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Hi to you loyal few guests who are connected to the blog. There doesnt seem to be a great deal of interest, and i know there are lots of how-to sites out there, so i will wrap up my watercolor blog over the next three blogs: (1) Tips on washes, wash edges, colorgrays and color opposites; (2) Composition and value patterns; (3) Finale

Every 'guide' in water color has his/her own approach as you should develop yourselves. My approach is less detailed and focuses on merging and mingling washes definitely influenced by the work of the late Charles Reid. I find the washes to be complex and less worked than the normal process of mixing paints in the palette. And i appreciate but do not do any serious glazing and encourage y ou to research that approach if you are interested in portraits, floral topics, etc.

In this blog, let me try to touch on some key aspects of washes and color mixing:

Washes

again, washes are related to the medium, water, that carries the pigments. When water/pigment charges are introduced into absorbent paper (rough, cold, hot), the saturation of the wet paper changes immediately (depending on atmospheric conditions (cool, hot, etc.)) and the next water/pigment charges added to the previous wash need to be close in saturation or the dryer will pull the wetter charge into it and cause a blemish. Practice this: going back and forth from the palette to the paper to see how the wash additions are greeted by the previous wash. it will vary according to environmental conditions so do not assume standard approaches.

you can vary from cleaning your brush, discharging excess water, getting pigment and going right to paper or adding extra water before going to paper, experiment and see what happens as the wash will 'talk to you'. and you will discover that in one painting you may use a number of different approaches: wet on wet for skies and large washes; wet on dry for more control; and merging mingling for complex washes. i will leave you with these notes.

Wash Edges

Very important: wash edges are essentially hard or soft, "found or lost"; a hard edge is one that dries with a noticeable boundary or edge; a soft edge is one that dries with a blurry or disappearing edge condition.

Principle: in order to connect and interlock or relate one shape to another, we use hard and soft edges to achieve this affect. all hard edges can create a mosaic affect with weaker relationships between and among the composition's shapes (okay if that is what you want); by having a combination of hard and soft edges it is like interlocking your fingers, two hand shapes coming together with hard and soft boundaries.

Okay, how do i do that? well, the hard edges are simple, apply the wash on paper and let it dry completely; then adding another wash adjacent to it but not pushed into the first wash. For a soft edge, either add water/no pigment to the last applications so that it blurs out, or quickly lift out the hard edge as it is drying with a damp, not wet, brush (and leave it along) as it will soften and spread slightly into the paper. in the examples below take a look at the edge conditions between a lot of shapes and identify the hard and soft conditions.

this technique of softening an edge as you complete a wash is also useful when you want to stop or are not sure of the next step as it is easier to deal with a soft and dried edge than a hard dried edge when you begin again. got it?

Many hard edges occur where the light contrast is the stronger, and softer edges are more frequent as the light is less intense. Experiment.

Color Grays

Color grays are a mixture of all three primaries with a color dominance. reflect on that for a moment. and WHAT YOU DO NOT WANT IS BATTLESHIP GRAY, a neutral gray with no color dominance (harder to see the battleships against the sea and sky when they are neutral!).

so, if i mix red, yellow and blue and kick up the red, i get a red gray, muted because of the presence of the other two primaries. For a purple gray, i kick up the red and blue with less yellow; green gray is yellow and blue with less red; orange gray is red and yellow with less blue (also known as "brown").

Many artists will have as much as 85% of their paintings in color grays with the remaining 15%, for example, in the higher key primary and secondary colors, to achieve an emphatic center of interest; the color grays acting as supporting actors on the stage.

I strongly suggest getting a copy of Jean Dobie's "Making Colors Sing", an  excellent teaching book on color grays.

in the examples above, on the left green grays predominate, in the middle blue grays, and on the right, yellow and purple grays. if your grays go neutral, keep adding new color to the same wash and observe how you can bounce the color grays around with color additives.

Color Opposites

Lastly, let us play with color opposites. Color opposites are colors that are opposite one another on the color wheel: essentially whatever is left from a mixture of the three primaries: red, yellow and blue. the opposite of yellow is (blue/red) or purple; the opposite of red is (blue/yellow) or green; the opposite of blue is (red/yellow) or orange; the opposite of orange (red/yellow) is blue, etc. simple and works for the grays as well.

In each of the examples above, i am using color opposites to try to limit my palette and bring attention to the compliments of the color opposites: to the left it is greens with red gray shadows; in the middle it is blue grays with orange reflections; and to the right it is yellow with purple complements in the middle and foreground shapes. And in my favorite Blue Boy it is blue and a touch of orange. Got it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????????? Go forth and paint. Ron