2013 - This was my first watercolour course - Watercolour Sketch Book
One of the best things I ever learned in a course, with Kathryn Hines as instructor, was how to do a graded wash.
Needed:
- Good quality paper - 300 lb. (140 dries too quickly for this method)
- A substantive puddle of water and pigment (enough to do your entire sheet of paper +)
- A squirrel mop brush, or sable brush that holds a large volume of paint
- Courage!
Method:
- First, prepare your paper. If it's in a block, it's ready to go. Otherwise, tape the edges on a cardboard or coroplast board.
- Slightly incline the top. I usually place the top on a roll of masking tape.
- Using your mop brush, soak up the pigment colour, and lay a row of round, wet puddle line across the top.
- Bring more pigment up and gently stroke the bottom of the puddle row, but lowering it down a bit.
- Keep going from left to right, never letting the puddle row thin to nothing.
- Continue to the bottom of the page.
The image on the left is a cobalt blue graded wash on an 10x14" 300 lb arches paper.
The image on the right is a graded wash introducing a second colour part way down - 8 x 10: 300 lb arches. Note that these were completed vertically.
The colour combos are:
top: cerulean blue to lemon yellow
2nd row: cobalt blue to permanent rose
3rd row: cobalt blue to new gamboge
Bottom row: cobalt blue to cadmium red.