If you have looked at other posts on my blog you will know that I am interested in watercolour painting and in the problems painters have in depicting clouds.There follows a discussion of a tiny watercolour sketch-on rough watercolour paper. How did it get from the first image to the final one?
POINT 1
I have said it before, but when thinking about cloud contours you might want to define them by painting in the negative-that is the blue of the sky-when beginning to establish which areas are to represent clouds.
POINT 2
The way I do clouds means that I find the shapes as I work. It also means that I remove paint or use tools to blur or soften contours. That is certainly not an C18 watercolour technique. I use various things to remove paint.A moist hog or watercolour brush can stroke away a hard edge and a rag or kitchen towel can blot up the paint. The forms of clouds vary considerably and sometimes there is a relatively hard edge whilst on another side the values of cloud and sky are very close and the transition should be delicate. You can achieve this with the technique I'm discussing.
POINT 3
These techniques will not work on poor quality paper, nor in many commercial sketchbooks. Good paper is important and expensive. There is no avoiding this but with quality paper you can make corrections and if need be work on the other side of the sheet. Rough textured paper is important for helping with textures.
Now that I look back on the exercise I think that some of the earlier stages have more interesting qualities than the finished version. That's life!
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| start |
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| finish |
Firstly let me say what I was trying to create. It was my intention to show something of a chain of clouds as they appear in perspective ranging backwards from almost overhead towards a hill on the horizon. I am not sure that I have succeeded, but, at any rate, if you look at the following you will get some idea of how I manipulate watercolour.
POINT 1
I have said it before, but when thinking about cloud contours you might want to define them by painting in the negative-that is the blue of the sky-when beginning to establish which areas are to represent clouds.
POINT 2
The way I do clouds means that I find the shapes as I work. It also means that I remove paint or use tools to blur or soften contours. That is certainly not an C18 watercolour technique. I use various things to remove paint.A moist hog or watercolour brush can stroke away a hard edge and a rag or kitchen towel can blot up the paint. The forms of clouds vary considerably and sometimes there is a relatively hard edge whilst on another side the values of cloud and sky are very close and the transition should be delicate. You can achieve this with the technique I'm discussing.
POINT 3
These techniques will not work on poor quality paper, nor in many commercial sketchbooks. Good paper is important and expensive. There is no avoiding this but with quality paper you can make corrections and if need be work on the other side of the sheet. Rough textured paper is important for helping with textures.
Now that I look back on the exercise I think that some of the earlier stages have more interesting qualities than the finished version. That's life!
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