Watercolor Paintings, Harder Than Oil?

Do Watercolor Artists Have A Bigger Challenge or A Bigger Advantage?

WATERCOLORS          

I love watercolor art; the images often have a delicate or soft feeling. The watercolor medium is flattering to the subject matter: flowers, gardens, or landscapes. I will admit that part of my attraction to watercolors results from my admiration for the artist’s skills and the difficulty they face that artists who use other mediums don’t.  

My admiration is rooted in my belief that the medium was totally unforgiving and even the slightest misstep ruined the entire piece. I started out writing this blog with that mindset and found many benefits that watercolors offer the artists, and the medium is not as unforgiving as I initially thought. Today I want to share what I learned.

In this blog, I will offer you two paths; I will start with the abbreviated basis where I put the question about “how difficult is it to use watercolors?” to a watercolor artist, friend, and reader of this blog, Laurence (Larry) Meyer. The extended version is based on a little more research and goes into more detail.

The watercolors in this blog are by Laurence (Larry) Meyer.

Larry Meyer responding to my inquiry about the difficulty in working with watercolors:

“It’s funny, Jeff. Watercolor is more difficult than oils or acrylics, but I find the medium easier than the two others. Watercolor is very forgiving if the pigment isn’t classified as a staining pigment. Watercolor paints can be lifted using water and a brush to lift the color off the paper after applying the paint. In contrast, a staining pigment such as your Windsor colors is much more difficult to raise (erase) than those pigments that don’t stain. In this sense, watercolor is very forgiving.

With watercolor, the artist builds a foundation of colors starting from light to dark, layer upon layer, to achieve the right tones for the painting. For example, you may begin with a sunset with a very light yellow ochre and build upon that. The yellow, although very light, will give a painting the depth that it needs to create the warm yellow cast. With watercolor, the artist uses light to reflect through each layer of color to bring it to what is so special about watercolors: translucency. Although an artist can use highly concentrated pigments to weigh the painting down as one does with oils, the magic lies in the lightness and flow of each layer of color and the effect that light has on that color.

It’s like looking at a lake and seeing all the different depths of it by tones and colors as if you are wearing UV sunglasses. At first glance, you see blue or green as the water, but if you look closely, you’ll see the browns, the greens, and the reds underneath that together make up that blue or green lake. Another great thing is that artists can use many different instruments to add texture to their paintings. Kosher salt sprinkled on the watercolor before it’s scorched a beautiful texture to the image, as does rubbing alcohol. These textures can’t be done with oils or acrylics.”

If you stop here or go further, you can agree that Larry’s response offers excellent information that may change our perception of watercolors.

Extended Path; Going More In-depth:

The first piece I found in researching watercolors was this excerpt by Susan Chaing, which reinforced my beliefs and offered some additional considerations.

Why Watercolor Is So Hard (and why you should embrace it)

Watercolor has the reputation of being complex. It has been known to cause frustration, defeat, and disappointment. Especially for those just starting, they want to paint something they can be proud of.

In the beginning stages of learning, we usually take it very seriously and concentrate on that subject. With painting, this can manifest in the form of control. Control works well with mediums like acrylic - where the paint acts predictably. It goes where you put it, and the color you see on your palette is the color you get on your paper. Watercolors don’t act that way, which means that the more you try to control them, the more complex the experience might feel.

When I was in architecture school, we had a very theory-driven class that challenged the way I thought and forever changed my approach to working with all mediums. I remember one project where I was fighting with the material I chose to build with. During this struggle, the professor asked me if I ever thought about respecting the material and allowing it to perform its natural role using its inherent qualities. When I took a step back and processed what he told me, I had this lightbulb moment, and everything became more accessible. I just needed to let it do its thing.

I approach watercolor in this way, and I think that it is a big reason why it’s been so enjoyable for me. Recognize the medium’s qualities and approach it with open eyes, embrace what it can do, and work with it instead of trying to control it.

Susan went on to share more information. She said I’m going to go through why I think watercolor is difficult and why each of these qualities makes this medium so beautiful.

WATERCOLOR IS FLUID

Water is hard to control. Water is fluid; it flows and moves in all different directions. Our paints will respond differently when there’s too much water, just enough water, and not enough water. There are so many factors here that can change the outcome of our painting.

But this is also what makes watercolors so unique. You can get hard edges like you’d expect to do, but with watercolors, you can also create soft blends and bleeds from one color to the next. Pretty amazing.

WATERCOLOR IS TRANSPARENT

Because of the transparent qualities, you can’t cover up your mistakes. If you make a wrong stroke and the paint dries, you can’t hide it with more paint - unless you paint the area very dark. If you keep layering to try covering up a mistake, there’s a danger of “overworking” your painting. Sketch lines, if drawn too dark, could show up behind light colors in a watercolor painting, making it tricky to remove or sketch before laying down paint.

However, this transparency of watercolor paints also creates luminosity in paintings. Some paintings look like they almost glow and capture the light shining through thin petals and glowing on surfaces.

WATERCOLOR IS PERMANENT

There’s little room for erasing any mistakes in watercolors. You can still “lift” color and blot up mistakes with towels, but for the most part, once the paint has dried on paper, the pigments will be soaked up by the paper fibers, and that can be scary - but not any more than using a pen when you think about it.

NO WHITE PAINT IN WATERCOLOR

White paint isn’t (typically) used for highlights or bright areas. The white areas are where the paper can show through (or where masking fluid was used). This makes watercolor painting difficult because it requires extra planning before jumping into an image. 

Conclusion:

Understanding all of the aspects of watercolors that set them apart when added to the challenges only makes me appreciate watercolors more than ever!

Next Time

Outsider art! What is it and