Rubbing Alcohol Watercolor Texture

Rubbing Alcohol Watercolor Texture

Rubbing Alcohol Watercolor Texture

Desire to add a flake of pizazz to your watercolors? These 5 easy watercolor textures tin be made with stuff y'all take lying around the house!

Painting with watercolors gives you a ton of opportunities to create something beautiful. There are tons of things you can practise with just your paint and a paintbrush, from simple washes to more complicated negative painting techniques. But did you know you can add unique textures with elementary materials around your house? In this post, I'll show you lot how easy information technology is to create some truly stunning watercolor textures without having to run to the store for annihilation actress.

Easy Watercolor Textures

If you're a beginner, you might think that creating textures is across your level. But that's simply not truthful! Non only are these piece of cake watercolor textures fantastic for beginners, but they're also an incredible way to ameliorate sympathize your watercolors and develop your skills! In one case y'all take the basic watercolor supplies and a few items from around your business firm, you're ready to jump into these techniques no thing what your skill level may be.

Watercolor Blooms Texture

H2o Blooms

This technique is fantastic because it only requires make clean water! Here'southward how you can create this easy watercolor texture:

  1. Put down a wash of color (you can see the four basic wash techniques here).
  2. Wait for the paint tonearly dry. It shouldn't be shiny with water anymore, just information technology should still exist cool to the bear upon.
  3. Become make clean water on your brush and dot the water across the nearly dry paint.
  4. Watch the water flower in the paint before your eyes!

It may accept a bit of trial and mistake to figure out the ideal level of pigment dampness before you add the water blooms. If information technology'southward too wet or too dry, yous won't go this outcome. Play with this method to figure out the sweet spot.

Table Salt Water Texture

Table Salt

Something equally simple as tabular array salt tin have an astounding effect on your watercolors! The salt pulls water into its crystals, leaving a gorgeous starburst texture on the page. Here is how it'south washed:

  1. Lay down a wash of color.
  2. Take some table salt and sprinkle it on the wet pigment.
  3. Permit the pigment to fully dry out, then sweep the salt crystals off the page.

I love this watercolor texture for painting backgrounds like water or foliage. It's so easy information technology's foolproof!

Sponge Watercolor Texture

Natural Sponge

If you've ever received a spa gift basket for Christmas, then you might have a natural sponge lying around somewhere. You can use it to make some pretty amazing surface texture with your watercolors. Here is how you tin exercise it:

  1. Lay down a launder of color.
  2. Take your damp sponge and utilize information technology to dab at the wash, removing bits of colour. That'due south it!

Alternatively, you tin utilize the color on your sponge to pigment onto the page for rough, abstract effects. If you lot desire to take this like shooting fish in a barrel watercolor texture farther, you could fifty-fifty apply the sponge to apply i color to an already damp wash, creating a soft blend of colors right on the page. The opportunities are actually countless!

Plastic Wrap with Watercolor

Plastic Wrap

A small flake of plastic cling wrap tin can be a wonderful tool for making some fabulous watercolor textures. Here'south how you lot exercise information technology:

  1. Lay down a launder of color.
  2. Let the paint dry until it's not very shiny anymore (and so at that place isn't a ton of water standing on the page).
  3. Cockle upwardly your cling wrap into a little ball and dab at the pigment to create wrinkles and random lines.

This unique textural consequence is and so much fun to make, and it is so pretty when it's all dry out!

Rubbing Alcohol Watercolor Texture

Rubbing Booze

Almost anybody has rubbing alcohol in their chiffonier, which makes it incredibly easy to utilise for watercolors. The alcohol repels the water on the page, creating interesting bubbling in the color. I utilise 50% isopropyl alcohol and it works beautifully. The steps for using rubbing alcohol are elementary:

  1. Lay down a wash of color.
  2. Use a dropper or pipette to place drops of rubbing alcohol in the wet paint.

This is super unproblematic, only information technology creates some desperate effects. I find that rubbing alcohol is perfect for creating cloudy shapes or bubbles. One time information technology'south dry, y'all tin can paint new layers right on summit to add together more than depth and color in the foreground. One thing to note: you definitely need to make sure you're using a sturdy watercolor paper if you utilise alcohol or information technology will bleed direct through to the other side. So don't use this technique in your bullet journal!

Add Texture to Your Watercolor Paintings

Equally yous can see, it doesn't take a ton of fancy materials or avant-garde painting skills to make something special! I promise you try all five of these easy watercolor textures for yourself and observe marvelous new means to contain them into your art. If you share any of these creations on social media, make sure to tag me on Instagram or Facebook and so I can meet!

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Shelby is the chief content creator for Little Java Fox and has been a full-time blogger for the final four years. In addition to blogging hither on Little Java Play a joke on, she is a professional person letterer, watercolorist, and system guru. In add-on to art, she has a passion for helping people detect ways to combine creativity and productivity in their daily lives. Shelby has been featured extensively online in publications, such equally The Wall Street Journal, Buzzfeed, and The Huffington Post.