Lifting: using removal as a mark-making tool
Lifting is usually taught as an error-correction technique, which undersells it badly.
Neutral · lifting
· Working
30 min · 8′
Technique
Flat, graded, variegated, wet-in-wet, dry brush, resist and lift. Each entry carries the pigment ratios that produced it, the paper weight it was worked on, and the water load the sheet was holding.
300 gsm Damp
30 min · 8′
Backruns: turning the cauliflower into a tool
A backrun — the pale, hard-edged cauliflower that appears when water lands on a drying wash — is the classic beginner accident.
Burnt sienna · backrun
· Pushing
40 min · 8′
Wax and cling film: two resists that behave nothing alike
This is the one technique in the series where the surface texture is made by something other than a brush.
Teal · resist
· Working
45 min · 10′
Dry brush on rough stock: letting the paper do the drawing
Dry brush is the one watercolour technique where a rougher, cheaper paper is an advantage.
Ochre · dry-brush
· Working
30 min · 8′
Damp paper: the eight-to-twenty second window
Between soaked paper and dry paper there is a state that most painters never deliberately aim for.
Violet · wet-on-damp
· Working
35 min · 8′
Wet-on-dry: making an edge you can cut yourself on
Every soft edge in watercolour is easy; hard edges are hard.
Vermilion · wet-on-dry
· First sheet
25 min · 8′
Wet-in-wet: stretching the open time to six minutes
Wet-in-wet is not simply painting on damp paper.
Rose · wet-in-wet
· First sheet
30 min · 8′
Charging a wash: why the tilt window is fifteen seconds long
Charging means adding wet paint into wet paint so the two merge without a seam.
Sap green · flat
· First sheet
20 min · 8′
Flat wash on hot press: controlling a surface with no tooth
Hot press is the honest paper.
Cobalt · flat
· Pushing
40 min · 8′
Variegated wash: three colours that keep their own edges
A variegated wash is the opposite of a graded one.
Viridian · variegated
· Working
35 min · 8′
Graded wash: dissolving ultramarine into cerulean
A graded wash is not one wash, it is two washes sharing a wet seam.
Ultramarine · graded
· First sheet
30 min · 8′
A flat wash that actually dries flat
A flat wash is the first skill that separates a watercolour that reads as professional from one that reads as muddy.
Cerulean · flat
· First sheet
25 min · 9′