Home › Forums › Explore Media › Watercolor › The Learning Zone › White Watercolor: "Ok" to use when painting on manila-tinted paper?
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January 17, 2014 at 11:52 am #991535
Or is gouache still the better alternative?
Or is the paper’s color generally, even if it isn’t white, the basis of the lightest value of the painting?This is regarding sketch/travel journals for watercolor. Unsure if I want to buy white watercolor (I like sticking with one brand, and unsure if I want to “switch” since the stores around me don’t sell the gouache.)
January 17, 2014 at 12:29 pm #1198760Although a real fan of mixed media I am a kind of watercolour purist as so far as I dont’t use any opaque white in watercolours — my lightest area is the paper.
For me, there is one exception though:
when painting the foam on the sea I do use opaque white.
I usually use Schmincke and W&N paints, but their watercolour whites are not really opaque enough for the above purpose. So I prefer acrylics. Its even more opaque than Gouache and dries as fast as any watwercolour, depending on the thickness it is applied.January 17, 2014 at 9:44 pm #1198766British Victorian watercolorists used white all the time and some even painted a white ground on their paper, three coats, before painting, so they could get a more opaque effect. I think it is more recent that it has become somehow unacceptable. I will be using it on my present painting to represent plant hairs. Sometimes masking out makes the white look really hard and unnatural.
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https://www.facebook.com/haroldrothartistJanuary 18, 2014 at 11:46 am #1198754Or is gouache still the better alternative?
Or is the paper’s color generally, even if it isn’t white, the basis of the lightest value of the painting?This is regarding sketch/travel journals for watercolor. Unsure if I want to buy white watercolor (I like sticking with one brand, and unsure if I want to “switch” since the stores around me don’t sell the gouache.)
You can paint and sketch with whatever media suit you. There are no rules in art. Chose the media that match your aims and goals. That said, if I want a good reliable portable opaque water-soluble white, I would use gouache. (I usually carry a small tube of white gouache in my travel sketch kit.)
The paper color, if it isn’t white, usually represents the value that it has. Mid-toned paper : the areas of blank paper represent the mid-tones of the composition. You would use paint to then establish the lightest values of the painting. Browse some of Chris Tribastone’s work (http://tribbie.blogspot.com) to see how he uses tan toned paper.
Jan
January 18, 2014 at 6:53 pm #1198750January 19, 2014 at 6:38 am #1198755Commit a palette to opaques
Do not mix a transparent with opaques
Out of all talk of dirtying colors, white in your palette wil do itTitanium white watercolor which is a blue white
Or process white gouacheUse it as a mixing color
And Black
Make sure you have a lamp black which is a blue blackOr go Chinese White and Ivory black which are brown yellow
But use Black and white without fear………….
January 19, 2014 at 8:26 am #1198761It’s your sketchbook, do whatever you want. If using opaque watercolor/gouache is good enough for John Singer Sargent[/URL], it’s good enough for you and the rest of us!
Another option is to get a white watercolor stick if all you’re looking to do is add back little highlights or tighten up edges. They offer some interesting texture options as well. Just don’t wet the pigment after you lay it down for sharpest results.
January 26, 2014 at 6:07 am #1198756Turner has most wonderful body tint (gouache) on colored paper
January 26, 2014 at 2:00 pm #1198764Obviously, the best method is to preserve the white from the paper, but on tinted paper like you’re using, that doesn’t work if you’re trying to convey pure white. If you have gouache, you can add some gum arabic to punch up the sheen a little so it works better with your watercolors, depending on what they look like when dry. The nice thing about white pigments is that they’re pretty hard to screw up in manufacturing, so you could probably get away with trying some cheaper brands (student-grade, even) and playing with some different pigments. I’m currently using Da Vinci’s Chinese and titanium whites depending on the opacity I’m going for. The Da Vinci sheens seem to blend in pretty well with my colors without going chalky.
I ping-ponged back and forth quite a bit on using whites. The purist mentality says that you shouldn’t use white. History sort of laughs at that; as mentioned above, the sheer number of highly-regarded artists, ‘masters’, even, that use(d) white very effectively negates the argument, IMO. I’ve done a lot of research trying to find the definitive ‘rule’ that goes beyond simply “don’t use white”. Is that ‘rule’ to be interpreted as no white at all, even in mixes, or does it mean don’t use white right out of the tube because it looks disjointed from the rest of the piece? I haven’t found anything concrete about that yet, at least as a consensus from all the rule-makers.
It’s a personal choice that I don’t think anyone can make until they’ve played with several types of white enough to decide one way or the other. My turning point was when I got one of my first triads from DS, it had a tube of Nickel Titatanate Yellow (PY53) in it, which is a very pale lemon yellow that is plenty opaque.
It says semi-transparent, but I think they just wave the magic transparency wand over the pot while they’re cooking it and call it good. I have a lot of brands of opaque gouache that are more transparent.
My main yellow is DS nickel azo, but my secondary is ShinHan’s PY53 (‘Permanent Yellow Light’, or some other ambiguous name), which is a beautiful, bright, mostly transparent medium yellow. If I add a good bit of white to it, it looks just like Daniel Smith’s.
The fact that white is ‘taboo’ but using those types of paints would be perfectly acceptable to a purist is not only what gave me the go-ahead to allow space in my palette for a blob of mixing white, it also gave me the perspective I was searching for on the value I needed to place on the opinions of ‘purists’.
When using white paper, I believe in go-big-or-go-home if you’re going to call yourself a purist; the word ‘purist’ gets thrown around pretty willy-nilly, it seems. I believe that a true purist is someone who has the skill to preserve their whites by painting around them using masterful brush techniques. Put away the sketching pencils, the wax resists, the making fluids and films; grab a brush and paint, purist. Otherwise you’re just that bourgeois vegetarian who only eats free-range chicken and organic cheese.
That being said, I don’t think I’ll ever meet my own criteria for being a purist, aside from the occasional anomaly.
The biggest trick has been making it look natural when I do use white. As friesin mentioned above, using whites for sea/waterfall foam, lazy chimney smoke drifting through a forest, adding dramatic body and mass to clouds, adding snow/ice to existing elements,highlighting roof lines/windows/doors with a ruling pen, etc. can be really breathtaking when it works. Working the proper tints into those areas regarding the color of the paper, the hues in your transparents, the colors in the light sources and shadows is where it gets dicey without making it look like you’ve got a bunch of white stickers stuck on top.
Often, even the mixed sheens that you can end up with will add visual separation, especially when using gouache instead of Ti or Chinese white watercolor. Waxing or varnishing your pieces can fix that sometimes, though.
Karl
"Someone asked me, if I were stranded on a desert island what book would I bring... "How to Build a Boat." ~Steven Wright
January 26, 2014 at 3:25 pm #1198751Some people like the look of transparent watercolors. There is the Transparent Watercolor Society of America. Their name says it all. No Opaques or whites as far as I know. A couple members in my watercolor class are members. They do use white and opaques, but not in paintings entered in the society’s shows.
http://www.watercolors.org/exhibitions/2012/
Ona Kingdon in exhibit.
January 27, 2014 at 2:14 am #1198757Obviously, the best method is to preserve the white from the paper,.
Simply no
This transparent color fixation is new and a fiction
It has no historical basis and unfortunately propogated here on wetcanvas
And pushed on to new paintersBody white was an intergral part of watercolor painting
Go look at the masters
Go to the Reading Room of the Tate Britian and pull out boxes of Turner’s Colour Beginnings
He did not give a fig about ‘transparent’January 27, 2014 at 2:17 am #1198758Also the RWS Royal Watercour Society do not care a fig about opaques
January 27, 2014 at 3:36 am #1198749I never quite grasped the whole anti-white or anti-opaque vibe in the watercolour community (in general). Prior to the 20th Century opaque white was a common addition to the watercolour palette. Most English watercolourists had a “chalk” medium that they would add to paints to make an in-situ bodycolour.
I remember reading this book about Sargent’s watercolours and the archivist/author was apologetic about his use of opaque white. Basically trying to say that eventhough he wasn’t a purist and the works weren’t true watercolour works, they were still good. Made me want to gag, or slap him upside the head.
It just seems that there is this modern fixation with rules and limitations. It is fine to try to keep the white of the paper for the whites. But if you are not painting on white paper, or you are going old school European and doing a grisalle underpainting, then a bit of the olde white is what the Doctor ordered (I wonder which regeneration?).
Andrew
"Never ascribe to malice what adequately can be explained as stupidity"
- Robert J. Hanlon“What a genius, that Picasso. It is a pity he doesn't paint.” - Marc Chagall
January 27, 2014 at 7:35 am #1198763One of the big trends developing right now is to use a white gel pen. I’m not sure if it will turn out to be archival or not, but since it is for a sketchbook it should be fine. It hasn’t shown up much at WetCanvas, but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t using millions of white gel pens.
Also, it is ok to mix together different brands. It may be true that brands try to develop a gamut of colors that work well together, but as far as I know using more then one brand doesn’t cause anything bad to happen.
Also, I’ve tried acrylic gouache and it is very effective indeed, and a little bit easier to work with then watercolor gouache. Though you would need to bring the whole tube with you in your travel kit.
January 27, 2014 at 8:02 am #1198745For opaque white gel pens try the Uni-Ball Signo Broad UM-153 Gel Ink Pen 1.0mm Tip, they are excellent for sketching purposes.
Doug
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