Acrylic Watercolor Painting

by Wendon Blake

  Paintbox: An old metal toolbox or a fishing tackle box is the best carrying case for all this gear. There should be compartments of different sizes and shapes to hold the various items on this list. Everything will fit in except the water bottle, paper, and drawing board.

  Envelope: Don’t spend your money on one of those big portfolios that tie together with shoestrings at the top and two sides. The strings always get knotted and the contents of the portfolio may get soaked if it rains. A big, transparent envelope (the plastic is called polyethylene) is cheaper, lighter, more durable, and really waterproof. Stationery stores also carry plastic envelopes in various colors with a clasp or a zipper; these aren’t big enough to hold a full sheet, but you can easily get one to hold quarter sheets, and I’ve seen some big enough to hold half sheets.

  This is really all you need. If you wish, you can add a sketching stool and a portable watercolor easel to the list, but many professional watercolorists just work on the ground.

  One important tip about brushes. When you’ve finished a day of painting. outdoors, be sure to rinse your brushes thoroughly before you toss the water away. Then, when you get home, give them the soap and water treatment.

  Come to think of it, you may want to add three more items to the list: insect repellant, your lunch, and suntan lotion. The sign of a veteran outdoor painter—who’s spent months bending over a drawing board on location—is a sunburnt neck.

  3.

  Painting Surfaces

  One of the striking advantages of acrylic as a watercolor medium is the variety of painting surfaces to which this new medium will stick. You not only have your choice of papers, but you can paint on fine grained fabrics (like the Chinese masters), on panels, and even on special surfaces which you can prepare to suit your own style.

  Watercolor Paper

  Nearly all watercolor papers come in the standard size of 22” x 30”. As I mentioned in the preceding chapter, this is called a full sheet. It takes a great deal of boldness and control to paint a full sheet. A beginner will find it easier to work on half sheets (15” x 22”), or on quarter sheets (11” x 15”). You can’t buy half sheets and quarter sheets, but it’s easy enough to cut them from full sheets.

  Don’t feel that half sheets and quarter sheets are just for beginners, however. The two greatest American watercolorists, Homer and Sargent, painted most of their pictures on half sheets. Turner, the greatest English watercolorist, normally painted on a scale slightly smaller than a quarter sheet. And Bonington, another British master of watercolor, painted scores of masterpieces on sheets half the size of the page you’re now reading! Big pictures may look more important than small ones, but size has nothing to do with quality.

  The most popular watercolor papers are European imports. Arches, a French paper, is widely used by American painters. Two other French papers are worth trying: Canson and Lana. The old Italian mill, Fabriano, makes several good watercolor papers in different price ranges. And three British papers are also attractive: Winsor & Newton, Saunders Waterford, and Bockingford.

  Testing Watercolor Papers

  No two brands of paper behave in exactly the same way. As your style of painting evolves, you’ll find some papers more congenial than others. It’s a practical idea to buy one sheet of each paper available in your local art supply store. Ask for some rough sheets and some cold pressed sheets so you’ll have two different kinds of surface to work on (more about this later). If you cut each sheet into eight equal rectangles, 7½” x 11 ”, this will give you enough paper to try out sixteen small paintings if you work on both sides. By painting lots of small pictures on all these different little sheets, you’ll begin to learn the following things about watercolor papers.

  Texture: Watercolor papers generally come in three surface textures. The most dramatic surface is simply called rough, which means an extremely irregular surface that demands very bold brushwork. A more popular paper for general use is called cold pressed, which is still irregular enough to be interesting, but allows more delicate work. (In Great Britain, cold pressed paper is called not.) You can also buy smooth watercolor paper in which the peaks and valleys are almost invisible, but not quite. Handling liquid color on smooth paper is something for professionals only; better try the rough and cold pressed first.

  Weight: Watercolor papers come in a variety of weights and thicknesses, which are measured in pounds. The thinnest paper you’re likely to buy is 72 1b., which is so thin that it curls up as soon as water hits it. Most watercolorists consider 140 1b.— roughly twice the weight of 72 lb.—the thinnest paper worth buying. But even this is inclined to get wavy when wet. The most practical weights are 200 lb. and 300 lb., which is the heaviest weight you’re likely to use. Sometimes you can find 400 lb., but this is stiff as a board and useful only if you plan to give your picture a great deal of punishment.

  When you buy your sample sheets, you may find it interesting to buy one sheet of 72 1b. and one sheet of 140 lb., so you can try them out and see how they behave. You’ll soon discover why most professionals prefer 200 lb. or 300 lb. The heavier weights remain flat and stiff, no matter how much water you flood onto them. The lighter weights hold their shape only if you stretch and mount them, as I’ll describe later in this chapter.

  Absorbency: As you try out your different sample papers, you’ll find that some sheets drink up the liquid color, while others are inclined to fight back, leaving the liquid color lying on the surface. In other words, some papers are more absorbent than others. An absorbent paper is best if you work quickly and decisively, rarely changing your mind; if liquid color soaks in quickly, this means that you must guess right the first time, since you won’t have time to change your mind and push the color around until you get it where you want it. A less absorbent paper will leave the color on the surface longer, giving you more time to push the paint around.

  Here’s a scrap of cold pressed watercolor paper, covered with three strokes of color to show how acrylic behaves on this traditional painting surface. The top stroke is acrylic thinned with water; the effect is just like traditional watercolor, with the color settling into the irregularities of the surface and creating a slightly mottled effect, which happens just as frequently with the older medium. The middle stroke is drybrush; water and a drop of acrylic medium were added to the paint to produce a slightly thicker consistency and make the stroke easier to control. The bottom stroke is tube color thinned with acrylic medium, which produces a thicker (but still transparent) wash that retains the streaks left by the bristles of the brush.

  Liquid paint behaves quite differently on the softer, more absorbent Japanese paper. The top stroke is tube color, thinned with water; the wash soaks instantly into the paper and leaves a smooth, soft tone. The middle strip combines several drybrush strokes, some wetter than others; the paper soaks up the stroke instantly and retains the exact character of the brushmark. The bottom stroke is tube color diluted with acrylic medium; this fairly dark wash soaked in immediately and formed a solid, dark tone. Study the ragged upper edge of the dark stroke, which makes clear that paint thickened with acrylic medium is ideal for drybrush on Japanese paper.

  Walled Town by William Strosahl, A.W.S., acrylic on gesso board, 20”x24”. Working in a combirtation of transparent and semi-opaque color, the artist has exploited the texture of the gesso board to suggest the stonework of the old buildings. Notice where he scrapes away wet paint to accentuate the texture and reveal the tone beneath. He also scrapes away lines for such architectural details as the windows on the central tower. The broad, rough brushstrokes are sharpened here and there by crisp lines, drawn with a small brush, or incised with a sharp point.

  This makes a less absorbent paper easier for a beginner, but it doesn’t mean that such paper is better than the absorbent kind. How absorbent or nonabsorbent you want your paper to be is a matter of taste. If your approach is to build up your picture rapidly and spontaneously, an absorbent paper may retain the freshness of your attack far
better than a nonabsorbent paper. But if your approach is to build up a painting slowly, with a great many washes and strokes and textures laid over one another, then a less absorbent paper allows you to work more gradually and deliberately.

  Hardness: Related to absorbency is the hardness or softness of the paper’s surface. Some watercolor paper is almost as soft as blotting paper or filter paper. Others are tough, almost leathery. In general, the absorbent papers are the softer ones, while the more nonabsorbent the paper is, the harder the surface.

  Obviously, a hard surfaced paper will take rougher brushwork and much more in the way of corrections. You can attack a hard surfaced paper again and again without wrecking the surface and ruining your painting. A softer surface won’t take as much sponging out and repainting; you may even mar the surface by erasing a pencil line! Despite their fragile quality, the softer, more absorbent papers are especially good for beginners. Because such papers won’t allow you to hesitate, change your mind, or brush and rebrush your colors to death, such surfaces force you to work decisively and spontaneously. And spontaneity, after all, is the essence of watercolor.

  In the process of sorting out which paper or papers you prefer, bear in mind that only 100% rag stock is suitable for serious painting. A good watercolor paper contains no wood pulp in any form. Cheaper, student grade papers are generally made of wood pulp—which is why they’re so cheap! Even if such papers seem to respond well to the brush, they eventually turn yellow or even brown–and that’s the end of your painting.

  It’s tempting to practice on cheap paper; you figure that it’s only a practice picture, so why waste your money on good paper? There are two holes in this argument. No two papers behave alike. You may get used to the behavior of an attractive cheap paper, then discover that you have to readjust yourself to the very different habits of a more expensive professional paper. You’ll be angry at yourself for wasting a lot of time and effort learning how to handle a cheap paper, when you have to go through the whole process again when you switch to better paper.

  Cold pressed watercolor paper can be covered with acrylic gesso—one coat applied from top to bottom, another coat applied from side to side—to suggest a texture like smooth canvas. The top stroke here is color thinned with water; it rides on the surface, rather than soaking in, suggesting the texture of a thin oil glaze on canvas. The middle stroke is drybrush; tube paint was thinned with water and a touch of acrylic medium. The bottom stroke is tube paint thinned only with acrylic medium and really looks like oil paint, although it’s just as transparent as traditional watercolor.

  Here are three strokes of color on smooth canvas. The top stroke is tube color thinned with water; the wash settles into the painting surface and the canvas texture dominates. The texture of the painting surface dominates the middle stroke too, which is drybrush—color thinned with water and a bit of acrylic medium. The bottom stroke is darker color thinned only with acrylic medium and has the same texture as the top stroke. As you can see, the texture of canvas does tend to be stronger than the texture of paper.

  The other problem is simply that practice pictures often turn out a lot better than you think. You’ll wish you’d painted them on better paper. I have lots of drawings from my student days, drawn on cheap paper, which have turned dark brown and are starting to crumble. I wish I’d drawn them on good paper in the first place.

  Starting out with cheap paper is particularly tempting because rag paper is so painfully expensive. When you walk into the art supply store and look at the prices, you really have to force yourself to buy those costly papers when there are so many attractive cheap ones. But don’t deceive yourself. Sooner or later, when you get serious about painting, you’ll be working on the expensive sheets. It’s better to begin with them and learn how to use them, rather than delay your progress by getting used to the cheap ones.

  One way to force yourself to buy the better papers is to remember that your paintings will look better on them. Remember what I said earlier—a fine rag paper will vitalize your brushstrokes and boost your ego.

  Stretching

  Traditionally, watercolorists have saved money by buying thinner weights of watercolor paper and stretching them so that they’ll function like the heavier sheets. Frankly, I think the process is so much trouble that you lose in time what you think you save in money. But I’ll explain the process briefly, just in case you’d like to try it. Perhaps you already have some sheets of 72 lb. or 140 lb. paper in the studio.

  There are two widely used ways of stretching watercolor paper, both fairly simple. One way is to take a drawing board—an old, battered wooden drawing board, or a thick sheet of fiberboard— which is about 2” bigger all around than your sheet of watercolor paper. You simply soak the paper in your bathtub until the water penetrates and the sheet is limp; naturally, the paper will swell as it absorbs the water. Lay the wet paper flat on the board and smooth it down with a wet sponge or with your hand, taking care not to scratch or scrape the painting surface, which is more vulnerable when it’s wet than when it’s dry. To complete the job, all you have to do is tape down the edges of the sheet with brown wrapping tape, the stuff you use to wrap packages with. The tape should be 2” wide and the glue on the tape should be the water soluble kind, not the pressure sensitive kind that’s used on Scotch tape or in masking tape. If the tape is 2” wide, then 1” of its width will overlap the edge of the paper and the other inch will be on the drawing board.

  Depending upon the absorbency of the paper, the absorbency of the drawing board, and atmospheric conditions, the wet paper will dry out in a few hours and shrink back to its original size, tight as a drum. When you paint on it, the paper may swell up again, but this is only temporary; it will shrink back, more or less, when the painting is dry. When the painting is finished and dry, simply trim off the taped edges with a razor blade or with a sharp mat knife. Then peel the tape off the board, toss the tape out, and you’re ready to stretch a new sheet of paper. You’ve lost a 1” border of paper in the process, but that’s something you can’t avoid if you’re going to stretch your paper.

  Some watercolorists prefer a row of thumbtacks or pushpins to a strip of tape along the four edges of the paper. But the tacks or pins take longer to shove into the board and I’m not really sure you get as smooth a “stretch” this way. But you can try if you like.

  The other method of stretching watercolor paper is something like stretching canvas for oil painting. Instead of a drawing board, you can use the wooden stretcher strips on which oil painters mount canvas. When the wooden strips are assembled, the outer dimensions of the rectangle should be about 1” smaller all the way around than your sheet of watercolor paper. Once again, you soak your paper in the tub. Then place the wet sheet on a clean, nonabsorbent surface—like a sheet of glass or a kitchen counter—and carefully place the wooden stretcher frame on the wet paper. Now fold up the edges of the wet paper and tack or staple them to the rim of the wooden stretcher.

  When the paper dries, it stretches as tight as a drum. As I said when I described the previous stretching method, the paper may swell a bit as you paint, but it should stretch fairly smooth when it dries. Naturally, when you paint on paper that’s been attached to a wooden stretcher frame, you must be a bit more careful than usual; remember that the paper isn’t supported by a drawing board, so be sure not to poke the sheet with your finger, your elbow, or the brush handle, which might just puncture your painting surface. When the painting is dry, trim it away from the wooden stretcher strips with a razor blade or with a mat knife. As usual, you’ll lose 1” of paper all around; yank out the staples or tacks along the edges and throw away the 1” strips of waste paper.

  Winter by Victor Ing, A.W.S., acrylic on canvas, 8½“x19¼”. If the grain of the fabric is fine enough, canvas can be a particularly effective painting surface for drybrush effects. Only a very fine grained canvas is suitable because a coarse fabric will overwhelm the strokes and impose its own texture on the paint
. Ing demonstrates the full range of drybrush strokes, from hairline strokes placed side by side in the foreground and in the distant trees, to much broader, coarser strokes in the tree trunk and cluster of foliage in the upper right. His washes tend to melt away into the weave of the canvas and are enlivened by the many flecks of light created by the fibers. Examine how the shadow side of the house vibrates with these tiny points of light.

  FLUID COLOR AND “DRY” COLOR

  Adobe at Las Truchas, New Mexico by Tom Hill, A.W.S., acrylic on gesso board, 14”x21 ”. Thin, transparent strokes of color—well diluted with water—rest on the surface of the relatively nonabsorbent gesso board, settling into the texture of the gesso, but not really soaking in. Thus, the color takes on a granular, bubbly quality which is perfectly in keeping with the texture of the subject. The artist has also brushed on his liquid color in short, irregular strokes (rather than in continuous washes) which add to the rich textural effect. The only exception is the immediate foreground, where long, streaky strokes express the texture of the street. Even when applied very thinly, a stroke of acrylic watercolor retains its shape on a rigid gesso surface.