1000+ Best PAPER Painting Techniques

Traditional watercolor techniques

Watercolor technique 1: The wash

This is the most used technique, and the one that defines watercolor for many artists. You create a wash by first abundantly wetting the paper with your mop, and then applying the watercolor pigment with either your mop or your point.

You typically use a wash for your backgrounds, and you use it to create large colored areas. Gradients can be achieved by layering the pigment through several parallel brush strokes with increasingly diluted color, and by slopping the paper to control the flow of water.

To do a good wash, you must 1) use a lot of water 2) paint quickly and 3) avoid going back to it or otherwise interfere with the drying process except for the wet on wet techniques described below. You can achieve amazing effect with a wash. In Portrait with winter fur, I used a wash to create the fur hood surrounding the model’s face. Two or three brush strokes create the illusion and a receding background to the face.


2. Other wet on wet techniques

There is an endless list of additional wet on wet techniques. In Girl, slanted, I used my point brush to drop ink onto a watercolor wash, creating a more complex pattern of dark to light variations in the background and the model’s hair.

If you are begin curious with all of the steps
Please install this application and make your best painting!