Watercolor techniques

How to Do Plastic Wrap Painting with Watercolors

May 20, 2023

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Geometric watercolor art is beautiful and easy to make with plastic wrap painting. Try this tutorial with fun doodle variations.

Updated June 2023

This geometric watercolor art is an activity we first tried years ago. We were so impressed that we did it several more times, but then kind of forgot about it.

But recently, we were reminded of it, and so we tried it again.

And we experimented with different paints and other variations.

And then we extended the activity in a new way by doodling on and tracing the angled lines with pens, including metallic Sharpies and chalk markers.

geometric watercolor art pin — Photo by Jean Van’t Hul

Plastic Wrap Painting

MATERIALS

Watercolor paper (or poster board or card stock)
Watercolor paint*
Saran Wrap (Cling wrap, plastic wrap…)
Metallic S harpies, pens, or chalk markers

*We’ve tried this geometric watercolor art with three different kinds of watercolor paint so far, including liquid watercolor paint (our favorite), a watercolor paint palette (just use lots of water to make the paint extra liquid), and water mixed with watercolor paint from a tube. You can also do this with watered down food coloring.

Time needed: 1 hour

INSTRUCTIONS

Paint with watercolors
You’ll want to add lots of watercolor paint to your paper. The more wet watercolor paint there is, the better.

We did this with the paint palette for some of them, just making sure to add extra water, and with liquid watercolors for some of them. It works both ways.

A note about the salt in the photo: We experimented with adding salt, too, before applying the Saran Wrap, but didn’t notice much of an effect.
Add Saran Wrap
Scrunch up some Saran Wrap and apply it to the wet watercolor painting right away.

Or, as our kids like to do, apply a flat piece of Saran Wrap then scrunch it up directly on the paper.
Let dry then remove Saran Wrap
Set the Saran-Wrapped paintings aside to dry completely. Then lift the Saran Wrap to reveal your new geometric watercolor art!

Beautiful and super cool!

Some work better than others, so make a bunch.
Draw geometric designs
After making dozens of geometric watercolor art, we decided to get out the pens and markers. We traced some of the geometry of the watercolor designs and also doodled free form on top of our artworks.