State of the paper while painting
To start we have a small exercise.
Mix a Blue, Yellow and Red in separately. Onto a small piece of watercolour paper place three blobs of yellow as shown below. Wash your brush. on the last blob drop in the blue just on the edge of the yellow, the Red as shown. Let the paints merge into the yellow. This is WET into WET
When the paper has dried a little it should be in the damp mode. Lift your board to eye level so that your looking along the paper if it's damp, it will have a silky shine rather than a gloss when wet. At this stage drop in the blue and red again into the middle blob of yellow. (remember to wash your brush) This time the paint will not merge as easily and some hard lines between the two colours will appear. This is WET into DAMP.
By the time you have done the above the last blob of yellow will be dry. Stroke across the yellow with the blue and red and you will notice how transparent watercolours are.
Do
the exercise again using blue and red blobs.
The
paper can be WET, DAMP or DRY.
(1) We
can put wet paint onto wet paint. The colours being wet will merge into each
other and no hard lines will be visible.
(2) We
can put wet paint onto dry paint. The two colours will act like tinted glass
creating a different colour. Some hard lines will be seen.
(3) If
we put wet paint into damp paint, a reaction will occur, pushing the damp paint
into flowering or cauliflowers, on most occasions leaving an unsightly mess. So
keep your wet paint away from damp surfaces.
Dry
Damp
Wet