Brushes are made from nylon, animal hairs, and other synthetic hairs that approximate the characteristics of natural hairs. Watercolor is a transparent medium and is not as viscous as acrylic paints and oils. Watercolor for best application will need brushes that could hold the liquid more. For this reason, watercolor brushes preferred by artists on this medium prefer bristles that are softer with denser tuft. Although recent application of technology made possible the designing of brushes that simulates the behavior of hair on water, natural hairs are still preferred.
Brush choices vary from one artist to the other. This is largely defined by the personal style and the genre that the artist is working on. All artists have their own work tools and discipline and may come up with entire works using only two or three brushes. There are however general purpose brushes that have to be included in the artists tools these are:
Round brushes - These are the most common brushes used for many different applications. Round brushes are rounded at the ferule tapering as the tuft reaches the tip. A #4 round brush is good for detailing and dry brushing while the #8 round brushes are good for wider lines and washes.
Flat brushes – are composed of tufts flattened at the ferrule. The tuft appears rectangular with a perfect edge. The variety of flat brushes are the "bright" mostly used as one stroke brushes that will form a uniform line width and the wash brushes that is similar in appearance to the house brushes. Wash brushes are used to paint wide areas as the brush could hold water more.
Mops –Mops are usually made from hairs of squirrels and tied with copper at the ferrule. Since these brushes are made from animal hairs only, mops could carry huge quantity of watercolor for their size and are best used for wet on wet watercolor painting. A size #12 mop is a must have as they are excellent at washes and wicking.
Filbert – filberts too are made only from animal hairs. It is shaped like a cats tongue with a straight flat edge rounded off at the tips. Filberts are for special shapes and special brush strokes.
Fan – these are flat brushes that are narrow near the ferrule and flays out like a fan. Whether made from animal hairs, nylon or synthetic hairs, fans are handy at hatching, texturing and painting irregular lines.
Acrylic – This a flat brush made from nylons beveled at the tips. Its main purpose is for scraping and scouring. Acrylic brushes are also handy at scrubbing the paints before lifting it from the paper. Size ½" acrylic brushes are also used for mixing and dissolving paints.
Round brushes are normally designated by numbers ranging from 0 to 24, while other brushes are designated by its width. Different manufacturers use different methods at sizing their brushes. The idea though is to have different watercolor brush sizes to best cover every application that you would need and select from there your favorite tool.
Whether natural artist or not, there are always rules to follow first. Mastery of the rules allows us to break it with wonderful results but that will come later. It all starts with the basics.
In watercolor as with any other disciplines, there are several techniques to be learned first. Mastering the techniques will allow you to gain control of the medium, ease you nicely into the art form aside from cutting the learning curve.
Thumbnails
This is the planning stage. Thumbnails are not basics in watercolor painting but unless very skilled, you will experience a lot of difficulties without the thumbnails first. Thumbnails are the sketches you do that in order to break down the images you would finally want on the painting. Doing thumbnails first makes the painting more manageable and prevent errors. And so during this stage, draw thumbnails until satisfied of the image that would finally appear in the finished painting.
The Wash
There are different watercolor washes and corresponding effects. Basically though, a wash is a term used for loading the brush with plenty of water and some pigment and painting it over the paper. Washes are typically used for backgrounds in watercolor painting. It is almost synonymous with laying the foundation from which the images desired in the painting is laid. To develop and learn to control washes, try experimenting with different color intensity and hues. To lighten a particular shade, all you need to do is add water. Conversely, to darken an area would be to add a little more pigment.
The Glaze
Glazing is similar to the wash except that it is used to change the temperature of the color underneath (the wash). To glaze is to add another layer of color to an existing color, not really to erase the coloring underneath but to change the temperament or create another color in combination with the wash color. It is well to note that watercolor being a transparent medium cannot be fully erased or fully covered by another color. To this end, glazing has become a tool unique to watercolor painting.
Tinting
To apply additional tint to an existing wash or color, wait for the color that was first applied to dry before applying a tint. To apply tint on a wash that is still wet would create effects that unless that is the intent, the painting would be ruined.
Erasing
Watercolors are never erased totally. When an undesired color has already been painted, this could partially be washed but only to minimize the color strength. Use you brush dipped in water and brush very gently. This way you can lift the pigment from off the paper but avoid damaging it. When part of the paper is damaged, the painting will be damaged too as the color is drawn by the roughness of the scrub done.
Once the basics as mentioned above are mastered, you are well on your way to painting in watercolor. There are different methods that could be learned later but so far, the above are the most important and the most common practices when starting.
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