Cling Film

After encouraging you all to experiment last week I thought I would explain some of the exciting methods you can used to transform your watercolours, by using clingfilm.

This is a very simple method, which can be used for certain effects. You would not want to use it on every picture, but for certain effects like stone, water or foliage it can be very effective. It will give you a random texture that is difficult to make any other way.

In trying to make textures, we often struggle as humans, because we are always trying to make sense of the random world. Things like trees and rocks are difficult to recreate because our brush stokes are never as random as real life. In real life trees are clumpier and they have more holes and the leaves never actually all line up in the same direction. Unlike when we paint them when every leaf can seem to be painted with the same brush in a nice repetitive line.

There are a couple of things you have to remember when using cling film – Firstly the paper needs to be wet when you put the cling film on. Very thin paper will not hold the moisture and so it will not work very well with this technique. Also there needs to be quite a lot of paint pigment on the paper. You may struggle if you are using cheaper watercolour paints which have less pigment in, and you may end up with a very pale effect. Remember the paint will always dry lighter and it is often difficult to paint it too dark. Go on be bold.

Once you have covered the area with paint and it is still wet just place the clingfilm on the paper. Make it so it has folds in it. You can push it around a little, but try not to mess around with it too much – then just leave it! It's a simple as that. Once it has dried you can lift it off. If the paint is still a little moist it will have a softer edge to it. It will take slightly longer to dry than usual, as of course you have covered it in cling film, but it should be ok after about ½ hour. This can seem a long time if you are just twiddling your thumbs, so this is why I sometimes work on two or three watercolours at a time so I am not temped to rush the drying of the picture. One of my friends does his ironing while waiting for his paint to dry – each to their own, but I try and avoid ironing as much as possible.

You can apply this effect to just a small section of your picture. The clingfilm will only effect the wet paint. However you do have to be more careful as you can pick up wet paint on the film and transfer it to another part of your painting. If you do that you will have to try lifting the paint with a damp brush and a dry tissue.

Here you can see an example where I have used clingfilm to get the dry stone wall. I have then worked over the top to produce a three dimensional look. If I tried just painting this I would have struggled to get such a random effect, and it would look slightly contrived. Also I get the lovely dark lines around each segment, which I have enhanced to create a shadow for the rock.

Why not give it a go – I would love to see some or your pictures.