Topic: Getting Started in Watercolor: Basic Supplies for Beginners Revised November 2002: I've had a lot of email

asking about what minimal basic supplies one needs to get started in watercolor, and telling me how confusing it can be for a beginner in an art supply store when confronted with the hundreds of choices of paints, brushes, paper and other tools. First a general comment on materials. Buy the best materials you can afford. You may think you are saving money buying the cheapest paper, but when the surface lacks enough sizing, the paint soaks in to the point where you can't get anything but pastel color, and you won't be happy. Or, when the paper rips or balls up at the least little scrubbing of your brush, your painting will be ruined. You may think you are saving money to buy the least expensive paints, but they generally have less pigment in them than the more expensive brands, so you end up using more of them to get a good, rich saturated color. You may think a camel's hair brush (the kind that comes in the childrens' paint box sets) is good enough, but it won't spring back into shape after a stroke, or hold a sharp point, or carry much color, and those are qualities you need to have in a watercolor brush. So, that having been said, here are my recommendations for the supplies you can get by with as a beginning painter. Optional brushes BASIC BRUSHES: In addition to the basic round, wash and flat You will need at least one watercolor "round" brushes that you need to get started, the following brush. I suggest a size 8, and if you plan to do brushes are nice to have for specific tasks, and larger paintings, a size 10 or 12. I recommend after you've been painting for awhile, you may want Winsor Newton Sceptre Series 101. These brushes to add them to your collection. are a blend of natural sable and synthetic hair. If price is no object, get a good 100% sable-hair brush. Nothing matches their ability to spring back into shape, hold a point, and hold a quantity of pigment and water before running dry. However, know that a natural hair brush will wear out faster than a synthetic one. Yes, your brushes do wear out and will eventually have to be replaced! You will also need a flat wash brush, 1/2" or larger. I use Grumbacher Series 4424 Sable Essence, and I have three different sizes from 1/2" to 1". They are a synthetic fibre brush, with a handle that has an angled end for scraping, burnishing, scratching and other watercolor techniques. However, if you prefer, you can get an all-sable brush or a blended hair brush in this flat shape.

The rigger or liner brush is good for fine lines and small details.

You will also need an "oval wash" or "mop" brush for getting large amounts of water and/or paint onto your paper surface quickly. I recommend Winsor Newton Series 240 goat hair wash brush, Size 3, or an equivalent squirrel hair mop brush. Don't expect to do detail work or paint around shapes with this brush. It's a "floppy" brush just for pre-wetting or washing in a large area. If you primarily paint small (less than half sheet), then you can probably skip this brush. Some people use an inexpensive "hake" brush for this, but I dislike them because they tend to shed hair profusely while you're painting. Caring for and storing your brushes: Your brushes will last longer if cared for properly. Always wash them when you are finished painting for the day. I use a mild soap (ivory) and warm water and make a little soapy suds in the palm of my hand. I gently massage the bristles of my

This brush is about 3" wide...if you work large (full sheet or larger), this is a great brush to have for its ability to put large amounts of paint on the paper in a very short time. This is a good substitute brush for the oval wash or "mop" brush.

brushes into this soapy suds and rinse thoroughly. It's especially important to get the paint out of the heel of the brush (the part next to the metal ferrule). When the brush is clean use your fingers to gently (don't tug or pull) reshape it to a point if necessary, then lay it on a flat surface to dry. When it's completely dry, you can store it resting point up, handle down in a jar or other container. Don't ever store a wet brush

Basic Tube Colors You need a warm and a cool version of each "primary" colorred, yellow and blueso that you can mix the other colors you need and get clean, clear mixtures. I recommend the Winsor & Newton colors below, but because my viewers have asked for less expensive alternates, I am including the Grumbacher Academy colors as well. I have revised this basic color list again, and included the Color Index Name, so that if you are substituting brands, you can be sure you are getting the same pigment. Color index names are more precise than common names. For example, the Color Index Name of French Ultramarine Blue is Pigment Blue 29, abbreviated to PB29. Color Index Name information should be on the label of any reputable paint, regardless of brand. Purple-biased Blue (cool): Look for PB29 on the label French Ultramarine 263, Winsor & Newton Artists' OR Ultramarine Blue 219, Grumbacher Academy Green-biased Blue (cool): Look for PB15 or PB15:3 on the label Winsor Blue (green shade) 707, Winsor & Newton Artists' OR Thalo Blue 203, Grumbacher Academy Green-biased Yellow (cool): Look for PY3 on the label Winsor Lemon 772, Winsor & Newton Artists' OR Lemon Yellow 118, Grumbacher Academy Orange-biased Yellow (warm): Look for PY97, PY153 or PY154 on the label Transparent Yellow 653, Winsor & Newton Artists' OR *Golden Yellow 081, Grumbacher Academy Purple-biased Red (cool): Look for PR N/A-PR206 or PV19 on the label Permanent Alizarin Crimson 466, Winsor & Newton Artists' OR Thalo Crimson 204, Grumbacher Academy Orange-biased Red (warm): Look for PR188, PR253 or PR108 on the label Scarlet Lake 603, Winsor & Newton Artists' OR *Vermilion Hue 224, Grumbacher Adademy *Colors marked with an asterisk are not completely lightfast. For the CLEANEST color mixtures, mix any two colors that have the same bias (like an orangebiased red and an orange-biased yellow, for example, for the CLEANEST orange mixture). If you want to make duller or less intense hues, mix colors with different biases (like a green-biased yellow and a purple-biased red, for example. The resulting orange mixture will be a duller orange). See my tip on color mixing. Optional Additional Colors: Cobalt Blue, Winsor & Newton OR Cobalt Blue Hue 049, Grumbacher Academy) OR Cobalt Blue 178, Winsor & Newton Cotman (a mid-value blue) This blue is nearly temperature neutral. Look for PB28 on the label PAINTS & PALETTE: If you are going to be serious about watercolor, you need to have good paints(pigments). If you are only going to paint once in awhile and will be unable to keep your paints from drying out between painting sessions, then you should get pan (semi-moist) watercolors. I'm not going to discuss pan colors here. If you really want to progress in watercolor you need to be painting oftenevery day if possiblebut certainly often enough that your paints won't dry up if kept in a covered palette. And that means you probably will want paint in tubes. There are many brands of watercolor available. I'm suggesting Winsor Newton and Grumbacher because they are widely available, but if you want to research equivalent colors by other manufacturers, go online to handprint.com where you will find a wealth of information about the pigments used in many manufacturer's paints. There are also a couple of book in print that deal with this subjectMichael Wilcox's book, The Best Watercolor Paints (recently revised), or Hilary Page's Guide to Watercolor Paints, published by Watson-Guptill. I use and like the watercolor paints from Daniel Smith, in addition to Winsor & Newton. In the list at the left, the first color (in bold) is my first choice; the color that follows the OR is my second choice. You only need six colors to start with. Once you are comfortable with what those six will accomplish, you can add from the optional list, which includes some additional blues, some earth colors, and black and white if you feel you must have them. You will need some kind of palette to keep your paint in and use for mixing colors. If you are an artist that likes to have only freshly squeezed paint, your palette could be as simple as a white china or plastic picnic plate. If you like putting the whole tube in a palette well, and covering it between painting sessions, I recommend the white plastic palettes with lids. I use a Robert E. Woods palette, but there are many different brands available. The lids keep the paint clean and also from drying out between painting sessions, especially if you put a wet piece of thin sponge in the mixing well before you put the lid on. I squeeze out enough paint to nearly fill each well I am using because I paint often. If you are not going to paint daily, you may only want to squeeze out a quarter

PAPER: Watercolor paper comes in blocks of various sizes, or in sheets. (see photo, left) A "full sheet" is approximately 22" x 30", and may have deckle or straight edges depending on the manufacturer, and what type of paper-making machinery was used to make it. Cylinder mould made papers will always have two deckle edges. Hand-made papers will have deckle edges on all four sides. You can cut or tear these full sheets into smaller size sheets for smaller paintings. You can also buy larger sheets (up to 40" x 60") and even larger rolls of watercolor paper. Archival Paper Matters! You've spent (or will spend) years learning and refining your craft and your ideas. You want your paintings to last. Make sure the paper you buy is acidfree (between 6.5 and 8pH) and buffered with calcium carbonate, which is capable of neutralizing acid...the greatest enemy of paper. When you frame and store your paintings, make sure that the other materials that come in contact with the watercolor paper are also archival. The paper will have a specific surface, ranging from very slick and smooth (hot press), to very textured (rough). A surface in between, and one I recommend for beginners, is slightly textured (cold press). Paper also comes in different weights, from 90 lb. to 300 lb. generally. A lot of the "student grade" paper is 90 lb. This paper is too lightweight to do any scrubbing or surface manipulation without risking damage to the paper surface. I recommend 140 lb. paper, either sheets or blocks. If you want your paper to stay flat even after applying a really wet wash, you will either need to stretch it, or use watercolor blocks (the sheets are glued at the edges which helps the paper return to a flat state as it dries). If you don't want to use blocks, and you don't want to stretch your paper, you paint very "wet" and you still want the painting to stay very flat as you work, then you probably need 300 lb. paper. Update: Strathmore Paper recently began offering their Aquarius II paper again. It is part synthetic paper, and although only 80 lb, will stay flat without stretching and take a fair amount of scrubbing as well. Sizing is gelatin, animal glue and/or starch-based products that are added to the paper at the pulp stage (internal sizing) and sometimes again after the sheet is formed (external sizing). The sizing controls how the paper accepts paint (how far into the surface the paint sinks), and how much you can "abuse" the paper (erase, scrub out paint, rewet and repaint, etc.) before it will no longer accept paint well. The best modern papers are both internally and externally sized.

Stretching Paper: When I use 140 lb. paper, I stretch it, by soaking it first for 5-10 minutes in the bathtub, laying it wet on a wood drawing board, and then stapling the wet paper all around the edges at 1" intervals to the board. As it dries, it shrinks and pulls very tight and flat, and remains that way, even when re-wet. When I'm through with the painting, I remove the staples with a flat staple remover. When I frame the piece, I can either use the mat to cover the staple holes, or, if I want to "float" the painting, I will handtear the edges of the paper back beyond the staple holes to create a new "deckle" type edge.

OTHER TOOLS AND MATERIALS: The only other thing you have to have is some kind of water container. I use two large recycled plastic "Cool Whip" containers, one for clean water, and one to use for rinsing. You will also probably find a sponge and a roll of paper towels handy for removing excess paint and/or water from the edges of your paper or work surface. I also use a roll of toilet tissue turned on its side as a "blotter" for my paint brush...to remove excess water or paint, all I have to do is swipe the brush on the roll. As the tissue gets dirty, I unwind the roll to expose cleaner areas. You could use your sponge for this purpose, though, and just rinse it out periodically. Optional accessories: Another handy tool is an x-acto knife in a case (this is particularly good to have if you are working with block paper, as the knife is great for separating the sheets of paper from the block as you use them). The knife is also good for scratching or scraping out little highlight areas at the very end of a painting or (in my case especially) for cutting masking materials or stencils. I also use a spray bottle filled with distilled water (for re-wetting and for forcing paint to spread in a "spatter" pattern), an old toothbrush for spattering paint, a flat staple remover, and of course, a sketchbook, drawing pencil, and a large soft eraser. The latter is also used to clean up stray pencil marks (if desired) after you finish your painting and it is completely dry.

Volume 1 of my 5-volume video set for beginning watercolor painters has lots more on this topic Click Here For More Information

Topic: Learning to Mix Colors If you bought the six basic tube colors I recommended in my Basic Supplies tip, this topic will help you learn to mix these six colors effectively. I recommend starting with a small number of colors and using and mixing those for a while to get completely familiar with what they can do; you can always add more colors to your palette as you get more experienced. Below are the six colors (with their alternates) that I recommend as starter colors. (WN) stands for Winsor & Newton Artists' watercolors, (GRA) stands for Grumbacher Academy watercolors. The first color listed is my first choice and are better quality paints overall, but because my viewers have asked for less expensive alternatives, I am including the Grumbacher Academy colors. However, please be aware that Golden Yellow and Vermilion Hue are not as lightfast as the Winsor & Newton alternates.

When choosing paints, please consult either Michael Wilcox's Guide to The Bes Watercolor Paint or Hilary Page's Guide to Watercolor Paint or (best guide) g online to www.handprint.c m and look up th particular manufacturer's paint you are considering to compare pigmen used, transparency, staining etc. You cannot go by the common nam (Sap Green, for example). You need to look for the pigment formulation (PGx so that you can compare one pai to another accurately.

Update: November 2004 I am now recommending Daniel Smith watercolors as an alternate choice for the basic six colors shown at left.

The Daniel Smith substitutes (left t right, top to bottom) are: ultramarine blue hansa yellow ligh quinacridone red phthalo blue (gs) hansa yellow medium, and organic vermillio

Most of you are familiar with the color wheel. It consists of the primary colorsred, yellow and blue, and the secondary colorsgreen, orange and purple(or violet).

Reds, oranges and yellows are warm colors; Greens, blues and purples are cool colors.

Part of the difficulty in mixing watercolor

Above: French ultramarine or ultramarine blue mixed with permanent alizarin crimson or thalo crimson. These two colors both lean toward violet, so will give you the 'purest' purple mixtures. Below: Thalo blue or Winsor blue [green shade] and bright

Above: French ultramarine or ultramarine blue mixed with Winsor lemon. These two colors will give you good greens, but because the blue leans toward purple (has a little red in it), the greens aren't 'pure'. Below: The thalo blue or Winsor blue [green shade] mixed with the Golden Yellow or Transparent

Above: Permanent alizarin crimson or thalo crimson mixed with Winsor yellow. These two colors give you the least pure, intense oranges because they lean toward completely different colors. If a quieter, duller orange is what you want, use these two pigments.

red or vermilion hue. Because the blue leans toward green and the red leans toward yellow, both of these pigments have some yellow in them, so the mix won't make violet, but more of a gray color. This is, in fact, one of my favorite mixtures for making black (a very saturated wash) or gray (more water, less paint). You can make the gray warmer or cooler by adjusting the blue/red ratio.

Yellow results in good rich greens, but again, not the purest mix, because the yellow leans Below: Scarlet lake or vermilion hue toward orange. and golden yellow or transparent The purest greens would be from yellow make good clean oranges Winsor Blue [gs] or Thalo blue because both of these pigments lean and Winsor lemon because they toward orange. both lean toward green.

Mixing more than two pigments, or mixing two pigments that are biased toward completely different colors will always result in more "neutralized" (less intense or pure) mixtures. These less intense mixtures can be wonderful colors, and you need to know how to mix them to play them off against brighter, purer colors.

In the example at the right, you can see that using duller, more neutral reds and blues around the brighter colors in the center (bottom, right) helps the bright colors stand out more than they do in the top right example, where the blue and red are used in their more pure, state.

Mixing color is a matter of proportion. How much of each color that goes into the mix determines the outcome. Always start your mix with the lightest of the pigments you are using, and add the others to it. Some pigments are much more "powerful" (that is, they have greater tinting strength), and it will only take a very small amount of them to change another color. In the sample at the left, I'm making a brown. The swatches on top approximate the proportion of color that would go into the mix. In the first sample, much less blue is used because it is thalo blue, and has much greater tinting strength than ultramarine blue. Finally, colors will look different if you mix them on your paper rather than in your palette. Some artists like to only mix their colors on the paper, not completely blending them together. Others like the control of color that mixing in the palette gives. Experiment with both methods to find the way that suits you. Whichever way you go, don't OVERMIX your pigments. Let them retain a bit of their individuality...even in mixtures. The little sample at the left uses color temperature (warm to cool) to move us from one side of the building to the other, and from the warm reflected light from the ground to the cooler reflected light from the sky. It also shows how using neutralized colors (in the building, shadows and ground) can set off purer, brighter colors (the red flowers and bright green bushes).

Topic: Watercolor Paints: Qualities & Characteristics You've just bought your first tubes of professional quality watercolor paints. Great! Once you get to know them well, your color mixing should be easier, with more predictable results, and your paintings will benefit from your added knowledge. What do you need to know about the colors you've just purchased? They all fall under the general category of watercolor, but they each have unique qualities. Are you a painter that likes to build up your paintings slowly with layers of luminous color? Then you need to use the most transparent pigments you can find. Are you a plein-aire painter, who wants to make gutsy, expressionistic works? Then you may want pigments that are a bit more opaque, and sedimentary. Do you keep having trouble with a particular color "taking over" every color mixture you make? Do you like to lift out color by rewetting portions of your painting and blotting it? You need to know about staining and tinting strength. For a top-notch discussion of all these qualities (and much more), Handprint.com has the best information available online.Bookmark the site, because you'll want to go back from time to time. All of these qualities are things you can discover with a little testing. Here's how to do it.

Transparency

You can easily discover the relative transparency of each of your colors. Use permanent magic marker to draw a wide (about 1/4"-1/2") line on a piece o watercolor paper. Let your marker line dry completely. Now, for each color y to test, mix up a fairly saturated brushful of your paint color, and brush it ac marker line. Do this for each color you have, labeling them with the manufac (note if student or professional grade), and the color name and number. Let samples dry, then look carefully at the area where the paint overlaps the bla If the color "disappears" when it overlaps the line (i.e. you just see a black lin consider that color to be very transparent.

In the sample at the left, most of these cool reds are transparent; the least transparent one is the Permanent Rose [Winsor & Newton Cotman]. You can that it leaves more of a deposit on top of the black line than the other colors

his test every time I buy a new tube of paint. There ifferences between brands, even when the color e is the same.

e right samples, the warm reds, particularly the miums and Winsor & Newton's Bright Red, are fairly ue. The Sennelier brand of Cadmium Red Pale nearly rs the black line. It is very opaque.

e green-leaning yellows, many are somewhat ue, with the Sennelier Cadmium Yellow Lemon being most opaque. Winsor and Newton's new Transparent w is very transparent in thinner, less saturated es.

ember: opaque colors do not glaze or layer well! Use opaques for more direct painting styles...put them down and leave them alone...don't paint over them with another color, as they tend to get muddy and chalky looking if overworked.

Staining Quality and Tinting Strength

The staining quality of your pigments is also something you nee aware of. This has to do with whether or not the paint can be re dry and blotted or "lifted" lightening the value in some cases to white paper.

In many cases, paints that are extremely staining are also pigm have a lot of tinting strength, which means that they can easily some colors, and it only takes a small amount of them to make change in a mixture.

The test for staining is easy. Paint a patch of each color you wa labeling the patches as you go with manufacturer name, grade professional), and color name and number. Let the patches dry brush (oil painting brushes work well) wet with clean water. Stro times* back and forth over a patch. Blot with paper towel or tiss the brush and repeat for each patch you've painted. Compare y samples. Some (like the Winsor & Newton Rose Madder Genuin samples at left) will lift nearly completely off the paper. Others, Alizarin Crimson by Grumbacher don't come off well at all.

Winsor & Newton has come out with a new medium, called Lifti that you can use to facilitatte lifting any color, regardless of sta strength.

If you like to be able to lift out whites or lighten areas af paint is dry, you need to use paints that don't stain heav

e same number of back and forth strokes on each patch so that testing each one in the same way. You can use more than twenty but be consistent.

ntary Quality

here is another paint quality you need to know about. Sediment. int is made from finely ground pigment (color) particles plus usually gum arabic. Depending on what material is used for the these particles can be heavy or light. When you thin them with he paints that have heavier particles will tend to separate from the d binder and "sink" quickly onto the paper surface. You can even happening right in your palette. Manganese blue is a very good of a pigment that is very sedimentary. When you mix these tary paints with a color that is non-sedimentary (or has lighter that stay suspended in water better), the mixtures will tend to out, with the heavy particles sinking and the lighter color nating in the remainder of the wash. There is a demo of this on my e (using sedimentary pigments).

or sediment, you need to make a half inch patch of a color on your er, then fill your brush with water and quickly extend the patch to inch or more. Then tip the paper back and forth so that the will run from the more saturated part of the patch into the more down part. You can tip the paper back and forth a couple of times. sample dry, and repeat for each color you want to test. When the are dry, some of them will look much "grainier" more mottled nce in the lower portion of the patch, and some will just look value but smooth. The ones with the most mottled, grainy look ones with sediment or heavy pigment particles. In my sample, t right, only the Winsor & Newton Rose Madder Genuine, and the nt Rose (Holbein) had any appreciable sediment.

What it means: Paints with a lot of sediment should not for layering or glazing, as they tend to lift, and chalky or muddy looking if overpainted and ov

From Sketchbook to Paper: Enlarging Your Ideas I strongly encourage my students to get in the habit of using a sketchbook...not only for planning watercolor paintings, but also for recording thoughts and ideas about painting, about your subjects, about your feelings, about anything that may help you discover your own voice in painting. Learning to be technically proficient just requires dedication to the PRACTICE OF PAINTING. Learning to speak with your own voice through your painting is an ongoing process, and your sketchbook/diary can help you find the recurring patterns in the things you respond to and want to paint, and in how your experiences, education, and feelings contribute to your interpretation of your subjects. If you aren't in the sketchbook habit, get one (or two...keep one in your car), and then use it! In no time, you will have lots of ideas that can be worked up into finished paintings. To help me edit my observations or imaginings, I have made several templates from scrap watercolor paper (you could use matboard pieces too), that are scaled down versions of 1/2 sheet and full sheet watercolor paper. If you have other favorite sizes of paper you regularly use, you can make themplates for these too. On the templates, I've made "tic" marks to divide the templates into a grid. I keep these templates tucked into an envelope glued to the inside back covers of my sketchbooks, so that they're always handy.

Below is a photo I took in my front yard. This is one of my favorite places to relax...the table sits under a huge mesquite tree, there are interesting cactus to look at, birds singing, and hummingbirds visiting the feeder that hangs from one of the tree branches.

I begin my planning / thinking by tracing around the edges of a template onto a page of my sketchbook, and making matching tic marks around the edges so that I will know where to draw the grid lines after the sketch is worked up. The photo above shows what some of these templates look like. You can use a calculator to figure out different scale measurements for your templates.

I use the smaller templates for quick thumbnails...often to play around with preliminary simple value patterns. (above). Then I will use a larger template to make a more complete drawing, with a more detailed value pattern.This page from one of my sketchbooks shows the tic marks in place before the grid is drawn over the sketch.

I drew around a full sheet template to begin my sketch. When I was happy with the drawing, I connected the tic marks to make a grid over my drawing (left). At this point, I was ready to enlarge the drawing onto my stretched watercolor paper. I first divided my watercolor paper into a grid, making very light pencil lines with a 6B pencil. This grid has the same number of sections as the grid drawn over my sketch. I look at one section of the grid in my sketchbook drawing, beginning in the upper left corner, and draw what I see in that section into the corresponding (but larger) section on my watercolor paper. When the first section is enlarged, I go onto the next adjacent section, working from left to right, top to bottom, one section at a time until the drawing is enlarged. I will then make any additions or corrections I want to the drawing before I start painting. In the photo (above right), you can see a couple of my grid lines as well as unpainted parts of the painting. This is a simple, quick and easy way to get your ideas from your sketchbook to your painting surface, and in addition, it is good visual training for your eye and mind. The photo below shows the painting in progress. example, taking the top upper left section of my sketch (shaded in pink, left), you can see that the line which represents the top of the brick patio

When I'm enlarging, I note where major lines of my sketch intersect the grid lines, and mark those intersections with dots in the corresponding place on my watercolor paper grid. For

wall intersects the right grid line a little above the half way point from top to bottom. The red tic marks represent the visual quarter points and half way points that I visualize on each section of the grid to help me establish the points of reference I need (blue dots) as I enlarge the drawing. The curved edge of the tree shape starts about a quarter of the way across from left to right and ends a little more than 5/8 of the way across. I continue this visual "measuring" for each grid section, adjusting as needed. There are other ways to enlarge your sketches. If you have a scanner and a computer, you can scan your sketch, pull it into an image editing program, enlarge it to be the same size as the watercolor paper you want to use, print it out as a "tiled" image, reassemble the tiled pieces, and then use transfer paper between the computer assemblage and your watercolor paper. You then trace over your computer enlargement, and the transfer paper will transfer your drawing to your watercolor paper. Some artists also use an opaque projector to enlarge their sketches onto their watercolor paper; others take slides of their sketches and then project the slide onto their watercolor paper to enlarge it. Use whatever method works best for you.

Topic: Creating Three-Dimensional Form with Value In order to keep the objects we paint from looking flat, we need to create the illusion of three dimensional shape and form. One of the ways to do this is with value changes from light to dark. Observation helps us decide where the light source is, and how the light hits the objects. Once we know where the lights and darks are, we have some choices as to how to create those value changes in watercolor.

Wet-into-wet (left) and Glazing or Layering (right): The wet-into-wet sample on the left uses three values of green, beginning with the lightest, then, the middle value is added while the first color is still damp, and finally, the darkest value is added. This gives a "softer" form, and might be used in background objects where sharp focus is not wanted. The second sample (on the right) requires a bit more patience, as you must wait for each layer of color to dry completely before adding the next "glaze" or layer of color. As in the first sample, begin with the lightest value of green and establish the entire shape of the object. When this is dry, paint on the middle value where needed, and again wait for this to dry. Finally, add the darkest value to complete the form. This can be fairly detailed if you want it to be, and is useful for foreground or midground objects. If you are in a hurry and can't wait for things to dry on their own, invest in a small hair dryer which is helpful (especially in humid climates) in drying paint passages in a short amount of time.

It works on manmade objects too... In the three pots shown (left), I used the same methods demonstrated above for creating for form of the terra cotta pot. The top sample was done using the glazing method on dry paperthat is, separate layers of successively darker values were applied to dry paint layers until the form was established. In the second sample, I used a partly wet approach. Look at the bottom of the pot where it "dissolves" into the background, and you'll see where the paper was still partly wet when another darker value was added. Where you see hard, sharply defined edges between colors, you know the paper was dry because the colors didn't run or merge together. Finally, the bottom sample was painted using the "wetinto-wet" approach. This takes a little practice to know how wet or damp the paper should be before another color is added, but it wlways starts with the lightest, least saturated wash of each color, and ends with the darkest, most saturated washes. And of course, wherever you want definition along the edge of an object, you either have to wait for the paper to dry, or paint very carefully (as I did in this sample) leaving a tiny white unpainted bit of paper showing between one shape and another (in this case between the pot edge and the background color).

Topic: Creating and Regaining Whites In traditional watercolor painting, white is obtained from the white of the watercolor paper rather than from using a white opaque pigment. If you want to keep to the traditional way of painting in watercolor, here are three ways to get white areas in your painting.

PAINTING AROUND the white areas This approach requires pre-planning...a light pencil sketch will do...so that you know where the white areas are. Then you simply and carefully paint around those areas, leaving the white paper showing. If the paper is dry, you will have hard, sharply defined edges (as shown here). If the paper is damp, the pigment will spread more, giving you soft edges. Practice will help you anticipate how far the paint will spread on damp paper, so that you will still have white left even after the paint expands.

. The tree trunk, grass and part of the fence were left unpainted, allowing the white of the paper to show and create the shapes.

SCRAPING OUT the white areas In this technique, you use the angled end of a plastichandled aquarelle brush, a piece of an old plastic credit card, or even a stiff piece of matboard to scrape your whites out of a damp passage of paint. This approach requires perfect timing. If the paint is too dry you will not be able to scrape back to the white paper, and if the paint is too wet, it will run back into your scraped areas. Practice this until you get the feel of how damp the paint passage needs to be.

The tree trunk, grass and part of the fence were scraped out while the paint was still damp but not running wet.

LIFTING OUT the white areas Sometimes you just need a white (or light) area that you haven't planned for in advance. All is not lost! Use clean water and a clean brush to wet the pigment where you want to regain a white or light area. Let the clean water sit on the paint for 30 seconds or so until it can soften the paint. Then blot firmly with a tissue or paper towel. You can repeat this procedure to further lighten an area. If you have used a nonstaining pigment, you can usually get a near white using this method.

Lifting out whites is possible, as shown here, but a true white can only be gained if you've used a non-staining pigment.

Finally, it is possible (on a heavy watercolor paper of 140 lb.weight or more) to sand, erase and otherwise rough up paint areas to lighten them.You can even cut a stencil using mylar or acetate if you need to sand or erase and want a precise shape. Using an ink eraser will take off even staining pigments, but you can only do this on a good grade of watercolor paper. Otherwise you may get holes! Topic: How Color Value & Intensity Influences Dominance Most successful paintings have an area of dominance or a focal point. This area stands out from the rest of the painting because the artist has arranged or orchestrated the color values, hues, and intensities in such a way that their contrast with the surrounding areas draws attention. When everything is equal in value and intensity, nothing stands out. In this first example, everything is competing for our attention because every object and section of the painting is approximately equal in value and intensity. Our eyes don't know where to "land" or focus, because each area of the painting demands equal attention.

Now look at the second example. Where does your eye end up? Where does it return to over and over, even after exploring all of the painting? If you said "the barn" you would be right! Here the intense red of the barn contrasts with the relative "dullness" or lowered intensities of the other colors, so that the barn becomes the focal point or the dominant element in the painting. If you want to use color intensity to create dominance, remember to use the "purest" color you can (i.e. not mixed with any other color).

In the third example, I dulled or lowered the intensity of the colors in the background of the painting, including the barn, and intensified the colors in the foreground, so that it pulls our attention to the grassy area at the bottom right area next to the road. These color values are also lighter and warmer, and generally, lighter warmer colors will pull foreward and attract more attention than darker cooler ones.

Finally, look at the last example. What is the dominant area or focal point here? If you said the sky area you would be correct again. Topic: Painting with a Limited Palette of by Colors This is accomplished making the sky the purest You've probably noticed when you went shopping for watercolor pigments that there are amost LOT of most intense color, and also the area with the available colors. If you've taken a workshop or a class, that in most have their contrast inyou've value. found The colors theteachers rest of the painting "favorite" palette of colors as well. How do you choose? My dulled advice or is to begin in with a small How number have all been lowered intensity. do of colors, experiment with those until you are thoroughly familiar with what each pigment can do itself you lower intensity (or dull) a color? By mixing itby with and in mixtures with the other hues. Then, add few more colors to your palette, and continue itsa complementary color. (see the color mixing tip,your or experiments. Eventually, you'll find a group of that will give you the results you want for the gocolors to www.handprint.com for information on color type of complements) painting you do. . UPDATE: Since I initially did this tip, we've learned a lot about the lightfastness (or not!) of various tube watercolors. See www.handprint.com for LOTS of information about the pigments used in watercolor paints. Traditional Alizarin Crimson is not lightfast. Today, I would (and you should too) find an Alizarin Crimson substitute that is permanent. Look for a color that contains Pigment Red 122 (PR122) or a combination of PR N/A+PR206, or even PV15 or PV19. Some possible choices are: Winsor & Newton permanent alizarin crimson #466, Rembrandt permanent madder lake #336 or Schmincke madder red dark #354 or

The little painting below was done entirely with just three pigments: permanent blue, Winsor yellow and alizarin crimson (all by Winsor & Newton). All three of these pigments are "cool" leaningthat is, the red has a bluish cast rather than a yellowish cast; the yellow, although a clean clear hue, still leans slightly toward green rather than orange; the blue is a violet blue rather than a greenish blue.

Daniel Smith Quinacridone Red. Also, permanent blue is no longer made by Winsor & Newton. Use Graumbacher Finest ultramarine blue (permanent blue) #219 instead, or Daniel Smith ultramarine blue. Finally, you could substitute Daniel Smith Hansa Yellow Light, or Winsor & Newton transparent yellow #653 or Winsor lemon #772 for the Winsor yellow or permanent yellow lemon.

The three pigments are also very intensethat is, highly saturated so that it takes very little actual pigment to affect another color when mixed together. They are also all staining pigments, which means they cannot be re-wetted and easily lifted off the paper once they are dry. Because of this, you have to plan ahead for the pure white areas and remember to paint around them or protect them with liquid masking fluid as you work. Finally, in terms of pigment characteristics, this palette of colors as a whole is semitransparent, with alizarin crimson being the most transparent, and the permanent yellow lemon being the least transparent.When you look at the color wheel I painted using these three pigments, you can see that mixtures of the yellow and blue result in fairly clear greens, but that they are somewhat opaque (because of the yellow). Likewise the mixtures of alizarin and yellow give clean oranges, that become more slightly more opaque as they move toward the yellow. The mixtures of the alizarin and the permanent blue result in clear,

transparent violets. When it comes to neutrals, this palette is capable of mixing a wide range of them, from saturated darks (using all three pigments), to warm or cool grays (using different Topic: Using Value Contrasts Effectively Value contrasts are critical to successful watercolor paintings. Using a full range of values is sometimes difficult for beginning painters, because watercolor pigments dry lighter than they look when wet, and because too little pigment is used when mixing. Why are value contrasts so important? Because they help structure the painting, establish a center of interest, and lead the viewer into and around the painting in an interesting, orchestrated and planned way. Value patterns also help describe forms, and tell us where the light is coming from. Finally, value contrasts help create the illusion of distance (depth) in our paintings. How well are you using value contrasts? Here's a tip. Take some of your paintings (or color photos of them) and have black and white photocopies made of them. If you are loosing many of your forms, or if everything looks nearly the same shade of gray, then you probably need to focus a little more on value contrasts.

Mixing darker values of colors (shades) is not as straightforward. You can add black to many pigments to darken them, but in some cases, this creates surprising results (particularly with yellows which turn green when black is added to them). A way to darken some hues successfully is to add a little of their complementary color, or another pigment in the same family that is inherently darker in value. Yellows can be darkened with browns. See the examples below.

Demonstrated in the samples at the left are hi-key values (top), low-key values (middle) and full value range (bottom). Note how both the hi-key and low-key paintings seem flatter than the one with the full range of values. That's because they lack contrast. All of the values are very similar. In the bottom painting, each object has been painted using changes in value from dark to light. As a result, this gives both the individual objects 3-dimensional form, but also adds depth to the painting. Finally our eye tends to focus on the lightest values where they juxtapose the darkest values (in the center of the painting).

In more complex paintings like the one at the right, value patterns of light and dark help lead your eye through the painting. Note how the lightest values make a loose "S" shape beginning with the light clouds in the upper right, going down and left behind the tree trunks, then right and down over the rock forms, and then curving left and running along the bottom. While all these lights aren't actually connected, their contrast with the surrounding values help them create the "S" movement. Squint at the painting and you will see what I mean. Spring Celebration, 1993 Ellen Fountain 12" x 7", watercolor on paper

In this sample, value contrasts not only create form, but also capture the "mood" I wanted for this piece...a gray winter day, with bright patches of sun on dried grass and foliage. Winter Light, 1993 Ellen Fountain 4" x 9.5", watercolor on paper

Topic: Textural Effects for Watercolor Painting Watercolor is a wonderfully versatile medium, and you can change its look quite easily with additives and other materials to give it a more textural appearance. The samples below demonstrate some of

these textural effects. Some work better with staining pigments, or with pigments that have sediment. Experiment with the pigments you are currently using, and then give them a try in your next painting!

ALCOHOL Dropped into a damp wash of a single staining pigment. Timing is critical; if the wash is too wet, the alcohol will be diluted too much. If it is too dry, the effect won't work. ALCOHOL Dropped into first wash of gold, then color allowed to dry. Second wash of green applied and alcohol added into this second wash

ALCOHOL Dropped into a damp wash of a single non-staining pigment. See the first alcohol comment for tips about how damp the wash should be for this effect to work successfully.

SALT

SALT

SALT In this sample, the wash was barely damp, and the texture from the salt is quite fine.

Sprinkled into a damp wash Sprinkled into a wet (still with a more saturated shiny) wash of burnt sienna. pigmentation, the salt texture Note how much the salt is not as large. "spreads" here. .

BLOTTING & LIFTING Crumpled paper towel (left) and twisted facial tissue (right) are used to lift color and create texture in these two samples. This technique can also be used to regain light or white areas in your painting.

ERASING WITH STENCILS The three pointed shape was cut from acetate, and then an eraser was used to remove color. You could also use a damp sponge over a stencil to lift color. In both cases the underlying wash should be absolutely dry.

SANDING On a completely dry wash, you can use a light grade of sandpaper to "roughen" the surface and remove color. You should only do this on 140lb. or heavier good watercolor paper, or you may end up with holes!

. WAX (Paraffin) & CRAYON Clear wax drawn on white paper or on previously painted and completely dry washes acts as a resist to subsequent washes, and also adds texture as it goes over the rough surface of the watercolor paper.

LIQUID FRISKIT (Masking Fluid) Depending on the brush you use to apply it, the surface of the paper you are using, and when you apply it (on unpainted paper or dry washes of color), liquid friskit can create small details or interesting textures. Remember to remove the dry friskit as soon as possible, because it becomes more difficult to get off the longer it stays on your paper surface.

. PLASTIC WRAP, STRETCHED This is an interesting way to texture land forms, ice or water. Stretch the plastic wrap sideways, forming folds, then lay into a wet wash. Allow to dry. When removed, you'll have a great texture! PLASTIC WRAP, CRUMPLED In this sample, the wrap is crumpled and laid into a wet wash, where it is allowed to remain until the wash has dried. When removed, the texture of the crumpled wrap remains.

. WAX PAPER, CUT OR TORN INTO SHAPES Wax paper can provide wonderful textures for rocks, leaves or other natural objects. You can cut or tear it into the shapes you want and lay it into a damp wash. Additional color can be introduced under the edges. Allow to dry and then remove from the painting. WAX PAPER, CRUMPLED In this sample, was paper was just crumpled up, then smoothed out enough to place over a wet wash. Allowed to dry in place, it will leave a nice texture when removed. You can weight it down with a book if you want more of the surface to contact your painting paper.

. SCRAPING Use the angled end of your aquarelle brush, a piece of an old credit card, or even a piece of matboard to scrape paint off the surface of your paper. This needs to be done on a damp, not wet (shiny) wash. If you do it too soon, the paint just runs back into the scraped area. SCRATCHING Use the end of your paintbrush, a nail, a paper clip or any other hard object to scratch (make a groove or dent in) your paper while the wash is still quite wet. The pigment will settle in the scratches, drying darker, and giving you interesting textured passages.

Topic: Exploring Sedimentary Watercolor Pigments If you've been painting long, you've undoubtedly noticed that when you are mixing different pigment colors some seem "grainier" than others, and some mix together well, while others seems to separate out in mixtures. Some pigments flow evenly and smoothly over your paper, while others really have to be pushed around! What's going on here? It's simply sedimentary! The materials (natural or synthetic) used to manufacture the various artist watercolor pigments have different characteristics, and one of these characteristics is the tendency of particles of paint to settle out of the water and binder materials in the paint. We call this settled out matter sediment. Some watercolor painters don't care for sedimentary pigments because they are a little more difficult to use; they don't make smooth, evenly graduated washes for example (they streak), and some of them are quite opaque, and if used heavily can look chalky and dull. Butif you are aware of what they can and can't do, they can be wonderful additions to your palette. If you don't know which of your tube colors are sedimentary, you can conduct your own tests. The paper you use for these tests influences the result. The sediment is easier to see on cold press or rough paper, since there are depressions in the paper surface to capture the particles of paint, but your results can be deceiving, because the depressions simply capture and hold more paint, not just paint particles. If you use hot press paper you will have a truer test because the sediment will show up even without paper depressions to capture it. Here's how to do your sediment tests:

Fully saturate your brush tip with the color you want to testin this case I used Cobalt Violet / PV14and paint a 1/2"x1/2" square with this fully saturated mixture. Now take clean water, a full brushload, and touch the bottom edge of the square while it's still wet. Pull the clean water down about an inch from the bottom of the square. Tilt your paper and let the water run into the square, then tilt it back the other way, and let the paint run into the clear water area. You can do this several times. Let your sample dry. My example was painted on cold press paper.

Here are some other sedimentary pigments for you to experiment with. Green Earth / PG23 (opaque) Cobalt Green / PG19 (transparent) Manganese Blue / PB33 (transparent) Cerulean Blue / PB35 (opaque) Manganese Violet / PV16 (opaque) Burnt Umber / PBr7 (opaque) Cadmium Orange / PO20 (opaque) Burnt Sienna / PBr7 (transparent)

Below are sediment tests of two blues and two violets on hot press paper. Notice the difference in sediment between a pigment like Winsor Violet (actually a blend of two violet pigments, PV23 and PV19) and the Cobalt Violet. The Winsor Violet is smooth, brushes out evenly and the tilting of the paper as you do the test blends the color fairly evenly over the test area. Compare this to the cobalt violet, which is grainier, and uneven where the heavier particles settle out in the mix. Similar results are seen in the comparison of the Phthalo blue (no sediment) and the Manganese Blue (lots of sediment)

So, what can you do with these heavier, sedimentary pigments? Take advantage of the fact that they will tend to stay put once they are on your paper, even when you paint over them. One of my favorite things to do with them is to use them to create shadows (in folds of fabric for example).

In the detail (below) I used Manganese Blue to create soft shadows in an Aureolin Yellow wash. While the wash was still damp, I brushed in the shadow areas. Because the manganese pigment is so heavy, it doesn't spread very far, so you don't risk losing highlight areas, as you might if using a phthalo blue or some other non-sedimentary pigment. If you're wondering about the small flower pattern, It was created using two different stamps that I hand-cut from pieces of pink pearl eraser. The stamps are "inked" from a heavily saturated mix of the color you want to stamp with. By protecting edges with wax paper as you stamp, you can even make the stamped design seem to disappear inside a fold of fabric.

"On a Clear Day, You Can See the Clear Cuts" Fabricscape Series Watercolor on Paper, 22"x15" image In this painting, a checkers board and Monopoly houses represent a town as seen from the air. The blue and red-brown checked fabric was suggested by infrared satellite photos which show vegetated and barren areas as colored patches. Photos taken over Oregon clearly show the clearcut areas in contrast to those areas with trees still standing.

In the second detail from the painting (at right), I used the manganese with a light red wash of Quinacridone Violet and Cadmium Red Light. I find these colored shadows are much more exciting visually than if I had mixed some unremarkable gray color, or even a darker value of the local color of the fabric. In addition, the sediment lends a textural quality, which is an added bonus when painting fabrics.

Wondering about the letter-number combinations following the pigment names? Those are shorthand for Color Index Namesthe precise pigment colorants used to manufacture watercolors. As a result of Michael Wilcox's groudbreaking work on the permanency of various watercolors*, most manufacturers have begun adding this information to their labels. This is important! A trade name like SAP GREEN doesn't tell you what's in that tube of paint. But, having the Color Index Name(s) on the tube would tell you that Winsor & Newton's SAP GREEN is a fugitive color (that means it will fade quickly) because it's made of PG12 and PY100, and that you'd be better off purchasing Grumbacher's or Da Vinci's versions of SAP GREEN because both of them are made with more reliable pigments (PG7 & PO49, or PG7 & PY42 respectively). *If you are concerned about the permanency of the materials you use to create your work, then you need to inform yourself about which paints/pigments are lightfast and which are not. Handprint.com has the best information on pigments available. Click this link and then look for instructions on how to test your paints. Another fun thing to do with these heavy pigments is to "drop" some into a wet wash of a lighterbodied pigment. In Barbara Nechis' book, WatercolorThe Creative Experience, she calls her variation of this process an "oozle", and she gets very interesting effects in her semi-abstract paintings by starting with very wet paper, and dropping transparent and opaque pigments onto it. She then looks at these spontaneous shapes and then develops the painting depending on what the shapes suggest to her. I take her division of pigments even further, because all opaque pigments aren't sedimentary, and some sedimentary pigments are transparent (see my list above for examples), and you will get different results depending on whether your pigment is staining, non-staining or somewhere inbetween.

Sedimentary pigments can be used to create oozles (or you can come up with your own name for these spontaneous shapes). Below is one example. Into a very wet patch of Aureolin Yellow (nonstaining and transparent), I dropped Manganese Blue (touched the point of a saturated brush to the paper). Some of the blue (the lighter parts of the pigment and binder) spread rapidly out into the yellow, while the heaviest particles stayed right where my brush tip touched the paper. You can manipulate this somewhat by tilting your paper.

"Watching Oozles Trapped in a Wash" Fabricscape Series Watercolor on Paper, 15"x22" image In this painting, two plastic pigs from the game of Pigmania, look over a ribbon fence at a wash (in our part of the country, a usually dry creekbed). When I was a kid in Lewiston, Idaho, we lived across the street and up the embankment from the river, and my Mom was always warning us not to play there, because of the dangerous currents in the river. For the longest time, I thought currents were something alive that lived in the river. When I read Barbara Nechisdescription of oozles (which sound like living things to me), I just had to do this painting...

Babrara Nechis' favorite combination for making oozles (her term) is Van Dyke Brown Umber and Permanent Blue. She mixes these together slightly before placing blobs of the mixture on very wet paper.

In the detail (right) from my painting, I had a very wet, medium value wash of phthalo blue and phthalo green, into which I dropped Burnt Sienna and Cobalt Violet, and tipped the paper a little to let the shapes spread out towards the right. When this dried completely, I added some linear curved lines in a darker blue-green to suggest movement in the water, but that can also be read as decorative patterns on a piece of watercolored fabric.

Topic: Using Stencils with Watercolor The Pattern & Decoration movement in the seventies definitely had an influence on my work. Miriam Shapiro was one of the main proponents of this movement and her works are full of patterning. My love of sewing and of working with those wonderful patterned fabrics probably made it inevitable that my paintings would be filled with patterns and representations of fabrics. One of the ways I put designs on the fabrics I paint is with stencils. The painting at the right, Casting Among Pearls, is a perfect example. The mountain shapes of fabric in the background utilize stencilled-on patterns. Stencils are simply a way of masking part of your painting to keep paint from going where you don't want it to go. Almost anything can be used for a stencil. You can buy ready-made ones and experiment with them, you can use a piece of lace fabric (spray it first with clear

acrylic to keep it from absorbing the paint), you can make your own stencils from stencil paper (available at art stores), clear plastic file folders, or just wax paper if you only need a one-use stencil. For this simple exercise in using stencils, you will need a piece of stencil paper, wax paper or a piece of clear mylar or plastic (I use clear plastic file folders available at an office supply store). You will also need a small sheet of watercolor paper, and an old toothbrush.

STEP ONE: Select three colors (I used cobalt violet, cerulean blue and lemon yellow). Wet your paper all over until it is shiny, then drop the three colors randomly onto the paper surface. Tilt your paper a bit if you want to blend the colors slightly. Try to keep some white paper.

Let this wet-in-wet background dry thoroughly. While you're waiting for it to dry, you can create your stencil. For this practice lesson, we're going to use both the positive and negative parts of the stencil the positive part is the shape you cut out, and the negative part is the "hole" left in the remaining stencil paper. To create your stencil, draw one continuous line to create your shape. This can be a landscape shape (as mine is for this exercise), or something more abstract. Let your imagination loose, and create a fabulous interesting continuous line! Once you've got the line drawn copy it to your stencil paper and place it about in the middle. Then carefully cut along your line, using an x-acto knife or a very sharp pointed pair of scissors. Remember you're going to cut the stencil just as you drew it...in one continuous line. The image at left shows both parts of the stencil. The negative shape is on top, and the positive shape is on the bottom. I left some of the paint on these stencils so that they would show up on the white paper, but they are translucent, so you can move them around on your dried underpainting and decide where to place them before you start spattering on the paint. The next step is to place either the positive or negative piece of your stencil over your underpainting. Move it around until you like where it is. I usually look at the underpainting and decide what passages of paint I want to keep (i.e. not cover with more paint), and place my stencils accordingly. For the Step Two, I used the negative shape first, placed it towards the bottom of the painting, and then used more of my cerulean blue and cobalt mixed together to spatter on paint over the stencil and onto the paper.

The technique of spattering is one I like using with stencils because it allows you to layer paint without worrying about lifting any color you already have on the paper (since you are adding paint via gravity instead of with a brush), and because it imparts a textural quality to the painting. Hold the toothbrush in one hand, with your thumb on top, bristles down and the toothbrush pointed down at the paper. I use a small paintbrush handle to drag across the bristles. Drag the handle from the front of the toothbrush towards the back. Your hand motion will be towards you. This seems backward, but isn't if you think about what is happening. You are applying pressure to the bristles, and as the handle passes, the bristles spring back into position and in the process fling tiny droplets of paint onto your paper.

STEP TWO: Here you see the negative stencil piece on the dry underpainting. Because the stencil is clear, you can see through it to place it correctly. You can hold it in place with weights or paper clips. Spatter on your paint along the edges of the stencil.

STEP TWO: (detail) When the stencil (top area) is moved, the area where you spattered the paint shows clearly. When you finish spattering, lift the stencil carefully off the paper, and remove excess paint by blotting it on a paper towel (or rice paper if you're a collage person...the blots make great collage papers!) Now, use the other positive part of the stencil, or reuse the negative part but in a different place. Spatter on some more paint.

Here you can see the positive part of the stencil (it looks kind of a blurry gray at the edge of the photo) after stencilling over it with cobalt violet. When you use the positive shape, what is beneath will be protected and the surrounding area receives the spattered paint. This is just the opposite of what happens with the negative piece. When you use the negative part, the spatter paint creates the shape, and the background is protected by the stencil. Deciding which stencil piece to use, and where to use it is half the fun of this exercise.

FINISHING UP: Here's the finished exercise. You can see I used both stencil parts more than once. I also did some spattering in the upper left corner to tone down the light area there, so that the focal point is the yellow area in the center right.

Compare the finished piece with the underpainting, and you will see what adjustments I made to the color values after and during the stencilling process. Since our eyes see light and bright before they see dark and dull, I wanted the movement of the piece to go from the lower left corner in a gentle "S" curve up to the upper right corner. This is an abstract approach to watercolor, but it's a fun way to introduce yourself to stencilling. Once you get the "hang" of using stencils, you'll discover lots more ways to use them. In my fabricscape pieces, I do a controlled underpainting of the fabric piece, including all the shadows. This is allowed to dry. Then I use wax paper to cut masks that follow the edges of folds, or the edge of one fabric where it butts up against another one. With these masks in place, I can expose just the part of the painted fabric that I want to add a stencilled pattern to. It takes time to stencil on designs this way, a section at a time, but the end result is very effective. Topic: Spacial Emphasis in Reference Photos Many watercolor painters use reference photos and/or sketches to work from when they are gathering information about a subject they want to paint. I'm no exception. I have thousands of slides and prints I have taken over the years that provide inspiration for subject matter, and jog my memories of a particular place and time. I learned over the years to always err on the side of more rather than less when taking reference photos and doing sketches. That way, I always have plenty of information when I actually get ready to do a final drawing in preparation to paint. And, it also allows me to decide later whether I want to give emphasis to the foreground, middleground or background. So, when I take photos, I take a wide, faraway view, a closer but still wide view, and then I zoom in, walk around, and take detail photos of more intimate parts of my subject. In my sketchbook, I will also do quick sketches, details of the subject or parts of it, with color notations, and write notes on what I was attracted to about the particular scene.

Emphasis: Background This is a farm in Northern Arizona. In this view, the feeling here is isolation. Note the distance from the road and the single mailbox. If I decided to paint this, I would probably tip the road up a bit so we could see it curving behind the mailbox, and then show it (much smaller) going up that distant hill to the farm buildings.

Whether you choose to emphasize foreground, middleground or background is influenced by your feelings about the subject, and what you want to convey to your viewer. Instances where you might choose to emphasize the background would be subjects where you wanted to establish a sense of grandeur, a sense of scale (the smallness of man in nature), or simply to play up the depth of field.

Emphasis: Middleground Let's go back to our farm, and see what a middle ground emphasis might look like. Here I've moved in closer to the farm, and now in the middleground, we see some cattle. We still have the rustic farm buildings, and old machinery, but the cows add a "living" element to the scene and make this view a little less lonely feeling.

Emphasizing the middleground is probably the most common choice among landscape painters, with background emphasis a close second. They are not the only choices, however. Often when you wander around your chosen subject for a while, you will discover a more uncommon view of it, or a person or animal will come into view giving you that "perfect" something to make a great watercolor.

Emphasis: foreground Here's one possibility for emphasizing some part of this farm scene relatively closeup. This old flatbed truck was parked just off the road in the field. You can see it just to the right of center in the first farm photo. Nicely rusted, it could make an interesting painting.

Emphasis: intimate foreground Don't overlook the little things! Spotting movement on the porch of the farm, I discovered tin cans with small seedlings in them. A little visitor had found that the moist dirt was a perfect spot to cool off on a hot summer day. Patience and a telephoto lens got me a reference photo that would make a charming watercolor painting!

I took these photos in Puerto Peasco, Sonora, Mexico. A ship had wrecked in the Gulf of California, and its remains were washed up on the beach. This point of view establishes a sense of scale, and the desolateness of the place, but it's hard to tell from this distance that it's a wrecked ship.

Moving in on the subject and emphasizing the middle ground will make a better watercolor. We still get the distant shoreline for scale purposes, but now we can tell what we're looking at. The waves in the foreground form visual lines that point us toward the shipwreck, as does the line between water and land in the distance.

In short, analyze your subject and decide what you want to say about it, and then choose your spacial emphasis to help you say visually what you have in mind. Take another look at your reference photos and see if they offer any new ideas. Happy painting!

Choosing a Palette of Colors With the hundreds of colors available to watercolor painters from so many different manufacturers, it can sometimes be overwhelming to choose a palette of colors. Nearly every watercolor book has the author's "favored" selection of tube colors, and that can be one way to choose. I get lots of questions about the colors I use, and you will find my palette here. A couple of comments on choosing paints: First, buy the very best you can afford. Many times, less expensive or "student grade" watercolors will have so little pigment in them in relation to the binding/filler agents that you will end up either using more paint to get the level of saturation you want, or you will simply not be able to get rich saturated colors at all. In addition, in order to make these paints less expensive, paint manufacturers may use pigments that are not as lightfast as those used in the "artist" or "professional" grade paints. That's not always true, so it pays to know which pigments are being used in the paint color you're considering buying. All the information you need is right on the label, and if it isn't, look for a different brand that is labeled correctly so you know what you are buying! A well-labeled paint tube will tell you everything you need to know. Don't go by the common color name that the manufacturer usesread the label!

This is the front of a tube of paint from Daniel Smith. It tells you the name of the company who made it (like Winsor & Newton, or Holbein, or in this case, Daniel Smith). It says Finest Watercolors, which probably means that this is "professional" quality paint. Then it gives you the common name of the color. This sample is Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet, but another tube might say Cobalt Blue, or Lemon Yellow. Finally, it tells you how much paint is in the tube. This can help you determine which size tube is the "better buy" if price is a concern. But....don't stop here. TURN OVER THE TUBE. The stuff you really need to know is usually on the back! Somewhere on well-labeled paints (usually on the back), you will find some or all of the following information: The Series number (relates to price and the cost of ingredients), The ASTM (American Society of Testing and Materials) Lightfastness Rating number ( I = excellent lightfastness, and II = very good lightfastness. You shouldn't consider buying any pigment that doesn't have a rating of I or II if you care about the longevity of your work.) The color index name(s), expressed as Pigment Color 000, or PX000, where X is the first letter of the color family namelike red(PR), blue(PB), yellow(PY), green(PG), etc. In our sample tube shown at the right, the color index name is PR06 (Pigment Red 06), and it's common name is Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet. The color index number(s), five digits long, which tell you the precise chemical composition of the paint color. The vehicle or binder for the pigment, usually gum arabic. Other vehicles or binders may include honey or glycerin. The single most important piece of information is the lightfastness rating, but some manufacturers do their own testing, so even this isn't always reliable. You should do your own color tests on the paper you use the most. The color index name (the PY000, or PBOOO) can be looked up in either Michael Wilcox's book, The Guide to the Best Watercolor Paints, or Hilary Page's book, Guide to Watercolor Paints. Handprint.com has the best information on pigments available online. .

Click this link and then look for instructions on how to test your paints. I chose my particular palette of colors first for their permanence, second for their transparency (because I do a lot of glazing, I prefer the most transparent pigments), and third for their color mixing abilities. Finally, I have a few colors on my palette that I like because of their granularity/sedimentary qualities in paint mixtures. Updated November 2004: I have made the following substitutions to my palette, since I am gradually switching over to Daniel Smith paints: For Dark Cool, blue-biased Red, I am using Daniel Smith Quinacridone Red (PV19) instead of Winsor & Newton Permanent Alizarin Crimson For Warm, orange-biased Red, I am using Daniel Smith Organic Vermission (PR188) instead of Winsor & Newton Scarlet Lake For Warm, orange-biased Yellow, I am using Daniel Smith Hansa Yellow Medium (PY97) instead of Winsor & Newton Transparent Yellow For Cool, green-biased Yellow, I am using Daniel Smith Hansa Yellow Light (PY3) instead of Grumbacher Lemon Yellow For A Purple Biased Blue, I am using Daniel Smith ultramarine blue (PB29) instead of Winsor & Newton French Ultramarine Blue For a Green Biased Blue, I am using Daniel Smith phthalo blue [GS] (PB15) instead of Winsor & Newton "Winsor blue" or Grumbacher thalo blue The colors on my palette (below) list the common color name and a particular manufacturer. All of these pigments have an ASTM lightfastness rating of I or II (most are I). When you look at the colors listed, you'll see two colors in most cases. The first color listed is what I have on my palette. The second color in ( ) gives you a student grade, less expensive alternate that is still lightfast, and resonably close in hue to the color I prefer. In four instances, I use the student grade paint myself because it is just as good as the "professional grade" (thalo blue, thalo green, yellow ochre, and lemon yellow). In the other instances where only one color is listed, it's because I feel there is no acceptable substitute. The exception to this is in the blacks. I only listed one warm black and one cool black, but there are many manufacturers making ivory and lamp blacks that are perfectly fine. I have removed all non-lightfast colors from my palette, including Rose Madder Genuine, which was a beautiful but fugitive hue. If you choose to use that pigment, know that Winsor & Newton is the only manufacturer that makes a true Rose Madder Genuine paint of quality, but it is NOT lightfast.

Hard and Soft Edges in Watercolor Watercolor artists have a great many choices about how to use this versatile medium. One of the decisions that they can make is how to treat their subject matter. Sometimes a subject simply demands a wet-into-wet approach with soft, feathery edges that suggest rather than precisely define objects. Other times, hard precise edges are chosen. Frequently, the most interesting watercolor paintings use both kinds of edges to give depth and focus to their subject matter. Let's look at some examples.

My Mom has a planter box that sits on the floor in front of floor to ceiling windows in her living room. She has an unusual mix of plants in it, including amaryllis and euphorbia. Here are two little studies I did of the same subject, one using mostly soft edges with just a little linear line work added after the wet in wet was dry (left), and the other with a wet in wet background where I painted around carefully drawn plant and flower shapes (right). The dark areas were glazed (painted over) the dry background. Fog is a rare sight in the desert, but we do get it now and then, and when we do, it turns our already surreal cactus plants into something other-worldly, as they almost seem to float disembodied in the mist. This is a perfect subject for soft, and "lost" edges. This little painting, Cholla in the Fog, was worked wet-into-wet, but I carefully avoided wetting the white areas. Those white areas are where light was striking wet stone surfaces and seemed quite bright, even as all else was subdued. I charged in some raw umber violet, some greyed purples, and cobalt violet, as the wet area began to lose its shine. The cholla were drawn in with a rigger brush, and spread enough to suggest these prickly cactus. A little salt texture was added, and the whole allowed to dry. Desert Symmetry, (right) is typical of most of the pieces in my Southwest Series, in that the plant and bird forms are stylized shapes, filled in with solid or textured passages of paint, and there are virtually no soft or lost edges anywhere. These works are intended to be very flat and two dimensional, with a shallow "space". This hard-edged approach works very well with my intent for this subject matter, which was to let my imagination have full reign instead of treating it representationally.

Now consider a more representational painting, called Under the Hedge. JellyBean, my neighbor's cat, liked to spend hot summer days in the moist, relatively cool and partly shaded dirt under the hedge in front of their low patio wall. Jelly-Bean is gone now, but lives on in this painting. What I liked about this subject (besides the cat!) was the stark contrast between the deeply shaded areas and the places where spots of sunlight penetrated the leafy canopy and lit up his fur. The light was so bright that you couldn't tell where the white of the fur stopped and the sunlit areas of the wall and background began. The same thing happened in the deeply shadowed areas and the dark areas of the cat's fur. A perfect opportunity to use both soft and hard edges, and to let some edges be "lost" (undefined). In this detail of the cats leg, you can see what I mean by lost edges. You see them where the stripes of his leg blend into the dark value of the ground, and also along the back edge of the leg where it is white. There, the edge is lost where it blends into the sun-lit background. In the case of the back edge of the leg, its simply a matter of not painting the paper...either on the cat or the background. In the case of the foreground and the stripes on the cats leg, this area was done wet into wet, and the colors allowed to blend together so that the hard edge is lost.

Finally, you see more lost edges along the bottom of the cat and the dark shadow, some soft wet-in-wet edges along the transition area from his chest to his sun-lit back, and some hard, well-defined edges where the right profile of his body, which is in shadow, starkly contrasts with the sunlit concrete block wall. This area of darks was done on dry paperthe darks pulled into the damp mid-gray area of the cat's fur to the left, where they soften ever so slightly as they get into the damper area. To practice these concepts, pick any subject you want, and try painting it using all (or primarily) wet-into-wet passages, with soft, undefined and/or lost edges, and then try painting the same subject again, but using hard edges, much like I did with the amaryllis paintings at the top of this page.

Topic: Practicing Your Brushwork Most watercolor paintings are comprised of washes, which are large areas of paint put on wet, damp or dry paper usually with a large mop or wide wash brush, and linear or drybrush marks, which are more like drawing or sketching, and are made with the point, edge or body of round or flat watercolor brushes. Some painters do work primarily with washes, and some artists choose to use a more linear approach. There is no "right" or "wrong" approach, but it helps to be comfortable with brushwork because it gives you an opportunity to add form, texture and character to your paintings. Brushwork is almost like writing. Once you have developed a mastery of your brush, your linear marks will be as individual, effortless and unique as your handwriting.

Let's take a look at some various kinds of brush marks that you can make using a pointed round watercolor brush. I did all these samples with a No.8 brush. Every mark you make is influenced by (1) how saturated (wet) the brush is with pigment and (2) how much pressure you apply to the brush as you move it across the paper surface. The strokes at the left are dragged strokes, with the wrist kept stationary and the arm moving from left to right. For the red strokes, the brush is nearly vertical to the paper, with just the very tip touching the surface, so that the line is very fine. As more pressure is applied, the line gets thicker. For the magenta strokes, the whole brush body is applied to the paper. The brush is held more horizontally for this stroke. Note that as the brush discharges paint and gets dryer, it begins to skip over the paper surface making a scratchier, highly textured, drybrush mark.

The orange strokes are also dragged strokes, but the arm is moved in a wavy motion, with the elbow and wrist stationary. Again notice how lighter pressure, with the brush fully loaded makes a narrow mark, while heavier pressure and a drier brush creates the scratchier, fatter marks at the bottom. Drybrush marks are more pronounced on rough surface paper than on hot press, because of the hills and valleys in the paper surface.

The curved stroke involves a little wrist movement as you stroke the color onto the paper. These curved strokes can be convex or concave, large or small, and made with either a fully saturated wet brush or a drier one if scratchier marks are the goal. If you use just the point of the brush, curved strokes are one way to suggest waves in water.

The curved short stroke is very handy for creating rounded rocks or pebbles. These marks can be large or small, and with a second layer of strokes you can begin to suggest threedimensional form. The dabbed stroke has many variations, depending on whether it is made with the tip of the round brush or the entire body of the brush. It's very useful for foliage, especially when a second or third value is added over the dry initial

dabs of color. This last sample is made with a stroke that uses the point of the brush and involves a flick of the wrist. When the point of the brush contacts the paper, the wrist is flipped upward, causing the point to lift off the paper and create a mark that is wider at the bottom and very small and pointed at the top. Great for suggesting grass, or with a brush so dry that the hairs begin to separate, it can be used to suggest fur or hair, or very fine grass.

Another influence on the appearance of your brush work is paper surface. Is it wet, damp or dry? The wetter the paper is when you make your strokes, the more they will spread and soften. You can use this to your advantage when controlling what parts of your painting have the most focus and detail. Take a look at the sampler I did below. This took about ten minutes to do, and uses many of the linear marks above. Create your own exercise painting to do using a variety of linear marks. Don't try to make a masterpiece...these are exercises.Vary the pressure on your brush, and the amount of paint in it; use the point and the body of the brush, make big and little strokes and lines...in short, experiment with your brush to see what it can do! Remember to let washes and brush strokes dry if you want to layer more brush strokes over them and maintain sharp edges. If your previous dabs are wet, and you make more dabs over them, the strokes will merge together instead of making a new layer of color. Notice that the dabbed strokes I added to the wet mountain shape in the distance are indistinct and soft, while the dabbed strokes in the tree leaves were put on in three layers, letting each layer dry before dabbing on the next.

Now take a look at a master of the brush stroke ...John Singer Sargent. Sargent was born in Florence, Italy in 1856. His American parents were there for his mother's health. He was encouraged early to develop his artistic abilities, and became a master "plein air painter" taking his watercolors everywhere he traveled. This painting is comprised mostly of brush strokes. Sargeant really liked to "draw" with his brush. There are some wash areas (the mountains in the distance, the soft corner of sky, the whitewashed walls, some of the greenery. But look at the linear marks! In the ground in front of the wall, on the pottery, the leaves in the trees and bushes. Especially notice the scratchy dry brush area in the dark tops of the pine trees. Click on the photo to see an enlarged view.

Topic: Abstracting from Nature One of the ways you can abstract your subject matter is to simplify it into basic forms. When you look at the paintings below and the photos they are based on, you can see where I used simplification and stylization to distill basic shapes from complex subject matter. By doing this, it allows me to substitute nature's complexity with a complexity of my choosing (pattern, texture and shape). This photo of a puddle alongside the road after a winter rainstorm, with its reflections of dry grass and weeds inspired my interpretation (shown at right). I exaggerated the cloud shapes and repeated them in the puddle shape. I stylized the plant forms, and overall kept the grayed, subdued colors in my rainy day photo. Can you spot the dark lizard on the lichencovered rock in the photo at the left? He didn't stay still very long, as he was after another lizard. Their chase inspired my painting, called "Tag, You're It". I used stylized plant forms in the background and foreground, and played off this busy pattern with the bands of color in the rocks and the more curvilinear lizard forms.

A horrible photo (except for the cat's silhouette) generated the idea for my painting at right, called "Window View". The cat looks out onto a color filled desert scene, while more colorful plant tendrils and wallpaper patterns fill the interior space.

Topic: Glazing (Layering Color) in Watercolor What does it mean to glaze in watercolor? How does the watercolor glazing process differ from oil painting or from other opaque mediums? If you've asked yourself this question, then maybe these tips will help. First, remember that even the most opaque watercolor pigments are not as opaque as gouache, nor as opaque as any pigment mixed with white. So, if you are painting in the traditional watercolor manner (i.e. not using Chinese white, titanium white or any opaque white pigment), then you must always work from your lightest value to your darkest. The nature of watercolor is that it is transparent, so even the pigments that are "opaque" don't ever completely cover up previously painted layers (unless you are putting them on straight out of the tube, which is NOT recommended!). Second, since watercolor pigments are resoluble, even when dry, care must be taken when glazing not to use a "heavy" hand...in other words, the paint should just flow off the brush, and you should use very little pressure, so as not to disturb the underlying layers of paint. A very soft brush is also a requirement. Third, use the most transparent pigments for glazing. Opaque pigments do not glaze well, and may look chalky when dry. Also, I try to use staining pigments for the first layer or two, and nonstaining ones for the final layers, because (1) the staining pigments tend to stay in place better, and (2) staining pigments will stain all the underlying layers of paint, which may or may not be what you want to have happen. If you don't know which of your tube colors are transparent and/or staining, refer to Michael Wilcox's book, The Wilcox Guide to the Best Watercolor Paints, or Hillary Page's Guide to Watercolor Paints. You can also conduct your own transparency, staining and sediment tests (see my tips page on this topic). Finally, each layer of color should dry thoroughly before glazing the next layer over it. This gives you the best chance of not lifting the underlying color. You can speed up the drying process with a hand-held hair dryer if you wish.

This sample painting above began wet-into-wet. Onto wet paper, I dropped aureolin and lemon yellow, and in places, charged in a little quinacridone red. I tipped the paper a little and blotted some areas to get all soft edges. When this dried, I began to pull out the shapes of the branch and birds by glazing more yellow and red over the first wash. I also began to introduce a little ultramarine blue just under the smaller bird and to pull out the shape of the small branch at the lower center. I also mixed a little blue with the yellow to glaze the area in the lower left corner. I let this dry completely.

Now I added more blue, fairly pure in the sky area, where I added clean water to soften it's edge, and grayed a bit with the yellow and red, to give the branch a little more definition, as well as to define the smaller bird a bit more. The blue was also glazed thinly in the lower right corner (foliage) and in a more saturated mix with yellow for the leaves in the lower left. I used more red to punch up the color around the birds heads, and to add a few more suggestions of foliage.

How do I frequently use glazing in my own work? I use it to create patterns on the fabrics that are part of my still life and fabricscape paintings. The sequential illustration at the left shows how I built up a complex pattern using masking fluid and five separate glazes of color. In the last panel, all the masking fluid is removed, revealing each layer of protected color in the design. Like many watercolor processes, this requires a careful drawing so that you know where your masking fluid is to be placed to protect each glazed layer of paint. This is a slow process, but the end result can be quite wonderful. I used it to good effect in my painting, titled In Pursuit of Something Good, shown below

Detail from In Pursuit of Something Good Ellen Fountain Click the image to the right to see an enlarged version