How to Paint a Portrait in Watercolor

How to Paint a Portrait in Watercolor

By Vladimir London, Watercolor Academy tutor

Part 5 - In this video, you will discover how to paint a portrait in watercolor

Before I continue painting, I have to stick the masking tape back to the board. You may remember I mentioned in the first part that fixing the watercolor paper sheet to the board with masking tape is not the best way. Now you know why. Anyway, this is not critical. I will manage to complete this artwork without any problems.

Now, it's time to paint the portrait. I premixed three colors on the palette. These colors will be used for the hairstyle. I will paint the hairs with a natural sable brush from Escoda. It is a perfect tool for making precise brushstrokes. It takes less paint than the mop brush, but it holds its shape perfectly. I am painting wet-on-dry, fusing one color into another directly on the paper surface. Unlike the background, which was done in several layers, the hairstyle will be painted alla prima, which means in one attempt. To suggest the shadow beneath the laurel leaf, dark brown color is added. I'm carefully preserving the outline of the laurel wreath by painting around it. Once again this is a very good exercise to learn how to preserve white paper when painting wet-on-dry. The idea of making this portrait artwork came to me after one student, who is taking the personal tutoring course with us, had troubles with preserving white paper when painting wet-into-wet. To help her, I made this video. But instead of making some abstract illustration, which might be boring, I decided to make this portrait.

In the previous parts of this video, I have already shown how to paint a variegated wash wet-into-wet as well as wet-on-dry. In this part, I will show one more interesting method which is painting drybrush-on-moist. I will use this method to paint the girl's face. To prepare the paper surface, I will wet it with a wide, flat brush. The board is placed horizontally to prevent water running down. Wetting the paper has to be done carefully not to overlap already painted areas. It will take several minutes for paper to absorb water. Right now, it is soaked wet. I will wait for several minutes for the paper surface to become first shiny, then satin and afterwards moist. I will place this DIY wooden bridge under my hand to prevent it touching the paper surface. The paint mix has very little water and it doesn't run when the palette is turned sideways. I will use a small, natural sable brush from Escoda to paint the face. To master the drybrush-on-moist watercolor painting method, you need to learn how to manage the right balance of water on paper and paint on the brush.

There are several advantages to this painting method. It is a fast way of watercolor painting in alla prima. It gives great control over the painting process and it is possible to achieve well-defined as well as very soft edges of shapes. Also, it is very easy to preserve white areas when painting drybrush-on-moist. The term drybrush does not literally mean that the brush is dry. It should have little water in its belly so it is capable of making marks on paper. 'Dry' here means that you cannot squeeze a single drop of water from the brush belly. The paint mix should be wet enough so it is easy to pick up from the palette with a brush, but creamy enough not to run when you turn the palette vertically. I am now using a small flat brush with synthetic hair. It holds less water than the similar sized round brush, which makes it more suitable for painting drybrush-on-moist.

The drybrush-on-moist painting method is rather simple to describe, but requires a good sense of materials and balance of wetness. The paint mix should be loaded with sufficient quantity on the tip of the brush, but the brush belly should remain empty. Such drybrush won't give full brushstrokes when applied on dry paper. There is simply not enough water on the brush to produce juicy strokes for paint to flow. However, because the paper surface is moist, it will take paint from the brush readily. Nevertheless, you would only be able to produce a very short brushstroke before paint runs out. Then you would need to reload the brush and apply the next small brushstroke next to the previous one. The biggest advantage of this painting method is that it is possible to make well-defined as well as very soft edges of white areas. The well-defined edges are rather simple to achieve. As long as the brush is dry and paper is moist, you will get a nice border between color and white paper. The painted area won't expand much because paint won't flow. If the balance is right, the edge will be clear but slightly diffused. Such a semi-hard edge is only obtainable by using this method. When it comes to soft edges, there are two ways to achieve them. You can either add a bit of more water on the brush and soften up the edge, or you can load a lighter tint on the brush, gradually reducing tonal values while keeping the brush dry. The word 'tint' here means more diluted paint - less pigment mixed with the same amount of water. The first way, which is adding more water on the brush, may give unexpected back-runs. This is when paint creates a cauliflower effect, running outward of the wetter area. That is why it is better to use the second technique, which is making lighter tints.

When using the drybrush-on-moist painting method, you may face the following challenges. The most difficult thing here is to find the right balance between the wetness of the paper and the amount of paint on the brush. You also need to learn how to keep the brush dry, with paint loaded only on its tip with no excess water in its belly. Another challenge you will face is that you will have to paint fast. You need to complete the entire artwork in one session while the paper is moist. Also, because the paper is moist, pigment particles will sink deeper into its fibers and tonal values will become lighter when the paint dries. I hope you can see that the tonal values of the girl's face are already lighter than they were just a few minutes ago.

Another challenge of the drybrush-on-moist watercolor painting method is that you need to learn how to paint small bits at a time because wide and free-flowing brushstrokes are not possible with this method. It is like painting by adding dots next to each other. I have to say that for this particular illustration I decided to use the drybrush-on-moist watercolor painting method only to show you what this method is about. I wouldn't be using it otherwise because this artwork started in a very different technique, which is variegated washes wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry and glazings on top, which makes the style of the background very different to the style of the girl's face. But I don't mind doing that because this is not an artwork I would like to exhibit or put on sale in the gallery. The only purpose of this illustration is to demonstrate how to use different watercolor painting methods.

To learn more about various painting methods and techniques you can check out the Watercolor Academy Online Course. In this course, you will discover five main watercolor painting methods and nine watercolor painting techniques. Each method and technique is described in depth and demonstrated in multiple video lessons.

If you would like to learn such methods and techniques, the best way is to take our personal tutoring course which is probably one of the best watercolor courses available today. There are several reasons why this course is so special. First of all, when you enroll, the academy tutors will assess your art skills and will create a very special individual curriculum just for you. This curriculum will take into account your current level of art skills and will include the topics you are most interested in. For example, if you would like to paint watercolor portraits or figures, or maybe landscapes, cityscapes, still-life or anything you like, your personal curriculum will include such topics. Thereafter you will receive up to 100 art tasks one by one. Each task will be explained and demonstrated in depth; and, if needed, special video lessons will be created just for you - like this one for example.

It is very easy to study in the Correspondence Course taking our personal tutoring. All you need to do is just follow our instructions step-by-step. We will give you full constructive critique for every artwork you do in this course, so you will know exactly what your purpose is and how to improve. We will tell you every mistake you make and point out how to fix it. It will very easy to study under our personal guidance. Such tutoring will be provided by correspondence. Studying by correspondence will give you a great advantage over some face-to-face teaching. First of all, your schedule will be much more flexible, allowing you to study at your own pace; but above all you will receive all feedback and tutoring in writing. This means it will be available for you to keep and refer to at any time. That is why we do not utilize video calls or Skype conversations. We have found that our students benefit most from having written instructions that they can keep for future reference. There will be a lot of information to take in and we want you to keep that information for years to come. That is why you will receive all guidance via email and the video lessons will be available for you online 24/7 and you can watch them as many times as you want without any limits.

I have completed the girl's face using the drybrush-on-moist watercolor painting method. And now I can take care of the laurel wreath. It will be painted alla prima, in one attempt. The painting process is rather simple. First, I paint the entire leaf in a light color, and then add some darker tonal values into the painted area while it is wet, so different colors will fuse directly on paper, creating smooth transitions between each other. This is a rather mechanical task, however it requires a good understanding of tonal values. In a way, I will be painting lights, mid-tones and shadows starting from the lighter colors and ending with the darker tones. Also I should remember about the cast shadows to make these leaves more three dimensional.

To learn how to paint in watercolor, enroll now