Written by My name is Edo Hannema and I just love watercolor. The medium is very versatile and when you get the hang of it and let the water and pigment do their thing, you will notice your style will improve and you make more appealing and transparent work. We don’t like to give away our control, but when you make it happen, you are somehow in charge anyway.
I seldom use tricks with salt, clingfilm or masking fluid, but sometimes you have to, like the logger with seagulls behind it, you can choose for body color or masking fluid. I used both in this cause the watercolor needed it.
John Singer Sargent, Winslow Homer, Rowland Hilder, big names in watercolor, all used white and black. Hilder started even his skies with a first layer of black, he preserved the whites, and wit a second layer of Burnt Sienna so he preserved light grays! This guy could layer, sometimes up to 8 layers or more! Waiting for drying is the patience thing in watercolor. Make a plan, knowing where you want to go, and try to stick to it. When the watercolor demands you to go another way, just go with it. But stay focused on the end result. I have seen outdoor painters altering the sky every time they saw a new color, and created mud at the end!
We live on the coast of the Netherlands in IJmuiden, nothing picturesque about it although it is a fishing town, they removed all the nice buildings and neighborhoods. I just wished they dug the harbor not so deep, because I never see a boat lying on the mud like in the UK. Would have loved that! A trip to Britain or France is a option! But life is easy, and I like it a lot here!
When I work from a photo I set it always in B&W and print it out. Not to big, too much detail ruins a watercolor! My way of working is more or less always the same, I make a preliminary sketch with a big graphite pencil, (Creta Color) just to know where the tones will be and if it works.
A subject is almost never 100% perfect, so you have to lie a little. I don’t copy scenes, I make watercolors! That can go to adding trees or removing a few, bending rivers and changing colors of houses. All for a better painting. The main subject has to be recognizable as the windmill from that town you are painting. No one will tell you that you painted a tree to many!
Now that I have my plan, I sketch very lightly on my watercolor paper, just the horizon and the land, the trees I just give them a place on the ground, but I don’t sketch branches or foliage. From this point I work only from my preliminary sketch, I invent the colors myself for the scene and only look on the photo if I missed something on the sketch. Taking a big brush, a round 22 or a flat 1/5″, I wet the sky in some parts where I like it to flow, but never the whole sky, you lose every control when you do that. But some painters do, and that is fine!
I work my colors in the whole painting to a point I cannot do a thing anymore than wait for drying. The mood is set and the watercolor is 70% done by now. The paper is covered with pigment, and a few preserved whites are making the watercolor sparkle. This is all done with very light washes.
The second layer is often to ensure the focal point, I paint darker tones around this, and at the trees, reflections and shadows. Still big washes and a big brush. No fiddling to this point. When this is dry, I am ready for details and the last brushstrokes. Most of the time, I use a pointy synthetic no. 8 for this work, or when I have a boat a rigger is the best!
Then I look to see if there is something I can add, a foreground shadow, or some trees in the back, just to make sure it is pleasing the eye and there is balance to the painting! Sometimes, I glaze a weak wash over the whole watercolor just to make it all work together. You hold your breath and go for it!
I have a blog on my website and I usually write about watercolor there, or what I consider as helpful. One of my blogs was “solutions to paint better”. After a lot of years of collecting all sorts of paper colors and brushes, I came to a point that you can better choose one or two sorts of paper, a minimal amount of colors, and a few brushes that become your second nature! So to listen to my own advice, I decided to do what I wrote!
In my opinion, paper the most important of a watercolor. I decided to use St Cuthberts Mill papers, Saunders Waterford, and Millford for at least a year, I already knew Saunders Waterford cause I use it regularly, but Millford was new to me. And I have to say I love it! I have to discover more to have a verdict, but from the first painting I knew it is something special!
Pigments are the second most important (for me). I use different brands, but more or less the same colors. Prussian blue, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine blue, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Raw Umber, New Gamboge, Alizarin Crimson, Light Red, and Neutral Tint.
Brushes are nice items to buy, but very expensive sometimes. I have some about 25 years old and still good! I have a few flats from Winsor & Newton with a couple of Petit Gris, and a few synthetic Escoda brushes. I also like to paint with Chinese brushes, the hair holds a lot of water, and the painting is really a challenge. You have maybe less control, but you get back a much looser watercolor. And you have learn to paint with them, just how you learn to mix colors and get used to new paper.
As for palettes, I’ve had a John Pike palette for a long long time. It was my first book, John Pike Watercolors that I bought on watercolor, so I have to have one! I have also a few Holbein palettes the enamel is just so smooth it mixes beautifully! But for real, even a butcher tray would do good, or a fondue plate! Oh, I just love to paint!
Best wishes and regards,
Edo Hannema
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Wonderful watercolours. Nice to get to know Edo.
Thank you Shari! Love your blog!! and Art! and wise lessons!
Thank you so much Charlie, really appreciate it very much!
Looks amazing!!
Best regards Edo
😀
Lovely work, and a very interesting post as well. Thank you, Edo!
Thanks M.L Kappa, I appreciate that very much!
Those are spectacular sky- and seascapes! Wow! Will need to go check out Edo’s website to see more of this beautiful work…and learn more watercolor techniques. 🙂
Thanks Teresa, my blog is full of things about watercolour! When it is written in Dutch there is a translation button on the right to make it in the language you prefer! Thanks again for your nice words.
Thanks for the tip on translating on your blog, Edo!
Beautiful and inspiring Watercolors. New follower here.
Thank you Teri, I dont write a lot of articles. I try once a month. But I paint a lot more!
Fantastic! You have another new follower here! I do think your seascapes are inspiring Edo. Thank you for sharing Edo’s art Charlie.
That is a nice compliment! Thank you Susan for following me! I love to paint water and skies!
It shows!
Thanks! A good sky sets the mood. But I now a few painters that do the sky at the end. so hard!
Edo, I love your paintings!
Jessica thank you so much! really Nice!!
I love lighthouses! They are amazing!
Me too, I love to paint them! its like a windmill without the awful wicks! 😉 just kidding! They always are surrounded with sky and water, and i Like to paint just that!
Edo, you are masterful. Your paintings look like they’ve just touched down on the paper, as if a whisper could make them fly away.
Thank you, Charlie, for introducing us to another talented artist.
How lovely can a comment be! it made me smile and also blush a little.
Just recently I discovered how a light touch make your watercolour shine! Thank You Sharon Bonin Pratt! 🙂
Your work is gorgeous!
Thank you Jen, glad you like it!!
I love your skies! (K)
Memadtwo, Thank You!! The sky is important for me, its making the mood, but also the shadows of the buildings!
Your painting are beautiful!!! I love the color palette and the water in your seascapes, very beautiful work, especially the looseness and painting technique you use! 🙂
Hello Carolina, thank you so much, love that you like the loose approach, it took me awhile to get it right! The palette are just the normal plain colors, almost for a standard watercolor-box you can buy! The combining of two colours is important, when you have a ultramarine Blue and A burnt sienna, mix a bit from each in another, the colors stays blue and brown but closer together!
Thank you I got to read many of Ron Ranson books that’s why I like the loose approach and I am trying to get it right too, do you have any tip and suggestion? 😉
Thank you so much for thre follow!
Hello Carolina, Well Ron Ranson is a wonderful artist with a loose approach. I also like Phillip Jamison, and Lars Lerin a Swedish painter. I have a lot of books and dvd’s but I didnt followed much different workshops. Just one Dutch artist I admired, and still do. He became my friend by now so I learned a lot from him. he wrote a book too “Realistic Abstracts”. he teach you how to look at a subject and what is important to leave out, and what you need to do in stead. He is really the master of Less is More. on his website are 8 lessons you can lo over first. On the right side you can begin with lesson 1 http://www.keesvanaalst.nl/wordpress/
Hope you like it, and feel free to ask if you want to know more.
Best wishes Edo
Thank you so much Edo for all your nice information! I appreciate your reply to my comment! I know about Lars Lerin his painting are beautiful and I will check out your Dutch friend blog! Thank you again it is always great to connect with other artists and I am happy that we got connected through Charlie he featured me too so I have been doodlewashed too! 😉 if you like you can read it here
https://doodlewash.com/2016/05/27/guest-doodlewash-creative-journeys/
Cheers
Carolina
Thanks so much for sharing… i did really enjoy to read and your watercolors look great! I am looking forward to read your blog, too. Greetings to the neighborhood from Germany – Carsten
That makes me happy Carsten, I like to inspire and that they like my art of course! I dont blog very often, but there are some articles that came out nice! Regards from Holland! Edo
Very beautiful watercolors! And nice to hear about the process!
Thanks Kathi, nice to hear that you like it!
Lovely work!
Thanks Wild! Thumbs up!!
Beautiful and inspiring paintings and such great insight. Thank you for sharing Edo! And thank Charlie, for featuring Edo.
Cathe, thank you! well it took me some years, but now I getting somewhere! good to hear!
Breathtaking scenes! Really love them. Thanks for sharing Edo and Charlie.
Laura that is so nice to read! lovely comments! thanks!
sorry charlie could you delete this? thanks!!
Gorgeous paintings, really get the feel of beauty and vastness in the landscape. Enjoyed the introduction to the painting style and fell in love with the philosophy “I don’t copy scenes, I make watercolors!”…brilliant. Looking forward to seeing more. Thank you so much for sharing such lovely art.
Thank you so much Haunani, I appreciate it much! the philosophy came to me all of a sudden, I realised I just have to paint the scene in front of me, how I would like it, and not how it presents itself. of course the lighthouse is recognisable, but the environment is a make believe in grandeur of the sea! My teacher always say, painting is liying a little!
Hello all, I like to thank everyone for the generous amount of likes, and Charlie you are the man! everywhere I looked you posted my watercolors! Thank you for that!
Very busy on my blog with a lot of new followers, many visitors and likes on my facebook and twitter.
I feel very honored!
Thank you all!
Best regards Edo
Aww that makes me so happy, Edo! Thrilled and honored to feature you and your amazing work. So happy you’re part of Doodlewash!! 😃
My website address is changed. https://edohannemawatercolourartist.wordpress.com/