Wash - painting techniques

Painters create a three dimensional reflection of the reality using different painting techniques, depending on materials and concepts in the painting. One of these techniques is wash, which means the painting is slightly covered with watercolor. The wash also serves to create shades and depths.

Usually, artists keep watercolors in pure form when approaching a wash and most of them avoid working with non-colors (opaque black and white). Depending on the mood of the artist or the effect he wishes to obtain, he chooses the colors to best suit the painting support and environment. Thus, the impression of day/night, winter, summer or spring time may be obtained.

When washing the painting, the artist has complete freedom of choice regarding the nature and number of the colors he uses. However, it is recommended that he uses the three tones of every color: light, middle tone and dark. For the wash to turn out successful, the painting should be well fixed priory. The perfect wash is considered to have an intermediary consistency between that of boiled milk and thin honey. Other recommendations include that darker tones are used to wash the corners of the painting, while lighter colors are focused towards the center.

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