Acquerello per veri principianti - lezione 1 - materiali e primi passi

Hi creatives, welcome back! For today's video I thought I'd show you the technique that is most associated with illustration, that is watercolor. But I want to show you the very first basics, because in many YouTube videos dedicated to beginners in watercolor, in reality I have seen that they give a lot of things for free, which may seem trivial for those who are already used to using the technique, but for those who have never opened a bottle of watercolor, they are not trivial at all. So, without further ado, I'll show you first of all the materials needed to be able to paint in watercolor. Of course, the first thing are the colors. I still have the very first box of watercolors that I bought for the Academy, and they are by Winsor & Newton, Cotman. They are very worn out, but they are not finished yet, because watercolors really last a long time, so by using a technique where the colors dissolve in the water, with such a small brush, I'll show you one of the colors, ok, with such a small brush, you can really use a lot of colors. I used these in the school phase, because they are good colors, but more in the study phase. Then I also bought those in tube, I have them both by Cotman, so the same brand, the same type, only in tube, and then I also have the last one left, the Venice, which are excellent, wonderful, always in tube. For a matter of practicality, I prefer the Gaudet boxes, I like them, I'm already used to them. Lately, instead, I've been using these, which are half Gaudet, these are the biggest Gaudet, these tablets, and they are called White Nights, Saint-Petersburg, I don't know exactly how to pronounce it, because there is also the writing in Russian, they are made of honey, and they have a lot of pigmentation, so I really like them, but they are also highly recommended, for example, by Van Gogh, because they are more or less like Costo, like those by Winsor & Newton, but, for example, my students often tell me that they find them more pigmented, more brilliant in color. Then, of course, I need the brushes, I have a lot of them, these are just a few, just a few, some used, some less, I have them both cheap, I bought these on Amazon, they are, of course, of higher quality, for example, these are the Tintoretto, I really like them, and then, recently, I bought this other line, always by Tintoretto, they recommended it to me because they told me that the tip should last longer, because with watercolors, the problem is that the tips of the brushes wear out easily, because we rub them on the paper, which is a thick, rough paper, so we lose the tip, but having brushes with a good tip for watercolor is essential, I always say this also during my courses, because otherwise we won't be able to make thin lines, or to keep the details, so I always recommend you to buy brushes with a good tip if you ruin them. And then they also recommended this other line, Borciani Bonazzi, Top Graphic, for calligraphy, which is also very good now, and they recommended it to me because they told me that they are also good for watercolor, they should have a good resistance, so I'll try them and let you know. Then, of course, the other accessories you need are water, and I recommend two bowls, one for the water that gets dirty with the colors, and the other with clean water that gets dirty with the pigments. Another important thing is the paper, of course, regarding the paper, we have several possibilities, there are cheaper and less expensive papers, the first thing to do is to look for a paper that is made for watercolor, because they are specific papers, they have a percentage of cotton, the more cotton there is, I'll show you the albums that I usually use, this one, in the Canson Aquarelle XL, I use it mainly for tests, sketches, sometimes it happened to me to start a quick job and then finish it, I didn't find it bad, it's not the top of the range, but it's good to start. Also, as a studio album, this one, also from Canson, Aquarelle, a little bigger, but I think there are also in a smaller format, I find myself better with the other one. And then, of course, we have the best paper, for watercolor, the Hush, and there are really different types, they cost more, this is the Torsion, but there are also with a smooth surface, really different from each other, maybe this one is recommended when you already want to do a more definitive work, or for professionals. What are we missing? Towels or fabric, because it is important to absorb, to make absorb a towel or a piece of fabric, the excess water and the excess color, because now we will see Ok, let's see right away how to use them. Here we are, we have our watercolor sheet, I have this small sheet, the colors, a tablet, or even bowls, where we can create our colors, water nearby, with the towel immediately at hand, and the brush and ready brushes. The first thing to do is to create the color. Many times this is taken for granted, during courses they ask me how do I create the amount of color, to melt the watercolor, so let's go see it. Here we have our towels, or if you have the tube, just put some color on the tablet. The first thing to do is to put the water on the bowl or on the tablet, choosing the amount of color we are going to create, that is, we put a lot of water and a lot of color we can then create. I want this amount, it's enough for me. With the wet brush, not dripping, but wet, I'm going to gently rub the color I choose to use, for example this orange. Passing the water with the brush, the color melts, and we bring it on the drop of water we created before. Here is a very intense color, it has to be quite liquid. One of the mistakes at the beginning is to dissolve too much color in little water, because we are used to acrylic, tempera, gouache, but it is a totally different technique, watercolor needs water to let the color flow, to melt it well, so this amount is fine. What do we do at this point? We can go directly to paint on the sheet, the color is wet on dry, so we have the wet color on the dry paper. Let's draw some petals. Do you see how watery it is? I can drag the drops of water and color in such a way as to distribute them well, because if, for example, I push them all up here, both water and pigment accumulate up here, it will be lighter because there is less pigment. Once the water is dry, you will see that the color remains all up. Let's do it as an exercise. I pull it all up. It can be a nice effect if you want, but if we want to distribute the color well, instead we have to play with the drop until it is well distributed. This game of playing with the brush can be done until the watercolor is wet, there is still water. If it starts to dry, we no longer have to touch it because otherwise we will dissolve the color that was drying and therefore ruin the coloring. Let's clean our brush. Let's dab the excess water. I'll show you. If I pass the brush where it was drying, I remove the color and let it dry. It is so dry, you see where I had passed the water and the brush and I had removed the color, it is lighter. Instead, where there was the drop of water and color, it dried and was darker because all the pigment was concentrated there. Another way to use watercolor is wet on wet, that is, I wet the sheet first, in this way, for example, I can redraw three petals as if I were already painting with the color. Actually, I'm just going to wet. I'm going to take the color I had already prepared before. You see, just by placing it with the tip, it follows the water stains I had created before. In this case, there is a lot of water, so let's not exaggerate, let's dab the brush on the napkin to remove the excess water and color. In this case, we can play directly with the brush to distribute the color well or leave it and move the sheet so that the pigment moves freely. In this case, the color is lighter because there is much more water and therefore the pigment is more diluted. You see how important the tip is because I can define better as I said before the shapes. In addition to this, I wanted to show you another thing. If you have color that has dried on your tablet, on your bowl, this is all color that can still be used. Just wet it with the brush and you will see that it will immediately melt and we can paint. But let's move on to paint something nice with watercolor just to exercise a little and have fun. So, first of all, let's melt our color. In this case, I need a green and I finally try the new brush. So live we realize how it works. I dip it in water for a moment to moisten the bristles. I remove the excess water and I take my color. You see that I always mix because the pigment concentrates in the center where there is a slope and so I always mix well. Ok. I'm going to draw a star, to paint directly a star. You see that the tip is well pointed and I make some branches. And now I'm going to create yellow, actually blue. I want to make blue flowers. What I recommend is to practice with simple drawings because at the beginning you need to understand a little the amount of water to use. That can only be understood by trying and experimenting. The more water, the less water, the more you learn. It's a bit like driving. Ok. In the same way I can make other branches with other flowers of the same color or different colors. I'll show you. Here is our little exercise. You can add all the flowers you want, of the various colors. And it is very useful to start to take a little bit of care with the amount of water, dissolve the colors and so on. We'll see you in the next video. Remember to put a like if you liked it, to write in the comments if you have any questions or uncertainties and you would like to learn something more. See you next time!