I got a comment on my last aquarel leaf by nexi about adding some darkness to make a more spacial effect, and i decided to immediatly try it.
It took me a little while to find a good yellow that corresponded with the leaf, so i painted a couple of times on top of each other. I don’t think that this is the “correct” way to use water colour – it needs to be thin and tranparent layers.. But i’m learning.
The shadow turned out more yellow than i wanted.. And this leaf just might be a little more complicated than the other one. But i think i got a reasonably good result out of it. It’s great fun to play with water colour, and it’s way faster to “finish” a drawing than toning with a pencil.
The black around the edge may be a bit too contracted and massive.. It turned out like a contour rather than a gradual shade. i’ll think about that for next time.
Comment, suggestions and tips would be appreciated as usual!
You probably won’t believe me, but I thought it was a real leaf at first. 🙂
I take that as a good sign! Thanks for your comment !
Get some cheap acrylics and try them – they layer differently to watercolour and share some properties of oils as well.
I have played a little with acrylics before starting to seriously learn, and i have the idea that they are almost “massive” in color, meaning that adding another layer easily covers the last one.. I actually like the effect of aquarel – when used properly.. But at some point I’ll surely be experiementing with both acrylics and oil !
One thing you could try is getting a range of values from each of your colors. You could start, for example with the unmixed color in the center of a page; paint a swatch next to it with just a little black (you could put in measured amounts); next to that add a little more, and so on until you have pure black. do the same thing with white. You will end up with a chart of the lightness/darkness of that particular color.
Another way to get shadows is to find out what color is the complement of the color you are using, and mix them. You should get a really nice neutral color as a result. Also don’t be afraid to use the complement itself (i.e., but orange as part of a shadow of a blue object).
Good work!
Jack
I will definetly try that, thanks for the tip!
;>)
Try a good bouncy fine point brush on the inside edge of those black lines just to thin them and take away the hard edge to the black on the inside of the leaf, clean brush and clean water and push the brush point first as though you are an archaeologist scraping a fine layer of dirt off a precious find. You don’t have to limit yourself to one layer of paint in watercolour but too many give a dull muddy look, adding gum Arabic to the paint allows more use of layers but they will still be transparent so all your marks in watercolour build on existing marks.