Introducing Watercolor Wednesdays!

Ahmm… installs Alton Brown voice module Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first installment of Watercolor Wednesdays. I am DeltaFiveZeroFive, your friendly r/ArtBuddy robot.

Tonight kiki_havoc and I have prepared a special challenge for each and every one of you, but before I continue, let’s hear some words of wisdom about the wonderful world of watercolor from the resident wielder of water, kiki_havoc!

Hi everyone, your watercolor mod here! Now, I am by no means an expert painter, but I have approximate knowledge of many things ;D First off, the following tips are based on the assumption that you are brand new to watercoloring, so if you are experienced, bear with me or take it as a refresher :) You can also skip to the TL;DR at the bottom, if you are so inclined.

• You can use any watercolor paint you like, be it in a tube or already in a pan. Be aware that different quality paints give a variety of different hues and saturation of colour, so you will have to paint accordingly. Personally, I have a field sketch box that has an assortment of colours, as well as tubes of paint. If you are looking to start painting, try getting a field box, as they are fairly inexpensive and get you a variety of colours in a compact kit.

• Since watercolor is water-based, regular paper doesn’t really work to paint on. Cold-press watercolor specific paper pads are available fairly cheaply at any art store, and you want to get a reasonable size too, around 9x12” for multipurpose painting. Different qualities of paper have different textures, tones, and thicknesses, so choose wisely!

• Brushes! You can basically use anything that marks your paper in a pleasing way, but if you want a brush, try grabbing a #4 and #10 Round brush, a ½” or ¾” flat brush, and a mop brush. The field kit I recommended above comes with a water brush ‘pen’, which has a brush pen-style tip and a water reserve inside of it, where you can control the water flow by squeezing it. What you use is ultimately personal preference, but you can’t go wrong with a #4 and #10 Round :D

• Last point, I promise! Watercolor is about letting the light through. Don’t be afraid to leave your highlights untouched by paint. You will also only get darker values by LETTING THE PAINT DRY and coming back to it. This is critical. If you try to paint over it too soon, 9/10 times you will feel grumpy and upset that you ‘messed’ it up, so be aware of what you want your final painting to be. Patience is key! There are crazy amounts of resources out there, feel free to google around for something that makes sense to you.

If you find yourself intrigued, you can check out r/watercolor101 and r/watercolor for more inspiration! James Gurney has a great post on watercolour supplies, and just a great blog in general. Feel free to send me a message as well if you are stuck or have questions, and I can answer them to the best of my ability :D

Thank you kiki_havoc for the amazing insight into the world of watercolor.

Now that everyone is up to speed, I present tonight’s dish: Tomato Mozzarella Basil Salad!

kiki_havoc, will you please explain the rules to this deliciously colorful event?

Gladly! Watercolor Wednesday is about getting the artistic brain going by letting you experiment with a new media alongside our other blossoming artists. We chose food as the subject for now, and included a recipe as the theme to get people interested in creating a simple dish. Now, if you don’t have any of the ingredients handy, or you don’t want to make the dish, but you still want to paint, feel free to use reference photos. Please keep in mind that the intention of WW is to get you to paint from life, but sometimes we don’t have the opportunity to do so.

Our theme for September will be Herbs, and this week’s spotlight herb is Basil. This ideally will be fresh basil, but you can use dried if the need arises :D If you are feeling super ambitious, feel free to paint any or all of the ingredients in the salad!

Every Wednesday there will be a new recipe with a new ‘spotlight herb’ as the painted ingredient, so stay tuned!! :D And with that, let us begin this wonderful walk in the world of watercolor!

(You can always drop into our IRC and chat with a great group of artists about anything art related, so come check it out!)

Oh, and if any of you upstanding watercolor wizards wish to share their wisdom, please do so in the comments below. Your insight into the ways of pigment and water will be much appreciated!

TL; DR: Weekly watercolor themed group paint. New Theme posted every Wednesday. September's theme is Herbs; this week's (Sept 9-16th) spotlight herb is: Basil in a Tomato Mozzarella Basil salad. Paint all of the ingredients or just basil, your choice. Have fun!