Red cat – A watercolor exercise
På SvenskaThis exercise is impossible to place as easy or difficult. It depends on a lot of different things if it is one or the other: The right paper is essential, the right colors are important and having a lot of luck is absolutely crucial.
The paper
A paper that works well wet on wet is very important. I used Canson heritage myself, but Millford, Arches or Saunders Waterford will probably work well too. Avoid simple watercolor papers, a paper that is not good for wet on wet will only disappoint you.
The colors
The painting is made with only two colors: Ivory Black and Quinacridone Orange. The black color should be neutral, intense and preferably granulating, so ivory black is good. Lamp black can work but the result will be a little less interesting. The orange color is troublesome unless you have quinacridone orange. A substitute can be burnt sienna from e.g. WN or Daler Rowney (most burnt siennas are too brown, but these two are suitable). Maybe you have some other brown-orange that is very saturated and colorful.
Step 1
Paint the entire paper with a light mixture of orange and black, this base should not only make the paper wet for the next step, but also give a faint warm light to the image. On the wet paper, a shadow behind a window must be painted. Just use black paint for this one.
Depending on how wet your paper is and how much paint you have in your brush, the result will be different. Probably the black paint will creep into the cat slightly, neaten the edges with paper towels to remove black paint in the cat. Do not rub, just press with the paper towel.
Step 2
Only black paint is used to paint a shadow after a lamp. The shape of the shadow is as slanted as the window from the previous step.
Of course, the paint from step one must be dry before you paint this. You should use a much darker color than the shadow from the window.
Feel free to gradate the color of the lampshade on the right side with water so that an invisible transition occurs.
Step 3
The cat is lying on a blanket, it must be painted with black paint. First paint the entire surface with a gray color (only black and water), then add some markings of folds in the felt with darker black, this should be done while the felt is wet.
Next, soak up the highlights on the right side of all the shadows with a slightly damp brush (you can rinse the brush in water and then squeeze it in paper towels to make it damp enough).
Before the paint has time to dry, a darker shadow under the cat must also be painted on the blanket.
Step 4
Now you finally get to use color! The cat must be painted. Start with the cat’s face, save the eye and a small white line for the ear. Paint with orange paint and black or a mixture of these and water to create a pattern on the cat that describes shadows and highlights. When the whole cat is painted, the whole cat must also be wet. In this wet surface you must now place drops of paint or water to make an interesting pattern and believable shadows. A drop of water in a wet color surface displaces the color on the paper and it becomes a little lighter. As long as the cat is wet, you can add more paint and water, but don’t overwork. Watch the video below to see how I did this, the section with the technique is between 5:15 and 6:38.
Interesting and beautiful patterns can appear if you paint this way. But of course it is not possible to control exactly how the result will be, you have to accept that colors that are dripped onto a wet color surface do not always behave as desired.
Step 5
The cat’s eye can be painted after the paper is dry, paint with black paint and don’t forget to leave a small sparkle in the eye. I then painted a faint glaze over the blanket with orange paint to make it slightly warmer in tone. It’s not something you have to do, I just thought it looked too cold.
