Masking fluid, also referred to as liquid frisket, is a latex-based medium that blocks out small areas and fine lines where you want to prevent pigment absorption. 

Watercolor artist and teacher Andy Evansen has never been a fan of masking fluid and especially avoids it when teaching his students. Andy finds that most of his students want to loosen up their painting style and brushstrokes. Using masking fluid lends itself to a tighter painting style, like hyperrealism or still lifes, to preserve their highlights. If you are trying to loosen your painting style up, remember that there is nothing wrong with creating a negative shape and painting around a shape, even if it is a little imperfect. This imperfection adds to the energy and looseness of a painting.

When Andy teaches a workshop, he starts with simple exercises like giving students a shape to paint like a silhouette with one color. Then, he has them use that “silhoutte” shape as a reference, and recreate the image by pretending the silhouette is white and painting the landscape behind it. This way, it almost acts as a masking fluid by blocking out one area, the silhouete, but still allowing those fluid, “imperfect” paint strokes. 

It is a big deal in watercolor to create convincing negative shapes. Negative shapes are unique to the medium of watercolor. Watercolor artists do not paint their lights, they create their lights by painting dark shapes around them. This is why it’s important to practice painting solid, convincing negative shapes.  Andy says if you want to make the figure look like its walking in the landscape and not just standing there, it is good to have some imperfections, lost edges, or areas that are merging a bit. With masking fluid,  there are solid holes in your painting, so you would not be able to create that type of movement. 

Sometimes, with watercolor painting, artists try to control it too much. Fluidity and poetry are as important in an artist’s work as color, value, and depth. Masking fluid makes paintings look a little more illustrative and pre-planned, rather than lively and fluid. Andy likes to limit himself to the brush and the paper as much as he can. Give yourself permission to make mistakes and try to paint without masking fluid, your results may surprise you!

Want more tips like this from Andy?

Join Andy’s 365 day mentoring course, “Watercolors For All Seasons” with open enrollment three times a year. Spaces are Limited. Click to find out more:

If you aren’t quite ready for the mentoring course, check out Andy’s video download package, ”A Sense of Light in Watercolor” to start off:

To listen more on the topic of Masking Fluid and Loose Painting, listen to Gabor and Andy on the Paint & Clay podcast here.