Capture the beauty of a river in watercolors.
The art of watercoloring employs a distinctly separate technique from other painting mediums. The keys to good watercolor execution are a subtle mixing of paint colors, the proper dilution of the paint, choosing the right watercolor paper weight and texture for your work and, most importantly, a free and confident wielding of the watercolor brush. Most watercolor works are meant to be impressionistic, characterized by capturing light in a watery image.
Instructions
1. Prepare your watercolor paper. Tape the edges of the paper to a smooth wooden board that is large enough to accommodate the paper and provide room for resting your hand and arm.
2. Sketch the line of the river or other features with a very fine but soft-leaded mechanical pencil. This line should be very faint, perhaps visible only to your eye, unless you like your pencil drawings to show in your final work. If you don't want to use a pencil, use a very small watercolor brush and sketch in your features using heavily diluted raw umber watercolor paint.
3. Draw in any features that might appear in the midst of the river, such as rocks, boats, vegetation, buildings or animals. Cover these areas with a watercolor blocking agent to preserve these areas while you paint the river as a whole. Cover the banks of the river with this blocking agent as well.
4. Test your river colors on scrap paper. Few rivers are truly blue in color. Most rivers are tea-colored, mossy green, muddy brown or a deep grayed blue. Experiment with layers of colors: darker in the center of the river, greener towards the banks and tea or brown along the shores.
5. Practice letting the paint color flow out of your brush on scrap paper first. Don't "paint" the river or "scrub" the colors onto the paper. Instead, let the "water" in watercoloring do the work---let if flow. Try working "wet on wet" style: Pre-moisten the paper and then add wet paint with the brush. Try working "dry on wet" too: Pre-moisten the paper and touch the brush holding a dryer paint to this wet area.
6. Apply the watercolor in smooth, flowing brush strokes in the direction you imagine the river is running. Move or "jag" your brush to indicate shifts in the mainstream. "Jag" your brush stroke around any rocks or objects in the river, just as water would flow around objects in real life. Stop painting when the look of the river is right for you. Don't over-work your piece. Let the paint dry completely.
7. Remove the blocking agent protecting other parts of the painting by pulling it up with a soft gum eraser. Watercolor in these new features.
