Three Ps in Watercolour: Paint, Palette and Paper

Prior to taking up a course in painting my knowledge of colour was limited. I thought the seven colours of the rainbow were the primary colours. I also had the notion that white colour is always obtained by mixing all these colours together as mentioned in the optics lesson in Physics. Later I came to know that there are basically three primary colours - Red, Blue and Yellow. (These colours also indicate the three phases of alternating currents in electricity).   "Understanding Color" by William F Powell is a good book to have a good knowledge on colours.

Paints are liquid of varied density and thickness. It consists of finely grounded pigment or pigments in a medium or a vehicle called binder. The pigments can be metallic/organic or inorganic. Depending on the medium, the vehicle for different paint may be different. For instance, the binder for oil paint is Linseed oil and for Watercolour it may be Gum Arabic, Honey or both. For Acrylic paint it is Acrylic Polymer Emulsion.

One of the reasons for me to take up Watercolour painting is that it is less messy. Whereas in Oil or Acrylic it is difficult to wash the brushes and palette once it dries up.  Only after people began to say I came to know that painting in Watercolour  is tougher than Oil or Acrylic.

Getting Started with Watercolour: PAINTS

At that time I had two old boxes of watercolour tubes. The first one was Camlin make of 12 colours and the other one was a box by Sakura Mat with 18 numbers of watercolour tubes which I purchased on my short stay in Tokyo. Some of the colours mentioned in the course was not there in either of the boxes and I had to buy them separately.

As a beginner, I was hardly interested in knowing what is printed on the tubes except for the colour of the paint written prominently. Moreover, the old tubes I had did not have much information. Later, when I came to learn more about the properties of the paint I started to study what's written on different tubes. There are numbers, a small box which would be either white, black or partly white/black. Here is what I learnt over the time.

The numbers by the side of the name of the paint indicates colour code. It is different for different manufacturers. The letters T,  SO, ST, O indicates whether the paint is Transparent, Semi Opaque, Semi Transparent or Opaque. This is significant as watercolour is a medium which allows layering. That means You can paint over and over again depending on the transparency of the paint and the previous layers underneath will show through. This is a beautiful property that Oil paints don't have. The opaque colours are useful for covering i.e. we don't want the underneath layer to show up.

The letters AA, A, B, C indicates permanence of a paint that is durability of the paint when exposed to light and varied atmospheric conditions.

The letters G and ST stands for Granulating and Staining respectively.

Here is a video showing the colours required for a beginner. 

Some of the paints such as Pthalo Blue and Permanent Rose were not available locally. I got them from Mumbai. The Pthalo Blue was by Schmincke Horadam Aquarell and Permanent Rose by Winsor & Newton. I found both of them to be excellent paints and were intense in their colour. However, these are also costlier then the ones manufactured in India. I wanted to find out why there is a huge price difference. This led me to know that the quality of the paint depends on how much pigment, fillers and extenders are included. More the fillers and extenders lesser would be the quality of the paint. This also means the paint would have less intensity and range.   Watercolour paints are available in two types of container: Tubes(viscous) and pans(dry brick). Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. 

Watercolour paint has to be mixed/diluted with water to get various degrees of thickness. Some artists have defined consistency with terms like tea, coffee, milk, etc. Peter Saw in his DVD has shown the movement of the liquid paint this by tilting his palette.  This is how Milind Mullick explains in one of his books.

In course of time I gradually replaced my old tubes with better quality paints such as Winsor & Newton, Daler Rowney, Sennilier.

Recently a new brand named QoR Watercolour is available in the market. Aquazol is used instead of Gum Arabic as the binder. I have not used this paint hence I have no experience with this brand. Details can be had from this web page: QoR watercolours.

I have a paint box which I won as a prize for best caption conducted by Winsor & Newton in the year 2013.

Transparency is the key characteristics of Watercolour painting. Hazel Soan mentions some interesting aspects of this paint in her books and DVDs. When watercolour paint is thinly laid on paper all the paints have this property. But some remain transparent in their concentrated form. Paints having metal names such as Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow, Cobalt Blue, Titanium White, Chrome Yellow etc. are opaque. All colours made from carbon are transparent such as all the Quinacridones, Perylene Green, Indenthrane Blue etc. All the paints having the word Permanent are also transparent. One can also find out the transparency and opacity of colours in their palettes. The colours that look like their names and are easily identifiable such as Cadmium Red or Yellow, Cobalt blue etc. are opaque. The colours which are dark and are not readily identifiable until it is mixed with water, such as, Quinacridone Gold,  Alizarin Crimson, Prussian Blue etc. are transparent. However, I have found some deviation to this.  Indian Yellow, Aureolin and some of the colours that are transparent but shows its colour in the palette. So one can easily identify transparent and opaque colours without having to go through the paint charts provided by the manufacturers.

Now talking of palette one can find numerous types of this mixing surface. Here is a video by Bob Davis.

Generally palettes available in the market are made of either Plastic, Porcelain or Metal.  The plastic palettes are the cheapest and are available in different shapes and sizes. They are light and portable. The disadvantage is that the mix tends to bead and don't remain flat. The following video will explain what I mean. Porcelain palettes are heavy and stable moreover these don't have the problem of beading, separation of paint and water. The palettes made out of metals have enamel coating which makes the paint remain flat. These are durable, less heavy and portable.  But these are very costly. Watercolour palettes made by Craig Young are the costliest palettes and are used by many renowned watercolour artists. Here is his web page: watercolor paintbox company.

To be continued ...

How I learnt to paint in Watercolour by enrolling to online tutorials.

The Internet had already become popular by the turn of the century. Almost every information was available in the net and more so when YouTube channel came into existence with streaming videos. However, almost all of the art videos were of 2 to 3 minutes. Unlike that of today where you can find scores of watercolour painting tutorial sites, there were only a few web sites like Handprint, Wet Canvas, PaintDoodles....All these web sites provided the bare minimum information and I found them to be not enough to kick start watercolour painting.

I constantly kept searching for something new and useful in the net. Finally, in the year 2008 as I was browsing the "How to Draw & Paint" web site I found some longer watercolour tutorial videos. The web site also informed that they are soon going to start an online water colour tutorial course. (Sadly the online course is no longer available in the net.) I became interested to join the course and an introductory discounted price was offered which I found to be suitable for my pocket. Since I did not have an international credit card I took help from my friend to pay the course fees and get enrolled.

Watercolour Secret online tutorial web site Click on the photo to get a bigger view.

I think this site was one of the earliest to provide online watercolour painting tutorials. In this post and next few posts I will put in here what I learnt from this course as well as other offline video courses such as tutorials by Geoff Kersey, Peter Saw, Peter Wooley, Ray Campbell Smith, Hazel Soan, James Fletcher Watson... that I subsequently took over the years. I will also redo most of the tutorial paintings and upload them here.

I find drawing to be very important part of painting. For a beginner it is always essential to start with drawing practice before moving to pick up a brush. In my previous post i mentioned of a simple but powerful exercise for free hand drawing. 

Here are the videos that attracted me to take up this course. Now a days you can see much better videos in the net.

Since I was new to such a course I had to browse and read the instructions as well as aquint myself to the system. This took me couple of days before I could view the tutorials. The course was for one year and there were about 20 active participants. Bob Davis was the instructor. A facility was provided to upload our paintings that we attempted to emulate the instructor and get comments from other participants. However, on the flip side the instructor would never put his comment nor any suggestions for improvement. The course was divided into various sections.

To be continued... 





My renewed enthusiasm in the 90s...

In the 80s, while I was pursuing my degree in engineering, I learnt some technical drawing as well as free hand drawing of objects. It helped me to understand shading with various grades of graphite.

Once, while browsing through the shelves of a book stall I came across a couple of art books published by Walter Foster. I purchased them. Some of my early art books are: Painting in Four Mediums and Landscapes You can Paint by William Palluth. Willam Palluth is an wonderful artist and his paintings are like the old masters.

I was more interested in watercolour and thought of learning it from the books I possessed. I wanted to buy all the materials required for watercolour painting. But as soon as as I did a market survey, I found that most of the items such as Masking fluid, Gum Arabic, watercolour brushes and even watercolour paper were not available locally. I also found that oil painting was more popular and the items required for oil painting were available in the art shops. Therefore I decided to try and learn Oil Painting.

My collection of books published by Walter Foster.

Here are some of my early paintings:

Since I could not get a proper watercolour paper, I painted the above two paintings in cartridge paper. Special effect and textures were impossible in this paper. I also used Camlin Artists' watercolour.

As I painted these I realised that the ability to draw, especially free hand drawing is very essential and a prerequisite, rather prelude to a painting. Hence I seriously thought of learning how to draw and sketch. Those days internet was not available so were the information. I had seen an advertisement in a magazine about distance learning where different options were available. I found that cartoon learning course was the cheapest where free hand drawing is included in the syllabus. I took up the course which helped me immensely in my pursuit to learn sketching.

Besids learning how to draw cartoons, three things that I learnt from this correspondence course are:
How to draw in perspective, tone and shading and mind and hand control. Here is an exercise which helped me immensely to draw what I see. It's a simple but powerful exercise.

There are many theories on the right and wrong ways to hold a pencil when drawing. For freedom of movement here is a useful way of holding a pencil. It is better to avoid a 'writing' grip which is suitable only for tightly controlled lines with limited range of directions contained in a small space.

There is a good book named "You Can Draw In 30 Days" by Mark Kistler on drawing which I found to be very useful for beginners and those who are afraid to draw. I followed this book and even today I practice some of the exercise given there. This book can be viewed and even downloaded from http://issuu.com/search?q=you+can+draw+in+30+days.

My course in cartooning in the 90s introduced me to Drawing as the base for my study of Art. It covered basic drawing, tone drawing and simple perspective. Whatever we see with our eyes are three dimensional. Without learning these basic things it is very difficult to draw three dimensional figure in two dimensional surface (paper, canvas etc.).

By looking at the above drawings one can easily make out the one is drawn by a kid and one drawn by person who learnt the art of drawing.

I found that the materials required for learning and practicing drawing are already available at home. You require a pencil, and eraser and simple blank paper. As indicated in my course material I in course of time bought 2B, 4B and 6B pencils. Later however, I mostly used 6B pencil as it is easy to get different tones with varied pressure. However, one has to be careful while applying pressure as the lead of the pencil is very soft and might break.

While I was learning to draw, I found that drawing landscape or still life is easier than drawing flowers or animals. To me portrait drawing is the hardest of all. Landscape is easy as the drawing don't need to be exact replica of the original. However, in case of portrait one has to be very meticulous with every curve. I don't have a fractal mind and those have it are blessed.

My encounter with watercolour in the 70s...

I did nothing much with watercolour in the 70s and 80s except for the two incidents that I remember till today. Once in the school, I was told to participate in a painting exhibition cum competition. I, with the help of my mother, painted  a rural scene and submitted it to my class teacher. I did not know whether it was accepted or not. Next, my mother insisted on participating in an art competition which was held in the city stadium. I participated very reluctantly and impromptu. When the session began, I did not know what to paint and started to draw what was in front of me - the stadium itself. With no formal training or knowledge in painting, I failed to draw the stadium too and I refrained from submitting an incomplete painting. Later, at the end of the competition, the paintings of other participants were on display. I was starring at them;  my eyes grew big and jaws gaped to see them. Some of the participants which were of my age or even younger had so much of talent! I almost stopped painting after that.

My first encounter with watercolour...

When I was eight years old my parents gifted me with a watercolour tin box. This was like this:

It also had a small brush. I loved watercolour paintings but did not know how to paint. So all I did was to fill the black and white pictures, especially those found in the comic books with the colours. I had gone to the art teacher for only a day. He placed a wooden toy railway engine and made me to draw and paint it. I could not draw the engine properly. He politely asked me to come back when I grew older. LoL. 

My new watercolour tubes...

Yesterday I received the Senellier watercolour  tubes I ordered with Artifolk. It took 12 days by registered air mail to receive them. I am yet to try them. One thing that I learnt from what it is written on the body of the tubes is that Lemon Yellow and Cobalt Blue are transparent. Generally metallic pigments are supposed to be opaque. Here is the photograph of what I got: Cobalt Blue, Viridian Green, Indian Yellow, Indigo, Cobalt Violet, Lemon Yellow and Indanthrene Blue.

You may click here to view Sennelier-Watercolor Chart