A bokeh, often seen in photography, is the effect of an out of focus part of a picture, often seen with bright circles of light. Right before Christmas, a friend offered the challenge of trying to produce this effect in watercolor. I'd seen and done it in acrylic before, but not with watercolor. Below are two examples of what a bokeh can look like, using lifting and gouache.
I wanted to start this project in a fun, loose way, using some texture processes. And since I needed an area in focus (with hard edges), I masked off some flowers using contact paper.
DIRECTIONS FOR USING CONTACT PAPER: Cut shapes out of contact paper and adhere them to the watercolor paper. Use the edge of a credit card or your fingers to burnish the edges of the shape so that the contact paper will not leak paint into the masked off area. This leaves you free to paint and play without having to paint around your white area.
Choose a few of the texture methods below. These are wet in wet methods: Row 1:
scratching into damp paint with a credit card; salting with popcorn or table salt; salting with pretzel or kosher salt; 2nd row: dripping alcohol into moist paint; scratching into moist paint with a comb; spattering drops of water into damp paint. 3rd row: plastic wrap over moist paint; crinklet wax paper; cut wax paper shapes onto moist paint; 4th row: impressed objects, such as hair, thread, leaves; granulating paint (lunar earth and sicklerite genuine); spattering paint on either dry or moist paper.
STEPS TO BACKGROUND:
1. Choose the methods you want to use and have materials ready
2. Choose 3 colors and make a puddle of each one on palette
(prepare your paint colors)
3. With a large brush, wet the entire page until shiny, not puddly
4. loosely apply your paint until you like the pattern. You should have all soft edges. You can spray the painting to make the paint run if it looks too heavy or blotchy.
5. Apply your texture method to the wet (moist) paint.
6. Allow to dry until it has reacted as much as you want it to.
7. If you dry with a hair dryer, be sure it is a cool dryer so that the adhesive on the contac paper doesn't glue to your paper.
8. When dry, remove from the contact paper.
A FEW BEGINNER TIPS
The more I paint, the more I discover simple things that I somehow didn't know when I started out. With this lesson, I wanted to point out a few of those tips. I passed out my "Ten Commandments of Watercolor," and I'll elaborate just a little.
Before I do, though, the one thing people should remember is that you should treat watercolor the way you treat your kids. They all have different personalities, and you don't try to make one child behave exactly like another child, because they have different talents and interests.
SO...
Don't expect watercolor to behave like acrylic or oil. It has its own unique personality that shines when you let it do what it does best instead of trying to force it to be something else.
TIP # 1
"WAKE UP" YOUR PAINTS
Just use a spray bottle and spray your paints a few minutes before you want to paint. They will go one much more smoothly, and you won't be struggling to get the consistency you want.
TIP #2
CHOOSE YOUR COLORS IN ADVANCE, AND HAVE THEM WET AND READY
TIP #3 -
LEARN THE STAGES OF WET/DRY
Watercolor paint has 4 stages of wetness. The first is DRIPPY WET. It may puddle or drip. This stage has its uses when you are making a large wash.
Stage 2 is MOIST. It is the perfect stage for wet in wet techniques. It is wet and shiny, but not puddly or drippy. You have some control over where the paint goes, and it gives lovely soft edges. Think soft kitty fur, fluffy clouds, hair, soft skin tones.
Stage 3 is DAMP. Damp is dangerous. It is not dry enough nor wet enough to paint on, and if you try you will get blossoms (which you sometimes want) or muddy looking color. There are a few texture techniques done at this stage, such as scratching with a knife or credit card, but in general, avoid painting into or next to an area that is DAMP. You judge damp by touching your fingers to the paint, then touching a very dry part of the painting. If it feels cool, it is still damp, not dry.
Stage 4 is DRY. It is always safe to paint on perfectly dry paper. This is where you have the most control over shapes and hard edges.
You will read things that talk about "wet" paper, and it usually means the moist stage, not drippy wet.
TIP #4
WATER TRAVELS FROM AREAS OF MORE MOISTURE TO LESS
Think of this as a sponge. If you have a damp, squeezed out sponge, it is easy to soak up a puddle of water. Dry areas totally resist water. This is important to remember when adding paint to an area that you've just painted. If there is more water on your brush than on the moist/damp paper, that wetness will push into your already painted area and cause blossoms. If you are trying to get an area darker, or introduce another color, and it is still wet, there needs to be more paint/less water on your brush than there is on the paper.
So you don't need to clean out your brush unless you are changing colors. Don't dip it into the water constantly if you are using the same color. You will have trouble getting darker colors and run a greater risk of backwashes (blossoms)
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