This painting session of watercolor cucumbers was totally unplanned. And that’s the best type of painting sessions sometimes. I had some reference photos, but for the most part, I used my intuition to paint loosely without any sketching.
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Materials Used:
- Shinhan Watercolor Paint
- Master’s Touch round brush size 12
- Grumbacher Goldenedge round brush size 2
- Canson XL Watercolor Paper
- Cups or jars of water
- Paper towel or cotton rag
- All of my favorite supplies here
Tip 1: Outline the shape and then fill in
Since we’re not sketching, it’s helpful to sketch directly with your paintbrush. Quickly outline the general shape of the cucumber, and then fill it in with a watered down brush.
Tip 2: Experiment with the wet-on-wet technique
When painting loosely, the wet-on-wet technique is definitely my favorite. I love dropping in darker colors. I used this a few times to paint the seeds on the cucumber slices.
Tip 3: Mix in different greens
You know my favorite color is green, so I love experimenting with using a variety. Cucumbers also come in all sorts of colors and varieties. So add a little bit of yellow-green or blue-green to create really unique cucumbers! Mix some brown into your green and see what happens. Or pink or purple.
Curious about color mixing? Check out this blog post about how to create a swatch grid of color mixes.
Tip 4: Paint from different perspectives
This is where reference photos come in really handy! Or if you have cucumbers on hand, arrange them yourself and paint from real life 🙂
Painting from different perspectives expands your knowledge and understanding of your subject. And with food it’s a lot of fun even if it’s a simple cucumber. You can paint slices in all sorts of angles. Even the shape of the cucumber will vary from straight to gooseneck.
Have fun with it and it’s okay if it comes out a little wonky 🙂
Tip 5: Use a drying element to speed up process
When you’re using a lot of the wet-on-wet technique and painting quickly, you can speed up the drying process with a drying element. I actually use my embossing heat gun for this because of the very, very high heat. But please be careful when operating it because you don’t want your hands anywhere near the heated air. A hair dryer will work just fine 🙂
Tip 6: Leave white space
This is the best tip I have with painting with watercolors because that’s what makes it so unique. The transparency of watercolors allows you to layer colors and still see the underpainting. But since we don’t use the color white to create highlights, you have to leave the white of the paper to show through.
Well that’s it from me!
I’d love to see your watercolor cucumbers! Feel free to tag me (@AudreyRaDesign) on Instagram or Facebook and use the hashtag #PaintWithAudrey.