TIPS FOR STARTING OFF IN WATERCOLOUR

Watercolour sketch page - Sarracenias

It’s been too long since I last wrote a blog post, I’m afraid life rather got in the way, but I’m back with something that’s been bothering me for a while. Grab a cuppa and maybe a biscuit, this is a long read



As well as being a Botanical Artist, I am Botanical Painting Tutor for the London Art College and have noticed how difficult starting off in Watercolour can be. There’s a saying that Watercolour is the easiest medium to pick up, but the most difficult to master and in some ways I would agree with this.


I think a lot of that is Where to Start ? When faced with an art shop full of materials and there’s so much choice, it’s really confusing.


There’s also confusion about what is the most important element of painting in Watercolour. Because it’s called Watercolour painting, you’d think that the most important element would be the paint.


But it isn’t !


As I’ve written further down the page, as long as you are purchasing decent bands of professional paint, even the modern student grades will be good. The range of colours are limited, you do have to check for single/transparent pigments, and they may not be quite as strong as the professional range, but these are minor problems when you are starting out, and are an advantage for beginners in the case of limited range of colours and the very strong Phthalo pigments.


In fact, the most important elements in order of importance is 1. Paper 2. Brushes 3. Paint.


That’s right, Paper is the most important element !


Why? Because it doesn’t matter how experienced you are, or how wonderful your brushes are, or that you have the finest paint. All this is nothing if your paper is poor or inconsistent or it doesn’t suit your way of working.



1. PAPER

A selection of Watercolour
paper samples with tests

Even the most experienced watercolour artists can have problems when the paper becomes inconsistent and I’ve written about that here in PAPER MATTERS. Katherine Tyrrell has written about Watercolour Paper in more depth here https://www.botanicalartandartists.com/botanical-art-paper.html scroll down the page to find out what happened when a previously beautiful watercolour paper changed.

More Test samples with cut sheets

So what paper to choose? This is a huge question and perhaps the best answer is to either buy sheets of the paper you want to try and cut them down to suit, or if you have no idea, order a sample pack of watercolour papers. These are packs of paper either from different manufacturers - eg different brands and different types and weights, or a sample pack from a single manufacturer with their different types and weights of watercolour paper. Just make sure the papers are for Watercolour though as anything else is a waste of money. I tend to recommend Saunders Waterford papers, because they do a nice range of student and 100% cotton papers which are reliable and stand up to the different techniques used, and they do a really nice sample pack to try out. But Art materials suppliers also do watercolour sample packs too, which gives a wider range of papers and Brands to try out. My recommendation is to try out as many papers as you can afford and keep notes on the different papers, which ones you like and why, which ones you don’t like and why, so that you can refer back to them later. Go for at least 140lbs/300gsm and you may be able to paint without the paper cockling (warping) depending on how much water you use.


Buying a single sheet and cutting it down to eg. 7½ x 5½ inches (19x14cms) will give you 16 sheets to practise on.



2. BRUSHES

Sable Brushes and Synthethic brushes
with a tiny paint tin

Brushes can be a source of pleasure when painting, or a source of endless frustration. A good brush should hold paint or water and let it out in a controlled way, there should be no flood of paint or water releasing suddenly from the hairs. It should also hold its point when wet. You can test this by swishing in water and then shaking the brush with a quick flick. The hairs should form a point and the brush should look ‘clean’ with no hairs sticking out. If they don’t, or the point is split, you will struggle to control your mark making and will struggle to make fine details. This is fine if you paint very loosely, but if you want to paint in a realistic way will make things unnecessarily difficult.
Whether you use Sable or Synthetic is a personal choice, look for a brush with a nice point, that holds plenty of water/paint for its size and doesn’t dump it all at once. Whether Sable or Synthetic, look for a specialist brush manufacturer. Prices depend on size and shape. Specialist brush makers such as Rosemary & Co, DaVinci, Escoda, Raphael, Winsor & Newton etc all make both Sable and Synthetic watercolour brushes that are excellent. Be aware that brush sizes aren’t standardized, so sizes in different brands will be slightly or markedly different, there’s usually a picture on the brand’s websites showing their brushes in the different sizes.


It’s better to buy just two really good pointed round brushes of different sizes – eg #2 and #4, than to buy a large set of inferior brushes. You’ll get more use out of the good ones and will find that they help you paint rather than hinder.


When painting with your lovely new brushes, take care to NEVER lift paint from the pan or mix paint with them, it’s the fastest way to ruin them. Instead, use a cheap synthetic brush and keep it just for that purpose. Also, use a brush size that is suitable for the amount of paint you need, using a huge brush to lift and mix paint can lead to most of the paint ending up in the water jar.


When using your brushes, ensure you have just the right amount of water in the brush before you pick up paint. A folded soft cotton face flannel is useful for wicking water out of the brush and with experience you will know just how damp to leave it. I use white cotton flannels as they show if there is paint on them, and can be laundered to remove stains. When picking up paint from the palette, gently roll the brush to remove excess paint and form the point, this should leave you with the right amount of paint and a controlled shape to work with. A spare piece of watercolour paper can be used to test your colour and ensure the right amount of paint for your painting.




3. PAINT

Watercolour pans and tubes showing Pigment numbers

There are so many different makes of paint, so many different colours, and if there are so many, you need them all right? Well, no.


I’ve spent a lot of time and money trying out the different brands, as many as I could find locally and a few that weren’t. And it’s my experience that provided you stick to the well established professional brands (Daler Rowney, Daniel Smith, Senellier, Schmincke, Winsor and Newton, to name just a few and in no particular order except alphabetical) even their modern student ranges will be perfectly suitable for starting off, as long as you stick to a few rules.


Get just a few tubes or pans, and stick to transparent colours.


Why transparent? Because there is less chance of mixing mud.
The main reason some colours/mixes produce mud is that opaque and/or granulating pigments have been used in the colour/mix and this can lead to very muddy looking colours. Have a look at my blog post HOW MANY COLOURS DO YOU NEED TO PAINT FLOWERS ? 
You’ll find that the answer is a lot less than you think. If you look at the images there, you can see that even with only the three colours, I haven’t made mud. This is because all the colours used are transparent. With the six colours, every colour you could possibly see can be mixed without making mud. The three or six colours you choose are really important though, as some colours are more suitable for this method than others, which is why I’ve given both the colour names and the pigment numbers – not all colours use the same pigments across the different brands so do check both colour name and pigment number to be sure.


By using transparent colours, you’ll reduce the frustration level straight away and can wait until you are confident with your paper and your watercolour techniques to try out those interesting granulating colours and opaques, but without limiting the number of colours you can make.


By using a limited number of colours, you’ve done two things,
1. You’ve saved money on paint, Watercolour goes a really long way, hence the tiny tubes and pans. You can use the dried paint on the palette and you can even use paint dried in the tubes as pans by peeling off the tube. Try doing that with oils or acrylic! Hopefully you will find using the paint you have less intimidating because you don’t have to decide which colours to use.


2. You can concentrate on learning how many colours can be made and the subtle changes you can make with just a touch of one or two of the colours in the mix. I recommend that you keep notes and swatches/charts to remind you of paint mixes, this helps because you don’t have to start from scratch every time you paint. Which means you can concentrate on techniques.


My suggestions for limited colour palettes. The numbers refer to the Pigment numbers eg Pigment Blue 15 (which is Phthalo Blue) and can be found on the label of the pan or tube. Note, these are only suggestions, you may find that these colours have different names. The colours here produce the widest range of colours when mixing.


Three colours
PY175 Lemon Yellow, PR122 Quinacridone Magenta/Quinacridone Purple, PB15 Phthalo Blue (Green shade or Red shade)


Six Colours
PY175 Lemon Yellow,

Indian Yellow or New Gamboge (whichever is transparent, both are a mix), Permanent Alizarin Crimson, PR122 Quinacridone Magenta, PB 15 Phthalo Blue (green shade), PB60 Indanthrene/Indanthrone Blue (or French Ultramarine).

More reading on colour and paper

Paper Matters !

How many colours do you need to paint flowers?

Lightfastness testing - results

Meconopsis cambrica - Welsh Poppy

A native perennial with a taproot, even when it looks as if it’s been killed by the most severe winter, the Welsh Poppy will bounce back in the spring.  And it doesn’t need much soil, being happy to grow anywhere as long as there is moisture and a little sunshine.

When it came to choosing a native wild flower to paint, this elegant and delicate beauty was an obvious choice, it deserves more attention than it gets and makes a perfect subject for a watercolour painting.  Luckily, I had harvested a few seeds from wild plants some years ago.  I thought they were lost, but late in 2016, they started growing on the patch where they'd been sown. By spring last year, I had several small plants all showing good growth. As with all my paintings, my first move was to make studies of alll aspects of the plant, starting with it's growth habit and working through all the parts - even down to the tiny hairs on the buds and parts of the stems. Initial studies go in my sketchbook. Later studies are done on the paper I will work on.

Initial leaf studies - Welsh Poppy

Initial Studies - Welsh poppy

Painting leaves - Welsh poppy

Flower studies - Welsh Poppy

 The bright yellow flowers were an enjoyable challenge. I had great fun finding the combination of yellows that would give depth and the correct colour, then working out how to portray the shadows without losing the glowing yellows.  

 Further studies on the flowers

Welsh Poppies on the Good Paper

Close-up of the leaves

 The leaves were a challenge all their own since they change colour even under daylight lamps. Painting them in daylight is clearly the answer, but in a cold, wet, Welsh summer, daylight is somewhat scarce and painting in the rain with watercolour not really practical.  Nevertheless, needs must and it was October by the time I was able to finish the painting, grateful for the mild autumn which allowed the plants to survive longer than usual.

Meconopsis cambrica - by Polly o'Leary

The problem of PY153 – New Gamboge, Indian Yellow

PY153 New Gamboge, specifically the W&N version has been my favourite warm yellow, my ‘go to’ colour whenever I need a warm toned yellow. I’ve discovered too late that my tiny tube is about empty, having cut open the end and peeled back the tube has helped, but the day is fast approaching that it will finally be gone.

My first reaction was that there must be some left somewhere, I just have to find it. An evening spent online revealed that sadly, it's too late. There is no more to be had.

I thought that there might be a pigment available to artists that would be a good substitute. Several purchases later I haven’t found one that will serve the purpose. Those which looked promising online arrived and I find they are not as pictured. None will do. Despite being lovely colours in their own right, they are too close to orange and have almost no yellow, even in tints, despite being called yellow.

So I’m left with creating a mix.

The criteria – 

Permanent – all my paints are rated as highly lightfast. Transparent or Semi Transparent – PY153 was listed by W&N as Opaque, but mixing 2 colours to replace it, I feel it’s better to keep transparency if possible as I use it to mix other colours.  Non Granulating. Warm yellow but not orange.  Easily mixed to an exact replacement without endless colour correcting. Has the same colour constancy as PY153.  Works in mixes of greens and oranges producing the same range of colours as W&N New Gamboge PY153 (old).

It’s a tall order!

First I set about choosing the yellows to work with. After spending time looking at the qualities of PY153, I narrowed my choices down to three. Winsor Lemon PY175 (almost Transp.), Permanent lemon PY109 (Transp.), Sennellier Yellow PY154 (almost Transp.) – this pigment is also sold by W&N and others.

Next, I identified the likely candidates for mixing a credible match to PY153. These I narrowed down to Winsor Orange (yellow shade) PO62 (Opaque), Permanent Deep Yellow PY110 (Semi Opaque) and Winsor Yellow Deep PY65(Semi Transp.). I had hoped that Winsor Yellow Deep PY65 would be a like for like substitute after looking at the swatches on the W&N website but was sadly disappointed.

After a day of careful mixing, matching, and testing, I found that a mix of one from each group would make a very similar colour. However, I wanted as near identical as possible.

Polly's mixes to match New Gamboge PY153

For me, Permanent Lemon PY109 + Winsor Orange PO62 was the closest match and the easiest to get right quickly and reliably. Followed by Winsor Lemon PY175 + Winsor Orange PO62. Both PY110 and PY65 also make good matches with the Lemon paints but are a little trickier to get right.

The best I can recommend is to try out mixes with the colours you have, but make sure you have a good swatch of your New Gamboge PY153 (old) of choice to compare it with. Preferably on the same paper. Also, transparent or near transparent colours work best.

If you have any interesting colour mixes for New Gamboge PY153 (old) let me know.

 
More on Colour and Lightfastness

Lightfastness Testing #1 

Lightfastness Testing #2 - Results  

How Many Colours Do You Need To Paint flowers? 

Echeveria cante - Step by step.

“Paint what you really see, not what you think you ought to see; not the object isolated as in a test tube, but the object enveloped in sunlight and atmosphere, with the blue dome of Heaven reflected in the shadows.” - Claude Monet

In April I wrote about this year’s SBA exhibition, and the paintings I had exhibited there. I was tremendously encouraged to be told that one of my paintings had been awarded the Certificate of Botanical Merit – the Echeveria cante.

It was a wonderful plant to paint, since it's such a challenge. In full sun, the plant can be blindingly white, on dull days the plant can look grey.

On the day I saw this plant for the first time, it was very sunny, and as I looked at the plant, a cloud covered the sun. In that moment, the plant came alive with colour and I knew that I must capture it for others to see.

First task was to get an accurate record of the colours, using my trusty mini paintbox and travel brushes. Then measured drawings and notes made of the plant from different angles in order to capture as much information as possible.

Once back in my studio, I decided on a small study, in order to work out how to render the colours and textures and work out which colours and colour mixes would best express the glowing quality of the plant.   In this case, I decided on Cobalt Turquoise and Cobalt Blue as the Blues for the palette, as I felt they had just the qualities I was looking for.

Echeveria cante Study - First Washes

Echeveria cante Study - Further Work

 

Once I was happy with the choice of colours, I made an inked copy of the composition on tracing paper. This is used to transfer the composition to the watercolour paper via a lightbox, and is also insurance against having to start the painting from scratch in the case of disasters - flying brushes usually!

Echeveria cante - first washes

Echeveria cante - Growing nicely!

Echeveria cante - Further work

At first, the washes were laid in very lightly.  I wanted to make sure that I kept the tones light at this stage, and for the same reason the reds were left until last- deeper and brighter tones would add punch, but would not reflect the delicate colours and textures of the plant.  I decided to work in stages so that I could keep already painted areas clean by covering them as I worked.

At this stage, this is what my palette looked like.  I tend to mix on the fly once I have chosen my colours.  This ensures plenty of variety in the colours of the painting and keeps me on my toes matching colours to the plant.  The grey at the bottom is mixed from the colours in the painting - in this case, Cobalt Blue, Permanent Magenta and a Transparent Lemon. This grey is then used to increase the range of tones in the painting and is also used for the very darkest areas - tiny areas of dark that help to lift the whole painting.

Echeveria cante - laying in some reds

Once I was happy with the colours and tones of the main part of the inflorescence, it was time to lay in some of the reds.  A light wash of yellow went on first, which helped the more orange reds to glow nicely.  Then, the different reds were painted in - lightly at first so as not to overpower the rest of the plant.

Now it was time to add the stem, and reassess all of the colours.  The details of  the Stamens and Carpels were left until last and added a final touch of realism to the painting.

At this point the painting was put away for a few weeks.  I do this because working so intensely, it's easy to lose perspective.   After a few weeks, the painting is reassessed and any problem areas are more easily spotted and remedied

Echeveria cante - finished!

I hope this Step by Step has given some insight into how this painting evolved and the techniques used to finish it.

Next up - Paper testing!