Adding Colour to Painting

Here is a picture of the painting of yesterday's blog, with a clearer and more accurate depiction of the colour.      A key feature for Chinese landscape is subtlety in colour and nuanced variation in the colour tones.  Look closely to see how it varies both within each land-form blocks, and also between them.  This variation is obtained by putting on colour in layers (glazing).   Chinese watercolours are mostly transparent, so that the layers will add on top of one another.

First make sure the colour pigments are well dispersed in water.  Maintain a not-too-wet brush and take the colour at the brush tip,  Then use a broad brush stroke to quickly apply the colour to the element in the painting.  The element could be a rock face, a tree trunk, a slope, or one layer of land-form.  Work,  in sequence, on each block/layer/element as one unit.  Another glazing layer can be added when the paper is dry, or almost dry (just moist).  Maintain a lively variation.  For example, in this painting, while the whole colour scheme is one of sepia/brownish, some blocks are more reddish, and some are yellowish.   Of course, the shaded or shadowy areas are bluish.  Glazing of layers produces these.  The sky, water and cloud/mist are maintained as white, even though there may seem to have other tints, artifacts of digital photography.