How to Paint a Female in Watercolor

How to Paint a Female in Watercolor

By Anna Ivanova

In today's video lesson, I will show you how to paint a dancing ballet dancer.

I would like to show the beauty of the dancer's pose and how to paint a light dress and the dark background. Here is the finished piece I will have by the end of this lesson.

To prepare watercolor paper for painting, I have already moistened it on the reverse side and placed it on the plastic drawing board, which is tilted at about 15 degrees from the horizon. With a flat wide brush, I wet the front side of the sheet. I begin painting with the dancer's portrait. The paints I'm using for the skin color are burnt sienna, burnt umber, and a little bit of phthalo blue pigment. You may see that there is very little water on my palette. I can hold it vertically and the mix doesn't flow down. The mix of pigments is very thick. It sticks to the plastic palette and stays in place. The reason why I'm drawing your attention to this creamy viscosity of paint without much water added to it, is because it is very important for the dry-brush-on-moist watercolor painting technique. Because the paint doesn't flow on the palette, it behaves the same on the damp paper surface. Inside, the paper is moist and, beneath the sheet, there is a little water that remains between the paper and the plastic board. That is why watercolor paper grips so well to the plastic board. However, on the surface of the paper, there is no water. The surface feels cool to the touch. This is because water evaporates and cools down the surface. When the temperature of the paper warms up a bit, I have to moisten the paper once again with clean water. It is better done by adding more water on the reverse side of the sheet with a wide, flat brush.

You can see that even small brush strokes I apply on the moist paper stay well-defined and do not spread out. This is possible because I am using a dry brush. "Dry brush" doesn't literally mean that the brush is totally dry. Its belly is damp and the tip of the brush is moist. So, technically, it is moist-into-moist painting technique. And because there is very little water both on the paper and on the paintbrush, small brush strokes will keep their shape until the paper dries completely. Before it dries, I can keep adding more and more pigment on the paper to make tones darker and the colors more saturated to achieve the necessary results I want. This is what dry-brush-on-wet technique is about. The big round brush I'm using is very versatile. It can give very small brushstrokes, and when I squeeze its tip between my fingers to make it wider, this round brush acts as a flat one. This saves me a bit of time changing brushes too often and I can continue painting the same artwork with thin and wide brushstrokes.

The two main pigments for the shadow areas of the dancer's skin are burnt sienna and burnt umber. The choice of pigments is less important than the tonal values you create with those pigments. The color of a human's skin will greatly depend on the source of direct light as well as reflected light bouncing from other objects on the model. In fact, you can pick just one pigment and paint the whole portrait with it. It will still look like a portrait, provided you do the tonal values correctly. Of course, the choice of one pigment has to make common sense. You don't want to choose a bright yellow or green pigment and paint a portrait with it. But you can easily choose just one pigment, like sepia, for example, and it will be enough to make a recognizable portrait.

So, when art students ask me what sort of pigments I'm using to paint a figure or a portrait, it greatly depends on what kind of light this figure is lit by, the colors of the objects it is surrounded with, is the figure outdoors or indoors, what creative task would you like to achieve, and so on. There is no one recipe, take such-and-such pigment and use it for painting flesh. The choice would depend on many things and you, as an artist, have full license to pick whatever pigments you think necessary to achieve the creative task you have in mind.

Anticipating your question: What exact pigments are used for the body shades in this artwork - I keep the color palette very limited. There are only five pigments here; they are burnt sienna, burnt umber, Prussian blue, ultramarine, and sepia.

When painting in the dry-brush-on-moist technique, I tend to finish one area of the artwork completely before continuing to the next one. For example, I will do the figure first till it's fully done, and only then will paint a background around it. I have to say such a sequence is not the ideal way to paint a watercolor because, in many cases, I have to guess how light or dark tonal values should be and what colors to use. Such knowledge only comes with experience. A better way to work on watercolor would be painting all its areas simultaneously. This would make it much easier to see what tonal values are required and work on the hue contrast without making too many guesses. However, the limitation of the dry-brush-on-moist technique is that it requires me to paint one object at a time completely because it is easier to control how wet the paper is and finish an object before it dries.

While painting one area, I can wet the neighboring unpainted area with clean water to keep it moist and get a longer drying time. What, unfortunately, I cannot do is to wet the figure I'm painting with water while it is moist or damp. Should I do so, water will dilute the brushstrokes which are already in place and give backruns. This might ruin the painting's appearance. I also cannot soak an artwork in water that has already dried to continue painting using the dry-brush-on-moist technique. That is why I paint the whole figure in one go before touching any other areas. The pigments I'm using for the hair are burnt umber and sepia. Painting one object at a time also applies to the hair. It always looks better when it's done in one go. While paper is moist, I can deepen tonal values adding a darker shade on top of the underpainting and smoothing out the borders between tones. You may see that the brushwork I do right now is quite dry. The dry brushstrokes help to create a texture of the hair.

You can see that when painting the hair, I left white space for the diadem. I never preserve white by using a masking fluid when painting in the dry-brush-on-moist technique. There are several reasons for this. Painting alla prima using the dry-brush-on-wet technique requires keeping moist paper from the beginning to the end. That is why it is impossible to add a masking fluid during the painting process. I could do it before wetting the paper, but then I would have to wait till the whole artwork dries before removing the masking fluid and painting over white on dry paper. This might happen the following day and it won't be alla prima anymore. Another reason is that, if using masking fluid, the white areas would have sharp edges which would spoil the look of the dry-brush-on-wet watercolor artwork.

When it comes to painting hands and arms, the best way would be to use the same pigments as for the face. However, I apply an even more limited palette of colors. You may notice that I'm using a wooden bridge to avoid touching any painted areas with my hand. For the color of the skin, I'm now using the following three pigments: orange, phthalo blue, and burnt umber. It's time to take care of the left sleeve to complete this part of the artwork. It doesn't really matter what yellow pigment to use here. Different pigments have different looks - for example, aureolin, cadmium lemon, cadmium yellow - but the choice of the color would be up to the artist's intent. What is more important is how an artist conveys the three-dimensional shape by using tonal values. Painting the hand follows the same sequence of steps as I used previously. First, I apply the light tint which will be the color of the hand's highlights. Then, next to this tint, I paint darker, mid-tone values, on top of which I paint shadows applying darker shades. This is a classical sequence of watercolor painting which goes from light to dark tones.

I have to say that painting alla prima wasn't always easy for me. It took me several years to get fully accustomed to different watercolor painting rules and start using different painting techniques with the full knowledge and understanding of how they work. The learning curve was needed not only to master different ways of watercolor painting, but also what to expect from different pigments and how they mix with each other. Color theory is an important topic for any watercolor artist.

The paper is drying and it is time to wet it once again by adding more water on its reverse side. Depending on the artwork and working conditions, I might wet the paper several times during one painting session. The objective is to keep the paper moist at all times. To achieve that, I wet the paper on the reverse side from time to time but avoid wetting it on the front side. When water is added on the reverse side, it is trapped between the sheet and the plastic board and stays moist for a longer time because, to evaporate, it has to penetrate the whole thickness of the paper and escape from its front side. 300 gsm weight paper takes quite a lot of time for water to go through. Meanwhile, I can continue painting using the dry-brush-on-moist technique. The top half of the figure is done and now I will be painting the yellow dress.

The way I do the dress is the same as if I were painting skin or hair. I begin with very light tints which are painted in the color of the highlights. Next to the highlights, I add darker tonal values of mid-tones and on top of the mid-tones I paint shadow areas.

From time to time, art students ask me, "What is the most important skill to have for painting good watercolors?" A good painting is well-drawn. If there is just one skill to go for, it would be proficient drawing. Some might think that the miracle of painting happens because of a clever choice of correct colors. Colors play an important role in painting; hence, the name of the medium "watercolor" contains the word in it. Nevertheless, colors alone won't give you a perfect artwork. You have to draw with those colors and that is why, without good drawing skills, it's very challenging to make a good piece of art. If you feel that your drawing skills need improvement, there is a good online drawing course called Drawing Academy. In this course, you will learn how to draw whatever you think, see, or imagine. The video lessons will teach you how to use constructive drawing principles in whatever artwork you would like to do. Such principles include: linear and aerial perspective, rules of proportions and composition, and much more.

The ballet dancer figure is complete and it is time to add a dark background around her. For its color, I'm using a mix of ultramarine blue with sepia. The combination of these pigments give a wonderful, almost black color, which can vary from cool to warm shades. I must say that even if you have a few black paints in your paint box, you don't have to use them. It is much better to mix your own dark colors which won't look dull and lifeless like manufactured black.

You may notice that, to fill the space with the background, I first apply the mix with a flat, wide brush to cover big areas of the artwork. I have to be careful not to come too close to the figure's outline. I leave a gap and then fill this gap with a smaller brush, using the dry-brush-on-wet technique.

The big, wide brush can hold a bit more water than the round one. The thick brushstrokes are applied with a flat wide brush, contain more water and, therefore, spread out on the paper surface without much control from my side. To have greater control, I'm using a smaller round brush and loaded with less water so the brushstrokes are quite dry and hold their shapes well. Another good tip is to use a bridge which can be placed across the artwork without touching it. It is a very convenient support I can rest my hand on. It helps prevent accidental paint smudging by my hand. I haven't seen ready-made bridges for sale but it is such a simple tool, you can easily make one yourself.

It is important to finish the background in one go. I can't leave it half done till the next day because, by then, the paper will be dry and it won't be possible to re-wet it without spoiling the artwork. The paper is moist and I paint with a big brush, wet-into-wet. However, I use the smaller brush for the dry-brush-into-moist painting technique.

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