WHY THINGS GO MUDDY
A recent post in the forum asked about paintings going muddy. Why does it happen and how can it be avoided? It’s a question that comes up time and time again in workshops and courses. The despair on people’s faces tell it all. And yet, the answer to the problem is really quite simple. Almost certainly the reason for the phenomenum in the first place is either due to overworking or too-heavy application of the paint.
It is always worth remembering what watercolour is; pigment mixed in solution with water. The greater the amount of pigment in there, the less water there is. What does the water do? you might be asking. Perhaps we should do away with the water and simply squeeze our tubes directly onto the paper. This is ludicrous, of course, and if you truly believed that, then you’d be better switching to oils or acrylics. What the water does is provide the one, major thing that watercolour is fundamentally all about – TRANSPARENCY.
Transparency should be the watercolourist’s one true god. It should be preserved at all cost, flirted with, wined and dined, taken to the pictures once in a while (sorry, got a bit carried away there) and ultimately allowed to contribute towards the painting. Transparency is fickle, delicate, and once you’ve lost it, it is very difficult to reclaim.
It may help you to think of the white paper as a kind of backlight. In all cases (with the exception of tinted papers – a bizarre concept that I’ve never really fully understood myself), the white of the paper is always going to be the lightest, whitest, brightest part of any painting. Not only that; washes should be thoughfully applied to allow that light to show through. It is this light that gives life to a painting – so use it!
If in doubt, keep your washes light and weak. It is always easier to darken things than to lighten them. Painters who have come to watercolour from oils will have the greatest difficulty in this because the two mediums are so different to each other in their application. Resist, too, the temptation to hit the darkest tones of the subject too early on. Building up to them is, generally, far better; pace yourself – don’t peak too soon. This is not to say that your paintings have to be wishy-washy. Strength primarily comes from getting your tonal contrasts right, anyway, just aim for a gradual build-up.
Finally, if you’re at all unsure about the consistency of your mix, test it out on a separate piece of paper before wading in. If you mix your paints too heavily, too early on, then you are diss-ing the true essence of the medium. Heavy washes equals mud – it’s as simple as that!
