My first mistake | Beginner Watercolour

I feel the urge to document the mistakes that I had made while trudging along the unfamiliar path of art because these basic mistakes surprised me. The mistakes surprised me because I had spent days researching but still committed them. Haha! Perhaps many professional artists had forgotten to mention these level zero challenges… perhaps I had not done good enough research… Regardless, I am glad that I had made these mistakes and I want to share them, in part to amuse myself, in part for others who wish to walk this path.

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Mistake #1 – Wrong Mixing Palette

Committed: 4 November 2016

I bought a beautiful clear acrylic artist palette  with the thumbhole (below) to mix watercolours primarily because I enjoyed looking at it.

I used the flat plastic palette happily for two days before stumbling upon one professional who explained clearly why I should get a palette with wells.

In the two days, I did not face the problem of water dripping because water evaporates rapidly in my tropical climate. I spritzed water from an inexpensive spray bottle whenever I needed to wet the paint again.

However, I found it slightly difficult to control where individual colours flow on the palette – colours mix on their own (below).

I loved that the palette itself looked like a work of art after use (below). In fact, I managed to “paste” three pieces of sketch paper over the leftover paints to get background prints for my junk journal.

I did not understand the point of getting a palette with weird holes and huge spaces until someone (forgotten the name) articulated to me how to use the spaces and demonstrate it. I thought the spaces were a waste of space. Who would squeeze out so much paint?

No one would squeeze out so much paint but one could use the huge spaces to dilute watercolours to varying degrees so as to lighten the colour, also known as tone.

I moved on to using a round open palette and I started using a closed palette (below) about one month after I made my first mistake of using the flat artist palette.

Lessons Learned

1. The weird holes and huge spaces are called wells. The wells hold water – the medium for watercolour pigments to flow. Huge spaces are meant for holding a lot of water and for mixing a large mix. One would make a large mix when they want to colour a large space, usually A3 scenes (skies, grounds, seas) and above. One dips a large paintbrush, generally 1 inch and wider, into the large mix. This is termed, giving a wash of colour.
2. One could let the water evaporate and the remaining dry paint will stay put. Leave it dry for portability or rewet to use the same colour again.
3. One only needs a tiny bit of paint to wash a large area. Let it flow with the medium – water.
4. The flat mixing artist palette depicted so often in the hand of Picasso is for oil paints or acrylic paints. Those paints do not flow off the flat palette.
5. The flat mixing palette with a thumbhole has been romanticised too much.

References

1. Don Andrews on Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff gives me a sense of water as a medium.
2. Jason Skill on Painting With Skill gives the best bite-size teachings on watercolour.
3. SchaeferArt has one of the best naggings on mixing colours.

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I still enjoy looking at the clear artist palette very much because it sets me free. A clear and blank palette stimulates and inspires me because the emptiness means I can do what I want and do it well!

What was your first mistake in watercolour?