Ref 963 Watercolor.- Keeping the paper "damp" for painting

This is the result of this process;

                 "Behavior is the mirror from which we reflect our image"

Most of my previous exercises regarding throwing paint, wet on wet, and/or wet on damp  give an idea however
there are so many factors that matter (such as paper texture and weight, the amount of water, the thickness of pigment or the timing). With that being said, there’s something magical about the way colors flow and blend with each other, creating a beautiful, striking effect
Here are some tips and tricks that can help you
Choose the right paper
The texture of the paper plays an important role when you paint wet in wet. Hot pressed paper is less absorbent, so colors will float on the surface longer
My personal favorite for wet-in-wet technique is cold-pressed,140-pound, 100-percent cotton watercolor paper
Catch the right moment
If you apply paint when the paper is shiny wet, colors will spread over the large area of your painting, producing undefined shapes. When you need to make a soft, but not too diffused brush stroke, just wait until the surface is no longer glossy, but still damp and cool to the touch
Lift with a “thirsty” brush and/or absorbent paper
As long as the paper is still wet, you can easily make corrections if something goes wrong. Just blot your brush thoroughly and lift the paint back off the paper. In some cases, you may need to add clean water to the surface before lifting. The trick here is that the damp but blotted brush absorbs more water than it releases, so it will quickly pick the wet color up from your painting
Use a hair dryer
Use a hair dryer when painting wet in wet, and you won’t have to get bored waiting for the paper to dry to a perfect consistency
Use damp fabric to retain moisture (main advice)
If you need paper to stay wet for a longer period of time, you can take a moisture-resistant surface (I used plexiglás underneath), place a thin damp cotton fabric on it, and then put a sheet of paper, moistened from both sides, on top of this “sandwich”. With this simple trick, the paper will lay flat and retain water for several hours
In this way I overlaid 3 or more layers of red color making from it, a deep red without stainong marks, and for the wáter reflections I tilted the paper to get a gradual change of colors

Ref 962; Watercolor.- Controlling wet-in-wet washes

Wet-on-wet; would be difficult to maintain as paper dries, so looking for ways to control it, I found wet-in-damp by adjusting the amount of wáter on both sides of the painting
We need to mixes color with minimal amount of wáter in deep Wells of a muffin style, and we need to satúrate the front at the begining and later just the paper back with selective amount of wáter up front, and we need to blots up the excess of wáter with a paper towel and then lays in the lightest light usually a pale yellow, covering almost the entire painting using a damp brush to apply the paint, in this case is better to work from light to dark and focus on the less detailed áreas first, when the paper is drierwe can work in more focused áreas where we need defined edges.
Steps I follow to make the following paint exercise
1.- wet front and back of the paper so the painting surface would adhere to the wáterproof board, and after mixing paints in deep Wells apply warm wash first with a large brush establishing some of the lightest áreas leaving the White of the paper
2.- when surface begin to dry spray the back of the paper to maintain a damp surfaceso we can buil up the darks with layers of painting we need to blott excess of wáter from the brush before apply and only add wáter to the front of the painting with a brush in specific áreas
3.- develop the focal paint of your painting first and concéntrate in light and shadows to further refine the value range
4.- with foreground and subject nearly complete add unifaying shapes and colors to the background to keep edges soft on the distant forms, the damp in the frontsoften edges to harsh
5.- complete as painting dries shapes and color value as necessary

Working like this I got rid of dirty marks made through my las paintings, however I didn´t wait enough for detailed foreground work lines and the vehicle looks out of focus, so you need patience to work into the right moment

                                          "As is our confidence, so will our achievements"

Ref 956.- Throwing paint -initial notes

It is my belief, that random marks on paper have more grace that contrived marks, masking fluid is recommended to get also specific effects with this technique, as this is something new in which I´vegot some lack of experience, I did the following paints without masking fluid to discover how the wáter follows its own path it will be more or less stay out of dry áreas leaving hard edges whites there while flowing freely as a wash
Then these are the steps:
Sprinkle wáter onto the painting surface
Load a brush with paint and wáter and flinge it at the paper
And then most important of all ,.- selectively spray the paint with wáter to stired in the desired direction (I did use a strow to blow in the direction I needed to over the wetting path)
This exercise it was quite simple regarding the figure to paint, but results are interesting- lights are made with a syntetic sponge for wetting paper or wiping out excess of wáter and/or by rolling a paper towel over it

Ref 956.- Christmas it is not a Season, it is a feeling 

Ref  957; For my following exercise; I start by the wet on wet tehnique, lifting color shapes as son as posible to keep lighting clear áreas nevertheless I begun with darker/médium color hues, tilting the paper as my interest, as paper dry I completed better shapes but always lifting color with paper towel, if paper dried so soon I applied wáter onto selective áreas with a sprayer, I had several issues with shapes already done so I had to do it again  and again reinforce defined lines
Lesson learnt; the spray make textures if applied correctly not so wet and/or dry (see dark and blue colors which makes the pinture more alive sue the stained particles among the shadows)

                      Ref 957; "There is a Christmas song, upon the air"

 

 

Ref 958 Practice is the main ingredient to go ahead; in my following painting with more confidence I start for throwing paint and lifting paint to live fading áreas but keeping paper white zones for the end, this time the initial colors where rather middle value to reinforce or clarify accordingly and again I start with the darker zones of the painting idea, as I evolve first one color mixing with either upper or down hue of the Wheel color chart red, blue and yellow color to make greens mixing basically at the paper, as paper still wet I did some scratches lines through out different satges on it and as it dry the darker defined lines at the top

Lesson learnt; you need to work quikly  to take advantages of the different mixing and colors needs to be primaries to make good contrasts and vivid colors, well at least for this example

 

Ref 958.-  "The flowers leave a part of their fragrance in the hands that caress them"

 

 

Ref 959; throwing paint without try to mix to much in order to have defined ares of color

It Works in some way because you need to wait for dry before throwing a different color on it taking advantage of selective wetting this time through sponge.- In this ocassion I start with clear colors to complete with darkers as it dries also I added more definition, however as it can see, there are several marks of paint which I couldn´t lift  so I need to keep the paper wet enough to make transitions but at the same time I need this to be dry to throw another color this was the dilema

 

 

                   Ref 959  "You have in your hands; the color of your day"

 

Bonus painting ref 960

I had a new color paper shine silver color in which I tried to make a watercolor painting

the result give me additional ideas for future projects, however I did this while I figure it out out to throw paint without dirty marks on it "A breaking time"

 

The White color of the rainy drops was made with watercolor White  but the drops of the window were made with White gouache it is posible to see the difference

The nwe paper Works good and I´ll try something accordingly to take advantage of the original color like in pastel art it Works

 

Ref 960 "There is a girl, getting wet in the rain, outside my window"

 

 

  I took this photograph before White gouache dries to represent in some way better the concept idea, when it dries left marks but clear enough to represent rainy drops into the window

Ref 955; Descrptive Brushwork

Brushwork does not always play a large part in in watercolor work, if we work wet in wet, or building up a painting with a series of overlaid washes, the marks of the brush are relatively unimportant, however for wet on dry paintings, especially when foliage form part of the subject, the marks you make play a vital descriptive role and you can vary them according the shapes in the subject
with this on mind I worked in the following painting

This is the result, of this process:

 

As this is a night scene I did a loose description of the painting I wanted to work on;by working with a wet on dry brushing with médium dark tones (graphite dissolved in plain wáter and another graphite dissolved but now in wáter with a dab of cobalt blue and use accordingly all over cold press paper) 

 

 

 

 Once dry (this time I didn´t use fixer) , I start to define some colors over it  - where I wanted to place light and/or illumination behind

And again start using darker colors at selective places, which is easier and really dark base in the underpainting graphite applied at the begining

 

The tricky part of this painting is that once it was darker again I could give light by adding modeling paste over the selective places I wanted either, applying with a brush or with a Little spatula, wait to dry and then paint colorful colors over it

Ref 954; Stimulating Creative Expression

How can we change the way we work ot our craft, Where do new ideas for painting techniques originate; How many ways can we manipulate the surface of our paper when working with watercolor? if we keep exploring, sometimes fresh idas drop onto our papers from unexpected sources and at unexpected times.
There are may ways to scratch either with cuts or shaped plastics, we also can paint over first scratching to texturize the surface. the complexities can increase and the possibilities are almost endless, there are many ways to alter surface,
Through out this entrance I´ll put paintings with this idea in mind,

Ref 954; First example in which I´m pushing the paint with a knife to give the ethereal look into the atmosphere, the borders then are not precisely in focus

                        Paint made for my niece Dany; on her birthday,

                                     "Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art"

Ref 952; Color Mixing
Only experience will teach you which colors to mix to produce a shade, but there are some facts about color mixing that should help you to mix colours,. First is vital to remember that the colors mixed in your palette , looks much darker that whwn you have dried on the paper, this is because the White of the paper shows to the translucent paint, although you can make it darker or amend the hue by painting by painting another wash over it, a single wash is much more effective tan two otr three layers, Second try not to mix more tan three colors and use only two if posible because mixing tends to devaluate colors to some extent, while overmixing produce muddy hues, Third bear in mind that only you begin by mixing colors in the palette, you will continue to mix them as your work by laying one wash or brushstroke over another , you can change colors considerably in this way, even lying light colors over dark, but do not overdo it or the paint will become stirred up and muddy
In my next painting regarding last paintings I started with darker tones first, which facilitate the way I use to paint either darking and/or lighthing as I required

     "Looking for the Mummer"  (Mummer.-a person who wears a mask or fantastic costumes while celebrations or take part in a pantomime, especially at Christmas and other festive seasons)

Ref 950: 951.- Painting Mixed-media watercolors

Whenever I´m at the easel, I always keep one idea firmly in mind; that watercolor is a tool of expression, not and end of itself, in other words I like watercolors that are painting first and watercolors second. So whenever I begin a watercolor now; I do not hesitate to make it a mixed media venture. These days I´m making a underpainting with  with powder graphite diluted and applied with brush, and then fixed before add watercolor on it, as a result my work has become free. looser and more expressive, I´ve also discovered a few other advantages to mixed media watercolors:
New imagery;
-- middle value unifier,
-- regaining lost lights,
-- dark values because.- when starting with a middle tone-paper, darks
          becomes easier to see and paint
-- combinig skills
-- second attempts.- becauseyou learn to paint in both sides of the paper, when your transparent watercolor turn out to be less tan a masterpiece, but with mixed media, more tan one watercolor can be painted in one side, scrubbing out your first attempt
In my following paint; I start with powder graphite and then fixed to avoid dirty conditions for next steps
After completely dry I can adjust dark tones in a easier way
Of course I did use some masking in particular áreas to keep interesting iluminated áreas, and I use quite small amount of color to preserve lighthing áreas as much as posible
The graphite underpainting was th key for the following painting

                    Ref 950    "Nature it is not a place to visit; it is home"

The following example ref 951 now it is made with same technic but over hot press paper;
This is the result after powder graphite disolved in wáter and applied with brush

 

Also I did some masking on it

After it dries, I apply laca to fix it (spry), and then I start to watercolor, which result easier when I start with shadows defined either to reinforce or to leave like that, my lesson learnt is that I didn´t fix correctly the lower side and the grahite disolved again with wáter making forms undefined and dirty, nevertheless this is the technic I did use either over cold and/or hot press paper

 

Ref 951.- "Every painting tells a story"

 

 

  

Ref 941, 942,943,944,945,946,947,948,949 Old Bicycle designs made by 1979,
Designed when I was a teen age, regarding bicycles, one of my best hobbies, I found this drawings which I wanted to include within my blog, made through pencil, ink, pastel rules decals and acrylic air brushing