This is a collection of Hints & tips that our Facebook fans, Twitter followers and customers have emailed in to us.
Plein air hands clean.
Put a damp flannel in a grip seal sandwich bag, and use it to wipe all the paint off your hands during a plein air painting session. Follow up with paper towels to dry them off.
Nicky
If you find your self without a putty eraser use blue tack. Magic eraser sponges great for lifting colour out and only a pound for four from discount stores.
If you do not want to stretch you watercolour paper before you start painting, try this; masking tape the top of paper to board do your first wash then flatten then tape bottom.
Brian
As I find it difficult to get a straight line when I try to paint such things as the edge of a building I’ve developed this simple combination of techniques.
I find it easier to control a pencil than a paint brush to get good eye sweet lines in watercolour paintings so if I want a straight neat line I first use a watercolour pencil to mark in a good light edge. Then, I paint almost up to the line and use my wet paintbrush to lightly blend the two mediums. This tip works really well with uniform or variegated images. For painting things like a stone wall try using different shades of watercolour pencils to make marks to paint up to.
Ann
- Wear fingerless gloves when doing detailed work to avoid smudging.
- When doing pyrography make sure the wire nib is a big enough curve to bridge the grain lines to avoid burnt spots
Lisa C