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Description
Original Size: 7.5x10
Medium: Ink, Water-dyes
Copyright Notice: 2008 by Bob Giadrosich/Sharayah Press. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited by law.

Tutorial: Part One; Concept
Tutorial: Part Two, Pencil Outline
Tutorial: Part Three, Pencil Detail
Tutorial: Part Four, Ink Brush Work
Tutorial: Part Five, Ink Quill Work

A word or two about water-dyes

    What are water-dyes? Funny you should ask! Water-dyes are super-duper concentrated colors which come in glass bottles with an eye-dropper top. Most times, when you find them in a store or online they are called concentrated water colors. All you need is one drop of color (hence, the eye-dropper), and when diluted with water, it will last a very, very long time. Before computers came along, most, if not all, comics were colored with Dr. PH Martin's water-dyes. Another brand name at that time was Luma (now out of business). To give you an idea of how long a bottle will last, I've been using the same set of Luma water-dyes (with an occasional replacement of colors I use a lot), since 1985! Dr. Martin is still around, and Windsor & Newton makes an excellent product in this line. My set now includes dyes from all three companies.

    The main difference between water-dyes and traditional water colors (which come in tubes or in pans) is that water-dyes are translucent, even in their purest form, meaning that when laid down on the surface, they will not cover ink or heavy pencil lines, which will always be visible through the color.
    Traditional water colors are more opaque, and can cover line work if not diluted with water. When used together, these water dyes and traditional water colors complement each other excellently. An example can be seen with Ring Around the Moon . Here, I used gouache for the sky, water-dyes for the dress, hair, and grass, traditional watercolor for the stars, and highlighted selected points with Prismacolor pencils.

How can water-dyes be used?

    Probably in a variety of ways! Be creative, and when used as a part of a mixed medium project, one will only be limited by technique and experimentation. The way that I use them, however, is by layering. My approach is similar to the way that I paint with oils, with a few major exceptions due to the difference of the mediums.
    With water-dyes, I work from dark to light, meaning that I lay down my darkest colors first, and work towards the highlights. I begin with a very diluted layer of color to start establishing my boundaries on what I want colored and what I want to remain a highlight. This becomes a visual map of sorts, and then I slowly start to build up layer after layer with that particular color, until I have the proper value. Each layer will intensify the color beneath it (when it is the same color). Because the dyes are translucent, the light passes through all the various layers, hits the white paper, and then bounces back through the medium. This produces a glow, or depth, that is the magic of the water-dyes. Think along the lines of stained glass, with the added dimension of the light passing back through the medium.

    What I am attempting to do is glaze with a water soluble medium. With traditional glazing used in oil painting, one would lay down a layer of blue, let it dry, and then put a yellow layer on top of it, creating a green to the viewer’s eye as the light passes through and bounces back. Maxfield Parrish was a master of this type of painting, and he would often put a coat of varnish in-between his layers in order to protect the color beneath it. Unfortunately, that is why so many of his paintings have tiny cracks in them today, due to the variations in drying time of the different mediums and pigments.
    Fortunately, with water-dyes, one doesn’t have to mess with varnishes or anything like that in-between layers. There are excellent primary, secondary, and terciary colors readily available to choose from. One thing I do, however, is always keep in mind how the color beneath will affect the color on top. I choose colors which I feel will complement each other, building towards depth of the piece.

Note: Be sure to let the layer of color dry completely before you put another color on top.
With oils, dark spaces and shadows should be applied as almost a wash in order to push that area back, and the lighter an object is, the more paint is used. Highlights should be the heaviest paint on the canvas surface in order for it to "pop" in the viewer's eye. This cannot be duplicated with water-dyes, because they maintain the same consistency (or transluscentness) when put on paper, so the artist must find other ways to trick the eye into lifting the objects off the paper. One way is to use an extensive under painting.

The Under Painting

Color used: LUMA: Violet

    Whether with oils or dyes, I always start with an under-painting. The subject and environment will determine the overall color. When I use oils, many times I'll select a Rose Madder or Terra Cotta under-painting, but I’ve found that for the water-dyes, a purple or blue under-painting seems to work best. Why, I’m not sure, but it has something to do with how the other colors react to the cool side of the color spectrum. I lay down a purplish under-painting, and then a layer of dark and light blues on top of that (Under Painting, Part 2).
    The under-painting serves to strengthen the depth of the image, and all the other colors will work off of that. In essence, the under-painting establishes the values of the painting, and when properly done, could stand as an independent monochromatic painting of the subject. All the modeling is done in the under painting, establishing the 3-dimensional aspect of the work. The rest of the applied color is merely eye candy.
    Here are some examples of how different approaches to the under-painting (or not) has on a particular composition:

Shii-chan Forever did not utilize an under-painting, as I wanted the colors to be as pristine as possible. I wasn’t after a "realistic" rendering, because the manga has a very stylized look to it, and I was trying to capture the look and coloration of the artist, Koge-Donbo.
Jennie’s Lament features a black under painting. I chose black because I needed a dark surface to act as a contrast for the "scratches" in the metal wall behind the figure. The purple coloration under her sleeve was done at the last stage with Prismacolor pencils.
Weapon of the Spirit features a purple and blue under-painting on the face, because I wanted it to stand out against the flat background. The under painting molded the figure, and allowed me to come back in with skin tone washes to establish lights and darks.

How I work

    The first thing I do is place a tiny drop of water dye on my pallet (I use a sheet of plastic), and then dip my brush into clean water and place it on the edge of my drop of color. I repeat this until the color starts to dilute on my pallet and eventually, a trail of bleeding color will start to snake across the pallet as I use the color more and more. I never dip my brush into the undiluted drop, but always draw from the section that I've added water to. Undiluted water dyes placed directly on the paper will stain the area as the saturated color sinks into the fiber of the paper, making it impossible to blend. It is best to start out very light and build the colors up one layer at a time.
    Just like traditional watercolors, the dyes will form a hard edge if a slight amount of time is allowed to pass between applications in a specific area.
    Loading my brush up with plenty of water, I dip the tip of the brush into the water dye and, starting against the ink line, I pull the color in a downward stroke. When the color runs out, I rapidly repeat the process before the hard edge has a chance to form from the drying of the first area. You have to work quickly, because the dyes will start to dry almost as soon as you lay them down, depending on the amount of water used. What I am trying to avoid is any visible seams in-between applications.

    It is best to let each layer dry before coming in with another color, as this preserves the intensity of the color beneath it. I don’t necessarily want the layers to blend, but I want one layer to lay on top of the next layer to create depth. In between sessions, I usually place the drawing in a folder and press it to keep the paper fairly flat.

Areas of Note: Look how the modeling has been used to accent form, particularly on the sash around her waist and the folds in the dress coming down from that. The tear-drop shape on the sash on the right side of the figure has been left lighter on the bottom because it will be an area of reflected light, otherwise, since the main light source is coming from the left-hand side of the image, the greatest amount of color (shadow) has been placed on the right of each shape.
    Starting where the hair meets the left shoulder, I've left a strip of white which moves down the side of her arm to her elbow, then up the left-hand side of her forearm to her hand (and the left side of each finger). Looking back to the shoulder, find where the arm joins the torso. Moving down the ribs to her waist, again I’ve left a white strip which travels down the left side of the body, then onto the sash. Both of these white areas will be used for highlighting the figure (and will be some of the last areas colored), in effect, separating them from the elements in front and ultimately, the background. The same treatment can be seen on her nose, eyelid, and cheek. I've also brought the shadow right up next to these areas to provide maximum contrast between the highlight and the shadow.
    Much of what is white paper now will be highlight later, particularly on the stone faces and top areas of the rocks. You'll get a good idea in visual terms of what I am trying to accomplish in the next three or four stages.

    At this point, I really don't have a definite plan for the coloration of the figure. I'm leaning towards warmer colors in order to contrast with the rest of the composition, but I haven't decided yet. Another reason for the warmer colors is because I have a tendency to use a lot of cooler colors when I do add color, so I might make this one a little different. We'll see.
    The leaves will be various shades of green, and for the stone work, I'll refer back to my reference (the travel magazine photograph). Even so, I won't be reproducing the color scheme of the reference exactly, instead taking bits and pieces of the coloration to fit the overall feel of my image.
    All that being said, by the time I have finished stage two of the under-painting, I'll have a fairly good idea of where all this is heading, color wise.

Next: Under Painting II, The Blues

Description
Original Size: 7.5x10
Medium: Ink, Water-dyes
Copyright Notice: 2008 by Bob Giadrosich/Sharayah Press. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited by law.

Tutorial: Part One; Concept
Tutorial: Part Two, Pencil Outline
Tutorial: Part Three, Pencil Detail
Tutorial: Part Four, Ink Brush Work
Tutorial: Part Five, Ink Quill Work

A word or two about water-dyes

    What are water-dyes? Funny you should ask! Water-dyes are super-duper concentrated colors which come in glass bottles with an eye-dropper top. Most times, when you find them in a store or online they are called concentrated water colors. All you need is one drop of color (hence, the eye-dropper), and when diluted with water, it will last a very, very long time. Before computers came along, most, if not all, comics were colored with Dr. PH Martin's water-dyes. Another brand name at that time was Luma (now out of business). To give you an idea of how long a bottle will last, I've been using the same set of Luma water-dyes (with an occasional replacement of colors I use a lot), since 1985! Dr. Martin is still around, and Windsor & Newton makes an excellent product in this line. My set now includes dyes from all three companies.

    The main difference between water-dyes and traditional water colors (which come in tubes or in pans) is that water-dyes are translucent, even in their purest form, meaning that when laid down on the surface, they will not cover ink or heavy pencil lines, which will always be visible through the color.
    Traditional water colors are more opaque, and can cover line work if not diluted with water. When used together, these water dyes and traditional water colors complement each other excellently. An example can be seen with Ring Around the Moon . Here, I used gouache for the sky, water-dyes for the dress, hair, and grass, traditional watercolor for the stars, and highlighted selected points with Prismacolor pencils.

How can water-dyes be used?

    Probably in a variety of ways! Be creative, and when used as a part of a mixed medium project, one will only be limited by technique and experimentation. The way that I use them, however, is by layering. My approach is similar to the way that I paint with oils, with a few major exceptions due to the difference of the mediums.
    With water-dyes, I work from dark to light, meaning that I lay down my darkest colors first, and work towards the highlights. I begin with a very diluted layer of color to start establishing my boundaries on what I want colored and what I want to remain a highlight. This becomes a visual map of sorts, and then I slowly start to build up layer after layer with that particular color, until I have the proper value. Each layer will intensify the color beneath it (when it is the same color). Because the dyes are translucent, the light passes through all the various layers, hits the white paper, and then bounces back through the medium. This produces a glow, or depth, that is the magic of the water-dyes. Think along the lines of stained glass, with the added dimension of the light passing back through the medium.

    What I am attempting to do is glaze with a water soluble medium. With traditional glazing used in oil painting, one would lay down a layer of blue, let it dry, and then put a yellow layer on top of it, creating a green to the viewer’s eye as the light passes through and bounces back. Maxfield Parrish was a master of this type of painting, and he would often put a coat of varnish in-between his layers in order to protect the color beneath it. Unfortunately, that is why so many of his paintings have tiny cracks in them today, due to the variations in drying time of the different mediums and pigments.
    Fortunately, with water-dyes, one doesn’t have to mess with varnishes or anything like that in-between layers. There are excellent primary, secondary, and terciary colors readily available to choose from. One thing I do, however, is always keep in mind how the color beneath will affect the color on top. I choose colors which I feel will complement each other, building towards depth of the piece.

Note: Be sure to let the layer of color dry completely before you put another color on top.
With oils, dark spaces and shadows should be applied as almost a wash in order to push that area back, and the lighter an object is, the more paint is used. Highlights should be the heaviest paint on the canvas surface in order for it to "pop" in the viewer's eye. This cannot be duplicated with water-dyes, because they maintain the same consistency (or transluscentness) when put on paper, so the artist must find other ways to trick the eye into lifting the objects off the paper. One way is to use an extensive under painting.

The Under Painting

Color used: LUMA: Violet

    Whether with oils or dyes, I always start with an under-painting. The subject and environment will determine the overall color. When I use oils, many times I'll select a Rose Madder or Terra Cotta under-painting, but I’ve found that for the water-dyes, a purple or blue under-painting seems to work best. Why, I’m not sure, but it has something to do with how the other colors react to the cool side of the color spectrum. I lay down a purplish under-painting, and then a layer of dark and light blues on top of that (Under Painting, Part 2).
    The under-painting serves to strengthen the depth of the image, and all the other colors will work off of that. In essence, the under-painting establishes the values of the painting, and when properly done, could stand as an independent monochromatic painting of the subject. All the modeling is done in the under painting, establishing the 3-dimensional aspect of the work. The rest of the applied color is merely eye candy.
    Here are some examples of how different approaches to the under-painting (or not) has on a particular composition:

Shii-chan Forever did not utilize an under-painting, as I wanted the colors to be as pristine as possible. I wasn’t after a "realistic" rendering, because the manga has a very stylized look to it, and I was trying to capture the look and coloration of the artist, Koge-Donbo.
Jennie’s Lament features a black under painting. I chose black because I needed a dark surface to act as a contrast for the "scratches" in the metal wall behind the figure. The purple coloration under her sleeve was done at the last stage with Prismacolor pencils.
Weapon of the Spirit features a purple and blue under-painting on the face, because I wanted it to stand out against the flat background. The under painting molded the figure, and allowed me to come back in with skin tone washes to establish lights and darks.

How I work

    The first thing I do is place a tiny drop of water dye on my pallet (I use a sheet of plastic), and then dip my brush into clean water and place it on the edge of my drop of color. I repeat this until the color starts to dilute on my pallet and eventually, a trail of bleeding color will start to snake across the pallet as I use the color more and more. I never dip my brush into the undiluted drop, but always draw from the section that I've added water to. Undiluted water dyes placed directly on the paper will stain the area as the saturated color sinks into the fiber of the paper, making it impossible to blend. It is best to start out very light and build the colors up one layer at a time.
    Just like traditional watercolors, the dyes will form a hard edge if a slight amount of time is allowed to pass between applications in a specific area.
    Loading my brush up with plenty of water, I dip the tip of the brush into the water dye and, starting against the ink line, I pull the color in a downward stroke. When the color runs out, I rapidly repeat the process before the hard edge has a chance to form from the drying of the first area. You have to work quickly, because the dyes will start to dry almost as soon as you lay them down, depending on the amount of water used. What I am trying to avoid is any visible seams in-between applications.

    It is best to let each layer dry before coming in with another color, as this preserves the intensity of the color beneath it. I don’t necessarily want the layers to blend, but I want one layer to lay on top of the next layer to create depth. In between sessions, I usually place the drawing in a folder and press it to keep the paper fairly flat.

Areas of Note: Look how the modeling has been used to accent form, particularly on the sash around her waist and the folds in the dress coming down from that. The tear-drop shape on the sash on the right side of the figure has been left lighter on the bottom because it will be an area of reflected light, otherwise, since the main light source is coming from the left-hand side of the image, the greatest amount of color (shadow) has been placed on the right of each shape.
    Starting where the hair meets the left shoulder, I've left a strip of white which moves down the side of her arm to her elbow, then up the left-hand side of her forearm to her hand (and the left side of each finger). Looking back to the shoulder, find where the arm joins the torso. Moving down the ribs to her waist, again I’ve left a white strip which travels down the left side of the body, then onto the sash. Both of these white areas will be used for highlighting the figure (and will be some of the last areas colored), in effect, separating them from the elements in front and ultimately, the background. The same treatment can be seen on her nose, eyelid, and cheek. I've also brought the shadow right up next to these areas to provide maximum contrast between the highlight and the shadow.
    Much of what is white paper now will be highlight later, particularly on the stone faces and top areas of the rocks. You'll get a good idea in visual terms of what I am trying to accomplish in the next three or four stages.

    At this point, I really don't have a definite plan for the coloration of the figure. I'm leaning towards warmer colors in order to contrast with the rest of the composition, but I haven't decided yet. Another reason for the warmer colors is because I have a tendency to use a lot of cooler colors when I do add color, so I might make this one a little different. We'll see.
    The leaves will be various shades of green, and for the stone work, I'll refer back to my reference (the travel magazine photograph). Even so, I won't be reproducing the color scheme of the reference exactly, instead taking bits and pieces of the coloration to fit the overall feel of my image.
    All that being said, by the time I have finished stage two of the under-painting, I'll have a fairly good idea of where all this is heading, color wise.

Next: Under Painting II, The Blues