Twelve Things to Love About Wet-In-Wet Watercolor

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I started out with Six Things to Love About
Wet-In-Wet Watercolor
and Ended Up with Twelve.

I've got lots to love and much to share about the
"Wonderful Ways of Wet-In-Wet Watercolor!"



"After a thousand watercolors you will find you have fallen in love
with paper and paint." ~ Rex Brandt

I usually start with a small layout sketch. A refined focal point drawing is later transferred to my paper. The majority of my paintings are started by wetting both sides of my 140lb. handmade cotton paper and painting wet on wet or dry on wet. This allows exuberant, loose background strokes to blend and mingle like only transparent watercolor can. As the paper dries, I tighten up and work on my center of interest and details, completing the piece, wet on dry.

Robert H. Schuller said; "Today's accomplishments were yesterday's impossibilities."

Neither Lee or Joyce had worked in wet-in-wet watercolor before and Joyce had never even drawn, let alone paint, prior to today! What do you think about their work? Hard to tell theirs from mine, isn't it?! I'm impressed. They left here very happy campers!

"Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day
when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything
to do, and you've done it." ~ Margaret Thatcher

"The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play."
~Arnold J. Toynbee

See Highlights Of More Workshops Here!

In one of my three day workshop handouts, I included a copy of this list from the September 12th, 2008 Painter's Keys letter, titled; "John Cage - Life is a Workshop"

John Cage's "Rules for Students and Teachers.":

1 Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.
2 General duties of a student--pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
3 General duties of a teacher--pull everything out of your students.
4 Consider everything an experiment.
5 Be self-disciplined--this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
6 Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail, there's only make.
7 The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It's the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
8 Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.
9 Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.
10 Break rules. Even your own rules. Leave plenty of room for X quantities.

John Cage (1912-1992) was a composer, print maker, performance artist, writer, philosopher, editor, teacher, mushroom expert, collaborator and poet. Fact is, John Cage had a lot of fun in his factory. Considered one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century, he produced works with one note, no notes, notes by chance, and a noted organ composition that takes 639 years to play.

Thinking about the life and "happenings" of John Cage, it's not difficult to see that joy, imagination and brilliance flow from factories. "Life," he said, "is a workshop."
©Robert Genn - The Painter's Keys


Here is a copy of two days of paintings from my own Sandy Sandy Factory.

A Photo From A Couple Of Days Of My Own "Sandy Sandy Factory Workshop"



After practicing watercolor techniques, students all wanted to stick to tonal studies on day two. Building on the first day's lessons, here is the demo I did.

No matter what medium or technique you use to depict your subject, always try to use a full range of values. Value is the lightness or darkness of a color. You can simplify value by thinking light, medium and dark. A good drawing should have all three. A tool I use frequently in drawing and painting is a value scale. You could easily make up your own any number of ways. The first one I made out of a page from a Pantone color formula guide mounted on a piece of foam core. The second one, The Don Rankin Value and View Finder, is available through Cheap Joes' Art Stuff. I like this one because there are holes in the card where the values are and you can hold it right over the area you're evaluating to get a really good match.

"Value drawings are one of the artist's best friends." ~ Harley Brown

After the students left for the day, our newest art critic took a peek at today's workshop paintings.

See more on my 7/10/08 Spirit Art Blog and Sketching Everyday.

I have used Arches 140 lb. Cold Press Paper almost exclusively for years.(Workshop participants can buy a sheet from me to try.)

I wet both sides of the paper and paint on a nonporous tile board (or panelboard)
surface. (Found at most home improvement stores in 4' x 8' sheets, they will usually cut the board in various sizes for you there.) I have boards here to use for workshops.

Below is a photo of the brushes I use.

The idea in my approach is to use the biggest brush you can and still get the job done.

For my rounds, I use a lower quality synthetic brush that comes to a good point, but doesn't lose it's hairs.

Notice on my flats that there is a beveled edge on the tip for scraping marks onto the paper.

The bristle fan brush is occasionally used for texture and spatteing.

My palette is a Robert E. Wood covered plastic.

My Pigments -

I prefer DaVinci brand for their consistency, quality and price.

The basis for this combination of pigments stems from the teachings of Tony Couch and Monte Guynes. If you paint long enough, I'm sure you'll come up with a few variations and preferences of your own.

My Colors from top left clockwise

Burnt Sienna
Yellow Ochre or Raw Sienna
Naples Yellow * - love this color, use it often, has white in it.
Lemon Yellow
Gamboge - the bright color in the middle, nice - not necessary.
Cadmium Yellow
Olive Green - Lukas brand - love this - not necessary - can mix it.
Cobalt Blue * - I use it occasionally, not necessary, has white in it.
Viridian, Prussian or Phthalo Green - not necessary but handy.
Prussian or Phthalo Blue
Ultramarine Blue
Cerulean Blue * - not pictured - use occasionally - not necessary.
Turquoise * - not pictured - love this color, use it often - not necessary.
Cadmium Orange - not necessary - can be mixed.
Cadmium Red
Alizarin Crimson
Permanent Rose, Rose Madder - not pictured - can be used instead of Alizarin.
Ivory Black - not pictured - Sometimes useful - not necessary, can be mixed.

*In transparent Watercolor, you should stay away from colors with white in them. If you must, use *these colors in moderation. Pure colors with no white added will give you a cleaner, more transparent, luminescent hue.

The only other supplies you will need besides, brushes, palette and paint, is a 2H or HB pencil, a kneaded eraser, (tissues, paper towels or a sponge), a small water container and a spray bottle.

Here's a picture of my little sketching box and two different sized sketch books that I take along with me on trips. You could add a red, a blue and a yellow to this and do color watercolors with this set up. I used blackish pigments here for my watercolor sketching technique. See my pencil and wash drawings on my Drawing Everyday Blog.

My mantra to my students at my Spirit Art Workshops is; "The process here is more important than the product." As author of "The Artist's Way", Julia Cameron said; "You will learn to enjoy the process and to surrender your need to control the result. You will discover the joy of practicing your creativity. The process, not the product, will become your focus." I help my students to successfully embrace the discovery of seeing, study, skills and most importantly of self.

Quotations on Discovery:

"Painting is not a means of communication or even self-expression, but rather
a process of discovering, or uncovering." ~ Louis de Brocquy

"To find one's way anywhere one has to find one's door, just like Alice,
you see. You take too much of one thing and you get too big, then you take
too much of another and you get too small. You've got to find your own
doorway into things." ~ Paula Rego

"A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind."
~ Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

My Workshop Students' Wet-in-Wet Trees were very successful!

So much improvement was accomplished over such a short amount of time. It's truly amazing!!

Quotations on Individuality:

"How do you put your distinctive stamp on your paintings? One way is to limit
your equipment, brushes and number of colors." ~ Anonymous

"Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art."
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"No one else but you can make your marks. Listen to your bones. Speak with
your spirit. Edit with your head. Live with your heart." ~ Susan Holland

Lee Gates is a focused student who works hard and practices frequently on her own. After a private art lesson here at my studio this week, Lee made lots of headway and a few breakthroughs. She left here "walking on cloud 9"! Look how happy she is in the picture below.

Mark Twain said about individuality;"It were not best that we should all think alike, it is difference of opinion that makes horse races." In art, it is what makes an artist stand out from the crowd. Of course, there must also be some degree of technical skill and design knowledge to execute a successful piece of art. I believe it is its individual uniqueness however, that gives any art it's immortality.

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