LOOSE WATERCOLOR TREES

This watercolor was done as a paint party for our art guild. It was my first experience with liquid watercolor, made by Blicks, which comes in bottles. We only used blue, red, and yellow. It is painted on Winsor Newton 300 pound watercolor paper, which was pretty nice. The size is 11 by 15, a quarter sheet of paper. 

Step one: With masking tape, tape off a broken line for a tree trunk. Make sure the tapes gets smaller at the top.

Step 2: Wet the entire painting with a large brush, until the painting looks shiny, but not puddled. Using free strokes, brush on some yellow here and there, then some red, and finally some blue. Allow the colors to run together. Try not to let the three colors touch --they will turn brown. 

Step 3: While the paint is shiny, you can use some salt to create texture. SOME salt: don't go hog wild and pig crazy. 

Step 4: While it is a little shiny, you can scratch some twigs in with a credit card or palette knife. These will have dark shapes to them.

Step 5: After the paint has lost it's shine, you can scrape out some distant trees with a palette knife or rounded edge of the credit card. 

Also: at this point drop little droplets of water into the drying paint. This will create some interesting back-runs. (see the large yellow shapes one the left)

Step 6: Dry the painting completely and remove the masking tape on your main tree. 

Step 7: To do the main tree you will need your credit card or knife. With a small brush, about 2 inches at a time, paint a line along the left side of the tree trunk. Drag the wider side of the credit card from the paint into the other side of the trunk, left to right, to create the bark lines and shadow at the same time. 

Step 8: If you want to make your other trees a little more pronounced, use white acrylic or guouche paint to lighten the trunks and some of the branches. You can also use paint to darken some of the branches. Don't over do this part. 

You can also spatter some over the finished tree.