How to Watercolor: Textures

Welcome to the second week of my How to Watercolor Series!  I hope you are all having fun with this so far...... I know I am!

One of the funnest parts of watercoloring is creating textures!  I really really love to just play around with these.  There are so many possibilities.  Adding texture really adds interest and personality to a painting.  

 I've made a tutorial for you to try out 8 different textures, but do not feel limited by these.  Go ahead and try anything you can think of.  You can combine methods or use kitchen utensils to get some really cool textures.

Watercolor Textures Tutorial

Materials:
Large sheet of watercolor paper
Masking Tape
Watercolor Paints
Brushes
Water
Epsom Salts- if you don't have any on hand you can even use rock salt or table salt
Plastic Wrap
Sponge
Stamp

Set-Up:  Use masking tape to create 8 equal sections on a large sheet of watercolor paper.  Also tape the paper down to a table or drawing board. You'll be trying out a different method for creating texture in each space- so at the end you will have tried 8 different textures.

Splattering:
Load up some paint on your brush and hold it close to your paper.  Use a finger to quickly lift up the bristles of the brush a little at a time.  This quick motion flicks the paint all over the paper and creates a spattering or spraying effect.   Pretty cool!

Dripping:
For this method you'll want to load up a lot of paint and a lot of water on your brush.  Then you can hold your brush directly over your paper and let the paint drip from your brush down onto the paper.  You can even tilt the paper in different directions while the paint is still wet.   It's fun to watch it run.

Salt:
Brush on a quick and fairly wet wash of paint.  Immediately sprinkle epsom, table, or rock salts on top and let it dry.  Once the paint is dry you can scrape off the salt.  I love the texture this creates.  The salt soaks up water leaving cool little dots all over.

Plastic Wrap:
Brush on a wash of paint and place a piece of wrinkled plastic wrap on top.  Press down with your fingers and let dry.  This will create shapes wherever the plastic wrap is touching the paper.

Water Dripping:
Paint on a wash of watercolor and then with a clean brush, drip spots of water onto the wash.  The water washes back into the paint creating what artists call a backwash.

Scraping:
Lay a wash of paint down on paper and scrape through it with a fork or butter knife.  This will create lines in the soft paper allowing the paint to collect in the indentations.

(A word of caution on this one- Please only use an old fork or knife that will not be used for eating with later.  Watercolor paints can have toxins in their pigments- so designate this utensil only for painting with, not eating, after this project.)

Sponge:
Dip a clean sponge in some wet paint and dab it onto the paper.  You can play with layering several colors this way.

Stamping:
Apply wet paint to a stamp with a brush and press the stamp onto the paper. You can mix colors and layer with this method. It's really fun!

Leave the tape on the paper until the paint is dry and then gently pull it off.  You are done!  You can label each texture technique with a pen if desired.