HOW TO PAINT IN WATER-COLORS.
THERE is a certain charm in water-color painting—a charm distinctly its
own—which lies, as Penley says, “in the beauty and truthfulness of its
aerial tones.” Without this quality a water-color, as a water-color, is
a failure.
This transparency of effect does not depend alone upon the manner of
painting or the colors employed, but much rests with the paper we use.
In the days when our mothers and grandmothers were taught painting at
school, the finest, smoothest cardboard was thought necessary; but we
have since learned that the flat, smooth paper tends decidedly toward
producing a flat, smooth effect in the picture painted upon it, while
the rough, uneven surface of the paper now in use helps to produce
depth and atmosphere. Therefore it is always best to have rough paper
to paint upon. We give below the
=Materials for Water-Color Painting.=
1. A block of rough drawing or water-color paper.
It is better to buy it in blocks than by the sheet, as it is much more
easily handled, and is always ready for use.
2. Brushes. The best brushes are made of sable, and although costing
more to begin with, it is really more economical to purchase them than
to choose the less expensive camel’s-hair; for the sable are by far the
most satisfactory, and will last much longer. Three or four brushes are
sufficient. As Devoe & Co. number them, they should range between No.
3, which is small enough for ordinary painting, and No. 19, for clouds,
backgrounds, etc.
3. Colors. A tin sketching-box of moist colors, which also contains a
palette, is very useful, but the colors can be bought separately in
tubes or pans.
Water-color painting seems by its qualities to be especially adapted to
flowers and landscapes, and as this is to be a chapter, not a book, on
water-colors, we will confine ourselves to the principal points to be
observed in these two departments, and will commence with the
=Flowers.=
Few oil-paintings, however well executed, give the delicate, exquisite
texture of a flower as nearly as water-colors. The semitransparency of
a rose-petal, the juicy, translucent green of the young leaf, it is
difficult to truthfully represent in other than these colors, whose
essential quality is transparency. To preserve this transparency of
color, everything about the painting must be kept exceedingly neat. The
brushes must be thoroughly washed before using them for a different
tint from that already upon them, and plenty of water, changed
frequently, is necessary.
Having arranged your materials conveniently upon a table, place
your paper so that it will lie at an angle slanting toward you, not
perfectly flat upon the table; this can be done by putting books under
the edge farthest from you, thus raising it up. Stand the flowers you
wish to copy in such a position that the light will fall upon them only
from one direction and produce decided shadows; the effect will then
be much better than when the light is more diffused.
[Illustration]
Always arrange your model exactly as you want to paint it, and leave
nothing to your idea of how it ought to look. If you do not intend to
have any background other than the white paper, place something white
behind your flowers. If you want a colored background, arrange the
color you have chosen behind the flowers, and paint it as you see it.
Commence your work by sketching lightly, as correctly and rapidly as
you can, the outline of your flower. Try something simple at first;
say a bunch of heart’s-ease or pansies, and when drawing them try to
get the character of both flower and leaf. Observe how the stem curves
where it is attached to the flower, and at what angles the stems of the
flowers and the leaves join the main stalk. Given character, an outline
drawing painted in flat tints will closely resemble nature; without it,
the most beautifully finished painting will not look like the flower it
is intended to represent.
[Illustration: Painting in Water-Colors.]
When your outline is drawn in, dip your largest brush in clear water,
and go over the whole surface of your paper, then place a piece of
blotting-paper over the paper to soak up the water, leaving it simply
damp, not wet.
If you are using tube colors, have ready on a porcelain palette, or
ordinary dinner-plate, these colors: crimson lake, cobalt blue, indigo,
Prussian blue, and gamboge. Put in your lightest tints first, leaving
the white paper for the highest light; then paint in your darker tints
and shadows, and get the effect.
If your flower is what we call the johnny-jump-up, the lowest petal
will be yellow. Paint this in with a light wash of gamboge, leaving, as
we have said, the white paper for touches of high light. The two upper
petals will probably be a deep claret-color; this is made by mixing
crimson lake and cobalt blue, the crimson lake predominating. The two
central petals may be a bluish lavender, and this color is made by
mixing a little crimson lake with cobalt blue. Use plenty of water; but
do not let it run, and keep the colors of the petals distinct.
Paint the stems and leaves, where they are a rich green, with a mixture
of gamboge and Prussian blue, and where they appear gray as the light
touches them, a pale wash of indigo will give the desired effect.
Keep your shadows broad and distinct, and your tints as flat as you
can. Leave out details altogether in your first paintings, and add them
afterward only when you can do so without spoiling the effect.
When a tinted background is desired, put it in quickly in a flat tint,
before commencing the flowers. It is best not to bring the tint quite
up to the outline, as a narrow edge of white left around the flower
gives a pleasant, sketchy look to the painting.
=Landscapes.=
In your first studies from nature keep to simple subjects, and treat
them simply, without any attempt at elaboration. Choose, for instance,
a picturesque corner of an old fence, with perhaps a bit of field
and sky for the background. Sketch in the principal features in the
foreground in outline, and indicate the horizon, if it comes in the
picture.
Penley says, in his “System of Water-Color Painting,” “White paper is
too opaque to paint upon without some wash of color being first passed
over it,” and he recommends a thin wash of _yellow ochre_ and _brown
madder_, which should be put all over the surface of the paper except
on the high lights in the foreground, which are best left crisp and
white.
Notwithstanding what Penley says in this matter, it must be borne in
mind that some artists do not believe in successive washes, but claim
that the color desired should be put upon the white paper at once.
If the yellow tint is used, let it become quite dry and then wash it
over with a large brush and _clean_ water; then, as in the flower
painting, soak up the water with blotting-paper; the blotting-paper
must also be quite clean. While the paper is damp, not wet, begin with
a blue tint—a light wash of cobalt will give it—and put in the sky _in
a flat tint_; bring the same color down all over your sketch except in
the high lights. The blue tint gives atmosphere and distance. Let your
paper again become quite dry, and then wash it over as before, in clear
water.
The process of laying on color and lightly washing over it afterward
should be repeated several times, “and the result will be a transparent
aerial tone.”
Keep your extreme distance bluish, your middle distance warmer in tone,
but not too strong, and the principal objects in your foreground strong.
Leave out small objects, and with light and shade seek to obtain the
effect.
Keep your colors pure or your sketch will be dull.
Contrast has much to do in producing strength and character. Phillips
says that, “in aiming at opposition of color, we must select that
which gives force to the foreground, and consequently communicates
the appearance of air in the distance. Thus, if the general tone of
the light be warm and yellow, we should have blues and purples in the
foreground; if the lights be cool, reds and yellows in the foreground
give atmosphere to distance, as neither of these colors in a positive
state is found in the middle or remote distance.”
The three principal contrasts are blue opposed to orange, red to green,
and yellow to purple; and “a good first lesson in sketching in color
will be to put in your shadows with color opposite to the object in
light; and by carrying out this principle of opposition throughout
the scale you will obtain an endless variety of contrasts.” It is the
general rule in most painting to have cool shadows to warm lights, and
warm shadows to cool lights. We all know that a _green_ picture is
very disagreeable, and although a green field _is_ green, it must not
be made intensely so. An untrained eye will not see how nature tones
down the vivid color with shadows, and softens it with the atmosphere;
but when the eye has learned to look at nature in the right way this
difficulty will be overcome. Howard says, “green must be sparingly
used, even in landscapes, whose greatest charm consists of vegetation.”
Foliage in some form will present itself in almost every landscape, and
it is therefore necessary to have a few general principles to guide
you in this important feature. In sketching trees be sure to get the
character of their trunks, limbs, branches, and general form; also the
texture of the bark, rough or smooth. You will see that the foliage
appears in layers, one above another. Sketch in the outlines of the
principal layers, where they are tipped with light; then go over the
whole tree with a local color, and afterward separate the light from
shadow. Each mass is edged with light, while its base is in shadow, as
a rule. Omit _details_, and keep to your _masses_ of light and shade.
If your tree is in the foreground, leave the white paper for crisp
touches of high light. The tone of your fence will probably be gray,
but do not take it for granted that it is _all_ gray; look for other
colors, and you will find brown, blue, green, and sometimes red. Put
these in as you see them, letting the edges melt into each other, as
they will do when the paper is damp; but have each color pure, and do
not try to mix them.
=Painting from Notes=
is not as difficult as one might imagine. With a little practice it
is easily learned. The following directions will tell how to paint a
sunset on the meadows, from notes made at sunset on the meadows on Long
Island.
[Illustration: How to Paint a Sunset in Water-Colors.]
Take a piece of Whatman’s rough drawing-paper, or a kind that is
termed egg-shell cartoon, the size decided upon for your picture.
Have ready a large dish of clean water, brushes, and paints. Draw a
pencil-line along the centre of your paper for your horizon, Fig.
151; then directly on the line paint a streak of vermilion. Put the
color on quite damp, and make it about half an inch broad, extending
one-fourth of an inch on either side of the horizon-line, Fig. 152.
Next, quickly paint a yellow streak above and below the red one, making
each streak of the same size and parallel, and leaving a little white
paper between the different colors, Fig. 153. With a clean brush dipped
in clean water carefully moisten the paper between the streaks, and
allow the edges of the colors to mingle, Fig. 154. Before this has time
to dry, paint a blue streak above and below, about half an inch from
the yellow, Fig. 155; then with the clean brush dampen the white paper
between, being careful not to get it too wet; there should be just
enough moisture to enable the colors to flow and mingle at the edges,
Fig. 156. This may be aided by holding the paper first one side up and
then the other, until the edges are evenly blended. Now, before the
horizon is quite dry, while it is still damp enough to cause the paint
to spread, fill a brush with Payne’s gray, which should be rather dark
and not too wet, touch the point of your brush here and there along the
horizon, now a little above and now a little below, and you will find
that the paint will spread and make excellent trees for the distance,
Fig. 157.
[Illustration: _Fig. 159_]
When your work is dry enough to paint over without spreading the color,
mix some green and black, and green and brown; paint in the meadow,
using the color made of green and black for the extreme and middle
distance, the color made of green and brown for the foreground, leaving
spaces for streams and ponds, and your sunset upon the meadow is
finished. A pretty little sketch it is, too, Fig. 158.
[Illustration: Leaf from an Artist’s Note-Book.]
A different composition can be made by proceeding as directed as far as
Fig. 156 and then, instead of putting in trees on the horizon, hills
running to points in the water can be painted in a flat tint with the
Payne’s gray, and a vessel with masts painted in the foreground, as in
Fig. 159. This also makes a pretty and effective little sketch.
Fig. 160 shows sunset notes taken while aboard a ferryboat in the
winter of 1886-87. From these you can see just how the notes are
made; but you must make _your own notes_, because what is perfectly
intelligible to the writer of the sunset memoranda is an enigma to
another person. For example, in Fig. 160, “Rose-tinted sky” may mean
almost any shade of red, or blue and red mixed, but “Rose-tinted sky”
no doubt brings before the mind’s eye of the writer of the notes the
exact color of the sky at the time the notes were made.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A Study in Oil.]