I’ve always been fascinated with watercolours and using watercolours within my work through secondary school, sixth form and now university.
I’ve spoke to many of people and they have said they cant master how to control watercolours or be able to blend and draw with them. So I figured i’ll make a How to use watercolour within Illustration.
First of all, if your starting from the beginning I’d suggest using water pencils first. Your able to get some water pencils from Hobby craft (Craft, 2019), or if your not from the UK your local craft stores. I only suggest this method first so that your able to get grips with using a paint and water and what best way for that id to have the paint in a pencil form. I’d suggest looking at this YouTube video of someone using watercolours called How to paint with watercolor pencils- painting ideas for beginners by Makoccino (Makoccino, 2018). After you have gotten the grips of using water pencils I then would suggest using water paints but in tablet form. This is a formula that is like chalk but it asks like water paint. You don’t get much pigment from the tablets but they are good to help get in the swing of using a pallet and water. You are able to pick up the watercolour pallet from the works (Supplies and Paint, 2019). Once you have a hang of the water pencils and the water tablets then you are able to start painting with actual water paints. The ones I use are from the works (Paint and Set, 2019). They tend to work really well and I haven’t found a better and cheaper alternative to these. I will say that if you spend a little more money the quality of your water paintings will improve and seem more better condition.
I am going to provide a little tutorial of which I can provide how to do a simple character using water colour and ink. I do this method all the time and I use it for my characters for my last project back in 2017-18. I can provide an example here.
As you can see its really simple and I can show you and with some simple steps on how you can do it yourself.
Step one:
First of all make sure you have all your supplies with you. This is including paper. I do recommend water paper however any paper can work just as well. You also need ink and water paint. As you can see I am using the water paint from the works of which I will provide imagery through out this tutorial.
Step two:
Create a shape of what you want to create. I am going to do a fox as thats what I am basing my multi textual children’s book on. As you see here I create a water mark with the waterpaint. I used the colour orange and I dipped my paint brush into the water only slight then placed a small amount of paint with the water on the brush.
Step three:
To give a bit of dimension to the water mark add white water paint to the area that is meant to be the cheek. You can do this by using water and a little amount of white paint, place on top of the orange and blend in, Using water keep blending until it looks like this but don’t use too much water as you’ll drench the paper.
Step four:
Its now time to add the ink to your water mark. Grab the ink and place into a small container and using a quill or a small paint brush. Your able to now start adding details.
Step five:
As you see here I added the ears to my water mark. It’ll start taking shape the more you add detail to the character you want.
Step six:
You can then start adding more detailing. Your able to create a body or tail. Your able to decide as you start adding more features with the ink.
Step seven:
Start adding the face. Or anything you want with the features. I added the eyes, nose and freckles.
Step eight:
Your now able to decide if its the tail or the body with the other water mark I am going to create a tail. So I extended the tail up to the ear and by using the ink I added the tail detailing. As seen here
Step nine:
I wanted to add some water marks on the ears and finishing up some touches.
Step ten:
You now have a water painting with ink of a fox or whatever character you decided to create. I hope you enjoyed the tutorial.
Until the next blog
Rach 😉
bibliography
Craft, H. (2019). Watercolour Pencils | Drawing Tools | Hobbycraft. [online] Hobbycraft.co.uk. Available at: https://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/art-supplies/drawing/watercolour-pencils [Accessed 14 Jan. 2019].
Craft, H. (2019). Watercolour Pencils | Drawing Tools | Hobbycraft. [online] Hobbycraft.co.uk. Available at: https://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/art-supplies/drawing/watercolour-pencils [Accessed 14 Jan. 2019].
Paint, W. and Set, R. (2019). Reeves 6 Tube Watercolour Starter Set | Watercolour Paint at The Works. [online] Theworks.co.uk. Available at: https://www.theworks.co.uk/p/watercolour-paint/reeves-6-tube-watercolour-starter-set/780804850970 [Accessed 10 Mar. 2019].
Supplies, A. and Paint, W. (2019). 11 Watercolour Tablets with Brush | Watercolour Paint at The Works. [online] Theworks.co.uk. Available at: https://www.theworks.co.uk/p/watercolour-paint/11-watercolour-tablets-with-brush/5052089218338 [Accessed 4 Jan. 2019].
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