Here’s a great way to recycle all those plastic grocery bags. Actually any plastic will work: dry cleaning bags, kitchen food wrap, newspaper sleeves, and so on. The plastic is crumpled and pushed into wet paint. After the paint dries, the plastic is removed and leaves behind lighter areas and a textural pattern. This technique makes great texture for rocks and mountains. It can also be fun to just enjoy the interesting textures.
To use plastic in your painting, follow these steps:
1. Tear or cut the plastic into a manageable piece and wad it up. If you’re cutting sheets, about 6 inches square is a good size. Don’t be too precise — anything will work.
2. Wet your watercolor paper and paint some colors onto the surface using a 1/2-inch flat brush. You get to choose the colors. If you’re unsure of what might look good, try using three colors that are next to each other on the color wheel (analogous colors). Make the colors fairly dark and intense while still being transparent. The plastic will lift off some color so the paint will become lighter when it dries. If you use pale colors, the result will be subtle but still effective.
3. Set the wadded plastic on damp paint applied to your paper.The paint must be damp to make this work. Don’t bother applying plastic to any areas that are dry because nothing will happen. You can manipulate the plastic on the paper. Use your fingers to pull it around until you like the shape. If you use clear plastic, you can see what’s happening. The plastic wrap makes a shape where it touches the paint. The paint is darker where the plastic is crinkled and doesn’t touch the paper. You want lots of crinkles for texture. Let some plastic touch and some plastic not touch to create little shapes all over. You can form leaf shapes or creases where you might want a rock. Or you can just put the plastic down at random. If the plastic won’t stay in contact with the paper, set something like a can or bottle on it to weight it down.
4. Leave the plastic on the paper until the paint dries, then lift it off. It takes a while for the paint to dry; after all, you covered it in plastic! The plastic leaves a shape behind wherever it touched the paper.
Topic:analogous colors, color wheel, leaf shapes, paint dries, pale colors, plastic grocery bags, three colors, watercolor painting, watercolor paper, wet paint