This is part 3 of beginner watercolor exercises and we will be looking at the wet-on-wet technique.

I also have a FREE online course, Watercolor Basics for the Absolute Beginner, if you want to learn more!

Supplies:

• Paint: LUKAS Aquarell 1862 Watercolor
• Brush(es): Creative Mark’s Mimik Synthetic, round size 6, Creative Mark’s Polar Flo, round size 2
• Paper: Stonehenge cold pressed Watercolor Paper
• Jars of water
• Paper towel or cotton rag
• All of my favorite supplies here

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Wet-on-Wet Overview

The wet-on-wet technique means that we will be applying a wet brush on a wet surface, and that would be a wet, clean paper, or wet, painted paper.

As we’ve seen in part 2, a lot of things can happen when there’s a lot of excess water, or when we introduce extra water or paint into a wet area. We’ll get those bleeds and blooms.

Make sure to review that post if you need to before moving on.

This technique can be frustrating for some because of the lack of control. So that’s what I want to focus on – how to control your paint when you do this technique.

First, let’s discuss a little bit of “science” of what’s happening.

When you add water to a dry paper, there is a clear boundary. And when you add paint into that droplet, the paint will not go outside that boundary.

When you add water to a wet paper, the water will flow to the lowest point of the paper surface to keep things even.

Wet paint will always go wherever it’s wet. The tricky part is knowing how wet your brush is and how wet your paper is. But that’s the basic knowledge of how water and paint will move.

So how do we know how wet our paper is? Bruce McEvoy on his website describes 6 stages of paper wetness:

Stage 1: Completely wet

This stage has too much water. The paper is completely soaked. You’ll see a shiny, mirror-like surface and beads or domes of water.

Stage 2: Glossy

At this stage, you will still see a very shiny surface. But you can start to make out the paper texture. This will be more obvious with cold-pressed paper rather than hot-pressed paper.

Stage 3: Satin/low gloss

At the satin/low-gloss stage you can see the shine only in the sunken hollows of the paper texture. This is a great stage to do controlled wet-on-wet painting, in my opinion.

Stage 4: Moist/humid

At stage 4, you start to see less of the shine, but it will feel damp to the touch.

Stage 5: Matte/damp

Stage 5 is tricky. It will look dry, but the lowest layers of the paper may be damp. The paper will feel a bit softened when you bend and curve the paper.

Stage 6: Dry

This stage is pretty obvious. And with completely dry paper, the wet-on-wet technique will not work at all.

Wet-on-Wet Test and Observation

I tested the six stages of paper wetness and used both a semi-wet brush and a wet brush. I encourage you to do the same so you can practice the varying levels of paper wetness and brush control.

When using a semi-wet brush, there is great to little paint dispersion depending on the paper wetness. At stage 1, you can see that the paint is deposited mostly at the top of the s-curve because that’s where my paint touched the wet paper first. I maintained the same value or paint throughout. And on dry paper, you get the strongest value because the paint is not diluted and dispersed by the wet paper.

When using a very wet brush with the same levels of paper wetness, the paint was even lighter and more dispersed. In the first two stages, completely wet and glossy, the s-curve is hard to distinguish. Even at the matte stage, you can see a much lighter value color.

When I do the wet-on-wet technique, I tend to stay between levels 3 (satin) and 4 (moist). I find that as long as my brush is not too wet, I have the most control over the paint dispersion.

If you’re doing a wash (which we’ll talk about more in another post), then you’re just filling in a shape, so you can move that paint around in the wet area. But if you’re trying to paint a saturated line with little dispersion, then you want to make sure that your paper is just moist or matte to prevent the paint from spreading too far and too fast.

Watch the video on the Wet-on-Wet Technique

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Thanks so much for reading! I hope you learned something new. Remember to have fun with these techniques. Half the fun with watercolor is literally going with the flow and observing what happens. Happy accidents are most welcome here, and I hope it helps you fall in love with watercolor more and more.

There are more parts to this series, so stay tuned! I’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment down below and share about your experience with these techniques.

If you try out these exercises, please tag me on social media @AudreyRaDesign and use the hashtag #PaintWithAudrey.

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