Painting Tip r Tool

Q: Why do you prefer painting wet on wet rather than letting one layer dry before painting another?

A: Generally I prefer wet on wet because I love how the edges of shapes swirl together, like the foliage of one tree combining in spots with the foliage of a tree behind it. That causes a striation or kaleidoscope of colors that makes that area more energized – even when the effect is small and subtle.

It’s especially useful when I’m working with thicker textured paint because I can pull a tree branch through a thick area of paint so they feel in harmony with one another, rather than adding a thin branch on top of a textured stroke. That method tends to break up the color because it only touches the tops of the texture and doesn’t get into the valleys.

If that happens and I don’t like the look of the broken color (branch) then I have to carefully try and paint into the crevices to make it look seamless, which is a lot more complicated than running a thin branch through wet paint like I do in this quick video from our recent Ultimate Paintbrush Experiment Blog:

 

When I’m not distracted, and get into a fully focused state, the painting will flow so quickly that all the elements develop together and a rich harmony of colors, textures, values and atmosphere combine to create a very naturalistic feeling.

If that focus is disrupted and I need to come back to dry layers, it’s much more difficult to get back into that original flow of ideas. If the painting was a struggle to begin with then that break isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if everything is progressing well I much prefer to keep painting while that focused state exists.

However, there are times when painting over dry layers is advantageous. When I’m working with thinner layers and using a lot of dry-brush strokes, it’s useful to have the under-layer dry. That helps the full force of the underlying color come through the dry-brush texture without disturbing or blending the colors together.

There is more I could discuss with this question – so, I think we’ll expound a bit more in a future blog post.

The important takeaway – there isn’t a best practice scenario – it depends on what we’re trying to achieve. That’s why it’s important to experiment and see what works best to create our vision.

Want to learn more about my painting techniques? Check out the Master Oil Painting 6 Week Course!

 

Do you have a question or tool you’re wondering about? Comment below and it might just end up as our next Painting Tip ‘r Tool!