Abstract Watercolour Bookmarks

1. Introduction: Hi. My name is Melissa unfast. In this class, I'm going to teach you how to make watercolor bookmarks. This class is great for beginners and for those looking to use their current skills for a fun and practical project. I'll walk you through step by step, including a list of materials you'll need to get started. At the end of the class, you'll have a few finished bookmarks to use. If you're a book lover like I am, you can never have too many of these. They also make a great gift for anyone who likes to read in your life. You'll also learn some tips and tricks for working with watercolor paint that you can use for future projects or to play around with the medium. If you're ready, let's get started. 2. Materials: For this class, you'll need watercolor paper. I recommend using 140 pound or heavier. Watercolor paint, solid pans or tubes will work best. A paint palette, paint brushes. I'm using a number four flat, number four fan, and number four round brush. But really any brush you have will work. Painters tape or washi tape. Water, paper towel, a wash cloth or cotton rigs, a ruler, a pencil, a paper cutter, or another device for cutting, like scissors or a metal ruler and a craft knife. Optional materials for this class are gold leaf, tweezers, salt, plastic food wrap, a craft sponge, white wash paint, metallic gel pen, metallic watercolor paint, other mixed media materials that you'd like to use, a hair dryer, a laminator, and laminating envelopes, a whole punch and ribbon or tassels for finishing. 3. Watercolour Paper: I'm going to show you the difference between the two types of watercolor paper. There's two main types, cold pressed and hot pressed. It has to do with the process used to turn the pulp into watercolor paper. Everything on this side is cold pressed and I have some different textures, different weights here. Typically, you can find watercolor paper in 90 pound weight, 140 pound weight, and 300 pound weight. It has to do with the thickness of the paper, and we'll make a difference and how durable it is and how well it will hold its shape when using it. This one on the left is 90 pound and then I have three different 140 pound weight papers. I don't have any 300 pounds. I don't typically work with 300 pound weight paper. I find 140 pound paperworks just fine for what I use it for. On the left, these are all cold pressed watercolor paper, which have a texture or tooth to it. Hot press has really no texture to it. It's quite a smooth finish paper with not a lot of tooth. Tooth is the texture that holds onto the pigment when the water evaporates. You're going to get a different finish to the final product when using a hot pressed watercolor paper versus the cold pressed. The one I have is in a little book in 140 pound weight. These four here are all cold pressed watercolor paper. You can see with this one here, there's quite a bit of texture in it. There's a lot of tooth in the paper. That's going to hold onto the pigment when the water evaporates and give you a different look or finish than when using a hot pressed paper. Just comparing these two, the cold pressed on the left and the hot pressed on the right, you can see the difference in the texture. These are also cold pressed watercolor paper. These three are in 140 pound weight. It's hard to see, but it's a stiffer paper than the 90 pound. The 300 pound, which I don't have an example of will be even stiffer. Even though these are both cold pressed, 140 pound, you can see there's a different texture to both. You'll see a difference depending on the quality of the paper and even between different manufacturers. This paper here is a cold pressed paper in 90 pound weight. There is a texture to this paper, though it's hard to see on the camera. It really comes down to personal preference on what you prefer. I tend to stick to the cold pressed watercolor paper. Something in the middle of these two in terms of texture. I usually work with 140 pounds. It tends to be stiff enough for what I'm doing, but you can definitely go up to the 300 pounds if you prefer. If you're just starting out, you can use the 90 pound. It's a little bit less expensive than the heavier weight paper, and you can get lots of practice in. You can see it's still stiff and will hold up quite well. You do want watercolor paper if you're working with watercolor. Other paper will buckle and ripple under the water, and it won't give a nice flat finish to the project. Another thing to note when choosing paper. If you're working with the wet on wet method or using a wash method. Applying a lot of water to the paper, 140 pound or 300 pound weight paper is going to hold up much better than a 90 pound paper, which will likely buckle under a lot of water. I would suggest getting samples of all three weights and getting samples of hot pressed and cold pressed and just experimenting and seeing what you like to work with best for the sale of artwork that you're doing and learn the difference between the types of paper. 90 pound coal press is easy to find, relatively inexpensive, and you can use this as a starting point to get some practice in. You can buy watercolor paper in individual sheets or in a book. I have the hot press and a small booklet, or they come in pads of all different sizes. It might be good to pick yourself up a book if you're experimenting. You can also get a larger sheet and just cut it into smaller pieces if you like. Art supply stores will have individual sheets in large sizes in the different weights and textures. Pads of watercolor paper are easy to find at an art supply store, arts and craft store, online, and even sometimes the dollar store will have them. 7. Adding Mixed Media Elements: With this project, since we're doing abstract bookmarks, I'd like to go in and finish with some mixed media elements. On the top left, I'm going to use a metallic watercolor paint to wash over top. I like to use gold leaf as well. I'm going to put some glue down using a glue pen, and then carefully with some tweezers, apply the gold leaf over top of the glue. If you don't have a glue pen, you can use any brush or stick adhesive. You can also use water if you plan on laminating the bookmarks later. The gold leaf just needs something to adhere to. I would recommend protecting it with lamination because it is very delicate and will come off easily when the glue is dry. I also have a gold gel pen. I'm going to use to add some shapes. You can use whatever you like for this part, the sky is the limit, litter, ink drawings, stamps, whatever you feel like using to make a unique and fun design. 8. Finishing: And now for my favorite part, removing the tape to reveal the white edges. I'm going to use my paper cutter to follow my pencil marks from earlier and cut my bookmarks apart. You can also use scissors for this or a craft blade and a metal ruler to get a nice straight edge. There are a couple of places where the paint bled underneath the tape. If that happens, you can either cut the bookmark out without the white border or go in with some white paint to clean up the edge. Gah paint is best for this because it goes on opaque and has a mat finish when it dries. It will look the most natural compared to the finish of the watercolor paper. Guash also applies well to watercolor paper. While I have the white gah on my brush, I'm going to add some final white dots to this particular bookmark. The next few steps are optional. I'm going to use a hole punch to punch some holes on the tops of my bookmarks, or I'll tie a ribbon into later. I'm also going to use a laminator to finish and seal the bookmarks. I'd recommend doing this if you use gold leaf to keep the gold leaf in place. After laminating, you'll need to cut the bookmarks out again. Make sure to leave a border around the bookmark. The two halves of the lamination sheet remain intact. If you look closely at the laminated bookmark, you can see a thin air pocket around the edge of the bookmark. That will be there when the two sheets of the lamination envelope are sealed together. You'll have to re punch your holes again. I punch holes before I laminate to make sure that I seal the edge of the hole and to protect from any potential liquids getting under the lamination envelope in that spot. To finish, I'm going to tie a piece of ribbon through each hole. If you prefer, you can use a tassel. 9. Final Project: I hope you enjoyed this class and enjoyed making some abstract watercolor bookmarks. C heck the projects and resources section of the class to see what other students have created, and make sure to take a photo of your work in progress and your finished project to upload into this section and share with others. I look forward to seeing what you make and thank you for joining me.