subject: How Can I Watercolour A Landscape Onto Some Birthday Cards [print this page] Often we discover that artists will apply their watercolour techniques to birthday cards and this editorial gives all the information desired to getting started to paint in watercolour.
Getting Going:
To begin painting in watercolour, you require 3 simple objects;
Some good quality beginners" materials
An object to paint
A basic technique
Equipment Needed:
A beginners paint tray of water colours can consist of the below paints:
Lemon Yellow Hue
Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue
Cadmium Red Hue
Permanent Rose
Alizarin Crimson Hue
Ultramarine
Intense Blue
Viridian Hue
Raw Umber
Yellow Ochre
Burnt Sienna
Chinese White
Extra Supplies:
Four main brushes
Paper
Pencil & Eraser
Board or Hard Surface
Roll of Masking tape
Water pot or container
Flat Plastic Palette/Tray
Reasonable size board for your Birthday cards
What to paint - Locating a subject:
Many artists don't find it easy to be encouraged by the commonplace everyday subjects. Albeit, real artists can turn the very normal thing into something special by simply looking at it creatively. It may be a landscape, a building, an inside scene such as a bedroom, or still life such as flowers or crockery. If you feel really confident you might want to attempt a portrait (of the person you"re delivering the birthday card to), botanical painting or even an abstract. Your painting does not have to be precise or absolute, remember art is in the eye of the artist not the critic.
Painting a Watercolour Landscape:
Landscapes are believed to be the best for beginners and the following basic technique should be applied. 4 general rules are valid while colouring a landscape.
Your View - As an artist you will be looking to construct a visual portrayal of your preferred scene, it's not a duplicate but an illusion of what you are painting. Bear in mind, it is how you see it and paint it that makes it a unique work of art for those birthday cards and also canvas.
Aerial Perspective - Take your time to look at the scene you would like to paint and four different aspects should be evident. Initially the items in the distance will look smaller. Second, the distant items won't be as detailed. Third, colours become less vivid the further away they are. Fourthly, as objects diminish their tones become paler and less contrasted.
Composition - Using your pencil, lightly sketch the outline of the landscape. Be sure to set out a horizon, middle and foreground within your landscape.
Generally, this works as the horizon being the background of the painting with the horizon line being about one 3rd from the bottom of the page. Nearly all novices start drawing the horizon half way down the page - however our eye only sees 30-40% of the "surface matter" in any given scene and the remainder is sky.
Once you have created the basic out line of your landscaping, the colour is now ready to be applied into your picture.
Selecting a paint tray of colours:
The common practice is to maintain a broad paint tray of around twelve paints and add to it for particular requirements. For example, you will notice that a lot of birthday cards are usually vivid in colour and therefore you may want to add some brighter contrasts to your painting.
After you have the initial palette, the subsequent thing is to decide on a suitable board.
Which board?
Watercolour board is mould made board and is regularly acid free giving it a longer life without deterioration. The board is pre-sized making it possible for the artist to sponge and erase (if necessary) without causing any damage.
Basic Technique:
Squeeze a pea-sized quantity from your watercolour tubes or dab a wet paint brush into your watercolour pan - try to begin with 3 primary colours - a red, blue and yellow.
Place some blue on the sky using a rounded brush, while dabbing the colour with a wet handkerchief to produce cloud shapes by lifting out the pint.
Then, work onto the distant horizon line using muted colours (i.e. thinned blue, grey and yellow diluted with water) then onto the onto the middle ground section using more blues and green and then onto the foreground using yellowy-greens and stronger, more vivid colours - not weakened with a lot of water. Note: For those painting a medium sized birthday card, you may want to reduce the size of the outline before commencing to paint.
As soon as you have built those colours you could then build up a succession of layers to suit your style. If you are especially adventurous, you may want to try the wet-into-wet method. This is where the colors mix whilst they are still wet. This creates beautiful, delicate tones for your birthday cards and is exceptional for glum, atmospheric paintings so as to lighten up the cards for the individuals having the birthday.
A different system, is generating a watercolour wash, which offers a lot of special effects for instance, graduation, granulation and flecked. Avoiding being too technological, a wash is in truth where a colour varies as a result of the water content mixed with the raw colour. Such effect is formed by starting at the top of a dried out piece of paper. Paint a band of darkened colour (ultramarine blue), before adding additional water to the paint brush and make a subsequent band beneath the first. Continue doing this until you have a graded wash i.e. the colour changes from darkened to pale and in some cases transparent. While colouring birthday cards, you don"t need to worry about adding the words 'happy birthday', as the message may be written on the inner side the greeting card with the front showing your artistic talent.
Some Finishing Advice:
DON"T - fiddle around with the painting; once the birthday card is complete, do not add extra touches thinking you will improve it.
DON"T - Let your palette become overly wet.
Let the colour dry between stages of application except for when you are employing the wet-into-wet method. Maybe use a hairdryer to improve the drying time.
Continuously refer to the subject you are painting and to your work of art.
Begin painting from the upper of the board.
Always wash your equipment with cleaning soap and water.
Paint loosely; don"t get drawn into accuracy. Remember that it"s a painting not a photocopy.
