St Chapel, Paris
Transparent watercolour like British Watercolour.
Learn it from old English masters; Thomas Girtin, J. M. W. Turner and John Sell Cotman.
When I learnt watercolour from instruction book, almost watercolour painters would advise us not to paint more layers. The most is 3 layers.
However, when I looked at these British watercolourists above, they did a lot more than that and still could keep watercolour transparent and fresh. I solved my doubt with 2 pieces of information; one from Singapore master watercolour artist Mr. Gog Sing Hooi (He was the late president and founding member of Singapore Watercolour Society) and the other from my Chemistry and Physics knowledge.
Mr. Gog said to me "To stay transparent, keep on using similar colors."
Brown goes onto similar brown => more transparent
Blue goes onto similar blues => more transparent
I undertood that rule better after I was trained in a house paint company research lab.
1. Each paint type has it own particle distribution. Mixing them causing more light scattering. => less light goes to viewer's eyes . => dull (could be less transparent too)
2. Some pigment may react with other pigment in aqueous form causing coarse percipitation.=> losing transparency with coarser and more irregular particle sizes.
So in order to stay transparent, each layer better choose similar pigment type. Turner could paint 30 layers and still kept the transparency of watercolour. The painting also carries very strong tonal structure. It is a wonderful way to paint architectural elements slowly.
Hope this helps. Feel free to drop your comments.
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