Episode 4: Peggi Habets Vocabulary

Moisture control

A big part of my discussion with Peggi Habets (Episode 4) is about moisture control. Moisture control refers to having the amount of water you want in your brush. Watercolor is a dance between the amount of pigment you have on your brush compared to the amount of water you have on your brush. If you have a ton of water, you’ll have light, watery washes. If you have almost no water, you’ll have an effect called dry brush. Moisture control means you control the amount of water in your brush so that you can get the effect you want.

Dropping in color

There are many ways to get watercolor onto your paper. Some artists mix in their palette and then apply the paint to the paper. Habets drops in color as part of her process. To do this, she mixes a color on her pallette and then applies that to an area of her paper. While the paper is still wet, she’ll take another color and drop it into the wet area. The result is an additional way to mix color. But instead of mixing the color on her palette, she’s allowing the paint to mix on her paper. Sometimes artists also use the term ‘mingling’ for this process.

Transparent paint-

Some paints are more see through and are called transparent paints. That means the particles that make up the paint allow light to come through them. Paint manufacturers will list how transparent (or not transparent) a paint is on the tube.

Opaque paints-

Opaque paints stop light from coming through. You can’t see very well through opaque paints.

Staining paint -

Some paints stain the paper. Some paints are easy to lift off once you’ve put them down. A little bit like some juices clean up better than others. Some paints are staining and they are much harder to wipe off your paper if you’ve decided that you don’t want that color there after all.

Hear these concepts in action by listening to the full episode with watercolorist Peggi Habets here.