|
  |
|
|
Five ways to avoid graphite sketch lines in watercolors
One problem in some juried competitions and other art venues is that watercolor purists will be annoyed if the artist uses a graphite sketch under a watercolor painting. Or maybe you just like the brilliance of pure transparent watercolor and dislike the graying effect that even a light graphite sketch has under a painting. Here are some ways to get around graphite lines that distract from your rich brilliant watercolor washes and painted details. 1. Sketch the subject in pencil and shade it, make it a good preliminary value drawing. Then prop the sketch next to where you're painting so that you can follow your sketch as well as look at the subject. It doesn't have to be a detailed sketch, it can be a rough value sketch. What's important in it is the shading, being aware of the values and shapes of dark areas and light. One advantage of this technique is that doing the preliminary value sketch gives you practice with that subject. If you don't like your sketch, you can keep sketching till you have one that you do like. The final painting will be a lot stronger for your solving composition and value decisions before you pick up your brush! 2. If your paintings lose proportion without an underlying sketch, consider buying watercolor pencils. One painter I know of always sketches his paintings with a light gray watercolor pencil. The neutral pale color dissolves into all the colors he lays over the sketch. Alternately, you can get a set of watercolor pencils and do your initial sketch lines in colors close to the final colors you plan for that area. Always keep the line width to the side of the darker value where light and dark meet, since these lines will dissolve into the paint. You may want to shade into areas as well as outline them, or outlines may remain under a loose wash. The effect is attractive if you don't dissolve the lines completely and can add some linear elements to a painting. Go very light and soft with your lines if you want them to disappear entirely. 3. Use liquid masking fluid to paint around color areas and reserve lights. Sketching with the masking fluid and removing selected areas of it can give precision and hard edges where wanted. This is also considered a cheat by some watercolor purists, but as a tool it's valuable for many professional watercolorists. 4. Similar to #3, you may want to do your preliminary sketch on Low Tack Frisket film or other brands of masking film. It's easy to draw on masking film. Cut out the shapes of various areas and place them on your watercolor paper. Your paint will only go through to the areas that aren't covered. Do not use High Tack frisket, as that may rip off the surface of the paper. I masked a poster I was airbrushing using High Tack frisket because I feared low tack frisket would come loose -- and the result was that the entire sketch of the lady's face with all its details ripped off and so did a big chunk of the beautifully airbrushed background around her once I finished and went to paint the details of her face. Low tack sticks well enough to use to mask certain areas! 5. This is the true purist way to avoid graphite sketch lines. Mix very thin washes of the colors you're going to use for areas, the very lightest value you can make. Using a medium or small pointed round, sketch with a brush! You may want to use both a cool neutral and a warm neutral for different areas of a painting, or go to the spectrum so that you have pale greens and yellows in foliage, pale browns or grays in soil and rocks, pale warm browns on light skin tones, pale pinks or blues for clothing. The advantage of this method is that you can glaze over these sketch lines with more paint and the result will be pure watercolor painting that satisfies the most stringent rules. The reason that last method may be your choice is also that when you use it, you will see zero sketch lines of any sort in your resulting painting. The light painted sketch lines will vanish into the later glazes of similar colors and dissolve completely. Sketch in the darks lightly and leave the whites alone. Then gradually layer washes and paint areas darker, adding details and stronger darks as needed. Working from light to dark is effective in watercolor. Glazing is when you let the previous layers of paint dry completely before painting over them. It is my favorite technique, and it mixes colors optically. You can combine it with wet into wet by doing selected areas at a time and then charging different colors into them before they dry. This gives beautiful soft shading that ends sharply at the edge of the wet area, letting you get lost and found lines. One source of inspiration I found for sketching directly with the paint is Japanese ink painting, sumi-e. I practiced the classical strokes for rendering different subjects. I also studied other classical Asian art including Chinese paintings. Now when I do watercolors in that style, I always start from blank paper. I may paint from life but I don't sketch first and the method is very fast. What it's done for my regular line sketching is that when I sketch with a brush or brush pen, I may use more thick and thin lines, work easily in monochrome and have several techniques rather than just one to get the initial light image onto the paper before working it over more heavily. My illustration at the bottom is one of my pencil-free Asian style watercolors. Watercolor painting is a lot of fun. It's portable, relatively inexpensive and as respectable as oils or pastels in fine art circles. Whether you create wild loose wet in wet abstracts or finely detailed realism, finding ways to avoid graphite lines in your paintings will bring out the luminous richness of transparent watercolor. I've used all five of these techniques in different paintings and sometimes do just leave in the graphite lines. But when I don't, the color is stronger and I don't have any muddy passages. If you do want graphite lines but don't want them to dissolve or soften when watercolor goes over them, try purchasing a Derwent Inktense "Outliner" pencil. It has the softness of a B sketch pencil, it is graphite, but it is completely nonsoluble and so will not dissolve to leave grayish streaks running through your color passages. Enjoy your painting adventures!
|
Contributor's Note
Robert A. Sloan is a writer who paints and dabbles in many art mediums ranging from colored pencil and pastel, to watercolor, acrylics, oils and scratchboard. He has yet to meet a medium he doesn't like.
|
|
Wild Orchid watercolor by Robert A. Sloan
PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
No reactions yet.
Please login or sign up to rate this intel.
Please login or sign up to add a comment.
The copyright for this content entitled "Five ways to avoid graphite sketch lines in watercolors" has been specified by the contributor as:
All Rights Reserved
This content may not be copied, distributed or adapted by anyone under any circumstances.
|
 |
May, 2012
2008
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2009
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2010
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2011
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2012
January, February, March, April, May
|
|
Not a member yet?
Qondio is a powerful network for making it online. If you have a website to
promote, we can help.
Sign up and get in on the action.
|
|
Welcome to Qondio! Discover the awesome power this network can deliver by going to our About page. Or you could skip straight to the Sign Up form.
|
|
