Something A Little Different! | My Watercolour Journey

Hello Friends!

Recently I had a bit of a shock and I have altered my life slightly to help accomodate that shock. I had a couple health scares, one being really big and I needed to learn to slow down and manage my stress levels - at least that's what my doctor said. I also asked for a prescription to avoid family drama and all kinds of drama actually...guess what?...she gave me one.. I created boundaries - big, strong, impenetrable ones. Beyond that, I've been immersing myself in lots of creative activities, amongst other things such as exercise, meditation and healthy eating. Recently I found this free 5-day course on watercolouring florals and this is my first creation! I really wanted to share this and all of the creative things I've been up to with you, so I will have more posts like this and some with a diverse range of creative projects! So please stay tuned to deezinesbyd :)

This is the first floral I drew freehand and painted with Gansai Tambi Watercolours. I used You'll have to excuse the fact that I'm still a bit messy with my drops of paint here and there but it was all part of the creative process. Below I'll share some things I learned and a few tips to help if you're new to watercolouring too!

Like what you're seeing? Pin this picture for later on Pinterest!

My colour palette for this tulip was as follows:

Petals: 

- No. 32 Red

 - No. 35 Carmine

- No. 34 Rose Madder

- No. 37 Purple

- No. 20 Black

Leaves:

- No. 53 Sap Green

- No. 40 Lemon Yellow

- No. 47 Raw Umber Deep

- No. 32 Red

- No. 37 Purple

- No. 20 Black

The educator for this course is Elena Vavilina. She has live classes each day of the 5-day course and even though she is speaking in another language (I'm not sure if it was Ukrainian or Russian), there is an English voiceover making it very user friendly. My only issue with this is that some of the translations are very abstract and you don't always get the right meaning. However, she does a beautiful job of explaining what she can and if you're a visual learner, the slightly-off translations won't matter because you can see the whole process. 

What I learned...

1) You really need to learn to regulate the amount of water used on your brush and the paper/cardstock. A dry brush will pick up/lay down more concentrated colour and a wetter brush will pick up/lay down a more diluted colour.

2) Fit in your highlights. As I got into it, I learned to lay down my colour and then pick up some of the excess colour to create highlights with a dryer brush.

3) Adding a tinge of colour to the leaves from the petals creates continuity in the floral. I had to be careful to add my reds/pinks into the green of the leaf with a bit of space so the colours naturally meet but don't create mud. If you look closely, this took some practice as there are areas where it didn't quite work out.

4) I definitely need more practice to create more of a watercolour/loose watercolour look. I tend to keep my brush really dry at the end to create details. Maybe this is just my style or I'm still struggling with accepting a lack of detail for a more loose look. Again it's something my more detailed and ordered left brain is battling with my creative and free right brain. It's always a battle for me and partly why I've been having the health/stress issues I've been having. 

Here are some more pictures of my painting. I feel like the use of the detailed dry brush in the end really makes this floral look more like it's drawn rather than painted. I'll really have to work on adding less drybrush detail to get this look I guess. 

Besides all the finicky details of trying to get this floral as perfect as I could, I found the process really relaxing. I like that the recordings of the live class are available after the class is over so I could go back to parts I missed and work on my painting more slowly. I'm a slow painter and hit rewind button quite a few times. In total, I think this painting took me 2-3 hours.

Overall, I had a great time with this class and love the results. I mean I can see all my mistakes and areas I wish were better but my daughters assure me it looks amazing. I have 4 more paintings to go in this class so I'll be sharing those here too. If you are interested in the class, I'll leave a link to the sign up here. It's competely free and I just used the art supplies I have on hand (in the supplies list below). 

Link to the class sign up : Flower Marathon With Elena Vavilina

I hope you've enjoyed coming on this watercolour journey with me. See you next time!

Also, don't forget to check out/follow me on my Instagram account @deezinesbyd, where I have a lot more content and cardmaking ideas too! 

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