3 Steps for Painting Success
You know the feeling… you’ve found the perfect subject to paint, and all you want to do is to sit down and – well, paint! So you launch into it. What often happens next is that a lot of work goes into the painting process, but the results are disappointing because your colours are off and the painting looks flat. Why? More often than not, it’s because you missed an essential step – the prep work.
Prep for success
The prep work you do for a painting is as important as the painting process itself. I’ll go into each one separately in different posts, but here’s a summary of what to do and why it’s important:
1. Check your drawing
If your drawing is wrong, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Your drawing is the map that gives you directions to a successful painting. I’m not saying that it has to be perfect (there’s no such thing), but it must be as accurate as you can get it.
Look for smaller shapes inside the big shapes and draw those too. Make sure you map out your values (see more below).
2. Plan your colours
Look carefully at your subject and invest time in working out how to mix the colours you need – the colour recipes, if you like. Take notes next to each swatch because you may think you’ll remember how you mixed that colour, but if you’re anything like me, you won’t.
If you’re painting a pink tulip for example, mix all the colours for your petals’ first layer. Once that’s done, you can paint those petals without having to keep stopping to mix colours. This is extremely important for smooth wet-on-wet layering. Then do the same for the next layer, and so on.
Put all your colour mixes in a book, and in no time at all, you’ll have a colour recipe book that you’ll refer to time and time again.
For me, swatching is an important step in this process as it helps me understand the options I have with the limited colours in my collection. It’s also a very relaxing process and I often do it just to get out of my own head when I’m stressed.
3. Understand the values
Values, also known as tones, are what give your painting dimension. A value range (a spectrum of light to dark colours) is crucial for a successful painting. There’s an easy way to check them: if you’re working from life, take a picture of your subject and reduce the saturation in your phone’s editing software so that the image is in black and white.
Don’t use a black and white filter as this will exaggerate some values at the expense of others – ONLY desaturate the image.
The black and white photo will give you a clear indication of the value range. If you’re working from a photo, the process is just the same.
Take pics of your work as you progress and repeat the above process. This will give you a clear indication of where you need to adjust your values.
When you mix your colours, be sure to test them so that you are sure you have the correct value. That piece of scrap watercolour paper you test all your colours on is a crucial piece of equipment.
Light colours will be a watery consistency, and the darker a colour is, the more creamy the consistency of your mix will be because the pigment to water ratio is higher.
When painting, your goal is to protect the white and lights at all costs, to have a good range of mid tones and to be brave when it comes to the darks. My most common observation to students is that their darks need to be darker, because without those darks your work lacks dimension and visual impact.
And… Paint!
Now that you’ve set yourself up for success, you can start your painting from a position of strength. You’ll be amazed by the confidence these steps will give you because you’ve taken the time to really study your subject. They will hopefully become habitual and the results will speak for themselves.