Hashing with watercolors: tricks and techniques

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Watercolor is one of the most difficult techniques in painting. It requires the artist to be extremely careful in displaying details, since it is almost impossible to change or alter anything in the drawing. Washing with watercolor is quite simple in its execution. This technique was almost the only method of applying watercolors before the advent of impressionism.

How useful is watercolor hillshade?

It is used to add volume to the drawing and show how the object being drawn will look in reality. Washing is a fairly easy, but lengthy process. In architectural institutes, it is taught from the first year, as it is one of the main means of the architect. After all, an ordinary drawing is not capable of giving an accurate idea to an unprepared viewer about the shape of an object. Washing with watercolor helps to understand the idea, to see the shape of the object and to see the color scheme for any person. For the architect himself, this technique is also very useful. He gets the opportunity to work with color, find the most suitable combinations of materials to implement his plans, refine the ratio of tones, achieve a well-defined silhouette andthe volume of the object being drawn.

Getting Started

How to make a hillshade with watercolors? This process is simple but time consuming. The first step in hillshading is separating the highlights from the shadows. All places where the shadow falls should be covered with paint so that when dried they are still slightly lighter than the lightest reflections in the darkened areas. Further, all surfaces of the fragment should be covered with the lightest tone possible, practically with water. But all edges and planes that are affected by light at right angles should remain intact.

Having previously studied the sketch, it is necessary to divide the drawing into main plans, depending on how they are removed in depth. The foreground is always illuminated much more strongly, so it must be depicted brighter than all the others. The word "plan" in a particular case means all vertical surfaces that are parallel to the facade projection planes.

Next step

The entire surface of the drawing, except for its first plan, should be covered with a light solution of watercolor paint. After it dries, the first plan will look a little lighter than the rest, deeper ones. To make work like watercolor hillshade a little easier to do, you should cover all the highlights and shadows of the drawing at once. At the same time, you should try to keep the edges under the light source light, especially if they are in the foreground.

When the degreeillumination on light plans is distributed, you can proceed to work on the shadow areas. Places that are closest to the viewer and are in shadow should be depicted more saturated than those that are in the background. The latter are drawn more loosely, and the details in gradations become smaller.

Final process

The final step in the question of how to make a hillshade in watercolor requires the artist to be extra careful. All spaces in the drawing that are closed and deep should be less illuminated by reflected rays in their shadow parts. Such a rule must be strictly observed when it comes to openings in which interior spaces are displayed. Shaded surfaces are covered sequentially according to existing plans in the same way as when hillshading illuminated areas, only in reverse order.

Shadows closest to the viewer are processed last. On all those edges of the displayed part that are in the shadow, you need to leave a thin strip, somewhat lighter than the shadow itself. This procedure allows you to convey a distinct relief of the form. It is also important to remember that in the foreground, the glowing edges of the figure should look lighter than those in the back, deep areas of the drawing.

Different cleaning methods

There is more than one watercolor wash technique. The first and easiest is black and white. At first, the details are drawn in ink, andthen the artist picks up the paint. The most important thing in a black and white hillshade is to choose the right angle, that is, the place from where the subject will look most expressive. The main parts of the silhouette should be clearly visible. Although rarely used, this type of hillshade provides the novice architect with the most important thing – a sense of tone. The drawing is in a clear tonal and delicate, restrained color scheme. Most often, this technique is used to display a variety of architectural projects.

Color hillshade with watercolor increases the range of highlights. It enables the artist to embody any desired lighting in the drawing. It can be a sunny and bright day, a rainy and overcast landscape, a colorful sunset or sunrise. The main thing is to determine what exactly needs to be displayed in the work, to choose the right light source. If the light is bright, then the color variety should decrease, and the shadows should become contrasting, which allows you to display the three-dimensionality well. Conversely, if the lighting is diffuse, then the contrast is reduced, and the color load is increased.

Important details

Before you start, you should choose a topic. Architectural hillshade is preferably used in rendering more characteristic and voluminous views of buildings. It is necessary to correctly and beautifully plan the future drawing. After all, the result of the work should be almost identical to the photographic image of the object. A quality drawing is fifty percent success. It should be done with ink, which is diluted tolight grey. The drawing is done with light hand movements so that later it does not show through the watercolor. In some cases, you can apply a colored outline. Then the blue color will become the main color in the illuminated areas, and the darkened places will require a red or brown tone. The quality of the paper is also important, as the drawings require the utmost precision and accuracy from the artist.

Hade in architectural drawings

Hashing in watercolor in architecture requires great artist skill. It is necessary to have a great store of knowledge, to be able to use the properties of paints, to distinguish between light and color natural phenomena, to see the numerous qualities of various textures, and so on. After finishing work in the watercolor hillshade technique, you can see a relief and three-dimensional object that is as close as possible to its real appearance. This result is achieved by the artist by working through all the light and shadow areas of the depicted object.