It’s Earth Day week…so I’ll be playing with things that grow all week long here and on social media! Be sure to follow along for some crazy ideas.
Before we start….there’s a new class and digi stamps!
It’s spring….let’s do some coloring of flowers! I just launched a brand new Realistic Flowers Class — in colored pencil this time (last month was the Copic class with different flowers). If you only need the images and not the class, check out the Flower printables to color! (Should you accidentally buy the images then decide to take the class, just email and I’ll refund the digistamps fee.)
The simplest – two color tulips, two color greens!
The colors:
Wreath #2
I used Polychromos pencils for this one….
Colors used:
Wreath #3
A little more expressive and loose! Colors are listed in the supply list below.
Inspiration collections of flowers
These pages each have dozens of ideas for florals – if you’re in need of inspiration, have at it!
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
It’s been a great week filled with watercolor flowers–I’ve seen some of you playing along, hooray! Today I’ve got a beautiful planter in some purples I was testing – and a NEW WATERCOLOR CLASS! Whee!
I’ve not been a fan of purple as a color generally…but since I was going to be working on a flower class, I decided to do a little personal deep dive – and found Mom’s Cotman (W/N student grade) Winsor Violet, aka Dioxazine Violet. Buying that led me to being persuaded to pick up some M Graham too. Because, what’s testing without a head-to-head? I haven’t decided on which or either – I don’t think they’ll land in my Big Palette since they’re SO staining. But, I do like some things about the M Graham – it’s lovely for shadows in greens!
The brushes shown here are a Silver Black Velvet Round #6, Round #8 and a Da Vinci Maestro Kolinsky Sable Round 8. My fave Winsor and Newton seems so hard for people to find; this DaVinci is pretty close, so I’m going to try to change my recommendation to that for folks who want to splurge on a fancy brush.
Postcards
These Etchr postcards were on my wishlist for a while now – I had been thinking of a 30days watercolor class, and how perfect postcards might be for a format. But…..I’ll whisper quietly here that Etchr approached me about becoming a teacher for them! Stay tuned for more details, we have some dates but aren’t ready to release that quite yet. The postcards – not shared at their request, I bought them myself, worked out fine for the class; postcards will never be made with my favorite Arches or the like, because, well, who’s gonna put that in the mail? So these are thinner than regular good watercolor paper, which reduces the texture to being very little (and this “rough” paper lover is looking askance at it!)….but I was delighted to see a number of techniques still work on it just fine. Especially if you remember it’s a postcard – not meant for being an epic watercolor painting. Great for learning!
A peek at the textures…
This is (mostly) the style that’ll be taught in the 30 Days class – small flowers, a little bit of scene/background with flowers as the focus. Some will be loose and splashy, others tighter – all to give you lots of ideas that you can take or leave in your watercolor journey.
30 Days to More Confident Watercolor Sketching
New class alert! Intermediate students, have fun with flowers – and scene elements in this new class!
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
Watercolors used:
Winsor & Newton Winsor Violet (Dioxazine Violet) Amazon •Blick
It’s been a minute since I had my Art Impressions watercolor stamps out – so let’s do it! But with a “Deep Dive” twist – how many different flowers can I make from just ONE stamp? And then replicate them in regular watercolor?
ON SALE FEB 2022! If stamped watercolor intrigues you, check out one of the Stamped Watercolor classes! They’re on sale this month….as well as Watercolor Jumpstart, if you’re looking to get started with the basics of painting without stamps! And I haven’t forgotten my Copic friends, the Wildflower classes are on sale too. Happy spring! See all sale classes here, they change each month!
This is the stamp used for all the flowers I’ll show today – yes this one little leafy guy!
Video
Watch the video below or click HERE to see it in HD on YouTube. Note that this is a long video; I divided it into chapters (listed on YT) that you can navigate by timestamp or just tap through the scroll bar at the bottom of the video while it’s playing.
Lavender
On the left, the stamped version, on the right – painted. Always remember to lighten colors before they dry to get the best “lifting.”
Astilbe
Fat-shaped lavender, eh? Very similar technique, just give them a wider belly. What other flowers could you create like these?
Carnations
If anyone knows if this IS a Calyx (pronunciation?) do let me know, ha! I do my research for visual cues but on the science I’m not always on target. The “fugitive” color Opera Pink was used for the watercolor version on the right – and…it WILL disappear in the light. If you just love the color – protect it by putting it inside a scrapbook or something that stays closed. Maybe make a bookmark!
Thistle
Thistle is included also in one of my Copic Wildflower classes. They might be prickly but oh so fun to color and paint! Let the pink layer dry before adding the purple so the thistly prickles stay crisp on top.
Wisteria
These last two don’t come across as well on a 2″ x 2″ square – they would look perfect on an arbor or draped on a fence. Stay tuned to my social media this week and I’ll give that a try.
Morning Glory
These are white flowers, so had to be negatively painted – painting the area AROUND the flower rather than the flower itself! Be sure to come back Friday to see how a different kind of negative painting creates a gorgeous floral planter.
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
Today I am tickled to show you a really simple way to make a stunning 5″ x 7″ flower card – and even though I added some “real” watercolor treats, you can do this with just stamp inks!
Tutorial: Inked Watercolor Lilacs (easy)
I found that Catherine Pooler inks work well for this technique; they do melt out as watercolor, but they don’t “fall apart” (ie wash out) the way sometimes Distress Inks do. But if distress inks are whatcha got, give it a try too, just be careful how much water you add.
Look at all that luscious purple! I did add some blue to it as you saw but its really pretty with just the purple ink. For the green leaves you can also add some green inks – but I don’t have much green ink selection! I used Sage to stamp half the sentiment, and I was wishing I had a stronger green.
Such simple supplies to make such a stunning card, eh?
Need more inspiration for spring flowers? Check out this huge post with lots of tutorials and ideas:
When a beautiful floral stamp set calls itself “Vintage Garden”…I felt the need to try for a vintage look. And did it with (mostly) three colors – a red, yellow, and blue!
Supplies for this project are linked at the end of this post. Compensated affiliate links may be used at no cost to you.
As I grow in my watercoloring, I’ve been trying to pare down my tools – I find that the more I challenge myself not to use EVERYthing in my palette, I get more creative and come up with some beautiful colors that I mix myself!
Video
I chose a Yellow Ochre, Paynes Blue Gray, and permanent Alizarin Crimson for my red-yellow-blue adventure today, and I think it worked!
Buying the stamp set was easy – lots of flowers with different shapes made me happy. There are sets that have a bunch of different stamps of the same flower – but being able to paint different petal shapes is much more interesting to me as an artist.
The card shown in the video has a light greyish background made from a bunch of the palette leftovers, mixed with water:
I also tried the same with a more cream color in the background, and swapped out colors on some flowers.
And here I limited the palette just a little more, not using the Crimson – but used the Transparent Red Oxide for my ‘red” in the trio. The background color was mixed thicker so it came out darker.
While I had the stamps in my MISTI, I also inked them up for a slimline card – it took me many many hours, but is very pretty too! I did record one flower, and it’s on Instagram HERE and Facebook HERE.
If you’re interested in MORE watercolor flowers, last week I finally went through a whole bunch of my watercolor flower series from over the years. There are some that have stamps no longer available, but I’ve tried to suggest other sets you might have that would work well for each technique!
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
Hello friends! Hope you’ve had a good week. It’s been…well it’s been one around here, know what I mean? So I made something beautifully yellow to cheer myself up. And whoever I send it to as well!
Supplies for this project are linked at the end of this post. Compensated affiliate links may be used at no cost to you.
I made a similar card earlier this year that I shared on social media (keep scrollin’) but this time I wanted to try it in watercolor – and I loved how it worked out!
You can use other flowers and sentiments with this technique, but I had to use Mondo Pansy, – such a pretty flower! Nice and loose and easy.
And maybe I’m the only one – but I love super pretty cards that LOOK like they’re layered but aren’t. Less extra postage on the envelope!
Here’s the inspiration card. The card front is the light green paper; the outside border is Copic. There’s a tiny bit of Copic in the flowers too, then I added some dimension to the lettering.
Supplies
Some product may be provided by manufacturers for review and use. Compensated affiliate links are here at no cost to you. If you choose to shop using my EH (Ellen Hutson) links, please accept cookies on that site in order to retain the link to my blog, or that compensation does not happen for me. I appreciate your support of my work with your purchases! Full affiliate and product disclosure | My trusted partners in art
