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Tuesday April 13, 2021

Learning To Watercolor


Last week I talked about how fun alcohol inks can be. This week, I want to show you how simple watercolor is, too. Like alcohol inks, so many are afraid of delving into watercolor. Yes, watercolor is a medium which you kind of have to let go and let the paint do it's thing. I am no expert. I have only watercolored a handful of times. This definitely
is not an advanced tutorial...just me being vulnerable showing you that watercolors are fun, even for a beginner!





What you need to start to recreate this card is a simple stamp, a piece of watercolor paper, watercolor or any dye based ink, water, paint brushes, paper towels, a piece of cardstock, and a card base.




I started with this stamp by Penny Black. I picked this stamp because it's adorable and something easy to watercolor. Using the right ink is very important. You want one that is waterproof otherwise, it will bleed. I used Versafine Tuxedo Black which is great for this media.




I started with the basics, the sky and the ground. I have always started this way. For sake of this post, I searched the internet and found out that starting with the background is probably the way to go. I just figured if I spent a lot of time on the object, I didn't want to risk messing up the background.
I simply got my brush wet, brought blue down to the white part of my media mat and watered is down a bit. Using a number 3 brush, I did a light wash of the top of the background. Once that air dried, I did the same with the green for the ground.
The first part of the foreground I waterecolored was peach for her face. I started there since it has the largest surface area.




I then did the difficult part for me, picking colors that work together. I try to pick colors that are close to each other on the color wheel or complementary colors. Complementary colors are ones opposite from each other on the color wheel. They can create an impactful color scheme. Once I chose the colors for her clothes and surrounding items, I simply dropped in the color with a brush.





This is the finished panel. I love how it turned out. I'm learning how to shadow objects. To do that, just start where you feel the shadows would be and make that area darker. You do that by dropping in the color there, then "pull it" away from there with the brush.






This is the finished card. I cut the watercolor panel down to 3.75" x 5" . I then mounted that onto a Lawn Fawn Number Two Pencil colored cardstock. I chose that color since it matched the tulips in the scene. I popped that up on the cardbase with 3M foam tape.

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