Painted Paper Garden Collage

Painted Paper Garden Collage

There are many wonderful watercolor techniques available to create interesting hand painted papers. Use the watercolor techniques below to create beautiful color combinations and textures on the paper. Cut out shapes to create plants and flowers you would like to plant in your Garden this summer. Arrange as many different layout options as you like before gluing down the shapes to create a collage of a Garden. Cut out shapes to combine in order to make tools, watering cans, hoses, wheelbarrows, or even patio furniture.

Dry brush Just like it sounds, the brush is mostly dry. Use the tiniest bit of water and a little color on your brush and drag it across dry paper.

Wet on dry Using a brush paint only water on your paper. Make sure there is a good amount of water that you can see kind of a shine to the paper. Then load up your brush with watercolor and paint it on the wet paper. Wet paint on wet paper essentially.

Wash Load a 1” flat brush or large round brush with lots of water and color. Drag the brush slowly across the paper. Before it dries paint another stripe of color right below the bottom edge so they overlap ever so slightly. Continue repeating that until it reaches the bottom of the paper.

Gradiated wash Similar to the wash technique, but you dilute the color with water for each additional stroke of paint as you move down the paper. This creates a gradient of light to dark wash on the paper.

Glazing Paint one color on the paper and let it dry. Paint another color or the same color on top of the dried paint. Layering the color will make the same color darker, or using a different color will mix the two colors. Since watercolor is see through, you can build up value or color through layering.

Splatter Load the brush with water and paint. Tap your brush against your index finger while holding it over your paper. This will splatter paint on to the paper if you have enough water mixed with paint. You can also layer more than one color with splatter technique.

Salt Sprinkle salt onto wet painted paper. The color will slowly move away from the salt as it dries creating interesting designs. Brush the salt off after the paint dries.

Rubbing Alcohol Paint highly concentrated wet paint on your paper. Apply rubbing alcohol to the wet paint surface using a brush, q-tip, or pipette. The rubbing alcohol will repel the paint leaving a lighter color exposed.

Lifting color Remove or erase watercolor from a dried painting. Add water to your brush and paint the water into the area you want to “erase”. This will re-wet the paint and allow you to mop it up with your brush or a paper towel. You can lighten an area with this technique or remove the color completely.

1. Once you have a variety of painted papers with interesting color combinations and textures let them dry then use scissors to cut out shapes for plants, tools, and containers.

2. Arrange the shapes on your paper. Layer shapes to create images and test different Garden layouts on the paper.

3. Once you have an arrangement you are happy with use a glue stick or liquid glue to attach your pieces to the paper.

4. Create as many Garden scenes as you like to help plan how you want to plant your Garden this spring/summer.

5. Email a photo of your finished collage to garden@alaskabg.org if you would like to share what you made! We’d love to see your finished project.