Mixing Watercolors- Quick Guide For The Do-It-Yourself Artist

Watercolors are a fine medium for any artist to work in. Most people’s experiences with the medium began when they were children, but the extent of possibilities for watercolor paintings goes far beyond that of juvenile beginnings. Oils and acrylics maybe the medium favored by many serious artists, but watercolors have produced some masterpieces in their own right, especially by those of the English school in the sixteenth century.

Watercolor as a medium is a difficult thing to master – unlike the steadiness of oil, watercolors change the canvas and are an active part of the process because of its liquid temperament. There are several techniques unique to the school that help an artist attempt to work with the changes wrought by the medium.

One of these techniques is to create your own paints. Most expert painters prefer to do this, even though there is a plethora of commercial choices available on the market. This is a field where watercolor excels for unlike oils and acrylics, with their toxic and difficult to manage components, watercolors are easier-to-make with an easily available solvent.

Their odorless nature and low maintenance requirements also make watercolors an attractive choice for most painters, even if it is to create preliminary renderings…

Mixing your own watercolors is also a simple task – all you’ll need is a few easily available items and you’ll be set. You can actually buy watercolor mixing kits – they can be found in most art supply shops and are a great way to get you started. However, if your shop is a bit lacking or you are a do-it-yourself kind of artist, you can mix your own paints without a kit.

First of all, you’ll need a few tools such as a few palette knives and a muller. A muller is essentially used to grind pigment – typically made of glass, you’ll find one in most art supply shops. The palette knives are used to cut the binders and pigments into easily manageable pieces. They also double as spatulas, if necessary. Note that you’ll need to keep them clean constantly or your paint will have impurities that will eventually ruin it. This also runs true for any pots or pans you’ll be using the process.

Next, when you’ve got all the tools, you’ll have to get the ingredients. Pigments are easy to come by since they’re already sold as such. You’ll have to make your own binder though – binders are what make sure the pigments stay uniform and stick to the canvas. To create your binder you’ll need the following:

• 2 parts of pulverized gum Arabic
• 4 parts of boiling distilled water
• 1 part of glycerin

Put the gum in pot or bowl and pour the boiling distilled water over it. Stir in the glycerin. After cooling, strain the solution through cheesecloth into a clean glass jar. Your simple binding solution is now ready for use.

Now you can mix pigment and binder by grinding the binder into it. A good rule of thumb for this mix is ¼ binder to ¾ pigment. This is a long and tedious process and need to be tested to see how it’s going by using a brush and paper for a few test strokes. The pigment needs to be ground finely for the perfect paint – the act of getting it right is an art in itself, so don’t be disappointed if you fumble on your first few tries. On the other hand, learning this part of the artist’s craft holds its own fascinations. Just remember to keep on trying until you get it right.

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