My preferred illustration medium is watercolor painting. It is full of light. Sometimes it is blurred and soft. Other times it is sharp and precise.
David Plank and His Birds
Our community recently lost an artist. David Plank was well known for his watercolor painting of birds.
As a boy of only seven, David Plank had become fascinated by birds. He drew them from life. Then he began adding the watercolor. His paintings are hung in museums across the country.
I met this gentle, quiet man when he came to an art camp for a day to show the students about watercolor. At the time, my ambition was to paint and there were supplies sitting on my shelves gathering dust.
Advice on Watercolor Painting
Although beautiful, watercolor is unforgiving. It allows no mistakes. There is no second chance if a line isn’t right or the color spreads where it wasn’t supposed to.
White is not used in watercolor except as a way to lighten another color. If you want white clouds, you paint around the cloud area leaving the white paper to show and form the cloud. This forces you to see things differently as you plan your illustration.
David Plank would make a pencil drawing of his planned piece. Using the side of a pencil, he would spread lead over the backside turning his drawing into a piece of carbon paper. This let him transfer his drawing onto the watercolor paper.
Wet and Dry Watercolor Painting
Watercolors are made to use water. Paper tends to bubble up when is gets wet. Either the paper must be wet, stretched and dried before using it. Or the paper used is heavy enough to resist this tendency.
When water is added to the paint, it becomes a wash. It is spread across the paper to give a broad tint. This is very light, so darker areas have additional washes laid over them until the desired color is achieved.
There is a requirement for this. The paper must dry completely between each layer or they will blend and spread.
Detail is done by adding only enough water to make the paint fluid enough to spread with a brush. The background must be dry to keep those lines precise.
Watercolor painting takes time. For me, time seems to vanish as I paint as the activity absorbs me into creating my illustrations.
