This weekend I was making a card for a soon-to-be mom and thought I would try out the black ink and water colour technique I have been using.  I know I am not the greatest at drawing but I googled a bear and managed to sketch it out the way I wanted.  Once I did some details around it with black ink (leaves and lettering…lettering is something I love!), I added in the water colour.

Learning the techniques for water colour like wet brush and dry brush, along with what brushes work best allowed me to get exactly what I desired onto this card.  I am super happy with the results and the mama to be loved it too!

Future water colour cards to come!

This week I decided to try the carrot out again.  I did a bundle of carrots to be painted in the same style as the carrot I did a few posts ago.

I like the way the greenery turned out on top, with the mix of colours I choose.  I am not happy with the shape of my carrots though.  My first attempt was much better.  I hope to try out the techniques I used to do carrots with other vegetables.  I might stay away from sketching other things (like more animals) at the moment, as drawing is something I am working on.

This week I worked on landscape.  The main focus of this lesson was to learn the techniques used to make up the background and foreground.  My piece is very simple, but it took some time as I had to wait for each layer to dry before continuing.

I used the video ‘How to paint a simple landscape with water colour’ on youtube.  The woman leading the video gives great instruction. Check it out below:

This week I drew a fox with black ink three separate ways, and added watercolour using different techniques.

I was inspired by last weeks carrot with black ink painting, but used some different painting techniques.  I used google images to look up fox drawing ideas.

For the first fox (top), I used a wet technique to purposely have the foxes paws drip colour past the black ink.

For the second fox (bottom left), I used more of a dry brush technique to add solid colour around the fox body.

For the third fox (bottom right), I used equal parts water and paint.

 

Last week I decided to add some black ink to my water colour.

To create this piece, I drew a carrot with a fine liner pen.  I then used equal parts water and paint to add colour to the carrot.  Afterwards, I used the splatter technique to spray the colours used for the carrot into the background.

This was a super fun piece and I’m going to be experimenting with more watercolour and ink.

This week I thought I would have a little fun and just freestyle with water colour.  I am thinking about making Christmas cards with water colour so I am going over some design ideas.

I played around with the idea of a tree branch and pine cones and this is what I ended up with:

To begin this project, I found a youtube video titled “How to paint clouds with just two colours’.  See youtube link at the bottom of this post.

The first thing I had to do was coat my entire paper in water.  For this I used a large brush and dipped it fully into clean water.  I didn’t blot it on paper towel as I usually do when I have excess water on my brush, instead I covered my water colour paper in an even coat of water, making sure there is no pooling.

Once my paper was covered in an even layer of water, I began to add grey and blue in small and amounts.  I’ve learned it’s best to start small, and add more as you go.  As my paper began filling with colour, I then dipped a small brush in water and used that water to blend my clouds more that are already on the page.  The difficult thing I noticed with clouds, is that you don’t want any edges to be solid.  By blending colours with water on my page, I was able to keep my clouds looking soft.

Once my clouds were complete and my paper was dry, I then added small black trees.  I made the mistake of starting a tree before my paper was fully dry and the black colour started to blur a little.  To paint the trees, I used my angle brush and a wet brush technique, with more paint and less water to give a solid look. I am quite pleased with the way it turned out.

Youtube tutorial I followed below:

This week I chose to paint a forest scene.

I watched the video ‘Simple Watercolor Forest Demonstration’ on youtube.  It featured multiple layers of painting and many painting techniques.

The first step was to wet my paper fully with a wide brush.  I dipped the brush in clean water and stroked it across my paper until it ran dry, once this happened I would dip it in the water and continue the process until the paper had a even layer of water on it.  Then I began with painting the background.  This included paint strokes, dabs of paint, and splattering.  See image below.

Once the background was dry to the touch, I could get started on the first layer of trees.  This included thin and thick trees, but light colours had to be painted first, giving the idea of a background.

Onces the trees in the background were painted, I worked on painting trees darker to be to be inthe foreground.  Once everything became dry, I started adding leaves to the branches.  I also added some more thin branches coming off the trees so there could be more leaves added.  See finished product below.

Youtube video used for demonstration:

This weeks goal was to learn to paint flowers.

I watched a youtube tutorial on flower painting, and then followed along a second time to try and recreate the piece.

This flower scene also included leaves, which I learned the technique for a couple of weeks ago.  It also included roses, small pinkish flowers, and what looks to almost be like blue bells.

I used multiple techniques for this piece, including dry brush and wet brush techniques.  I had to keep the paper towel close by because a lot of water was used to blend the colours on the paper, and I had to do some dabbing.

I found this piece to be the most difficult so far.  From the level of techniques used, to the amount of colour blending I had to do to create different shades of green for the leaves.

Notes to remember from tutorial, paint larger flowers first, add some leaves, add small flowers, and fill the rest in with leaves to create a full looking piece.

Overall, I am happy with the way it turned out.  Looking froward to painting more flowers!

Below is the youtube tutorial that I watched and used to recreate this piece:

This week I focused on painting pine trees.  I used some of the techniques that I’ve learned the last couple of weeks, including wet brush, and gradient two colour wash.

Of the three pine trees I painted, I am most pleased with my first tree.  It includes three separate colours of green, which I blended using the gradient technique and included more water than the other two trees I did.  The strokes were more delicate and light than the other trees as well.

The second tree I painted is something I need to work on.  The example I was going off of looks much different, so I will need to practice this one.  I like that the bark is visible all the way up to the top, so when I master how to paint this tree, I may use this one more.

The final tree I painted is a blend of two colours, and I may have had too much water on my brush for this one.  The colours ended up blending together more than I wanted, and it kind of all looks like one solid clump of colour.  This one also needs some practice.

I used the youtube video ‘3 ways to paint a pine tree with water colour’ for my tutorial.  See below.