I’m always looking for new inspiration each holiday season, and this year it’s watercolor crystals! Last year it was eucalyptus leaves with berries. But I wanted to challenge myself with something different.
If you want to create some unique holiday cards this year, keep reading and paint along with me!
Supplies:
- Paint: LUKAS Aquarell 1862 Watercolor
- Paint: Coliro M600 Artist Mica Watercolor Paint Set – Metallic
- Brush(es): Creative Mark’s Watercolor Brushes, round size 1, 3 and 6
- Paper: Grumbacher Watercolor Paper, 3.75″x5.5″
- Table salt (a small pinch)
- Jars of water
- Paper towel or cotton rag
- Pencil and eraser
- All of my favorite supplies here
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Prepare Sketch
Lightly draw your crystal sketch. You really can’t draw a crystal wrong, but feel free to use the sketch in the photo below if you’d like!
Wet-on-Wet Method
I love using the wet-on-wet method! First, apply water with a clean brush. Make sure your paper is not too saturated, but just damp.
Then blot your brush, pick up the paint, and drop it anywhere on the wet paper and watch it spread! Notice how I used different shades of green and controlled the spread in order to preserve a lot of the white space.
Sprinkle Salt for Texture
While your paper and paint are still wet, sprinkle some salt for cool textures! If your paper is too wet or if you have paint blobs, the salt won’t be as effective. If you’re comfortable, you can even spritz your paper with a little bit of water to wet it again, and then drop in the salt. Either way, have fun with it! After the salt is settled, and if your paper is still wet, drop in some darker colors to create more contrast.
Add Metallic Details
This Coliro palette is my favorite set of metallic colors! The colors are so rich and very creamy. First, I spritz the color I want with some water. Let it settle in a bit. Then use my brush to work the water in the pan.
I’m using a size 1 brush here to paint these delicate leaves.
Final Details
As the final step, I added some darker value greens to the some of the corners in the crystal to create high contrast. I also brushed some of the salt away to reveal the texture underneath. Do all of your final details with the dry brush technique!
And there you go!
If you use this watercolor crystals tutorial, please tag me on social media @AudreyRaDesign and use the hashtag #PaintWithAudrey. And join The Garden to learn how to paint like this and more!
