WATERCOLOR TUTORIAL

WATERCOLOR TUTORIAL

Although watercolor painting is many centuries old, its application as we know it today is fairly recent.Landscapes Paintings are one of the best way of exploring watercolor art.Nature has it's own flavour.
Light and Shadows  are always inspired me a lot.I believe that nothing like watching trees,sparkling stream,water dew on leaf in  the presence of sunlight.Bing an artist from heart and soul,such occasions knocks me to let my brush to play the magic over canvas

I think watercolor is the easiest type of painting to start with You would need a couple of brushes that come in different sizes. importantly, you should have the primary colors, a bigger tube of white and black. However, if you do not want to buy a black tube, you could simply create your own. Do this by combining all the primary colors.And you need palette,paper towels,watercolor paper etc Make full use of your pallet and create various shades of colors. Continue on sketching and painting like this and for sure your skill would start to develop in no time.

The beauty of watercolor painting lies in its fresh, transparent effect, and the approach must often be one in which the value, color, and drawing are accomplished in a single operation. The paper upon which you work is also a vital factor in imparting luminosity to a watercolor painting, because the whiteness of the paper showing through the transparent color aids in establishing a brilliant effect.

You will find that watercolor painting is an excellent way to experiment your artistic talents.

COLOR WHEEL

Primary, Secondary and Tertiary colors

There are three Primary colours: RED, YELLOW and BLUE. Primary colours cannot be created by mixing other colours.

Secondary colours are colours produced by mixing two primary colours. The secondary colour is midway between the two primaries. e.g. Mixing Red with Yellow will produce Orange, Mixing Blue with Yellow will produce Green and mixing Red with Blue will produce Violet.

Tertiary colours are colours produced by mixing a primary colour with one of its secondary colours. i.e. Mixing Red with Orange produces a Red Orange. Mixing Blue with Green produces a Blue Green. Mixing Yellow with Orange produces a Yellow Orange  etc.

COLOR WHEEL

The Colour wheel is a useful pictorial representation of the spectrum of colours and can be used to simplify the understanding of the interaction of colours used in a painting. It can also help with selection of a palette of colours, colour mixing, the natural greying of colours, and colour perspective (also called aerial perspective).

The simplified wheel opposite consists of the primary, secondary and tertiary colours explained above.  The three primary colours Red, Yellow and Blue are shown in the large circles. Between each of  the primary colours are the secondary colours, shown in the middle sized circles, which result from mixing the two adjacent primaries. The tertiary colours obtained from mixing the primaries with their respective secondary colours are shown in the small circles. As the colours progress around the wheel in any direction, each one is a gradual change from its adjacent colour.
The colours on the right of the wheel shown opposite are known as cool colours - colours which are blue or have a leaning towards blue (yellow-green to blue-violet)

The colours on the left, are known as warm colours - colours which are red or have a leaning towards red (yellow-orange to red-violet)

COMPLEMENTARY COLORS

Complementary colours are those which are opposite each other on the colour wheel. For example, red is opposite green. Green is made from the other two primary colours so it contains no red. When these complementary colours are put together in a picture the result is striking - think of poppies in a green field. Each colour makes the other 'sing' and have vibrancy.

Each primary has a secondary colour which is its complementary and vice versa:

• Orange is the complementary of Blue.
• Green is the complementary of Red and
• Violet is the complementary of Yellow,

Tertiary colours also have complementary colours but in these cases the colours opposite will also be tertiary colours:

• Yellow-Orange is the complementary of Blue-Violet
• Yellow-Green is the complementary of Red-Violet
• Red-Orange is the complementary of Blue-Green etc.

When complementary colours are mixed together,  they have a neutralising effect on each other so the resulting colour is duller (greyer). Adding red to green neutralises the green and continued addition of red will eventually result in a colourless grey or even black. What is really happening is that all three primaries are being mixed together which, in the right proportions, theoretically produces black. Further addition of red will produce a greyed red (brown). This neutralising effect is shown on the extended colour wheel opposite where the colours become duller or greyer as they approach the centre of the wheel. The colours produced in this way are often referred to as 'Neutral Colours'

So, when you need to produce a natural dulling or greying effect on green, such as the shadow area of a tree just look at the colour wheel and - add a little red! If it's a blue green tree - add a little Red Orange.
If you need a subtle grey for cloud shadow, use the blue used for the sky and add it's complementary.

Using a complementary colours in this way produces a more natural and exacting dulling than using black or grey paint. It will keep your colours clearer, fresher and more alive.

TINTS

Tints of a colour are produced when white paint is added to that colour. In the case of traditional English watercolour, the white of the paper is used as the 'White paint' component and tints are produced by adding more water to the colour allowing more light to be reflected from the surface of the paper through the transparent colours.
In the diagram opposite, the colour wheel is shown inside the white circle. Tints produced from the colours in the colour wheel are shown in the outer ring of colours