General Techniques: Watercolor background Textures

[awmp]

I can hardly move at the moment, my neck hurts like hell, it's sore and stiff. but it's a good enough reason to not clean up the apartment and watch Xena instead. (not embarrassed to admit it, heee, also I'm ever the optimist *g*)

ever wondered how to get the awesome watercolor background textures? me, too. so I spend some quality time with Erich and I'm pleased to announce that it is a lot easier than I thought it would be...




step 01: getting started

- make a new canvas. I started with a 1000x800 one, and there's absolutely no reason for that size :)

step 02: YAY! COLOR!

- you need to fill the canvas with color.
- choose your Gradient Tool (G)
- make a new gradient by editing the current one
- first I set 14 Color Stops in random distances
- than I've chosen the colors
- I only used pastelly ones, repeated them a lot, and slowly changed from reddish over blueish to greenish
- of course you can choose whatever looks good to you, just make sure it has an overall pastelly feel
- (it looks also good to only use colors of the same tone)
- give it a name and click New



- fill your background with this gradient



step 03: texture is always good...

- I added some texture with Filter - Texture - Grain with the following settings:
Intensity: 21
Contrast: 51
Grain Type: Vertical



- immediately after I faded the filter effect (shift+ctrl+F) to Color Burn mode.
- I duplicated the Layer and set it to Softlight
- lastly I blurred the background Layer with a Gaussian Blur of around 50.



Step 04: I love PS' Default Brushes

- in case you haven't already, load Photoshops Default Wet Media Brushes
- chose the Brush with Thick Flow Medium Tip (size 28)
- go to your Brushes Palette and change some of the settings...
under Brush Tip Size:
change the Diameter to 200 px
and the Spacing to 1%



- Turn everything else off, but Wet Edges on



- change the opacity of the Brush to around 30 %



- you might wanna save the tip at this point :)

Step 05: look Ma, I can paint

- on several new layers: paint with your shiny new Brush some strokes
- they should interfere with each other at some points
- I used brown and orange and green tones for this and lowered the opacity of the layers to my suitings











Step 06: Framing makes everything look good

- again on a new layer and again with your shiny new brush (but with 100% opacity) paint a frame with a light beige tone.



- on a new layer with the opacity of the brush tip lowered back to 30%, I painted several little strokes, to make the frame look more washed out.
- I only painted towards the edges of the canvas, of course
- and made sure the strokes superposed each other



Step 07: less is more

- time to get more subtle (yes, i can be subtle...)
- make a new Color layer, set it on blending mode Overlay lower the opacity to around 60%
- I used a desaturated light green tone for this (#C4CABD, RGB 196/202/189)
- then I added one more Color layer with a light Olive tone (#C2BB99, RGB 194/187/153), set it on blending mode Multiply, lowered the opacity to 20%



tadaaa, that's the basic technique. *g*

now you can add stuff to add more texture for example. (only used brushes that I created with the techniques explained in the Grunge Guide for this, btw)



and with a low opacity color burn layer on top (painted with the Oil Medium Brush Wet Edges)



Poll how helpful

as always have fun! :)