How to Paint Metal in Watercolors
Metals, mirrors and glass all confound artists. Potentially the three most confusing surfaces to represent in a painting, all three reflect the colors around them. For metal, however, each reflected colors contain a hint of the natural color of the metal. When painting a metal object, it's best to practice by eliminating reflection; paint an isolated object. This way, you learn to see how to show play of light on the metallic surface. Like painting any other object, realistically painting metal in watercolors requires you to paint the exact colors that you see.
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Things You'll Need
- Watercolor paper
- Light gray colored pencil
- Watercolor paint
- Watercolor brushes
- Scraper
Instructions
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Sketch the metal object as accurately as possible on the watercolor paper, using your light gray or yellow pencil. When selecting what type of pencil to use, select the lightest color similar to the color of your metal object.
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Identify five values in the object you are painting. Value is a color's relative lightness or darkness. For example, if you look at a metal bowl, you might notice the lightest value in the reflected light on the bowl's lid, with the darkest value near the bottom of the bowl, close to where it meets the table.
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Wash, using a wet-on-wet technique, the entire outline of the metal object in your painting with the lightest value. Wet-on-wet techniques involve placing a wet brush into watercolor paint and then spreading the color on wet paper. For the lightest value, use as much water and as little paint as possible, to keep the color near white.
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Wash, using wet-on-wet technique, the second lightest color value before your lightest color value dries.
Avoid bleeding the second lightest value into the lightest value. Allow the painting to dry. Wet-on-wet techniques allow the two lightest values to flow into each other, preventing lines between the two.
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Paint, using a wet-on-dry technique, the remaining three values. Between each value, allow your painting to dry. A wet-on-dry technique uses a wet brush on dry paper. To make each value darker, use less water on your brush. The darkest value uses very little water, and should be used sparingly for details.
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Some artists use a paint knife as a scraper. "Scrape" your painting to add white details -- for example, a thin line of light on a handle. To scrape a watercolor, brush a little water onto the painting, then use a dull, thin object such as a credit card or un-serrated butter knife to remove color. Do not try to scrape out large sections of white.
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Tips & Warnings
Before painting reflected objects, look at what color your metal adds to each object. When painting brass, for example, every color carries a pinkish-orange tinge. Silver and gold deposit gray and yellow. When creating your colors, combine the metal's base color with the reflected object's color.
References
- Photo Credit hrome metal background image by Sergey Galushko from Fotolia.com paint knife image by Allyson Ricketts from Fotolia.com
