Recently while haunting Youtube watercolor tutorials, I’d seen a number of artists using a watercolor technique where you cover parts of your paper with masking fluid, then paint over this in a colorful wash, let it dry, then add more masking fluid, and then paint another colorful wash, etc. So, I tried it out myself this week!
For my first try, I started with a bright wash of gold, red, and some brown. I then painted some fish shapes over this with my masking fluid. Then I did a wash of blue, painted some more fish, and added some salt for fun (this created the speckled texture). Once this was all dry I did a final wash of a darker blue over it all.
For my second try, I wanted to use super bright colors in a more spotted pattern to see what that looks like, and thus I created the above tie-dye madness.
On my third painting, I returned to the fish idea, but wanted to try more fish in even more layers. I did a splotchy application of blue, green, and gold then painted some fish over this.
After another wash I added more fish and did a darker wash of blue.
Even more fish and even darker blue!
Here’s the dried result after removing all the masking fluid. I had an issue with my masking fluid taking off a lot of the underlying color, especially on the areas I first covered. I’m not sure what’s causing this, but I’m going to try another brand of masking fluid next time and see if that makes a difference. It could also be that I wasn’t leaving enough time for the paint to dry before applying the masking fluid.
Since the colors on my fish weren’t popping enough, I painted over some of them, and I love the final result!
For my last painting I tried some foliage, sticking to just an initial wash of gold and light green, with subsequent darker green washes.
This is a great technique for when I don’t feel like dealing with carefully avoiding areas in my painting, and instead just want to throw that wash down willy-nilly. It also creates a really unique look, and I’ll definitely be exploring this more in the future!
Compulsive Creation 