introduction to watercolor- presented at mechacon 2014
DESCRIPTION
A panel on watercolor presented at Mechacon 2014. Much improved from past watercolor panels, this presentation includes new artwork, new examples, and new slides.TRANSCRIPT
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Watercolors
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Becca Hillburn
I'm a childrens comic artist and freelance illustrator originally from New Orleans but currently living in Nashville, TN. I graduated from SCAD with a Masters Degree in Sequential Art in 2013, and from the University of New Orleans with a bachelors degree in Hypermedia (digital art). My main focus is currently watercolor comics, and my hobbies include writing for my blog, Keep on Truckin' Nattosoup and attending conventions as an artist.
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Heidi Black
Heidi is a sequential artist and illustrator from dayton, ohio. She likes cats and potatoes and hates writing bios. Her work is at electricabyss.com, including her tutorial artbook, Electricabyss, and her newest comic, Sons of Fire.
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materialsBrushes!
Paper!
Gator board!Tape!
Paint!
Patience!
Water!Paper towels!
Pencil!
Gouache!
Palette!
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papersFluid watercolor paper: cheap, bound on two sides, very convenient
Arches watercolor blocks: bound on all sides, rough texture, expensive. Made of cotton
Arches watercolor paper: needs to be stretched, not bound on all sides
Canson montval: 7” kara painted on these
Blick studio: children's illustrations
Watercolors can also be painted on bristol, wet media boards, illustration board, or other thick papers
140 lb is standard for watercolor paper. 300Lb is heavyweight
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Paints (tubes & pans)Tubes can be squeezed into pans and dried out (both of us do this)
Brands we like: holbein, yarka, soho, winsor-newton, shin-han, Sennelier, blick, da vinci, marie's,
Okay-ish brands: grumbacher, “student” brands (cotman), sakura koi
Avoid: reeves!!!!!!!!! anything in a multi-material set, anything marked “non-toxic,” anything marketed towards kids, anything with the word “value”
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Paints (liquid watercolors)What in the world are these?
Artificial pigments, super bright, low light-fastness
More permanent than watercolors – act more like stains or inks
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Swatch Test colors (for future reference)
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Watercolor pencilsNot as bad as you think
Good brands: derwent inktense, caran d'ache
Okay brands: derwent
Lets avoid these, shall we: prismacolor, staedler, crayola
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brushesDifferent shapes for different uses: flat, filbert, round, mop, liner, fan, other specialty shapes
Come in a variety of fibers: sable hair, squirrel, kolinsky sable, goat, boar, horse, synthetic
Good brands: utrecht, blick, creative mark rhapsody, winsor-newton, da vinci, escoda, princeton
Avoid: value brands, student brands, hobby brushes
Also available: water brushes
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Color theoryPrimary colors: red, yellow, blue.
More mixable colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, black
A good set of 12 basic colors: paynes grey, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, burnt umber, warm and cool red, warm and cool blue, lemon yellow, sap green, viridian, lamp black
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Color theoryMix complimentary colors (opposites) to get more interesting shadow colors
Using mixes rather than pure colors makes interesting colors and cool separations
Pure colors versus mixes (right)
Left: orange and burnt siennaShaded with violet and blue.
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Color theoryUse washes of the same color to build depth
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Color theoryUse the same color for shadows throughout to create unity
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techniquesGraphite transfer
Stretching paper
Washes
Brush techniques (wet/wet, wet/dry, dry/wet dry/dry)
Dropping
Multi-material techniques (wax resist, masking, salt, alcohol)
Overworking (no! Bad!)
Corrections (scrubbing, gouache)
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Demo time!