How Do I Maintain White Areas In My Watercolour Paintings?

The fluidity of watercolours means that they can bleed into unwanted areas and ruin a perfectly good painting. The best way to maintain white areas is to prevent this bleed from happening.

Buy a bottle of masking fluid, available from any art stockist. It is like white glue in texture and can be painted onto the paper using a regular brush or a plastic spatula. If you use a brush, clean it straight away as otherwise it will harden and be difficult to remove.

Paint a thin film of masking fluid into the areas where the colour white is required. Leave it to dry completely, which takes approximately 10 minutes. Not doing so will not achieve the correct results.

Now lay your washes and start building up your painting. You will notice that the masking fluid resists the paint. When you have added the required colour, let your painting dry completely. Once dry, use a putty rubber to lift the masking fluid off the paper. You can use your finger if you prefer but be gentle so you don't cause any tears.

The paper will be as new where the masking fluid is removed. You can either add tone or leave it this way for effect; perfect white areas that are easy and inexpensive to achieve.

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Leaving white areas where the paper shows is one of the trickiest parts of watercolour painting. That is why some people think that watercolours is actually more difficult than other forms of painting like oils and acrylics - because you can't erase! If you plan ahead, leaving parts of the watercolour painting white is easier. You could do an initial sketch in light pencil. Use a 2H or 4H grade of pencil for this. Squint your eyes to look at the scene before you. This will help you to see the lights and darks more clearly. Then you can make a drawing that records the lightest parts, which you will leave white as you paint. Keep these areas in mind as you paint, because it is easy to forget and paint over them.

To keep your paint from bleeding into your intended white areas, do not use to much water. If you do think that the paint may bleed into the areas, simply dab up excess moisture with a cloth or paper towel. Also, even if you do get paint into the white areas, you may be able to dab it up gently with a wet brush or a towel. Another idea is to use masking fluid in the white areas.

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