Caroline Croxson
“Watercolour Techniques”
Today we welcomed Caroline Croxson who shared with us watercolour techniques using a mix of pan and tube paints with Brusho Inks and granulating medium.
Caroline worked on two different pieces… a bluebell wood working wet on wet with granulation and a hedgerow piece working from ‘chaos to order’ with Brusho powders. Working this way enabled her to cover several techniques, so forgive me if this report skips about a bit. Looking at my 5 pages of notes I shall endeavour to follow Carolines lead and work from ‘Chaos to Order’. (Fingers crossed)!
Materials Used
White Knight pan paints,
Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors,
Schmincke Horadam Aquarell paints,
Windsor and Newton watercolour granulation medium,
Colourcraft Brusho Colours.
Dr P H Martins bleed proof white gouache.
Acrylic ink.
Rosemary & Co brushes, snowdrop synthetic. Sizes 16 & 14 round brushes with a point.
Bluebell Woods
Starting with cold pressed watercolour paper weighing 300g+ unstretched, just taped down using masking tape. Caroline completely wet the paper before using a brush to ‘splodge’ paint in loose areas to represent the dappled sunlight shining on bluebells covering a woodland floor. The colours she used were lemon yellow, green/gold, green, and purple blue, ultramarine and violet and deep sea violet.
Sepia acrylic ink was used for the long slim tree trunks. Using a pipette and elevating one end of her paper, Caroline dripped granulating medium along the tree trunk and let it run down. This creates the granulation of the paint giving the effect of textured tree bark. This was then put on one side to dry.
Once the ‘free’ painting was dry Caroline worked wet on dry adding in details. She worked up the tree trunks creating finer branches with a rigger brush.
The bluebell area had darker tones added by using a dryish brush layer flat on its side. It’s at this point you could use cling film and and fine rigger brush to add texture and details to the foreground.
Hedgerow
Starting again with cold pressed watercolour paper taped down around the edges, Caroline used a ‘ruling pen’ (used by architects) to draw lines with masking fluid.
Once the masking fluid was dry, Caroline used a large pointed, round brush, size 14 and created wet leaf shaped areas which she sprinkled sparingly with green Brusho ink. The powder naturally started to ‘bleed’ and was helped along with a paintbrush to accentuate the leaf shape.
Dots of colour were added to represent sloes. These also ‘bleed’ and give a soft edge but can be sharpened up once dry.
Use the same method for blackberries creating little dots of colour in clusters.
Once it’s all dry work wet on dry using kitchen roll to remove excess water from your brush. Contrast soft edges with hard.
To add highlights to the berries use dots of gouache in a mix of white and a tiny bit of the blackberry colour.
Lastly rub off the masking fluid and carefully paint in light coloured twigs etc.
TIPS AND TRICKS
Remember watercolours dry paler than when wet.
Daniel Smiths Moonglow separates nicely.
Brusho Powders are easiest used if the cap is pierced with a small hole so that you can sprinkle the contents sparingly – only a few grains are needed.
Use a spray bottle of water to lightly mist your paper then sprinkle lightly.
A fine wet brush can be used to makes lines through the ‘bleeding’ Brusho on your paper.
You can find more of Carolines beautiful work on Instagram @CarolineCroxson.
I look forward to seeing what you get up to with your own sprinkles and granulations! Don’t forget to post your results on our members Facebook page.
