Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Add a Touch of Gold

Every now and then you want a bit of sparkle a bit of pizzaz in your watercolor paintings. Why not add a little bit of gold?

St. Patrick's Day is coming up, this could be your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I like Schmincke Pale Gold Dry Gouache. It is a powder. I place a small amount in a little dish and spritz in some water with a spray bottle. Use a brush to stir it around and it magically turns into a shiny gold opaque watercolor paint.

I recently used it to splatter a touch of gold onto an abstract watercolor.

Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Powdered Gold

Add a little sparkle to your watercolor painting with a bit of shiny gold goauche. I have used Schmincke Tro-Col-Bronze Dry Gouche sec in the color called pale gold. It is a bronze powder with dry gouache binding medium.

1. Place a very small amount of the gold powder on your palette and add a few drops of water.

2. Using a paint brush, stir the water and gold powder together to make liquid gold.

3. Paint the gold onto your dry watercolor painting.

4. Allow to dry.

Gouache is an opaque watercolor. The gold does dry to sort of a shiny gold foil like finish which is opaque. A little goes a long way. I have used it on Christmas cards for a gold halo, a pretty star in the sky, a gold crown on a king. I use a small ramekin for mixing up some gold paint. Then saved the leftovers in the ramekin, just rewet to use again at a later date. It's June now, I painted the center of the little flower this morning with leftover gold powder from my angel aceo's painted last December.