I bought my watercolor supplies! Now what?

When you begin working in watercolor, you will may find yourself excited, frustrated, and humbled all in the same painting session. With its fluid nature, it is a tough medium to learn if you don’t understand the basics. Let’s dive into creating washes!

A watercolor wash is simply a thin layer of color that covers a large portion of your paper. While this sounds simple enough, there are a variety of ways to get your desired textures and effects.

What you will need:

• watercolor paper

• watercolor paints

• large flat paintbrushes

• two containers of clean water (one to rinse brushes, one to draw clean water from)

Flat Wash

To paint a flat wash, premix a large quantity of the color you want to use (always mix a bit more than you think you will need - it is easy to underestimate and run out of paint before you are finished). Saturate a large, flat paintbrush and, with your paper tilted towards you at a slight angle, paint a horizontal stroke across the top of the page. Paint the next horizontal line just underneath and slightly overlapping with the first one. Repeat these steps until the desired area is covered.

A flat wash can be done on dry paper or over a wash of clean water. A wash on dry paper will be more vibrant and you will have more control, but a flat wash on wet paper will allow the brushstrokes to blend more seamlessly.

Graded Wash

A graded wash is an ombre effect caused by diluting the paint as you work. Graded washes are particularly useful when creating skies in landscape paintings.

Again, mix a large quantity of paint, saturate your brush, and tilt your paper towards you slightly before applying your first horizontal brushstroke. Before continuing, dip your brush into your clean water container and wipe off any excess water. Paint another horizontal line just underneath and slightly overlapping with the first. You will notice the pigment begin to run downward. Continue making lighter and lighter washes by dipping your brush into clean water before making the next line all the way down your page. This should create a seamless gradient effect from top to bottom.

Just as with a flat wash, a graded wash can be done on dry or wet paper. Notice the hard edges of the dry wash versus the blurred edges of the wet wash.

Variegated Wash

An ombre effect is great, but what about seamlessly flowing from one color to another? A Variegated wash is made my combining two colors on a wet page and allowing them to mix together. This is a great technique for creating sunsets.

To create a simple, two-color variegated wash, create a graded wash at the top of your page following the steps above, Then flip your paper upside down and repeat the process in a different color starting along the opposite side of the page. The colors will meet and blend in the middle.

A variegated wash on dry paper may not blend as well as on wet paper since one side may dry before the other.

Irregular Variegated Wash

Similar to the variegated wash above, an irregular variegated wash uses more than one color, but blends in a more organic way.

Using clean water, wet your paper where you would like the pigment to flow. Drop paint into the wetted area. You can do this with as many colors as you wish, tilting your paper various ways to influence the waterflow. The more irregular washes you make, you will begin to understand how different pigments react to the water and to one another.

Irregular variegated washes look best when applied to wet paper as the colors will not flow as well on dry.

Other Considerations

Brands: Did you know the brand of paints you use can effect your washes? The examples above were created with QoR watercolors which have a high fluidity (learn more about QoR and other brands here) and make beautiful irregular variegated washes, but are difficult to control for variegated and graded washes.

Granulation: Watercolor paints are pigments (both natural and synthetic) suspended in a binding agent (this can also be natural, like honey, or synthetic, like Aquazol®). Because the binding agent in watercolors is water soluble, what you are left with when the paints dry is purely pigment. Different pigments have their own unique properties - some are finely ground and dry smooth, like quinacridone colors, others contain larger particles and dry in a rougher, granulating pattern when the pigment settles into the texture of the paper. A great example of this is the difference between Daniel Smith’s indigo and sodalite genuine - both are gorgeous, dark blues, but one is smooth, the other highly granulating.

Brushes: While round brushes allow for beautiful mark making, they aren’t ideal for washes. For the best results, use a soft flat brush or a mop brush.

While these techniques seem easy, it may take some time to master creating even washes; but with practice, you will get the hang of it. It took me a while to learn how to avoid blooms and “mistakes” in my washes, but once I figured out how to avoid them, I learned how to make them intentionally and incorporate them into my work! I love the unpredictable nature of watercolor and lean into it as much as possible. Once you understand the “rules,” you can break them and create truly stunning, unique art!