How and Why to Stretch Your Watercolor Paper
Yes, I know. It’s a nuisance, and you just want to get started painting!
In Watercolor Jumpstart (my online beginner class), we work on very small sheets of paper (8×11″ and smaller). At that size, it’s possible to simply tape down all four sides of the paper and not run into too much trouble with buckling. In the Jumpstart projects, I deliberately avoided techniques that involve a lot of water or extended time working wet.
This course is different! There are plenty of ways to paint skies in watercolor that do not involve a lot of water, but I’m teaching the things that work for me, and that means LOTS of water.
Course Content
Preliminaries
Project 1 — Crescent Moon in a Pre-Dawn Sky
- Project 1 Overview & Handouts
- How and Why to Stretch Your Watercolor Paper
- How to Mix Watercolor Washes for Larger Areas
- How to Print Photos and Templates Poster-Size (Using Adobe Acrobat)
- How to Resize Rectangles Proportionally (with no calculating)
- A Less-Messy Way to Spatter Watercolor Paint and Masking Fluid
- Three Ways to Mask a Crescent Moon
- Project 1 Design and Planning
- Project 1 Paint-Along
- Working With Reference Photos for Skies
Project 2 — Dramatic Clouds at the Beach
- Project 2 Overview & Handouts
- Color Mixing for Skies and Clouds in Watercolor (Daytime Skies)
- Three Ways to Create Clouds in Watercolor by Lifting
- Working on Saturated Paper to Practice Wet-into-Wet Techniques
- Painting Dark Clouds on a Lighter-Value Sky
- Using Multiple Washes to Create Clouds Layers
- Painting Light Clouds on a Darker-Value Sky Using Negative Painting Wet-Into-Wet
- Preserving Soft-Edged Highlights with a Gum Arabic Resist
- Project 2 Design and Planning
- Project 2 Paint-Along