Introduction to Watercolor Presentation

Watercolors

materials

Brushes!Paper!

Gator board!

Tape!

Paint!

Patience!

Water!

Paper towels!

Pencil!

Gouache!

Palette!

papers

Fluid watercolor paper: cheap, bound on two sides, very convenient

Arches watercolor blocks: bound on all sides, rough texture, expensive. Made of cotton

Arches watercolor paper: needs to be stretched, not bound on all sides

Canson montval: 7” kara painted on these

Blick studio: children's illustrations

Watercolors can also be painted on bristol, wet media boards, illustration board, or other thick papers

140 lb is standard for watercolor paper. 300Lb is heavyweight

Paints (tubes & pans)

Tubes can be squeezed into pans and dried out (both of us do this)

Brands we like: holbein, yarka, soho, winsor-newton, shin-han, Sennelier, blick, da vinci, marie's,

Okay-ish brands: grumbacher, “student” brands (cotman), sakura koi

Avoid: reeves!!!!!!!!! anything in a multi-material set, anything marked “non-toxic,” anything marketed towards kids, anything with the word “value”

Paints (liquid watercolors)

What in the world are these?

Artificial pigments, super bright, low light-fastness

More permanent than watercolors act more like stains or inks–

Watercolor pencils

Not as bad as you think

Good brands: derwent inktense, caran d'ache

Okay brands: derwent

Lets avoid these, shall we: prismacolor, staedler, crayola

brushes

Different shapes for different uses: flat, filbert, round, mop, liner, fan, other specialty shapes

Come in a variety of fibers: sable hair, squirrel, kolinsky sable, goat, boar, horse, synthetic

Good brands: utrecht, blick, creative mark rhapsody, winsor-newton, da vinci, escoda, princeton

Avoid: value brands, student brands, hobby brushes

Also available: water brushes

techniquesGraphite transfer

Stretching paper

Washes

Brush techniques (wet/wet, wet/dry, dry/wet dry/dry)

Dropping

Multi-material techniques (wax resist, masking, salt, alcohol)

Overworking (no! Bad!)

Corrections (scrubbing, gouache)

Demo time!