Learn These Common Watercolor Terms

Today, I'm going to go through some common watercolor terms - terms that I use a lot.

I want to be sure that all of you know what they mean and that you have a quick reference to check your understanding of certain watercolor vocabulary. Whether you are a beginner to watercolor or you've been doing this for a while, I think this will be a helpful resource.

Frequently Used Watercolor Terms and What They Mean

Wet on Wet

We refer to wet on wet when we are painting with a wet brush onto a wet surface. Wet on wet is how we create those lovely lost edges in our paintings. It creates a nice blending effect.

The first wash of my paintings are mostly done wet on wet. I wet down the front and back of my paper and I paint the lightest values of my scene and let the colors softly merge into each other.

I especially like the wet on wet effect when I am painting the sky. You can paint nice, loose skies by painting in this way. It's really a lovely characteristic of watercolor that you don't get in other mediums, so I like to take advantage of it as I can. 

Wet on Dry

The next term you need to know is wet on dry. This technique is what I use for the second wash my painting when I'm working on middle values and the connected shape.

The brush that I use when I brush wet on dry is loaded with water and paint, and I'm painting that on dry paper. This is how we get defined edges.

So remember: 

• Painting wet on wet gives you loose and lost edges.
• Painting wet on dry gives you more defined edges. 

Glazing

Glazing is when you paint another layer on top of an area of your scene.

If I'm painting a scene and I feel like something isn't strong enough, I will glaze over that area, adding more value or another color on top of that one. It's a good skill to use when we are polishing up and finishing our paintings.

Lifting

The next term is lifting. Sometimes when I'm painting a sky and I want to have a little highlight on a cloud, I can take a damp brush or even a tissue and can lift off a little bit of pigment from the area I want that highlight. This is called lifting.

Another time when I might do this is when I'm painting a water scene and I want a really soft suggestion of a reflection. I can take a damp brush and just lift a little bit of that off the paper. It's a nice tool to have if you're trying to lighten an area and make subtle changes or little highlights. 

Dry Brush

Dry brush is helpful for creating texture within your scene. That is where you have barely any water on your brush and mostly paint. When you make a dry brush mark, it leaves a nice broken mark on your painting.

Texture brings an area forward and a lack of texture pushes an area back. If you want an area to feel closer up, you can use the dry brush technique.

I mainly use dry brush when I'm more in the finishing and polishing stages of my painting because that's typically the last thing that I'm doing, is adding those thicker marks around the scene to add some definition or texture.

Granulation

Granulation is when a pigment has almost a grainy effect to it. 

Sometimes it's a product of the paint sitting into the texture of the paper, and sometimes it's a natural effect of the pigment. Some pigments are more granulated than others, and often the level of granulation is marked on the tube of paint.

Some artists really like this effect and others don't. I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't use all granulated pigments, but I definitely use cerulean and others that do have a higher amount of granulation.

Values

Values, simply put, are the range of lights all the way to darks that you have within your painting.

I harp on values all the time because without proper values we don't have a good feeling of light within our paintings. Having a full range of lights all the way to darks in your scene can create a much more dynamic and interesting painting.

Learning values is the key to painting light.

Perspective

Perspective is important in creating a feeling of depth in your work.

Let's talk about two types of perspective.

• The first painting above is a good example of linear perspective. Say you're painting a street scene and you have a vanishing point and all the buildings need to be at the right angle. As you move into the distance, the buildings, the cars, the people all need to be within the right perspective, scaling down at the appropriate size. This is called linear perspective.
• The second painting is a good example of aerial perspective. This refers to the effect that the atmosphere has upon color and contrast. As hills get further away into the distance, they have more of a tint of blue to them in the atmosphere. As things are closer to us, they tend to have more saturation and more vibrancy in their color.

Both of these are important to pay attention to when you are trying to create a feeling of depth within your painting.

Washes

I talk about different washes as different phases of your painting. But simply put, a wash is the application of paint onto the paper.

A flat wash is where it is all the same strength of color. A graded wash is where the wash is darker but then transitions to a lighter area.

So a good example of this would be the wash of a sky where it's darker blue at the top and it becomes lighter blue as you come down near the horizon.

Bookmark this Blog Post for Easy Reference

I hope that this was good for you to just review some of these. If you're familiar with them or to understand some of these terms. As you watch my videos or other resources and continue in your watercolor learning next week, I'm going to show you step by step how I paint this snow scene. I wanted to get one more snow scene in this year.

Next Week's Video

The robins are out in front of my house, and the weather is warming up, but I had to get one last snow scene in before things heat up too much.

Next week, be on the lookout for this watercolor tutorial of the last snowfall in my neighborhood!

Related Blogs

Beginners Guide to Watercolor Brushes

The Watercolor Artist's Guide to Paints

3 Things You Need To Know Before You Start Learning Watercolor