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Watercolor
John Pike
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eBook - ePub
Watercolor
John Pike
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About This Book
In this irreplaceable guide, award-winning artist and instructor John Pike shares with artists at all levels of experience the expertise gained through a lifetime of perfecting his craft. All the information watercolorists could possibly want is here — choosing a brush; selecting and composing subject matter; producing a variety of washes, brush strokes, and textures; making corrections; and discovering the properties of common watercolor papers.
The author's personal style and his meticulously reproduced illustrations make this one of the best how-to guides available. Readers are led from the simplest still-life exercises to a series of complex landscape problems. The text is abundantly illustrated with the author's own famous paintings (many reproduced in full color) and analyzes each in detail for lessons to be learned and tricks of the trade.
`The text is brilliantly lucid, like Mr. Pike's own watercolors. It is difficult to imagine a more helpful guide.` — William F. Buckley, National Review
The author's personal style and his meticulously reproduced illustrations make this one of the best how-to guides available. Readers are led from the simplest still-life exercises to a series of complex landscape problems. The text is abundantly illustrated with the author's own famous paintings (many reproduced in full color) and analyzes each in detail for lessons to be learned and tricks of the trade.
`The text is brilliantly lucid, like Mr. Pike's own watercolors. It is difficult to imagine a more helpful guide.` — William F. Buckley, National Review
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ArtSubtopic
Art Techniques1
Brushes and other painting tools
Despite the enormous variety of brushes available in the stores, you need surprisingly few tools to paint with.
ROUND SABLE BRUSHES
First, let me say a word about sable. Sable, undoubtedly, makes the finest watercolor brush you can buy, but itâs also the most expensive.
Sable has fine resiliency and yet has soft texture. It has the ability to snap back to its original shape even when very wet. The round brushes are numbered from # 1 up through #12; # 1 is the smallest and #12 is the largest. The round sables are for general painting. A fine brush if you can swing it financially.
FLAT SABLES
Flat, or chisel brushes have some advantages over the rounds. With the flat, you can lay in a large wash and immediately put in a fine line by turning the brush sideways, using the sharp corner or the full width of the brush. With the round, itâs usually necessary to shake out the brush violently to regain the point. Also, the round will eventually lose its sharp point through wear.
I prefer the flats, with one or two exceptions, explained under âRecommended Brushes.â Flat brushes come in inch measurements. Common ones are Âźâ, â, 1â, 1 ½ â, and 2â.
OXHAIR BRUSHES, ROUND AND FLAT
The oxhairs are my pets. I was a young student in the Depression years and the cost of a #8 or #10 sable was a monthâs room and board. So I found oxhair! In the years since that dreadful time, Iâve used an occasional sable, lent by a painter friend. But between you and me, the oxhair does the job every bit as well, and at one fifth the investment. (Art supply dealers arenât overly fond of me for saying this.)
As to their length of life, I have some oxhairs that I still use, although they were with me all through World War II, in the cold of the Arctic and in the heat and humidity of Egypt, India, and the Philippines. Sounds romantic, doesnât it? It wasnât, but the brushes stood up under all conditions, even if I didnât! Hereâs a photo of some of my old friends.
To me, oxhair brushes have all the sparkle and bounce of sables, but you have to pick oxhairs more carefully. Be sure, in your buying, that you test each one for springiness and bounce-back qualities. All brushes come with starch in them to hold the hairs in place in the store. Ask for a pan of water to wash the brush out. If heâs a good art supply dealer, heâll have a container of water right beside the brush storage drawers. See if the brush holds its shape when wet.
Oxhairs, if chosen carefully, can be excellent companions for many years.
BRISTLE BRUSHES
Bristle brushes are usually made of hogâs hair, sometimes nylon. Theyâre quite stiff and are generally used for oil painting, tempera, and the acrylics. In transparent watercolor, theyâre used to correct mistakes: to lighten small areas where the pigment is too dark; to soften an edge that has become hard when we wanted it soft or graded. This can happen; âgoofsâ in this medium are most common.
The bristle brush is a scrubber-outer. Dip your bristle brush into clear water and scrub lightly, so as not to harm the paperâs surface. Have a rag or cleaning tissue handy to blot up water and pigment immediately. The sables and oxhairs will pick up some pigment, but not as cleanly as a bristle.
As in all cover-up tricks, donât depend on it too much. Try to do the job correctly the first time; but have a bristle scrubber-outer in your bag just in case. You can sometimes save an otherwise good painting. About a #5 âbrightâ is a good general purpose size.
LETTERING BRUSHES
Actually, all the flats were originally intended as lettering brushes, but were adopted many years ago by some of our finest watercolor painters and teachers. There are all sorts of lettering brushes on sale and the choice is a matter of personal preference, based on trial and error.
Be careful with your square ended brushes. Donât get mechanical with them so that you get squared effects (unless, of course, thatâs what youâre after). Learn to twist the brush and turn it, drag it and squash it, to gain exactly what you want. Try a lot of practice exercises so youâll know exactly what the flat brush will do.
RECOMMENDED BRUSHES FOR THE BEGINNER
This basic list can be cut down to an absolute minimum. Iâve found that if I have a 1 ½â flat, a 1â flat, a â flat, a #8 round, and a #4 rigger, my brush equipment is quite complete.
A rigger, by the way, is a long, slim brush. I choose the #4 as itâs in between #2 and #6 and can do the work of both. It has hairs about 1â long and has a slightly magic, ouija board quality. You put the rigger on the paper and the brush almost guides itself. Itâs delightful for little tree branches, tall grass, and a thousand other placesâitâs a fun brush!
I canât see that youâre going to need much more than the brushes listed here. They should be most adequate. I have a couple of dozen brushes in my kit, but these five are really all I use. Perhaps you may want to add a #4 and #5 round, and possibly a #1 or #2 round for fine work, but you can get along very nicely with the first five.
CARE OF BRUSHES
After a day of painting, you pack up your gear to go home and, very often, the wet brushes become jumbled up in the tackle box, or whatever you use to carry your supplies in. Then, the next time you take them out, theyâve dried in twisted, agonized shapes. There are both a preventive and a cure for sick brushes.
The preventive: buy one Hong Kong split bamboo table mat; a yard of Âźâ garter elastic; a shoe string. Weave the elastic in and out through the bamboo, leaving loops for the number of brushes you use, and sew firmly at each end. Double knot the shoe string around the last two or three strips of bamboo. Then slip your brushes under the elastic loops, roll up the mat, and tie. This brush carrier takes up very little more room than the brushes themselves, and theyâll always remain straight.
The cure: when you find your pet brush all bent and twisted, wet it, rub it on a cake of soap until the brisles are quite saturated. Then, with your fingers, model the brush back to its proper shape and allow it to dry over night. The next day, wash out the soap and youâll find the brush well again.
But try the preventive; it makes life easier.
Clean your brushes once in a while, particularly after youâve been using any of the Thalos (dye colors). At the art supply store, you can buy something called âbrush cleaner.â The bottle contains about 2½ ounces and will do the job perhaps twice. At the supermarket, for the same amount of money, you can buy a full quart of liquid kitchen detergent, which is every bit as good and will last you for years.
Pour a little detergent into a cupâor into the corner of the sinkâdip the brush into it, work out the suds and dirt in the palm of your hand, then rinse several times in warm water to be sure all the detergent is out. Then shape the bristles and let the brush dry. I think youâll find this far better than the old method of scrubbing holes in bars of soap.
STORING BRUSHES
My poor brushes somehow never get a chance to be stored. They seem to be in use most of the days of the year. As I look at my side table, I see a cigar box with a lot of little upright cardboard partitions that once held some fancy cigars in glass tubes; I see a copper and silver Egyptian coffee pot that I bought in the old market place in Cairo years ago; and I see a Mason jar. I simply drop my brushes, handle first, into whichever one is closest. They all work.