Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Watercolor Blocks

Your style of painting should be a factor in deciding whether to purchase and paint on watercolor blocks of paper.

They are fantastic in some ways.  They are a sturdy block on which to paint.  Ten to twenty sheets of cut to size paper is pre-mounted on a sturdy backer.  Paint on the top piece of paper, slice the gum around the edges remove it and paint again.  Great for a not so wet way of painting with watercolors.

If you are one who loves to paint very wet with watercolor, a block of watercolor paper may not be a good option for you.

Painting wet into wet, over and over the water seeps down through the paper into the block, into the next sheet down and the sheet down below that one.  The gum edges begin to wear away without notice, the water will drip over the sides and seep into the edges of the watercolor paper.

The watercolor paper that is wet and dried over and over will lose it's sizing.  Your paint will not react in the normal way over the entire piece of paper.  You may end up with a mottled look around the edges, often darker than color should be.  Sometimes it can occur through out the entire piece of paper.  It mainly happens with the pieces of paper that are towards the bottom of the block.

The sample here shows a very pale blue sky wash that normally floats on the top of the paper.  The watercolor paint soaked oddly into the paper around the edges.  The majority of the time, this odd effect does not fade away when the paint dries.

To avoid this happening, I remove one sheet watercolor paper from the block and mount it onto a separate board.  Yes, it defeats the purpose of using a block.  But it is a way to use up the block you have.  Or it is a way of using the pre cut to size paper blocks with the beautiful simplicity of painting watercolors very wet into wet.

Tuesday Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Fingerprints! 

Be extremely careful on how you handle your watercolor paper.  Make sure your hands are clean and dry.

Oily fingers, sweaty hands, recently applied hand lotion, cold clammy fingers can all leave fingerprints on your watercolor paper.  And guess what?  They often don't show up until the paint is almost dry.

This is a great tip, especially for this time of year when the air is dry and you need hand lotion.

I have notice with hand lotion, the color seems to be attracted to it and the fingerprints dry darker.  The natural oils in your hands or the oils from those chips you're snacking on can cause a resist and leave the finger print area paler.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Wet Your Brush First 

A super important thing to remember when watercolor painting is to always always wet your brush in clean water first before dipping the brush into the paint.

Wetting the brush first will help your brushes last longer.

This is super important if you have the very nice and very expensive sable brushes.

Wet the brush first, even if you have a puddle of color on your palette.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Twist Drag and Roll

Need to form a point with your round brush to paint a nice fine line?

Dip your brush into your color.
Twist, Drag and Roll the brush backwards across your palette to get the brush back into its pointy shape.
Paint your line.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Pale Pale Wash 

Have trouble seeing where you put the clear water when creating a wet into wet background?

Use a super pale pale color when creating your background or sky to dampen the paper before adding in your colors.  This way you can see where you have painted already painted the wash and where you need to go.

The super pale color will dry back and almost disappear when dry and you will have a guide as to where to place your wet into wet colors.