Spray Paint Illustrations

We are working on a fun new assignment this week in my illustration class. It's a very fun and simple project that you can do yourself at home, so I thought I would tell you about it and show you the ones I made.

The supplies you will need are:
A bucket filled with water (the wider the better)
A few colors of regular spray paint
Watercolor Paper (I cut mine in half so the fit in the bucket better)
Paper Towels
Illustrating materials of your choice such as pencils, pens, markers, paint, etc.


What you do:
Step 1: Fill your bucket/container with water and go outside with it along with your watercolor paper, spray paint, and paper towels.

Step 2: Pick a few colors of spray paint to use for your first sheet (less is usually best for this project). Take your first color and spray it onto the water (not on the paper) in short bursts. The paint will stay on top of the water, which is good.

Step 4: Move on to your next color and spray it on the water. You will start to see neat designs appearing in your paint, so you can experiment with different ways of spraying to achieve the effect you want. Continue until you have sprayed all of the desired colors for your first page.

Step 5: Take your watercolor paper. Hold it flat -parallel to the water, and face down so you get the good texture on the side with the paint. Quickly Roll/dip the paper into the water, and remove.

Da da! It's that easy! Now let the dipped paper dry while you make more. Just make sure it doesn't blow away in the wind! :)

Step 6: Before spraying your next colors you will want to take a couple paper towels and quickly wipe the top of the water with it to get rid any paint that got left behind.

Step 7: Continue this same technique until you are happy with the amount of dipped/painted papers you have completed. Let these papers dry (I used a blow dryer to speed up the process.)

Step 8: Once your papers are dry you are ready to use them however you like. You can scan them into the computer and illustrate on top of them digitally, paint on top of them, draw on top with ink, etc. The possibilities are endless.

Hope you have fun trying out this fun project!

Here are a couple other tips on making these:
- Feel free to experiment with different ways of dipping the paper. The main thing is to dip fairly quickly, because you don't want to get your paper so wet that it falls apart.

- I would recommend scanning your painted papers into the computer before illustrating on them. This way you can print out copies of it to practice on so you don't ruin the original.