Paint your own personalized labels right on the wine bottle – a great gift idea to mark a wedding, anniversary, birthday or any special occasion!

You’ll need:

Bottle of your favorite wine
DANIEL SMITH Watercolor Ground
DANIEL SMITH Masking Fluid
Rubber Cement Pick Up
Brushes
Towels for cradling the wine bottle while you paint
Masking Tape
Sandpaper
DANIEL SMITH Watercolors:  Quinacridone Gold, Sap Green, Indanthrone Blue and Quinacridone Violet.

Prep the bottle with watercolor ground
1.  You can cover one of the existing labels with the ground, or remove a label and paint a square of ground directly on the glass, marking the area with masking tape. Consider customizing the back of the bottle, leaving the branding and wine name visible on the front.
2.  If applying the ground directly to the glass, rough up the glass inside of the masking tape with sandpaper first.
3.  Lay wine bottle on its side, cradled by a towel with edges pushed up on two sides to keep the bottle from rolling while you apply the ground with smooth brush strokes. If painting directly on to the glass, allow to dry then apply a 2nd coat. 5. Remove the masking tape when completely dry.
4.  Allow the ground to cure for 24 hours before painting your design with your watercolors.

Paint your label design
1.  Lightly sketch in your design on top of the ground area.
2.  Apply masking fluid in any areas you want blocked off from the background wash. In this design shown, the grapes, leaf and stem had the masking fluid applied. Allow to dry thoroughly.
3.  Paint in your background wash color – Quinacridone Gold was used for this in the video.
4.  With the same color, paint a bold label outline.
5.  When the background wash color has dried thoroughly, remove the masking fluid with a rubber cement pick up.
6.  Mix the Indanthrone Blue & Quin Violet and paint in the grapes first with a light wash and allow to dry.  Paint in the grapes with a darker mix, then pull out some of the color to give roundness to the grapes. Paint in the leaf and stem with Sap Green, mixed with a little Quinacridone Gold.
7.  Paint a name or date on the edge of your outline.
8.  Protect your creation with a spray varnish.