Beginner's guide: How to start painting in watercolor?

Smooth and with a light tone, watercolor is a painting technique present in the history of art, from the Paleolithic period to the present day. Over the centuries, various artists such as Tadio Gaddi, Albrecht Dürer, Van Dyck and William Turner have created smooth, transparent patches of color on paper by blending extremely ground pigments, incorporated with gum arabic and water. Learning to paint in watercolor can be a complex process when we ask ourselves about the materials and techniques we should use. In order to help in this initial phase, we have gathered basic tips and techniques for those who want to take their first steps in the world of watercolor.

The paper

Let's start this journey through paper. This is a fundamental choice as the results will be different depending on it. At the moment of selection it is necessary to know, that there are three fundamental factors: the format, the grammage and the surface.

With regard to the surface, it can be divided into three types: hot press (smooth and firm), cold press (textured paper) or rough press (soft and light). The cold press, which absorbs more water and pigment, gives the painter more control, while the hot printing paper gives the possibility to obtain sharper details. In relation to the weight of the paper, it is considerably heavier than normal paper so that it does not crumble or curl during use. Finally, we have the format that can be in block or individual sheet. If using the second option, it is advantageous to place an adhesive tape on the edges of the paper overlapping it on another surface to avoid curling or deformation of the paper.

brushes and pigments

There are many types of brushes, from large to small, hard to soft, that you can experiment with in order to get the illustration you want. Large format brushes are usually best used at the beginning to spread the pigments. When the surface of the paper already has several colors it is easier to use small brushes to continue to layer the color smoothly.

With regard to color, there are watercolor tubes that allow greater use of it, with greater freedom and flexibility in terms of mixing colors, and liquid paints that facilitate the return to colors that were once mixed.

painting techniques

In order to understand how watercolor painting works, we will present some techniques to get comfortable in this world. Full name wet-on-wet , as the name implies, wet ink is placed on wet paper. Start by wetting the surface with the brush soaked in water, sliding it in order to build small rectangles on the paper. Afterwards, wet the brush with a color of your choice and experiment with sliding or dabbing on the rectangles in order to obtain different results when the paint dries. As there is not much control over the ink when using this technique, after drying interesting textures may appear or the colors will appear less vibrant. To obtain more precise shapes there is the technique Wet-on-dry. On this one you can paint freely on dry paper, just add paint with a large, wet brush. The texture depends on the amount of paint you mix with water: if you add a lot of water it will be more diluted and vice versa.

To practice the uniformity effect of a color, there is a technique popularly known as ombré. Start by putting a little water on your palette and next to the desired color. Wet the brush and paint the paper with water only (no pigment). Slowly and subtly add some pigment to your water, continuing to paint where you left off. Repeat this process adding more and more ink. Throughout the process, don't forget to clean the brush on a piece of cloth or paper, so that in the end there is a good transition from water to paint. When finished you should have a streak of paint, light at first and thick and concentrated at the end, as in this example.

If you want to mix more colors in a build, you have to work slowly with two colors to get the transition. To understand which colors work best in a composition and to be able to correctly express the desired emotions, you can visualize the color wheel. In this example, start painting with the pure yellow paint. It should not be too diluted or concentrated. Clean the brush and mix some orange with yellow slowly. This color transition should be light and smooth, so try to avoid changing the tone too much. Little by little, mixing the two colors, you will get a beautiful gradient between yellow and orange, as in the example.

To create compositions with shapes first try simple elements like circles, triangles, squares and hearts. Afterwards, paint the background a different color, using a larger brush to fill in the large areas and a thin one to paint around the shapes.

Now that you know the essential bases, it's essential to experiment little by little with techniques, colors and brushes to be able to create your own compositions. At P55 you can discover many artists who use this technique in their artistic productions such as Paulo Ossião, Júlio Capela, Elena Polyakova, Carlos Carneiro, among many others.