What is the difference between oil
painting and watercolor painting?
What is transparent watercolor?
Why does watercolor get a bad rap
by the critics, etc.?
Do you have any tips on painting
in watercolor?
What is Yupo Paper?
Glossary
of watercolor terms
What is the difference between oil painting and watercolor painting?
Water colors differ from oil colors in the point
of transparency, and,
while the latter pigment may be called opaque,
the former is entirely the
opposite. An oil color is made lighter by the
addition of white, while
water colors are made lighter by the addition
of water.
Oil painting may be called body painting and the
oil colors will
cover any underlying tint or mistake, while water
colors, which
have no thickness or body, tint only in part,
showing the color of
the paper underneath.
What is transparent watercolor?
Transparent watercolor in essence is painting
without the use of white
paint, any opaque paint or wash, and nothing
else. Whether it is in tube
or cake form, watercolor is a blend of pigment
(colored powder), gum
arabic (a water-soluble adhesive), and enough
water to make the mixture
workable.
There are hundreds of watercolor societies today
in U.S. and abroad that
call themselves a watercolor society. But, they
allow their membership
and entrants into their national shows to use
crayons, pastel, acrylic, pen
and ink, and etc. I don't believe these watercolor
societies should be
called watercolor societies... They should be
called watermedia societies.
What makes a good watercolor painting?
Here are some helpful hints:
1. The more you work on a watercolor painting,
the more it will lose its
brilliancy and the free, careless style which
properly belongs to it.
2. Good technique will, therefore, mean quick
handling with clear,
transparent colors, blending the different tints
into one another without
showing the sharpness of the strokes connecting
them.
3. It must be free from meddling and retouching.
4. Blending is everything in watercolor painting
and anyone who is able to
paint a good sky, e.g., without showing the strokes,
may be ranked high
in technique in watercolor. I will probably take
some heat for this
statement, but, I personally believe it is what
makes a watercolor sing...
The beauty of water color painting lies in its transparency and brilliancy.
Why does watercolor get a bad rap by the critics, etc.?
Watercolor has always gotten a bad rap from artists,
critics, and museum
curators. They consider watercolor a colored
drawing, and not a serious
medium. Watercolor painters also disagree about
how the medium should
be used. As a purist, I wish to preserve watercolor's
integrity by not mixing
it with any other medium: colored pencil, acrylic,
ink, etc. Others think
watercolor should be used with every possible
combination of the above
materials to express themselves more creatively.
Do you have any tips on painting in watercolor?
I do actually, and have an out-of-print book on
the subject and I am in the
process of updating it and hoping to get it to
print some time next year.
But here are a few:
1. Buy the best paper, paints and brushes you
can afford to buy. Never buy
cheap materials, you get what you pay for. I
always compare it to learning
how to play the piano on an out of tune instrument.
2. Try to paint in the manner that describes the
subject. For instance, paint
water with horizontal strokes, as this better
express the horizontal form
of water.
3. Paint foliage in small layers or perpendicular
touches the latter for tall,
straight trees, the former for bushy ones, in
order to express their
character properly.
4. Remember that knowledge comes from application
and that, what you see
in art, can be gradually acquired through experience.
5. It is important to resist the temptation to
overdo it. A painting should make a
statement --one that doesn't need words. You
should not have to resort to a verbal
explanation. As Zoltan Szabo puts it, if you
need to use words to explain a painting,
you should be a writer, not an artist.
6. Study the masters, take classes from the best in the field. Read, read and read...
Here are a few don'ts:
* make your foregrounds too busy
or muddy.
* put too much detail in your backgrounds
- keep them simple.
* paint with tiny brushes.
use the
biggest brush you have as this will keep you from becoming to busy.
* use too much water - a palette
with light washes denotes a weak painting.
First of all, Yupo is NOT paper, but a plasic material
which is primarily used in the I personally feel it should NEVER be used to paint in watercolors. In order to get the paint to stick on the surface of Yupo you have to use fixatives, Since there are only two transparent watercolor societies in the U.S., you cannot
painting of signs. It can take a lot of abuse and is printed using
lacquer paints so that it
can withstand the handships of weather.
and this changes the surface. Fixatives are not used in traditional watercolor painting.
enter paintings done on YUPO. I also believe that any society that is known as a
watercolor society and allows such material in its shows, should not call itself
a watercolor society but a watermedia society. Again, I repeat that YUPO is NOT paper.
cold press; rough, and hot press paper
the texture of the watercolor paper. the mold
used in the paper making process
makes one of the three different surfaces.
value
one element of design that relates to the light
or darkness of a color or tone.
tone
a modified color with added neutrals. The relative
lightness and darkness in a
painting.
temperature
refers to the the warmth or coolness of colors.
warm colors
red, orange and yellow
cool colors
blue and green
texture
the quality of a surface, both tactile and visual.
toned ground
a thin or light glaze put over the paper's surface
prior to painting.
underpainting
the first wash applied to the paper.
masking fluid
a liquid latex product applied on dry paper and
allowed to dry before the application of
paint.
wet-in-wet
a technique that is applied to a wet surface,
creating a soft effect.
wash
a liquid application of watercolor.
a graded wash
varies in color or value from light to dark,
or dark to light.
glaze
the application of a wash over a dry underpainting.
tint
a light value of a hue, made by adding water
to the original color.
transparent
permit light to penetrate. To allow the white
surface of the paper
to show through applied washed.
chiaroscuro
italian meaning, a clear dark.
Look for the contrast of dark and light. The
three aspects of chiaroscuro are:
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