Part 9: Water to Paint Ratio | Do Not Be Afraid of Watercolor Series
Welcome to the Do Not Be Afraid of Watercolor Series. In this video, we learn about the Water to Paint Ratio.
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TOOLS USED:
#12 Kolinsky Flat Brush
Water
Clean piece of paper
PAINT COLORS USED IN THIS VIDEO:
Ultramarine blue
Cad Yellow
Rose
Full Video Transcription:
Good morning and welcome. My name is Paul Valdez and this is the Do Not Be Afraid of Watercolor Series. Thank you for joining me. This is water to paint ratio video number 9.
I am doing my best to help you become a professional watercolor beginner. Avoid all the mistakes and mishaps that have challenged me at one time or another. As I said, today's video is a million-dollar question.
How much water and how much paint? What's that magic ratio? Is there a magic ratio or is there not. Generally no. Watercolor is a very unique medium in that white generally is your paper as you add pigment to water.
It gradually becomes darker one can mostly pick out the beginner because they're afraid to use color or dark values while the professional is bold with color and values and uses greys and half-tones appropriately. And yes, there are some gorgeous high key, which means very light paintings out there, but you can tell, they were done on purpose, not out of fear. So, the name of this series, The Do Not Be Afraid of Waterrcolor was born almost for this very video.
I want to plant the seed of confidence and boldness, moving you to become a professional beginner, then on to better things. Alright, let me do a little bit of water to paint ratio and demonstrate what I mean. Basically, I have a clean palette, clean towel. This is a number 12 kolinsky flat brush clean, water clean piece of paper. We're starting fresh as you add water to your paper.
That is your lightest value because that is your paper value as you add, and we're going to use ultramarine blue. As you add a little bit of paint to that. You get this value here. This is just a little bit. Now as I clean my brush and move it to the left. It's going to get lighter because I'm mixing it with that very light water wash that I put on there.
So you're going for your light here. So, next. Darker and then as I move on to the to the right. I'm going to continue to get darker. As I add pigment to the water, it'll get even darker. Now, as I reduce the water level in the pigment, by going off to the side here. Now, I'm starting to add more pigment. And it's getting slightly darker. As I grab more,
I go off to the side again. You're going to see it get even darker as I go off to the side again. Now, you'll notice that it's more pigment, less water. Continue doing that and I mix it with just a little bit of water.
Just I want it dark but not too dark. And then we're finally going to end with almost right out of the tube here. So basically, it starts here. And here. Got your light to your dark. More water. Less water a lot more. Pigment less pigment. There are certain colors that you have on your palate. This start from the darkest. This is cadra CAD yellow.
Now, that's your desk. That is the darkest. You can find right there. That is the that's as dark as you're going to get your yellow. Doesn't matter how many times you put yellow on top for yellow. It'll be that dark and that is all you're going to go as you add water to it, spread it out a little bit. Get a little lighter, but there's only so far, you can go.
We are almost at the end. So it goes from here to here, notice the difference going from here to here, and I probably could have stretched that out as far as I wanted to. There are certain colors that you just can't get the entire spectrum that you can from a darker color.
So you just have to be aware of that. What’s really important though is being able to, as you paint, say this is say this is a number one value. This is number 9, dark value. How do I get a 5 right here? So let's go ahead and do that. So, I'm going to try to mix this and try to come up with this 5 right here. So let's do that right there. Pretty close. Let's do it. Let's go right here to maybe a 3 value.
So I know that I want to add more water and we'll put that right there. There you go. Really important to be able to find these values, as quickly as possible. And what will help is doing the scales.
Take just pick a color out, take it from its darkest. Sometimes it's easier. Add a little water, a little more water. A little more water, a little more and now you're at the lightest value, sometimes it's easier doing that. Let's just see if that can go a little darker back here, not much, but you can see the nice value range that that has.
And, of course, I could have stretch this out a little bit more, but the key to this is knowing when you add a lot of water. This is what you're going to get when you add a lot of pigment. Is what you're going to get. So if you're looking for that color, less water, if you're looking for this value and that color more water.
Let's see if we could hit right here. And that would be that would be that be pretty close. I would say right about there. Important to do these steps. I don't know if you ever did piano lessons or guitar lessons or music of any kind, but you had to do the scales. That's what this is.
You had to learn the scales you had. It was a good warm-up. If you're doing a painting that has a lot of blue in it. Do your warm up. If you're going to have a lot of yellow, do your warm up. Do the scales. Learn. Watercolors always look just a little bit more luscious. I don't know if you can tell, you always look a little more luscious when they're wet, but they will dry about 10 to 15 percent lighter than what is right here.
So remember that, that's really important. So again, that is part of the memory bank that you need to keep in there. I ask you to step into the box of discomfort. Push your watercolors in your values. Keep doing that until you get the result you want. Not once, not twice, but consistently water to paint ratio is a subject that we will come back to many many times and I sure hope this helped.
Thank you so much for being here today. Please, like and subscribe if you know somebody who'd like this video and I can be of some sort of help. Please share it with them. See you next time.
