Techniques for spontaneous watercolor painting

Abstract watercolor painting, private art classes

The versatile watercolor

Watercolor is a medium we can use in hundreds of different ways. What we create and how it looks depends largely on technique we apply. While many of my watercolors look carefully worked out, I often start painting with just randomly washing some paint onto watercolor paper. I posted my spring palette colors in the previous article. For spring paintings, I am using a limited palette:

Color combinations for spontaneous watercolor

Payne’s grey

French ultramarine

Brilliant yellow

Burnt sienna

Burnt umber

Gold ochre

Leaf green

It’s possible, however, to create numerous color tones using these paints. They work well together and with decent application of water, there’s no mud. I will work on floral spontaneous watercolors next, and I am adding magenta and carmine for these.

Spontaneous watercolor, color mix

Allowing paint and water to work

While the paint application is extremely loose, I still have some idea. Washes look great when painting treescapes and paintings with abstract water. This is a technique which perfectionists might not like. We simply allow colors to mix and flow as they please. It’s a myth that watercolor painting cannot be adjusted or changed. One just needs to know how to do that.

Color mixing for spontaneous watercolor

Lifting paint

I think many watercolor artists use too less of paint lifting technique. For paint lifting, large brush with pointy tip is very useful. My main brush is Luke number 14, round. Along with simple lifting, I implement one more step: lifting with very liquid other color. It’s a fantastic, but unpredictable process. It’s also fun, and I love this technique because it allows me adding definition to subject. Lifting paint is an essential technique for spontaneous watercolor my-style.

Painting abstract water and trees

Non-cotton paper has its uses

Lifting automatically takes care of the negative space. When to lift and where to add paint depends on our personal preference and feel. For this technique, cotton paper is not the best option. Non-cotton watercolor paper makes lifting paint an easy step. In fact, it’s way easier to lift paint from some thick non-cotton papers than to add an extra layer. I am using for these paintings Strathmore 400 series paper. It requires flattening afterwards. All non-cotton watercolor papers must be weight-pressed after application of water and paint since they become uneven.

Watercolor painting, rocks, trees, water

Multi-step process

While people ask when I will have online art classes, I must say, I probably won’t. Things I am writing about most often cannot be shown online. One must see the actual process in order to understand how we create loose, spontaneous watercolor painting and add the touch of reality to it. The process involves drying paper and restarting wet-on-wet, then adding dry paint, then lifting more and so on. It takes about 6-8 hours to paint one artwork. I have spent about 3 days in average on each painting.

Abstract landscape watercolor

Testing paints

Spontaneous watercolor works great for people who just want to explore what their paper and paints can do. Check compatibility of colors before you start painting. Water takes care of lot of things with loose watercolor painting, but there are colors which will destroy the flow and cause unpleasant muddy shades. To avoid that, learn what your paints do. My paints are rich in pigments, all artist grade. I never use white or black colors, as well as, I don’t even have masking fluid. These paintings consist only of watercolor paint on paper.

Abstract watercolor, landscape and water

Give it a try

Want to try this approach? No better time than now. This means absolute freedom, you don’t need any photos to follow, but having an idea is helpful. I love using the earth colors togethers with blue and green. Burnt sienna adds a bit of red tint. Simplicity is beautiful; however, I’ve never been a minimalist in any regard. That goes for any of my paintings. Well, we can stop working whenever it feels right.

Abstract watercolor painting, spring

Group art classes

Private art lessons

Bright and passionate colors of poinsettia

Bright colors of red poinsettia painting

Bright colors for dark days

When days turn grey and light diminishes to almost none, we turn to warmth and strong colors which brighten up not only our walls, but also mood. I’ve always loved strong and clean colors. I want color sometimes to be the main statement. It is infrequently that color is all one will notice, but there’s so much more in a vibrant flower painting.

Poinsettia, favorite winter bloom

Poinsettias are not only my favorite for this dreary and dark period which includes end of November and almost all of December. I grow a few of them, and poinsettias survive quite well even the heat of July. My model plants are still alive. Some years they have more blooms, some – less.

Composition and flow of lines

I try to keep my lines flowing and, thus, recreate the flawless perfection of the natural plant. It is easy to draw poinsettias, not always that easy to capture the balance between the shape of leaves and petals and the vibrant color. Color transitions are soft, yet, difficult to photograph. It always surprises me how impossible it is to take photos of red on painting. In my opinion, red is the most difficult color to capture on a photo.

Recurrent theme

Poinsettias are one of flowers I have painted numerous times. Sometimes, that’s due to art classes since almost everybody would love to have such painting. Sometimes, when the poinsettia plant is around, I simply cannot resist painting it. The most recent painting is done with watercolor on Saunders-Waterford archival grade cotton paper. It isn’t my most favorite paper since it’s greyish and rather too absorbing, but I had started this painting a year ago, and so I just added to it and I assume it’s done.

Colors of red poinsettia

Time to restart promotions

Or rather, it is too late already. I don’t take anything too close to my heart. Therefore, I get through bad times and through good times unscathed. Better or worse, but somehow. The main motivation for me is the personal challenge. That means, to envision something in my own way and see how I can put it on a blank sheet of paper or white canvas. I hope you noticed not only color, but also everything else which makes art – art. This poinsettia painting will be soon available as an art print also.

I hope the next post won’t take that long. Meanwhile, all the best to you and enjoy!

Paint your own: Private art lessons

Have a look at my art prints and greeting cards at Fine Art America:

Art collections by Inese Poga

How to create better art with less effort

Watercolor sketch

Everything requires effort

Is it even possible to create great art with little effort? Yes, and no. The most important part is probably wasting less time and materials. We need a plan to achieve that. A good plan for creation of a painting means a sketching, drawing or a value sketch. In my personal experience, it is pencil, pen and watercolor sketch which is the best preparation stage for a painting.

Not only result matters

When somebody wants to apply for classes I am usually told this: “I’d really like to paint”. Something like that. Points to some landscape or floral, or still life. Basically, everybody is interested in the result and not that much in the path which led me to it. I spend a lot of time practicing and exploring the subject from different perspectives.

Exploring art supplies

If you are one of those artists-to-be who jumped straight to brushes and did not take your time to explore the elements of an artwork, I can understand you. People usually think watercolor and sketching is for watercolor artists, who mask out white spots or those who get ideal washes just by swinging around the brush with some paint on it. However, there is a missing link between the idea of our art and it’s draft.

Seeing subject artistically

The real life shows that any potential artist and anybody, who does art as hobby, would have gotten much better paintings sooner if they considered sketching as an important step. That refers to painting with any medium: watercolor, pastel, acrylic or oil. The truth is, they all originate in one place: in our brain, through our eyes and senses. Therefore, we should exercise our visual abilities and our visual perception. I’m talking more about importance to learn seeing in my previous posts:

Attraction of drawing and Overcoming painting issues

Lack of values, proportions and contrast

The problem with not well developing painting is not only the technique of applying paint. That usually works fairly well after a few attempts. The problem most often is in our eyes: we do not perceive values, shapes, proportions and potential composition; therefore, we cannot come up with a neat plan to make painting elements work.

Watercolor sketch
This sketch became a large watercolor painting afterwards

Advantage of sketching

Sketch is done much faster than a painting. Sketching out objects or just values, putting them in a draft composition allows making a decision momentarily if that will or won’t work. Sketch isn’t the entire painting, but by doing it one learns much more about their subject. We find out that we need to look at it more carefully, more intensely, more accurately.

Watercolor sketch
Thin and thick black pen and watercolor for creation of perspective sketch, 1-point perspective

Watercolor sketch
Rough black pen and watercolor wash sketch to use as reference for larger acrylic painting

Skills are based on knowledge

I can compare creating art with writing. When people say “I don’t want to sketch and I don’t want to know anything about drawing”, it is like somebody who intends to write a novel would say “I don’t want to know anything about spelling and grammar. I just want to write a novel, so give me the idea and off we go”. The entertaining painting events also do a bad service: not only the entire idea does not allow anybody to really learn anything about creation of art, but the approach is just so wrong and materials are so bad that many people get a wrong idea.

Sketch results in painting
White birches, recent class demo, 20 x 24 inches, painting is sold

Art is more than moving paint around canvas

When somebody is just moving paint around the canvas in hopes that it miraculously will take the right shape and become the right color, I must say, it won’t. Painting is a summary of things we put in it. It is also the energy we put in it. Therefore, the sooner one learns about values, relationship between light and dark areas, values, softness or roughness of edges, proportion and compositional layout, the faster their paintings take shape and have volume. The missing link between our idea and its incorporation into artwork is the value sketch. Creating value sketch and color sketch is not a waste of time and paint.

Art projects for any age: unblocking path to our hidden resources

Art classes and art projects for everybody

When somebody says they attend art classes, other people usually understand that it means practicing and learning to become an artist. That’s pretty much incorrect because as the current research reveals, there is no other activity more beneficial to prevention of brain aging, avoiding loss of memory and related disorders than drawing, painting and sketching. Art projects in art classes are usually suitable for beginners, for hobbyists and for anybody with interest in creation.

Brain exercises

The unique features of creation boost ability of the brain to create new neurons, as well as the existing have longer life span. Do you believe that brain aging is not inevitable? That is not true. Our brain is just as any other part of our body, yet, it contains all the vitally important tools for regulating and managing the other systems. Therefore, it’s crucial we keep exercising our brain every day, every hour and every minute. Anything which is not in use deteriorates and loses flexibility, it degenerates.

How drawing helps the brain flexibility

Drawing connects the brain function with our fine motor functions, and does even more than language. It allows expressing feelings, emotions, states of our mind, mood, our character, hidden thoughts and memories. As we draw, our hand transfers the ideas onto paper. It is a reflection of the most intense mental work, conversion of one type of energy into another. That is why drawing is used in determination of our brain health. It signalizes earlier than any other tests whether everything is still fine, or maybe it’s time to get advice.

Mental fitness

We need to move and exercise all our body parts, but mental exercise increases the rate at which our new brain cells survive and make functional connections to the existing networks of neurons. The more active a particular brain cell is, the more connections it develops with its neighboring neurons. That is where art classes come in. As we learn, we intensively think about each line we are putting down on paper or brushstrokes. This boosts our memory cells, thus, preventing them from cell death. Activities that require using all our senses, breaking our routines and engaging in new experiences are extremely good for brain health.

Age is not of essence

Age does not matter because it is equally important to have good memory in young and even more so in old age. Creative exercises like our Fun and Pleasure acrylic painting afternoons or sketching and watercolor exercises should not be undervalued. It seems like a play or some brushing around with different colors, but, in fact, it is a very strong brain ability booster. Images show my still life sketches, but students did very well, too. I’d like to simply publish only my sketches in this post.

My journey

I can share my own experience. I was reading a book a day and painting or drawing every single day for about 1 hour between ages 8 and 16. I was reading systematically through everything library had to offer. That involved history, geography, art, music, science of the corresponding century starting with ancient Egypt. We didn’t have internet back in the 70-s. When I moved on and started to study at the University I was only 17 because I could and I had developed extraordinary visual memory   thanks to reading, drawing and painting,

Best memory booster

I hardly had to study because I was able to remember up to 60 pages of text which I read through within some half an hour using the diagonal approach. I still can remember every single tough term in texts which I was translating 5 years ago. I never have to make any lists and write notes to myself. In my case, drawing and painting showed an enormously positive effect on memory, cognitive function and reasoning so far.

Art is important part of learning

For young children, artistic activities are as important as physical exercising, especially because they are under-using their own cognitive ability due to the overuse of mobile devices. We are always welcoming new participants in our art classes!

Pen line and watercolor wash

Plain and simple: creativity unblocks the pathways in our brain and gives us a chance to use our hidden resources, and there are so many. Therefore, I expect everybody getting involved in new art projects: simple, colorful, uplifting and very rewarding. Thanks for reading!