Transcripts
1. INTRO Mountain Sky: Hi, I'm Ron Mulvey and
welcome to Mastering wet. I'm going to show you today
how wet paper and paints work together to produce
beautiful little landscapes with very little effort. There's a certain magic
about watercolors, and you're going to
discover that today. I discovered it years ago and it changed the way I painted. There are different ways
to paint watercolors, but this wet technique is
really one of the best. You're going to learn how to let the paper and the water and
the pigment do the work. You just take your brush and administer the
paint to the paper and then watch as the magic
of watercolor takes place, it's a technique that you
can use really well outside. You can also use
it in the studio. This is a technique you
really need to know. As a watercolor artist, it's one of the
best ways to feel confident and to have a really good
watercolor experience. So join me. Let's dive into the wet watercolor
experience and master it with this
easy step watercolor. Of mountains and sky.
2. MATERIALS For Mountain Sky: I've always believed that good materials make
great paintings. Let's see what we
need for this class. First, a water spritzer. Gonna keep that paper, wet some painter's tape to keep the paper down so
it doesn't buckle. 140 pound cold press watercolor
paper, wet it liberally. Medium round brush. Or sometimes we call
it a mop brush. My favorite little sable brush, maybe a five to seven and a very small round brush for
the details near the end. Test paper, keep
your colors clean. Palo and Manganese blue, two great blues that stain
well and azarin crimson. I'm also going to be adding
a little Pains gray, and you can use ivory black
and some Thalo green. So that's it. Round up
all your materials. I'll meet you in the class. And I'm quite
serious when I say, I really want to see
what you're doing. So post your project
so that I can see it. And of course, you
can follow me and do what I do here and
learn the skills. But I would love
it if you could do something of your own
creativity and show me that you really know what you've learned here and how to put it to good use in your
own creative work. Now, let's get started
with Mountain and sky, easy step watercolor.
3. PAINTING Mountain Sky : Well, let's just dive right
into this wet technique. You've got your paper and you've taped it up with
the painter's tape. This will stop it from buckling. So press the tape down
really well because you don't want the paint
getting in underneath. And when we're
finished, we'll have a lovely little picture
with a white border. And you can post it
because it'll look good. Half the battle is to put your painting in a
proper set of clothes, either a frame or
a white border. I'm using the Madn paper here. It's 100% cotton,
it's acid free, fairly inexpensive.
There's my paints. And here we are. There's
my little sketch on the left, paper towel, got my water, got
all my materials, got my little exercises.
I'm ready to go. And what I want to do
first is wet the paper. And when I say wet the
paper, I mean wet it. It's small enough so that
it's not going to buckle. But I'm going to spritter
it for quite a while. I go to make sure that the
tape is down, nice and firm. And way we go. Just
press, press, press. A couple of minutes, actually, I did it. Got it nice and wet. You can also soak
it with your brush. Give it about two or
3 minutes to soak in. And then come back after a couple minutes and damp
it off with a paper towel. You don't want the water
sitting all over the top. So just gently push down on your paper and soak
up the surface water. You want the water in amongst
the fibers of the paper. Okay, now we're ready to go. Get my big mop brush
and my sable brush. Those are the first two
brushes you'll need. We're going to start
with the mop brush. Get your little piece
of paper so you can test the purity
of your colors. Notice, I've got a little
water in the paint, and it's a manganese blue. Which is a lovely sky blue, you don't want to
use it too thickly, so I'm adding a
little water to it. Remember, most of the
water is in the paper, and we're going to do
three sections of blue. I just gently put
the brush down. Nothing looks like
it's happening, but give it a little time. The papers wet, so the
paint is going to spread. Now, if you look over on
the left at my sketch, you'll see I've pretty much followed what I've
already practiced. And then gently back and
forth on the bottom. Those that's going to be
the top of the mountains. Now, you could just stop there
and use it as a seascape. You've completed
the first stage. Now I take some
pure zarin crimson. It has a little water in it. You need to have water with your paint so that it spreads. Now I'm going to take my palette to show you how thick it is. To add a little more water, see? But most of the water
is in the paper. We're working two sets of water. One waters in your brush, and one is in the paper. It took a little bit
of the manganese. You could use cobalt, put it in with zar and crimson, and now I have a lovely violet. So here comes the first mango. Notice I've tilted my board up and picked it up
with my left hand, and I'm going to put it
right in the clouds. One, a little swipe
and a little swipe. I'm still sticking to the three. And now I tilt it. I swirl it, I tilt it, I bend it, I watch. Watch. It's kind of funny. Actually, what happens when
we get a little chicken here. When I first saw that I
went, that's interesting. You never know what shapes
you're going to get. So I'm adjusting the shape
now with the violet. Another little swirl here and a swirl there and watching it. Look at how that sky has magically come together without me doing very
little of anything. So now I wet my
little sable brush. And just disperse the
paints a little more. Tilt it. Every time you
do something, tilt it. Let's see what's happening. See how the paint runs. If it doesn't run,
dampen the edge. Now I've got the three again, three blues on top, three violets, one, two, three, one, two, three. Now we're going to
work on the mountains. Take my flat brush. And what I'm going
to do is I'm going to probably take some more blue, more of the manganese. So I darken the
violet and I give a nice slow pull along
the bottom of the paper, then I do it again,
adding paint as I go. I need more paint.
What's happening is that the papers wet. And because the paper is wet, the paint will go
deeper down inside. You can see it's
already starting to bleed up. Look at that. Beautiful. I disappears
into the paper. You just keep adding little
bits by little bits. Look at the overall
pattern that's created in the sky and the
water watching. Now I'm going to
my Paine's gray. You can use a little bit of
ivory black if you want. You could even use a little
bit of burnt or raw umber. Burnt umber would be better. Adding the panes gray
and now the palo blue. Palo blue is darker than the Manganese,
which is on the right. The Palo blue is
up there at 11:00. So now I'm going for
quite a thicker, creamy paint, and I'm
just dabbing it in. Dab dab, dab along the bottom. Dab, watch, dab and watch. This I believe is
not Arches paper, but medin paper, which has
a lovely texture to it, is actually very
similar to arches. Both of them will give
you a great effect. So look at me just
dot, dot, dot. What's happening here is
I'm forming two mountains. I have one in the front which is darker and one in the
back which is lighter. Just keep dabbing in the paint. A little more pins gray, darken it up even
more. Another layer. Now, you'll notice
that I've added the palo green now.
Here it comes. If you don't have palo green, take a little bit of Palo, blue, a little cadmium light, and a bit of pains gray and that'll give you a
fairly dark green. That's all I'm
looking for. I have not used any yellow
in this painting. Now I'm intermittently
spotting into the paper. Different paints will eat into the pigments
of other paints. So you see the green has
disappeared right inside. Now I'm going with
my very fine brush and I'm softening the edges. The brush is damp,
takes a couple of pokes and call this
a stipple stroke, and just gently moving the paint around where it's
starting to dry. Look at that sky. We
got a heart in the sky. The chicken has
turned into a heart. I love it when certain
shapes appear. So what I'm doing
here is pushing back the second mountain. It's going to be lighter. And watching deciding what
am I going to do next? I'm going with the palo blue, a little water on the brush, creamy consistency
of the palo blue. The palo green, which is
getting nice and creamy now. Put them together,
and there we go. I sped the camera up here, but it's just a really helter
skelter pepper stroke, dab, dab, dab, dab, dab, dab, dab, dab, dab. Not rubbing. I'm injecting the paint into the
fibers of the paper. And the papers starting to dry. As it's starting to dry, you'll notice that the paint doesn't quite get
absorbed as much. And now I've gone
with zarin crimson. And the palo blue, and we're putting in
some really dark darks. So always put your darks in
at the end of the painting. I'm not always, but
it's a good way of making sure that you get some contrast in your painting. So darks and lights. Just dabbing, dabbing, dabbing. Now notice how that
foreground now, because it's darker,
is coming forward. And I'll be forming those little mountains
behind in a moment. But just keep going and going
and going and darkening. I want that nice dark
mountain in the front. Okay, so I thinned the
paint on my brush, and now I'm giving
a nice little shape to the faraway mountains, which are pretty much
the papers just damp. So I can put a little paint
on without its spreading. I get that nice roundness
on the mountains, and it echoes the
roundness in the cloud. Tap, tap, tap, little taps. When you're using a small brush, don't try to do big things. Just do little small things. Notice I put it on dark, and then I spread it
out. When do you stop? Well, you stop when you
feel like you've done enough or you don't
know what to do next. Those are the two
times you stop. A lot of times we're just
searching for that right angle. Look at how I'm doing
little rounded dark spots so that I'm getting a
shape to the mountain. It's not flat. I'm
giving it a curvature. It's always best to
do these paintings on small pieces of paper. Don't attempt some
large painting. You'll get frustrated. So now we're gonna do the
finishing touches. So let's get to the next video.
4. FINISHING DETAILS Mountain Sky: Okay, here comes the tape. Make sure you pull the tape to the left on the left
side and pull it down. Don't pull it straight across. You see, we have a
few bleeds there. Don't worry about that. This
paper is easy to fix up. I'll be getting a razor blade and just scraping
that right off. You won't even notice.
So pull the tape up. The paper is completely dry now, so it's lost all its
moisture and you can see the dark sections
worked out pretty clear. So here's my little
utility blade. Scrape, scrape,
scrape. It's done. This paper is fairly thick. It's 140 pounds,
and you can scrape down even this is
easy to take off, even though it has
the stainer colors, there's enough
paper there for you to scrape off any bleed marks. Okay, make sure your
brush is clean. This is a little tricky.
Don't be afraid to try this. You just take your brush
with damp water, damp it up. Take your time, let it soak
in gently into the paper. This little touch will put
your painting a little more into the area of depth. It won't look so
flat. So here we go. We have a little bit of
violet on the brush. I switch to a small brush, and I just drop it in. Then I watch it. You can see where
the paper is dry. I want to feather
out the dampness. If you don't do that,
you'll get a bleed mark. So they're just
gently feathering out the water on the edges. It's very subtle. You don't have to do a lot, but these small additions really put your
painting up a notch. Makes it look more professional. And more interesting.
So here we are. We're using the palo blue, and we're using the
Alizarin crimson. Now, that paper is wet. You, I have another little piece of paper I'm checking it on. Now, there it's going in nicely. Now, this is on dry paper. You can do it with
dry paper as long as you feather out the
edges with a damp brush. And you'll get relatively
the same effect. So there's two ways
to do it. Using wet. Mastering wet is what
watercolor is all about. I suppose that's why
they call it watercolor. And now I'm adding a
little more because I'm watching how the paint is
diffusing or spreading. And remember, we said
one, two, three, we got to take that little
cloud down near the bottom, but very gently and with just a whisper of
the zarin crimson. Just rub it in gently. That paper's bone dry. We didn't add any water there. So the big cloud got water. The cloud on the right was dry and the edges were
feathered with a damp brush. And now you can see we're going to be
doing something here. We're going to take
it and check it. We go to the top of the picture where the papers bone
dry and we're going to put in a wash. You see, I'm trying to get a little bead there where the water
and the paint collect. Then I come at it
from underneath it, not right at it, but from
the dry paper underneath. And then we just
spread it around. And we'll get a nice
little dark section at the top of the sky, which gives us gradation. Contrast, dark to light. Just tap it in. That doesn't look like
much, but it really does add something
to the painting. Now, there is what we call
a little bold stroke. I just took that Manganese
blue and just did a little stroke over that cloud and now I'm
going to feather it out. Put a little paint on, do a little thinking,
move the paint around. These are the finishing
touches when you're doing a wet painting. We're working on dry
paper, and we're finished. I really enjoyed doing this, and I think you'll
enjoy it, too. I tried it a couple times. I mean, I play around. And then when I feel confident,
I go for it.
5. OUTRO Mountain Sky: I always look to nature
to find inspiration. And then I look at
it and interpret. Sometimes I take a long time. Sometimes I do it
in black and white. Sometimes it only
takes a few minutes. But this wet technique is really one that you will learn
to handle the paint. Watercolor loves water
and it loves good paper. So even in a little seascape like this with my
tiny little brush, I've done all the
really wet stuff, and now I'm just adding
little touches of wet. So I'm putting the wet
paint into the dry paper. This is another technique. Once you've mastered
the wet paper, you'll know when the paper's dry and how to add more paint. One of the wonders of
watercolor is once it's dry, it's a whole different
aspect to the watercolor. Now the water's in the brush. As you can see, as I do this
little reflection on a class that's coming up see, it's almost like
working a felt pen because the papers now dry. What I want you to do in this class is really
master the wet paper. Master the wet technique. Just start playing with
your paper, wetting it, and doing some of these
little color swatches or get an ink sketch and
throw some color on it, wet it up and dash
the colors in. Well, I'm going
back to my studio now, I'm going to do some work, and I'm going to wait and watch and see when you post your work. I can help you and
you can help me. And also, you'll help
the other students. Be brave and post your work. Thanks for being in the
class, and I'll see you soon.
Ron Mulvey✏️, Artist / Art Teacher
