Curious about the techniques used here? You can learn more next month if you’ve signed up for email updates!

ANSWER TO MYSTERY TECHNIQUE #131:

I started by wetting the paper and adding pale blue for the sky. While it was still wet, I wadded up a paper towel and lifted some irregular patches out of the blue before adding yellow. After this layer dried, I drew the split tree trunk, then painted several layers of foliage.

Next I added the trunk. To create the bark texture, I scratched the paper with the end of a metal paint tube to make dark lines in the wet paint and then quickly added kosher salt, which absorbed some of the color. After this layer dried, I brushed off the salt.