PLANNING WASH SEQUENCES AND MANAGING EDGES - An Introduction
This is the first in a series of videos where I will show you how I paint a complex scene in watercolour - the River Arun in Sussex. As the series progresses, you will see the painting develop from start to finish, demonstrating how important it is to plan your wash sequences and learn techniques to help you manage the edges of shapes and elements in any watercolour painting.
This introduction involves a discussion of why this is so important for a landscape painter, and what skills can be deployed to achieve a pleasing combination of shapes and edges in a painting. These include:
Losing edges
Defining edges
Preserving highlights with masking fluid
Preserving highlights using negative painting
Broken edges
Glazing
Using opaque paint
In the second half of the video, I set the scene for the rest of the series by making two quick studies of the same simple landscape scene: the first demonstrates how a lack of planning with wash sequences can make it difficult to manage the edges of shapes, while the second proposes a more optimal approach.