How to Keep a Watercolor Journal

Have you ever wanted to keep a watercolor journal? Spring is the perfect time to start, when your garden and various places around town will start to show early wildflowers and the bitter cold is going away. Here's some tips on starting and keeping a watercolor journal.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A bound watercolor journal (can be homemade)
• A set of watercolors with at least three primary colors in tubes or pans, preferably 12 or more including earth tones, red, yellow, blue and green.
• A good pointed round watercolor brush (may be included in set)
• Fine point pen -- technical pen, ultrafine waterproof felt tips like Pigma Micron, Prismacolor Archival Marker 05 or 005, Pitt Artist pen, dip pen or other waterproof permanent ink pens.
• Colored pens optional but fun
• Graphite pencil
• Kneaded eraser
• Water bucket, cup or bottle (may be included in set)
• Watercolor pencils can be substituted for your watercolors, a palette is still a good idea with them.
• Folding or covered palette unless one is included in your watercolor set (all pocket sets have some sort of mixing area and most pan sets of any kind do).
• Optional, you may prefer a flat watercolor brush, be sure it's at least 1/4" wide and soft taklon or sable.

1. First, look at the supplies you have or shop for supplies. You may have everything you need right in your house if you're already doing watercolor paintings -- or you may want to buy a good bound watercolor journal and/or a new set of watercolors specifically to use with it. Pocket sets like the Winsor & Newton Cotman Sketchers Box, Sakura Koi 12 color pocket box or Winsor & Newton Artist Field Box are the most convenient to me for journaling. Others prefer a folding palette and a selection of tube watercolors. More on our watercolors later.

2. If you want to make your own bound watercolor journal, it's not that hard. Decide on the size you want. Cut sheets of 140lb cold press or hot press watercolor paper to a convenient size, you can get multiple sheets out of one full size sheet of watercolor paper. 100% cotton high quality papers like Arches or Fabriano are more durable over time -- your watercolor journal may last for your great-grandkids to enjoy it if you use those good papers.

3. Cut two pieces of cardboard or mat board to be the covers of your watercolor journal. Glue cloth over them to give it a nice binding and seal it with a sheet of decorative paper or sketch paper on the inside where the cloth is folded in over the sides. Punch several holes with a hole punch along the side you want the binding to be. Then punch each trimmed sheet of your good watercolor paper with the same number of holes at the same distance. Stack the pages between the covers, cloth side out on both sides, then put strong grosgrain ribbon, heavy cord or leather ties through each hole and knot it firmly on the outside. This makes an effective, sturdy binding. Or you could just buy a good Moleskine or Lama Li watercolor journal on sale and start with that.

4. Now it's time to choose what watercolors to get. Many artists recommend a beginner should buy the best quality watercolors -- artist grade ones like Winsor & Newton Artist or Holbein or Daniel Smith watercolors. If you go that route, you can mix all the colors you need using just three colors of Winsor & Newton Artist: Permanent Rose, Lemon Yellow and French Ultramarine Blue. If you really like bright greens you might add Winsor Green to that lineup. I prefer to also have Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber earth tones as well, plus Chinese white for occasional highlights and three "warm" primaries as well like Winsor Yellow (more buttery-orangy), an orangy red like Scarlet and Winsor (Pthalo) blue. Many 12 color sets also include both a yellowish green like Sap Green and a bluish green like Viridian. You really don't need many colors in order to do good watercolors from life. Extra colors are a convenience and I find I mix them as much as the basics I mentioned.

5. A good synthetic or sable pointed round brush is vital. Use a fairly big one like a size 6 or 7 even if the journal isn't that big, because you can hold more paint and just use the tip for tiny details. This is why getting a good brush is important. I found the golden taklon synthetic ones do hold a good point, they just don't last for as many years as Kolinsky sable (a lifetime brush) so those or mixed sable-synthetic ones are good for beginners who don't want to spend much. Just be sure it has a good shape and take care of it well, pointing it with your fingers after washing it after every use.

6. Now that you have all your supplies together - pocket box or self-assembled set of watercolors, bound journal, water supply, brush or brushes and pens, start out by signing and dating the inside cover. Yes. This is important, your watercolor journal is a little bit of personal history that could be real history if someone finds it a hundred years from now. Things like this become valuable with time.

7. Make a color chart of all the watercolors you have in your journal set and label them with their names. This can go on the back inside cover or the back page of the journal rather than in the front for showing off, but it should be somewhere you can look it up easily. This color chart will help you decide what paint to use when you look at your real roses. You may want to dedicate another back page to some of the common mixtures you use, like a mixed orange with each of the two reds and each of the two yellows. This charting is a serious convenience if you're out of the house sketching something several miles away trying to decide which red to use on the roses in the park.

8. If you already have experience drawing, you may want to use pen and ink with watercolor as well as pure watercolor for your watercolor journal. The example at the top of this article is one of my pages done with a pen drawing first, then colored with watercolor. Using that style, you may even leave your watercolors home to do the coloring later and just use penwork while out walking around seeing your local sights.

9. 
   View From Bed 1, painted before the trees leafed out by Robert A. Sloan in his watercolor journal

   Here is an example of a pure watercolor sketch in my journal -- the same view as the first image, a view from my bedroom window. Start your watercolor journal with everything in your life that you love. Look for beauty right under your nose. The tree outside my window had some cool weird branches, a T-shaped one jutting off from the main branch that I love. I see it every morning when I get up. So paint familiar things, you will rediscover their beauty by the process of painting them.

10. Be sure to keep your watercolor journal and supplies handy when you go outside. Make time to work on it at least once a week or so, if you paint daily you'll not only fill it fast but become a much better painter from beginning to end. Date every one of your entries. Jot notes about what colors you used, what you painted, the time of day, everything you can think of. These notes are very useful later on when you may want to go back and develop some of these sketches into larger, more serious paintings. A watercolor journal is also a sketchbook in paint.

11. 
    Glass and Birds Page from Robert Sloan's watercolor journal. Ink and watercolor.

    Don't forget indoor subjects if they appeal to you. This page in my watercolor journal is a life drawing of an orange glass paperweight a friend gave me. I spent an afternoon drawing it carefully in colored inks and then washed it with Sakura Koi watercolors because that set had the bright orange I needed to get the color right. Next to it I drew and painted two waterbirds from a photo reference book -- because I liked them. You can put in anything that matters to you, it doesn't all have to be drawn or painted from life if you want to show some of your thoughts and dreams by painting images from photos too.

12. You may want to leave spaces between your drawings for notes describing your painting process or stories and anecdotes about the subjects. Maybe your kid's favorite toy is a subject and you want to add a story about what your child did with that toy that was funny or sad or frightening. A journal is self expression, a watercolor journal invites creativity and an artist's view of everything that matters in your life.

13. Watch watercolor instruction videos on PBS or YouTube, try some of the projects if you like them. Or get good books on watercolor from the library and try the projects and techniques in them. Feel free to get a little wild, try salting a wash to get a flowery snowflake effect or scribble with a white wax crayon for a resist and put a wash over it. Watercolor can be fun -- play in your journal and it'll awaken your inner child.

14. Paint what you love. Paint from the heart. Be real. If you aren't happy with your painting, just go on and try that same subject again a few times till you get it right. I did about 15 drawings of one rose a few years ago because I didn't like how my roses came out and my daughter gave me a classic rose from a bouquet her husband gave her as a challenge. I did it a dozen times before it faded but by the end I was painting and drawing that rose perfectly -- from my early bad sketches even when it was gone! Each had something right in it. The color was right on the lopsided one and the proportions were perfect on the badly shaded one. When you paint what you love, you don't mind doing it more than once to get the practice in to do it really well.

15. Date and sign every single entry in your watercolor journal, and tell the distant reader what it is and where you were. Be sure to mention where you are in the world. If it winds up in a museum, maybe people will want to know what your car looked like or your yard and maybe an extinct hybrid rose was in your garden painted by you. All these things are real history and important to the future. When you create a watercolor journal, you create a unique and beautiful human record of a life well lived -- and when you date each of your entries, it's easier to see how fast you learn to paint and draw better with each one!

16. Whenever you go on a trip anywhere, take your watercolor journal with. Paint and sketch every interesting cool thing you see, whether it's domestic flowers in a pot at a gas station or the beautiful Appalachians or someone cute by the pool in the hotel. Travel journaling is exotic and wonderful -- and just as important to those future historians as your back yard.

17. When it's full, date the last painting and put some final thoughts on that volume on the back inside cover. Then get or make a new journal and start over -- doing watercolor journaling can be addictive! Store your filled journals in a cool dry room, either shelve them with books or keep them stored in an archival art storage box so that they don't get moisture, insect damage or worst of all, light damage. Every finished journal is a storehouse of good ideas, wonderful memories, and happy moments of learning how to paint better. The greatest artists I've ever known continue to be students all their lives, merrily swapping tips and studying painting.

18. Learning to paint is also learning to see like an artist. That's literally true. The world becomes a more beautiful place because you train yourself to notice beauty wherever it is. Learn portraits and every human face has its own unique beauty, then there are no ugly people. Learn landscapes and everything from an urban back alley to the magnificent Rockies becomes richer, more vivid and real. Learn animal painting and your favorite animals, zoo or domestic, will be part of your life every day and you'll know them better. By keeping a watercolor journal you can transform your life and make it a thousand times richer. The journey is the reward. Enjoy!

Tips & Warnings

• Do your family and descendants a favor by using lasting, archival materials. Good student grade watercolors like Winsor & Newton Cotman are lightfast and durable, but cheap children's watercolors will fade in only a couple of years. If you use 100% rag paper or buy a quality watercolor journal, it won't yellow in a few years destroying your beautiful work.
• Tube watercolors are cheaper than pan watercolors, but pans in pocket sets are more convenient for going outdoors. Use whichever you like better.
• If your set came with a tiny pocket brush like the Cotman Sketchers Box or Artist Field Box does, then also get a larger pocket brush or just a larger watercolor round. It's hard to fill in big areas with a little tiny brush but easy to do details with the tip of a larger pointed round brush.
• Don't use thin lightweight paper to make your journal -- it will cockle or bubble up when you put water on it. Use 140lb (300gsm) weight watercolor paper at least.
• If you buy one that has 90lb lightweight watercolor paper, then don't use heavy washes over large areas. Paint more with dry brush techniques and less water, or small areas at a time.
• Don't use children's watercolor sets for a watercolor journal. These fade so fast in only a few years most of your paintings will change colors, fade to nothing or gray out. At least find good student grade watercolors.
• Don't put your watercolor brush point down in a jar of water. Swish it, rinse it and leave it standing point up. Otherwise the hairs bend and it turns into a useless curled or splayed out thing.
• Don't try to use blunt children's brushes, it'll lose hairs into your painting and get annoying.
• Don't try to use stiff bristle brushes with watercolor, they aren't as effective as the softer sable or synthetic sable brushes. Look for brushes that say "watercolor brushes" and don't use them with any oil based paints or they'll ruin the painting.

Resources

• Bob Davies' drawing and painting site, lots of videos and articles on watercolor
• Robert Sloan's oil pastels site, including watersoluble oil pastels, color theory and basic drawing and painting articles
• Winsor & Newton's web site with downloadable ebooks on color mixing and painting in watercolor and oils

[ilivetoteach]

on 4/26/2009 Great article. You are so thorough. *5