Painting in watercolor isn’t always about the canvas and the brush. It can go much deeper than that. It can become a bold masterpiece with tons of colors that pop brightly or it can be a much more calming type of painting. The possibilities are endless and some people prefer watercolors over oil because of their extreme versatility. Have you ever considered putting a new spin on old painting techniques? Doing so could give you another way to express the creativity of your mind.

Creative Paintings with Water

With watercolors, you can create a picture using wet on wet. This means the canvas surface and the paints can both have moisture in them. By doing this, your painting will take on a softer look. The different colors will mix together rather than have hard edges and you will not have to worry about trying to blend colors since they will do it naturally. As the canvas dries a little, you will begin to see more hard lines and some people enjoy watching things take shape as a mixture of both.

If this doesn’t give your picture enough of a dramatic result, you can also spray water on the finished painting. Some people use a spray bottle or droppers to wet certain areas of their painting. If you do this, you may lose some of the more personal touches, but the end result will be well worth it.

Play with Texture

It is relatively easy to paint texture with water colors, but you can take it up a notch. You can do this by using a support that resists water or using water-resistant stuff that you put on the canvas. Adding drawings or accentuating some of the edges will further give you more texture and does not take a lot of effort. There are many people who also enjoy using watercolor paper texture to get more from their painted surfaces. Dry pastels can also give your painting something special that may not have been seen before. The dry pastels change as they become damp and in changing, they become one of a kind in their appearance. They are excellent for adding in unique highlights.

Create a Dream World

What could be cooler than creating a dream? You can use watercolors to do it if you want to play with something unique. For instance, you can paint a picture of a bird or a kitten using hard lines of paint so that it looks real in many ways. However, once that is done, you can create an abstract background where nothing truly looks real or makes sense. Some people prefer to paint the abstract first and then go over it with the real artwork. The technique you choose is going to be based on personal preferences, but both will work well. You can also use the abstract idea to create a painting that is real and abstract all at once. For example, a woman’s face that has eyes, nose, mouth, and even hair that is painted proportionally, but the line of her face is obscure. It gives her a bit of mystery, especially if you use water to further blur the lines of reality.