A Guide to Watercolour Techniques
Explore some of the techniques used by Joseph Mallard William Turner, inspired by his work The Scarlet Sunset (1840).
Stage 1
Try the colours on watercolour paper. Begin with the primaries; red, yellow and blue. Notice how different it is working with a brush loaded with water and paint on a dry paper surface compared to when you wet the paper first, the latter is called the wet in wet technique. See how the colour moves around more on a wetted surface.
Stage 2
Practice laying washes on wet and dry surfaces and combining more than one colour. Try graduating some of the washes by adding more water and diluting parts of the wash. See how the wet in wet technique gives your wash a softer, more muted finish, whereas laying a wash onto dry paper results in a more intense colour.
Stage 3
Now using Turner as your inspiration and working wet in wet, select a yellow and a red, allowing the colour to spread and move around to create other colours and tones. Then try applying dry colour as an overlay on top of the wet in wet washes, once the first layer has had a little time to dry.
Stage 8
Build more layers of dry and wet colour, lifting out areas if they become too muddy. Now try applying colour with less water to create a coarser, more dispersed texture, this is known as the dry brush technique. Practice working with your own observations from photographs or outdoors en plein air. Download the guide here.
