abstract watercolor canvases {a tutorial}

Hello, friends! Pardon my absence from the blog last week…turns out I really can’t do it all (who knew)? The truth is, we’ve been doing a long-awaited, can’t-wait-till-it’s-done basement family room redo (goodbye icky carpet!), and house projects can tend to put a kink in our normal routine.

Anyway, I hope this post makes up for it…I’m super duper in love with these watercolor canvases, and they were a cinch to make….

Materials:
5×7 flat canvases
watercolor paints
watercolor brush
painters tape

Step 1: Take your painters tape, and tape a border around each canvas. I made my border width the same width as the painters tape, but obviously you can change this up if you want.

Step 2: Decide on the color scheme for your canvas, and start applying your first color. I made this one all blue, and I wanted it to go from dark (navy) to light, though, as you can see in the first photo, I decided it hang it upside down instead.

Step 2: Add a second color, blending it into the first. If it’s not blending well, just add a little bit of water to your brush and apply it where the two colors meet. If it’s too watery, just take a paper towel and blot the excess. Watercolors are very forgiving like that.

Step 3: Keep adding and blending colors until you are satisfied with the end result…

Step 4: Remove the tape. Because of the texture of the canvas and the wateriness (is that even a word??) of the paint, you will probably not get very precise lines, even if you firmly press down your painters tape at the beginning, like I did. This is OK! Even better, in my opinion. But, if there are places where the paint is bleeding more than you’d like, there’s an easy fix….

…just take some white acrylic paint and a clean brush, and fix any areas you aren’t happy with.

At about $2 for all three canvases, and paint that I already had on hand, this was quite the low-budget, high-impact project.

What do you think? What other abstract designs could you do?

Thanks for reading all about my abstract watercolor canvases {a tutorial}. Have a lovely day!