Art Tip
Painting Wet Over Wet
This art tip is about one of the hardest painting skills…painting wet over wet. Not just wet into wet paint, but laying wet paint over a previous layer of wet paint without digging up the first layer…too much.
The artist doing the painting above is skilled. He mostly works in watercolor so I asked if I could push him out of his comfort zone by doing what I consider to be one of the most difficult, risky, and if successful...one of the most beautiful effects in painting. I basically asked him to go thicker, wetter, and counter intuitive to what he is used to...
This was a four-hour painting workshop in Hanalei, Kauai, and the artist's name is Johnny Walker. Fo’ Real! Johnny gets in my painting workshops when he and I are both on Kauai. He took the photo and we wanted to enhance the color of the Palani (fish). Especially the closest one.
After painting the background and blurring the colors, Johnny painted a thin base coat of blue paint on the fishes. Then we dried it all. What might usually take several days to dry with traditional oil paints was dried in a few minutes by using the Genesis heat set oil paint and a heat gun.
Next, I asked Johnny to repaint the fishes with dark and light blue colors. Like the fishes in his photo. This time we did Not dry the paint but instead began to paint the more brilliant colors of the fish that you might see without so much blue water between the viewer and the fish.
The hard part here is that a guy who usually paints thin with the direct colors he wants, now is asked to paint the orange and yellow colors of the fish on top of the wet blue (opposite) colors of the fish. The trick is to rest the brighter colors on top of the wet bottom layer Without digging up the bottom layer too much.
The result can be a delightful blend of colored layers and each layer will speak through the additional layers either visually or subconsciously. Yes, this technique is risky because a person can overwork it and mix complementary colors that turn to mud. When this is done successfully it is an impressive hit!
It was such a pleasure to have a person with his willingness to try some of the most difficult things I can teach. Mahalo Johnny!
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