#artblabs

Hello! Don’t be afraid of watercolors, they are so much fun! It’s hard to say where to start with the medium because it’s so versatile. You can achieve so many different looks with a few tubes of paint and some water.

Try everything! Wet the whole paper and paint with wet paint, wet certain areas and drop color in, splatter, use droppers, spray bottles, throw salt and alcohol on your paper, lift color using paper towels, sponges, fabric, use wax for a resist effect, go wild and see what kind of method you like. Paint dark to light, and then light to dark. Paint highly reflective objects. Decide how much control you want to have over your paint.   

If it’s within your budget, try experimenting with different brands of tube paint and different types of paper. (tbh I would flat out ignore pan-watercolors, the color richness always pales in comparison to the tubed stuff)

I’m sorry this is such a ramble, but there’s no real way to get started other than to dive in and try everything you can! I wish you the best, and have fun :^D

Also check out the work of 2 of my former classmates who were using watercolors wayyy before me, and they are the incrediblee: @stacyfaheyart @shannonknight

Yus, I use the heck out of masking fluid. That stuff changed my life! I love it.

My favorite brand so far is Grumbacher Miskit. I like this brand because it dries bright orange, and you can clearly see where your masked-off areas are. It’s very easy to peel off once you’re done. It doesn’t leave a residue, but any pencil lines underneath will be slightly faded once you remove it. It’s so sticky it literally takes your pencil lines with it, lol. I think most people rub it off/peel it off with their fingers, but I prefer to lift it with masking tape. This prevents any oils/stray paint on your hands from mucking up the paper.

If you’re gonna use it though make sure you mix it very thoroughly! It separates pretty quickly.

This post shows how I typically use it, but the applications are endless! It’s really fun to experiment with different effects! :D   

Heyo! :> the water soluble stuff if the transfer paper I use, I have a whole explanationfor that here. I don’t use any specific pencil, but I prefer ones with harder lead because they are lighter and wont snag on the grain of watercolor paper. I also use prismacolor pencils for colored lineart sometimes. 

Hah yeah, I sure did have a loooong love affair with markers. I switched after I took a great course on watercolors my senior year of college. I love markers and watercolors for the same reasons, you get really rich transparent colors that you can layer and blend…but…there are so many cons to markers :( They’re sooo expensive. And you need to buy so many of them to get a good range of colors. 5 markers of a value range = a dollop of paint plus water. yikes. I always had issues of them drying out when I was in the middle of a piece. And trying to fill a large area with a single even color was such a pain, the list goes on.