Saving your brushes when using masking fluid or frisket

Masking fluid is a great tool for your watercolor paintings.  Most of the time when using it, I have a few old brushes that I save just for that purpose.  The photo shows one of them.  However, you can use your good brushes and still keep them in good shape by doing just one simple thing; putting your brush in some liquid soap.  Here’s what I do…

I just use whatever liquid hand soap I have at home.  BEFORE dipping my brush in the masking fluid, I dip the brush in the liquid soap and work it into the bristles all the way up to the metal,  then I just wipe it off with a clean dry paper towel.  No water. 

After that, I just dip the brush in the masking fluid and apply to my paper like normal.  When I’m finished, I clean the brush with soap and water and the masking fluid comes right out.  

I had been painting with watercolors for years before attending art school and had never heard of that before college.  Now I can use my old brushes like normal, but I can also use my good brushes for more refined detail work and don't have to worry about ruining them.  

I used masking fluid on the below painting to keep the lightest parts of the birds feathers.  

Happy Painting!!

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Gridding out tough subjects....

I use a grid method to get tough subjects, specifically portraits of people & wildlife looking right.  If you're painting someone you want them to look like them...just like if I'm painting a finch...I want it to look like a finch, not a warbler.  

I just make a grid on both my sketchbook or canvas and on the reference I'm using.  

Then I draw a line drawing, each square at a time.  When I'm done, I remove or paint over the grid lines.  This little guy was featured in one of the classes I teach. (Those of you in KY who took this class will remember this little guy.)

Are there other ways to do this?  Yep.  Are there better ways to do this?  Maybe, probably.  But when I don't have the option of "taking liberties" with a subject, I use photo references.  In art school, this was not allowed in my initial drawing classes....for good reason.  I needed to do the work so I could get better as an artist.  Now that I'm teaching and selling my work.  If I have a reference, I use it.  

Happy Painting!

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Watercolor work in progress...

 

Here's a few work in progress shots using the masking fluid. 

 

I use Sennelier watercolors
on the advice of a professor.  LOVE them!

 

After removing the masking.

 

Finished...or pretty much finished painting.  Below is a photo of the setup.  This table ends up in a lot of my still life paintings.  It was my grandmothers and I loving using it in paintings. 

 

 

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Watercolor from a photo.....

Many of you may not know, but I started out using watercolors.  My first art "lesson" at my church was a watercolor class.  I think I was only in Jr High at the time.  I saved my money and bought a real watercolor set, the tubes, not the pans.  I hadn't worked in this medium in years, but I really do enjoy it.  I just completed this one last week.