Watercolor.- Making watercolors glowing
wet on dry technique is causing too much opacity in the stroke. There are lots of theories as to why, but few argue watercolor benefits from washes very much, arguably much more than dry strokes, pigment crowding, paper shine, whatever.
I lay down three washes of blue for a sky and it always looks better than one pass of a heavy wash.

Two: My personal problem is fussing too much when wet, if one over mixes two colors whether on palette or paper a hard to define grayish sheen seems to come over the mix, creating what can't be called muddy but is dull nonetheless. The very best wet workers
I've seen never ever fuss too much, they drop in and GET OUT. One my good days I can hit a passage like they do.

Three: I have an instinct to paint in a mid to low key range, and truly high key luminous paintings are hard for me instinctually. Perhaps for you as well. I love the exercise where one flips all the colors around, like a yellow sky, blue house, purple trees white water and carmine fields sort of thing.
Could loosen up your color spirit.

When i start to build colors I may use thin opaque for the first wash and then apply transparent on top .So for the following painting I did a underbase with molding paste (mixed with watercolor accordingly), keeping white zones absorbing or lifting color with a napking, then after dry I apply transparent colors; within the rainbow example ref 839
Note ref 838 at the bottom of this entrance  was my first attempt but the wet on wet without care, cause too much opacity as I said early

                            Ref 839 My favorite color is the rainbow

              Ref 838 An optimist always look for a rainbow after the rain

Watercolor.- Masking fluid "left in the painting"
I find that when I use Masking Fluid to retain the white areas in a painting, on removal that area is so stark with hard edges to it, that it seems to negate the benefit of using it

To take it away
You could wait for the paint to dry totally, then after removing the masking use a little water on a brush and carefully soften the edges, the results will depend on the pigment/s used and the type of paper   I keep an old cheap synthetic brush for softening edges so I don't ruin my sables

Might be best to try it on a spare piece of the watercolour paper you are using first with the colours you are going to use. That way you'll know if it will work on the painting

For the following painting I left the masking fluid on it, (on purpose) with masking fluid left in the window.-It gives a more realistic effect to apply paint at an angle on this type of shiny paper

                                Ref 836 Portrait of my Neighbor

Watercolor.- Glazing
Glazing is a term for layering or stacking color, for instance think of different sheets of colored glass or tissue paper one stacked on top of the other. You are able to see through the transparent layers to the ones below, glazing in watercolor is the same idea but instead using thin washes of transparent color. For the cleanest color mixing and purest glazes use only the most transparent color. The reason is these colors allow light to pass through and reflect off of the papers surface leaving beautiful jewel-like effects


How to Glaze

Each layer must be completely dry before the next is applied, remember you are stacking multiple layers of color and if you apply the next layer too quickly you can easily lift the previous layer and mix it into the current one ruining the effect, and depending on the colors you have chosen possible turning the color into mud. How you check if a wash is ready for the next application is to touch it with the back of your hand and if it is cool to the touch it is still too damp. Another thing when using this technique is that to use soft brushes because if the brush is too stiff you can easily lift color and end up with unwanted brush lines

 

"Painting is something to say, with its own words"
Glazing technique; over cold pressed paper ref 835

 

Watercolor "Today I´ll run for pure absolute joy"
   Painting over hot pressed paper ref 834

Watercolor (with spatula) ref 833
For the following watercolor painting I used again a modeling paste médium, to build up textural and three-dimensional effects. this paste it’s perfect for giving a raised effect to subjects such as flower petals, stone walls, and buildings. Apply it on the surface with a spatula, let dry, and paint over it with watercolor — paint will adhere well to the surface. You can also make an imprint into the paste or scratch into it before it dries completely in order to create desired textures. This fine paste has a creamy consistency and may be tinted with tube watercolor or acrylic color, I did just for all petals over watercolor paper Canson 240 gr
                                     Ref 833 Blue hydrangea
                         "Color in a painting is like enthusism in life"

I´ll be practicing watercolor paintings through out this entrance, my reference will be photographs and my colors the interpretation I can get from them

                                     "Painting is a picture handmade"
                                   Segovia Chatedral at night  ref 827

                                                                              Ref 829
                "If you could say in words; there would be no reason to paint"

                      Ref 830 You have no idea, what portrait painters
                             suffer from the vanity of their sitters

                                                Self Portrait

                        Watercolor over prior texturized paper with colored and plain
                  model paste, in order to try to obtain a shinny Steel on it
                   Canson paper 140lbs

                   Ref 831 Let´s have good thougths (pansies) this day

Watercolor over hot pressed paper

with wax addition between lines

the idea is to get clear zones (as posible)

to obtain major clear sparking areas even in darker spots

 

Ref 834

Art lies in a reality that is felt

 

Ref 836

More tan a process, painting is being possessed

 

 

Watercolor trying to add some additional texturization to a watercolor paint practically done
In this ocassion I was looking for add texturization with "colored plaster added with spatule but blending with brush several times" to a previous watercolor painting in order to make it shine,but finally ---> I didn´t add the varnish, the results was not  as I expected, (I had to add white to previous color to avoid darkening as much as possible) therefore I´ll be working in better examples to get a solid base for bright
I´m posting this exercise before and after just for information ref 824 & 825

Into the following painting just the branch was texturized, now it was done in hot-pressed paper, results looks better, but need some kind of enhancement yet ref 826

Watercolor Using Wax to Preserve paper color below;

It's a good plan to paint light areas first and continue with successively darker colors. Work from light to dark.

One trick to preserving the white of your paper is to use wax. Wax resists watercolor, so using a white crayon or a candle is a quick and easy way to save a bit of white when painting. Say you don't want to go to the effort of painting around an area for a tiny highlight in a flower. Just a touch of a crayon saves the dot, stays invisible, and keeps you from needing a steady hand to paint around that highlight.
Any substance that prevents or resists paint is known as a resist, and wax is one type of resist. (Colored wax acts as a resist, as well, but it obviously leaves a colored area on the paper, so unless that's the effect you're going for, be sure to use white wax.)
Tips;

The darker the paint you use over the wax, the more vivid your design will be.

Smooth paper holds a better wax line. If your paper is really textured, the wax may not coat the paper entirely. If only the top surface of textured paper gets wax, the result is another spotty texture, which may be just the effect you're looking for.

The wax stays on the paper because it's not removable. It's essentially invisible except for the waxy buildup. If used in small amounts, it may not be visible at all

                             Exercise ref 822    Be happy; Be bright; Be you

 

When curiosity is alive, we discover many worlds

 

In the following painting ref 823, I was to trying to work in base a previous dark underpainting, which didn´t work so: 

There is no failure, only feedback

 

 

Watercolor.- There´s nothing like a Mama hug ref 821

                          Happy Mother´s Day

"There are dances in which each movement is a Word of a wonderful poem"

                               Watercolor full of movements ref 820

Watercolor plus molding paste as foundation-base, and as a blending color making it able to be varnished to obtain shining paintings       ----ref 819

Molding Paste as I already quote, can also be used to create foundations for painting either to create texture over a smoother surface, or to smooth out a textured surface. The absorbent qualities of Molding Paste make it suitable as a ground for nearly every painting and drawing media, there are several particular molding mediums and brands; coarse, hard, light, regular I´m working with "regular"

In the following exercise; the color bottles, were treated with molding paste after paper stretching and soaked as plain base foundation, also wáter coloring it was blending with this product, wait for dry and  finally varnished obtaining  bright bottles, -the  background  plain contrast  can be seen against these bottles over Canson 240 lb paper

                        Ref 819 "A Painter is a Choreographer of Space"

Watercolor.-- texturizing -another exercise --ref 817

Contrary to oils and acrylic, watercolor is a medium that doesn’t have any thickness to it, so the quality of the paper (rough, cold press or hot press) will be an important factor to consider when rendering textures. A simple flat wash can be textured on rough or cold press paper as some of the larger pigments will settle into the indentations of the paper — this is called granulation

Texture refers to both the feel and appearance of a surface, it is one of the elements that can make a fine art painting successful by rendering it more believable and by establishing a sensorial connection with the viewer, I´m trying to add a variety of media to manipulate its appearance, molding paste wáter base has been helpful in my older Works, however added in paper needs to be in a small thickness to avoid further problems, in my following example I added molding paste in just some spaces you can see through out the painting (as background to make smooth surface and in the foreground  "front flowers" to add additional dimension

                      Ref 817 "Painting is by nature a luminous lenguaje"

 

The following painting exersice 818, was made in Canson paper 160 gr and was not suitable to add this particular additional texture, nevertheless I´m posting my exercise

 

Ref 818 " Imagination is the highest kit one can fly"