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Experimental Flowers in Watercolour
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Message
Posted
I totally agree Aqua I learnt in the 80's and conquered it to a reasonable degree...but don't get cocky with watercolour that's what I'm finding out now...but like a terrier I will keep gnawing on it until I can just lay a colour with a little confidence...I am on the tenth incarnation of my Pilbara Landscape and taken slowly and only working on it when the urge hits I will get to put it up as a finished work in a couple of weeks...I read a tip to use lemon juice to remove colour or ink which I used last night and it really worked...the ink I had put in in a fit of nib work was too dark and it lightened up beautifully...because I'm allergic to citrus I got Hubby to squeeze and strain it for me and now it's within an airtight container into which I can dip my brush into without sneezing or getting hives...I feel if we can conquer watercolour we can conquer anything...a very frustrating medium and bin filler but a beautiful one
Posted
I wonder whether this ties in with a thread I started...Diversify or Specialize?
I moved from pencil drawing as a 10 year old, to watercolour, because a well off friend of the family in Southport, asked me to choose a present, and I chose a tin of Reeves Students watercolours (Whole pans, which , incidentally, I have only recently chucked in the bin (the empty tin, I mean,because it had gone rusty) and felt totally guilty doing it...ie; binning a 67 year old friend!)
For a long time I knew nothing else until I bought myself a set of Designers' Gouache years later, and then oils, and acrylics, and pastels, and coloured pencils...you name it...I got it..and began to experiment. Jack of all trades...etc.
But watercolour is really all I want to use now, regardless of the subject. I didn't 'Suffer' with watercolour, because for so long it was all I knew.
Now there are so many different concepts of the watercolour method...'Loose' and 'Splash, splosh, splish' being just a few. I see its beauty of expression grow and grow...And I am so frustrated because I can't do it like this! I often feel stuck with one foot in the fiddling detail mud, and it is most annoying.
Posted
Patsy and Ruth as I said we all suffer from the same ailments with watercolour.
Being in love with it and again so much frustration at time.
At the end it all becomes natural but it takes some time.....
Like Ken rightly says.........of all mediums it is the alone one that gives so much excitment while working with it. Unpredictability is such fun !
Posted
Yes sowantopaint, carry on and relax. The more you relax actually the better you will produce.
Another thing that you might find useful is DO NOT RUSH - Plan your watercolour. Think carefully where you might lay different colours.
Have a swash of different colour near your work and place it around to see what it might achieve etc...
Only start when you feel it is going to work.
And something else : I have created more than one painting that was going to the bin for others to say that it was so beautiful........ so !!! just enjoy it.
Posted
I suffer with watercolour because of the time factor I just dont have the time for oils or acrilycs , and the trouble I have with my watercolours is with ,keeping the colours fresh and vibrant looking ,I have never been able to rescue a watercolour. if it.needs any over painting I bin it , even a look of muddiness
and its in the bin.,I have been experimenting with different artists colours to see how clean they look ,in different mixes I also try a using little ultra to give the grainy look , If you use black ink as a mixing agent ( the dip and brush ,waterwashable )not the pen one,off course
you can mix it in cobalt to reduce the blending into other colours//ie// the cauliflowers ,but it will tend to give a dirty apperance ,,but i find .using just a touch of liquitex, in watercolours seem to keep them clean ,
any one who can give their views on this would be nice to hear
I find it more interesting on the forum than the personal chat
that for me is a turn off
Posted
I had a very brief dabble with watercolour many years ago, realized I wasn't going to make any progress at that time, and happily switched to oil, and then to acrylic. I'm glad I did it that way, because it's enabled me to rediscover watercolour recently and find that the things I learned through oil and acrylic painting are applicable to w/c. On the other hand, I don't have Alan's fresh and loose approach, which perhaps I might have if I'd pursued a longer and more faithful apprenticeship. Snag is, I know I would have given up painting altogether - for me, watercolour is like poetry: if I'm going to come to it, it'll be later in life.
I try not to bin paintings - although I still do. But I do sometimes wash off the sky (especially) and start again. I was lucky that it worked last time, but obviously it doesn't always. As to the 20 minutes and done school, I know what is meant - think of some of the Victorian watercolours, stippled and harried and done to death. However, I'm always going to take longer than 20 minutes because I believe in letting washes dry naturally, ie no hairdryer, and I loathe masking fluid (which can save time). I could wish that one or two dogmatic people would understand that time is just an invention; the last thing I'm going to be doing is timing any painting. I think it's helpful to say that a watercolour is essentially an evanescent medium, best suited to capturing fleeting effects, and that therefore it makes sense to work quickly (not least because you want to take advantage of the fluidity of the medium and don't want it drying out too fast) but let us not tell the poor student that he/she has failed somehow and should try something else if they haven't finished the picture inside 10 or 20 minutes. It's hard enough already.... We're all different: there are hundreds of ways of painting, when you go into the details of our varying practices - and I do get cross when painters lay down rules for others which actually apply only to themselves: eg, just because I hate masking, I wouldn't even suggest anyone else should avoid it. But I'm running on...
Posted
OH what a wonderful thread I no longer feel alone with the struggle...each incarnation of a painting gets a little further...I have stopped binning what I consider to be spoiled work just last week just having finished setting up my studio space I set down and did some pen work and just when I was thinking this is coming off this board tonight Hubby came in and said that's really good??? so it's still on the board.
Hi Ruth I remember the watercolour tins with the pans I always seemed to have one as a child and used them but didn't consider it art but perhaps that's when the seed was planted.
Aqua you are so right about planning and taking your time...I like to let each layer dry naturally so in class I will walk away from my board and have a coffee and a look around because Tutor may come and have a look with suggestions which make me doubt my plans for the painting...learning new tricks too...although he's a good Tutor sometimes he can't help himself but sit down to your work and put his mark on it...but then I feel it's not mine anymore...so my new Flinders Landscape will be glazed slowly I can see it in my minds eye now and it's been a long time since I have had that...so all of the repeating and struggling is worth it...this is a thread I certainly will be visiting again for tips and good advice
Posted
You are right Patsy. It is a MUST to let dry before adding another layer of paint, unless of course you are applying wet in wet.
It is a shame that you tutor is adding his own touch.I would feel the same. No longer my own work.
May be you could suggest that for once you should all do a painting without any help or that he asks to the students which one would be happy to have help on their paintings.
Posted
now how about the additves you have used ,as aboy apprentice i did imatation woods (called graining )we used beer to mix with vandike crystals to bind the watercolours ,have you tried other ideas , they say honey can be used .or jelly cristals,and the new stuff for lifting out,
give us your ideas please,
Posted
I should be strongly tempted to clobber any tutor who tried to add his touch to my painting; but then, I don't go to art classes so the contingency is remote. As to additives - I do try not to use them. I have used ink before, but never interactively, in other words I lay it down first and then add colour when it's dry. I don't use masking, granulating medium, honey, glycerine, gin (I have another use for that), but have used salt - sparingly - and sgraffito: not really an additive. On the other hand I use opaque paint, eg Naples Yellow, VERY occasionally Chinese white, Cadmium Yellow. It's a matter of personal preference, I think - I'll use any number of implements to make a mark, pen-knife, sandpaper, colour shapers, the wrong end of the brush, quills, touches of pencil or charcoal, ink, carbon pencil, conté crayon, watercolour pencil, fingernail.
I sometimes wonder why I dislike "interfering" with the actual paint,. when I'm quite happy to move it, shift it, scratch into it... I think it may be because so much can be done with the way the paint is applied, and the surface on which it's painted. I also think that so many books and articles have stressed these techniques when at best they're tricks: they get in the way of the painting process if you're not careful and become ends in themselves rather than means to an end.
I'm no expert in watercolour: but I believe that you find your paper, and find your paint, and apply the one to the other as best you can. And that you'll make faster progress if you pursue that method before ever looking for additives and ways of extending or modifying the paint.
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