When you really want keep painting and you don’t have time to wait for paint to dry, use a hairdryer as suggested. it is such a help! You don’t have to blast it with super heat. You can use a cold air too. It’s a game changer. If you have your paper taped down on the edges on your board, hot air can make the tape tacky and make it tricky taking off the tape without ripping the paper or leaving residue. So stick with cool air. That’s what I do. But I’ve been known to blast with hot air as well. But I know there’s possible consequences when it’s time for that tape to come off.
It’s already been suggested that you put down a bit of plain water and you put a little pigment at the edge.. You don’t have to do a big blob of water where it might be tempted to migrate into the centre.
Here’s a website where a person is describing how to do your edges. I find there’s many people on Instagram or Facebook that do watercolours painting flowers that have a real emphasis on the edge. You can learn from them and apply it to your own work.
Struggling with wobbly lines or hard edges in watercolour? Learn how to control edges, master water-to-paint ratios, and avoid common mistakes with Louise De Masi’s practical tips and techniques for softer, cleaner watercolour paintings.
www.louisedemasi.com
Hairdryer is a must to go paint beside a wet area. Sometimes you might even think it’s dry enough and it’s not. The colour runs in places you don’t want, and sometimes creates mud when it runs into that other area. I have an impatient and I have done this mistake countless times and it is avoidable.
Also, once you have an area painted, and let’s say you see a little spot that you want to smooth out the pigment and you apply a little bit of wet paint, you will notice when it dries it has its own shape with edges in that area. So you want to try to get your layer down and totally dry the way you want it first. It’s hard to go back in and touch up with watercolour if you’re trying to make that area consistent. You’ll end up usually having to try and blend in the whole area. So I always keep an eye out for that too. Sometimes if I take the tiniest little breast strokes with an almost dry brush, I can maybe even it out. But I know that there’s a good chance. I’m just gonna have to go over it all over again. If you do that, hardly have any moisture in that small brush and work on the little edge of whatever blemish you have. Also, you have to be careful that it doesn’t pull up the pigment in that area. Oh boy, I’ve run into these problems over and over again. Actually it just takes practice and you get to learn what you can and can’t get away with. It would be worthwhile to have a piece of watercolour paper and try all these different things and practice on that first.
Certainly there are many YouTube videos that will address this. You can see examples of these issues and how to deal with them or the pitfalls.
I like your watercolours and that third one you can see a great improvement with your edges. And you can see though that you’ve got different shades of pink in the head that you may want to blend out, and it can be a bit tricky. That’s what I’m talking about. I really like the psychological aspect of your piece. It has a cool feel to it. Your watercolors remind me of some artist. But wouldn’t you know it? I don’t have a name coming to mind. But they do! And I sure do like the feel of them.
I used it for some parts of the painting below.
