Welcome to ButterStyles blog about watercolor ideas for painting! I am excited to share what I find most helpful when painting. A lot goes into painting and it’s helpful to be prepared before and to not rush into it unprepared.
Handmade works of art make great gifts that feel personalized and thoughtful, so if you want to make someone feel special paint them something!
You can follow the steps and find inspiration I’ve added in this post or if you just need some quick pointers to improve you can be ready to get started quickly by taking a look at my 10 helpful tips in this blog post to speed up your water color ideas.
10 Quick Helpful Tips:
- Focus first on the background then the main shapes and finally the details
- Use masking tape to block a section of paper from paint
- Do a quick sketch to help guide you
- Look at reference art
- Start small (don’t be too ambitious at first)
- Be happy with watercolors natural “blurry style”
- Try out different water to pigment ratios
- Use a painting sponge for big areas
- Don’t use too much water
- Let your paint fully dry before adding more
Bonus: Use masking tape to secure the paper to your table to prevent warping
Watercolor ideas and inspiration:
- Paint some animals
- Check out Miranda Balogh’s website and her social media profiles
- Flowers are a great way to practice
- Practice with different brushes
- Try a water color landscape
- Paint your name
- Try a painting sponge for fun textures and big areas
- Use water color pens or water color markers
- Try different colors than usual from your watercolor palette
- Go for a walk outside and take pictures of things you see, then paint those things when you get home
- Use masking tape to line your paper before you start painting
This will create a border around your art. This is also helpful to keep your paper from warping and moving around.
Supplies:
Make sure you have a place that has good lighting and a smooth table or desk.
The tools you need will depend on what you are hoping to paint and what style you are hoping to achieve.
The most important and obvious supply is watercolor paints. The other basic supplies are: paint brushes, watercolor paper, and a jar or cup of water.
I also like to have these supplies on hand as well: paper towels, masking/painters tape, pencils, a high quality eraser, pens, a painting sponge, and scissors.
Using watercolor pencils and brush pens can make great art and is fun to work with.
With this list of tools you can create beautiful works of art!
Inspiration:
Before you start, imagine what you want your art to look like, if you’re not sure you can look at reference art to get ideas. Ideas can also come from real life by looking around you at your everyday surroundings, or you can look at photos you have taken.
When looking at your reference art, focus on the values, overall shapes, base colors, and how light and shadow play a part in what you’re painting. Start your painting by being sure to include the key elements of it and the things you love about your reference art.
The Start:
A good start to creating art is sketching out what you have in mind as a guide to help you along the way. Use a pencil to sketch the outlines of the most basic shapes. Don’t press hard with your pencil, keep it light so you can erase lines without damaging the paper or the paint.
This is also the time you would cover part of your painting with masking tape if you are hoping to keep the paint off of certain areas.
Background:
When painting with watercolor, and most other paints, it’s usually best to start with the background. But with watercolor you can’t apply as many layers as with other paints. So be sure not to cover too much of the objects if you are planning on adding many details.
To do this with watercolor you can start with the lightest colors first or paint the farthest object first.
I find it easiest to use a bigger brush for this part, such as a fan brush. Once you have your background finished, let your paper dry before adding more.
Paint the main part:
Once your background has dried you can now move on to the next step.
Start filling in your main shapes with color letting each section dry before adding more. Don’t get too detailed at this point, just focus on the shapes and colors.
You can also begin to implement shadows by using a bit more pigment to mix with water or mixing a small amount of gray and the base color to make it look darker and slightly muted.
You should also leave the sections you would like to have highlights with less paint or use masking tape to cover those areas.
Let this portion fully dry before beginning on details.
Details:
Now that you have your background and base you can add the details and finishing touches. A good tool for this is a very small brush.
Just remember not to get too into detail as watercolors can be hard to be very precise. Most watercolor art has a slightly blurry feel to it.
As you are adding the details, be careful not to ruin the rest of the painting by adding too much water, the best way to add finishing touches is to use a lot more pigment than water.
Thank you for reading ButterStyles blog about watercolor ideas!
I hope this has helped you understand this medium of art and how to best use it. Works of art are great gifts that can be custom and meaningful.
I wish you well on your art journey and great success in art.
If you have any questions and would like to contact me click here.
More resources for improving your watercolor technique and finding ideas:
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