Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

A Spray Bottle Technique

Here's a fun way to create new and unusual textures in your watercolor paintings. You can go for abstract and random shapes and then try to create something from it or you can try to plan something.

1. You will need a spray bottle filled with clean water, watercolor paper, watercolor paint and a round brush.

2. I gave the paper a spritz with the spray bottle, then dropped in some color by barely touching a loaded brush to the wet areas. Allow to dry.

3. On a second piece of watercolor paper, I spritzed the paper with clear water. This time I had a landscape in mind. I dropped in green paint to the wet areas in the shape of an evergreen tree.

4. I added touches of brown to strengthen the base and create the illusion of land.

5. My initial spritz of water focused on the center area of the page. So I spritzed one squirt of water off to the side of the paper so just a small amount of mist hit the lower right corner of my paper. Then I dropped in touches of blue to give the illusion of water.

6. The paint has dried. The blue splotches are waiting to be turned into something creative, perhaps flowers? My landscape has dried and all it needed were a couple of little birds flying over head.

Spritzing your paper with water first and adding in touches of strong color here and there can create interesting textures and patterns. For the evergreen tree and water it added a bit of sparkle to the landscape by leaving some of the paper white and dry.