pattern, they act like a poor man’s airbrush. Spray around the edges of a painting for a vignette look. Darken an area quickly with a spray. You can find these bottles in the cosmetics area of a drug or department store, but art stores carry them too.
To make sprayable paint:
1. Choose what type of spray bottle you want to use and fill it half full (or half empty, depending on your philosophy of life) with water.
2. Add a 1-inch ribbon of paint from the tube.
Adjust the pigment-to-water ratio if you want a stronger or weaker color.
3. Shake the bottle until the water and paint are mixed.
Mix up as many bottles as you want to have colors to spray. I like to have several colors available — red, yellow, and blue at least.
Spray one color and a different color next to it and see them mix and combine on the paper. There’s no end to experimenting with spray bottles.
Figure 4-7 shows what happened when I sprayed paint over a tatted lace-edged cloth dish towel.
Figure 4-7: Tatted lace used as a stencil with paint sprayed over the top.
Flicking your wrist and your brush
You
spatter
with a wet paintbrush and the flick of your wrist. Some artists have made a career out of flinging paint around in this manner. Spatter is more irregular than spray, which may be why it’s also known as
fly specking.
Spatter is good for foregrounds of weeds and foliage or abstract texture. You can also use a toothbrush to spatter dark dots in a foreground for interesting texture.
You can spatter with a variety of brushes:
Any watercolor brush can be loaded with dripping paint and flicked.
An old toothbrush flicked with a thumbnail produces a fine spray. The upcoming project explains the technique more fully. Don’t use your good toothbrush or someone else’s. You should replace that one every three to four months; so instead of tossing it, recycle it into your paint kit.
Specialty tools that look like a bottle brush make perfect spatter, and are, in fact, advertised as spatter brushes.
General spattering technique
The fine points of spattering, if that’s not a contradiction in terms, are as follows:
1. Pick up a juicy amount of paint in your brush.
Most brushes work for this technique. Try several to compare.
2. Hold the brush handle at the end opposite the hairs with the paint-loaded hairs pointing up.
3. Make a quick downward motion with your wrist so the paint flies off the hairs onto the paper.
Hopefully your paper catches most of the spray, but you may want to wear an apron and cover the furniture for protection.
Sometimes the paint drips. If you don’t want a big drip on your painting, try spattering with the paper in a vertical position leaned up against something. That way you don’t have to contort your wrist quite as far and the drips will land on the table instead of your painting. Most watercolor wipes up with water, but be sure to protect your table if needed.
Here’s a trick to help spatter only go where you want it: Have several old towels in your watercolor painting kit. Washcloths or hand towels are perfect so long as they’re dry and clean — never mind the stains. Lay them over the areas of the painting you want to protect from flying spatter. Then spatter. If the paint is too wet, it may soak through the towels, so use a little restraint.
Spattering some texture into your still lifes and landscapes
The following steps show you a great trick for creating the look of granite, snowflakes, speckled enamel, or stars in the sky. As an example, I painted an enamel coffeepot as part of a still life. You need an old toothbrush, soap, masking fluid (discussed earlier in this chapter), paper, and paint.
1. Dip the old toothbrush in the liquid soap or rub it on a bar of soap to coat the bristles.
2. Dip the toothbrush in liquid masking fluid without rinsing the soap off.
Shake the excess masking fluid off into the container to avoid drips. If dripping is still a problem, avoid drips on your flat
To make sprayable paint:
1. Choose what type of spray bottle you want to use and fill it half full (or half empty, depending on your philosophy of life) with water.
2. Add a 1-inch ribbon of paint from the tube.
Adjust the pigment-to-water ratio if you want a stronger or weaker color.
3. Shake the bottle until the water and paint are mixed.
Mix up as many bottles as you want to have colors to spray. I like to have several colors available — red, yellow, and blue at least.
Spray one color and a different color next to it and see them mix and combine on the paper. There’s no end to experimenting with spray bottles.
Figure 4-7 shows what happened when I sprayed paint over a tatted lace-edged cloth dish towel.
Figure 4-7: Tatted lace used as a stencil with paint sprayed over the top.
Flicking your wrist and your brush
You
spatter
with a wet paintbrush and the flick of your wrist. Some artists have made a career out of flinging paint around in this manner. Spatter is more irregular than spray, which may be why it’s also known as
fly specking.
Spatter is good for foregrounds of weeds and foliage or abstract texture. You can also use a toothbrush to spatter dark dots in a foreground for interesting texture.
You can spatter with a variety of brushes:
Any watercolor brush can be loaded with dripping paint and flicked.
An old toothbrush flicked with a thumbnail produces a fine spray. The upcoming project explains the technique more fully. Don’t use your good toothbrush or someone else’s. You should replace that one every three to four months; so instead of tossing it, recycle it into your paint kit.
Specialty tools that look like a bottle brush make perfect spatter, and are, in fact, advertised as spatter brushes.
General spattering technique
The fine points of spattering, if that’s not a contradiction in terms, are as follows:
1. Pick up a juicy amount of paint in your brush.
Most brushes work for this technique. Try several to compare.
2. Hold the brush handle at the end opposite the hairs with the paint-loaded hairs pointing up.
3. Make a quick downward motion with your wrist so the paint flies off the hairs onto the paper.
Hopefully your paper catches most of the spray, but you may want to wear an apron and cover the furniture for protection.
Sometimes the paint drips. If you don’t want a big drip on your painting, try spattering with the paper in a vertical position leaned up against something. That way you don’t have to contort your wrist quite as far and the drips will land on the table instead of your painting. Most watercolor wipes up with water, but be sure to protect your table if needed.
Here’s a trick to help spatter only go where you want it: Have several old towels in your watercolor painting kit. Washcloths or hand towels are perfect so long as they’re dry and clean — never mind the stains. Lay them over the areas of the painting you want to protect from flying spatter. Then spatter. If the paint is too wet, it may soak through the towels, so use a little restraint.
Spattering some texture into your still lifes and landscapes
The following steps show you a great trick for creating the look of granite, snowflakes, speckled enamel, or stars in the sky. As an example, I painted an enamel coffeepot as part of a still life. You need an old toothbrush, soap, masking fluid (discussed earlier in this chapter), paper, and paint.
1. Dip the old toothbrush in the liquid soap or rub it on a bar of soap to coat the bristles.
2. Dip the toothbrush in liquid masking fluid without rinsing the soap off.
Shake the excess masking fluid off into the container to avoid drips. If dripping is still a problem, avoid drips on your flat
Similar Books
