But I digress..........Enough monkeying around. I will cut to the chase.
Today's post is all about watercolor. I know, I know, I still owe y'all more posts on "Must Haves" in the studio and I will get around to that too. But, I have had a couple questions and some comments on watercolor that I thought I would address today.
This week and possibly spilling over into next week, I have decided to spend my time in the studio, playing with all the many kinds of water media that I currently own. Yesterday I painted a Barn Owl using tube watercolors from a company called Mission Gold. These are very highly pigmented paints and create very saturated, intense color. I am still working on him and I plan on finishing him sometime today.
I also have other materials I want to play with this week and next such as....watercolor pencils, watercolor crayons, water soluble graphite, Hydrus watercolors, which are a very concentrated form of watercolor paint and some water soluble inks. Those are going to keep me busy!
I understand that some of you find watercolor to be intimidating, hard to control and plain scary. Well, I just want to say that, that's not necessarily so.
Don't get me wrong, I am by no means a watercolor expert. I am still learning too. All art, of any kind is a never ending, learning experience. I am just going to share a couple things that I have learned along the way that might help some of you to get over that fear of water media.
First....a couple of watercolor myths. ......"Watercolor is hard to control" one thing to remember is, when applying watercolor to paper, the watercolor is only going to go where the water is. If you take watercolor, straight off the brush to dry paper, you will have total control of it. But, here's the thing. Part of what makes watercolor so exciting is the fact that it flows. So, if you put down a wash of water before adding the paint, the color will flow out and stay where the water is. You can get beautiful results this way. In my opinion, that is the true beauty of the medium!
Second...... "Mistakes can't be corrected", so not true! There are many ways to correct a watercolor boo-boo. Depending on the staining ability of a particular watercolor, color, The offending error can be lifted. You can use a damp brush to lift color back off. you can wet the area and use a tissue to dab the color and lift it. Use caution here though. DO NOT rub the paper or you may damage it. Just dab gently.
Watercolor "Blooms" can be fixed as well. You can soften hard edges with a damp brush. And, here is an FYI for ya......Mr. Clean sponges are great at lifting unwanted color! yup! good 'ol Mr. Clean!
If water puddles up in an area that you don't want it, just soak it up with a dry thirsty watercolor brush. That's it, easy peasy. Mistakes are not the end of the world so don't toss that painting, fix it!
Okay........on occasion, you may find that you can't fix something. That's okay too. All you have lost is a little paint and a little of your time. But.....you have also learned! you have gained experience!
I hope this post might inspire some of you to at least try out water media. You have nothing to lose. You won't know if you like it unless you try it. And like anything else in life, the more you do it, the better at it you will become.
In a future post, I will tell y'all how I go about creating a watercolor painting so stay tuned for that. Now go out there, fill up that water bucket, grab some watercolor paint and a brush and get creating. No fear!!!
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