Merging Expanded

Hi gang: today I want to expand the merged washes section as it may sound easy but it takes practice and some speed.

First, for one of the best merge wash artists, in my opinion, I suggest you look up Charles Reid, a very famous east coast American Impressionist who essentially mixes his washes on the paper as opposed to in the palette. In addition, Charles Reid uses bright mid values in his shadow shapes and holds off a bit on the very dark values. His paintings are full of life and color variety and that is the point of this expanded lesson.

Merging: to review, merging is a way of bringing two or more colors together on the paper instead of in the palette. Merging results in more color variety in smaller shapes; and when you are working on larger watercolor sheets, as the shapes get larger, you will be able to wash with more variety in those larger shapes instead of boring mono-chromatic color. I find that speed helps.

Here is an example of how i work my mergings:

I can premix some colors on the palette (secondary colors like an orange or a purple)
then I go to the paper and start laying down a yellow for example and then quickly swishing brush in water, getting rid of excess water, going into palette and grabbing an orange and back to paper and push it into but not over the previous wet wash...(only at the edge--maybe about a quarter to one half inch into the previous and still wet first wash); keep adding colors this way.

to avoid getting bands of merged colors, I bounce around a bit as I go across the paper then come back to the spaces i left blank (and I am always painting down working the wet edges); I know this may sound a bit confusing but visualize an island in Puget Sound with fir and hemlock trees partly lit by the sun and part in shade. I do not want bands of merged colors going across the islandscape; so i lay down a yellow and then a yellow green and a blue into the wash and maybe skip an inch and lay down oranges and then go back to the one inch space and add some blue green or green. still working fast and across but bouncing a bit to avoid banding.

dont get frustrted: try some simple shapes. Again, a good exercise that i learned from Charles Reid's work is to sketch out some fun shapes, say a tree; mix a green with yellow and blue in your palette and paint the first tree with that color. monochromatic. exciting? hardly. Now in a similar sketch shape, put down a yellow, then a yellow green into the yellow then a blue into the green and back with a yellow into the green edge--pushing into but not painting over the previous washes.

Exercise: Sketch out some simple landscape cluster shapes (bushes, cluster of trees) only along their outer contours or edges. then start playing with merged washes using about six colors (yellow, blue, yellow and blue, pthalo green (careful!)); i also like to use multiple yellows and blues, say Indian Yellow with Azo Yellow, and Cobalt Blue with Cerulean or Ultramarine)

Have fun. Comments are appreciated. Ron K