Applying Lighter Colors with Watercolor Paint

Video Transcript

" Hi! I’m John Junger. I do the paintings that we’re going to be talking about, the watercolors. I’m here representing expertvillage.com. When you’re applying colors in watercolor, you apply light to dark. In other words, light values are down first and you put heavier values over them. Oil paintings you can use opaque colors to paint over things cover up what’s underneath, and watercolors you need to think of leaving the lights and the whites where you want them. You want to get your brush kind of full of color, and lets say we’re going to have a sun in this, or something bright. I would start laying in some color across the top. As you see, as you lay in that color it tends to puddle at the bottom. You can use that to your advantage if you want by laying in a heavier intensity of color as you go down the sheet. As you can see, the top is very light and as I come down, keeping the brush kind of wet, it gets a little darker because I’m using more intense color. Now, you can lay that all the way down the sheet if you’d like, but if you want to start introducing some greens or something into the bottom or where your green colors are going to be, you can also do that. As you can see, the color is kind of laying in a puddle on the bottom. Now, as I come across with more water, I want to sweep that down. It’ll tend to run off of the paper. Also, the humidity that’s in your studio will make it a difference as to how your wash is laid down because the paper will dry out quicker and cause a little splashiness. As I said before, I’m working from light to dark. "