Hi Steemians, today I would like to show you how to create simple Agate painting. It is a nice watercolor experiment for those who don´t know much about painting with this type of paint and they would like to see the benefits and behavior of it. You can also get to know different types of paper with this simple painting.

You will need:

• watercolors
• salt
• bigger round brush
• water
• watercolor paper (vraious sizes and types)

There are more types of watercolor. I use those in tubes with strong pigmentation.

About the paper

 
There are also more types of paper. It is better to use paper with no acid. It will not become yellow after some time. Handmade paper has harder structure and it can be unpredictable sometimes. Hot pressed paper has hard and soft surface. Cold pressed paper is softer and suitable for all kinds of use. If you're a beginner or just want to practice, students´ quallity paper is good enough for you.

I will use 3 types of paper now to show you the difference.

 

🔵 First type is designed for drawing, but I really enjoy painting on it. It is acid free, 100% recycled, cold pressed with bright white color.

 

🔵 This second type is designed for watercolor as you can see. It is made of cotton, acid free and archival, which means it is in a great quality. You can buy it in two shades - Traditional white and Extra white. I have that traditional white, which is a little yellow. Blocks of this paper are glued. It prevents the paper from warping when wet.

 

🔵 This type has a visible structure. I bought it in sheets and there was no description, so it is more like a surprise.

The process

 
🔵 STEP 1

Prepare everything you need for painting. You can put salt into some small plate, so it will be easy for you to pick. You can draw an outline of your agate, but it is simple to improvise. If you check google pictures you will see there are many different colors and shapes of this beautiful stone.

🔵 STEP 2

We can paint the dark edges and the centre. Use really wet brush, so the color can spill after we add another. You can chose just 3 colors for the beginning. Blue, green and black make nice combination.

🔵 STEP 3

Now we can paint rounds between. I usedtwo shades of green.

🔵 STEP 4

Blue color should fill the rest. It will connect with the wet colors and spill in some places. While painting try to touch the black places just with the top of your brush and paint like you want to copy the line. Use light blue first.

🔵 STEP 5

Now add salt. It is like soldiing food. It should be evenly throughout the painting.

🔵 STEP 5

You can add more color if you want it to be brighter, but not everywhere.

🔵 STEP 6

Let it dry and then remove the salt.

If you have more types of paper you can try them all and then compare the differences. Here are my papers.

The first agate is made on that recycled paper. The result is quite similar to the painting in the middle on that canvas paper. Salt made beautiful visible effect here. On the right there is agate on structured paper. Salt effect is noto very visible here, just in that purple part a little bit.
 

I wanted to try that structured paper one more time from both sides, because on the other it is smooth. We can see the difference here. On the left there is the structure and the salt effect has rounder edges than the previous two papers. It also depends on the amount of water. On the soft side salt made bigger rounds and pushed the color on the edges more.

That structured one is better in my opinion.

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You can add your painting into the frames and they can decorate your wall...

...or you can add them into your sketch book.

 

I hope this tutorial was useful for you. If you are interested and want more, check out my previous posts with tutorials.

 

Thanks for watching!

 
 

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