Create Simple Textures in Watercolor - Guaranteed to Improve Your Paintings!
By P. J. Cook

Creating interest in your watercolor paintings is easy with textures. Be it an old worn out brush, table salt or your fingertip sometimes a paintings effectiveness largely depends on the textures you have created. In a recent watercolor class I demonstrated creating various textures in watercolor. For images of each demonstration please visit my blog that is listed in my resource box.

A brick wall is easily achieved by varying the color of each brick as you apply paint and then using a light grey wash for the mortar between the bricks. An important step is putting a shadow under each brick. I used a shadow on the left and bottom of each brick for the light coming from the upper right of the picture. I used cobalt blue for the shadow color. Add detail with dry brush and smaller detail with a small round brush. Remember to save old worn out brushes for dry brush effects, they create unexpected results. Try scumbling, twirling and adjusting the pressure on the paper with an old brush. One of the members of the class stated " this is fun!" while painting her wall. I have always enjoyed painting brick too.

The next texture was a metal watering can. The texture was created with salt. While the paint is still wet add some table salt to the area that you want texture. Sprinkle a small amount of salt onto the wet paint and wait for the paint to dry. As the paint dries the salt absorbs the color around each grain and it can create some great texture. Do not use a blow dryer, let it air dry, you don't want to blow all the salt away! Once the paint is dry, brush all the salt off and continue painting the bucket. You can glaze over the texture area with more paint and add shadows and detail.

The next texture that I demonstrated using salt was for clay pots. It is not necessary to use salt everywhere, for variety put only on select areas of the pots. After the paint is dry continue modeling the clay pots with different colors and values. Remember to let the paint dry thoroughly before brushing off the salt.

Spatter is another popular technique for watercolor painting. I often use an old toothbrush and run a xacto blade across the bristles so the paint spatters onto the paper. It is a good idea to mask areas that you do not want the texture because the paint can spatter quite far. As always practice on scrap paper first to get the desired result. Try this technique on dry and moist paper for hard and soft texture.

Smudging paint with your finger works for creating textures on trees and grasses. Blades of grass can be scraped out of paint with your fingernail or the angled point of some paint brushes. I like to use rough paper when I want texture. I used a Arches watercolor paper that was 140 lb. in a rough texture. Try different paper and you will get interesting results.

Practice these techniques on your next watercolor and your painting will be more interesting and effective. Consider new ways of painting and your work will improve and you will grow as an artist - guaranteed!

P.J. Cook is an award winning oil and watercolor artist, her work focus is interesting light and shadow patterns. Favorite subjects: Flowers, Landscapes, Seascapes, Pet Portraits, Illustrations and Design. P.J. enjoys painting the scenes along the New England shoreline. Many of her paintings include the birds found here throughout the year. She has received many awards for her work in juried competitions. Her studio is located in beautiful Old Lyme, Connecticut.

To view more paintings visit http://pjcookartist.com/ Examples of adding textures to your paintings can be seen at http://pjcook.blogspot.com/

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