A graded wash is a special kind of wash that moves from an area of full pigment to an area
that shows the white of the paper. It is quite useful for representing natural events such as
the shift of blue in the sky as one looks closer and closer to the horizon. To create this look
you must decide to either start from the white of the paper or with a full pigment brush stroke.
When starting with white, you begin the wash using plain water as your "pigment." As you
move deeper into the field, you add more and more pigment to your brush. You can plan
on this by pre-mixing palette cups with thinner and thinner mixes of your color. You move through
these (in reverse) as you proceed down the grade. You can also do a graded wash by
starting
with the full pigment brush strokes and add water to the mix as you proceed.
In today's class, we will prepare a sheet of paper like we did with last week's exercise:
taped around the full perimeter - plus one strip bisecting the sheet.
This will form 2 equally sized areas within which we will work horizontally.
Those who missed the in class demo should review this video tutorial
to learn the basic skills needed to achive this technique.
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