1. Watercolor Painting
The Basics

2. What are Watercolors? A medium Transparent Four components: Pigments
A binder that holds the pigment in suspension and fixes the pigment to the painting surface (usually gum arabic)
Additives like glycerin, ox gall, honey, preservatives: to alter the viscosity, hiding, durability or color of the pigment and vehicle mixture
Solvent, the substance used to thin or dilute the paint for application and that evaporates when the paint hardens or dries

3. The Brush Types of Brushes:
Rounds: round cross section with a tapering profile, widest near the ferrule (the "belly") and tapered at the tip (the "point"). These are general purpose brushes.
Flats: a flat wedge; the tuft appears square when viewed from the side and has a perfectly straight edge.
Filbert: A hybrid brush: a flat that comes to a point, like a round, useful for specially shaped brush strokes..
Fan: A small flat in which the tuft is splayed into a fan shape; used for texturing or painting irregular, parallel hatching lines.
A brush consists of three parts: the tuft, the ferrule and the handle.
Tuft: a bundle of animal hairs or synthetic fibers tied tightly together at the base
Ferrule: the metal sleeve surrounding the tuft, gives the tuft its cross sectional shape, provides mechanical support under pressure, and protects from water wearing down the glue joint between the trimmed, flat base of the tuft and the handle
The handle: typically shorter in a watercolor brush than in an oil painting brush, has a distinct shape—widest just behind the ferrule and tapering to the tip.
Painters typically hold the brush just behind the ferrule for the smoothest brushstroke

4. Tips to Remember when working with Watercolor
Know your medium and the effect you want to achieve – wet v. dry
Work from light to dark, build up value over layers
Build up color in layers
Have plenty of paper towels on hand
Can work like a kneaded eraser to lift up areas of wash or to correct mistakes
If you’re using the splatter technique, work neatly and don’t go overboard
Hold your paintbrush between your thumb and middle fingers. Using your index finger, pull back on the bristles and let them snap forward
Move around the paper – don’t work next to an area that’s still wet or your colors will bleed
Mask off areas to remain white with tape (painters or drafting)

5. How to mix color
Step One: To start your puddle of color, take your clean watercolor brush and touch the bottom of your clean water container. This will open up the brush hairs to the ferrule. Take your fully loaded brush, and either thump it a couple of times in your mixing well to release the water, or slide the brush against the rim of your mixing well to release the water.
Step Three: Stroke your watercolor brush across the second pigment. Bring your brush back to the puddle, and mix the new pigment with the first.
Step Two: Stroke your wet brush across the top of your first pigment. Bring your watercolor brush back to your puddle of water and mix the two together. Do not rinse out your brush. Just slide your brush against the rim of your mixing well once.
Step Four: Continue adding brush strokes of the new pigrment to your original color, until you get the color and value, you are trying to achieve.

6. Practical Exercises
Create a color wheel that includes the primary, secondary and tertiary colors.
Create a color mixing chart. Paint parallel, vertical stripes using each color in your palette. When these are dry, create the same pattern in horizontal rows.
Create a graded wash.
Create a flat wash.
Create a variegated wash using the wet-on-wet technique.
Create two experimental washes using salt and plastic bags.

7. Research Artists who worked with Watercolor
Albrecht Durer, Hare, 1502
William Blake, The Ancient of Days, 1794
JMW Turner, A Fire at the Tower of London, 1841
Thoman Moran, Castle Geyser, Upper Geyser Basin, 1871
James McNeill Whistler, Chelsea Children, 1880s
Paul Klee, Red and White Domes, 1914
Georgia O’Keefe, Evening Star IV, 1917
Edward Hopper
Winslow Homer
John Singer Sargent
Jamie Wyeth
Sukran Moral
Larry Bell
Don Bachardy
Cecily Brown, Untitled (Paradise) , 2014
Nadine Faraj, Too Wonderful, 2014

8. Ask Yourself
When you look at a watercolor painting, what adjectives come to mind? Why? What are they telling you about the medium?
What affect does watercolor have that set it apart from acrylic or oil paint?
What feeling or mood is created?
Will this affect help or detract from the artwork you are creating?
What subject matters seem to work best using watercolor paint? Why?