Struggling with Watercolor? Look Here First with Ron Stocke
One of the benefits of working in watercolor is that your paint is able to flow onto your paper. One brush load of paint should last for at least a little bit.
So if you find yourself having to head back to your palette again and again because your brush is running out of paint quickly, artist Ron Stocke (Ep.78), says you might be time to check your materials.
There are two main places you should look: your brush and your palette.
Put it to Practice:
First, make sure the brush you’re using is designed specifically for watercolor.
It can be so easy to accidentally pick up a brush intended for oil or acrylic. And those brushes are not designed to work well with watercolor.
If your brush is stiff, rough or doesn't bend and then snap back to a point, it’s most likely not a watercolor brush.
Once you’ve confirmed that you have a brush meant for watercolor, it’s time to check the type of watercolor brush you’re using.
Watercolor brushes come in many different shapes and sizes.
Rounds are a type of brush designed to hold a lot of pigment and water.
If you’re not using a round, try one. Good versions of these brushes come to a sharp tip so you can make lines with them or paint shapes.
If it seems like your brush isn’t the problem, it’s time to investigate your palette.
Watercolor brushes - especially rounds- are designed to soak up a bunch of paint. But you have to first create a puddle of paint so that they are able to do that.
If you're using a plastic palette, you may find that you’re having trouble making that puddle because the paint keeps beading up.
Plastic was invented with the goal of not having things stick to it. So if you keep finding that your washes bead up, try a metal or ceramic palette. Stocke’s palette is a metal Weber palette with 35 wells and he’s been using it for decades.
It takes a bit of trial and error to find the right materials. But they matter. So if you find that the pigment in your brush doesn’t last very long, check your brush and your palette. You may find that you need a quick run to the art store to fix the problem.