Acrylic Watercolor Painting Read online

  Here are four typical brushes for acrylic watercolor painting. At the left is a flat brush that can be sable or a less costly synthetic fiber. The big round brush—second from left—is the favorite shape of most watercolorists, and can also be sable or synthetic. The flat white brush can be the traditional hog bristle used for oil painting or the slightly softer synthetic version. And the round white brush is nylon, a popular synthetic fiber.

  I’ve watched lots of watercolorists at work, and I think it’s safe to say that most pictures can be painted with one big brush (round or flat) and one medium sized round brush. The other three are great to have, but you can get along without them for quite a while.

  Bristle Brushes

  Because acrylic can be thinned with water to very thin washes, or thickened to washes that have considerable body, there are times when you’ll want to try bristle brushes like those used in oil painting. Since bristle brushes were made for pushing around thick paint, they’re obviously right for thicker passages of acrylic paint too.

  If you already have some bristle brushes which you’ve used for oil painting, there’s no reason why you can’t use them for acrylics. But be sure to wash them thoroughly in soap and water to eliminate any trace of oil or turpentine; as you know, oil and water don’t mix, and even a slightly oily brush will have trouble holding water based paint.

  Bristle brushes come in four shapes. Long flat bristle brushes—which are generally called flats— have long, resilient bristles, which will hold plenty of fluid acrylic paint and which feel reasonably comfortable on watercolor paper. However, the short bristle brushes—called brights—are just too stiff and stumpy; they’ll hold plenty of oil paint, but not nearly enough fluid acrylic. They also have the wrong feel on watercolor paper: they force you to paint with a clumsy, scrubbing motion, which seems awkward and insensitive.

  A particularly good bristle brush for acrylic watercolor painting is the little known shape called a filbert. Whereas the long flats come to a squarish chisel point, the filbert is a fascinating compromise between a round and a flat brush. The body of bristles is rather thick and tapers to a rounded point, something like a worn watercolor brush. You can get extra long filberts with exceptionally resilient bristles that have a lot of bounce and hold lots of paint. Of all oil painting brushes, the filbert is the one that handles most like a watercolor brush, but produces big, rough strokes quite unlike sable or oxhair—adding great strength and lively texture if you go for a rugged style of painting.

  Although two or three sables are essential for acrylic watercolor painting, bristle brushes are really optional. They can produce strokes and textures that are distinctive, creating an interesting counterpoint when played against the softer passages of sables. But it might be wise to hold off buying bristle brushes until you’ve mastered sables.

  If you’ve painted in traditional watercolor, you know that professionals often carry a medium sized bristle brush for scrubbing out corrections and spots of white. This won’t work on acrylic watercolors. Acrylics dry to a tough, waterproof surface, which no brush can scrub out.

  Synthetic Brushes

  Having urged you to invest in sable brushes, I must add that the price of sables has risen to the point where many artists just can’t afford them—or at least can’t afford the larger sizes. Fortunately, many manufacturers have developed synthetic brushes—brushes made of plastic fibers—that behave so much like natural fibers that it’s hard to tell the difference. I have a set of reddish brown synthetic watercolor brushes that look and act so much like my old (and far more costly) sables that I’m not sure which is which.

  There are also long-handled white synthetic brushes that look a lot like the traditional hog bristles used for oil painting—but have a unique feel that’s also worth a try. They’re stiffer than sables, but softer than bristles. And this makes them particularly good for acrylic painting.

  It’s also worth mentioning that acrylic paint tends to wear out the natural fibers—sable and hog bristle brushes—more rapidly than synthetic fibers, which can take more punishment. But buying synthetic brushes is still no excuse for carelessness. You still have to work with wet brushes—never dip a dry brush into acrylic paint—and you must always clean every brush thoroughly, whether the hairs are natural or synthetic.

  Knives, Wooden and Plastic Tools

  Painters in traditional watercolor use knives and other sharp instruments for three purposes: to scratch dark lines into wet paint; to scrape away wet paint and reveal light lines; and to scratch light lines into dry paint. Because acrylics dry to a much tougher film than traditional watercolors, the third technique isn’t always easy. But sharp (and not so sharp) tools still have their uses in acrylic watercolor painting.

  When you put down your first wash of color on a sheet of untouched watercolor paper, you can scratch in a dark line with the point of a knife. The liquid color will soak into the scratch and make a line darker than the surrounding wash. But once you’ve allowed one or two washes to dry, the surface of the paper has grown tougher. The paper gets harder and harder to scratch. By all means, keep a sharp knife handy for this technique, but remember that this trick is easier on bare paper than on two or three dried washes.

  Scraping away wet paint is actually easier in acrylic watercolor than in traditional watercolor. Because a wash of acrylic tends to have more body than traditional watercolor, it’s easier to move the paint around; this means that a knife or even a fingernail can take out a light line with one quick movement. When a fresh wash is applied over one or two dried washes, it’s even easier to scrape away the wet paint; because the underlying surface has been toughened by earlier washes, you can scrape away a new, fresh wash without worrying too much about digging into the paper and damaging earlier washes.

  But the third technique, scratching away dried paint to indicate a fleck of white or a lost detail, may not be easy in acrylic. You may be able to scratch into a part of the painting surface which is covered thinly with color, but a heavily painted area will probably have a tough coat of paint which resists attack by even a razor blade or rough sandpaper. So save this technique for thinly painted areas.

  The best knives and other tools for scratching and scraping acrylic watercolor paintings are ordinary kitchen knives. There’s no need to go to an art supply store. An ordinary paring knife, with a reasonably sharp (but not razor sharp) point, will make crisp, dark lines in a wet wash. The blunt end of a butter knife is just right for scraping away wet color for light lines.

  Ice cream sticks, wooden and plastic chopsticks, and cheap plastic sculpture tools—like the kind you buy for children—will also do an efficient job of scraping away wet color. The noted watercolorist Edgar Whitney used a plastic credit card with great abandon. You can also scrape away big gobs and stripes of wet color with the side of a soup spoon or the long blade of an unsharpened carving knife.

  For scratching away dried color, the usual tool is a razor blade or a small, sharp pocket knife. However, you won’t get rid of much color with the flat edge of the blade; acrylic is just too tough. A strong hand can scratch away a thin line for a blade of grass or a twig.

  For scraping away wet paint without marring the surface of your watercolor paper, nothing is better than a blunt butter knife found in the kitchen. The tip will scrape away a thin line, while the side of the knife can scrape away an area an inch wide. Be sure the knife isn’t too sharp; it should squeeze the paint out of the paper rather than scratch away the surface.

  Another useful instrument for scraping away a line of wet paint is the ordinary wooden ice cream stick. You may want to lacquer the stick so that wet paint won’t soak into it as you scrape.

  An ordinary household sponge can be used to wet down your painting surface, to wipe away wet paint, or even to apply paint. This well-worn kitchen sponge is bent double to produce a curved surface which resembles the irregular shape of the more expensive natural sponge. Rectangular man-made sponges can be bent or even cut to
any shape you please.

  A housepainting tool that’s worth trying is the sponge-brush sold at many paint stores. This is a plastic sponge with a chisel end, set in a handle that’s shaped nicely to fit your hand. The sponge makes a soft, smooth stroke.

  Sponges and Paper Towels

  Painters in traditional watercolor have long since discovered that the ordinary household sponge is an excellent painting tool. They use it not only for sponging out dried or semi-dried color, but for wetting down paper preparatory to laying down a wash, and even for painting. Although you can’t sponge away dried acrylic color, you should certainly have some sponges handy for moistening paper and for a variety of painting techniques which I’ll describe in Chapters 5 and 6.

  You can buy a small, irregularly shaped natural sponge at your local drugstore. This is best for moistening small areas and for dabbing on irregular patches of paint.

  A man made sponge, rectangular and about the size of your hand, is good for wetting down or wiping out big areas if they’re still wet. Moistened with color and pulled or pushed flat across the paper, this big, flat sponge will produce an interesting, streaky wash for a sunrise or a calm lake. Carefully folded to make a kind of dabber, the man made sponge assumes the shape of a natural sponge, and can be pressed lightly against the painting surface to lift away wet paint and suggest a fleecy cloud, or to apply color that suggests the ragged outlines of trees. A natural sponge is equally suitable for these two jobs.

  Manufacturers of housepainters’ supplies have introduced two new products which you won’t find in art supply stores, but which are useful to the watercolorist. One is a brush that has a wedge shaped, fine grained sponge (made of plastic foam) instead of bristles. Dipped in fairly thin color—it’s not good for thick, gummy color—this sponge-brush will make a very smooth, clean, sharp edged, rectilinear stroke, splendid for painting architecture. A similar product is a big rectangular sponge on a plastic handle, designed to compete with the fleecy rollers used to paint walls. This tool comes in several sizes—including a foot wide—and will lay a huge wash of very delicate color.

  Watercolorists often carry paper towels for cleaning up, but rarely think of them as painting tools. Actually, a wadded paper towel will pick up wet paint with a quick, decisive dab as efficiently as a sponge. Traditional watercolor is too fluid to be applied with a paper towel dabber, but acrylic can be made thick and gummy enough to be applied with a wadded paper towel. The effect is something like the mark left by a rounded natural sponge.

  Needless to say, some paper towels are worth keeping nearby to blot up spills, to wipe brushes, and to blot your brow on a hot day.

  Palettes

  You’ll find a variety of metal and plastic palettes for watercolor painting in your local art supply store. Choosing the right palette is a matter of personal taste. Given a variety of palettes to choose among, pick the largest, the one that gives you the most elbow room for mixing and sloshing around.

  For painting in the studio, a big enamel butcher tray gives you the maximum amount of space for mixing colors and for trying out a variety of washes. It’s a good idea to use this tray side by side with a smaller palette with wells or compartments into which you can squeeze tube color and mix smaller washes. The wells or divisions in the smaller palette will keep one color from running into another, while the tray becomes the surface on which you do your mixing when you want colors to run into one another. For really big washes, it’s convenient to have several little saucers in which you can mix enough liquid color to cover a whole sheet of watercolor paper if necessary. Covered porcelain dishes are practical because the covers will keep the wash from drying out for a while.

  As usual, the kitchen is a wonderful source of improvised equipment. A metal muffin tin, for example, will give you a dozen really deep wells for mixing big washes of color. The silvery color of the metal may make it difficult for you to judge the color of a mixture, however, so spray the tin with a couple of coats of smooth, quick-drying white enamel. A white plastic ice tray will give you a lot of smaller wells in which you can mix modest washes. Soft margarine and other foods often come in throw-away plastic containers, which are smooth and white; these also make excellent saucers for mixing large washes.

  Cleaning dried acrylic off a metal or plastic palette is usually easy. Simply soak the palette—or saucer or muffin tin or ice tray or what have you—in a sink full of water for five or ten minutes. A thick layer of dried paint will peel away in a soggy, flexible sheet; a thinner layer of dried paint can be rubbed away with your fingers or with a wet sponge.

  A housepainter’s tool that will lay really huge washes very quickly is a man-made sponge with a soft, fibrous surface. This is sold in paint stores as a competitor to the rollers which are so widely used. The sponge comes in many sizes and can be snapped out of the handle and thrown away when the time comes to buy a replacement.

  Paper towels are useful not only for cleaning up, but for lifting away wet color, and even for applying color. Wadded up into a dabber, as you see here, a paper towel will function very much as you use a sponge. The dabber can be used wet or dry.

  This white plastic palette has circular wells into which you can squeeze your paint, and slanted, rectangular wells for mixing small washes.

  For mixing big washes, a porcelain saucer like this one is especially useful. The saucer has a top which can be put on to keep the paint wet a bit longer.

  For mixing up a whole lot of large washes, an ordinary muffin tin from the kitchen can be ideal. The silvery color may be confusing, so spray the muffin tin with a hard surfaced white enamel.

  Water Containers

  It may seem unnecessary to discuss water containers since it’s so obvious that you’ll need them, but I should make one important suggestion. It’s more convenient to work with two water containers than just one. Get into the habit of using one container of water for cleaning your brushes— and for nothing else. Use the other container for picking up fresh water to mix with the paint. If you work with just one water container, you’ll foul that water when you clean your brush in it; this means that you won’t have clean water for thinning paint. If you work with two containers, you’ll always have clean water when you need it.

  A clear glass quart jar rescued from the kitchen makes a better water container than a porcelain mixing bowl. The clear glass lets you see whether your water is clear or dirty, so you know when to change it.

  Easels and Drawing Boards

  Easels are probably the most expensive items in your local art materials store. A drawing table is a piece of furniture and can also run into a good deal of money. Both are useful, but you can easily get along without them.

  A watercolor easel is essentially some legs attached to a clamping device that grips your drawing board; you can adjust it quickly to whatever angle you choose. At times, you’ll want a fairly shallow angle to keep big washes from running. At other times, you’ll want a steeper angle, perhaps when you’re putting in final touches of thicker paint that won’t run, or when you want to step back to examine your picture from a distance. When you pick your watercolor easel, look for the one that adjusts most quickly; remember that watercolorists have to work fast.

  A watercolor easel is lighter and more portable than a drawing table, and therefore more suitable for work outdoors. But if you do most of your work in the studio, you may prefer a drawing table. Like the watercolor easel, the drawing table has a top that adjusts to various angles, and should also adjust to different work heights so you can paint standing or sitting. The top of the table should be at least 23” x 31”, which is ½” larger all around than a standard sheet of watercolor paper (22” x 30”).

  Many professional watercolorists—particularly those who work outdoors—have never owned a watercolor easel. They just carry a drawing board and work with it in their laps or drop it on the ground; the board can be propped by a folded overcoat or by a rock. Wooden drawing boards are heavy and resist thumbtacks. A sheet
of cheap wallboard—bought at the lumber yard or the building supplier—is lighter and will accept thumbtacks more easily. Homasote and Celotex are both light enough to carry and spongy enough to take a tack without resistance. They tend to fray at the edges, and you may want to nail or glue thin wooden strips to the four sides of the board.

  Indoors, you can improvise an adjustable unit by hinging together two sheets of plywood or wallboard. Cut the boards to 23” x 31” and nail wooden strips around the edges to prevent fraying or splinters. Then hinge the boards together along one 31” side. One half of the “sandwich” lies flat on a table, while the other is free to tilt up and down, supported by one or two books.

  Be sure to buy plywood or wallboard that’s ¾” thick. You’ll need this thickness to resist warping and buckling when the board gets wet.

  Lighting

  The best light is always natural light. If you’re right handed, work with a window on your left. Conversely, if you’re left handed, work with a window on your right. In this way, the shadow of your arm and brush will be less likely to fall across the painting as you work.

  Of course, a window may not give you enough light. You may need a lamp or two to boost your natural light with some artificial light. Art supply stores frequently sell so-called daylight bulbs; the advantage of these is that they don’t throw the yellowish light of incandescent bulbs on your painting surface, thus distorting the natural color. If you buy a fluorescent light fixture, get one that holds two tubes: a cool white tube and a warm white tube. This will give you a balance of warm and cool light that’s a reasonable substitute for natural light.