Posted

Nov 14th 2005

Mood

Blah

Music

cathrine warwick- bein' friends

different types of watercolours
the cheap kind: usually unless you layer obsessively you will wind up with a pastel colour. this also will eventually fade over time. how much time, i do not know. these are the ones you can buy in supermarket checkouts. usually nontoxic.

the mediocre kind: slightly more expensive, but still usually in little trays or something. a much stronger colour, usually a much wider aray of colour, last for a longer period of time and have a strange 'grainy' feel when the paint's dried on the paper.

the good kind: found in small tubes, and very expensive. you squeeze a tiny bit of pigment out and add water. these are extremely bright, extremely easy to control, extremely impressive and not to be played around with. although i know how to use them and i have used them, i don't use them, because they are for real art.

controlling it
less is more. as a kid you used a ton of water and wound up with very pale paint. use less water, maybe only dip a drop onto the paint, and work with only that tiny square of dampened paint. less water means more pigment (colour). you can also use this for details, highlights, etc by using 'more' at first, and layering outward with less water after the first layer dries.

also water flows. water smears. water is hard to control. more water (on your brush, in your paint and especially on your page) means you have less control over the paint. it is more likely to bleed.

how to keep watercolours from crinkling your paper
watercolours are good for drawing and fun to use, but they have that nasty habit of warping paper. here are some methods for making paper not-warp.

1- use thick paper. this is the expensive and easier method. buy a dry media sketchbook and the paper will usually be thicker than what you pull out of the printer tray. ones designed for pens, inks and light washes also work. if you're using cheap watercolours like i do, i don't really reccomend real watercolour paper as it is designed for the good stuff. and it's even more expensive than a thick paper sketchbook.

2- keep it flat. if you can't affourd a sketchbook, or don't want one, to avoid crinkling you MUST keep a drawing flat. most of the time my method for this is to press it between pages of a book. it may crinkle a little, but it should be fairly flat when you scan it.

keep in mind thick pages may also warp, so keeping them flat isn't a bad thing either.

--------
also ps i am not dead