Starting Your Painting
The first step, of course, is to draw the scene in whatever you medium you choose. Restrict the drawing to sufficient marks to enable you to identify and paint the various elements of the scene. The more complicated the drawing the fussier will be the painting. If you are painting out of doors you may find it beneficial to make a quick pencil sketch - this helps with composition and you can put in the shadows to remind you where they were when you come to paint them later.

When painting the usual procedure is to work from the upper left corner of the paper (if you are right handed) and move downwards. If nothing else this prevents you from smudging painted areas when you rest your hand on the paper. It is perfectly possible to put in areas of underpainting on all parts of the paper, let it dry, and work over the top of it.

Since watercolour is mostly a transparent medium you must put on your lightest colours first, let them dry, and overpaint them with darker colours. You will find that this can make it difficult to judge tones at first.

Any areas which you want to remain the colour of the paper must be reserved - either paint around them or mask them out with masking fluid. You cannot keep the white of the paper in any other way.

After you have laid your initial wash you must let it dry, otherwise any adjacent washes will bleed into it. You can avoid this if you leave a small gap of dry paper between the washes. Unless you are doing wet-into-wet washes you must let your washes dry before you attempt to overpaint them or you will get patches which are known as cauliflowers".

You must mix more paint than you think you will need for washes. This is especially true when painting out of doors because the sun will dry up the paint. If you run out of mixed paint before you have completed the wash it is almost impossible to match the tone and get it on to the paper before the original portion of the wash has dried.

Try to paint in shade or create some shadow on your painting board or you will find that your painting seems dark when you bring it indoors. Some people use sunglasses when painting in sunshine to overcome this problem.

Remember that lighter, bluer washes seem to recede and darker, warmer washes seem to come forward.

To be continued.