Painting with Watercolors

Before I start with the painting I need to tape this watercolor paper down to a board, and there are a couple of reason for me doing this. First of all by holding the paper down it wont buckle from the water meaning sometimes the paper it will fold after laying to much water, by taping the sheet of watercolor down it will not to fold. Another reason I tape my paintings is because it leaves a blank 2 inch border that crops the painting so that it can be held by hand, people in general including myself will be handling my work and we do have skin oils that leave fingerprint marks on painted work or photographs so these borders act like a security blanket against that It also gives the work a beautiful photographic compositional look.

When I’m painting with watercolors I start from light to dark, because its easier to fix mistakes, also that means I start with the lightest value and work towards the darkest value of that tone. I really cant tell what the painting is going to look like even if its half done because everything is light toned and hard to see until after when the contrast starts to come out from the dark values. It takes time and I have to depend on the water to do most of the work for me, with small bush stokes it comes down to trusting myself that I know what I’m doing because the moment I lose sight of that something will go wrong and watercolors can be very unforgiving.