# Need Help with Technique!



## Colletteseline

Hello all,
I am new to watercolor and needing a bit of help on how to work it. I have always loved watercolor, especially combined with ink. I'm having a hard time getting the look that most good watercolor paintings have, that free flowing, running on the page look. Experienced painters always say, "just do what feels RIGHT." But that never works, you have to know the rules in order to break them. SO.
My biggest question is this:"How do you get that "watery" look, yet keep the color you're using very dark. For instance, if I wanted to paint something pure black on my watercolor, but still want the stroke to look watery, how do I do so without diluting the color? I can't seem to find a happy medium. I'll either put too much water and then it turns more gray than black, or not enough in order to keep the color true and the stroke won't look as "flowing" as I would like it to. 

I've posted a few links to what I'm talking about. It's not just black I have trouble with, but any color that I need to appear dark. How do I do THIS:


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## corydulos

Hello Colletteseline and, of course, welcome to Artist Forum. 

I don't have a smart, knowledgeable reply, but my dumb, uninformed ones are free of charge!

There are two sneaky ways I would use to emulate this look: 1) some type of food dye (Koolaid © pouches are cheap and just loaded with dye) or 2) paint over dry pastels (not oil pastes because oil and water don't mix ha ha!) 

Alternatively someone might be just dumping globs of paint out of a tube directly on the paper and just painting out of them instead of from a pallette. 

Okay, so that would be my _*three*_ ways of trying to emulate that look/effect.


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## George924

Hi Colletteseline, Great to have you here on the forums...My first thoughts on what you are wanting to achieve is to learn color theory, why certain colors work together and why others do not. Also, I would suggest learning about composition and design and how the piece flows when looked at.

The way I do most of my WC paintings with the ink drawings is to draw out the ink first...I usually work on hot press illustration board when using this method. 

I then will scan the ink drawing and then play around with color pencil on smaller printed paper to see what the color scheme I am looking for.

After I find the colors I find to suit the piece I begin working the hot press board with very loose and watered down pigment...the hot press board holds the water nicely and does not buckle much when water is applied. Using a hair dryer to speed the process up I then start to work the paint a little more saturated with the color to achieve the look I am after. 

But to really know how to start working watercolor is by doing it and getting the feel of how you work the paint...although I would suggest watered down pigment to start because it is a whole lot easier starting light and progressing to the darker finished hi-comp piece you are looking for. Save the details for the end and really make the piece fulminate...


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## Scott R Nelson

One of the things that I learned from a recent lesson is how to get good dark colors. I don't have the flowing look that you're after, since that's something that I intend to work on some more too.

The trick was to mix the paint to the consistency of gravy in the paint box, to make sure that you have enough, then it flows on pretty well and maintains its darkness.

What I was trying to do is to get some dark-looking leaves for a flower painting. The leaves were first underpainted with various lighter colors, then when dry, the thick dark color was put over top of it, then using the pointed end of the brush, veins were added to the leaves using the pointed brush end to remove paint and make the color underneath show through.

We also broke another "rule" by doing the dark leaves first, then the much lighter flower petals. I liked that technique so much that the first painting I did back at home used the same technique and I quite liked the result.

I happen to like high contrast watercolor paintings rather than the ones that use all light pastel colors.

One of these days I'll photograph what I've been doing lately and share with this group.


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## tricky raven

Welcome coletteseline  We're all learning from your great question and the advice given. I haven't painted with watercolors but just wondered if you sprayed a fine mist of water on the hot press board before you started painting, would that give the effect you want?


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