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Start Art 5 23 www.painters-online.co.uk Making a dark grey Many people working with watercolour complain about ‘mud’. These are the uninteresting flat, grey/brown colours created by using either too many colours, over–enthusiastic mixing or overworking the surface with the brush which should really just skip over the paper. By working with just three transparent primary colours, darks are easy to create and control. Take your paint and create three wet splodges on the paper with the individual colours. Drag these colours equally to the centre and you should get a dark neutral tint like a battleship grey. To warm the tint up, add a little more red, to cool it down, add a little blue. To make it appear darker, use less water and more pigment. See Figure 6, right Practise these exercises and you will have the basics to help you tackle most watercolour subjects Wet into wet This is one of the most unpredictable and exciting parts of watercolour painting. Pre–mix your three bright primaries with water. Wash out the brush really well in between. Apply clean water to the paper surface, pick up some colour and touch it onto the surface. Swish the brush in water and introduce the next colour, lightly touching the surface as you do. Repeat with the final colour and then watch as the colours mix and interact with each other on the paper. Not only will you see some wonderful effects, but also the myriad of colours that these three primaries will produce. See Figure 5, below Gradated wash Using a single colour, add more water to your mix as you paint down the paper. This is a great technique for skies, the strong colour will slowly dissolve to the subtlest of tints. Repeat the same exercise but add a second colour. Start with ultramarine blue, gradually diluting to clean paper, and then introduce a very weak wash of yellow ochre, gradually increasing the concentration as you paint down the paper. See Figure 4, below Figure 4 A gradated wash like this one is great for suggesting skies, which get lighter where they meet the horizon line Figure 5 The wet-into-wet technique, when you add colours to wet areas of paint, is the most unpredictable but exciting of watercolour techniques, and can be used to create colourful skies Figure 6 By restricting your colour choices to just three primary colours, you can create colourful and manageable greys and darks, and avoid the muddy colours that often result from mixing too many colours together