Make your own watercolor photos

February 07, 2014

I think the art is one of the hardest decorative items to pick out, right? It’s always SO expensive too. 

As I get older I look for less produced-in-mass-quantity pieces and more one of a kind pieces. But overall my favorite art is photography – I have photos on our walls EVERYWHERE. Mostly because they’re free – I print them right off the computer at home and they look great. (Sometimes I send them off to Walgreens or another local place too.)

Anyway, I saw some blog friends using a new app on Instagram a couple weeks ago and decided to check it out. I’m now obsessed. It’s called Waterlogue, have you seen it? It’s $2.99 and it turns your photos into beautiful watercolor paintings.

I went through my phone to pick out a few to show you – keep in mind the before pics are all unedited and sometimes dark, and yet the Waterlogue drawings still come out beautifully. First up, a few from our latest Disney trip:

Disney castleWaterlogue app

Isn’t that awesome? The Epcot “ball” looks especially beautiful:

Epcot Waterlogue app

I got an awesome shot of my son blowing bubbles into my camera and turned that one into a watercolor:

Waterlogue app

I took pictures of our backyard in a recent snow and even a photo without much color turns out beautifully:

Waterlogue app

We had a gorgeous sunset the other day – I took this in our neighborhood with my phone:

sunset Waterlogue app

How cool is that?? There are all kinds of filters too and you can change the size of the file, change it from light to dark, all kinds of things.

I had to deal with all this snow somehow, so I picked up some of my favorite flowers the other day:

tulips in white pitcher

It’s not a great shot because it’s so dark, but check out how it turns out:

Waterlogue app

Are you loving it?

I was curious to see how they printed out and they look wonderful:

Waterlogue app prints

I just used white cardstock for these but I’m going to pick up some more white textured cardstock to print out more. It’s kind of cool because you can enlarge the photo and the quality isn’t really affected because it’s all blurry anyway, you know? Now I just have to decide where to put them!

Have you tried this app? I find faces don’t turn out quite as well but I did some of our animals and they were super cute:Waterlogue app

SO cool. Let me know if you try it! I believe it’s also available for android phones too. Any other fun apps you love?

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Comments

  1. I love it, its one of my favorite apps in a long time! I'm working on a project right now too using a textured card stock! I've always been envious and jealous of people who were able to paint and illustrate interior shots like these in my interior design class!

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  2. Thank you for sharing the app! I've never seen anything from it before and I loved it so much I actually bought it... which I rarely do. :D So many possibilities!

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  3. That looks awesome!
    I just hope they debut an android version for it soon... my hubby is a techie and a die-hard android fan. So all our gadgets run on it.
    I bet a wall of kid themed prints would be cool for a nursery or kid's bedroom.
    Xo,
    Anjana.

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  4. I downloaded this app and I love it. I only wish I had downloaded it on the ipad instead of the iphone. Just wondering...did you use the natural setting or one of the other options? Oooooh...the possibilities are limitless!

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    Replies
    1. You should be able to get it onto your iPad too. I got it on both.

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    2. It will load free on your iPad or any other device you have connected to the same iTunes account.

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  5. It's not available for the android phones. I wish it was!

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  6. I too am obsessed! I love your pictures. I also find faces do not work well. Did one of my husband and I and he said his face looked as if he had had bad plastic surgery Ha! I printed a couple shots out on regular paper at home and they were ok. Want to get some card stock or watercolor paper as I feel they would look better. Also printed some off at Walgreens yesterday but they were so glossy it just wasn't quite right. Do you know if you can choose a matte finish thru Printicular? It was another new app for me.

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  7. My favorite is the pic of the tulips. Very cool! My latest find (from Centsational Girl) were these books by the couple from The Handmade Home: http://www.amazon.com/The-Custom-Art-Collection-Traditional/dp/1440570884/ref=pd_sim_b_2
    I went with the Traditional and it was perfect for me. Definately worth the money and I am using about 7-10 of the pics throughout our home. A few don't fit the 8x10 frame perfect and you end up with a white border, some may be an odd size (like the 5x5 cow face which I love!) but still worth it! I think I may have to get my daughter to download this for me (yeah!) and try it out!

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  8. I saw this on another blog this week and I think I'm going to have to give it a shot. I'm not a photographer at all, but I'm going to start practicing because I have a new grandbaby coming in July 2014 (my only grandchild will be 21 years old this month) so I need a lot of practice work. I'm also renovating my house and adding on so I'm going to need some new things for the walls. Thanks for sharing.
    Bertie DeWane

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  9. I want this app so badly! I tried downloading it the other day and it's only available for ios7... and my stupid iPhone doesn't have enough memory on it for the upgrade. So bummed. Your photos turned out great!!

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    Replies
    1. Try Glaze. It does the same thing and it is free :-)

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  10. Love this app! I just posted about it myself yesterday. Almost all of the exterior/design shots look awesome. For photos of people, I've found the pics look best at a distance, and with mouths closed. :)

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  11. Boo! Not available on androids and they aren't expecting to make it available. This is awesome though!

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  12. This is one of the coolest apps I have seen in a while. I can't wait to try it out. Thanks for sharing!

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  13. I need this!!! I'm working on baby boys nursery and this would be perfect! Question...what size did you print out, and how big do you think you could go with maintaining decent quality (I have a Mark II, so I'm thinking I could import and use pics I took with my good camera).

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    Replies
    1. I'm not sure about the size -- mine were on 8x10 paper and I went pretty big. I could have gone bigger I'm sure. The blurriness of the photos helps. :)

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  14. I've been seeing those pop up in my IG feed but I'm so bummed they don't have our available for Android. Rawr! So lovely.

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  15. I love the Glaze app. It does the same thing but it's free! http://www.the11ers.com/glaze/

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  16. I love how beautiful the photos turn out. I have an old old flip cell phone (my husband's fault) and I am so sad I don't have a way to use this app! Thank you for sharing these great pics.

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  17. What printer did you use for printing on cardstock? thanks

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    Replies
    1. We have an HP printer, it's about five years old I believe?

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    2. Do you mind sharing the model number? I can't seem to figure out what to choose. Too many options. Thanks

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  18. so pretty! i have an android and i couldn't find the app - i'm sure they're working on it .. probably, huh? I want it!!!

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    1. Not available for Android...bummer...

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  19. Really cool app! Even I want to try this. I liked three paintings from your pics, your son's, flowers and the cat. The cat painting looks real.

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  20. Ha! Right before I read your post, I read about this on someone else's blogs. Clearly I'm missing out on this and need to get it asap!

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  21. This is awesome. I love the castle and cat pictures.

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  22. There is also Mobile Monet for 99 cents. It may work on Android.

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  23. Hi,
    Really nice paintings. Which printer you used for printouts?

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  24. I am so bummed they don't have the app for the Android market. The developers website said that they have no plans to make it for the Android. I can't believe that!
    They say on the website: "Porting the interface and graphics code in Waterlogue to Android would be a substantial task. We would prefer to spend our time and energy making great iOS and Mac OS X apps." Boo!!!!
    Hopefully someone will make a similar app for the Android.

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  25. All of my doors are white and that took forever!!!! I was so happy when it was all done....though now I am thinking (after looking at your pics) that I may like them better in black. I won't tell my hubby though...he might just collapse in a puddle of tears...he's the one who does most of the painting!
    Blessings, Joanne

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If you have a specific question I will do my best to answer you back here!

You can find our paint colors and links to items at the "Our Home" tab at the top of my site.

THANKS so much for reading!