15 Watercolor Hacks (cheap or free!) Video Lecture - Master the Art

[Music]
hi there Lindsay here the frugal crafter
and today I'm gonna give you my favorite
15 cheap watercolor supply hacks if you
new here please hit that subscribe
button and dig not bail so you won't
miss any of my free watercolor tutorials
the first hack I have for you is a free
water bucket solution and of course you
can use any old yogurt tub or spaghetti
sauce jar you have but these are awesome
these are the containers that tofu come
in the very similar to the ones
mushrooms come in this one's neat cuz
you have two different buckets because
you want that when your water coloring
to keep your paints fresh but there's
also nice little ridges in here that you
can clean your brushes with what you
want to have is one bucket for clean
water and one bucket for dirty water as
long as you always clean your brush in
the dirty water your brushes will stay
nice and fresh and your colors will stay
vibrant and that way you don't have to
empty your water that also would be
really hard to tip this over making it a
really good solution if you have kids or
a bonus tip if you have children you can
get dual water food bowls at the Dollar
Tree that are for cats and dogs and
those would be great for a spill proof
containers for kids if you think they
might be able to spell this over but
this is just a great solution for a
water bucket and it's free if you need a
place to keep your paint looking out
further then your recycling bin or your
makeup box I used an eye shadow box to
put my paints in and now I have a tiny
little palette to take on the go you can
also use day-of-the-week pill organizers
for this just make sure whatever you use
is fused on the bottom like you wouldn't
want to use a fishing tackle box if it
had the little dividers that came out or
your paint could seep underneath and get
mixed up my next tip is to use an old a
credit card or gift card just cut it up
so you have some interesting shapes and
it makes a wonderful painting tool I use
this tool in this painting here to
create these rocks and I'm going to show
you how to do that so all you need to do
is once you've painted an area and this
could be a flower petal or it could be a
rocky coastline it doesn't really matter
you just need to have wet juicy paint
then you can use your little credit card
scraper to scrape veins and your paint
you can even use it to push and scrape
your paint around
one credit card will give you many
options for different edges that you can
make my next DIY tip is to make a
rubberband brush all you do is gather up
a bunch of rubber bands and secure them
with another rubber band then what you
can do is dip them in you paint and
generally I'd use a larger palette for
this but I'm gonna use this right here
because that's what I have on hand and
then you can use that to tap on bushes
and foliage on your painting and you
just rinse it off very easy to clean the
next thing that you can make for your
watercolor painting is some cut-up
sponges and what you want is one of
these cellulose sponges you can get at
any a department store or supermarket
and you're simply going to cut some
different shapes you can do rectangles
you can do wedge shapes I have a bunch
that I have been using for probably
about 10 years and they still work fine
so say you wanted to paint some bricks
you can put your sponge I'll be wet it
in the clean water and you can pick up a
few different shades of paint I'll get
some Brown and some red tap it on the
roof of my palette here and I could
stamp on some bricks or some rocks if I
wanted to just for a subtle look or you
could use it to stamp some foliage on a
tree I'm just gonna make a little
upside-down tree here for ya tree trunk
and then you can just stamp on your
foliage and I like the kind of rough
rough cut ones for that or you can even
fold it in half and I'm just gonna
sponge in some greens and you can get a
really natural look without trying if
you happen to have some sea sponges on
hand those work great too and while
you're in the kitchen with your kitchen
sponges it grab some plastic wrap
because that makes some really
interesting textures on your watercolor
paper to use your saran wrap it will
give you a beautiful texture like this
all you need to do is have a really wet
wash of watercolor on your paper so I'm
gonna whip my paper and just throw in
some color just for the sake of
of example here you want to make sure
you have quite a bit of color if you
want to have a dramatic look then you
want to tear off a piece of saran wrap
or plastic wrap and you're going to
press it into your wet wash and you can
see you start to get these little
pockets of color and it kind of looks
like frozen windowpane glass and after
this dries I would leave it overnight
until it's completely dry you remove it
and then you have something that looks
just like this while you're in the
kitchen if you have some canning wax you
can also use a white or clear crayon or
an old candle you can use this to make a
resist on your paper so if you want to
keep the say waves or sparkle on a
landscape wet it works wonderfully I'm
just gonna put some blue over my wax you
can see what I mean and so your waves
will stay nice and bright and I'm gonna
show you an example of how I use that on
a recent watercolour tutorial on my
youtube channel for my waves here I
first applied wax just like I showed you
at the table and then when I painted
over it I didn't have to worry about any
of my waves another fun supply that's
right in your kitchen is salt and I'm
gonna show you how I use salt on a lilac
painting this textures up here were made
by sprinkling salt into the wet paint
when I began painting them I'm gonna
show you that technique in my sketchbook
I'm gonna begin just by dabbing on some
color you got to make sure that it is
nice and juicy so that you'll have
something for your salt to react in if
you're going to use an eyeshadow palette
or something small like this as your
paint palette you will probably want to
have a a tile or a ceramic dish or a
plastic margarine tub lid or something
like that to be able to mix your colors
on so just kind of keep that in mind a
typically would not paint directly from
the palette like this but I got a lot
going on on my table and I don't have a
lot of extra room so after you have a
nice wet wash of color all you have to
do is sprinkle on your salt I like
it's like a kosher salt or coarse salt
because it'll give me an onion afore
sprinkles so I'll have some big ones in
some little ones and you can kind of see
that the salt reacts already and it
starts to absorb the water and that's
what gives you those really cool
textures I also prefer to sprinkle it on
from my fingers so I don't get too much
where I don't want it
my next two hacks come from the bathroom
an old toothbrush that I've thrown
through the dishwasher so I got nice and
clean and also some rubbing alcohol that
I put in a tiny little dropper bottle
these make wonderful textures on your
watercolor paintings to use the
toothbrush simply get it wet in your
water and pick up the color that you
would like to speckle this keeps you
from having to spend money on a
speckling brush they're not that
expensive but still why spend money when
you got something that works just as
well for free and what you do is you
load it up with some ink you paint you
drag your finger across the brush and
there you can have a beautiful speckle
if you I have really wet paint you're
going to get bigger spatters and if you
have dry your paint you're going to get
finer spatters so you can experiment
with it and get the look you're going
for the next thing I want to show you is
rubbing alcohol on your paint and this
gives you a really neat effect and again
just like with a salt you want to have a
pretty wet wash and I'm going to just
grab a grab a little bit of ultramarine
blue here now alcohol a desert disturbs
the surface tension of the water and
gives you cool bubbles so this would be
really fun to use if you were doing like
maybe barnacles on a whale or you want
to do bubbles or something like that you
just get a very unique texture there and
it's a lot of fun to experiment with
often when you're watercolor painting
you want to tape down your paper on all
four sides to keep it from buckling plus
it gives you a pretty border when you're
done kind of like I have on this
painting right here but if you're not
careful and you get cheap tape sometimes
it can rip your paper here's a tip for
getting your tape a little less sticky
so you don't have to splash out eight
bucks a roll for the super duper or
low-tech tape at the hardware store rip
off what you need and then you want to
stick it to your clothing stick it to
your jeans anything where it can pick up
some lint and then you'll be able to
take down your paper without your paper
ripping when you go to remove it and
there you just saved yourself tons of
money because you can get your tape at
the dollar store if you don't want to
bother taping down paper blocks are a
wonderful invention this is my favorite
brand it's the arches and I just love to
paint on this because I can paint all
the way to the edge and my paper stays
nice and flat but these are spending so
instead of spending tons of money every
time I want to paint I learned how to
make my own and I actually have a
tutorial on how to do this and I'll link
it in the video description
but basically you use whatever paper you
have you've cut them all to the same
size and you cut a piece of cardboard to
the same size and then you stack it all
up and you glue around all four edges
just leaving a little gap where you can
fit a palette knife in for removal it's
kind of complicated to explain quickly
so I'll refer you to the tutorial in the
video description but it's gonna save
you a ton of money and it is a dream to
paint on next up I have two tips from
asking fluid one is to take your masking
fluid and pour it into a smaller
container for travel and also to use up
so you don't have to keep opening up
your main jar and masking fluid I've had
this for over ten years and it's nice
and fresh still when you use masking
fluid on your brushes you have to be
careful because it's a little damaging
it's basically a liquid latex and it's
pretty harsh on your brushes so what I
do is I pick a brush I don't care too
much about and I load it up with soap
you can use any liquid soap or you can
wet your brush and just draw it across
your favorite bar soap any soap is fine
for this this is going to protect your
bristles from getting damaged from the
liquid latex then when you load up your
brush you want to make sure that you
only get the tips of the bristles you
don't want to get it into this metal
part that's called the ferrule and if
your fluid gets up in there it could
really ruin your brush so I'm just gonna
just get on the tip of my brush and then
I'm ready to use that on my watercolor
paper and if you've never used masking
fluid before what this does is it makes
a barrier on your paper so that you
could like do those highlights such as a
sparkling somebody's eye or a highlight
on a glass you could paint that out
before you do your painting and it would
remain nice and crisp white when you
remove it it's important to know
what brush you use for masking fluid so
you don't accidentally grab one of your
good brushes so what I recommend doing
is either painting the end with some
nail polish or using some decorative
tape to identify it this is also a great
idea if you go to classes because
oftentimes students will all have the
same materials so what you can do is
pick a roll washi tape there are so many
pretty options wrap it around your
handle and then I like to take a little
piece of clear tape and go over it as
well just to keep it from coming off
because washi tape isn't super super
strong so that will keep your brushes
identified so they don't go home with
anyone else and also so you don't pick
up somebody else's brushes by mistake
and that was 15 cheap watercolor hacks I
hope you enjoyed them and I hope helps
you stretch your art supply budget a
little further if you enjoyed this video
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thank you so much for watching until
next time happy crafting