Making art with watercolor isn’t as easy as it seems. Just like any painting, it requires technique, a set of precise hands, and a whole lot of confidence. However, that’s not all that can make a watercolor painting look good.
Starting from the choice of your canvas to the quality of your paint, all these things determine the outcome of your painting. Since the colors are difficult to control, you will need proper and confident strokes as well as the right materials.
Today, we will be looking further into what makes a good watercolor painting. This should help you refine your skills and make your own work stand out.
So, without further ado, let’s get right to our watercolor class, and discuss 10 Qualities That Make a Good Watercolor Painting.
Table of Contents
Art Supplies
First things first, before actually indulging in your watercolor journey, you need the right set of tools. Starting from the watercolor to the canvas, all of it needs to be selectively picked out in order to create good paintings.
Paper
The paper is one of the most important aspects of your art supply. Being the canvas that you’ll work your magic on, the paper needs to absorb the colors well without buckling. This is a term used to describe the waviness of the paper and a sign of poor-quality painting. This reflects badly on the artist as well as their skill sets.
The best paper for the job is watercolor paper with an approximate weight of 300 GSM
. This is, in our opinion, the best kind of paper for any painting. Once you start adding layers of color, they will remain flat on the paper without any piling or buckling.
Watercolor Paint
There is no alternative to using high quality watercolor paint. If you’re tight on budget, you can use a smaller set of colors, but why restrict yourself with a limited palette?
Go the extra mile and get a good, branded watercolor paint set to make your painting pop. Cheap colors can be difficult to even out when adding multiple layers. Also, another recurring issue with low grade paints is their tendency to become chalky after drying.
Brushes
The thing with brushes is that they offer more flexibility for practicing different styles. Depending on the painting you have in mind, you can pick out a custom set of brushes. For instance, the round brush is one that everybody will need no matter the style. It is one of the most versatile brushes to use.
If you’re painting thin lines and fine details, you’ll need a spotter brush and a liner brush. These have lighter bristles which produce clean strokes.
There are other brushes, too, such as the flat brush which is mainly used to add heavy layers of paint. This is particularly useful when you want to create a backdrop with one color.
Paper Towels
Even if you just started painting recently, you must already know that paper towels are a must-have when it comes to working with watercolor paintings. Since the colors are a transparent medium, you can easily rub them off if you make a mistake. The paper towels also come in handy when you need to clean your brushes.
Palette
Having a palette of your own truly enhances your painting experience. With the palette in your hand, it sets the mood right and gets you ready to mix colors together.
When working with watercolors, you need a large mixing surface. This is because using water as a medium to paint makes the colors runny, and so, you need a surface that can accommodate different shades of colors.
The Right Pencil (And Knowing How To Use It)
For an artist that uses the pencil to sketch outlines and guides, we would strongly recommend using a 2H pencil. This is mainly because the darkness of the 2H pencil doesn’t ruin the color saturation of your watercolor.
As the color is a thin medium, using dark pencil shades will make the guides visible over the paint. As a result, it will take away the clean finish you want to get on your painting.
New Techniques
Once you have gotten all the right supplies, now is the time to familiarize yourself with some new tricks. These skills will help add more layers to make your artwork stand out.
Dry and Wet Painting
If you have past experience, you’ll know that watercolor images tend to have soft and light strokes. However, this does not mean that you cannot use the paint directly on your paper without mixing it with water.
Artists from many years ago have used both dry and wet watercolor techniques to add contrast to their paintings. Using water as a medium, you can add a softness to your colors but if you need saturated pigments, then use the watercolor without adding water. This will add depth and layers to make your painting stand out.
Light to Dark
Using water as a medium to paint can offer more tricks than you know. If you’re planning on adding gradients of the same color to your painting, make sure you plan ahead. As a budding artist, you must always practice planning the little details of every painting you create.
A common rule of thumb is to work from light to dark. So, if your art needs a sky to be painted, you can mix water with a bit of blue watercolor and add lighter shades.
As you go lower, add less water and more paint to get a darker shade. Keeping the gradient smooth and consistent can be difficult, especially if you have just started your art journey. But as an artist, it is a basic skill; you’ll get the hang of it in no time.
Bleeding Colors Together
This is a common skill developed by artists many years ago. Bleeding essentially means – gradually blending one color with another.
To do this, you need to be careful with the control of water as a medium. First, you want to mix water with a primary color and paint a light layer. Next, while the paint is still wet, add a second color to your paper. You must be careful when doing this because the water concentration needs to be the same as the primary color.
This skill is also known as wet-in-wet since you’re using the water to blend your colors. This results in soft and subtle gradients across your painting.
Adding Layers
Layering is fun when working with watercolors, mainly because it is a thin medium. Any artist knows how popular this simple trick was years ago and it is still widely used today. Painted layers of certain colors add texture and depth to any art.
All you need to do is paint on the base layer with a considerable amount of water and then wait for it to dry. Once that is done, you can add other layers of transparent colors on top of it but make sure you blend the two right.
This entire process is a learning curve, so don’t be frustrated if you don’t achieve clean blends the first time around.
WATCH – Ten Tips to Improve Your Watercolor Painting!
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Final Words
Watercolor is a wonderful medium for engaging in an artistic journey. Picking out the right set of colors and technique is what makes a good watercolor painting.
We hope this article has been able to help you get a good idea of all the skills you need to add layers and texture to bring your imagination to life.