Erase in watercolor

October 05, 2016 in Technique

Erase is possible in watercolor, within the first few seconds and when it is wet enough. I know I should not encourage this "trick", because I am a big believer in focus on doing it right without fixing it later. But I cannot deny there are times I took the wet paint out so I can give myself a second chance to make it right.

Think twice, paint once

August 02, 2016 in Principles and Value, Technique

If you see me paint in person or in video, you often see me take a pause and ghosting the brush stroke a few times before I actually paint it. And if you've been to my live workshop where I can not cut or edit my demo, you can sometime see me staring at my paper without painting. It might appears that I'm not doing anything, but I'm actually doing the most important thing - thinking.

Dark and wet, dry and light

July 05, 2016 in Fundamental, Technique

This is no news for you if you have painted watercolor before. But watercolor dry lighter. It is frustrated, when you think you got the right color and value on the palette, and when you first put that paint down on the paper. Later find out that it is too light when the paint dry. There’s no way to avoid it, that’s the nature of watercolor, or shall we say physics.

Visual Language

June 08, 2016 in Technique

What is visual language. Let’s break the term apart first. Visual is what you see. Language is a form of communication, either speak or written. Simply put, visual language is to communicate with the viewer by what you show them. In this case, it is your painting. Since my day job is working on sci-fi video game. Visual language becomes very important, because even though we are creating futuristic looking environment, objects and characters. The players need to get what are they seeing in the game, and they need to get it in an instant!