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Bored of using your paintbrush to paint? Or perhaps you’re looking to incorporate new textures and shapes into your paintings. Either way, here are some household items you probably have lying around (or are headed for the trash) that you can use to create some unusual textures! Foam Net Foam nets or foam fruit wrappers are those squishy nets you sometimes find that are wrapped around fruits that are easily bruised, like apples and peaches. They’re usually discarded pretty quickly, but you can try painting with them first! All you have to do is cut out the size you want...

It’s fall now in the Northern Hemisphere, and with the cold and damp weather come mushrooms! If you’re looking to spice up your botanical paintings, mushrooms are a great subject because they have many unique colours and shapes. Today, we’re painting a fly agaric mushroom, which is perhaps the most recognizable of all mushrooms. We’ll be following a 90-minute class from the incredible painter Lene Myhre, so we’re learning from the best. Let’s begin! Step 1: Lines If you’re looking at a reference photo now and getting overwhelmed by all the differently shaped tiny dots on the mushroom, remember that...

Make a branch bloom with cherry blossoms in this tutorial with artist Jola Sopek! In a playful yet relatively realistic way, she shows how easy it can be to paint flowers, so if you love a bit of botany, feel free to practice along. Step 1: Quick Branch Sketch For this painting, you’ll need a sheet of A4 cold press watercolour paper, a sheet of scrap watercolour paper, a pencil, a kneaded eraser, watercolour paints (Jola has Etchr’s set of 24 watercolours), a palette, a size 8 and a size 1 round brush, two or three containers of water, and paper...

Have you ever combined watercolour with graphite? The technique is straightforward, and the results are so elegant! There’s so much potential for precision, realism, and subtle colour variations. I’m going to introduce you to the method with a picture of some trees since trees are so delightfully intricate and yet so forgiving to draw. All you need are watercolours, paper, and a pencil! Reference Photo Feel free to use this photo, or take one yourself if you like! To choose a strong reference photo, find one with an asymmetrical composition and high contrast. Drawing with Pencil Once you’ve selected a...

It’s likely that if you enjoyed nature as a kid, you grew up reading those plant field guides with impossibly intricate botanical illustrations in them. If you would like to recreate that illustration style for nostalgia, and perhaps to draw your houseplants, you can learn the style from botanical illustrator Elena Brambi in her 90-minute class. To follow along with her painting, all you will need are your watercolours and some hot press paper. Let’s get started! Step 1: Outline For the outline, there’s no need to do anything beyond the simplest indication of the seed pod’s shape. The details...

In the world of watercolour, most will have heard of the infamous “wet-on-wet” technique, where you wet your paper before dropping paint in. This allows for soft edges and blends, as the paint is allowed to flow freely on top of the watery surface. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the humble “dry-on-dry” technique, also known as the dry brush technique. In this blog post, we’ll explore a little more about this technique, and how to maximise its potential. The Method So how do you perform the dry brush technique? It’s pretty simple: first, mix a paint...