Make It Monday

Experimenting with Watercolors

 

This month’s theme is WATER. Let’s have some fun experimenting with watercolor paint. We’ll try different types of paper, different types of paints, and different materials  we can add to the painted surface or use on the surface to keep the paint from covering it.

Does this sound like fun? IT IS!! But, it’s messy, it can be spontaneous, and it can be a technique you’ll want to experiment with over and over again.

 

What supplies will I need?

• Food coloring
• Containers for mixing
• Watercolor paints if available
• Brushes
• Eyedroppers or straws if you don’t have eyedroppers
• Container of water
• Spray bottle
• Salt-regular salt or different types of salt if you like
• Elmer’s glue or other white glue
• Rubbing alcohol (use with adult supervision)
• Materials you want to experiment which could include plastic wrap, bubble wrap,
• Different types of paper such as watercolor paper, regular paper, cardstock
• Newspaper or paper towels to put underneath your paper to absorb water as you work and protect the surface(or use a plastic tablecloth or old plastic shower curtain)

What steps will I do in this project?

1. Set up your watercolor paints. If using food coloring, mix a bit of food coloring with drops of water until you reach a color you like. Mix each one in a different cup. If you have enough eyedroppers or straws, try to use one for each color. If not, rinse your eyedropper or straw with plain water before using in a different color.

HINT: How to use a straw as an eyedropper

2. Get your paper ready. You can use different sizes or you can make the same size paper from different kinds of paper to keep as demonstration examples. It’s up to you. I cut my paper into squares the same size as my card stock just to keep everything the same size because I want to keep them as examples.

3. Here is a list of things to try. Try as many as you want. Combine them in any way to get different effects. Have fun!

Drop watercolor onto dry paper

Draw a design on paper with water and drop watercolor onto the wet areas

The left image is watercolor dropped onto dry paper. The right image is a squiggle drawn with water, then watercolor dropped onto it.

Add salt to watercolor paint when it is wet

In this example, I used 3 different types of salt.

Here is the result after the paint dried and the salt was scraped off.

I like this. Makes me think of the night sky. Stars on the right, Milky Way in the middle and left.

Add rubbing alcohol to watercolor paint when it is wet

Here I added rubbing alcohol in 3 different ways. On the left, using an eyedropper. In the middle, using a size 0 paintbrush and dropping it on. On the right, touching the brush to the paint surface. Pretty cool effect!

Draw a design on paper with oil pastel to create a resist area, then paint over it

Here is the image drawn in white oil pastel. I had to make the photo dark so you can see the image.

Here is the image after I painted over it.

Draw a design on paper with Elmer’s glue, add sand to it, then drop paint onto it

Press saran wrap onto wet paint

 

I hope you enjoyed this Make-It Monday. Have fun experimenting with watercolors.

 

                             You will see-in the future, I will live by my watercolors. Winslow Homer

Have a great week!

Peace,

Nature Mamaw