

New Year's Eve

Seascape

by Artist Rita Squier

Acrylic Painting - 24 x 36 inches

My Christmas gift to my husband Michael

It's time to say goodbye to 2009. I cannot believe it is New Year's Eve already. Time seems to pass faster and faster as the days go by. I want to thank all those who have taken the time to read and follow my blog. I truly enjoy sharing my art with all of you and I enjoy writing about it too. It has been fun creating my Tuesday's Tips for Watercolor Painting blog posts. I want to thank all those who have purchased some of my artwork. It is a great thrill to have people who love your work so much they want to acquire it to enjoy in their own homes. Thank you so much, I honestly do appreciate it. It encourages me to keep painting and wanting to create new paintings and new works of art.

Goodbye 2009.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Mixing Beautiful Flesh Tones

It is easy to mix beautiful flesh tones with watercolor paint. The luminosity and transparency of the paint add to the depth and beauty of a portrait.

In the Maimeri Blu brand of watercolor paint I love to mix Primary Red Magenta with Permanent Yellow Lemon, both are transparent colors. These two colors are very bright on their own, mix a small amount together on your palette and add a lot of water and you will create a lovely pale flesh tone. Add a little more yellow for a more peachy undertone. Add a little more of the red for a rosy undertone. If you are going for more of a tanned skin tone try a well watered down Burnt Sienna. For darker skin tones you can use Burnt Sienna mixed with Sepia. Mix this well on your palette because they are granulating colors. If you want a deeper dark skin tone add a touch more Sepia to the Burnt Sienna, it creates a beautiful color.

Rosey & peachy pale flesh tone - front & center swatch - Primary Red Magenta + Permanent Yellow Lemon.

Tanned or olive skin tone - top right swatch - Burnt Sienna.

Dark skin tones - top center swatch - Burnt Sienna & Sepia.

Deeper dark skin tone - top left swatch - Burnt Sienna & Sepia.

Mix the colors well on your palette. Vary the amounts of each color to change the under tones. Blues and purples make great shadow colors on all skin tones. The shadows can be applied under or over dried skin tones. If you don't have the exact colors I have, test the colors in your palette. Mix a cool red with a cool yellow, mix a warm red with a warm yellow for the pale flesh tones. Then remember to add lots of water. I bet you have great flesh tones hiding in your palette.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Make the Summer Last

Takes lots of photos now to use over the long winter as inspiration. Flowers are a great pick me up on a cold winter day. Start preparing yourself now with a ton of great summer fun and fancy free photos. Daisies will brighten any winter day.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

The Great Outdoors

Where did the summer go? Can you believe it is already the middle of August? My tip for today is simple. Get outdoors and enjoy the summer weather. Put together a little plein air watercolor kit, get out side and spend a morning or the afternoon simply painting the great outdoors. Before you know it summer will be over and you still may not have gotten the chance to paint watercolors or nature itself right out there amongst the trees, the water, the birds ... okay the insects too. Paint nature in the middle of nature itself.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

The Hidden Water Catastrophe

Just imagine you're painting a super fine watercolor line adding the last touch of detail to a painting and ... wham-0! A water drop slides down the underside of your brush ferrule and creates this big blurb of color ruining your last bit of detail.

Make sure you dry the ferrule of your brush before creating little detailed areas or just adding a touch of color in a relatively small area. You don't want that hidden water gathering on the underside of the brush ferrule to build up and slide down the bristles to wreak havoc on your painting.

One of the big secrets to successful watercolor painting is water control. So make sure you don't have hidden excess water on the ferrule or even the handle of your brush.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Don't be Stingy with Your Water

This is a great tip. Make sure you use a large water container to rinse out your brushes. Often times I see people trying to paint an 11 x 15 inch (1/4 sheet) watercolor painting and they use a tiny cup of water to clean their brushes. Think big! The bigger your water container, the longer the water will stay clean and the fresher your colors will be. Guess what, dirty water will transfer to your painting.

Make sure you have a container that will hold at least one quart or one liter of water. I like to paint using at least two water containers and sometimes three. You don't need a fancy water container. Think green, recycle. Wash and reuse a food container. I have a bunch of organic yogurt containers which I bring to my classes to give to students who bring in a teeny tiny cup.

Shown here is exactly what is on my painting table this morning. One Tupperware container which was forgotten at my house after a party. I still do not know who it originally belonged to, but it makes a great water container for painting. One lingonberry container (fabulous swedish berries) and one quart sized organic yogurt container.

I always keep one filled with clean clear water, perfect for blending away and softening an edge or wetting the paper. The other two end up with different stages of dirty water. As you paint, if the water becomes real dirty, change it. Dump it out and start with fresh. You don't want to be able to paint color on your paper with your water because most of the time it is an ugly grey-ish brown.

Tuesday's Tips & Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Color Blending, Wet into Wet

I use the wet into wet watercolor technique to blend one color into another color.

1. I start off with a 1/4 sheet (11 x 15") piece of watercolor paper taped on all four sides to my board. I use my favorite 1 1/2" wash brush which is a Winsor Newton brush, a blend of sable and synthetic bristles. A 1 inch roll of masking tape (or two 1/2" rolls stacked as shown here).

2. I prepare my palette with an ample amount of rich color puddles. Maimeri Blu's Permanent Violet Bluish, Ultramarine Deep and Primary Red Magenta.

3. With a clean brush and clean, clear water, I wet the paper flat from top to bottom. Evenly distributing the water. Then I slide the roll of masking tape under the top edge of my board, so my board is now at an angle.

4. While the paper is still wet I add color. I start with a blend of the violet and ultramarine. In long horizontal strokes from one edge of the page to the other I add the color. Do not stop in the middle. Do not start in the middle. It is important to keep the strokes long and the full width of the page.

5. While the color and paper is still wet, one must work quickly. Do not allow your paint or your paper to dry. I switch up my colors adding in a bit of ultramarine and overlap my colors and I continue to keep my strokes long. Adding in some of the magenta.

6. I continue on down to the bottom of the page and have shifted the color to a pale magenta. I leave the board at an angle and allow the paint to dry completely. With the board angled, the colors will slowly blend and fade into one another as they dry back.

If you keep your brush, paper and paint consistently moist with the same amount of water you will be able to blend one color into the next without creating harsh lines or back runs.

Give it a try ... and good luck!

Tuesday's Tips & Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Paint Storage, Save a Buck

Ever since going to college for art I have stored my supplies in fishing tackle boxes. Now you can buy all sorts of various boxes made for storing art supplies. But if you want to save a buck, go to the fishing section of the department store. Check out the variety of fishing tackle boxes they have there. I guarantee you will find better and cheaper art supply storage items there. I store my tubes of watercolor paint in a two sided somewhat clear fishing tackle box. On one side I toss in all my warm colors and on the other side, I store all my cool colors. It has little divider sections that are movable and removable. Pretty cool huh?

Tuesday's Tips & Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Staining Colors & Lifting Dried Colors

Here is a simply way to figure out which colors in your palette are staining colors and which colors are easy to lift. Why is this something you may want to know ahead of time? If you are doing a painting and you make a mistake and you have a created this handy little chart you will know if you should go through the troubles of trying to lift the color out. Some colors do stain the paper and no matter how much time you spend lifting the color, it will not come out. Some colors will lift easily and you will be back to the white of the paper.

For this chart, I created about a 2 inch long swash of each color in my palette. I allowed the paint to completely dry. Then using an old brush and clean water, I scrubbed a small spot on each swatch. One color swash at a time, scrub with the old brush and clean water, blot with a clean dry tissue occasionally. This process can be repeated over and over on each individual color.

You will notice some colors have lifted out completely allowing the white of the paper to show again. Other colors are staining and no matter how many times you repeat the process, the color has sunk into and stained the paper.

Butterflies

Butterfly in Green Blue

by Artist Rita Squier

Simplicity in itself can be an art form. The warming weather has me thinking towards spring time ... flowers, butterflies, birds.

This butterfly watercolor painting is available in my

Etsy Shop: http://squier.etsy.com

A Little Escape to the ACEO Seaside

Seaside I

by Artist Rita Squier

Wouldn't you just love an escape to the seaside right about now? I know I certainly would.

Not only is this an original watercolor painting but it is also considered an Art Card often times called an ACEO or an ATC.

ACEO stands for Art Cards, Editions or Originals. ATC stands for Artist Trading Card. The only requirement for them is the size which is 2.5" x 3.5", the same size as baseball trading cards. They were created for artists to trade amongst each other. Art lovers wanted them too and if they are bought and sold they are considered ACEOs. They are created in pretty much any medium.

All of my ACEOs are original watercolor paintings. This one and more are available in my Etsy Shop: http://squier.etsy.com

Just a warning ... once you buy one, you will want more! It is a great way to purchase a little piece of affordable art and start a collection.

Tuesday's Tips & Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Layering the Colors in Your Palette

Layering colors is another way to create even more colors with the existing colors in your palette. You can expand the number of colors you have simply by layering them. Layering works best with transparent watercolors. You will have to really water down opaques colors for this process. To layer color, you paint over top of an already dry color. You can use the same color to deepen the color or you can use a different color to create a new color. You can't easily mix a layered color. The bottom color will glow through the top transparent color, this also creates a bit of depth to the color.

I created this chart on a quarter sheet of watercolor paper (11 x 15"). I counted the number of colors, in this palette there are 10. I drew 10 evenly spaced single lines in pencil, leaving some extra space at the bottom of the paper. Then I left a bit of space on the left and drew 10 evenly spaced vertical lines in pencil.

Using a 1/2 inch flat brush and following the pencil line with one edge of the brush, I painted a long straight horizontal line of each clean color. I allowed this to completely dry. Then I repeated the same process with each clean color painting vertical lines overlapping the already dried lines of colors. When this is dry, use an india ink pen or pencil and label each color on the ends. At the intersections of each color you will be able to see the variety of new colors you can create simply by layering the colors in your palette.

Tuesday's Tips & Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Choosing Colors

Choosing colors for your watercolor palette can be fun for some and frustrating for others.  Keep it simple.  A warm and a cool of each of the primary colors, plus 2 neutrals and 2 hard to mix colors green and purple.

For my classes, I suggest starting out with 10 colors: 

Warm Red - Crimson Lake

Cool Red - Primary Red Magenta

Warm Yellow - Indian Yellow

Cool Yellow - Permanent Yellow Lemon

Warm Blue - Ultramarine Blue Deep

Cool Blue - Primary Blue Cyan

Two Neutrals - Burnt Sienna & Payne's Grey

Purple - Permanent Violet Bluish

Green - Permanent Green Deep

The brand of paint I use for my classes is MaimeriBlu, an Italian superior artist quality paint.  Most of the colors are transparent.  Two are semi-transparent and also sedimentary, burnt sienna and ultramarine blue deep.  Different brands may have slightly different names for colors.  Plus colors with the same name may appear and act differently in the various brands.

Watercolor Home

A gorgeous home deserves to be preserved in a gorgeous watercolor painting.   Here is a beautiful home in Upstate New York.  It was a pleasure to paint.

I love to paint commissioned house portraits in watercolor as large as 22" x 30" on 300 lb., archival, acid free, 100% cotton rag watercolor paper.  I use superior artist quality watercolor paints.  I paint from photos.  For those who are local to my area, I have gone out and photographed the homes I have painted.  Some of the most special home portraits I have painted have been commissioned as gifts.  Please feel free to contact me if you would like your home, former home, vacation home painted for yourself or as a gift.  I would love to create a keepsake for you!

Check out my website http://rasquier.com for more homes and buildings I have painted.  You can also check out my house portrait listings in my Etsy Shop.

Watercolor Barns of Upstate New York

This time of year the barns of Upstate New York sit nestled in the snow.  Driving around the back roads of my county, I took a photograph of this barn and turned it into a watercolor painting lesson for one of my classes.  I painted two similar versions of this painting and one now lives in Germany.

Watercolor Houses

 I have done a bunch of commissioned house portrait paintings in watercolor and the majority of the time they are to be gifts.  I love it when someone asks "Will you paint a picture of .... it will be a gift for ..." and of course I say yes.  I paint the painting and I am so happy and delighted when it is completed and I would love to show it off, but I can't.  I have to wait.  I would never want to spoil someone's surprise gift by accident.  Here is a painting I did several months ago.  It was a Christmas gift and now I can finally show it off.  

If you're interested in having a watercolor painting of your home, former home, vacation home or would like to have one painted as a gift for someone else, please contact me for more information.  I would be delighted to create a one of a kind present that would be cherished for years to come!

You can view other homes and buildings I have painted on my website: http://rasquier.com and there are also a couple of listing in my Etsy shop (http://squier.etsy.com) for commissioned house portraits.