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Hi! I'm Jim Kosvanec and I'd like to welcome you to my home and studio in the charming
colonial town of San Miguel de Allende, in central Mexico.
I've painted most of my life, but for over ten years now, the main focus of my art work
has been in the medium of watercolor.
For me, no other painting medium offers such stimulating challenges or is so visually rewarding
- when done well.
It didn't take me long to discover why transparent watercolor is considered so difficult.
My first attempts seemed to lack the richness and clarity of color I'd admired in the works
of masters - both past and present.
In short order, I had lots of questions concerning paints and proper color combinations, questions
that were unique to transparent watercolors.
After searching existing books and videos I uncovered very little information, so I
began to research the answers to my questions.
What I gradually envisioned,
on the, somewhat irrepressible, analytical side of me,
was a system for predicting clean color combinations that would apply to any color I might choose.
My book, "Transparent Watercolor Wheel" grew out of that four years of research, and this
series of videos is yet a further evolution.
I'm looking forward to this highly visual format, because it will allow me to personally
explore - with you - my watercolor wheel as well as some of the other factors that affect
luminosity.
This series is entitled "Achieving Luminosity with Transparent Watercolor." Luminosity is
the attribute that distinguishes a well-executed transparent watercolor painting from one using
an opaque medium. It's a term that's often used, but, perhaps how it relates to transparent
watercolors is new for you so let me try to define its use.
I find watercolor, especially transparent watercolor, a special painting medium. But,
It can also be an uncompromising medium. Washes can go daffy even when you're convinced that
all's going flawlessly. Of course there's nearly always an explanation for why things
went awry, but that's not a lot of consolation after you spent hours on your conception,
the drawing and then the painting.
Just improvising, say with large wet washes and a spray bottle of water, can be fun, but
if you're serious about wanting to become a better watercolorist, you'll need to learn
the "craft" of painting with watercolors as well. It's like any skill you may want to
learn. For instance, if you wanted to learn how to play golf, bridge or even the violin,
you'd probably take lessons, read books , study videos and then practice the necessary skills
involved, right?. Then, once you had a handle on the basics and felt competent, you could
let loose and in the case of art or music let creativity take its course. And it would,
quite naturally without the roadblocks of inadequate skills looming up.
When I decided to become serious about watercolor as a painter's medium, I had lots of questions.
I didn't need a "how to book", since I had years of experience using other mediums and
knew how to draw and paint since a child. I was seeking the basic, yet very unique,
information needed to approach painting in transparent watercolors. My book "Transparent
Watercolor Wheel" grew out of that need and after four years of research evolved into
the book (or books) I couldn't find.
This series of videos acts as an extension of the book and will allow me to personally
explore various concepts with you in a highly visual format that will be as interactive
as a video tape can be. I'm looking forward to the experience!
Shortly, we're going to explore my transparent watercolor wheel and see how you can choose
and produce clean, luminous color combinations every time and avoid the mud.
Here's what I mean about luminosity and it's really what makes watercolors so special -- when
done correctly. The pigments that make up our colors allow light to pass through them
and if the colors are properly applied to the paper, the light passes through the watercolor
particles, then through the transparent external sizing layer, reflect off white paper and
returns through the external sizing and the watercolor particles, illuminating them like
stained glass. Its this stained glass effect that we call luminosity.
What affects luminosity? Well, there's a lot more than we can cover in this tape, that's
for certain. But let me give you a list of them and a few thoughts of what to guard against.
I'll discuss most of these subjects in other videos.
Watercolors can look fine when they're mixed on a mixing tray or mixed on the paper. They
even look great when they're wet on the paper, and then like a miracle of nature the wash
dries as a gem or as unappealing as an oil spill on your garage floor. I'll give you
the solution for successful color mixing in a little while, but first let's cover what
other factors can affect luminosity.
Brushwork. What I see most often with students is overworking the brush. If one stroke of
the brush works, maybe a dozen or two will be better. Doesn't work that way and nearly
everyone knows it, but it's tough to get out of the habit of overworking the paper. No
matter how transparent a combination of colors is that you paint with, if you work that paint
down throughout the sizing and into the paper, you're going to lose some measure of luminosity
because the paper that ordinarily reflects white is now soaked with color with no pigments
suspended on the surface of the external sizing above it that it can illuminate because the
external sizing barrier has been destroyed! The solution -- it's kinda obvious - make
your brushwork economical, use a light touch and be patient.
Also, the type of brush you use is important. A stiff brush like nearly all synthetics is
more likely to scrub and release the external sizing a lot faster than a fine Kolinsky.
The solution is to invest in one or two fine brushes and toss your extended family collection
of synthetics into a decorative jar.
The majority of watercolor painters, including many who are advanced, don't understand how
to properly suspend their watercolors with water. More often than not, the wash is a
too thin and applied dry or at the other extreme, too pasty and looks dull when dry. Correcting
it is simple, create juicy washes and apply them properly. Unfortunately, just saying
that isn't very helpful. What is a juicy wash? And how do I know when it's properly suspended?
Then, how do I load the brush and apply it with confidence?
The solution is to study and practice water-to-paint ratios and then learn how to apply them to
paper. I covered this important subject lightly in the book, but my video on water-to-paint
suspension and floating in color will really ignite the bulb for you regarding what the
masters referred to as the mysterious "juicy" wash. Generally, a watercolorist learned to
create juicy washes through years of practice and even then it wasn't a given that the painter
acquired the understanding of water-to-paint ratios . You can cut that time down to a rained
out weekend if you apply the instruction. In fact, you'll be taking the technique well
beyond the basics, into floating in color and how to create extraordinary visual effects.
What paints you select affect luminosity. You might be using a brand of a color without
checking it out. Simply because a label describes a color, doesn't mean that's necessarily what's
in the tube. Unfortunately, a discussion of paints is beyond the scope and tape length
of this video. There's some guidance in the book, but one if one recommendation comes
to mind above all others, use professional grades of paint and not student grade. Perhaps
I'll have the pleasure of teaching a workshop for you some day and we'll go through this
subject with time on our side.
Watercolor additives. Watercolor paints are partly composed of but can also be enhanced
by the proper use of gum arabic and other related products. I frequently replenish or
increase the proportion of gum arabic in my paint wells to produce more lustrous color.
The paper you select can affect luminosity. The hardness or softness, whiteness, and sizing
can play a role in how light reflects back through the paint and illuminates it like
stained glass. My solution is to buy a white, modestly hard paper with excellent internal
and external sizing like Winsor & Newton's or Twinrocker's beautiful handmade paper.
Despite how discriminating you are with your paper selection, if you use hot water while
soaking your paper for stretching or prepare the surface by over scrubbing the external
sizing, you'll lose some of that important "hold-out" - the barrier - the external sizing
that partially keeps the paint from absorbing into the paper fibers and compromising the
reflectance from a white surface.
In the same vein, the practice of equivocating with watercolor statements and continually
pressing a tissue, paper towel or sponge onto the surface to remove color before it has
a chance to dry, will rapidly remove the surface sizing and destroy luminosity by pressing
the paint down into the white paper fibers. Remember, to fully illuminate the paint particles,
light should bounce back from white paper to create the stained glass effect. External
sizing is fairly delicate and needs to be treated with a light yet deliberate touch
to survive. Patience is the key. Unless you're absolutely certain you've made a gross miscalculation
of color or value in your painting, leave your watercolor washes alone! Nine times out
of ten, you'll find they were correct and even if they're a little off, the result will
be better than having compromised the paper's integrity. I think it was Frank Reilly who
said, "If a wash looks right when it's wet, it wrong!" I'll state it another way. Now
remember this, if a wet wash looks too dark when it's wet, it's probably right when it
dries.
When watercolors are well done, light seems to glow from the paper and the painting takes
on more than just the essence of a fine piece of art. There's a lot more to creating a piece
of art than simply paying attention to how you mix colors but if you take this learning
process one step at a time, you'll become a much better painter than you are today,
a lot faster than you ever thought possible.
I find that there are colors that have characteristics that make them compatible in color mixing
or make them create terrifying puddles of mud. Every color falls into one of three major
categories.
Let's start off with what creates the effect of luminosity. Remember, our watercolors,
even the opaques allow light to pass through the pigment. It's how much light that passes
through that determines if it's an transparent, semi-transparent, semi-opaque or opaque.
A properly applied transparent watercolor wash allows light to pass through it, onward,
through the transparent layer of external sizing and then reflect back from relatively
white paper. When the light returns through the color pigments, they illuminate like stain
glass does when a light shines through from behind.
The watercolor wheel has five rings, but for now, we're just concerning ourselves with
the three major rings since the other two are subcategories.
My research taught me that colors have characteristics that make them compatible in mixing or cause
them to create terrifying puddles of mud. What you're going to learn isn't rocket science.
It's so easy to understand, you'll wonder why no one before me thought of it.
Let's take a look at my color wheel as it appears in the book.
This fold out page is removable and makes a handy reference guide in your studio.
The full wheel has five rings. As with most color wheels, the colors are arranged on these
rings in a counterclockwise order, running from yellows at the top through reds at about
eight o'clock and then blues, greens and then back up to yellow. This arrangement allows
us to make color selections for complements, triads and analogous colors as conveniently
as with other wheels, BUT now, we can choose the BEST color combination that suits our
purpose, and know that the wash, when it dries, will be RADIANT or in certain cases even dull,
if that's what you want. Two of the rings are sub-categories, so for simplicity's sake,
let's couple them with there parent ring.
If you learn how the three primary rings inter-relate, and understand and abide by the limitations,
you can select color combinations with confidence. With just three rings, understanding the guidelines
that govern color relationships is very easy.
We're going to begin by looking at the three primary rings one by one:
Let's take the innermost ring on the wheel, where you'll find the transparent non-staining
colors, and, in order to make this as simple as possible, we'll combine it with the second
ring of semi-transparent non-staining colors forming our first primary ring, Transparent
and Semi-transparent non staining colors.
The third ring on the full wheel is where the transparent staining colors reside. This
ring will stand alone as our second primary ring, Transparent Staining colors.
Now, combining rings four and five from the full wheel we form our third primary ring
where the opaque and semi-opaque colors will reside along with whitened and blackened opaques
and semiopaques — all on the same ring.
Keep in mind, the first primary ring is non-staining and the second primary ring is staining yet
both are transparent.
The first major category is the Transparent and Semi-Transparent Non-staining group. Their
pigments are very fine and are compatible with all colors. The only difference between
these two is that the semi-transparent colors are slightly more opaque.
The second major category is the one to watch out for. These transparent staining colors
have been dubbed the devil colors by students. The pigments are so fine they bear the unfortunate
idiosyncrasy of sometimes attacking other colors and staining - then dulling them.