Blend And Connect

Knowing how and when to join together elements in a watercolour painting can be a very useful skill for creating a more painterly finish as GRAHAME BOOTH explains.

- Grahame Booth

When we look at anything, we tend to think in terms of objects. If we see a coffee cup sitting in a saucer resting on a table, we think of this as three individual objects. When we paint, however, we must think in a slightly different way.

Instead we should look for shapes – specifically ones that connect together. Using the previous example, we should be trying to see a cup connected to a saucer connected to the table – one single, rather abstract shape. As artists, we should paint it as a single shape, using soft, blended colour between the three.

As a rule of thumb, if two objects physically touch you should be thinking of creating a soft blend between the two and if they don’t physically touch then a hard edge would be indicated. Using this advice will help you to fill your paintings with a small number of interesting interlocking shapes rather than with many separate, less interesting shapes and paradoxically this helps to both simplify your subject and at the same time make it more interesting.

So how can we achieve this? At a most basic level, when you encounter a physical connection simply continue painting. Allow the building to blend into the road or the tree to blend with the earth. These connections give stability and solidity.

A building painted with a hard edge at the bottom will look temporary, a little like a toy that could be removed at any time.

As with all things in art there are exceptions. Often a soft edge between two connected shapes may literally blur things too much, making it difficult to work out the structure of either. In this situation, indicating a little of the edge is required; just enough to specify the boundary without completely separating the two. Indeed, this can help make an edge even more interesting. A slight softening of a hard edge or a slight hardening of a soft edge also gives variety without compromising the basic idea.