Mixing Colours
When mixing colours for a large area put five or six large brushfuls of water into a mixing pan, and always add the colour nearest in colour to the one you want first, then adding an adjacent colour after the main hue. It is also possible to tone the colour with Grey or Black, but this is often frowned on by many watercolourists, especially those who never use Chinese White. The purists would not use White but would leave the paper white by reserving the whites with a masking fluid.
Turner never bothered with rules; he used White paint, crayon or chalk and pastels, as well as his fingers and it is also reported that he had a specially sharpened thumb nail to scratch lines into wet paint. He also used bits of stick and brush handles for similar effects. If a picture went wrong he would wash it off under the tap and start again. Edd Whitney, the American teacher, said you should think like a tortoise and paint like a hare. In other words; think out what you are going to do as carefully as possible, then do it quickly without niggling about it, then let it dry while you are thinking out the next stage.
At first you should let each part dry before proceeding to the next part or colour, and only when you have gained experience should you try wet-in-wet, that is putting new colours into a wet base colour.
When painting a variegated wash you must mix up puddles of the colours you will need. For a sky, for instance, it is best to damp it all with a large brush or small sponge. Then float the colour onto the paper, from left to right if you are right handed. Do not scrub it, but gently float it on using the side and the point of the brush. Then wash the brush out in clean water and dip into the next colour and float that on working down the paper, then lifting the excess colour with a dry brush.
When making these washes it is better to have the paper on a drawing board tilted to an angle of twenty degrees to allow the washes to gently move down the paper. In some skies it may be beneficial to have the picture upside down to let the colour drain from the horizon to the zenith.
