Flat Wash – “Stained Glass”This is it. We’re going to paint a painting and...It’s going to be awesome.
The flat wash is the building block of watercolour. It’s basically
filling in an area with colour and avoiding streaky weird lines
and backwashes.The key to this is liquid control.
Streaky lines happen when your brush has too little liq-
uid and the paint dries before you can finish the area,
so you over brush what you’ve already completed and
it makes it a darker streak.
The opposite happens with a backwash.
A backwash happens when an already dry area contin-
ues to suck up wet from a big puddle. It plumes and
spreads out and creates a noticeable craggy puddle
shape as it dries.
I enjoy backwashes for texture. They can be used to
create visual interest and add depth to a painting...
but first, you need to learn how to paint without them.