WATERCOLOURS ...... part one

First off..........this is going to be a series on the way I handle watercolours. I have a couple of different "styles" of painting with them, and I will be going over all of these from the very beginning to completed piece for all of them. 

I use this incredibly versatile medium for various things from roughs to cartooning to some "painting". If you are truly interested in the way watercolours really should be used, then AFTER reading all my  posts on this subject you should really check out these Fellas:

ERIC FORTUNE

Here  is a bit on MUDDY COLORS from Eric with a video clip as well.

PAUL BONNER

Paul has also graciously posted a sort of how to, over on the MUDDY COLORS  blog, so there is also a link to it as well.

All kidding aside about reading my stuff first and going to check out these two..............you REALLY should pay very close attention to what they do, for in my book these two guys ARE where it is at with this medium in the illustration field. What I do is sort of dabbling compared to them.

My use of the watercolours is more of an adult colouring book sort of way of painting. as will be revealed as we go on, so lets go ahead and jump in the pool and get wet with watercolours!!!

I have honestly been using the same plastic palette for the past 25 years or so, and since I had been really doing the whole Watercolour thing before I ever really started to paint in oils, my colour palette was adapted from this medium to the oils. 

 

O.k. as you can see, I have all my colours lain out and ready to go, these are tube colours that I just squirted onto the palette,and keep wetting as I use them. There are areas for each individual colour, a sort of mixing ground for them and their family, areas for the secondary sort of colours, greens, oranges, and purples, all pretty much mixed from my primaries .

I have these "mixing" colours in separate areas so I can keep my original or primary colours "pure". I am using the term primary colour here not as Red Yellow and Blue per-say, but as my base colours.........which actually are Red, Yellow, and Blue, with some earthy tones in there as well.

The "FREE SWIM" areas are a basic mixing area where I will clean my brush off or wipe a bit of paint off to get less on the brush and occasionally just grab whatever colour is in there and throw it in the painting.  

                                         

This is the water glass that I have been using ever since I can remember.  If I am not mistaken, my mom gave it to me, and she got it sometime way before that in a box of Tide or something........it is pretty old.      

 

  

These ol' boys are my pens and brushes for both the watercolours and my inks. the ones on the left are the watercolour tools, the dip pen on the far left is the one I use with my sepia toned inks. On the right are my ink brushes and dip pen as well as my ruling pen. ( in which I have spoken  of in a previous blog post.)

As far as paper goes..........I use Strathmore  300 Series Bristol with a smooth surface, the  yellow pads. This paper is extremely durable and versatile. It is what I do everything on from pencils to inks to watercolours..... this stuff is the work horse of my studio.

This is as good a stopping place for the first installment on the watercolours as any, and since we have gotten down to the paper, the next phase will be the drawing and beginnings of the paintings.