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One drawing at a time Brought to you by Sketchbook Skool
Today, let’s practice watercolours.
We’ll use big brushes, watercolours and paint.
A paper towel comes in handy as well.
I am not an expert at all.
In fact - watercolours are quite a mystery to me.
I love splashing color on my sketchbook pages even though I don’t know what I’m doing
half of the time.
Let’s start trying what’s called a flat wash.
Wet your brush and pick up some pigment.
For a flat wash, you want the paint to spread evenly.
You need like 50-50% of water and pigment.
You sort of push the puddle of color downwards.
And if you’re left with a drop like this, you can pick it up carefully with a dry brush.
Let’s try that again - we’re practicing here!
You can also create a smooth transition.
Pick up paint, then rinse the brush and kind of pull the paint downwards while it dissolves
into the water you’re adding.
You can keep doing this until there’s no color left.
I may have used too much water so I’ll just carefully push it around a little and pick
it up with a dry brush.
Now let’s blend some color.
Make kind of a flat wash first, and clean the brush completely.
Pick up another color and add it where you left off, and then pull it downwards.
Maybe I should do that again.
I need a lot more practice than just this one piece of paper!
There’s some blooming happening over here, I think that’s because the paint was too
wet, or because I pushed it around too much, I don’t know.
I haven’t figured out just yet how to make it look really neat and flat, rather than
with stains and the blooming effect.
Then again, the paint does what it does - and that’s part of the fun as well - you can’t
control it completely.
Now how can we make use of these flat washes and blends, and practice them some more without
ending up with just boring squares?
Trying to create an even color, draw circles.
Now try doing a blend of two colours again.
When the paint has dried, add a line drawing on top of it.
I’m drawing apples - and suddenly when adding these lines, I don’t care about the paint
not being perfectly even, I actually like the texture of the blooming effect a lot!
And these blobs become pears now.
Try doing a whole page, that’ll give you the opportunity to practice the technique,
as well as ending up with a fun, colourful page.
Now let’s do the blending once more, using different colors.
I may have pushed these colors around a bit too much.
So I’ll give it another go and will let the colors blend and bleed into each other
without interference.
Well okay, I will just pick up that pool of paint so the wash can dry evenly.
I hope this inspired you to try out your watercolours and play.
Experiment and explore!
And if you want to learn more, sign up for the sample kourse in Sketchbook Skool!
It’s free, so go to SketchbookSkool.com and join!