General Art Tips

Art Tips and Resources for Artists

Watercolour and General Painting Tips:

Brush care:
When painting, I use lots of different size and shape brushes that I keep altogether in a pot. When I use them, I leave them out on the table next to me, because I often will reuse the same brush a lot. Also, once I've finished painting, I grab up all the brushes I've used, take them to the bathroom, grab some of my shampoo and shampoo them. Some warm water and just a little shampoo rubbed into the brush hairs gently and rinsed out is a great way to look after your brushes and keep them lasting just a bit longer, by both conditioning the hairs, and removing more bits of paint than a rinse with plain water will. You can also buy brush specific soap from art stores for cleaning your brushes.

Know your pigments:
Not all watercolour paints are made equal. Many people know there is a difference between opaque and transparent watercolours, but there are also staining, non-staining and granulating colours. Knowing which kind of pigment you are using really helps control your painting when layering, lifting colour, using washes, and all aspects of painting. Most watercolour brands will have a colour chart available which notes the different aspects of each colour, many downloadable from their websites.
It's handy for almost all kinds of paints, watercolours as well as acrylics or others to have a chart, and also for ease of memory, sort and keep your colours in seperate groups for opaque and translucent, or even make up your own quick colour chart with notes as to each colours properties for quick reference.

Different brushes and tools:
Get annoyed when you just can't avoid brush strokes in your washes or textures? Normal sable or synthetic brushes are great for watercolours, you need that firmness/springiness in them for fine details and precision, however, for large washes and free painting areas, try some soft chinese brushes. I use wide chinese style brush with super soft fibres for flat washes of colour, and a large pointed mop brush for painting in smaller areas where I need a little more precision, but still a smooth wash of paint. Also, for washes, you can pour a wash of the paint onto the paper for a super smooth gradient. Control the area the wash will go by brushing in the area with clean water and a soft brush, then pour the paint wash in from a small cup, or medicine dropper, and tilt the painting and steer the paint through the wash area until it's all covered. Medicine droppers are also great for wet in wet textures or dropping drops of clean water into coloured washes, to create interesting backwash textures.

Tissues and painting:
This is a tip which made my life infinitely easier when painting. It’s simple, and yet works so very well! When painting, particularly watercolour, the amount of water on the brush is crucial in how the paint will react with it and the paper when the brush is loaded.
To maintain the right level of moisture in your brush, it works really well to keep a tissue in your other hand when painting. That way, you can dab your brush on it to remove excess water after you wash the brush, or dip it in your waterpot to wet it. You can dab a little, or dry it quite a lot, depending on the next stroke you want to make. You can dab off excess paint too, and you can even use the tissue as a blotter for lifting accidents off your page as well! Once you get used to using a tissue like this, you feel naked painting without something in your other hand.
Generally, you want your first strokes to lay down colour to be a medium to heavy load of paint/water. Once you've layed down some colour, you might want to soften and blend the edges of the paint stroke, in which case you will want a clean brush with a low to medium amount of water in it. With watercolour, if your brush has too much water on it at this stage, the water will backrun into the previous stroke and can ruin the smoothness of the stroke. Using the tissue means you can soak off much of the water from the clean brush after dipping it in your water pot, and avoid backruns.

Salting:
One technique I see people always curious about, is salting. It's a quite old technique, but a great one that can acheive wonderful results. A nice clear example of it's effect can be seen in the background of this artwork- http://www.ageofenchantment.com/artworks/mermaid.html
That star like, dappled texture is created when salt is sprinkled onto a watercolour wash while it is still wet. For those wanting to try it, experimentation and practice are needed, but look to sprinkly the salt on when the wash is still wet, the paper still has a slight shine of water, but there are no "puddles". The salt then sucks the moisture out of the water where it lands, leaving the starbust effects. You can use many different types of salt, from large rock salt to fine table salt, to acheive different effects. If possible, you want salt that hasn't already absorbed much moisture from the air. The type of watercolour paint quality and pigment type can also affect the outcome.
When using large rock salt however, you may want to dip each peice in water immediately before placing it onto the watercolour paint, because they need the extra contact to the paper the water gives it to suck more water from the painting.

Graphite Drawing Art Tips:

Graphite Pencil Shading (also applies a little to coloured pencil):
Getting smooth shading is generally an important goal to most artists when it comes to pencil artworks, particularly to achieve smooth texture for things like skin. In the past, I would use items such as cotton bud, cotton balls, tissues, and “tortillons” (rolled pieces of paper for smudging) to smooth out my shading. However, doing this can create very “muddy” looking shading, that then requires a lot of erasing to lift some of the spread around graphite back off the paper. I’ve found lately that instead of using smudging at all, using graphite pencils from the “hard” range, eg, 2h, 3h, 4h etc (or for coloured pencils, harder, lighter colours) can be very good at creating smooth and delicate shading. It is important to shade very carefully and softly with them, because the graphite is quite hard and can scratch the paper if used to hard. But delicate yet firm shading with hard pencils can create wonderfully soft and smooth shading with a much larger range of values. Use it over darker graphite shading to smooth it out and add a richer dimension to is as the hard lead pushes the darker lead into the paper surface more smoothly.

General Art Tips:

Using References:
A lot of people ask me questions like, how do you make faces look real, or comment on how hard hands or feet are to draw. These are both very difficult parts of the body to draw properly, however, having a reference to look at and refer to makes the process SO much easier. Using a reference means looking at a photo, picture or even live model of your subject so you can look at exactly how a face or hand, or any object will look in the position you are drawing, meaning there is less guess work. Because while in our head we know what a hand may look like, the actual exact measurements, lengths, curves and shapes are something you don't know. Even the most experienced artists use references, experience only means you get better at filling in the gaps and remembering those exact shapes and proportions, but that can never truely replace real life models.
When I started out drawing as a kid, I was always running back and forth to a mirror in a house to see how my arm would look if I held it out like that, or how my eyes were placed when I turned my head just so, so I could get it right in the drawing I was doing. With cheap digital cameras available now, taking your own reference photos of yourself or friends is a great idea to get just the right pose you want. There are also lots of great resources on the internet for stock photos of models to use as art reference. Try www.deviantart.com, or www.artmorgue.com although you must remember photos at these sites are under copyright and should be used according to the photographers and models wishes and terms of use. You can also buy books full of reference photos at art stores, or sign up to a life drawing class.

Using references- Advanced:
Many artists will tell you, a photo lies. This means that photographs can distort the proportions of items in it, because of lens distortion and so on. This is why it's not a good idea to simply trace objects in photos, it won't look natural. Also, we all have an idea in our head of how an item should look. In reality though, this is only a very simple representation of the item, this is why when asked to draw a person or a face, most people will draw a stick figure or a smiley face... they are just simple representations. This can be a problem when working from reference, because how your mind THINKS an object should look, can overtake how it REALLY should look. You think eyes should be the same size as each other on a face, so if you let your mind take over too much, it will draw the eyes the same size... even if one should be smaller than the other because the face is turned to the side. A good technique to avoid this is to try not to look at your page to much as you sketch the reference. Draw the subject as you see it, not as you think it should look. You can also draw your person or object upside down, looking at the reference photo also upsidedown, to trick your mind out of following it's simplified misconceptions.
Once you've got a sketch down, try looking at it in the mirror as well, so you see a reversed image. This can help you see faults and errors you've missed looking at it normally as well.

Keeping Inspired:
I just wanted to say something about the importance of keeping an art journal of some kind. People often ask me where I get my ideas and inspiration from, and to some extent, it's just imagination, straight from the strange confines of my mind. But, of course, my mind is only a reflection of my experiences and surroundings. So every little thing I see or do or experience all builds to who I am, and therefore, what images my imagination creates. But memory isn't perfect of course, and to help along my imagination, I keep a journal of ideas. It's certainly not pretty, in fact, it's a dis-used accounts book with half of the cover ripped off, but it serves it's purpose. In it, I scribble down tiny thumbnail designs that have come to mind, or titles and words that inspire me. I write things such as "Pirate Mermaid", "Riddle Fishing", "Dragonflies Skimming Water". These are simply things to spark my memory and imagination again when I have time to paint them. Even if I don't remember the exact idea, they can spark new ideas. I also keep another part of the journal where I scribble down single word ideas for elements of an artwork, or designs for jewellery or clothing. It's a jumble of scribbles and what appear to be irrelevant words like "Stripes, Lockets, Waterfalls, Berries, Keys, Tatters". These are simply things I like, that I can read over and inspire me, or if I'm stuck for some element or costume design for an artwork I skim through to find something good, that I might otherwise have forgotten. Keeping a journal like this, or a journal of any kind, purely sketches only, purely writing, personal or purely art, is I think very important in developing your ideas and keeping your inspiration alive.

Skin Tones:
People often comment on the skin tones in my paintings, so I thought I would share some tips on creating smooth, translucent skin tones. This is just one technique, how I generally work, but there are obviously lots of ways!
This techniaue can be used for probably any translucent medium, watercolour, acrylic, even coloured pencil. I always try to select colours that are transparent, because that is the key to soft, glowy translucent skin. Real skin is transparent too, showing blood vessels, veins and more in layers under the surface. Skin is also a wide range of colours, pinker in some area, browner in others, and almost milky green in others.
Obviously, the colours you select for your figure will have to reflect both the other colours you use in the artwork, and the skin tone of your figure. Here is just an example, for a fairly purply/blue colour scheme and pale skinned figure.
The one colour I almost always use no matter what, is Rose Dore (the colour names are from the Windsor and Newton colour range). With rose dore, I create the rosey areas of the skin, using it as a dark outline for fingers and toes, nose and lips, where you don’t want any dark muddy colours. Generally, I do a lot of the shading in a blue or purple, followed by the rose dore, and then followed by washes of a warm yellow. You might think that blue, red and yellow would make for an odd skin tone, but because you are layering the colours, and the watercolour layers are transparent, the rose over the blue becomes purple, and the yellow over the top of that tones it down to a more neutral brown, that is so much more glowy and beautiful than using a brown colour from the start.
Using redder colours for areas such as nostrils, ears, fingers and toes that you might consider should be darker shadows brings a lot of life to the figure. Because these finer body parts are small, and skin is translucent, light shines through it, giving it a reddish golden glow. Imagine how your fingers look when held in front of a torch. So while these areas need to be darker and defined, using blacks, greys or browns will make them look muddy and lifeless. The gap between the lips, or any inside of the mouth or teeth area should also never be black, and teeth are best left not clearly outlined, it will make the mouth look very funny. Try more pinks and reds and lighter colours there as well for a more natural, less "scary toothy" look.

Cool colours and Contrasting colours for lively shadows:
To make your pictures look more vibrant and real, and avoid boring, muddly browns and greys, using cool colours and contrasting colours is the key. Any time you draw or paint shadows, or things that are supposed to be white or black, try using a blue, cool purple or green instead of black or grey and it will look better. The colour you choose should match the rest of your colour scheme, and it helps for it to be a contrasting colour (eg, purple is the opposite of yellow, blue is the opposite of orange, red is the opposite of green). Using black or greys will make your image look flat and lifeless as these colours rarely occur in real life.

Paper, Paper, Paper:
Something I tell people a lot, because no one ever told me and it's something I've found indespensible now I know, is to always use the right paper for the right job. For mediums such as paint (acrylic to watercolour), pastels, coloured pencils, they will never look good on the wrong paper. These are high demand mediums, and need the paper to match. Coloured pencil needs a thick paper with what is called "tooth". This means the surface is slightly rough, to take the colour well. Otherwise the waxy pencils will just slide over the top, not leaving a smooth shading of colour. It doesn't have to be textured as such, but some tooth is generally needed. Water colours generally use a LOT of water while painting. If the paper is too thin or weak, it will tear apart, buckle and become a mess. Using a proper watercolour paper, particularly a 100% cotton paper of a heavy GSM (thickness) will greatly improve the potential of the watercolour, allowing you to use more water, more layers and more interesting techniques. Think of it this way- have you ever tried to wash a stain out of cotton? Works ok right? How about out of a sheet of paper? It will fall to bits. When you use cotton paper the watercolour is much easier to manipulate. It blends effortlessly, and you can even lift paint back off by gently scrubbing the paper with a brush if you accidently get it wrong without worrying about damaging the paper too much, unlike normal papers.

Practice, practice, PRACTICE:
Some people think that art appears magically, because they only see the finished product. They don't see the hours and hours of painting and drawing involved. And more importantly, the YEARS of practice that have come before. It is like the story that talks about a lady that sees Picasso in a coffee shop. She asks him for a portrait of her, and he quickly draws a portrait of her in five minutes and hands it to her, and demands $5000 for it. She complains, "But it only took you five minutes". He replies, "No, it took me 40 years.".
A lot of younger artists get frustrated with their skill level, and think they will never reach the level of the artists who are their idols. But consider that many of these artists have been painting for decades. And not just a painting every few months, but practicing every single day.
The point of this is that excellent artists ARE excellent because they work hard at it. They draw and paint all the time. They read books and take classes. They push their boundaries and paint things that will challenge them to learn more. Maybe there is a little talent there to start with, but like anything else it's the time and effort you put in that counts. If you want to draw and paint well, practice, practice, practice! If you think you can't draw faces, then just keep drawing them until they are right! Don't give up or avoid doing something because you think you can't. You will probably suprise yourself when you try. You will find that if you spend some time every day, or at least every week, your art will improve so quickly right in front of your eyes!

Mixing Mediums:
Every different art medium (a medium is what you paint or draw with, like watercolour, pencil, charcoal, etc) has it's own special properties, abilities and downfalls. Using just one pure medium per artwork can create amazing results when you work with the mediums own special potential, however, sometimes, you want the best of all worlds. And using mixed mediums is a great way to get interesting results using two, three, or more mediums in the one artwork.
For example, watercolours beauty lies in it's spontenaety. The way you can use the way it moves almost of it's own design through the water and the paper, creating interesting textures and effects. Many techniques like salting only work best with watercolour. However, it has some downfalls as well, such as it is difficult to create more darker, richer colours, and you can easily overwork the paint making it muddy and ruining smooth washes.
Acrylic paints, on the other hand, can be used to create very dark, rich, detailed paintings. But it doesn't work as well for washes or special textures and effects that watercolour does. So why not get the best of both worlds and use both mediums in the same artwork? For example, you could create a background wash with salting effects in watercolour, but paint the figure or object of the painting in acrylics. When used in certain ways, you can paint acrylic over watercolour or watercolour over acrylic (more difficult). You may then want to go further, and use coloured pencils to do more detailed work over that, or an opaque gouche paint.
What mediums you use and how you use them depends on the result you want to get, and also how the mediums interact with each other. Much of this takes practice in the different mediums to understand their properties well before putting them together.

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