watercolour questions so beginner, I'm almost afraid to ask

r ranson wrote:So, if I'm going to take another class, I need to learn to draw better.

Not really sure where to start.  I've been drawing since the summer,  but just drawing isn't enough to improve.   I can see there are mistakes, but am having trouble seeing where and how to fix.

Have you checked out craftsy.com? They have classes in ALL KINDS of crafts,  including art in quite a few mediums. You might find something there.

r ranson wrote:Trying my hand with a proportional divider today.   I think that there is a better name for this, but I cannot find it.

If this works,  I will probably get a better one as this is too large for my hands and slides closed when I'm not concentrating.

Cheating?  Leonardo davinci used one

That's a cool tool! I don't think it's cheating. Cheating is claiming someone else's work as your own. Even copying something is not cheating, because you'll never do it exactly like the original, but in some way it will always be different, and therefore your own, whether it's in the brush strokes, the hues & shades used, slightly different proportions, etc. Many of the greats got great by first copying others' work.

I love the look of well-done watercolor. I have played with it a little bit, but my results are terribly ham-fisted. I’m jealous that you’re able to get such nice work out as a novice. :-)

Dang R, that owl is just gorgeous. You're clearly putting in a lot of time, the results are excellent!

You are creating such amazing pictures so quickly, R. I am impressed.

A proportional divider would vastly improve my paintings.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:A proportional divider would vastly improve my paintings.

I'm enjoying using it.  However,  I am having trouble with quality of this one as the plastic is a bit bendy and it's a bit big for my hands.   It does well enough to learn with, so I'll keep going.  Maybe get a brass one later.

Carla Burke wrote:

r ranson wrote:So, if I'm going to take another class, I need to learn to draw better.

Not really sure where to start.  I've been drawing since the summer,  but just drawing isn't enough to improve.   I can see there are mistakes, but am having trouble seeing where and how to fix.

Have you checked out craftsy.com? They have classes in ALL KINDS of crafts,  including art in quite a few mediums. You might find something there.

Good idea.

The library has free access to LinkedIn classes.   I wonder if they have drawing class.

What is the name of the brush that has short bristles and is used to lift paint by scrubbing it on dry paint?

r ranson wrote:
The library has free access to LinkedIn classes.   I wonder if they have drawing class.

youtube has some great drawing class resources- a good one with lots  and lots of videos is sketchbook by abhishek, there's also the Pencil Room, but I particularly like Alphonso Dunn.  https://www.youtube.com/@ALPHONSODUNN  - short, informative videos that don't drag on forever and give you good food for thought.

You are looking for online drawing lessons? First I thought of is Darrel Tank: 5-pencil-method. He uses the divider too.  
A totally different view on drawing, with lessons too, has Betty Edwards: drawingontherightsideofthebrain. The result of this method is that you 'learn to see', and then to draw what you see. This was the method that taught me most (her book in the Dutch translation).

Is it gouache?

After the watercolour class, the teacher let me take home the palette and any unused paints on it (woot!  Paints!).  

However, when I go to use the now dry paint, some of them reactivate as expected (get wet, squish around a bit with the brush, colour happens) and some of the paints are a pain to reactivate.  I can get the colour out of them but they have to sit there for an hour or so in the water and even then, some of it floats around like dry gelly that refuses to become paint again.

Those troublesome ones are from the tubes she had that didn't have words on it.

Are they gouache?  Can I get the colour out?  They happen to be the pretty colours.  

The difficult ones are probably gouache. Those don't reactivate very well, so I tend to work from the tube if I'm using them instead of working with pans like I do with the watercolor paints.

r ranson wrote:Is it gouache?

After the watercolour class, the teacher let me take home the palette and any unused paints on it (woot!  Paints!).  

However, when I go to use the now dry paint, some of them reactivate as expected (get wet, squish around a bit with the brush, colour happens) and some of the paints are a pain to reactivate.  I can get the colour out of them but they have to sit there for an hour or so in the water and even then, some of it floats around like dry gelly that refuses to become paint again.

Those troublesome ones are from the tubes she had that didn't have words on it.

Are they gouache?  Can I get the colour out?  They happen to be the pretty colours.  

If those paint can get back to useable paint again, they can be gouache. If they stay dry they are acrylic paint.
Real watercolours can be used over and over again (after drying and re-wetting) without any problem.

PANS: I do a lot of my painting on site (Urban Sketchers is a great organization, search for a local chapter) so pans are convenient. And it makes it easy to replace a pan as needed. I took on old Prang school kids set and replaced the wells with individual half pans (glue 2 strips of metal to the case and glue strip magnet chips to the bottom of the pans. Leave space in the middle for a couple of brushes.). Then fill the pans with paint from tubes in layers letting each layer dry before loading the next. That minimizes cracking and shrinking.

PAINT QUALITY: As in almost everything, buy the best you can afford, even if it means fewer tubes. Student grade is lower than artists. I’ve tried several brands and like Daniel Smith for the balance of quality and price.

So I have my regular watercolour palette with all the colours I started with.

And I now have another tin of frequent guests.  Colours that I tend to use frequently that won't fit in my box.


(the tube is white from a set I had as a kid.  It smells like solvents even though it says it's watercolour and goes on opaque so I'm using it from the tube like gouache for highlights until I can get the real stuff)

I'm trying to decide if I will...

... take out the colours I don't use (yellows, oranges, most of the greens, dark purple) to make room for the colours I use more frequently,  or
... do I get a bigger tin?

The advantage to keeping the same tin is that it limits me so I don't buy too many colours.  I also find this is plenty of choice and I'm often confused as to which colour to choose.  I do well with a limited number of colours I know and can get familiar with how they interact.

The advantage to getting a larger tin is that I keep the infrequently used colours handy and it inspires me to learn how to use them.  It also means that I'm not wasting money by ignoring these colours just because I lack the skill to use them yet.  


Both styles are valid paths.  I don't know which one I want to go yet.  
What's your style?

I keep several small tin palettes with pans. Most of my tins are roughly the size of an altoids mint box. I tend to prefer working with a limited color choice, have a thing for single pigment paints, and do a fair bit of mixing. There are some paints that show up in more than one tin. If I'm traveling, I often only take one or two of the tins with me.

My tiny collection of gouache tubes (I prefer working with that from the tube) have their own tin. My mica paints live in a separate box - most of them arrived in little single-paint round cups and I've left them like that.

One of my friends has a giant palette the size of a large notebook with all the colors, single and multi pigment, in a rainbow riot. Her micas are right in there with four pigment paints! I'd be lost, but it works great for her.

Try everything!

I tried hot press watercolour paper for the first time today.  I'm feeling very confused.  

The paint just sits where I put it and doesn't flow into the water which also sits still on the page.  The colours look different and faded.  Every brush stroke is obvious.  If I try to blend the paint into the last layer, it just reactivates the last layer which didn't happen with the same paints on cold press.


What do I need to adjust to make this work?  

I have a horrible feeling once I get to the end of this painting, I'll be putting this paper on the bottom of the stash.  It might be good for ink and wash with little layering, but it's so confusing compared to the stuff I've painted on before.  

Two thoughts here:

Hot press is generally more... precise? Paint doesn't wander, it reactivates on the page easier, it's a lot more like using ink pens. I prefer cold for watercolor, but I might pick hot if say I was doing an anatomy painting.

There also sometimes is this stuff like sizing in new cloth on some art paper. You tape a page down, do a light water-only wipe down, let it dry, then start painting. Your hot press paper might have that going on from what you described.

It's cheaper to mail order paints than it is to buy locally.  But it takes about 2 months to get here and will pass through lands that have this mysterious creature called winter.  (knowing my postal service, packages freezing is a common occurrence)

If I order tube paints and they freeze, will I be sad?  Is there a way to fix the damage?

Will it damage the paints or just burst the tube and make a mess?  

or both?

Or not a problem?  

I've been told the tubes can freeze and burst, but never tried it myself. They're fine if they freeze as pans.

can you help me understand the paper?  Which is thicker?

110lb/230 GSM, (watercolour paper)

120 LB/200 GSM (mixed media paper)

I thought that the LB/GSM are imperial/metric ways of measuring the same thing... but these two don't match.  What information am I missing?  


The first one I've tried before and can paint on both sides, but the paper twists and distorts if I'm doing a wet wash.

Paper lbs is "the weight of 500 sheets of so-called standard size for that type of paper." The standard size varies for different types. There's a chart here showing some of the standard sizes.
https://www.strathmoreartist.com/blog-reader/determining-paper-weight

GSM is the weight of a square meter of the paper. They cut a meter square of the paper and weigh it.

( I actually worked for a printing company at one point! )

Trying to understand broke my brain a little bit.  But I think I can see why the number don't translate easily now.

Is there some way to know which is thicker with the numbers or are the papers too different?

r ranson wrote:Trying to understand broke my brain a little bit.  But I think I can see why the number don't translate easily now.

Is there some way to know which is thicker with the numbers or are the papers too different?

I understand the European way (grams per square meter). The higher the number, the heavier the paper. 'Heavier' does not necessarely mean 'thicker', there's more in the production method that influences the thickness (f.e. the way it is pressed). Probably 'watercolour paper' had a different treatment from 'multimedia paper'. It's difficult to compare different kinds (and brands) of paper ...

r ranson wrote:Is there some way to know which is thicker with the numbers or are the papers too different?

When you're in lbs... If they're both the same size category, and they're the same sort of paper, sure. But if they're different paper size types you'd have to do some conversion math.

For both lbs and gsm... If they're different materials they may weigh different even if they're the same size and thickness.

I tend to visit my nearby college/university town art shops when I want to check out new paper. But if you're not near any, you can sometimes get paper sampler packs, especially for art papers.

eek, it's a harder question than I thought.  Let's change the shape of the question.

I want to find a bigger book for painting both watercolour and gouache.  I haven't tried gouache yet, but if I like it, I want to use mostly gouache in this book.  If not, then I hope to use it with watercolours.  

I have some of these arteza books and they work okay for watercolour.  The paper gets a bit wobbly with wet washes but it's good for practice.  The texture is okay and I can manage 3 to 5 layers without the paper getting grumpy.  Lifting with a wet brush works okay but not as good as my Paul Ruban's paper.  The Arteza paper is horrible with scrubbing to lift the paint.  It just makes little balls of paper.  

Another choice is the ohuhu book.  I've tried their watercolour paper and it's a nice practice grade although the texture is a bit smooth, it does hold up well to my style of painting so long as I don't do too many layers or scrubbing.  But this is mixed mediea paper which is different.


It's tough to choose because the price of art paper is so much higher than say printer paper.  

What I suspect will happen is I'll wait until I get some gouache and then try it on my mini arteza book.  Use that to make my decision.  

New question:

What are the words I can use to learn about... if you put one colour beside another colour, it changes the way both colours look?  

Bonus question: can you suggest any good books or resources to learn about this?  

I think the terms you're looking for are simultaneous color and / or simultaneous contrast.

r ranson wrote:New question:

What are the words I can use to learn about... if you put one colour beside another colour, it changes the way both colours look?  

Bonus question: can you suggest any good books or resources to learn about this?  

First name that comes into my mind is Paul Klee. I learned in my art history lessons that he had an interesting colour theory. Especially on how each colour influences the colours next to it. Probably the book(s) he wrote now are rare and expensive...

So you know that video I made with my chicken.

He (yep, boy) has grown up to become a thief.  If I try to draw or paint outside, he will come behind me and snatch a paintbrush.  Even if it means opening the bag to find a paintbrush.  If no paintbrush is to hand, he acquires a pen or anything he's strong enough to carry, hide, then come back and repeat with a new daring theft.  

...

I've been admiring the Jelly Gouache craze on youtube.  But I also dislike it because the paint set is sooooooo huge.  30ml per colour (we usually get 5ml in a set) and so many colours.  The usual youtuber goes like this.

1. OMG, I am finally joining the jelly gouache trend.  (part of an art haul - aka, look how much money I spent on art supplies I may or may not use)
2. unboxing and swatching - first impressions review video
3. It's been 6 months since I last used these paints, here's how I revive them
4...... crickets......

What I really wish youtubers would post are videos of "I used up this art supply, so now I am doing a review".

...

Maybe I found one.

She's going through her jelly gouache set, working hard to use it up.  It really shows how much paint are in these sets.  

And... I kind of made a suggestion that she paint a chicken thief.  

And... well, she did!



It's so much fun (third painting in).

It's just a young youtube channel and I don't know if I should suggest this.  But it would be fun if we could show her some love and suggest things she could paint to help her use up the paints.  

It's pure selfishness on my part because I want to see just how much it takes to use up those paints.  Right now, I'm still focused on learning watercolour but one day I want to try gouache.  I'm just scared to buy a set like that and not use it up.  

Happy holidays




I followed some advent tutorials on youtube,  but changed it to be a zorn limited palette.   The problem is my black is too warm for a good green, so I allowed myself some sparkling blue so long as I used it sparingly.  

Paints are handmade by Beam
Turtle belly
Harvest wheat
Mars Black
Limestone white
And occasionally winter nights

Is there a colour like yellow ochre but more transparent?

I've been told DS brand yellow ochre is transparent, but I haven't tried it myself.

r ranson wrote:Is there a colour like yellow ochre but more transparent?

Daniel Smith (brand from Australia) has 'Quinacridone Gold', a very transparent golden watercolour. Works wonders in a thin layer over (part of) a painting that you want to give some 'warmth'.

Daniel Smith is very expensive here.  which is weird because it's hardly more than a days drive away.  There's also something about the brand and marketing that bothers me so I'm going to keep looking.



I wonder if something like raw umber or raw sienna would do what I'm looking for?  It wouldn't be bad if it was a bit more brown/earthy than yellow ochre.  

There's another colour like that too, that's been used for centuries, it's a natural product ... but  very poisonous! It's called 'gummigut'. Some brands have it in a modern (synthetic) form.