Should you watercolor over pencil?
The truth is there is no right or wrong answer here. Pencil drawing and watercolour play very nicely together. Great results can be achieved with more reliance on pencil drawing or more reliance on watercolour or a good, even balance.
Yes you can sketch on watercolor paper . It's best to sketch lightly with pencil on watercolor paper, applying multiple layers of graphite if necessary. Watercolor paper is quite tough, it is designed to handle a few layers of water so some pencil sketches should be fine.
Using watercolors and colored pencils together is a popular illustration method. When these mediums are combined, they can produce rich results. Dry watercolor can provide for a luminous base for the colored pencils, enhancing the color and texture of the layered colored pencils.
In order to watercolor a pencil drawing, it's best to start with a sketch on a separate piece of paper. Then, use a light box to transfer the sketch to your watercolor paper with either with very light lines from a hard pencil or the watercolor paint itself.
A. Pencil marks are often a concern to watercolorists, but they need not be for a number of reasons. First, if the value of the color in your painting is darker than your pencil marks, the marks shouldn't be visible. Pencil marks almost always simply disappear in the finished painting.
I've used watersoluble graphite to draw, wet it to blend, let it dry and then apply watercolor and really like the effect. Usually when you draw and then wet your paper to apply the Watercolor, the graphite disappears . .
Inking before watercolor saves time. I find that the ink from a pen dries much faster and I can add watercolor in just a few minutes. However, waiting for watercolor to dry before adding ink can take a while.
The best thing I can suggest is to carefully paint over those charcoal and pencil mistakes with white gesso. You might have to use a small brush so that you don't accidentally gesso over the lines that you want to save. If you have to, you can do 2-3 coats of gesso over the mistakes until they are covered up.
The best type of pencil to use for watercolor painting is a sketching pencil with hard lead, generally between F and 4H. If you choose a pencil that is too soft, it will be hard to erase before watercoloring. If you choose a pencil that is too hard, it could damage your paper or be hard to see.
If you apply watercolor too soon after drawing with ink, it's likely that some smudging will occur. Most inks will dry after an hour or two, but to avoid this completely, you'll want to wait 12 to 24 hours for the ink to fully dry and set into the paper.
Does pen bleed in watercolor?
The most important factor for choosing ink for watercolor is that it's waterproof. This is normally labeled on the pen or bottle. A good waterproof ink won't smudge or bleed when you apply watercolor to it. With high-quality ink, you won't experience any transfer of color or bleeding.
Should you outline a watercolor painting? As long as you use an archival, waterproof ink, you can outline your watercolor painting with no issues. Whether you create your outline before or after you paint is completely up to you.
Follow these steps to remove graphite or pencil lead from paint or wallpaper: Use a suede stone or a soft eraser to remove as many marks as possible. With a clean cloth dampened with clear water, wipe the surface with overlapping strokes. Gently pat dry with another soft cloth.
Sakura Micron Pens work very well under paint and water. They also dry fast, which results in less smudging when inking.
Watercolor pencils can be mixed, mostly through layering. To mix colors, apply one color and then layer an application of a second color over the top or right next to the first color. Then, activate the area with water. The colors will mix together.
The benefit to painting the background wash first is that you are less likely to mess up the foreground object. For instance, if you were to carefully paint in the subject first (say, a red rose) and then paint in the background, you would risk getting the background paint on the rose, which might mess it up.
No rules. But the traditional approach to using watercolor is to paint from light to dark. Thus if your background is light value, you might paint it first. On the other hand, if your background is dark value, you might paint it last.
The easiest yet least recommended way to draw on canvas before painting, is to use a simple graphite pencil. The most used methods by pro artists are the transfer method, white charcoal pencil, or a water-soluble pencil.
Sketching on Canvas with Pencils
Pencils are a very common way to sketch on canvas prior to painting. They can be used for oils, acrylics, or most any other medium. The great thing about pencils is you can do a fairly detailed drawing right on the canvas.
Most watercolour painters have experienced the frustration of their paper buckling causing the paint to flow everywhere except where they want it to go. Stretching watercolour paper makes it stay flat for the whole painting process.
Why are my watercolors muddy?
2. Mixing too many colors together can lead to a dull or “muddy” color. Generally a mix of 3 pigments is safe, but when you make a mix of 4 or more pigments it brings in too many different color factors that can cause the mix to look muddy.
Wet on dry: applying wet paint onto dry paper, or wet paint onto an area of dry paint. This technique allows for more control and crisp, defined edges. The paint will only go where your brush takes it.
Masking tape is my favorite way to mask a watercolor.
For those that are just starting out with watercolor, masking is a way to protect areas of your painting, while you paint around them. Then the mask can be removed and you can leave those areas white or you can paint them.
If your watercolour looks blotchy or streaky, you're probably painting with pigment that is too thick. After all, watercolour is a thin, translucent medium. So, you need to make sure that you are appropriately diluting the paint pigment before you paint with it.
No reason you can't put watercolor atop a Sharpie drawing. The Sharpie is solvent based and the watercolours are, naturally, water soluable so the only bleeding you need worry about is the bleeding of the initial Sharpie work.
You don't need to prepare a watercolor canvas in any special way (such as washing it off) before using it.
Watercolour is hard due to its unpredictable nature. Watery pigment flows wherever it wants, which makes it difficult to control. And since watercolour is translucent and appears lighter once the pigment has dried, it's hard to fix mistakes because they show through the layers.
The best thing I can suggest is to carefully paint over those charcoal and pencil mistakes with white gesso. You might have to use a small brush so that you don't accidentally gesso over the lines that you want to save. If you have to, you can do 2-3 coats of gesso over the mistakes until they are covered up.
If you watercolor first, you need to wait till the watercolor dries on the paper completely before coming back and outlining with ink. Whereas, if I outline first, I can paint over it almost immediately as the pen dries on the paper super quick compared to watercolor.
You don't have to start a painting with a drawing at all. You can begin with a clean sheet of watercolor paper and just paint. This method is called direct watercolor painting. It's great for a loose watercolor painting.
Do you wet the paper before watercolor?
When you first start out, pre-wetting your paper can give you some more time to continue working on your wet on wet passages as the paper will take longer to dry, but I think you will find that as your skill develops you will have less and less need to pre-wet.
Most painters will do at least a rough sketch on the canvas before painting. This helps to get the proportions and position of things right before you start painting. You can use a pencil, charcoal, pastels or even thinned paint with a smaller brush just to get the idea of an outline.
It is very important to understand which colors have large value ranges, and which don't. Since watercolors dry so much lighter than when wet, it is very common to think you have painted a rich dark color when in fact it's a mid-range value when it dries.
