Dark and Stormy Night: Painting with Watercolors for Beginners

 

Watercolors a lot of fun to paint with, and there are many different styles and techniques that can be employed when using watercolors. Watercolors a lot of fun to work with for many reasons, they can be made thicker or thinner, they blend differently than most paints, and they are inexpensive. Some people like to use a dry canvas when working with water colors, and some people like to use a completely wet canvas when working with watercolors, but I have found that a combination of both is a lot more interesting and fun to work with. If you would like to learn more about wet ad dry canvas techniques this article is for you; it will teach you how to create your own personal dark and stormy night using watercolor paint and techniques.

For this project you will need watercolor paper or a canvas. I prefer watercolor paper because the texture adds to the effect of the painting. You will also need several different paintbrushes that you feel comfortable using. A cup with water, a pallet, and a rag for cleaning and drying the brush are also useful. For this project you can use tubes of watercolor paints, but you can also use the dry trays of paint that you can buy very inexpensively.

Okay now this is where the dry and wet canvas technique really comes into play. To create a dark and stormy night start by adding clean water to your paintbrush and wetting areas of the watercolor paper with it. The areas that are wet will be used for blending, and the dry areas will remain white. Keep in mind that the white areas of the paper will be areas in your picture that you want to remain white, or they will be areas that you want a different color than the sky. The white areas can make nice cloud shapes and lightning bolts. The white area could even be the moon.

Next add some water to a dark blue or purple color paint. This will be the color of your sky; you can add black or white to the color to add a darker or lighter tone to the sky in this painting. When you have added some paint to the brush lightly drop a little paint on the wet area of the canvas. You will see a burst of color as the water pulls the paint. Play with this effect to create a beautiful night sky, and when you are satisfied allow the painting to dry. Remember if you do not like the way something came out you can always use a piece of paper towel to blot some of the paint off of the picture.

After the background has dried feel free to add your details. You can paint a mountain landscape by making several hump shapes across the horizon of the painting. To make the mountains look more realistic add smaller sized humps in the back. When you color these in remember to have the mountains in the background be lighter because this will add depth.

There are many different scenes that can be added to your stormy night sky, and the wet and dry canvas technique is a lot of fun to play with. You can create many different things using this style, and you can create many different layers of color by letting these levels dry in between. So bust out your paint brushes and have fun!