Create some magic
Amanda Hyatt demonstrates how to achieve some special effects that will impart a little magic into your watercolour paintings
Amanda Hyatt demonstrates how to achieve some special effects that will impart a little magic into your watercolour paintings
Apainting is liked according to ‘the eye of the beholder’. As a result, everyone will like something different. Artists are all different and they will paint different subjects in different media in different ways. As a ‘romantic’ artist I like to incorporate a feeling of mood, magic, atmosphere, time of day and light into my paintings. Reference photos or scenes should only be used for inspiration and not for blindly copying. To achieve some magic in a painting, special effects can be incorporated. It’s not ideal to overdo these effects but they can be used in appropriate places. I’ve described here four special effect techniques: the use of salt, lifting off, water-on-water and masking fluid.
Salt
Salt has an intriguing effect on watercolours. It is fascinating just watching the alchemy going on (in scientific language the covalent bonding in water molecules, H2O, is stronger than the ionic bonding in salt molecules, NaCl, and the salt is ‘pulled apart’ by the water molecules). When sprinkled on to a fresh wash it’s like watching magic happen before your eyes. It is very random, which is exciting, and you really have no control over it.
Each granule of salt acts like a tiny sponge, pulling the water and whatever pigment is with it, toward the salt grain which dissolves leaving a white snowflake-like dot (left).
The effect differs according to the paper used (smooth, medium or rough), the watercolour paint (transparent or opaque), the size of the salt grains (table salt or rock salt), the timing of the salt sprinkling (paper wet or semisheen) and height of salt drop (more or less space between granules). It’s up to you to experiment and discover the effects you are looking for.
For a realist artist it can be used to represent snow, leaves, stars, underwater bubbles, rocks and pebbles, mist or as a way of lightening an area that has become too dark. For an abstract artist it can be the basis of the whole painting.
A simple test to determine if a paint is transparent or opaque is to draw a thick black line with a permanent marker. Paint across it with various paints in reasonable strength. Transparent colours will not cover the black line but opaque colours like cerulean blue will.
Lifting off
Lifting off involves removing the paint in areas where it will improve the painting. It can be done with a tissue or paintbrush.
In the sunset painting (above) I used a coin wrapped in a tissue to press into the wet sky wash, held it there for a few seconds and then lifted off. It created the circular sun shape. Be careful not to have loose tabs at the edge of the twisted tissue as these will cause the circular shape to have them, too.
For wiping out tree trunks in Evening
Landscape, below, a flat synthetic brush was used. For every wipe out it is essential to re-wash the brush and squeeze out the water using a tissue,
otherwise you are just putting the paint back on to the paper.
Water on water
Ruination or wonder? Have you ever had the experience of doing a beautiful graded sky wash on a large, expensive sheet of 600g watercolour paper, then putting the brush back in to the water jar and dripping the water onto the wash, causing a huge splodge right in the middle of the sheet, ruining the whole thing? Well I have, and you probably heard me let loose a few expletives from where you live. This certainly taught me to travel back to the water jar via a circuitous route. But if done deliberately, it can have wonderful effects.
Spattering or dripping water onto a freshly wet painted area causes the paint to dilute in those places, creating a sense of ‘something there’ without actually having to paint anything in.
Dripping water onto a painting on a tilted board can create lines as it dribbles down the paper removing paint as it goes. This can create tree trunks or waterfalls (above).
The absolute beauty about painting in watercolour is that you can even wash off the entire painting (in the bath!) and it will present you with a new sheet of paper that often has remnants of paint that stains*. These squiggly lines can then be incorporated into a new painting and that expensive piece of paper can be reborn. It’s often useful to turn it upside down to start again on a new topic. It’s up to your imagination.
MASKING FLUID
Artists often think that by using masking fluid they will find an easy way to leave the whites. Masking fluid certainly does leave the whites, but it also produces very severe hard edges that are often too jarring to the eye if left raw.
Masking fluid should not be regularly relied upon to create the whites. An artist should instinctively know how to leave the whites naturally but sometimes the masking fluid effect can be used in special high contrast scenes such as night views.
Masking fluid is painted on just like you do with paint (top), imagining that you are painting in white paint. It is then dried thoroughly either naturally (takes five minutes or so) or by using a hairdryer. Your painting goes ahead over the top of the masking fluid to near completion and when your painting is dried, the masking fluid is then rubbed off easily using your fingers. At this stage the ‘reveal’ is exciting when you see where the white is.
You still have to finish your painting by adding the darks, more washes, the details and the shadows as well as working out which masking fluid highlights need painting over or softening (above). Masking fluid can also be dribbled, dotted and splattered, which suits abstract work.
*Staining paints include phthalo colours, alizarin crimson, most of the cadmiums, permanent magenta, Prussian blue, Hooker’s green, indigo, Payne’s grey, quinacridones.