Watercolor Painting | Feather 1

Today, we have a watercolor painting from our messy art book which is on a black background.
Using a black background adds a very unique effect to the painting.
I really enjoyed the kinda of magical and dreamy effect the use of the black background has added to this painting.
While using a black background, one must however be careful in selecting the right colors for the painting.
A color scheme that will be highlighted by the black of the background needs to be decided upon.
It’s both challenging as well as fun to take up such a watercolor project.

Let’s see in detail, how I went about this watercolor feather painting

Materials

Steps

Step 1

Started with a simple sketch of the feather.
You can use reference from internet and Pinterest to draw the feather.

It may feel difficult to trace the feather using a lead 2B pencil on the black paper, you can use a white colored pencil to draw the feather as well.

Make sure you trace out the outline as lightly as possible.

Step 2

Using a big brush(size 10 or 12) will wet the area around the feather with clean water.

Using the same brush and white watercolor we will spread the color on the paper around the feather. We can cover as much area as we want with the white color. I decided to add the white paint around the feather in a manner such that it looks like there is a patch of cloud behind the feather and leaving most of the left side of the page blank.

Step 3

We will let the first layer of paint dry and then add some more of the white paint on top to get a good layered effect of the white color.

You can repeat this step, until you are happy with the cloud effect the paint is giving out.

Step 4

Using a thinner brush (size 1), we will fill in the golden color into the feather. We will make small strokes using the brush to achieve the feathery look of a feather.Also, using the white paint we will paint the spin of the feather and end tip of the feather.

I am using yellow ochre color from my watercolor palette and mixing it with a metallic gold acrylic paint.

Step 5

Mixing the yellow ochre with a little bit of black and brown shades of the watercolor and using the same thin brush will now give some extra details to the feather using the same technique of making small brush strokes. Also, we will add some highlights with white color on the feather.

Step 6

Final step to bind the feather and the patch of cloud and the black background together will add some splashes of white color on the page.

The white splashes binds the whole picture together and gives it a look of a starry night sky.

Colors

Hope you all enjoyed this watercolor technique and got inspired.
You can watch the step by step video tutorial of this sketch below or on my YouTube channel.