Round
Brush
A
round watercolor brush has a round "belly" (to hold water)
and a fine point, giving it versatily, from painting large areas
to fine detail.
Flat
brush
A
flat brush does not hold as much water and is not designed to give
the detailed strokes of a round brush. However, its edge can
make fine lines or grass strokes, etc.
Some artists prefer using a
flat brush almost exclusively to keep from getting to fussy with
detail in their paintings.
General
brushstrokes
The
top stroke is a wet-on-dry (wet on dry paper) application from a round
brush.
The two middle strokes are variations of wet-on-wet
(wet on wet paper) applications.
The bottom strokes are
done by dragging a dry brush (i.e., a damp brush loaded with a concentrated
pigment
with little water) across paper for good textural effect.
Uniform
Wash
It
takes practice to do a uniform wash smoothly. Keep your paper
on a slant to let gravity help you. Make sure you make a large
puddle of your paint mixture so that you won't run out. Apply paint with a round
brush "row by row" and going from top to bottom. Remember
to hold your brush at about a 45 degree angle so that the paint
can unload freely. Be careful
not to overlap your strokes, just touch (with the point of your brush)
the bead of wet paint from the bottom edge of the previous row.
Remember that a flat brush doesn't hold as much water
as a round brush, so if you use a flat brush to apply a uniform
wash, it helps to wet the paper first,
so that the paint doesn't dry too quickly.
Variegated
wash
Similar
in application as the uniform wash, but here you gradually add water into
your color puddle as you go from top to bottom. You can also
gradually shift colors in this application.
Pulling
pigment with water
Here
you apply a wet-on-dry brushstroke, then modify with a brush of
clear water. Just touch the edge of the painted brush stroke,
to pull it into the shape you make with the water stroke.
Or in the case of the middle circle shapes, you can paint
the brush stroke of the outer circle, and then wet the inner circle.
You need to move quickly, so that you can pull the pigment
before it dries.
Pigment
and Water
Wet
small area of paper with clear water, then add strokes of paint. You
can alternate as you continue, brushing water, then brushing
paint to get
the effect you desire.
Negative
Painting
You
need to think in a different way with watercolor since it is a transparent
medium. You need to think ahead and reserve
your whites and light values. This often means doing what
is called
negative painting. In this example, the picket fence is depicted
not by painting the fence, but by painting around it.
Wet
edge
To
accomplish a soft edge like this, paint one color, and before it
dries, apply another color next to it. It helps to use a similar
paint/water ratio in both mixtures to get an even soft edge.
Wet
on Wet
Wet
paper surface with clear water and let it sit for a minute. Apply
paint as you wish, then slant to get pigment to move around
for special effects. Usually you use more concentrated paint when you
are applying to a wet paper surface.