Blooms and back runs are part of the beauty & magic of watercolor!

c’mon Steve, you and I know that backruns only turn up properly when you absolutely don’t want them! They get shy (and sneaky) when they see the spotlight on themselves.

I know it sounds weird, but I love the look of back runs. Somehow the textures they create really appeal to me. I love watching you turn them into rocks in your spontaneous paintings.

I LOVE blooms - so I am watching this to see how I can better MAKE them happen!! LOL.

Once I figured out how to avoid them, they became one of my favorite techniques to use for texture. So much easier than salt etc.. just a brush and water. Backgrounds, branches, rocks, fur or feathers, snow, etc. You can get many different effects by changing the size of the brush and the amount of water. If I get one I don't want I find the easiest way to "fix" it is to just add more and try to make it look as intentional as possible. You can kind of layer them on top of each other as well.

I get “deja didn’t” fairly often🤣 I’ll imagine I did something or had a conversation with someone and it turns out I never actually did because I only did in my brain🥲 I’ve been messing around a little bit with back runs lately and now I’m inspired to play around some more!

Thank you for explaining this to us. I am a true beginner and I do understand what blooms / back runs are but its nice to have you break it down and how we can intentionally use these effects. Have a wonderful night!

Temperamental little buggers. They show up when they want and cause chaos. It's what makes watercolor so beautiful and hard at the same time. Playing with blooms and backruns definitely helps you learn and grow as a watercolor artist. Thanks Steve, for this Deja Don't. 😁

I LOVE blooms and backruns. I create them on purpose, then use ink to create all kinds of creatures that I see in the paint.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You explain EXACTLY what is going on and what to look for in levels of wetness and shine. So very helpful.

"Deja didn't". Absolutely love it.

I'm in for the "Deju didn't" 😄 Great expression. Thank you so much for showing.

This effect worked very well at the tops of clouds combined with a fine spatter of white gouache!

Enjoyed very much your way of teaching and you have a voice that keeps my attention. Thank you for this video 😊

Thank you Steve, most helpful. No wonder I battle, cotton paper is not available where I live, and although I use 300 gsm NOTpaper, I often get blooms. No more excuses, on my merry way into our lovely nearby city to purchase my first cotton paper - and nothing less than Arches if I am lucky. I learn such a lot from you - thank you again!

Thanks so much for sharing all of the tips and techniques!

Great advice! I love using the technique to make wispy clouds and pulling the pigment. Seems to achieve a more realistic look. Thank you Steve and take care.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. I learn a lot from you.

Thank you Steve. I appreciate the lesson very much.

I have that same brush, and I love it

Your explanation is very helpful, thank you for sharing

ah 've been struggling painting skin and it gets so patchy and I didn't realize I was backrunning! thank you so much for making this video

I tried this exercise myself while painting some feathers. Looks so good, and now I understand it better. Thanks.

Thanks, Steve. Another great lesson as usual!

Thank you very much, Steve - really well explained and demonstrated.

Thanks for this . Really useful. You always explain techniques so well. And with a warm & friendly presentational style. Much appreciated.

I love your logical approach to painting, you really explain everything so well! Thank you for sharing all of these useful tips.

Thank you so much Steve! I struggle with this when trying to add my background and sometimes it get frustrating

Very helpful. Thank You 🐶

Very helpful! Thank you brother.

Thank you Steve very interesting, I’ve just gone to cotton paper so excited to give this a try especially when I do clouds next.

Thank you for explaining these terms and how to use them. I end up with quite a few in my artwork because of the 98 lbs paper I used as a beginner. Switched to a 140 lbs and now I am finding out that the better quality cotton paper does make a difference. I have been using this for effects when I want them now.

superb as always. You are the best teachers of watercolour I have ever come across and solved many an issue I never realised I had. Thankyou

Great info, thanks!

Super helpful, as always! Thank you!😃😷

Thank you

"Deja didn't" I love it!!! 😁🤣😂 I am very guilty of Deja didn't myself.

So glad you did this video! I love playing and creating blooms. I use them in mixed media and art journaling. Would love to learn more about how to use them in landscape painting!

Thank you so much for explaining this so clearly. None of this is intuitive for me, so I really appreciate having it spelled out and demonstrated. I plan to paint today, so I'll be grabbing some paper scraps and experimenting for myself. :o)

Very helpful clarity

Thank you so very much!

Great video thank you

I like the deja didn't (sorry can't figure how to put those little accents on letters) . I have experienced that when writing a short story. I go back to read it a couple of days later and it's not what I thought I wrote at all. Most of what my imagination was playing out, never made it onto the pages. It takes a long time to describe in words all that stuff going on in my head.

Thank you!

Very helpful!

Nice guide! Thanks yo

This is a great video! I just dealt with a backrun this morning and somehow made it fade with a glazing or two. Deja-didn't--I love it!!! I often think of telling someone something and then thinking I actually did tell the person. The imagination is too strong.

Very helpful

I absolutely love blooms.... it's getting them to happen that's the issue!

Love the “deja didn’t”! Great word! 👍😊

I bought a "Tim Holz Distress spray bottle" in the stamping aisle at Hobby Lobby! Makes the bigger droplets!

4:03 having trouble creating blooms... you shoulda grabbed Schmincke! 😂

Hi Steve, Thanks for addressing this. Just want to mention/ask something. It's not only the amount of water you need to get right, it's also the amount of paint. I know that you have touched upon this several times, but I watched a bunch of videos from another watercolor artist who constantly refers to paint consistency. He works with wet paint right from the tube and dilutes it as needed allowing him to apply washes first (watery consistency), charge in pigment (less dilute/thicker consistency), as well as dry-brush (tube consistency). Of course throughout the process you'd be monitoring how wet the paper is. This was a lightbulb realization for me because I almost always work using dried paint on a palette. I love that his method allows him to achieve wonderful contrast and saturation on the finished piece while my watery paintings seem a bit flat/light and while trying to get them to look better, I overwork them. Many of us may struggle with getting enough pigment onto the brush in order to charge in additional color because we use water to reconstitute the paint we want to apply making it wetter than necessary and then creating blooms- I know I do. I have seen that you work from a palette of dried paint as well. How do you deal with paint consistency to get good color saturation?

Help what just happened? Who could resist watching?

Thanks! Great explanation! Had a few in my early explorations, which turned disastrous when i tried to "fix" them. BTW you need to take your oil can to your chair-i kept stopping the vid, thinking my cat was getting into something LOL 😂 As an aside, its really calming to watch your vids, amidst the current chaos, so again, many thanks. 💗

Thanks Steve and thanks for introducing us to Louise DeMasi she uses them a lot. On the intro I thought about a brain burp, total mystery of what’s going on.

Funny, I also thought you did an episode on these. I assumed you were making an updated lesson when I saw this at first..

They are fun to create if you want them,drop some rubbing alcohol in there and really watch the pigments run.😀

3:45 I see a sort of gremlin pumpkin-monster. Thanks for the vid. :)

Bruce from Handprint says his rule to get backruns is "wet into moist." It seems you unintentionally demonstrated how some pigments such as phthalos backrun much more, and granulating pigments resist them! By the way, if I feel like getting backruns, I just use Qor :)

I hate blooms. But cheap paints and the cheapest WC papers (and sometimes regular or mixed media papers) means it’s unavoidable at times.

I’m 90% sure you covered this in a video before too! Maybe it was incorporated in a video you did on water control.

Ha😂 I don’t have false memory syndrome but my mom says my dad does. Deja didn’t. 😂

Thank you for this lesson. What are your thoughts on discontinuation of PR168

lol I love déjà didn’t!!

Yep..... That is what is happening to me. Thank you so much.. That helps to know Now. I made a moon by accident. I just went with it.

😆 ‘deja didn’t’

Great S

#dejadidnt for the win! It happens to all of us, whether we know it or not.... 😋

You can get more predictable results by using salt water and/or making the outside with less water and wetter in the center.

I know you taught about that before. It was not in an episode specifically dedicated to the topic.

Déjà didn‘t... gorgeous!!!🤣

I get 'deja didn't' where I argue that I 'absolutely, totally, 100% replied to that text you sent a week ago..' Er, nope.. 😂

Or try soapy water for variety

👍

Mandela Effect!

HELP..I'm trying to paint on "Acrylic paper" my neighbor bought me this block Pitturina grana fine cold pressed FABRIANO / 400g / m2.185 lbs. Since I am disabled and our artist died a few years ago, I have nowhere to shop. Watercolor paper new paints and brushes (my old brushes are made of animal hair. Excuse me for asking but do you have any tips on how I can best make the color not be so transparent .. Thanks in advance Tess Sweden

While I know that there are no stupid questions, it feels like this is one. I've struggled with water soaking through cotton paper, carrying paint with it. Doesn't all of that water you put down soak through to the other side, causing thinner areas of paper? 🤔

I think you did talk and them years ago. But I could be suffering from the same false memory. 😏

1:30

Did I miss the part where you can fix the bloom after it dries?

De ja didn’t! 🤣

deja-didn't hahaa

I have a theory that granulating colours bloom less than non granulating. I was testing blooming for practice lately and it was harder for me to force blooming on ultramarine than on colours like yellow ochre and alizarine crimson. And blooms on ultramarine were much smaller and less noticeable than even, thin, transparent colours.

Its called old age. I know first hand.

#dejadidnt

You MUST have gone over this embedded in some other videos because I definitely remember you going over this... Definitely.... really... maybe

so I don't get what you would be doing when you don't want a backrun but get one ??

Pretty sure you talked about back runs and blooms when you created a video about water control but maybe you didn't. Maybe those of us that believe that you talked about it previously are actually having false memories or a "group" false memory. "Group deja didn'ts" are what we had in high school, when the teacher asked if he already explained something and we all replied, "Yep, you covered that" even though we knew he didn't but we distracted him and talked about something else - which worked great until we took the test and that thing we convinced him that he talked about already was on the test so we all got the answer wrong. Then he'd have to cover the topic anyway. 😊

I'm so much better than you at doing things wrong! hahahaha.

Thank you!