WATERCOLOR PAINTING IN PRACTICE

PAINTING WATERCOLOR WITH AN AIR BRUSH

Generally an air brush is not used for artistic advisable to use it. Today in the field of illustra- useful to you, we thought a good idea, while
it

watercolors, which does not mean that on cer- tion, the air brush is an indispensable tool. Maria Rius was producing her illustration, to
tain occasions, in order to obtain certain effects As a result of this requirement, and since under explain briefly the function and technique of the
such as smooth grading or blending, graded certain circumstances this knowledge may be airbrush.
strokes, the effects of mist, etc., it might not be

Fig. 41 4- Before beginning to

Fig. 413-Charactenstics and
spray the color, the artist must
mechanics of the airbursh for check on a separate piece of
it

artists. The "gun" is operated

paper, having first prepared the
by an air compressor, which necessary quantity of color in a
the artist controls with a pedal,
cup or small mug.
leaving the hands free to con-
trolthe extremely fine spray of
paint forced out by the mecha-
nism.

414 " >#

Fig. 41 5- With the color al- {££

ready prepared, one should
r

1 Mto Fig.

ing,
41 6- Before
carry out a test
finally paint-

on any
test the gun, loading it with wa-
piece of paper, making sure
ter to prevent possible set- that there can be no splashing
•» ,L
backs, such as the gun being which on the paper and final
dirty, blocked, etc. Having car-
drawing would mean an irre-
ried out this prior check, use versible mishap.
a coarse brush to transfer the
liquid paint from the cup in
*£}*
which it has been prepared to
the small reservoir of the
brush,
halfway.
filling it approximately
air

416
^
JB
415

Fig. 418— Here Maria Rius is

Fig. 417— Having taken all the
painting a change of shades or
necessary precautions, paint-
colors with a stencil; this re-
ing can begin with the air-
mains fixed in place over the
brush, checking the intensity
original drawing by some pieces
of the blend or the evenness of
of lead or small standard
the gray, since, if it is very dark
weights, typically used to make
and requires more than one ap-
sure that the stencil is not moved
plication, it is necessary to wait
by the movement of air from
for it to dry in order to intensify
the air brush. In order to
it with new applications of
better understand what Maria
spray. Notice how far away
Rius is doing here, look at the
from the picture Maria works
blends and change of colors in
while she is holding the gun
the illustration shown in fig.
and painting.
423.
418
Fig. 419-On a small scale, Fig. 420— The air brush, with
these are the blended strips of the outlet pipe suitably sealed,
color against a background of can draw fine shades and
produced by the air brush
color, strokes of blended colors like

and a stencil which Maria Hius those reproduced here.

moved gradually upwards. The
resolution of this series of blend-
ed strips or boundaries can
be seen more clearly on the
following pages.

419
420

171
WATERCOLOR PAINTING IN PRACTICE

painting an illustration in watercolors

422

Figs 421. 422- After having Fig. 423-Here is the back- Observe that this background
produced several pencil ground painted with an air has been reserved with adhe-
studies, Maria Rius drew these brush on which, if you look sive tape, in order to provide a
sea-gulls and this figure which closely, it is possible to see the frame or white margin around
could already be used for a fin- line drawing of the sea-gulls the illustration.

ished illustration. and the figure of the flying child.

423
of the figures and animals, all the important
elements. These studies are usually done in
pencil, on visualizing or tracing paper, both of
which are nearly transparent. In this way. if
any one of these sketches turns out to be per-
fect, it may be transferred by tracing it onto the
definitive drawing. The tracing is usually done
by blackening the back of the tracing paper
which has the selected drawing. This blacken-
ing, made with pencil, works as carbon paper.
However, this can be messy and cause carbon
to come off on the good paper. The best
method of transferring is to use a light box
with the tracing paper and drawing paper on
top. Maria Rius drew several studies of sea-
gulls and a little girl flying; she kept the draw-
ing which is reproduced here. The sky in the
background and the sea were executed with
the air brush, using the procedures I explain
on the previous page.

First stage: transferring the drawing, and paint-

ing with the air brush (Fig. 423)
After the study of the girl and sea-gulls is
traced onto the fine watercolor paper with
a hard well-sharpened pencil, Maria frames M__|^
the illustration with scotch tape previously
discharged of its glue, by means of rubbing
it on the edge of the table. Next, she paints the

sky and sea with the air brush. She first applies
a blue-green background creating the sky and
nearly obliterating the pencil drawn figures.
Using the same color, Maria Rius paints a
series of five undulating stripes through a
templet or stencil, applying paint as she moves
the templet down. Thus, beginning at the top,
k
the second stripe is darker still, and so on. in

172

1 shapes with the brush and then absorbs the
V diluted paint with a paper towel, repeating the
Fig. 424— Good illustrations are
actually the products of patient
and delicate work. Here, for
example Maria Rius has had to
absorb the color of the the air
brush at the bottom of the illus-
the beach and
tration, to paint
bushes in the foreground. She
has "opened up" white areas
for the seagulls and girl, but
not satisfied with the absorp-
tion effected by hand with the
brush and blotting paper, she
has patiently applied liquid
bleach diluted with water to
achieve the results she is after.
g. 425— Here Maria Rius is
"opening up" the blanks shown
in the previous figure; a job
which requires maximum
425
cision so as not to "go too far,"
WATERCOLOR PAINTING IN PRACTICE
the fourth stripe," I told Maria, "the templet
has dirtied the edge." "Have you noticed?"
she replied in an amusing way, "I've seen it; it
wasn't planned. It's a shame, but I thought that
I could paint the foam and win in the end."
Second stage: painting the foreground and draw-
ing the figures (Fig. 424)
Maria Rius carefully removes the transparent
scotch tape covering the lower part of the illus-
tration, and paints this area, working with a no.
8 brush and a light, yellow green color, to
represent the beach. Below this color, as a
decorative border for the illustration, she now
paints some green shapes that remind us of
trees and bushes. The interesting point here is
that in order to paint the beach and bushes,
Maria Rius has had to wash this area which
was previously painted with green color from
the air brush. She must also dilute and wash
off the paint which covers the flying girl and
sea-gulls. This is one of the tricks the watercol-
or illustrator knows. This is a job that the
illustrator will do quite often. The artist will
rely on the more malleable quality of liquid
watercolors to help her. She first wets the
procedure—always using clean water—as many
times as is necessary to leave the treated areas
free of color. This is obviously harder to do if
the color is very intense or if the pigment is
very permanent, as in the case of carmine,
alizarin crimson, Prussian blue; emerald, and
several others.
424
Beside this procedure, the artist may also rely
on a trick, which consists of washing the whit-
ened zone with lye diluted in water— this leaves
the paper absolutely white! (Beware: while
applying the diluted lye do not use a brush
with marten hair, but a brush with synthetic
hair, the only material that will resist the corro-
sive action of lye.)
Third stage: painting the figure (Fig. 425)
Once you know the system of washing and the
trick with lye, it's no secret how the sea foam
was "painted," or how the sea-gulls acquired
their whiteness. But there is something left
that deserves a separate discussion.
pre-
Maria has removed the remaining scotch tape
creating a bright, clean rectangle around the
illustration, and has begun painting the flying
girl. She paints the color of the flesh first, next
the rose color of the dress, and finally the
reddish Sienna hair. In each case, especially in
173