Watercolor Techniques

Describing the Different Watercolor Painting Techniques

Painting with watercolor is one of the most addictive of all the various artistic activities and painters often attribute its highly engaging nature to its unpredictable and uncontrolled flow. Being one of the most expressive mediums, painting with watercolor entails a seamless use of colors wherein the painter can enjoy the freedom of using any number of techniques which would guarantee the desired outcome and make the painting come to life.

Some of the common watercolor painting techniques which are usually practiced by painters are described below:

• Washes, sometimes simply referred to as a flat wash, are the most commonly used among all the watercolor painting techniques and a basic wash is acquired by wetting the area of paper and applying sufficient pigment to it in a sloping manner from top to bottom. Since t is applied in form of horizontal bands which overlap with each other, it is imperative to leave it for drying itself out. A variation of this technique is a graded wash which entails more use of water and dilution of pigment so that the result is a gradual and evenly faded out surface.

• Glazing is one of the watercolor painting techniques in which the artist is supposed to apply a coat of thin and transparent pigment over the existing wash with the intention of adjusting its color and tone. Due to its nature, glazing is best achieved by using non-staining and transparent pigments which are applied in layers with each layer having thoroughly dried up before application of the next.

• While painting with watercolor, one could make use of the wet in wet technique which refers to the application of pigment to wet paper. This can be conducted by the painter over an existing wash wherein the paper is rendered wet with a large brush and the pigment is applied to form soft undefined shapes and blurs to create subtle backgrounds.

• In complete contrast to the wet in wet is the dry brush technique in which the brush is loaded with pigment, laced with minimum possible water and dragged over completely dry paper to form crisp and hard edged marks which will stand will conspicuously as the main focal point in the painting.

• Lifting off is one of the watercolor painting techniques which is done after the pigment has dried on paper. In this, the pigment is dissolved and lifted off the paper by wetting the area with a brush and blotting the pigment away with a tissue. However, not every color could be lifted off like certain shades of blue, red and yellow so using this technique on these colors should be avoided as far as possible. Likewise, this technique could be creatively used to produce hard-edged lines and shapes by making use of strips of paper.

• The unpredictable nature of painting with watercolor could be experienced with one of the watercolor painting techniques named dropping in color in which a drop of pigment is introduced in the wet region of the painting and allowed to spread unpredictably without any interruptions. As a result, the pigment blends, bleeds and feathers to form interesting gradations which otherwise would be impossible to achieve through other techniques.