5 Advanced Watercolor Painting Techniques You Need to Try!

Hey there, I'm so happy to see you here. I am someone who has surpassed the beginner stage in their watercolor journey, and you still feel like you have more to learn, you want to make your painting look more realistic or interesting, but you don't really know what techniques you should use. Because in this video, I wanted to share five more advanced watercolor painting techniques you should try out to level up your watercolor painting game. One of my favorite techniques that I've been using a lot lately is the scratching or scraping technique. With this technique, you either scratch into the paper or scratch off a little bit of the surface on the paper. If you scratch into the paper when the paint is still wet, you can add fine details to your object. For example, you can add details in leaves, grass, or any other areas where you want to achieve a fuzzy effect or just add a little bit more detail. Theoretically, you can also just let the paint dry and then use a fine brush with a fine tip or pen to add those details, but often, this scratching into wet paint is a lot faster and easier to do. It can also look a lot more realistic. Another way to reveal the whiteness of your paper is by using a magic sponge. It's a melamine sponge that works similar to very fine sandpaper. You might have seen me using it in one of my older videos where I showed you how to clean the edges of your painting when the paint seeped through your tape, but you can also use it for many other fun ways. For example, you can use it to reveal the white paper to create light reflections or sparkles. For this step, you need to soak up the sponge with water and squeeze out the excess water. Then, you can carefully start rubbing off the paint. Now, you also want to use a tissue paper or a paper towel to lift off the reactivated pigments so you can keep working on this area without smudging the paint to areas you don't want the paint to go. You can also make the sparkles stand out even more if you use masking fluid first so you have the pure white paper next to the soft white edges. But you can also achieve this soft look by using your brush and the lifting technique. Sometimes, I get messages asking me what to do when you end up with hard edges in your painting, and this is one of the ways how you can go about it. So when the paint is dry, you want to use a synthetic brush. It can be a round or flat brush. It's just important that your bristles are rather stiff. Then, load up your brush with a little bit of water, remove any excess moisture, and then you can go ahead and lightly reactivate the paint on the edges you're trying to soften. So you want to lightly scrub over it and use a paper towel to lift off the reactivated pigments. This is a great way to not only soften some hard edges you didn't want, but also to add variety to your painting. Instead of having only hard or soft edges, you have a play between those two that will add some sharpness and glowiness to your painting. Another fun technique I love using is the negative painting technique. You might have seen this in one of my older or recent videos where I painted leaves or trees and clouds using the negative painting technique. With the negative painting technique, you paint around an object to make it stand out. So there's a difference between the positive and the negative space. As you might know, in watercolor painting, you build your painting layer by layer, and you usually start with the lightest colors because later you can cover them with another light color. After all, watercolor is a transparent medium. That's why you want to learn how to use the negative painting technique to save the lighter areas and paint the negative space next to them. So for example, instead of painting every little leaf on your tree, you create a big splash of color and then shape the tree with darker colors. And you can also do that wet into wet if you want to create a more blurry effect and move certain objects to the background. Another fun technique is using masking fluid. And you might have used it in the past to save the white of the paper. But another fun and the more advanced way is using it on top of dried paint. You basically combine the masking fluid with the negative painting technique. So instead of just painting around an object to make it stand out, you will create a wash of paint, let it dry, and then apply masking fluid on top. You can apply it and create flowers, leaves, or anything else you're planning to paint. Then, once the masking fluid is dry, you apply another dark wash of paint on top. When the paint is dry, you can remove the masking fluid and you've just created some details in your painting. So this is another way to use the negative painting technique without actively thinking backwards. I really hope you'll like this video and find it helpful. Thank you so much for watching. Have a wonderful day. And I will see you in my next video. Bye.