Watercolours and what i found when using them

Watercolours are a great medium to experiment with when learning to paint. you can be messy or neat because of its thin fluid nature. They'er not my strong suit but heres a few things I've taken on bored when I use watercolours:

1) The right paper

When using water on paper its good to have a strong or heavy weight paper to take all the water, otherwise it could create ripples or even holes in the page. I use a mixture between thick everyday card, cartridge paper, hot press or cold press watercolour paper. (Hot press is smooth and cold press is toothy).

2) Tape down

I found it helps to tape down you're work to board, cutting mat or a book. it may still look like its rippling but don't worry! let it dry completely before removing the tape and it should smooth out.

3) Light to dark

I found its a lot easier to work from light to dark in watercolours as there such a thin based paint overlaying light onto to dark can be changeling. When wanting to give a bright light colour like yellow over green, (it can go kinda blue). Although this may not always apply to shadow and spots of light which I normally highlight again at the end if it needs it.

But most of all have fun with it and find out what method suits you best. At the top left of the post is Illustration of a galaxy in a compass. For this i used hot press

watercolour paper 300gsm, Daler Rowney and Winsor Newton watercolour tubes. Just above I use the same material's but a technique called negative painting. This is where you paint in layers painting around different shapes or subjects with every layer of colour you add. This is a fun and effective look in a busy picture and galaxies a good thing to paint when starting out, there pretty fun to do so give it a go!