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Wax Resist

Lesson 22 from: The Magic of Watercolor

Molly Murrah

Wax Resist

Lesson 22 from: The Magic of Watercolor

Molly Murrah

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Lesson Info

22. Wax Resist

Next Lesson: Other Techniques

Lesson Info

Wax Resist

okay now this is a technique called wax resist which is up at the top and sandpaper is down at the bottom and so again take out that painting that you have that we just worked on and find a clean area of it that does hasn't had anything done to it yet and you have rough pieces of sandpaper there and scrape it across the top of your painting where you've got colors that you want to get a sort of striated rough effect with can you see that so what it does is it goes in the rough the kernels of the rough sandpaper go in and scratch off the paint on the parts of the paper that air sticking up and the paint that settled into the wells of the paper isn't touched so it gives you that striated rough look by lit literally scratching the paper now be kind of difficult to go in and paint on this after you know this is something that you do with the end when you're looking for a specific look and you don't expect to paint it again because if you go in and paint on top of this now it would really s...

ort of bleed in and just look kind of kind of strange now imagine this area right here imagine that being sort of like the the edge of of water and you wanted to get that that moonlight effect on the little waves a little pinprick als of water you know in the ocean at far out this technique is really good for that it works really well for them now let's take another piece of paper take a clean piece of paper and you each have a candle you'll have you each have you'll have to share your candle but there's a candle on each table and just take your candle and rub it over an area just rub it back and forth over your paper now this is one of those times when you might even consider painting on the rough side of your paper rather than the smoother side so I just covered that with wax and I would get a dark color I mean you can certainly do it the light colors but it's for the purposes of this class it's going to show better with dark colors and paint over that area you can scratch it a lot like I did or just scratch it a little but you can see the great effect that you can get with this too that would also give you your shiny highlights on your water in a night scene over the ocean that would give you grain on something side of a barn or something like that now what I don't know and I'm going to take this piece home in try to figure it out is once that once the waxes down if there's any way to get it up again I'm not sure that there is I don't know that but I'm going to try I'm going to go home and probably the best way to figure that out would be to take a piece of paper towel and put it on top of the wax with an iron and then put an iron on top of it and see if you could melt the wax with the iron butt who knows what that will do to the paper it may just spread the wax out all over the paper but I would hope that the paper towel would help soak it up and then maybe you could paint over it again with a different color or to get sort of a different effect but you're going to just have to try that on your own it's pretty interesting figuring out how did create textures and watercolor is uh it's fun it's a lot of fun and don't don't limit yourself to what I'm showing you here there's so many other things to do I mean just you know people use oh I even brought a sample I went to a fabric store and got some of this sort of odd looking lace it's it's kind of plastic it's like a grid work and then I used to paint brush to paint part of it and then I stuck it on the paper so there you got like a little grid work area that you could put into your painting somehow I didn't put it up paint on it to make it thick enough but you can get mesh is another thing that people do is they get a wire screen you know just the kind of wire screen that you'd be using your screen door and you cut out a little section of it and you take your brush and you spread it with you know lots of gooey thick paint and then you go and you blow through the screen and it will create a sort of a controlled splatter on your paper so cali there's so many things to do use your imagination don't don't don't confine yourself every time you look at anything go because this is what I do go play I wonder if that would be a great watercolor tool I wonder I see a texture that I've never seen before and I go how would I how would I paint that what would you do if you wanted to recreate that and bamboo sticks people paint put a minute pencil sharpener and paint with them they use him to put it masking fluid on they use them with black india ink to do drawings with chopsticks you name it anything that you can think of that you can adapt to become an implement and a tool for painting keep it in your stable there's just there's no reason not to

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Watercolor-W2-Exercises.pdf
Watercolor-W3-Exercises.pdf
Watercolor-W4-Exercises.pdf
Watercolor-W5-Exercises.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Susan Mueller
 

Absolutely loved this class! I've been fiddling with watercolor for the last year, but have never really taken any art classes. This was the perfect intro level class in so many ways, covering basic principles of color, composition, etc. - and always in a warm, encouraging atmosphere. I learned so much about watercolor as a medium, and I would recommend this to anyone interested in getting involved with it. Would love to take a class with Molly again!

a Creativelive Student
 

I absolutely love this medium and have owned the material for about 5 or so years now, afraid to waste them. I've bought books but realizing I am both a visual and audio learner, this is the format for me. It is so important for me to be able to replay and review the information that taking a local course is just not as convenient as this has been for me. Molly is a delight to watch and listen to, she is such a wealth of knowledge. Thank you Molly and thank you CreativeLive!!! I am in love with this site.

Linda Berg
 

Molly is captivating! Her soothing voice exudes her love of watercolour painting! She is very organized and knows how to paint with watercolours and how to teach it as well. Not all painters can teach... I was drawn into her 'teachings', loved listening to her wealth of knowledge, and signed up for her course. Oh, I recommend it totally!

Student Work

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