Painting in Wartercolors?

Question

I have to do a self portrait as a project to get into college for Graphic Design. I'm really exited but I have a question. Do I paint the background first or doesn't it matter and also let's say I'm drawing the nose or mouth, do I have to wait for the paint to dry before I paint the shadows and highlights over the mouth/nose or do I just paint over it even though it's wet. Thanks

Answer 1

The answer to both your questions is "it depends". The rules are pretty flexible in watercolor. Actually they're more like Strong Recommendations than rules. Here's a few:

1. Work from light to dark.
2. Work from general to specific.
3. Control, or at least be aware of, how much water you're using, and how wet the paper is.

Regarding #1, it's important to plan out where your lights and darks are going to go before you start, because once you've put down dark paint, you're never going to be able to change your mind and go back to light again. You can scrub it out a bit to lighten, or even scrape out or add highlights, but that's about it. So, your question about the background depends on whether the background will be dark, light, or medium.

General to specific means you should concentrate on the basic planes and shadows of the face before worrying about the details like eyelashes. You need to focus not only on color, but value. What's your light source, how much contrast in the shadows, etc. You can paint shadows wet-into-wet by dropping a cool color like blue or purple in the appropriate areas (under brows, below noses, lips, and cheekbones), and that will give you a soft-edged shadow.

Be advised that if your paper is TOO wet, that shadow may not stay where you want it. It's one of the hazards of watercolor painting, and you can only learn to control it through trial and error. The more water on the surface of the paper, the more the color spreads. I'd wait til the water-shine is mostly off the paper before adding another brushload to it.

It's not a disaster if a wash spreads a bit out of control. Go in with a sponge and sop up some of the excess, or tilt the paper so it runs the other direction. Then wait for the whole thing to dry, and re-assess. You can always go back in again and add more washes. Just don't OVERwork it. It might be a good idea to have more than one self-portrait in progress. You can switch off between them while working, and decide at the end which one you like best.

If you can locate a book called "Portrait Painting in Watercolor", by Charles Reid, it has some great examples and how-to pages in it.

Answer 2

You can do it either way (on both counts)

Take your time. Portraits are among of the hardest thing to do in watercolor.

Start with a really great drawing. I use a photograph and slide ruler to get the face perfectly on the paper. If this is not done right your portrait will suffer greatly for it.

I personaly start with a very light sienna wash to give the face some shape This is the shades and hair line. I let this dry and go on with some red or orange wash to bring some color in the face. I make sure to leave white and do not over do it. Then in the still wet paint I again as so sienna to darken places a bit more.

Limit hard dry lines to the side of the face. Unless you are painting someone with many 'cracks' in his/her face you should do hard shadows last.

I now have a rather pale face that that I let dry before going on with a blue wash ( no worries it will turn out great if you ease into it. Maybe some green into that.

Do the hair in two colors and leave some highlights unpainted. For blondes use yellow and a sienna shading. For brown hair ad some red to the brown. Black hair benefits a lot from blue as a 'lighter color' You can tone the blue down with some 'paige grey'

Keep the face light and colorfull. Leave lots of space very light as if it was just paperwhite. This is not only true for white skin but also brown, yellow and black skin.

The background you can do as you want but as it should 'match' the face do it after the face is done and use a basically same build as the face so it does not clash.

Tips:

Don't leave the white of eyes and teeth paper white. They do have some color and if you don't they will stick out in a unnatural way.

Don't do details like singular hairs around the eyes. Try to be a virtuoso and leave the details to the mind of the viewer.

Look at the examples and try to find what the artist did that makes it a great portrait. (Look beyond the likeness because it is in your draw stage that you should get that right.)

Good luck.

Answer 3

There is a web site that has online videos of people painting watercolor portraits and many other kinds of paintings. They give you a free trial view

Answer 4

you must paint the background first
then paint the portrait
you must paint the shadow before your portrait dries as it will add a beautiful effect to your portrait
believe me , it will look realistic!
so best of luck and do well!