WASH TECHNIQUES

After trying to render some of your figures in wash I am sure that you see how difficult
it is to get a good result.

Wash is one of the best in mediums for reproduction. Of all the mediums it is the most
spontaneous and direct. It is easy to begin to paint with wash, but it is difficult to get
good results. Until you understand how to plan a wash drawing good results are slow
in coming. (For historical reasons painting in wash is often called “wash drawing”.)
The most important considerations for doing good wash renderings are the same as
those for working in any other medium.

Because wash is so fast, direct and spontaneous, you need a firm grasp of basic prin-
ciples so that you can work rapidly and intuitively. These principles relate to values,
planes and edges.

1. Values create the light and dark areas in your pictures. When we plan our values,
we decide what is going to be the over all tone of an area. The hat may be an overall
dark, the shirt may be an overall middle gray, the trousers might be a dark gray, and
the flesh might be a light gray. There will be black accents and white highlights. So
your painting might consist of a light gray, a dark gray, a middle value gray and black
and white. The use of five values is a very simple plan for effective wash drawing.
When you first begin, do not try to blend the transitions between values- that will come
later. (If you can, try to think in color as you paint in values - a red hat has a darker
value than a light blue blouse.)

2. Keep your treatment of planes very simple. There are planes that face the light,
planes that retreat from the light and planes that are in the shadow. In order to create
form, each of these planes is assigned a different value. The planes that face the light
are the lightest and the planes that retreat from the light are darker. The darkest
planes are the shadow planes. There are black accents within the shadow planes. Use
very few white highlights — they should be small and placed discreetly upon the light
plane. Occasionally, glossy dark surfaces will contain a white or light highlight. The
form of a head can be effectively rendered with a light plane, a gray plane and a dark
plane. Black will provide accents and if needed, white highlights may be added. Once
again, five values will provide a good starting point. (Later, you might wish to add a
sixth transitional value between your middle value plane and shadow plane.) It is best
to save your white highlights as you put in your light wash, but if you need to you can
apply them with white paint. This reproduces well, but in the original it might look as if
a bird has critiqued your drawing, so try to save your highlights.

3. Edges are easy to understand, but difficult to use well. There are essentially two
kinds of edges, hard edges and soft edges. A cube will show hard edges and the
inside of a sphere will show soft edges.

Many of my students have gone on to be successful commercial artists, illustrators and

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fine artists. Those that developed the most rapidly were those who learned these prin-
ciples early and applied them thoughtfully in all their work.

When you are comfortable with wash you will find that your transition to watercolor will
be easy and natural and your work will be generally superior to that of most watercol-
orists. The important skills will have been mastered and you will have a greater oppor-
tunity to just concentrate on color.

The wonderful thing about painting in wash is that you learn basic skills much more
rapidly than with other mediums. A good wash drawing might take from a couple of
minutes to a couple of hours to a complete. A good watercolor might take several
days to a week or more to complete. A good oil painting might take weeks to months
to complete, depending upon how much time you have to spend on it. Learning your
basics rapidly is greatly to your advantage.The crazy (like a fox) Salvador Dali claimed
that the serious art student should spend his first three years working in wash. I can
really see the merits of his recommendation!

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Materials:
1. Ground: cold press illustration board, hot press illustration board, 100% rag water-
color board
2. Lamp black watercolor
3. Good sable brushes, sizes, #0,#3,#5. Many professionals use Winsor Newton,
series 7.
4. Palette -- white enamel or china, with ample mixing surface, a butcher’s tray will
do. Small porcelain stackable dishes can be used for premixed washes.
5. Large water container
6. Tissues or toilet paper
7. Handheld hair dryer

As mentioned before, you have probably discovered by now that the ability to do
effective wash drawings will take a bit of practice. This sheet contains some practice
exercises that should help you greatly. Don’t expect to be able to do the practice
exercises perfectly. After doing them, though, you will find that your wash paintings go
much more easily.
Scientific illustrators often do elaborate wash drawings with one wash being carefully
placed over another after the initial washes have dried. If you are a beginner in wash,
though, it is much better to paint very directly, and never go back into a wash, espe-
cially if it is still wet, unless you are after a particular soft edge,as in the painting of the
sphere.
Wash onto wet paper
Clean water was painted on the surface of the illustration board and the wash was dropped
freely into it. You can see how it spread fluidly with a nice, direct clean look. Wet-in-wet is
always pleasing to the eye. Never paint back into a wet-in-wet wash - you will only ruin it.

Be satisfied with a nice sponta-

neous wash that is not over-
worked and pleases the eye.
When working wet-in-wet do not
go after photographic representa-
tion, but try to make your work
artistically expressive and pleas-
ing to the eye. More highly fin-
ished results will come later.
Besides, good wet-in-wet looks
better anyhow.

Paint your wet-in-wet wash

Wet-in-wet wash on illustra-
tion board. on a piece of inexpensive
illustration board.
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 Premixed washes.
When you are going to use more than one value of wash in an illustration, mix each value of
wash in a separate container. You can order little porcelain dishes for this that work very well.
If you have a light wash and wish to apply a slightly darker one, using the original wash over
the light wash will lower its values slightly. You will see these light variations in the face of the
policemen.
Painting a cube in wash
Paint a cube in wash on a separate piece of illustration board.
Mix three separate values of wash, one for the light plane of the
cube at the top, the slightly darker value for the plane on the left
and the darker value for the shadow plane. You might want to
make the shadow plane a little darker than in my illustra-
tion. Notice that each of these planes is consistent
throughout in value. Later on, you might vary the value
within each plane, but keep it simple for now. You will see
that I painted the cast shadow wet-in-wet in order to get a
softer look. I made the shadow dark where it met the cube
and faded it out lighter toward the edges. Shadows should
be soft and transparent, darker toward the object that casts
it and softer as it extends away from the form.
Painting the sphere in wash.
Sphere 2007 by Kristen
Welker,age 16
The inside of the sphere has soft edges where the shadow meets the
light. The cube has sharp edges, where each plane meets. It is best
to paint the sphere wet-in-wet, because transitions from light to
dark can be kept soft. If you wish, you could leave a little high-
light of white paper in the upper left of the sphere to indicate the
source of light. Because only a very small portion of the sphere is
in contact with the surface, the shadow is very small
where it meets the surface that it is on. Don’t expect
perfection in your work in painting either the cube or
the sphere. Your pictures will be painted better than
your exercises. Mine certainly are!

This illustration has been reduced by about 10% from

the original. Wash drawings should be rendered at close
to reproduction size requiring only about 10% reduction.
Notice that the hat is rendered at two values at the most,
one value an overall dark gray, the second, black as it
comes from the tube. The jacket has also been painted
in two values, a dark for the overall tone with darker
accents. The tie is one dark value. The shirt is one very
light value. The flesh is one basic tone. The light
halftone in the flesh was probably arrived at by using the
same value wash, for a second application. The shadow
under the chin, and the dark details were applied as a
third wash.

Policeman by Andrew Loomis from Creative Illustration

Wash of a policeman.
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 This head study was done in the most simple
and direct way. That does not mean care-
lessly. The drawing was very well planned,
and the value distribution was thoughtfully
established. Notice the soft transition in the
cheek from the light plane to the shadow
plane. The treatment of the shadow plane is
a bit unusual, in as much as Loomis has the
ear emerging from the shadow into the light
instead of remaining obscured in the shadow.

Wash of an Old Man by Andrew Loomis from Creative

Illustration

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 WASH EXERCISES
These illustrations have been enlarged to about the original size at which they were painted. In
order to reproduce well, most wash drawings are reduced to about 90% of their original size.
Copy each of them on inexpensive illustration board.

Wet the illustration board with clear-

water. Wash in some dark lamp
black and watch it spread. You can
pick up the board, tilt it and so
direct the flow of the wash.

Trace each of these illustrations, transfer

them onto illustration board and render
them in wash.
If you have a scanner or copier available, reduce your
work to 90% of the original size and print it. Compare
your work with the original printed size. (When my stu-
dents began to critique their printed work their efforts
improved enormously.) It often helps to begin with a
dark. Most beginners never paint the dark values dark
enough. If you were to paint the uniform jacket first, it
would give you a large dark against which you could
judge your other values.

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 IDEALIZED MALE HEAD
Render this head in simple values of wash.use 3 premixed grays, black and the white of
the paper. Use the Loomis samples as a guide for treatment.