Wet on wet is what makes watercolor so unique and beautiful.
But it is also what the most beginners struggling with.
It seems to be such a mystery for the beginners, but once you learn the property of watercolor,
you will start to understand how it works.
Let’s talk about it today.
Hi, this is Eric from Café Watercolor.
One of the most common questions I have gotten is about wet on wet.
How much water to use?
How to avoid cauliflower edges?
And when to use wet on wet?
It can feel very complicated and tricky to get it right.
Don’t worry, I will give you some simple principles.
Once you learn these principles, things will be a lot more clear for you.
The first principle is to remember that water dilutes the paint.
So the more water you use, the more transparent your color will be.
This simple concept is the core of the painting process.
As you know, watercolor is painted from light to dark, transparent to opaque.
So you start painting with more water, and as you need to paint darker, you start to
use less water.
Which leads to the next principle.
The second principle is to figure out what you are trying to do.
As I was saying, water dilutes the paint.
So if your purpose is to add paint to your wash, then you definitely don’t want to
add more water to it.
So this is a very important principle.
And this is the number one reason why you are getting unwanted cauliflower edges.
If you want to add paint to your wash.
Your mixture on your brush needs to have less water than where you are going paint.
Unless you want to wash off the paint like creating the dry grass effect.
You need to watch out for the mixture you are using for your wet on wet.
The third principle is to pay attention to the drying stage of your painting.
There are four drying stages in a wash: wet, moist, damp and dry.
Wet is when your paper soaked up plenty of water, it won’t hold more water anymore
and it started to flow.
And if you paint tilted like me, there will be bead gather on the bottom.
Moist, like the word suggest, is when the paper has plenty of moisture, this is a good
stage to do wet on wet.
Damp, however, is a dangerous stage.
The wash is starting to dry, so if you give it too much water, the paper is going to suck
up the water and push the paint that’s already settled on the paper, and that creates the
cauliflower edges, it’s also called back run.
And the dry stage is well, dried.
You will be able to rewet the surface safely.
Now, the speed of your painting is going through these stages varies depending on the paper,
paint, and the environment you’re in, but all paintings go through these stages.
So you need to use the right mixture accordingly.
If your painting is damp and your mixture is moist, you are probably going to see cauliflower
edges.
So it’s very important that you use sufficient paint in your mixture.
I often see students using too much water in their mixture.
They end up diluted paints all over the place and the painting looks very muddy.
The fourth principle is to only use wet on wet when you want a soft shape.
Wet on wet is mostly used for a soft, blooming effect.
If you want a hard shape that’s clear to read, you will want to paint it on a dry surface.
A good painting often has a nice balance of hard and soft shapes.
If a painting has too many soft shapes, it can look too mushy.
And if a painting has too many hard shapes, it can look too busy and harsh.
So think about where do you need soft shapes and edges.
Soft shapes are usually used for distant objects in the fog, smaller details within a big major
shape, transitions, things that are out of focus, and so on.
Ok now once again, let’s apply what we learn in a painting.
I talk to talk and paint the paint.
Before we continue, remember to give a like and subscribe if you find my video helpful.
So I am going to paint this photo that’s taken by my friend when she was visiting Qing
Hai in China.
I find this shoot very beautiful and I want to paint it.
I think it’s important to apply what I know in a real painting instead of just making
random washes and shapes.
So let’s paint.
Okay.
So as always we will start with the drawing.
We especially pay the attention to the river because the river is the most important shape
in this painting.
It is most sophisticated and it brings out the most detail and it also is a huge element
that brings the depths and the direction of the painting.
So make sure you give enough care and attention to the shape of the river.
So from distance is should be pretty thin and as it approach the foreground it is going
to be wider and the turn is going to be less frequent as well.
So definitely don't skimp on that because when you start painting you really need a
good drawing as a guide.
There are some other rivers on the side.
I did sketch it in but they are not as important as our main river in the middle.
So I'm not going to give it as much attention as the main river, but still you should care
about a shape that you draw.
Still keep your drawing loose.
You can see that I hold my pencil way back so that my line can be a little bit more organic
and natural.
This is a nature scenery after all.
So after the drawing we're going to mix a nice big wet mixture.
Use a big brush for the first wash and make sure there is bead underneath forming.
That means your wash is wet enough.
Before it is dry I'm going to mix it a little bit thicker mixture for the cloud, but do
it very quickly.
Just one quick stroke and let it be.
Don't dab around it and don't dig around it.
Now with a slightly thicker, moist mixture I'm going to paint the background mountain.
Try to use some big brushstroke to finish that.
Don't keep dabbing into it and now we can continue the wash down and as we do that we
can add some warmer color.
So things are cooler in a distance and as they come forward they are warmer.
Now we're going to slow down just a little bit and paint around the river.
This is very important.
You want to preserve the light of the river so you really need to focus and use the tip
of your brush to paint around it.
However, don't slow down too much.
You don't want the wash to be dry and if you find it overwhelming, you can pre-mix your
color, the color that you're going to use in this wash.
So plan ahead if you need to.
I'm mixing stuff on the fly because I want things to be a little bit more spontaneous
and I do think I have enough experience that I can do that.
So this video is sped up about four times, but whenever I'm painting around the river
I slow down just a little bit and really try to focus on maintaining the good shape.
So this wash is actually very stressful, not because of the wet on wet to me, it's because
I want to paint really good shape.
So I really focus when I'm painting this and after this wash I'm actually quite tired.
Don't forget the house, we want to paint around it.
It is a white house so we definitely want to preserve it white.
So I'm finishing the wash and before it's dry I'm mixing a nice dark, creamy mixture
for the foreground wet onto wet.
Make sure your mixture is dry and thick enough otherwise it's not going to stay.
Now I'm mixing an even darker and thicker mixture for some little details in the foreground
and using the tip of my brush just dropped the pigments in and they will stay.
Splattering a little bit of water and now we get a nice grassy foreground with different
volume.
Make sure your first wash is clean, so don't spend too much time on any step here.
Now I'm going to check this drying state.
Make sure there's no more shine and make sure it is dry to touch.
So I'm going to re-wet the top center because I'm going to have hard edge on the side and
as they come to the middle they're going to soften up.
So there's sharp edge silhouettes on the side, but in the middle they merge into the background
and I'm using a clean damp brush to soften and fade up the bottom.
We don't want to leave a hard edge on the bottom because it is one continuous land,
so we soften things up with a nice damp brush.
Some more soft details before it's dry.
Here's some bushes and maybe some trees, grass in the distance.
As I paint outside of the wet area it's going to leave sharp edge and a sharp shape, which
is fine.
You don't want your painting to have soft shape only.
You need a nice balance between soft and sharp.
You want that contrast between sharp and soft.
If the whole painting is soft shape then it's going to look very mushy and you don't want
that.
I'm actually painting with some new brushes I order from China.
They're all squirrel hair brush and they are very good.
They maintain very nice tip so I can do detail work even with larger brush and they hold
nice amount of water and they are very soft to paint.
So this is great.
I really like them.
So I'm painting with a darker moist mixture to paint the terrace of the landscape.
We need to suggest the form changes with the value.
So it's darker on the side because the sun, the light is coming from the above.
So the side will be a little bit darker.
I do a mixture of hard and soft edge just to make things a little bit more interesting.
I'm hinting a little bit of a shadow on the side of the river because it's in different
height and so just a little bit of that will actually give the river a little bit more
dimensionality because the land is a little bit higher.
Now I'm painting the grass on the right, the darker grass and I'm trying to make it into
one single shape.
So one single wash, one single shape and after I paint that big shape, I'm able to add more
soft detail, wet on wet.
So whenever you paint a wet or moist shape, always think about if you want to do wet on
wet on top.
You don't want to miss out a window to do that.
Of course you can re-wet the area after it's dry, but if you can do it in one go it's going
to look fresher.
The more you re-wet the area, the less fresh it's going to look.
So if you want to do wet on wet, make sure you do it while you still can.
As you have more experience, you're going to paint faster naturally and as you paint
faster you are going to have more time to think about what you're going to do and you're
going to have more time to do and play wet on wet.
Now I'm adding a little bit more details on the left.
A little bit of shadows here and there.
A couple of areas that's going to suggest more form and structure.
In the large scale landscape like this little details goes a long way.
Don't try to paint every single detail you see.
The more detail you paint, you're actually breaking the scale of the scenery.
So a little bit of detail, just keep the painting nice and fresh.
What I really want to convey in this painting is that nice vast landscape feeling with nice,
crisp air and that's all I really want to convey.
So one or two detail missing, things are not matching exactly, doesn't really matter.
Keeping it fresh and clean is more important.
Now I'm going to do a glazing in the foreground.
The foreground is dry while we're working on the rest of the painting.
The darker foreground will push the depths a little bit more.
Since the foreground is wet again, we can do some wet on wet.
Any chance we get.
Adding another house to the right just to balance that out a little bit.
Otherwise, it's only going to have a big dark shape on the left foreground.
We want a little bit of balance.
About a year ago I did a large scale landscape like this one as well, but I like this one
a lot better just because it feels a lot fresher and I was get to play with wet on wet a little
bit better.
So I do think I progress as well.
So I'm really happy about it.
Here is the finished painting.
I hope you liked this painting and video and I hope this is helpful for you.
So I hope that was helpful.
But if you watched my videos before, you know that I’m a huge believer in practice and
learn by doing.
I can give you some practical advice and useful tips, but I can’t put in the time and practice
for you.
So take some time, have fun and really make this knowledge yours by doing it.
If you like this video, remember to like and subscribe.
If you have any other questions about watercolor, leave a comment.
Also, remember to download my free fast track watercolor ebook.
I’m Eric from Café Watercolor, I’ll see you again very soon.