Individual interior design is a stylish way to transform your house using an interesting idea from designers. A little imagination, free time, and an irresistible desire to create – all you need to create watercolour wall art with your own hands.

Techniques For Applying Watercolours To The Wall

Watercolours are familiar to everyone since childhood, but this creativity can also be used in the design, transforming the space by choosing one of the common techniques:

  • Fresco – paint is applied to wet plaster, the process is laborious and expensive since the composition of the finishing material should include brick chips and linen threads, but the result will last for decades;
  • Alseco – dry method of painting walls with watercolours. It is cheaper, more affordable, lasts for years, although less than frescoes;
  • Airbrushing – special aerosol cans are used to apply the composition, it is even possible to create volumetric images with them;
  • Grisaille – drawing the contours of the picture on a whitewashed wall without specific details, made in an antique style.

Bright watercolours are used to emphasise the walls; for beginners, the spray technique or abstraction is suitable.

 DIY Watercolour Wall Art – Where To Start?

After choosing the appropriate technique, you need to start the surface preparation process:

  1. Decide where the art will be exhibited – it can distract people from defects, catch their attention, create different emotions;
  2. Remove old plaster and any other finishing materials if they are crumbling;
  3. Eliminate irregularities and cracks without requiring absolute smoothness;
  4. Use an acrylic primer and paint the wall in neutral tones – white, beige, cream, soft gray. These colours are basic and look great as a background;
  5. Go over the surface with sandpaper after drying, remove all dust.

Be sure to cover all furniture and the floor before drawing. Watercolour technologies require a lot of water, so be prepared for a small “flood” in the house, stock up on rags.

How To Make Watercolour Wall Art In The Room – Step-By-Step Instruction

Choose a drawing according to your skills so that you can paint yourself. Nowadays, classic images are popular – flowers, landscapes, water motives, abstract pictures with clouds. If everything is ready we can start making watercolour wall arts:

  • Creating a sketch – you can prepare a drawing yourself or find a template online. Keep in mind that the picture should not only look beautiful but also be in harmony with the interior design;
  • Zoom-in – a projector is ideal for this, but if this is not possible, use the grid to enlarge the selected miniature. The sequence of actions is as follows:
    • Determine the amount of scaling. Let’s say a drawing on paper is 20 cm wide and 10 cm high. On the wall you place an image 2 meters wide and 1 meter high. You need to enlarge the picture 10 times;
    • Draw parallel horizontal and vertical lines through each centimeter with a pencil on a sheet of paper, you will get a grid with a step of 1 cm;
    • On the wall, using a ruler 2 meters long, draw a grid in 10 cm increments and the same number of cells as on paper. This will be 1:10 scale;
    • Transfer the image from each cell of the paper drawing to the wall with coloured pencils.
  • Even if you decorate the walls with improvised abstraction (with multi-coloured spots, lines and figures that arise in the mind during work), maintain the colour scheme, combining it with the main colour of the room’s interior;
  • Choose a pattern that matches the style of the room. Pink flowers are not suitable for a high-tech room, but the silhouette of an alien spaceship is just what you need;
  • If the last time you used brushes in school drawing lessons, start with flat pictures, without transitions from light to shadow. For example, draw a sakura branch. With the right choice of colour, such works will arouse admiration.
  • To maintain the integrity of the composition, move from the general to the specific:
    • First apply the outline of the image with a thin brush or pencil of the colour that will be used in the picture;
    • Paint over large parts with a large brush or roller;
    • Create volume with medium sized brushes. The volume of the image is given by shades called shadows, penumbra, reflexes and highlights.;
    • Paint small details with thin brushes.
  • To preserve the creation cover it with clear acrylic varnish after two days, when the layer of artistic paint has dried to its full thickness.

Material And Tools You Will Need

Paints

Use acrylic watercolours. They are odorless, do not spread, dry in an hour. They shimmer on the surface, forming smooth transitions between tones. In case of an error, the paint can be easily washed off with water. But after drying, acrylic is not afraid of moisture: when cleaning, a wall with a pattern can be wiped with a damp cloth, even if it is not varnished.

Acrylic paints are:

  • standard;
  • fluorescent – glow when illuminated with ultraviolet light;
  • invisible – invisible under yellow-white illumination, but appear under ultraviolet illumination;
  • luminous – in the dark they emit stored light;
  • mother-of-pearl;
  • metallic or with sparkles.

Before using “unusual” paints, or better before buying, read the instructions, so as not to expect from them what they are not intended for. You can find a wide range of watercolour paints with full information about each product at CraftOnline.

Brushes

Depending on the size of the treated area, paints are applied with a brush, roller, airbrush. For wide lines and strokes, you need large brushes or rollers, for drawing outlines and thin lines, small ones. For beginners, we recommend buying brushes in a set – it will cost less, and the appropriate size is always at hand. If you know exactly what shape and size of brushes you need, choose them one by one.

An airbrush is a tool that paints with a thin stream of sprayed paint. Convenient for creating large canvases with a lot of small details.

Useful Things

In addition, you may need:

  • Containers for mixing paints and rinsing brushes (you can use a set of disposable glasses);
  • Stepladder;
  • Ruler for drawing a grid on a paper drawing;
  • A 2-meter long rail with graduated lines for applying a mesh to the wall (you can make this tool yourself);
  • Spatula, flat paint brushes for painting walls, rags.

Keep in mind that watercolour painting requires more space and freedom – the watercolour wall art will not look good if you select a piece of the wall 20 by 15 cm between the TV and the cabinet for it.

Watercolour wall arts in the interior of a kitchen, living room, bedroom, or corridor are a great idea for creating accent decor. You can make them yourself using popular and simple techniques. Just choose harmonious colours and styles, observe moderation, draw up a project in advance and prepare the surface. And then even the most enchanting ideas will be realised!

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