Today’s project comes from double inspiration….I needed to beef up the thank you cards in my stash, and I’ve been inspired by the California superbloom poppy photos I’ve been seeing! I thought some cheerful sketched yellow flowers would cheer up some mailboxes.
You can use alcohol markers, waterbased markers (though on better paper than I used!), watercolor, pencil – anything you can make a basic shape from. Then add some loose pen lines. It’ not hard at all!
Tutorial: Inspired by the Superbloom: poppy card sketches
The first section here uses Copic markers – but later water-based marker and watercolor. You could do this in pretty much any medium!
Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!
Google for a photo
In markers, watercolors, or pencils, create the general loose shape that you see in a single poppy. Use two colors so you can add just a little shading; keep the colors close together (not much contrast) so you can not stress out over blending. You can see I didn’t!
Then ink them up!
The small brush marker in my Copic Multliner SP set is available individually if you want to nab that one to try a varied line like I created. Practice with the pressure – the brush nib is very sensitive! Then use a small pen nib to add just a few flowing lines along the direction of the petals. The more “careful” you get with the details, the tighter the sketches will get…..keep it loose!
Water media
I wanted to use up the terrible watercolor block – it didn’t work with my fancy shmancy water-based markers, but they’d be great on other papers! (I’ve tested out some here.) The watercolor worked ok on the icky paper – but even the watercolor marker one that looked so bad at first came out nice on the card (below, center right).
Fine art sale til Mothers Day
I’ve been making mini paintings in gouache – so. much. fun. The poppies video is over on Patreon, but you can go see all the paintings in my shop!
Would you try these?
Which medium will you use – alcohol markers? Water-based? Watercolor? So many would work great!
Supplies
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These look fantastic Sandy!