Basic instruction watercolour

Aquarelle

In watercolour painting, one paints with non-opaque water colours. Watercolours are transparent colours that can be painted with water and consist of very fine pigments. There are watercolours in solid dry form (highly pigmented in colour blocks or as ) Aquarelle-Coloured pencilsor liquid from the paint tube. The colours can be diluted with water and painted Paper on. The more water is used for painting, the less intensive and the more translucent the paint application is

Typical for watercolor painting is the melting of the color. Intensive colour edges and soft glazed colour areas are typical for painting with watercolours.

Different techniques are used in watercolour painting, which are explained in the following.

The suitable painting ground

Most commonly used in watercolor Paper painting. is Watercolour paper absorbent, slightly rough. The water-dissolved colour pigments must be able to distribute themselves well and adhere to the surface. The Paper, most commonly used has a grammage of 180 to 400 grams. In addition to industrially produced Paper paper, high-quality artist papers such as handmade paper and Japanese paper are also used

Selection of brushes and auxiliaries

Watercolour painting is usually done with a brush. Brushes made of natural materials have proven to be particularly good here, such as red mader hair brushes and special ones with Watercolour brush synthetic fibres. These can absorb a lot of paint and stay in shape despite their high elasticity

To moisten the paper when painting large areas, use a sponge.

Apart from the two-dimensional painting, watercolours can also consist of brush only strokes. This is called brush drawing.

If you use a lot of water when painting, the paint will flow evenly on the surface of the paper. In the small Paper. depths of the paper, a little more paint will accumulate than on the raised areas of the texture of the paper. The typical watercolour impression is thus achieved. If, on the other hand, you use a little water and the brush is then guided quickly, the colour remains on only the raised areas of the paper. Here one speaks of granulating. Another possibility is to dab Paper the paint onto the paper with a fine brush. This is called dotting

Use of colour

Start with the light colours and apply the darker colours later. The reason for this is that the subsequent lightening of the colours is limited only .

The painting ground like that Watercolour paper is included in the application of the colours, because it should either partially shine through or it should remain partly unchanged if you need a white surface.

Often paint is applied with a lot of water or on the previously moistened substrate and painted into the still wet paint, so that the colours run into each other and the typical watercolour look is created. A great effect!

Techniques

Glazing

Glazing is one of the most important techniques in watercolour painting. The paint is brought with a lot of water on the dry Paper . By thin application, the paint dries relatively quickly and can then be painted over and supplemented with further layers of paint. If you use the same colour more often in a row, lighter and darker areas will appear. If you use different colour shades, new shades will be created

Lavage

The second technique is the washing. This includes both the flow technique and the wet-on-wet technique.

With the gradient technique you apply it Watercolour to your painting ground so that it becomes paler and paler or slowly changes into a different shade.

With the wet-on-wet technique, you first moisten your painting ground. You now paint on the wet painting ground or in a still wet paint. This causes the paint or several colours to run into each other. This creates new effects again and again.

Extra tip: Watercolour painting in combination with other techniques

With the so-called mixed techniques, watercolour painting plays a major role. Combine pure painting with Watercolour fineliners or other handlettering pens - also pictures, which are created Aquarelle, partly with acrylic paints or with collages are popular art projects.

With our wreath of flowers you can paint freely flowers with watercolours as you wish, or use our template. You can use it as an inspiration or you can paint the flowers with a pencil, then colour them and erase the pencil lines after drying. Please make sure that you draw the lines only with very light pressure with the pencil, so that you can erase them easily later. Another possibility is to Watercolour paper transfer the template onto the paper using graphite paper. Make sure that you work with little pressure. Now draw the lines with a waterproof Fineliners paper. Then erase the graphite lines again, as they would otherwise "soil" the colour shades when you later paint in watercolours. Thus the flowers keep a black border

How you proceed exactly is entirely up to your taste.

Now you can paint the flowers with your desired colors. The best way to do this is to proceed as with the inking or wet-on-wet technique. Here you work with a lot of water and apply the colours wet so that they can run or mix with each other. Here you can play with different nuances of colour, especially with the flowers, to give the flowers a real look.

Afterwards you decorate the dried picture with handlettering, also in the Aquarelle-technique or as you like with handlettering pens.