5 Prep SECRETS of Experienced Watercolorists | time saving advice so you can start painting!

1. 5 Prep SECRETS of Experienced Watercolorists: Hello, Skillshare. My name is Susie onlay, an artist here in Arizona. Today I'm going to be sharing with you some things I learned from my students who have not been doing what are for 11 years. And it really opened my eyes to things I've been taking for granted as a professional artist. So today I'm going to be sharing with you five tips for efficient preparation and to speed up the painting process. These are productive ways you can make your painting experience of Greece and not a hassle for yourself when they're in middle of the painting to mix more paint as you go. This will take just a few minutes. And in that time you're going to learn the secrets of experienced watercolor us. Sainthood. 2. Tip 1: Water of course: So tip number one is your water cup. You couldn't do a plastic cup. But since it is plastic, we're more inclined to throw this away and be wasteful. So instead, I highly recommend having a water jar because it's solid, it's less likely to tip over when you wash your brush inside to get it clean. And since it's glass, your lesson plan to throw it away, you are more likely to keep it and reuse it. And on that note of water, if you're going to drink water, I really recommend you do not keep your drinking water the same spot as your water jar for cleaning your brush because more often than not, you might dip your paint brush into her drinking water and then you can't drink it. So just make sure to have your drinking water opposite. You're painting hand. And you can save yourself having to get up and get more of drinking water. So there's tip number one. 3. Tip 2: Importance of your palette: Tip number two is getting a actual palette. I tried once using a paper plate, not work because all of the paints would kind of just run across the whole plate to mix together and my paints and mix. And I wouldn't want them to mix. Using a actual palette where it has these wells in them is makes your life so much easier because you don't have to worry about your paint running all over the place mixing with other colors. You can keep your pace and assign the order. I like to have burnt umber, ultramarine blue, red, yellow, ocher. And then I usually have these for whatever colors I prefer putting it at time here. I always have a phthalo blue because it's stated that color came here in a bit. Having a palette like this makes it a lot easier for your pains in the mixed ready to go and in reserve for when you start writing. 4. Tip 3: BIGGEST time-saver: Tip number three is the number one timesaver that I could possibly show you of all the things I've done. A little bit surprising, but is a Aha moment as soon as you see it. A spoon. So the reason why is because when you're putting your pigments into the palette and you're putting water in there and you're mixing it up, you can go back and forth a bazillion times with your brush to bring water into your palette. Or you can do it all in one step and just grab your water and drop it in. Dom. That's it. That one. 5. Tip 4: Paint Placement on Palette: Tip number four is the placement of more paint on your palette. Now, you could put it dead center in the middle of well, but then he can't control the water to pigment ratio as much as you could if you put it instead on the side of the well. Is if you put the pigment on the side of the well, you can have your little bit of water here dragging as much pigment as you need. So here the pigment is in the center, and I have no control over how much pigments in there. But if I really want to make sure it's a very light wash, Then I start here, I have my pigment here, and I can drag the pigment in. So if this is all I want, then we're good or I can keep dragging it in. So I can control how much pigment is in this well. And just keep going and going until you're happy with pigment to water ratio. 6. Tip 5: Tape: Tip number five is tape. This is just blue painter's tape that you can get from Home Depot or any hardware store. This is the first one I'll recommend to very beginner level students because that everyone has access to painter's tape, such as this one. This is artist tape, which is really good for putting down your artwork. It's non acidic, so it's archival. If you were to use this on a watercolor piece, it won't leave any stains or anything like that behind in what we're in the paper. The other option is water activated tape. This one, you have to do normally wet on wet techniques. I'm still experimenting with it myself, even though I've been painting with watercolor for 11 years. But so far I like it. I'll probably end up doing a video just on tape low so you can see the differences. 7. Thanks: So these were the five pro tips on getting started with Water Killer before you even start painting. I hope you like them, and I hope it makes your life easier as it has mine. I'll see you next time in the next tutorial and till then, keep painting. 8. Bonus: Recording. Okay. And then I can always cut I'm looking down. Yeah. I wish there was a shorter word for watercolor. I wish there was a nickname for it. You don't want to say WC. Wait, what is the name for water closet, like the bathroom all over watercolor. Well, I wish there was just a shorter term because it's so long. There's acrylic, there's oil and watercolor having to say the word watercolor. 1 million times in one tutorial. It takes so long. There needs to be a shorthand. Got it. You could start the WC tren. Well, I don't you just said it's water closet. So you could say the W color. The dub color. The dub. I'll give you the dub and painting Dubs for the win. I spoof rail. You really do. Okay. Mm. Okay. Okay. We learn the secret. I like that last one. Good. One more time. Okay. I want to see the table. I got to zoom out a little bit to see the table. You could use a plastic cup. Pretty self explanatory. This hold water, as you know, as well as other things that are fun to drink. But Number three. No. No. Every two tips, then we can start over have written because you are amazing and you're helpful. I don't know why I turned it into a Russian. You really good. Good thing. I have a pooper real at the end of this thing. I think that was good. That was good.