How to Paint Watercolor Fruit: Strawberry

So what do you think?  Was that first fruit tutorial easy enough?

Now it's time to try the strawberry.  It's almost the same as the pear.  Just a different shape and different colors. Here we go!

Materials:

Strawberry Template printed on computer paper

5x7 piece of watercolor paper

pencil

paint brush

watercolor paints

cup of water (for rinsing)

paper towels (for blotting in between color changes)

salt- larger salts like Epsom salt and rock salt work best

Step 1: Trace the strawberry template onto the watercolor paper by placing the template under the watercolor paper, holding it up to a lighted window and lightly tracing in pencil.  It's important to keep the pencil light so it doesn't show through the paint later on.

Step 2: Fill in the strawberry silhouette on your watercolor paper by alternating pinks and reds on the fruit and different shades of greens on the leaves.    Paint the body first, then working from the outside in, paint the leaves.

The colors blend and mix together better when you have more water mixed in with the paint, but don't dilute the paint too much.  Work quickly with the paint.  Don't let it dry out.  You need to keep the paint wet for the next step
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Step 3: Sprinkle the strawberry with salt, then let the paint dry completely. When dry, brush off the salt and you're done!

Don't miss the rest of the Watercolor Fruit Series!  We've still got two more tutorials to go!