Watercolour Painting: Graded Wash
Artist Maggy Pishneshin takes VideoJug users through some more watercolour painting basics. Now learn all about the graded wash to improve your watercolour paintings.
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Applying a graded wash, first dampen the paper.
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Add some strong colour, starting from one edge working back and forth. Slowly the paint becomes more dilute, tilt the paper to allow the water to carry the pigment.
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Another way is to paint directly on dry paper e.g. drawing clouds leaving space to create the image, working fairly quickly to avoid the paint from completely drying out.
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Observe where the light is coming, mix together complementary colours to produce a grey, and shade in on the opposite of the light. Indicate the light on the other side with another colour and then soften with a clean brush.
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Adding water, removing excess water and tilting the paper are some of the techniques that can help soften or define the subject being painted.