A panel on watercolor presented at Mechacon 2014. Much improved from past watercolor panels, this presentation includes new artwork, new examples, and new slides.

1. Watercolors

2. Becca Hillburn
I'm a childrens comic artist and freelance illustrator originally from New Orleans
but currently living in Nashville, TN. I graduated from SCAD with a Masters
Degree in Sequential Art in 2013, and from the University of New Orleans with a
bachelors degree in Hypermedia (digital art). My main focus is currently
watercolor comics, and my hobbies include writing for my blog, Keep on
Truckin' Nattosoup and attending conventions as an artist.

3. Heidi Black
Heidi is a sequential artist and illustrator from dayton, ohio. She likes cats and
potatoes and hates writing bios. Her work is at electricabyss.com, including her
tutorial artbook, Electricabyss, and her newest comic, Sons of Fire.

4. materials
Brushes!
Paper!
Tape!
Gator board!
Paint!
Patience!
Water!
Paper towels!
Gouache!
Pencil!
Palette!

5. papers
Fluid watercolor paper: cheap,
bound on two sides, very
convenient
Arches watercolor blocks: bound
on all sides, rough texture,
expensive. Made of cotton
Arches watercolor paper: needs to
be stretched, not bound on all
sides
Canson montval: 7” kara painted
on these
Blick studio: children's illustrations
Watercolors can also be painted
on bristol, wet media boards,
illustration board, or other thick
papers
140 lb is standard for watercolor
paper. 300Lb is heavyweight

6. Paints (tubes & pans)
Tubes can be squeezed into pans and dried out (both of us do
this)
Brands we like: holbein, yarka, soho, winsor-newton, shin-han,
Sennelier, blick, da vinci, marie's,
Okay-ish brands: grumbacher, “student” brands (cotman), sakura
koi
Avoid: reeves!!!!!!!!! anything in a multi-material set, anything
marked “non-toxic,” anything marketed towards kids, anything with
the word “value”

7. Paints (liquid watercolors)
What in the world are these?
Artificial pigments, super bright, low light-fastness
More permanent than watercolors – act more like stains or inks

8. Swatch Test colors (for future reference)

9. Watercolor pencils
Not as bad as you think
Good brands: derwent inktense, caran d'ache
Okay brands: derwent
Lets avoid these, shall we: prismacolor, staedler, crayola

10. brushes
Different shapes for different uses: flat, filbert, round, mop, liner,
fan, other specialty shapes
Come in a variety of fibers: sable hair, squirrel, kolinsky sable,
goat, boar, horse, synthetic
Good brands: utrecht, blick, creative mark rhapsody, winsor-newton,
da vinci, escoda, princeton
Avoid: value brands, student brands, hobby brushes
Also available: water brushes

11. Color theory
Primary colors: red, yellow, blue.
More mixable colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, black
A good set of 12 basic colors: paynes grey, yellow ochre, burnt
sienna, burnt umber, warm and cool red, warm and cool blue, lemon
yellow, sap green, viridian, lamp black

12. Color theory
Mix complimentary colors (opposites) to get more interesting shadow
colors
Using mixes rather than pure colors makes interesting colors and
cool separations
Pure colors
versus mixes
(right)
Left: orange
and burnt
sienna
Shaded with
violet and
blue.

13. Color theory
Use washes of the same color to build depth

14. Color theory
Use the same color for shadows throughout to create unity

15. techniques
Graphite transfer
Stretching paper
Washes
Brush techniques (wet/wet, wet/dry, dry/wet dry/dry)
Dropping
Multi-material techniques (wax resist, masking, salt, alcohol)
Overworking (no! Bad!)
Corrections (scrubbing, gouache)

16. Demo time!