Drawing classes help to relax, calm down and get away from everyday, everyday problems in the world of dreams and fantasies. You can start drawing with anything: pencils, gouache, charcoal, oil paints, watercolors. But only a box of watercolor paints familiar from childhood can give a ticket to childhood, a world of fantasies and adventures. What can be painted with watercolors?
Where to begin
Watercolor paints can easily help you create a variety of images, landscapes, still lifes, everything your soul wants.
To begin with, it is worth arming yourself with desire, patience, various brushes, paints, a palette and water containers. Sometimes it is useful to have sponges, paper napkins, and also simple pencils and sponges on hand. So, what can be painted with watercolors? How to make drawings the most high-quality and professional?
Watercolor paints - for battle
Both experienced artists and beginners like to draw watercolors, including the smallest ones. It contains natural, harmless pigments. The adhesives in these paints are also created by nature. Used mainly such as gum arabic, casein, honey, dextrin, phenol. The brush is wetted with clean water, then - the paint is accumulated, then - on the surface of the paper conceived images begin to appear.
What can be painted with watercolors? Due to the transparency of pigments, watercolor paints are able to convey weightlessness, lightness, freshness. So, for example, to draw something light, weightless with oil paints, you have to apply several opaque shades on top of each other until the desired effect is obtained. Watercolor is a universal tool, because thanks to the unique structure of paints, it is possible to reproduce all genres, peculiar and unpredictable effects. Pigments on paper seem to melt, spread, their mixtures can create various combinations of colors and shades. What can be painted with watercolors for beginners? What the soul of the artist only wishes.
The question arises: what about gouache? How are watercolor paints different from gouache? Transparency is what distinguishes watercolor from gouache, where pigments are mixed with white.
There are many interesting ways to paint with this paint. Here are the main ones described below.
Flat brush
What can I draw beautifully in watercolor? Let's get it right. Beautifully watercolor you can draw anything. But there are unusual ways to do this. There is an interesting method of drawing, carried out with a flat brush, designed for paints on a very different basis, both water and oil, acrylic. Its principle is as follows: on the edges of a flat brush are two different colors of paint.
Work is performed on a dry sheet of paper. First - a contour of a square or triangle is drawn to determine the beginning and end of the layer. Next, colors are selected, and a line to the right corner is drawn along the upper left corner (left-handed people start drawing from right to left). With this technique you can get masterpieces! So, plants are often painted:
- flowers
- petals;
- plant ornaments;
- snowy spruce.
Differentiated (in certain areas of the picture) blur
This method is the main one among professional artists. It is done as follows:
- a certain part of the paper sheet is wetted;
- from top to bottom, vertically, pigment is applied until the desired result is obtained;
- a sheet of paper is transferred to a vertical position, which allows flowers to spread in the directions necessary for the master;
- The paint applied using this technique dries naturally.
What can be painted with watercolors in this way? This method is used by artists to portray the sky, large meadows, glades, water, various surfaces where transparency, lightness and immensity are required to be conveyed. It becomes possible to convey in the picture all the shades of natural beauty, natural overflows. Differentiated blur helps show the richness and magic of natural beauty.
Glazing
What can be painted in watercolor in stages? A method that resembles blurring, but in this case, the pigment should be applied to a dry sheet of paper. Glazing allows you to adjust the color and tone of the picture, clearly work through the transitions of shades. When working with glazing, each color should be dried individually in stages. This creates the background of the picture, if the artist wants - the sky, the sea, any vast surfaces are drawn.
“Wet in the wet”
What can be painted with watercolors easily? There is a method developed by European artists, which allows you to miraculously paint landscapes and natural phenomena. The secret of the method is that the paint is applied to a wet sheet. The entire canvas is evenly wetted with clean water. It is most convenient to do this with a sponge, but a large soft brush is also suitable. Next - the necessary strokes are applied with a brush, creating unique forms, shades, color transitions in the work.
Dry brush
This method requires certain skills and dexterity of the artist. An almost dry hard brush is used here. Paper - must also remain dry. A large amount of paint is accumulated on the brush and the study of images begins. On hilly surfaces, it is possible to create clear marked traces, to create effects similar to pencil drawings.
In this way, both independent works are created, and individual elements that are lost in a dull background are worked out. What drawings can be painted with a “dry brush” watercolor? Very often this method is used to create portraits, landscapes, still lifes. In a word - wherever detailed elaboration of images is required. A “dry brush” can bring clarity, clarity to a drawing, like a pencil - to show the necessary lines and bends, one could say - write a whole work about what the artist painted.
Flushing
What can I paint with watercolors? There is another unusual way to use watercolor paints, used by professional artists. In this case, it is necessary to wash off the pigment after it is completely dry. The part of the work that requires correction is wetted with water. Next - blot this area with a soft absorbent cloth. Excess paint, along with water, will remain on the fabric. This technique creates unusual shapes, bends, lines, gives volume to the shapes, color depth.
Water paint
A layer of watercolor is applied to a sheet of paper. When the paint dries, a clean brush is taken, moistened with water and drops of water drip onto the desired areas. This allows you to create layering, volume, the illusion of cracking of rounded shapes.
Glaze
Watercolor paints of light tones are applied one to another in a certain order: lighter shades are lower, darker ones are higher. The pigment with the thinnest brush strokes is transferred to a sheet of paper only after the previous layer dries.
As a result, three-dimensional figures will appear in which all colors will complement each other without mixing, allowing you to see the boundaries of multi-layer application of paint.
Scratching
A method for removing individual areas of paint on a dry surface. In some cases, in this way within the same tone its enlightenment is made.
Disguise
What can be painted with watercolors easy for children? In principle - anything, but in this method - there is an element of mystery and mystery, which can attract the attention of any child. On a sheet of paper before applying a layer of watercolor, with the help of wax or paraffin, areas that should remain unpainted are closed. Next - the work is done with paints. As soon as all the paint dries, the wax can be rolled up with your hands, a brush or left on the canvas.
Adding
A different color is added to the damp areas of the future work, which in a unique way creates illusions, bizarre overflows. Using this method, you can create various color schemes that are impossible with the usual mixing of colors on the palette.
A bit of history about watercolor painting
Even primitive people discovered and began to use watercolor natural pigments. They mixed them with water, applied to the rocks with their fingers, as well as uncomplicated tools (sticks, bones).
In ancient Egypt, water-soluble dyes created amazing, original paintings on the walls of the palaces of the pharaohs, tombs, religious buildings, during excavations, intricate watercolor paintings depicted on papyrus were found.
Watercolor paints were known to masters from Japan and China.
The work was done on silk, as well as on handmade rice paper. Artists of the Far East painted contemplative landscapes in the traditions of their schools, filling images with literary allusions and calligraphy.
In the 18-19 centuries in England, a classic technique was developed that incorporated all the most important, interesting, which allows using watercolor paints to achieve amazing results. Watercolor pigments were used in the washing technique, allowing you to transfer light reflections from the paper surface to the canvas.
For centuries, artists themselves have been preparing water-soluble paints for themselves, keeping secret unique recipes. In watercolor painting, the surface on which the artist works also plays a large role. The texture of the canvas is also an obvious and important factor in the work of real professionals. The texture of the paper surface changes under the layers of paint, slippery smoothness of the pastel, under the application of collages. All these changes need to be felt, caught as if they are a continuation of the artist himself, and directed in the right direction.