Watercolor Tutorial #1

Good morning Paper Crafters!  I'm here today with a watercolor tutorial.  This is the first in a series of 3.  For this tutorial I using the image from  Nature's Postage by Mark's Finest Papers you seen on the card I created yesterday.  I used Lyra Watercolor Crayons (12 set), Ranger Distress Ink - Tumbled Glass, and Derwent Watercolor Pencil #51 Olive Green.  I got my watercolor crayons a few years back at a local craft store with a 40% off at a Joann's.  I'm don't know who carries them these days, but what I have noticed online is that they have  24 set now.  I had so much fun doing these that I'm considering finding a good deal on the larger set. 

In general I brush on water to the area I'm going to be adding color, before adding the color, except for the pencil.  Wetting the paper first helps the color flow.  So I want continue to mention that, but make sure you do it.  The crayon color are very concentrated, so a little goes a long way.  You can always add more.  I leave the crayons sitting in the tray they come in, wet my brush and then pick up a little color by brushing over the crayon.  Keep a paper towel or napkin handy so you can remove unwanted color..  Just re-wet the area if needed, and blot if off with a paper towel.  A couple of times I ventured outside the lines and was able to clean it up a little blotting the color off.  Each crayon has a ID # on it.  I used green (67), yellow (07), orange (13), and brown (99).  Let's get started.

Dragonfly wings : Scribble on a little color using Derwent watercolor pencil #51.  Add the color near the body outward so that it will be darker at the body.  The color will spread, so no need to cover the entire wing.  You can always add more.  Wet brush and begin brushing from the body to the wing tip.  Brush on a little water if dry.  Then add a little brown near the body lightly brushing out to add some shadow.  The color is very concentrated on the crayons.  I am using a very small brush, wetting it and just lightly brushing over the area near the body outward.  If you add too much, wet it a little with a clean brush and blot it off.  As with anything, you will have to practice to you get the feel for how much water to add and color to pick up.  Go back and add a little move green over the wing again, til you get a look like the wings below.

 

Tulip :  Brush on water over tulip.  Wet brush and pick up a very small amount of yellow #07.  Brush from base upward.  I actually put on a little too much color, add some water by brushing outward back toward the base a little and blotted some off.  Wet brush pick up a very small amount of brown and brush on as shown above. 

 

Then go back and add a little more yellow til it looks like the one above.  You can go ahead and color your stem now if you want as well with the green pencil, I just forgot.

Sky : Brush water on the sky area. Apply a little Tumbled Glass Distress ink to a plastic surface or acylic block. Wet brush and begin picking up the blue and painting your sky.  The distress ink is not as concentrated.  I tried to make it a little darker around the edges / corner.

Flower : Brush water over petals.  Wet brush and pick up orange #13.  I start out light, adding color from base outward keeping some area's darker as shown above, but I did go back a second time and add more concentrated orange to create shadows.

To create move depth, I added some brown as I had on the wings and tulip.  I think you can see the difference in the previous photo and this one and tell where I added it.  I didn't worry about trying to blended it, because I knew I was going over it again with orange.

Add more orange to get the look you want.  But the other thing I did that you can really see in this photo is pick up some concentrated yellow and added it from the tips inward to blend with the orange.  That really highlighted some area's and made it pop.  I added some brown to the flower center. 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and are encouraged to try coloring some of your images with watercolors.  I have 2 more tutorials coming up in the future.  Using the other 2 images from this set. 

And if you missed my post yesterday ....  I have been added to the Speedy TV DT and I'm so excited.  So you will be seeing more Mark's Finest Papers projects on my blog.  Speedy TV is a NING site and because I'm new over their, I don't have a lot of friends.  So .....  I'm making a somewhat desperate plea, teehee, by asking you to hop over, join the site and friend me.  To encourage you, I'm doing a give-away.  I will be giving away 3 gifts on October 25th to 3 of my new friends (MFP DT excluded).  Sorry I don't have photo's yet.  It's been a busy week.  But I will be posting photo's of the prizes later this week.

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THANK YOU!!  for all your encouraging comments and support!

hugs,

Melisa