,, i dont,, know jackshit about naruto,, but,,,,,,, your watercolor pieces are so good??? like???????? SO GOOD?????
Here's the obligatory ask (since I started trying to use watercolors): are you aware of any tips for that particular medium? Like, are the brushes and watercolor quality really important or is that just my imagination? Also, how 2 mix colors and not die-
LMAO thanks!! Iām glad you think so!
I do have a lot of tips for watercolor, but Iāll start with the material questions. I would say that the quality of the tools can be fairly important, but like, itās not make or break.
Supplies Information:
Disclaimer: None of this is necessary! You can make great art with any material available to you. All materials have different strengths and weaknesses, but you can create things that bring joy with the most rudimentary of supplies.Ā
I tend mostly to use liquid watercolors because I find them easier to control and manage (and I just...like working out of little bottles of liquid with eyedroppers. Itās my ink bias), but they have significant drawbacks. Archival speaking? light will bleed all the color out of what I have created eventually! They arenāt built to last. That doesnāt worry me much because I tend to stack all my drawings up and shove them in a drawer when Iām done, but itās something to keep in mind. I find them easy to mix and manage in the pallet, and easy to reactivate if they dry outĀ
The brands I use are Dr. PH Martinās Concentrated/Radiant Watercolor, and Ecoline Watercolor. Between the two, I would recommend Ecoline because they are cheaper, have more consistent texture, and have more in the bottle. Honestly, if the art store near me wasnāt on a huge sale, I never woulda gotten the PH Martins, theyāre expensive as hell and just incredibly teeny glass bottles.
BUT, if you want to use watercolor that comes in tubes (which will last longer, give you more options for artistic expressionābecause the texture ranges from paste to watery, you have all that range to experiment withāand which most watercolor artists prefer in general) thereās a lot more options. The highest quality for the cheapest price Iāve found are the Turnerās watercolor tubes? I donāt always love the texture when Iām wetting the paint because I am picky, but the color is incredibly vibrant, and the prices are incredibly affordable compared to like, schminke or cotman haha. I used these in school and had a great time with them.
Brushes I know a lot less about, like almost nothing honestly, I wish I could give you some concrete advice on brushes but what it really comes down to for me is like, if you like the way it feels in your hand, if you like the way it makes a mark, itās good. all it exists to do is facilitate You making a mark on the paper with some artistic medium, as long as you are satisfied with it,Ā thatās good.Ā
If you want brush recommendations though, Iāve been told that Princetonās watercolor brushes (i have a couple from the Heritage and Velvetouch series) are good synthetic brushes for...moderate prices. Brushes are expensive. Usually people recommend you have a #2 and #4 Round, and a smaller detail brush, but again, really, like all things art it all comes down to your preferences, and your needs.Ā
Actual Painting Tips:
Take care of yourself! Treat yourself kindly, forgive yourself for making mistakes. Iām dead serious. Itās impossible to avoid making mistakes, and in watercolor the mistakes are really hard to fix, and usually impossible without the use of gouache or something else opaque, so at some point itās going to become an exercise in forgiving yourself for making those mistakes, like drawing in pen with no under-sketch. Ā On a good day, I find this therapeutic. On a bad day, itās maddening. Itās okay not to make art on a bad day. When it comes to something you do because you enjoy it, and want to continue enjoying it, itās important not to force yourself to do anything you donāt want to, and to take breaks when you feel yourself getting frustrated.
Paint from Lightest color value to Darkest. If youāre going to paint a character with a bit of a rim-light from some golden sunlight, paint that light light yellow first, top to bottom, and then work your way to the darker colors.
If youāre painting on a tilted surface (Iām guilty of keeping my sketchpad or paper block on my knees) paint from top to bottom. The weight of the water will pull the paint down, so you want to work with gravity, not against it!Ā
Limit yourself. Let yourself only work with one color for a day or so, then only two colors, then only three. When you put yourself in a corner where you donāt have a lot of options, youāll often find you surprise yourself with what you come up with. Usually, I pick three colors, put them down on my pallet, and leave them there for a week or so, mostly just painting from those colors. It helps me develop a familiarity with how those colors work together, and how they work when I mix them.Ā
Mixing Colors:
another thing I should say about the Dr.PH Martinās watercolors is that they donāt always mix well. I tried to get a skin tone for Kakashi once out of pink, green, and a little bit of brown, and in the mixture you could see all of the colors that went into it, and it gave a very strange look. I liked it as a color, but it definitely looked weird.
The paint that you use will have properties specific to itself, and you will get more familiar with those properties as you work it. It may mix smoothly on the pallet, it may not, and both of those can be good if youāre willing to work with them.Ā
Because of watercolorās properties, thereās three main ways to mix it:
One: Mixing in the palette. What it says on the tināyou mix the paint, you put it on the paper. I do this one the most, it just takes a lot of familiarity with your paints to get used to the balances that create the colors you want, just lots and lots of playing around.
Two: Mixing dry. This isnāt reallyĀ āmixingā per se, but it does the same job, Watercolor is a transparent medium, and one that reactivates when wet, so if you put one color over another, itās about the same as mixing.
Three: Semi-wet mixing. The combination of the two! You can get some weird effects out of this. I use it sparingly, but I love to use it when I do.
The most useful physical tool for me (just me personally) in mixing is a pallet i have, and while itās fairly cheap and should last like, idk forever, there are other ways to get a similar effect without it, as long as you give yourself space to mix.
it looks like this, itās a porcelain pallet (so the cleanup is incredibly easy, unlike my plastic one, which unfortunately wants to hold my color a little) and i use it almost daily. The circular wells are for where you put the bulk of the color you will be using, and the rectangular wells are for mixing either with water, to get more translucent colors, or with other colors. The limited wells but excess of mixing space puts pressure on me not to use too many colors, but to mix them constantly. (but also has enough divided space that I donāt feel anxious about everything getting muddied. i am very particular.)
Itās heavy though, and while its therefore good for sitting on my desk and not getting knocked off by my cat or me, itās not easily portable, especially as itās uncovered if that's something that is important to you. Blickās probably has them, as does...I imagine any other art retailer? Theyāre fairly popular. Usually around 6-8$ but again, none of these tools are necessary, they are just what suit me personally. I hope this helps! If I have the energy for it, at some point Iāll post some basic watercolor exercises to help with control and technical skill. You can get very good with any medium just by raw continuous practice, but my teacher last year had us do a lot of exercises that not only gave me a much greater comfort and confidence with watercolor, but that were also just...incredibly meditative to do.
