As I mentioned in my last post, this next set of alphabet watercolors was conceived as a rainbow background with white negative-space capital slab serif letters, one on each 5"x7" piece of watercolor paper. Today's post is going to be all about the process of painting the first 8 letters - A through H.
First, I taped down the pieces of paper in a 4x2 grid so that I could paint them quickly and work on multiple paintings at the same time. Each piece has a capital letter lightly traced on it in pencil.
Next, I went through the paintings one and a time and did the backgrounds. I started by putting uncolored water down on the paper all around the letter, being careful not to let the water get into the letter. Once I put pigment down, the color will flow into wherever water is, but not cross onto any parts of the paper that I left dry. This is known as a wet-on-wet technique, since you're putting wet, watery pigments on top of an initial layer of water.
I made sure my palette had red, yellow, light green, dark green, blue, and violet ready to go, with fresh pigment for a deep, saturated color. It's hard to get a good orange straight from the tube, so I counted on my red and yellow pigments to make an orange for me on the paper, as they blended together.
I started at the top with a bold stroke or two of highly saturated red. Then I went down a little ways and added highly saturated yellow, bringing some of the yellow up to meet the red, mixing it into the red with my brush to make orange. I then added some light green and dark green below the yellow, letting that seep into the yellow a bit. At the bottom, I added dark blue and violet.
In the images below you can see the process of how the paint color fades a little once it dries. I painted the "A" first, and then moved onto the "B." In the 10-15 minutes that I spent working on the background for the "B," the background on the "A" had already started to dry. By the time I got to "C" and "D," "A" & "B" were a lot lighter. Because I knew the colors would fade a little as they dried, I made sure to go as bright and saturated as possible from the get-go.
I also wanted to add some paint splatter for visual interest, and started to do some preliminary paint splatter for the first 4 paintings at this point. Because "C" and "D" were not quite dry yet, some of the splatter started just seeping into the background, though. So I paused on adding more paint splatter until the backgrounds were a little drier first.
Below you can see the first 8 paintings with their backgrounds and preliminary paint splatter complete. I stopped here for the night, to let this layer full dry before continuing.
The next day, once the first layer was dry, I returned to the paintings to add some larger dots of paint splatter. Because the background was now fully dry, these paint splatters did not blend into the background, but stayed on top. This is called a wet-on-dry technique, when you add wet paint on top of dry paint/paper.
In the second close-up image, you can see how the paint splatter dots are still shiny, because they're wet. The rest of the painting is now matte, because it's already dry.
The image below shows the materials I used for these paintings - six tubes of watercolor paint, plus two Sharpie markers. Once all of the paint was dry, I went and added a few little details with orange and green Sharpie. I outlined lines that weren't quite crisp (due to my fast background painting the day before), sharpening or making somewhat wavy lines a little straighter. I also repeated some thin lines so that there would be two or three lines next to each other - for visual rhythm and detail, and to further add to the handmade look of the design.
Finally, here are the finished paintings with all three layers - the rainbow background, the red, green, blue, and yellow paint splatter, and the orange and green thin line details drawn in Sharpie.
Once everything was dry and finished, I untaped the paintings.
Check back soon for the next set of 8 letters: I through P!
First, I taped down the pieces of paper in a 4x2 grid so that I could paint them quickly and work on multiple paintings at the same time. Each piece has a capital letter lightly traced on it in pencil.
Next, I went through the paintings one and a time and did the backgrounds. I started by putting uncolored water down on the paper all around the letter, being careful not to let the water get into the letter. Once I put pigment down, the color will flow into wherever water is, but not cross onto any parts of the paper that I left dry. This is known as a wet-on-wet technique, since you're putting wet, watery pigments on top of an initial layer of water.
I made sure my palette had red, yellow, light green, dark green, blue, and violet ready to go, with fresh pigment for a deep, saturated color. It's hard to get a good orange straight from the tube, so I counted on my red and yellow pigments to make an orange for me on the paper, as they blended together.
I started at the top with a bold stroke or two of highly saturated red. Then I went down a little ways and added highly saturated yellow, bringing some of the yellow up to meet the red, mixing it into the red with my brush to make orange. I then added some light green and dark green below the yellow, letting that seep into the yellow a bit. At the bottom, I added dark blue and violet.
In the images below you can see the process of how the paint color fades a little once it dries. I painted the "A" first, and then moved onto the "B." In the 10-15 minutes that I spent working on the background for the "B," the background on the "A" had already started to dry. By the time I got to "C" and "D," "A" & "B" were a lot lighter. Because I knew the colors would fade a little as they dried, I made sure to go as bright and saturated as possible from the get-go.
I also wanted to add some paint splatter for visual interest, and started to do some preliminary paint splatter for the first 4 paintings at this point. Because "C" and "D" were not quite dry yet, some of the splatter started just seeping into the background, though. So I paused on adding more paint splatter until the backgrounds were a little drier first.
Below you can see the first 8 paintings with their backgrounds and preliminary paint splatter complete. I stopped here for the night, to let this layer full dry before continuing.
The next day, once the first layer was dry, I returned to the paintings to add some larger dots of paint splatter. Because the background was now fully dry, these paint splatters did not blend into the background, but stayed on top. This is called a wet-on-dry technique, when you add wet paint on top of dry paint/paper.
In the second close-up image, you can see how the paint splatter dots are still shiny, because they're wet. The rest of the painting is now matte, because it's already dry.
The image below shows the materials I used for these paintings - six tubes of watercolor paint, plus two Sharpie markers. Once all of the paint was dry, I went and added a few little details with orange and green Sharpie. I outlined lines that weren't quite crisp (due to my fast background painting the day before), sharpening or making somewhat wavy lines a little straighter. I also repeated some thin lines so that there would be two or three lines next to each other - for visual rhythm and detail, and to further add to the handmade look of the design.
Finally, here are the finished paintings with all three layers - the rainbow background, the red, green, blue, and yellow paint splatter, and the orange and green thin line details drawn in Sharpie.
Once everything was dry and finished, I untaped the paintings.
Check back soon for the next set of 8 letters: I through P!
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