Frank Webb Watercolours

Many years ago, I distinctly remember turning the page in a watercolour book and encountering the explosion of colours and shapes in a Frank Webb work. After being steeped in the English watercolour tradition, including Turner, this was a whole new world.

Frank Webb, born in 1927 has to be the elder statesman of American expressive watercolour. His style directly influences the generations of graphic, abstracted and perhaps somewhat cartoonist styles. Whether or not you are attracted to his building blocks of bright, edgy colours his images are intriguing. I always want to turn them upside down just to look at the purity of the overall composition. In order to achieve such vibrant effects, Webb had a world of colour experiences swirling ’round. We all started learning from the same basics of colour. Colour can be a crowning glory, that final zing and perhaps even a universe in itself!

Colour and Colour Mixing

Whether you’re new to colour practices, or wanting a refresher, a great start is to investigate the mixing of colours in a colour wheel. Using your own colours rather than those any website or book might recommend is where the real value lies. There’s no theory that can replace the experience of how your tubes mix together – it’s a tangible, real-world experience.

Firstly, become comfortable with the basics of the colour wheel. Most art books have something sensible to say about this and a good summary is contained in the first couple of sections on this website: http://www.colormatters.com/color-and-design/basic-color-theory

Secondly, watch the following video which summarizes my approach to colour and mixing:

Exercises

1. Now, see if you can develop a colour wheel along similar lines – repeat the video, pausing as you go. My approach is to follow a variation of a palette based on 2 versions of each primary, in “warm” and “cool” versions. This aids more predictable colour mixing.
2. When you have finished following the video, prove to yourself that you can “decolour” each of the primaries by mixing in a little of the complement: what tonal colour does each give?
3. Finally, take one of your tonal colours: burnt or raw Sienna, yellow oxide/ochre, burnt or raw umber – it’s not really important which – put out a small squirt and then see if you can replicate the same colour by mixing just the primaries together…as you see, that same target tone will appear…perhaps a little magically!
4. As a painting exercise for the week, commence with a lightly drawn image and add watercolour using only your two versions of each primary –  mixing your tonal colours as you go. Remember to keep in mind that idea of light, mid-tone and dark from last week (perhaps use week 3’s  2-puddle system).

Glazed colour grid

Washing one colour over the other is often an excellent path to vibrant effects, especially in watercolour, whereas over-mixing can create somewhat deadened effects. In the following video, I describe a glazed grid of swaths of colour to show how various pigments behave, one over the other:

Try to achieve mid-value swaths, ideally using a large brush: the fewer the brush marks the better! Remember to wait for the first pass to dry before completing the grid. In watercolour, a single pass for each application of colour is best…if you move your brush back and forth too much underlying colour will lift!

Exercises

1. Create a glazed colour grid with your colours as in the glazed colour grid video and description. You don’t have to have exactly the same tones. In fact, that’s where the value is: seeing how your colours combine.
2. Quiz questions – which is better for glazing? Yellow Ochre or Hansa Yellow? Likewise, would you choose Alizarin Crimson or Burnt Sienna?

Mixing Greens

The landscape is full of greens and all yellows and blues will make some sort of green. Greens are on one hand the easiest to create and then perhaps the most difficult to handle. Many greens are too green out of the tube and that’s one reason why I mix all my greens from scratch. I like the variation of results – partially mixed paints are all useful as the colours of nature are never uniform. Whether using oil, acrylic or watercolour, I use the following mixes:

1. For forest greens, I mix a yellow (normally a neutral yellow like Hansa, Cadmium Light/Lemon) with my trusty Ultramarine. Ultramarine, being dark and containing red (the complement) creates a brooding tonal forest green.
2. The same yellow with Cerulean or Cobalt makes a much lighter, intense green and with lots of yellow, is pure sunlight on leaves.
3. My third mix is made using Phthalo blue. The intense nature of Phthalo gives colour that, to my eye is impossible to mix using other blues. I use this sparingly to contrast with other types of foliage – perhaps saving it for a special bush or type of plant.

With watercolour in particular, I wait until the last minute to add this last colour. I know that it is very staining so I need to be sure as to where it is going!

Notice that my approach is all about the blues and I typically go to the same yellow. That’s because the specific yellow seems to have much less effect on the mix. I favour a neutral yellow: primary, Hansa, Cadmium Light/Lemon. I also use Lemon yellow (just wink at it and it turns green) and the opaque, tonal Yellow Ochre, or Oxide for duller chalky passages.

Exercise

• Put out a swath of each of your yellows and then mix across with blues to obtain the natural result of the two. Perhaps try a yellow-green and a blue-green for each too.

Discussion on Andrew Wyeth’s colour

 

Watercolour materials and processes

 

Brushes

I use a pretty simple set of brushes. I do much of my work with a decent-sized, synthetic round brush (#12-16 – note that numbers are not standardized across makers). It’s important that brushes spring back to a point. I use two similar, smaller rounds, a large area water brush and a small stiff brush for pulling out pigment. All are mid-quality synthetics. Clearly, more expensive natural bushes have their advantages, however for my style of watercolour, they are not essential.

Papers

I invariably use 140 lb. watercolour paper and typically carry two qualities: a cheap pad and one of decent quality: Arches when the price is right, however I do a lot of painting on Fabriano paper. I’ve tried most decent quality brands and like them all. Good quality 90lb paper is OK, however I would always choose a poor quality, 140lb sheet in preference.

Weight aside, the key is that it’s real watercolour paper. If it does not say “Watercolour” it will not work. Watermedia, mixed media papers are not the same thing at all. The difference is in the cellulose sizing that prevents it from acting like blotting paper, allowing you to lift and move colour. I use a half sheet, 22”x 15” or similar and prefer to do small work on large, uncut sheets rather than be constrained by the edges of the paper.

I use cold-pressed, although I like hot-pressed for more graphic work and have had good results with rough and also more expressive abstractions.

Stretching

I do not stretch the paper first, although that means the paper will move around and buckle somewhat. There’s lot’s of advice on stretching on the web and this site is comprehensive: https://watercolorpainting.com/stretching-paper-bucking-the-buckle/

An alternative to stretching is to use a watercolour pad that is glued around the 4 sides. This way the paper is fully constrained whilst you paint.

Flattening

I do press flat when finished. I dampen on the back, place between a few blank sheets of acid-free paper or in a watercolour pad and then sandwich between plates of flat hard surface (glass, melamine or similar) and  compress by weighting with books overnight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-nr9DULRaA

Some watercolourists will gently iron their work: I’ve tried it, but it still scares me.

Tearing rather than cutting

Watercolour paper tears along the weave, with due care of course. The result is a nice “Deckled” edge which looks great as a feature. The procedure I use is to carefully tear against  a good steel ruler pressing hard supported on a flat surface. The following video shows how: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pck66N_O2nc

The following approach should work too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaG6zUVpxJ8

Pigments

The most important paint characteristic, for me, is permanence – the light-fastness, or fade resistance over time. All reputable paint manufacturers will specify the permanence and I check the tubes for this: If it’s not marked on the tube, it’s not good. I use a variety of paint brands in both Artist and Student quality. There can be many preferences and factors when painting, however above all else, you do not want your painting to fade over time.

I use a limited palette, favoring pigments that are close to the primaries: red, yellow and blue. Should you be off to the store as you start the course, by all means follow my recommendations in the course description: Cerulean blue, Ultramarine blue, Cadmium red, Alizarin crimson, Cadmium yellow, Lemon yellow, Burnt Sienna, Yellow ochre and Paynes gray.

On a final note, you may see some pigments marked “hue”. This indicates a pigment that’s been formulated to mimic the true “hue” of a traditional pigment – but at lower cost. As such, it is not necessarily inferior, however it may have somewhat different characteristics, depending on application. I often use “hues” and have had no problems.

Discussion of Palettes