Holding Your Brush

BASIC WATERCOLOR TECHNIQUES

Spending time learning watercolor technique is so important. Even if you’ve been watercoloring for a while, when you take the time to practice, develop, and hone a technique, you will only get better. Even the techniques you use all the time are really not so basic—they are fine skills that only improve as you use them. Plus, practicing technique can be relaxing and meditative, a way to paint without the pressure of finishing a piece. I designed Lessons 1 through 6 with this in mind: to teach technique while allowing you to enjoy the process of painting and also help you create some pretty, abstract designs on your paper. Following is a quick primer on the key techniques. You will practice them, stepby-step, in Lessons 1 through 6.

By taking your time and learning to practice the basics of watercolor with the correct technique, you are training your brain in procedural memory. Often referred to as “muscle memory,” this involves consolidating a specific task into memory through practice. Certain skills, like bicycling, might require the strengthening of certain physical muscles, but the processes that are important for learning and memory of new skills occur mainly in the brain. The more you practice, the better you will be. And the better your skills are, the more beautiful your final products will be.

HOLDING YOUR BRUSH

How you hold your brush is an important watercolor technique!

I want you to get used to the classic hold for a watercolor brush. This grip is similar to how most people hold a pen or pencil for writing. Pick up your brush and grip the thickest part of the handle, above the ferrule, and hold it like you are getting ready to write a letter. Think of the point of your brush like the tip of your pen.

Feel the weight of the brush in your hand, roll it with your fingers, find the balance of the brush in your grip. The classic hold gives you linear control. It works wonderfully for detail painting and blending, creating flowing lines, and drawing with paint.

As you begin to make marks with your brush, keep in mind that you have the most control if you use your brush to pull the paint down or move it from side to side, as opposed to “pushing” the paint upward.

Where you hold the brush makes a difference in the type of mark you’re making. Holding the brush closer to the bristles (on the metal ferrule) gives you more control in finer strokes, like the details of a leaf.

Holding it further back gives you more agility in your movement and works well for making looser strokes for a wash.

The amount of pressure you use as you touch your paintbrush to paper will also affect the shape and style of the mark you create. We will play with pressure and mark making more in Lesson 5 (page 78).