Flowers at Sunset

I'm continuing to try out different shapes/sizes and colour combinations, so today I'm using a background of sunset colours instead of greenery. Also trying out a tall thin format, which might work well on a card.

II used the same simple techniques as before, but with different colours. Wishy washy background to start with, and once that was completely dry, some simple flower shapes painted over the top.

I added some stems using a water-soluble pencil, with little knots under the flower heads and some extra ones to add some buds.

I then used painted water onto the stems to activate the water-soluble pencil, and painted in the buds and the one flower centre. A quick crop to trim off the mess, and voila!

I used a similar background for some more Alliums (which are really fun to paint)...

 

 

It looked like this at the halfway stage:

 

More Flowers, Layer by Layer

I'm still enjoying painting flowers with watercolours, and am trying out different shapes and colours. Printed onto velvet paper, this one should work nicely on a card or notelets.

 

 I remembered to scan this one at every stage from beginning to end.  The very first thing I did was do some practice sketches to get a feel for the shapes of the flowers:

To start painting, I sloshed on a very wishy washy background using watercolour paint.
I left that to dry and then sketched in the flowers and stems using water soluble pencils:

I then painted in some translucent background leaves/stems using watercolour paint, and painted the flowers (except the centres) using watercolour paint over the soluble pencil (the pencil and paint merge together):

I finished off by painting in the yellow centres of the flowers, then masking them off and adding paint spatter.  I also cropped the picture to a nice card-friendly square shape:

It's my friend's birthday this week so I might make a set of little notelets as a gift for her.

Easy Watercolour Wild Flowers

I saw some pretty framed watercolour prints in a shop (I think the artist's name was Catharine Stephenson - really lovely work). Anyway, I couldn't afford them so I wondered if I could make something similar myself...

 

 

They were quite easy to do...here are some of the pictures at different stages:

Layer 1: Wet the whole sheet of watercolour paper and paint a very wet background wash of two or three light colours (I used yellow, bright green, pale blue). Leave to dry completely:

Layer 2: Sketch in the big flowers very lightly, to make a nice composition. (This is a different background - I used cotton buds on this one while it was drying to make little white dots):

Layer 3: Paint in some translucent grass/leaves/flower shapes to add a layered effect. It doesn't matter if they are a bit of a mess - they will disappear into the background. You can actually do this before or after sketching in the big flowers.

 

 

Layer 4: Now paint in some mid-strength small flowers and then your main flowers, being really bold with colour, size and shape. They need to look striking so the background will fade back.

 

Finish off by masking out the flower heads and adding paint spatter in all the colours used. Tiny dots of white Posca pen also work well.

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Watercolour and Aquamarker Alliums

 

Alliums are my favourite flowers this summer and they are a nice easy shape, so I decided to paint them.

I started by laying a wet wash of pale yellow and green over the whole paper. Once that was dry, I blocked in the flower heads using a Tombow brush pen.  Next, I painted some translucent grass and leaf shapes, and added some yellow paint spatter (masking out the flower heads).

 

 

I then used an Aquamarker (Grape - perfect colour) to draw the tiny flower heads of the Allium head, and dabbed all over with a wet paintbrush to spread the ink and soften/blur some of the detail. I painted in the stems using watercolours, using a bluish purple colour to add a shadow side to the stems. I used the same colour to add a little extra texture to the flower head too. A few tiny dots of white Posca pen added the final sense of movement.

 

 

 

Print 'n' Doodle Notelets



My art/craft stuff has been in storage for a few months, but I've been missing it all so much I decided to get one box of stuff out and have a play with whatever was in it:  

 

There wasn't much good stuff in the box I chose, but there were some scrappy bits of paper which I'd used to try out printing shapes onto, so I just grabbed a pigment pen and doodled on top...

I also wanted to test out my new inkjet printer paper (specially for artwork) which I bought cheap in my local art shop, so I scanned the image and printed a couple of copies to see how it looked. It really does print beautifully, so I made notelets with the prints.

It's not much, but I'm pleased that at least I've made something!

Music is My Drug - Using the Stencil I made

I've been wanting to make a journal page about the big effect music has on me (especially when I'm doing something creative). I had that in mind when I chose the design for my DIY stencil the other day.

I usually only use small pieces of patterned paper (cut up and collaged), but I thought this ethereal pink one would work perfectly as a background with the stencil. I put a simple page together quite quickly, using the stencil (with acrylic paint), a scroll design rubber stamp, and some ink spatter to finish.

Blue Sky Thinking...journal page

We went for a walk on the beach today. It was cold, but the sun was shining and the sky was so incredibly blue that I couldn't help feeling wonderfully cheerful and positive.  I wanted to make a journal page which captured the blueness of that sky, and the uplifting feeling it gave me. 

I found the perfect colour and painted a background onto Yupo.  Yupo isn't absorbent, so you can use a damp paintbrush to 'lift out' areas of paint, like this:

Then I drew in some cheerful floral-type doodles which I'd sketched a while ago.  I didn't add any other colours to distract from the blue.

I could have just added the journalling in black but decided to make the blue 'pop' even more by matting onto a black background and journalling in white.  Quick and easy, but I was pleased because it really does capture my feeling about that blue sky.

Step-by-Step Watersoluble Crayons

And for a break from the difficulties of Yupo, back to normal watercolour paper for some nice cheerful loose watercolour flowers!  Here's a step-by-step...

Step 1  I drew some bold flowers on bigger-than-A4 paper, using just a couple of colours - quite scribbly....

 Step 2  I added plenty of water using a large round watercolour brush. Also added some spatter with a smaller brush....

Step 3  I tidied up the edges and added definition with watersoluble pencils into the wet paper.

Step 4 - I could have left it like that but it looked a bit lacking so I decided to write on it to make it a journal page.

Step-by-Step Journal Page (for J)

Had a request for a step-by-step tutorial, so here we go... (Here's the finished page...obviously!)

Ingredients: Paints (I used liquid acrylics this time), lacepaper for stencil, handmade and patterned papers, alpha stamp set, watersoluble crayons, pablo pencils, fancy trim. (Oh, and grubby kitchen towel - that's crucial! Sorry - I should have tidied up before taking photos!)

I started with a patchy turquoise wash, then used a darker colour to stencil and outline the page.


The stencilled pattern didn't really match the image though, so I used gesso to tone it down to almost nothing, then added the collage elements, including stamped journalling. I stamped onto mulberry paper, which goes semi-transparent if you use wet glue to adhere it, so it blends into the background colours.



I brought it all together using watersoluble crayons and pablo pencils to scribble around and over everything, to create that scrappy/arty look. The final touch was a bit of turquoise trim, to add dimension and texture (and just because I really like it!)

You need to scroll back up now to see the finished page (seemed a bit pointless to post the picture twice).

Step-by-Step Journal Page Technique

I meant to blog this when I did it I'm slow to get round to things! I started with a photo, altered to increase the brightness and contrast, and printed onto heavyweight sketchpaper. Then I framed it with a layered border of handmade and patterned papers. Next I painted in the scene using watercolours, and finished off by outlining all the detail with a fine black pen. Voila!