In this tutorial I’ll guide you through making a cool and fresh Water-Colour Wallpaper in GIMP. At the end you can add your favourite operating system logo and set your new wallpaper as your background 
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Ubuntu Water Colour Wallpaper
1. Downloading Brushes and Logo
- Firstly download the Water-Colour Brushes (free-brushes.com watercolor brushes): Download (17mb)
- Insert this into your Brushes Folder: Resources/Share/GIMP/2.0/Brushes (just search your computer)
- Now, download the Logo, Ubuntu (logo-vector-free.blogspot.com ubuntu logo vector): Download (72kb)
- We’ll use this logo at the end, so you can leave it for now.
Free Water Colour Brushes (.abr)
Free Ubuntu Vector Logo
2. Starting (Video Tutorial)
- Begin by opening up a fresh document in GIMP
- Settings: 1600 x 1200 , 200dpi:
Starting a new document
3. Painting
- Fill the Background layer with Black:
- Add a New Layer (Transparency):
- Select the Brush Tool with a Light-Yellow colour, Scale: 0.75 of Original size:
- Paint a couple of strokes as shown below:
Painting (Click to view larger)
4. Repeating Step 2 for each Colour
- Just as Step 2 explains:
- Add a New Layer (Transparent)
- Select a Brush style
- Paint 1 or 2 strokes
- Go, Colors –> Hue-Saturation and Slide to a specific colour:
Add New Layer - Brush - Hue Shift: Blue (Click to view larger)
Reddish Colour
Greenish Colour
Purple Colour
5. Importing Logo Vector
- Now, open your Vector Logo in GIMP, File –> Open as Layers (Crtl + Alt + O)
- Right Click on your Logo Layer and Add Alpha Channel
- Use the Select by Color Tool on the white:
- Now, go Select –> Grow: by 1 Pixel (get rid of any outlines), Press Delete!
- Now invert that selection, go Select –> Invert (Crtl + I)
- And fill whole selection with Black:
- Deselect All
Opening Ubuntu Logo (Click to view larger)
6. Aligning Logo
- Firstly, go Image –> Guides –> New Guide (by Percent)
- Choose 50% Horizontal and another guide 50% Vertical:
- Now you can use the Move Tool (press M) to position your logo in the middle:
Aligning Logo - Guides - Move Tool
7. Finishing Up!
- That’s It! Just set it as your new desktop wallpaper!
- I made a Windows and Apple Logo Version:
Apple Logo Water-Colour Brush Wallpaper
Windows Logo Wallpaper Water Colour Brush
If you get stuck anywhere just comment below!
If you’d like to use these photographs please Contact Me! 
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Please comment below if you have any questions and I’ll answer them ASAP!
All images on this site are copyrighted© – All Rights Reserved.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mike, Mike. Mike said: How to make a Water-Colour Ubuntu Wallpaper in GIMP http://goo.gl/fb/6pVWd [...]
Great tutorial! I need to learn more about how to use the Gimp. Your page is helping me. Thank you.
[...] If you need the complete steps with instructions, and the files to download go to the main tutorial:http://www.scottphotographics.com/how-to-make-a-water-colour-ubuntu-wallpaper-in-gimp [...]
Great tutorial! I need to learn more about how to use the Gimp. Your page is helping me. Thank you.
Very nice effect!
I haven’t tried it yet.
But perhaps, if just painting with grey.
It might get more precise results by using Color/Gradient Map to transform the grey shades into the colors set as BG and FG at the moment.
Thank you!
Yes, a lighter colour is ideal!