It doesn’t matter whether you are good or bad at drawing and painting; a hand-drawn profile picture will capture the viewer’s attention. If you’ve been looking for new profile picture ideas for Instagram, and are wondering how to draw a profile picture using watercolors I have a couple of tips for you.
I’m a watercolor hobbyist, by no means I claim to have the best knowledge or all the answers. But I like to have fun and explore with my art supplies and I want to encourage you to do the same. If you do, why not share your experiments with me? So without further ado, here are my thoughts on how to draw a profile picture.
Decide The Style & Medium For Drawing Your Profile Picture
Do you want the image to be cartoony or realistic? Do you want it to have a bubbly and bright tone and feel or a more serious one?
I know this is not a business, but you do have a personal image of yourself you prefer people would see. In a way, this is your personal brand logo. Cartoonish images can be simpler and easier; realistic drawings are more personal and telling.
If you are new to drawing and painting, don’t give this step too much thought. Worrying about style will only discourage you from taking action.
The medium (the type of art supplies you use) also affects the feeling of your final profile picture drawing. If you have art supplies available at home just use them and experiment.
If you don’t have any art supplies, you can get affordable ones online or offline. Don’t go overboard at first. You can try any of these more affordable watercolor sets to see if you even enjoy painting with watercolors:
Winsor & Newton Cotman 14 Colors
Sakura Koi Set of 24 Colors
If you like ink drawings these are the supplies I enjoy working with:
* Check out my Inktober art supplies suggestions.
Draw Multiple Copies
Ideally, you would have to make test drawings of your project before finalizing it. You can grab a sketchbook, create thumbnail drawings of your work, or copies of the full-size sketch, to test out different color combinations or techniques and see which one you like most.
I, as a hobbyist who barely has time to draw, find creating multiple versions of the same sketch time-consuming and daunting. So I use a hack to make the process easier for me. Try to sketch out your drawing on a thin piece of paper. When you have the design you like most, transfer it to the thicker paper using a transfer paper (graphite paper). I could not find graphite paper where I live, so I use the good old fashioned carbon paper which works fine for simple projects (carbon paper, however, can leave a greasy trace that might repel watercolor and is difficult to erase so don’t use it for projects you really care about).
I wanted to create more than one version of the image to use on different accounts and used the carbon paper to make two copies.
Paint Your Profile Picture
Nothing brings a hand-drawn profile picture to life better than colors. If you went through the previous step and tested different combinations, you’ll be able to get results very close to what you had planned.
If you skipped that step, just relax and experiment. This should be fun after all. If your design is a simple one like the one I have, just experiment with it until you get your favorite result.
* If you’re new to watercolors, to keep your colors bright as possible, keep two jars of water handy. Use one to wash the paint off of your brush and the other one for mixing colors.
I’ve made a time-lapse video of hand-drawing my own profile picture. What do you think? Is it a good profile picture idea for Instagram?