1. Introduction

Painter's watercolor brushes simulate traditional watercolor tools. However, anyone who's worked with traditional watercolors will be quick to spot the differences between the two mediums. For instance, in Painter 6.0, the watercolors do not bleed and defuse like traditional watercolors, nor do they dry over time. This limits the possibility of "happy accidents" as are common with traditional watercolors, but also allows for more control with an otherwise unpredictable medium. Painter's watercolor tool may not perfectly imitate traditional watercolors, but it's still an excellent and useful tool.

Painter's watercolors are more similar to the other digital coloring tools, then traditional watercolors. The color comes out in circular dabs of various width and opacity. The big difference between the watercolor tools and the other tools is the gummy abrasiveness, and their opacity when colors are layered. The watercolor brush pulls underlying color with each new stroke, blending the colors at the same time.

The watercolor tool can be used for many different coloring tasks. Lindsay likes to use them for quickie images when color is not the focus; I like to use them like acrylic paints or gouache, layering them on heavy. Many other artists use them for what they were intended to do, simulate watercolors. There's really a lot you can do with this brush, so take some time and experiment.

The Watercolor Layer

Watercolors don't appear on any visible layer. The brush's stroke data is located on a layer that is separated from the others in the program. This layer, known as the wet layer, isn't represented on the layers menu nor can you modify settings, such as opacity, for this layer.

Unlike normal layers, where you can use as many as you wish, only one wet layer may be used. Therefore, color separations can only be achieved by either masking portions of your image or by carefully applying the colors to their appropriate areas. It's worth noting that you can also separate colors by completing a section of your image (for example, finishing all coloring on the hair), and then choosing Dry on the Canvas menu. This will drop the wet layer into the background layer, effectively allowing you to start a new wet layer that won't affect sections that have already been completed. Once a section is dropped, however, keep in mind that you won't be able to work into it anymore with the watercolor tool, so dry with caution!

The wet layer holds the color data for your watercolors, but it relies on the canvas layer for visibility. If you hide your canvas (click on the eye next to the canvas so that the eye shuts), any watercolor strokes that you've made instantly become invisible.

The color of the canvas will affect the watercolors. If the canvas is a color other than white, the translucent watercolors will become a darker shade, taking on the properties of the canvas color. Using watercolors on colored paper can lead to some interesting image effects. Try experimenting and see what type of results you get.

How Watercolors Work:
Step 1
The paper color is set to pure white (default). The base color used here is a light reddish brown hue. This first pass was done with a large simple water brush and was used to lay down a base tone of color. If you look at the edges, you can see the clearly visible semi-opaque circles that make up your watercolor strokes.

Step 2
In the image above, an earthy red tone was painted over the first layer of colors. I tend to paint the watercolors with the simple water brush set on a low opacity like 20%. Using this method, the red comes through in a glazed semi-opaque fashion. The paint strokes practically blend themselves as they're laid down.

Step 3
To further blend the colors, I switched from the simple water brush to the pure water brush. When you make the switch in tools, you may notice that the edges of the watercolor area become noticeably darker. This is because of the Wet Fringe slider setting in the Water section of the Brush: Controls palette. If the slider is set above 25%, the edges become very noticeable.

Step 4
The edges are blended out using the pure water brush. The earthy reds blend with the brown colors beneath then when they're pulled, creating new variations in color.

The colors are dried (choose Dry off the Canvas menu) and become part of the canvas. These colors are no longer on the wet layer and can no longer be modified by the watercolor tools. Any new watercolors applied overtop of these dried colors will serve as a glaze, and will not actually modify the underlying colors.

Step 5
The light blue (as seen in the circle on the lower right side of the picture) takes on a dark shade when painted overtop of the dried red and light brown colors. Watercolors are transparent, allowing them to be effected by the underlying canvas color. This is why I started with a white canvas when using the watercolor tool for practical application. As always, don't be afraid to experiment!

2. Preparation

Papers

Just like real water coloring, the painting will be affected by the type of paper used. The watercolor tool is probably affected more by the paper than any other tool, and this can be used to your advantage if you plan ahead. The watercolors will mimic attributes of the paper, flowing off of elevated areas, and sinking into grooves and indentations.

Using watercolors in conjunction with the paper textures can produce some excellent special effects. For general usage, I would suggest using a smooth featureless paper (refer to the Papers section under the Painter Basics Chapter for information on how to create this paper) or a paper that has very little texture like Regular Fine, which is included with the Painter program.

The iridescent scales on this snake's head were done quickly with remarkable results. The look was accomplished by brushing over the painted image at low opacity with the simple water brush while the paper type was set to "Veination". This is a default paper that can be found in the Awesome paper library, included with Painter 6.0.

Brushes

For the bulk of this watercolor tutorial, you'll mostly be using two custom created watercolor brushes, which I will explain how to make in this section. Besides these, we'll also need to create two Opaque Detailer brushes, which are based off of a pencil variant. The Opaque Detailer brushes will be used for cleanup and finishing touches. I gave these brushes names like "Custom Simple Water" because I wanted to distinguish them from the default brushes in the application. You can name your brush variants whatever you like. ^_-

Custom Simple Water:

This is your all-purpose watercolor painting brush, a variant of the Simple Water brush. Throughout the painting process, you'll need to resize this brush very often. When the brush is sized up large, it's great for laying down washes, filling large areas with color, or even blending. When the brush is sized down, it excels at detailed color blending, mixing, and creating areas of colorful precision detail throughout your image.

Unfortunately, the Simple Water brush packaged in with Painter can't handle small details or blending colors very well, so the settings will need to be tweaked slightly.

To create the Custom Simple Water brush, first start off with the standard Watercolor Simple Water brush and modify its brush settings as follows.

Change the settings so they look
the same as what we've presented here.
Then, go to the Brushes palette and
save your variant with a new name.
I'll be referring to this brush as
Custom Simple Water, but you can call
yours whatever you wish.

Custom Pure Water:
This brush is used purely for blending colors and paper effects.

Blending: When the opacity is set low on this brush, around 20%, the brush strokes gently blend colors when you apply low to medium pressure with your stylus. Using heavy pressure with your stylus will actually pick up an underlying color and push it around your image as if you were finger-painting.

Paper effects: Setting the opacity down to about 10% creates a brush that is excellent for expressing paper textures in your image. A gentle stroke will subtly blend the underlying colors while expressing the highlights in a paper texture. A heavier stroke will heavily blend the underlying colors, and make the texture much more apparent.

The colors purple and yellow are blended together in a smooth gradient by
using the Custom Pure Water brush on a non-texture paper.

 Using the above gradient, we choose a paper type with a fancy texture.
This shows the effects of a gentle brush stroke with the Custom Pure Water brush
while the "Connectivity" paper texture is chosen. Notice the shiny iridescent quality.

Again, the same  purple to yellow gradient is used, only this time applying heavy pressure.

To create the Custom Pure Water brush, first start off with the standard Watercolor Pure Water brush, and modify its brush settings as follows.

Change the settings so that they
look the same as what we've
presented here. Then, go to the Brushes
palette and save your variant with a new name.
I'll be referring to this brush as
Custom Pure Water.

Custom Opaque Detailer Pencil:
Unlike the other two brushes, this is not a watercolor brush. It's a standard brush that shows up on normal layers, like the other non-water based tools in Painter. Brush strokes made with the Opaque Detailer Pencil should be on a layer separate from the line art and the watercolors. The purpose of this brush is to clean up the line work, and add details and highlights to your image.

To create this brush, first start off with the standard Pencils 2B Pencil brush and modify its brush settings as follows.

Just like with the other brushes,
modify the brush's settings to the ones
shown here. When you're done, go to the
Brushes palette and save your
variant with a new name.
I'll be referring to this brush as
Opaque Detailer Pencil.

Setting up your image for water coloring

Once your papers and brushes are prepared, you're almost ready to start coloring! Open your line work in Painter. The line work should be clean and dark. The line art does not need to be transparent for the sake of water coloring, but it's always nice to have the option of separating the lines from the color later. In the image I'll be using as my example, my line art was done in Painter using the pencil tool. This makes for a nice clean outline, without being as obtrusive as inked line art. It works great for images that you intend to paint.