Category: Painting

Whether you have drawn or painted a still life before in watercolor or pastel, you will find that with oil painting a new set of problems will confront you, that of allying what you see to the problems of mixing the pigments and applying them. If you haven’t drawn or painted in watercolor it doesn’t matter.

The following exercises are designed to familiarize you with all the problems that may arise when painting something in front of you. Previous knowledge and experience can be helpful, but if you don’t have it, it need not deter you from painting in oil. Accordingly these exercises will benefit both the experienced and the inexperienced.

Choose for this study not more than three subjects, one large and two medium in size, with bright clear color and good rich shapes. The kitchen should provide you with lots of good objects: pots, pans, tea cups, jugs, bottles, fruit, vegetables; and place them on some brightly colored stuffs: old tea towels, curtains, tablecloths and so on will do admirably.

Arrange these objects simply on a table in a good light. If you are forced to paint by artificial light I would suggest you use at least three bulbs: two strong white and one blue. The blue bulb will help you judge your colors better. Another name for a blue bulb is daylight lamp and they can be bought at any good electrical shop.

When you have arranged your still life and laid out your colors and selected your paper (stained with a tint if possible) you are ready to begin. First take a good look at the still life. Then imagine you have suddenly smashed them all by dropping them accidentally on the floor. Imagine all the pieces, bits of jug or bottle, plate, cup, fruit and vegetables as well. Seeing these objects smashed out of recognition will give you a new insight into their construction.

Now you are going to put it all together again on your canvas in paint. It won’t matter if the pieces become mixed up or don’t fit each other properly or look different from what they were like when they were whole. You have smashed what you have just seen and you can put it back how you wish, in the best way you can, with paint.

On a small piece of paper draw a few shapes of objects that you can see in outline and a little darker than for transparent watercolor.

Mix up some moderately dark, warm toned brown, or brown and red with a little white in it for body. Then brush it all over your drawing, streaky if you like, or as it comes, but let the drawing show through enough to see it clearly. Then when the wash of underpaint is dry, paint the objects in their appropriate colors on top. You will be surprised at the qualities you get, and what you will find about your paint in the process.

Be careful, though, when overpainting, not to pull up your underpainting. Make sure that it is thoroughly dry. If you are in doubt about pulling up the paint, fix it with a light spray of fixative. If you don’t get what you want first overpainting, overpaint it again. If it still doesn’t feel or look right, draw on it with carbon, then overpaint again.

On your paper, using colored inks this time, block in a view through a pane of glass in your window. When dry, overpaint it with opaque color, leaving parts of the colored ink showing here and there where needed. The combination of colored ink and paint can be very exciting and unusual.

You could actually draw in your subject in a bright colored ink, with a brush, then fill in the spaces with paint leaving the bright ink line showing as an outline.

The possibilities of combining these media together is endless and should give you great scope for invention and for developing your style and technique. Do try them all out; you won’t regret it, I promise you.

Don’t forget your razor blades either. By carefully scraping off a top layer of paint you can let the underpainting peep through and so get an interesting texture.

IN CONCLUSION

You can go so far with the watercolor media, but there does come a point in your painting when to go any further creates havoc. Too much overpainting will lessen the sparkle and make the picture go dead. When this happens stop and start a fresh painting. Watercolors are quick to do, so take advantage of this and start again. If by some chance you feel that though the painting is dead in parts it still has qualities, give it a varnishing with a wax varnish (you can buy these ready made at the artists’ supplier); they are quite simple to apply. And when dry, gently polish the wax with a silk handkerchief or fine cloth. The colors will look a little darker in tone, but the brilliance will be restored.

It is much more exciting to make your own tinted paper when using opaque watercolor, by putting on your own tint of your own choosing, than to buy the ready-made tinted papers. When you make your own tinted paper (underpainting) the overpainting merges better with it and you have the advantage of the white paper underneath to reflect back light and so give more life to the tones. Ready tinted papers don’t do this and somewhat deaden the top layers of paint, giving them a rather chalky look.

Tinted papers are all right for drawing. Avoid them for painting on unless you prepare your own on white paper.

The advantages of using casein color are that it is a good paint for quick handling. It dries quickly and is able to stand nearly as much overpainting as oil.

In some ways it resembles oil in so far as it is possible to build up quite heavy impastos without the color cracking. A good casein should dry bone hard and withstand any effort to damage the surface.

Poster Color

Poster color, in the form of tubes or pots, is the last opaque watercolor that concerns us. The better varieties are usually called designers’ colors or gouache colors. Used exactly like transparent watercolor, with the advantage of being suitable for overpainting, they can be employed to paint nearly every subject. On paper or on card with sable brushes they have a great range of color and flexibility. The only disadvantage I can see is that you cannot paint large pictures with them. Anything over Imperial size tends to diminish its power. But for small scale pictures and outdoor sketching these colors are invaluable.

Opaque watercolors are a good stepping stone to oil painting as they have similar qualities and, except for drying mat instead of with a high gloss, are similar to handle. The color mixtures are similar too. Oil painting, however, needs more equipment and is not so easy to take outdoors, whereas a few tubes of poster color and a sketch book are.

It is still advisable, however, to use stretched paper or cardboard for painting on if you don’t want a cockled paper after completion.

You can use opaque color’s on top of or underneath a drawing. That is, you can draw first and obliterate the drawing. Or do your painting first, with or without a preparatory drawing, and draw any changes or developments on top. I do advise mixing your drawing media with your painting media. It makes the business of painting and drawing more of a piece and so gives you more leeway for error. If you confine yourself to too purist an attitude towards them by keeping them tightly separated into compartments you miss half the fun and so get a distorted idea of what it is all about. Because artists have kept these media in different departments in the past, there is no justification for you to do so as well. You have the advantage of a wider range of media that can be bought quite easily, ready for use.

The artists of the past didn’t have this advantage. They had to prepare all their colors themselves. Consequently, to save time and trouble, they often limited themselves to one or two media at the most-rarely moving from the one medium they practiced best. Oil painters, you will find, stick to oil paint, watercolor painters to watercolor and tempera to tempera. Of late, we find that the modern artist is not so insular and moves easily from watercolor to oil painting and on to etching and lithography, borrowing the technique of one medium for use in another.

The Beginner in the use of water colors should be provided with the following materials:

– A box of water colors and two or three brushes.

– A tablet of white water color paper (4 1/2″x6″).

– A cup for water (one that is not easily tipped).

– A piece of blotting paper.

– A piece of cotton cloth (free from starch) for the purpose of drying the brush or taking up superfluous color and cleaning the color box.

– A small sheet of white paper on which to try colors.

Water Color Paper – In water color work, the paper best adapted for the purpose is that which is made of linen possessing a moderately rough surface, together with a good substance of body, that is to say, thickness.

If paper not in tablet form is used, before starting even the outline the paper should be slightly sponged on one side, and, before it has a chance to dry, the edges or margins, to the extent of a half inch, should be passed over with strong mucilage, paste or glue.

The paper should now be pressed firmly to the drawing board. As the paper dries it becomes stretched and is ready to receive the colors. When the work is completed cut the drawing within the lines where pasted, The paper must be quite dry before this is done.

Paper especially adapted for water colors already prepared in tablets can be secured, tile sheets of which may be removed after the water color is completed. The drawing board need not then be used.

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

Position of the Tablet – The tablet should be inclined at an angle of about 35 or even 45 degrees: This is for the purpose of letting colors flow downward, which is the general direction in which the brush should be manipulated.

Outlining the Design – Make complete outlines of the subject to be painted before applying color. These outlines should be very light, so light as not to be observed, except on very close inspection, when the water color is completed.

Erasing – Use the rubber eraser as seldom as possible, otherwise the rubber is apt to disturb the surface of the paper and cause the “washes” to appear streaked.

Parts to be Painted First – As a general rule, put in the background tints first. Then the parts in the middle distance, and the foreground last.