Paint with Me: Boat on Yupo Paper

Hey there, my name is Valerie Englehart and today I want to paint this boat that I photographed in Victoria, British Columbia and I want to do it on heavyweight Yupo paper.

What makes Yupo paper different from regular watercolor paper is that it's like plastic.

It doesn't absorb any water so all of the paint's just going to sit on the surface.

It is a very different painting experience and so my goal is I'm going to cover the entire paper with a wash of paint, let it dry and I'm going to have to let it dry naturally and then I'm going to scrub out my whites and then add more paint for my dark values.

So, let's do it.

I'm going to use a brush to clean my face.

I'm going to use a brush.

I'm going to use a brush to clean my face.

Alright, so we have an interesting thing happening here at the bottom.

There are these spots that look a lot like fingers and that's because when I took it off the board I used my bare hands and my finger oils got on the paper and that's repelling the watercolor.

So, unfortunately there's not very much I can do about that.

I'm just going to roll with it and I can always chop it later.

So, let's do this.

Okay, so I'm going to do a brush.

I'm going to use a brush to clean my face.

Okay, so I'm going to use a brush to clean my face.

So, I'm going to do a brush to clean my face.

Alright, that looks good enough to me so I'm just going to let it dry.

Alright, so the wash is completely dry.

See?

And what I'm going to do to get the light parts back into my painting are just going to wet my brush, pick a spot, wet the paper, and wipe it off.

So, anywhere that is a light value on here I'm just going to go through and scrub the paper with water and lift it off. (Okay, I'm pretty happy with how the boat looks.

I am gonna come back in and add some darker values here and there later.

Now I've gone ahead and added this little antenna.

Now I am gonna have to come and like darken things, but as you've seen, it's really easy to wipe things out.

So I'm mostly putting that in as a placeholder.

So the next step is going to be going through and lifting out little bits of highlights in the foliage back here.

So now I'm going to scrub that.

And what I think I'm going to do is go find a sponge and try sponging that out. Okay, next step of the process is to put in my dark values.

Now, when I was... let's see, where was this?

The Strait of Juan de Fuca?

I think there were like rocks here, so my brush strokes here, when I add the dark value, will be more horizontal.

And up in the brush, I'll use more of a crisscross motion.

Okay, time to finish it up.

So, in my reference, I have this rope coming off into the foliage, so I'm going to add that.

[Silence] Looks fine.

And then down here, I want to get rid of one of these hard lines, so I'm going to have like the shine of the water kind of melt into whatever that thing is.

So, I'm just going to remove this edge.

Get a little more lost and found.

[Silence] Great.

Now, just giving it a look.

Maybe remove that little nub right there.

There we go.

Yeah, I think I'm going to call this one finished, so all I'll have to do is sign it.

And there we go.

That is a painting of a boat on Yupo paper, where we covered the paper in a mid-tone, scrubbed out the highlights, and then added our darkest value on top.

So, let me know what you think.

Do you want to see more on Yupo paper?

Just leave me a comment, like and subscribe so you catch all of the content that I produce, and I'll see you next time