Connecting washes in watercolor is important. How important? It should be your priority #1 if you want to achieve successful and unified work. This is the one technique that’ll help you elevate your work to the next level instantly!
One of the most attractive qualities of a successful watercolor painting is continuity, or wholeness, the look as if it’s been painted all at once, in one breath. One of the ways to achieve this is by connecting your washes.
The painting on which I demonstrate the idea today is painted by layering a wet wash over a dry one. This way of painting adds much depth of tonal value and color to the finished painting, especially if the color scheme was well thought-out beforehand.
To achieve continuity of the painting I paint each layer as a single large connected abstract shape, spread throughout the whole picture plane. I do not stop at the edges of objects but continue painting through them, connecting them with the adjacent objects. The important thing here is to keep your values correct. Paint down the value scale and as you go leave the lighter shapes unpainted and gradually build up your value range.
You do not have to paint abstractly to make use of this approach. All genres and subjects will benefit greatly by employing this principle.
Just remember: don’t stop at the edges of your shapes, avoid the “shape-by-numbers” attitude. Instead, approach the whole painting as a whole. The first step is to connect your washes.
