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Watercolor Brush Techniques and Washes – Part 1

gems-watercolors

Hi all,

I’ve started up another online card class and this on focuses on watercolor mediums. I’m by no means advanced in this realm, but I thought it would be a great place to start and give myself a bit of a challenge.

Today’s lesson was JAM PACKED with lessons on brush techniques and washes. To practice I decided to go with a color combo I knew blended well from my Sakura Koi palette set. Having a glazing chart really helped for this! See my glazing chart here. I wanted to work with my brush and pigment in a way that would create a gradient. Again I chose the same colors as the day before.

To create the pattern I penciled in a grid using a t-square ruler. When I painted in the color I just made sure not to cover the line, but just come near it. After I knew my paper was completely dry, I erased those lines. Eventually, this created the white space between each diamond.

To create the gradient this look I darkened the right side of each diamond. As I continued to work my way through the grid, I made sure to alter the amount of pigment and change the colors a bit so that the piece would not look uniform

The finished look resembles glass or gems.

gems-watercolors2

Washes are very simple to do and take very little time. It also helps when there is structure to the wash. Geometric patterns make for great clean and simple cards. Try it out! Make yourself a geometric pattern using a ruler and a pencil. Then color in the pattern using variations of color. This look can be achieved with color pencils, crayons, paints, markers…the list is endless! Just make one side the light source (lighter) and the other side the shadow (darker). Good luck friends!