How to Layer Wet on Wet Paint

Andy Braitman demonstrates how to layer wet on wet paint to build a painting and suggest flowers.

1. Layer your darks, then your midtones and then your lights - all wet on wet

a. Example 1: Building a flower’s stem

i. Put down a dark background color (i.e. wet black)

ii. Put down a wet midtone color on top of the dark (i.e. wet blue/green)

iii. Put down a wet light on top of the wet midtone (i.e. light yellow green stem)

2. Do not use any medium and do not homogenize your colors!

3. Use a stiff brush as well as a knife, the more tools you employ the more variety of strokes you will create!

4. Keep layering more thick wet paint on top of more wet paint to create objects

5. Example 2: Building a chrysanthemum flower

1. Put down a dark shape

2. Put down a wet red midtone color on top of the dark shape

3. Deliberately put down a wet lighter red on top of the wet midtown to create the spike references of a chrysanthemum

4. Make sure to place shapes in front of and behind others

5. To create the center of the flower scoop up some dark and place it in the center of the flower

6. Remember we are not painting flowers, we are using flowers as an excuse to put down paint!

a. It is the pattern and the deliberate build up of wet on wet paint that says stems and flowers rather than the actual drawing of the flower arrangement

7. The more you layer things on top of things on one another the more interesting and accurate objects look. It is interesting that to appear more accurate, you need to paint less accurately!