Watercolor Craft Night

Throw a fun watercolor craft night for adults! Perfect for a church relief society activity, a craft date night, or girls night out! Free printables included! 

I got a new calling in my church – Relief Society President. Feeling a little overwhelmed with it. We were due for a fun Relief Society enrichment activity, and since this was my first one, we jumped in and went right with something in my wheel house- Paint night! I do have an amazing committee and one of the girls sent me a pinterest link that was really our jumping off point! (The original idea is here: PAINT NIGHT ACTIVITY– As well as the go and do Christ picture to paint!)

I think this activity turned out way fun! I know not everyone is artsy, so we really made it nice and easy so it was on everyone’s skill level! 

Supplies you need for watercolor craft

• stryofoam plates (to put paint on)
• paint brush for everyone
• watercolors (I found the tubes is the easiest way. We had two sets and only used about 1/4 of each tube!) 
• Paper towel for each person
• Cup of water for each person
• Watercolor paper (blank and printed copies)

Print on watercolor paper

We didn’t want this activity to be inclusive to only artsy people. So we printed some outlines for each person to paint. So essentially- a fancy coloring book page.  We did buy a big pad of watercolor and cut it up in  5×7 pieces and left these blank so people could practice before they started on their prints. 

Printing on watercolor paper is tricky. It’s pretty thick and had hard time getting fed through the printer. So grab the thinner version of watercolor paper. They come in pads of 9×12. So I had to trim it down to fit in my printer. You also don’t want super thick lines of ink. I printed out this floral image but when you added watercolor, it really got muddy with the ink of print. Small lines is definitely recommended! 

If you want my favorite printer recommendation, I’ve got a whole blog post devoted to it! 

Watercolor printables

I have 3 printables, the Pocatello temple, the strawberry patch, and the floral.

You can get these watercolor printables here (you can also just use them to color in too). I also included a printable we used for the invite. You will need to add in your details! 

The go and do Christ picture is here! 

Watercolor Craft night set up

We laid out the three pictures and they chose what one they wanted to paint. We had enough if they wanted to paint more than one. A few did. but the majority of people only finished one. 

I also put examples of the paintings to give people a reference point of how it can look.

Next table was the plates, paint brushes, and watercolors. They picked the colors they wanted for the print they chose and put a pea size dot of the colors…A tiny bit of paint really went a long way! Then grabbed a paint brush and went to the table.  

On the table was a cup of water and a paper towel for each person. 

 

How to Watercolor

I started by giving a little instruction. But looking back I wish I would have done a quick visual instruction so people could see how the watercolor is supposed to mix with the water. Since the tubes are liquid watercolor, a lot of people were barely using water and using the paint more like an acrylic. Very dark. They actually looked great- but just not like watercolor.

The basics of Watercolor:

There are two basic methods of watercolor.

• Wet on wet: means that wet paint is applied to wet paper. This helps the watercolor spread a little easier. I used this technique on the sky of the temple picture.
• Wet on dry: means that you’re applying wet paint onto dry paper. Just picking up water and paint.  A little easier to control when you have finer details.

The general rule of watercolor is working light to dark. Nice and light initial coat and then grab more color and add in any darker detail you want.

Paper towels are going to be like an eraser if you have too much water. Just dob and remove the water. 

We had the little pieces of watercolor paper  (plus some mistakes copies I made when printing) so people could practice the watercolor technique before hand and get comfortable with it.

Then the ladies just went to town and painted away! 

We had a soda bar – if you were wondering about all the drinks. Pop, popcorn and painting! I’m all about the alliteration! 

My favorite part about any kind of craft night is that basically everyone has the same starting out point. but then EVERYONE’S pictures looks different! I love the creativity!