Watercolour is transparent in more ways than one, it has an uncanny way of ‘telling the truth’ about how it is painted. The expression in the brushstroke is the chief agency of this revealing aspect because the gesture of the mark encapsulates the spirit in which the paint has been applied and therefore the intention behind it. The more you rely on the brushstroke to deliver and the less you push paint around, the happier your watercolour pigment will settle on the paper and the greater will be the transparency and luminosity of the watercolour layers.
We saw in the first article (May 2019 issue) that attention to the brushstroke is a discipline of awareness, demanding 100-per-cent concentration. The attention required for making shapely and meaningful brushstrokes on dry paper, however, is different from that required for taking the brushstroke purposefully into damp washes. This latter technique is aptly termed wetinto- wet, and it can be scary, however much you tell yourself it is only paint on paper, simply because the paint is moving. Water on the paper will happily carry the pigment in any number of directions unless you take control of the consistency of the paint and the moment and position of delivery.
Right mix, right time