Watercolour Tips

With patience and practice, these baubles can become stunning centrepieces for your holiday cards.

Creating your own watercolour Christmas cards is a joyful way to celebrate the season and share your creativity with loved ones. Whether you paint a single bauble or an entire festive arrangement, your handmade card is sure to bring a smile to anyone who receives it.

You’ve probably heard of the rule of thirds - it’s a common compositional guideline that divides your canvas into a grid of nine equal parts, with two horizontal and two vertical lines. You might’ve noticed this grid when using the camera on your phone. The idea is to place your key elements along these lines or at their intersections to create a more balanced, engaging composition.

Different types of salt can produce different results. Coarse sea salt, with its larger crystals, tends to create bold, dramatic textures, while table salt results in smaller, more delicate starbursts.

It’s fun experimenting with both to see what kinds of patterns they produce on your watercolour paper.

The choice of watercolour brush can significantly influence the outcome of your washes. A larger mop brush is ideal for laying down a flat wash, as it holds a considerable amount of water and paint, allowing for smooth, even coverage. When applying a graded wash, a smaller round brush can give you more control as you gradually change the intensity of the colour.

Draw the Grid: Connect the marks with straight lines, running both horizontally and vertically across the entire surface of your sketch. Be sure to keep your lines light; you want them to be visible but not overpowering. If you’re concerned about the lines showing through, use a lightbox or tape your paper to a window to keep the lines faint.

Some artists also use diagonal lines to help maintain proportional accuracy when transferring more complex images.

One of the most exciting parts of starting a new watercolour piece is getting your sketch ready on the paper. But transferring that sketch, aka tracing a drawing, can be a bit tricky, especially when you want to preserve the delicacy of your watercolour paper.

There are several methods to do this, and today, we’ll explore some popular techniques, discuss which pencils work best, and answer the age-old question: is it “cheating”?