Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Part I: Paint a Tree using Watercolor and a Sea Sponge:

Everyone in my watercolor class really enjoyed this easy way to paint a tree so I thought it would be fun to share this idea with you!
I use very little water and a good sea sponge with lots of character.
  • First, take a spray bottle and spritz your watercolor paints on you palette.  
  • Get the sponge wet but squeeze out all the water and then dip it directly into the moisten paint.  I dip it first into cobalt blue then into Hansa yellow so that both colors are on the sponge.    
  • Starting at the top of the tree, dab the sponge on your watercolor paper, working your way down and making a tree shape such as a poplar or aspen tree.  Create a light side and a darker side to the tree.  
  • Before this dries, add a trunk and branches to connect some of the dabbed area.
  • Practice making more trees in the distance behind this first tree.  Let dry.
  • Tomorrow I will blog about adding the sky and background.   Please check back!

I would love to hear how this works for you! Also, I am thinking we should look for some sea sponges during our watercolor journaling class in Greece

3 comments:

TangledWood said...

I love getting tweets from you, your posts inspire me to try so many new techniques. Thank you.

Jacqueline said...

Thank you Colleen! If you try this, let me know how it works out.

Laure Ferlita said...

What fun! I had forgotten about using a sponge for trees!

AND I would think Greece would be the perfect place for sponges! You lucky girl!!