Creating a beautiful hazy effect in your watercolor paintings by using a tissue

Watercolor painting of a misty sea cliff
“Misty sea cliff”

I am quite willing to try new things if it will improve my work and my latest thing is using tissue paper.

I have used tissue paper before. However, I soon stopped because I didn’t like the smudgy results I got. 

But recently I used a tissue again when I painted the picture above. It was just an experiment. I used a tissue on the cliff face and it created this beautiful hazy effect. And just in case you are wondering, this place is called Itogahama beach.

Please ignore that green tree in the bottom right hand corner of the painting. This experiment was done on top of a previous painting which had failed and which I was reusing.

Watercolor painting of a misty sea cliff
“Misty sea cliff”

And this is another attempt at using a tissue. As you can see it’s not as good as the previous painting.

However, I will keep trying and hopefully find the knack because I love the effect I got in the first painting.

That’s all,

Gareth

Postscript

I originally wrote this story in June of 2014. I am editing it in 2022. 

I still use a tissue in my artwork for various effects such as rim lighting on clouds. 

However, I am still unable to get the amazing misty effect that I achieved in the first painting here. I’ll have to try again at some point and hopefully figure out the knack of getting a hazy effect.