Let’s paint some watercolor narwhals… the unicorn of the sea!
Painting sea creatures is a lot of fun. I like to experiment with colors and paint intuitively.
Bonus! This tutorial comes with a sketch! Download the sketch by clicking the button below.
This post includes affiliates links. This means that if you purchase the item using my link, I receive a small commission at no extra charge to you. I will only post products that I have personally used and would recommend. The small commission helps run this blog and its activities. Thank you!
Materials Used:
- Paint: Shinhan Professional Watercolor
- Brush(es): Grumbacher round size 8, Princeton brush round size 4
- Paper: Canson XL Watercolor Paper
- Pencil and eraser
- Jars of water
- Paper towel or cotton rag
- All of my favorite supplies here
In general, we’re going to use a lot of the wet-on-wet technique to start each of the narwhals. I want to encourage you to just go with the flow. Even if the paint moves somewhere you didn’t intend to, just go with it 🙂
Don’t forget to watch the video above! It’s sped up quite a bit, but simple enough to follow along. 🙂
Watercolor Narwhal #1
For the first narwhal, start with the wet-on-wet technique on just the top half of the sketch. Drop in some color and add in darker colors as necessary.
Do the same to the fins.
For the tusk, I painted small sections separated by a slight white space.
Add some spots using a watery paint mixture. This will cause the edges of the paint to dry with a hard edge.
Watercolor Narwhal #2
Start with the wet-on-wet technique just like the first one. But this time maybe experiment with the color! How about a pink/purple narwhal? 🙂
Use a smaller sized brush for tiny details like the eyes and mouth.
For this tusk, I first painted in the tusk. And then with a darker paint color, I outlined the curves.
Watercolor Narwhal #3
Let’s start with the wet-on-wet technique again 🙂
For this one, I decided to create a hard edge along the side of the narwhal. When it’s dry, add tiny dots right along that edge.
I painted this tusk similar to the second one.
And ta-da you’re done!
Thanks so much for painting with me! I’d love to see your watercolor narwhals!
If you use this tutorial, please tag me on social media @AudreyRaDesign and use the hashtag #PaintWithAudrey.
