Technical How-to

12 Tips for Happy Brushes—How to Care for Your Watercolor Brushes
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12 Tips for Happy Brushes—How to Care for Your Watercolor Brushes

I’m welcoming some new watercolor painters to the medium, so there have been some requests for information about caring for watercolor brushes. (Even if you know all this, you might want to skip down to item 9. In the third paragraph, there are two links to videos about how brushes are made. The first is…

Explore Your Pigments with a Color Wheel—Primaries, Secondaries, Tertiaries
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Explore Your Pigments with a Color Wheel—Primaries, Secondaries, Tertiaries

When I’m laying a wash, I want to focus my attention on creating color mingles, wet-in-wet effects and edges that are just the right degree of softness. So many things that will only happen if the timing is just right! I want design and drawing and color all worked out ahead of time, so I don’t…

What If I REALLY Can’t Draw?—Adding Realistic Images with No Drawing Skill Needed
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What If I REALLY Can’t Draw?—Adding Realistic Images with No Drawing Skill Needed

Oh, my! This was a hard post to write! I had a really hard time staying down off my soapbox on the subject of our cultural attitude towards drawing, and art-making in general. If you are one of those who thinks you “can’t draw” I hope in a later post to give you enough insight…

Personalizing Your Journal Cover, Part 2—Especially for Spiral-Bound Journals
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Personalizing Your Journal Cover, Part 2—Especially for Spiral-Bound Journals

Finding a sketchbook or journal with paper that will accept some watercolor washes AND with a beautiful cover can be tough. But it’s easy to personalize your journal cover with colors, symbols and words that are meaningful to you. In an earlier post, I shared a few ideas for personalizing your journal cover. (If you…