How To Add Texture in Watercolor Painting Lesson. 11/29/12

Spectrum Home School Community Art Lesson.
WATERCOLOR PAINTING WITH TEXTURE

ART 2 11/29/12

This lesson is designed for young art students. It is intended to introduce the concept of texture and offer an approach to create the effects of different textures and still have a fun time.

In watercolor texture requires observation and very little skill. First, observe the pattern and then recreate the pattern over and over. 

We will do several projects. Our first project will be to paint a series of circles in the light pale wash, make each circle a different color if you wish. AFTER THEY DRY (you may start a second project while they dry),  use a small or liner brush and using the brush as if you were using a pencil draw the pattern in the circle; to do this we use only the very tip of the brush- some younger students have a hard time with this concept.  We use a darker version of the original wash or harmonious color.

The patterns could include diamonds, scales (a series of "U"s touching each other), leaves drawn like spades or hearts overlapping, foam (bubbles touching each other), wood (wavy lines in parallel), dimple for the hammered metal, etc. There is an infinite variety of textures you may find your own.

Below is an example:

Texture in watercolor.
The Wizards Dragon Scale Shield.

For fun and to engage the imagination we took the circles with the textures and designed shields used by fantasy warriors. The wood textured was for the human, the scale texture pattern was the Wizard's, the dwarf had the bejeweled shield, Mermaid people had the bubble pattern shield. Some young ladies designed princess clothing instead, they used three different textures in their designs.

Our second is to paint a barrel with green plants in the top. We did the under-painting in pale wash, then we set it aside to work on other projects.  AFTER IT DRIED we returned and with darker colors painted in the details.

When we painted in the darker details we changed our attitude in our handling of the paintbrush. The paintbrush was used to "draw" the details. We used only the very point of the brush.

Below are two examples done in a class of the project, the one on the left is partially done the one on the right is mostly done.

Example of texture in the watercolor project.

For variety, we added a smokey background.

Note that the barrel on the left is pale, this is the under wash. Notice the areas of the under wash are vague and without detail.

The example on the right has a detail that was added in after the under wash dried. These details were added with the tip of the brush since we were using the brush to draw.

The dark bands were blue in the under wash, then darker color was dabbed using the tip of the brush.

The leaves were drawn with a darker green over the light green. A little scarlet red was added to the green to give the shadows.

The floor was washed in blue and after it dried we went over the floor with a grey for the flagstones.

(c)Adron Dozat