Hey Eric,
I had a quick question I was hoping you could help me with. You say that you use thin layers of acrylic washes, are you using regular acrylics, liquid acrylics or something else? I've been using regular Golden acrylics for washes but when I thin down the paint too much the pigment doesn't go down too smooth. Also, with whatever you're using, are you able to pull any of the color back up should you need to? I like using acrylic washes b/c of the muted tones I can get but have had to switch to watercolors b/c of the less than smooth washes and ability to pull color back up but am now getting colors that are way too bright.
Anyway, thanks for the help, hope I'm not taking up too much of your time.
I shot another video to try and answer this question. I put emphasis on experimenting and practicing. The more we practice the more we learn and refine our work, technically and conceptually. Another important factor to acknowledge is that these things can take a lot of time and patience. But if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. If you're not happy with how you're paintings are turning out perhaps you're not quite finished yet.
In this particular case it seems the person may be going back and forth between watercolors and acrylics. I have nothing against mixed mediums. So perhaps a combination of the two will suit you best. As for color, I usually keep a test strip of watercolor paper that I brush colors on to in order to see if the colors actually look the way I want them to. Test out your colors on a sample sheet of paper first. If it's too intense make appropriate adjustments. With my technique I would either tone it down with other colors and/or thin it out with more water. Hope this helps.
4 comments:
Nice vid!. In Painting with watercolor, the most important aspects I've found along the way, that you need to keep in mind at all times are, from my personal experience:
- How much water do you have in your working zone
- How much paint do you have in your wet painting zone
That's the important stuff. For the watercolor being a paint suspended in water, the amount of pigment and water is the key to control the usually "impredictable" behavior of this paint.
The tricky stuff is, water will evaporate over time really quick, compared with… anything else. So sometimes you need to add just plain water to the area, AND you need to let it dry from time to time, or your area will become a suspended in water mess.
The not so important, but definitely a important aspect to consider when painting, is, through experience, know what pigment does have a powerful staining paper power (green, cadmiums, and probably cobalt blue) and what can be lifted off with paper easily, usually, earth colors.
The final trick that I would put emphasis on, is to learn and master, specially with watercolor painting, tones.
Usually, doing many B&W studies and using a greyscale card to compare them, will work wonders in no time. Both in your final artwork and, in watercolor paint, your process, for the watercolors being transparent.
Thanks for the insight Ian. Of course it takes a lot of practice but the more we all share and learn from each other the sooner we can improve. And I often find myself forgetting some of the basics and paying for it later.
hey eric. i was wondering what kind of paper you use most often? it looks like it holds up very well with all your layering.
thank you so much for making these videos... your amazing artist and its great to get these insights from you.
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