Watercolour ground is a medium which transforms any surface into a watercolour paper. So far I have found it to be effective on colouring books and creative bible journaling and found that I needed about 2-3 coats for it to not bleed through. See my previous post Watercolour ground for more info.
One of the other applications I have seen others use this for is to use it to prepare a canvas so that you can
- paint larger paintings
- Use instead of expensive watercolour paper
- Not have to bother with expensive framing (when it comes to larger paintings you’re looking at $300+ to have it framed professionally)
At this stage I’m just doing this as a hobby but eventually I would like one or two good paintings to go large to decorate for my home. I’m still choosing the style of painting and what I would like to see on my walls tend to be different to what I prefer to paint.
So the next stage was to experiment to see what kind of mediums. It’s always best to start small so wanted to push the limits with watercolour ground.
I chose to do my first experiment on normal printing paper and also used it to test out my new cheapo masking tape from Temu and compare with my scotch blue painters tape which has been reused many times over.
Tests set up
1. Find the minimum number of coats required to prevent bleed through
Set up 4 boxes with varying layers of watercolour ground
A. 1 layer
B. 2 layers
C. 3 layers
D. 4 layers
Painted this on using a normal painter brush
2. Mini test for to see if a different texture could be created with a brush vs palette knife.
I kept a small section for a palette knife but ended up just using my metal spatula (I had to buy with my uni science dissection kit. It’s been super useful ever since for other varieties of DIY)
3. Test how the ground behaves under common watercolour techniques
This is to work out what is the best style of painting which actually will dictate the types of paintings I can do. Eg hot pressed paper is better for detailed paintings, realising, portraits and botanicals. Cold pressed is great for wet on wet and rough if you’re after granulation effects.
Note for this will use Daniel Smith or Da Vinci watercolour paint.
Within each box on the left side I have drawn 4 squares to test:
1. Wet on dry – wet paint on dry surface
2. Wet on wet – paint a layer of water and then drop paint on it.
3. Two layers of wet on dry – will paint one layer wait for it to dry and a second layer of paint after the first layer has dried. Potential with different colours to see what the glazing effect looks like.
4. Wet on wet 2 layers – will paint one layer of water, drop paint on it, wait for it to dry and then wet with water and paint again. Will see if it makes a difference.
4. Test how many layers of alcoholic ink graphic markers hold up on the different layers of watercolour ground
On the right hand side of each box I have drawn two rows of intersecting circles.
Row 1 – will do a different colour for each box and just colour one layer. Will colour over the intersection to see how it layers/ glazes.
Row 2 – will do two layers of colour for each box to see if it bleeds through. Again interesting will overlap so will see if there’s any new colours created through glazing.
Observations so far
I ended up painting two thin layers one horizontally and the other vertically.
For the pallette knife section just used the spatula to drag the paint across. So that there is a fairly tick layer.
So far I can see that-
– inferior paper buckled under the water from the watercolour ground. Hoping the tape will allow it to stretch out and flatten as it dries.
– uneven application can be seen in the darker spots
Another factor is that by the instructions you need to wait for 24-48 hours to curate. Will see if I have the patience to wait that long because want to test typical conditions. Might look at a separate test later to see if there’s a difference in the amount of time you wait.
Results to come
Rachel Fong Art 