Make Watercolor Art Paper plus Free Printables

Learn how to easily make your own Watercolor art paper. It's such a pretty material. It's fairly simple and quick to create. Use your own watercolor art papers to make cards, gift tags and backgrounds for your favorite paper crafts.

Here are some tips and a quick tutorial to help you make your own pretty watercolor art paper. If you prefer not to make your own painted paper, you can download and print some of my printable art papers… look for the download links below.

Make Your Own Watercolor Art Paper

You can make your own pretty paper backgrounds with just a few colors of watercolor paint. These are easy watercolor paintings you can create yourself and use in other projects. Play with the paint colors, don't be afraid to experiment. Get the paper wet and add paint or use a dry brush and paint. Add colors on top of colors or add blocks or stripes of color.

Materials

Cardstock or a thick watercolor paper. See note below.
Small container with water
Watercolors
Paintbrush

A note about the paper you choose:

I like using a textured cardstock. Mixed media paper works too. The more texture the paper has, the more variation in the design you can get. If you use a smooth paper, don't over paint it as it could start to crumble from all the water.

Instructions

Pre-wet the watercolor paints if you are using dry paint.
Using the paintbrush, add some water to the paper. Don't drench it, just brush some water on.
Pick up a paint color with your brush and quickly brush it on the paper.
Pick up a new color and paint it on the paper, overlapping the first color.
Continue to add layers of color until you get the look you want.
Remember not to over wet the paper. Also, when you are starting out, don't be afraid to add some color and be prepared to practice. Too much color can turn to mud and not enough color can look dry and scratchy. Play with it and in no time you'll be creating your own watercolor art paper!

Tip: start out with 2-3 colors at most. This will help create a color blend that isn't too overwhelming. For my example I used pink, yellow and orange.

Printable watercolor art paper designs

If you prefer to not make your own watercolor art paper. You can download the printable art I've created. Below I have a printable watercolor art paper designs you can use for your own personal projects. Add I create more, I will add them to this page, so bookmark this tutorial to check for new paper designs.

I have even more watercolor papers for you! I originally shared this article 2 years ago and found I'm always making more watercolor paper… so I'm including new printables today for you to try.