Removing the mask...

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To remove dried liquid frisket you need a Natural Rubber Pickup. They come in little squares in paper sleeves. They are made of a crepe, a crude rubber used for the soles of shoes. It has a high tack.

Gently stroke the dried liquid frisket from the edge of the painted area into the masked area. I work in short strokes from top to bottom or left to right, pulling with an even light pressure.

The rubber pickup will roll and pull up the dry liquid frisket. Do this carefully and remove all traces of frisket.

If your paper is not totally dry, you can accidentally pull some paper fibers up with the frisket.

Adding an illusion of depth

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I wanted the covered tabletop to have a sense of depth and worked on the areas in shadow.

Using my #8 red sable round brush I loosely mixed Cobalt Blue, Pthalocyanine Blue, and Dioxazine purple in a couple areas of my palette.

Varying the colors as I went, I graded the shadow areas from cooler richer blues to warmer lighter blues in the foreground.

Points of light

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After letting the last areas dry, I wanted to keep some highlights open on the pear before I continued.

Using the #6 synthetic round brush, I covered a couple highlight areas on the right side of the pear and let it dry.

A singular pear

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I started working on the pear by laying a light glaze of Cadmium Yellow Light (and Medium) over the entire pear shape.

Adding tiny amounts of Raw Umber, Pthalocyanine Green, and Burnt Sienna I started modeling the form of the pear. I dropped dark "pin pricks" of the pear surface detail in with the tip of a #4 round red sable brush.

Final strokes and clean up

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I let the work on the pear dry and then continued modeling the shading on the pear.

Using cool gray washes (Burnt Sienna and Pthalocyanine Blue) I further modeled the shadow side and other areas of the pear.

The tablecloth needed to be more fully realized so I devised a simple floral design over the "X" squares to pull it together. Using a #4 round red sable and Alizarin Crimson in varying values I systematically painted the pattern on the cloth.

After painting was complete, I let the painting dry again and removed the last of the frisket using the natural rubber pickup.

Final example painting

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To clean up the finished painting I used a kneaded eraser to remove most traces of the pencil drawing in the painting itself.

Click photo to enlarge.

Here we have a 7" square watercolor painting of a yellow pear on a red-checkered tablecloth painted using the Liquid Frisket and Masking Tape techniques.

This tutorial uses a representational approach the the subject matter, pre-planning was needed to protect areas needed for later stages of the painting. More spontaneous approaches to masking are also viable alternatives.

You can use liquid frisket on areas already painted for some amazing multi-layered effects. This works with varying degrees of success depending on the underlying pigments.