The Bare Bones of Watercolor

Watercolor can be used in a variety of approaches. It is a translucent medium that can be built up, but is difficult to erase. This tutorial covers the most basic basics. If you find that you like watercolor, please, please, please get a book out from the library. There's some really great ones out there written by people far more qualified then I.

Before we start I'm going to show you two approaches to watercolor that are useful. The first is wet on dry. Making sure that the paper is completely dry, I add wet paint. The paint will not bleed out of the area where I paint. This is also good for line work and details.

The next technique is wet on wet. This is good for blended colors, sky, and flowing things. To begin, wet the area where you would like the color to be. The color will not go beyond where you have put water (how convienient!)

Then blot, drip, smudge, and paint on whatever colors you like. They will blend and bleed together with ease. You can let it flow out naturally or let gravity do it's work by tipping the page. You can also blow paint using a straw.

Before you begin you'll need to gather and set up your materials. Here's what you'll need:

Watercolor paints. (tube or dried sets are both fine).
Several different sizes of brush. You're set if you've got a detail, small round, medium flat, and large wash brush.
A paper plate or pallette.
Masking Tape.
A water cup full of clean water.
A paper towel, kleenex... something to blot up a mistake!

I'm working on some pretty cheap watercolor paper. This particular piece is 140lb cotton. Once your drawing is complete you'll need to stretch the paper so that it doesn't bend and warp with the water.

Tape down all the edges of the paper as tightly as possible. Take your large wash brush and water down the entire sheet of paper. Let it dry completly and it then be stretched taunt. This step can take 1 hour or more if you do not use a blow dryer. If you skip it, your paper may warp when you start to paint.

I squeeze out some of the colors that I'd like to use and start adding water to the paint. I drag a lot of water onto the paper plate because I want the color to be lighter. Since watercolors are translucent, the more water you add, the lighter the color.

I then mix my purple and paines gray together to get the exact color that I'd like. Don't be afraid to mix your paints or you will end up with generic colors. Mixing colors is risky if you don't know what you're doing because it's easy to get muddy looking watercolors if you're not careful.

I personally like to block my color in in cartoon like manner because that's my personal favorite style. To do this, I start dark and work lighter. If you would like softly shaded watercolor, you'll need to wet the entire area and keep it wet while you slowly shade and blend the color. (soft blended color is best achieved working wet on wet)

The entire dragon was done using the same color with different amounts of water added to it for darker and lighter color. To a degree this is nice because it looks uniform, but being uniform makes it flat as well. I happen to like flat, cartoon-like things, but if you would like more depth go for warmer and cooler versions of your color.

(note that this technique is wet on dry. The paper was completely dry and the color I was applying was wet. Each time I added a new shade a wait for things to dry completely)

By wetting down an area and then adding color to it you can achieve smooth, blended color. This is known as wet on wet.

The rest of the image can be completed with the same techniques used in each area. Happy painting! For some great books on watercolor, check out the "Northlight" line at any local bookstore.