Wren - Week 8 Prompt for '52 Weeks of Watercolour Birds' #Watercolor #52WeeksOfWatercolourBirds #KoiWatercolors
On Monday, I wrote a review of the 30-Color Koi Watercolor Pocket Field Sketch Box. I did all the examples using the waterbrush that came with the kit. I was eager to try the paints using one of my good watercolor brushes though, so that's what I did for this Week 8 prompt.
I used one of my go to brushes, Silver Black Velvets Round size 6 in the Global Art Materials Field Watercolor Artist Journal Hand Book, 7 by 10-Inch that I've been using for the '52 Weeks of Watercolour Birds'. I consider the paper in this book to be high student-grade, so it was a good match for the Koi watercolors.
Normally I would have used a size 16 round for the background. The small size of the Koi watercolor pans makes it difficult to use a large brush though. The main difference with using a smaller brush is that you get more streaks because you can't cover as large an area, and have to do more blending. I expected to have problems with blooms (aka backruns--that sort of cauliflower look you see in some watercolors), but that didn't happen.
All in all, I much prefer using my good brush, which isn't surprising. It's a very good brush. was better able to control the amount of color, and have larger wash areas. I painted in the trees with far fewer strokes. The only thing I missed from the waterbrush was the ease of cleaning the color from the bristles.
I needed to do more glazes (a thin wash of color over a previous layer of dry paint. In essence, all glazes are washes, but not all washes are glazes.) to build up my values and get those darks. The colors are bit more chalky than I'm used to, although I was using Cerulean Blue for the sky and mixes. Cerulean Blue is an inherently chalky color because it contains white.
While I wouldn't consider this Koi set my go to watercolors, it gets the job done, and I'm pleased with the results I get. You can't ask for much more than that!
I used one of my go to brushes, Silver Black Velvets Round size 6 in the Global Art Materials Field Watercolor Artist Journal Hand Book, 7 by 10-Inch that I've been using for the '52 Weeks of Watercolour Birds'. I consider the paper in this book to be high student-grade, so it was a good match for the Koi watercolors.
Normally I would have used a size 16 round for the background. The small size of the Koi watercolor pans makes it difficult to use a large brush though. The main difference with using a smaller brush is that you get more streaks because you can't cover as large an area, and have to do more blending. I expected to have problems with blooms (aka backruns--that sort of cauliflower look you see in some watercolors), but that didn't happen.
All in all, I much prefer using my good brush, which isn't surprising. It's a very good brush. was better able to control the amount of color, and have larger wash areas. I painted in the trees with far fewer strokes. The only thing I missed from the waterbrush was the ease of cleaning the color from the bristles.
I needed to do more glazes (a thin wash of color over a previous layer of dry paint. In essence, all glazes are washes, but not all washes are glazes.) to build up my values and get those darks. The colors are bit more chalky than I'm used to, although I was using Cerulean Blue for the sky and mixes. Cerulean Blue is an inherently chalky color because it contains white.
While I wouldn't consider this Koi set my go to watercolors, it gets the job done, and I'm pleased with the results I get. You can't ask for much more than that!
Comments
Post a Comment