Watercolor Resist Art

There's something so mesmerizing about watercolors: from activating the paints by dipping your brush in water and swirling it around to transforming a solid glob of paint into a watery blob, to watching the colors swirl and melt together. And this is before you even begin painting on a piece of paper! One of my favorite watercolor projects to do is watercolor resist art. Watercolor resist art is exactly what it sounds like: using a substance that resists the pigment of the watercolors. This activity is simple and fun to do with kids and adults alike.

For this project I used watercolor supplies I bought when I took a watercolor class, but there is an alternative way to do this project! There's the white crayon method and the liquid masking method. If you choose to use the white crayon method, you won't need the items listed under the materials list with an asterisk (*) next to them: masking fluid, cheap paintbrush, and rubber cement pick-up.

Materials

• watercolor
• watercolor brush or small paintbrush
• watercolor or mixed media paper
• cup of water
• white crayon (if you don't want to use the masking fluid)
• masking fluid / liquid frisket*
• cheap paintbrush*
• rubber cement pick-up* 

Masking fluid WILL ruin your paintbrush so use a cheap brush. It's possible to wash off if you do it right away, but I would still recommend using a brush you don't care about. Masking fluid acts as a barrier between the watercolor paper and watercolors so when you remove the liquid masking you are left with the original plain paper. The wax in white crayon also acts as a barrier in the same manner! Any part of the paper that is not covered by liquid masking or white crayon will be colored by watercolor!

 
Use masking tape to tape down the watercolor paper to a hard surface, I used a piece of wood. Dip your cheap paintbrush into the liquid masking and paint your design onto the watercolor paper and let it dry completely. If you are using the white crayon method, draw your design with the white crayon. Keep in mind that the white crayon will be harder to see than the masking fluid when on paper.

Start painting! Make sure you load your brush with a lot of water before you start swirling around your watercolor paint pots. More paint = brighter pigments. More water = colors blend together more. Keep in mind that colors will lighten as they dry, but you can always add more paint to intensify your colors.

Pay attention to how the liquid masking or white crayon dispels the watercolor! So awesome.

Let the watercolor dry!

If you used white crayon, your watercolor resist art is complete! If you used liquid masking, the tutorial continues below:

Rubber cement pick-up time :) The rubber cement pick-up picks up the masking fluid, revealing the original white watercolor paper underneath it! You can also try to rub off the masking fluid with your fingers.

This process is really cool: gently rub a corner of the rubber cement pick-up onto the liquid masking.

You'll notice that the masking fluid sticks to the rubber cement pick-up which makes it super easy to remove from the paper.

Keep pulling the rubber cement pick-up until you can grab the strings of masking fluid and continue to pull it off completely.

The difference between letters with and without the liquid masking.

Repeat for your entire design!

Finished!

Some hearts I did for fun.

My Intro to Watercolor instructor told me to not be scared of color ("It's just paint, Justine!"). As much as I love a beautiful muted pastel palette, I'm learning to embrace more color. Take that, Carol!

I hope you found this tutorial helpful! I'd love to hear about and see your designs :)

♥ Justine