Transcripts
1. Class Intro: Hi, I'm Jen. Welcome to
my home and my studio. This is my 17th
Skillshare class, and I'm so grateful
that you're here today. Let's hop into it, and I want to show you what
class is all about. The simple beauty of combining
watercolor and stamps. All supplies needed are shown, but no worries if you don't
have everything you see here. You will learn simple
stamping tips and techniques. I show you how to hold and angle your brush as we practice
a few brush strokes. We then jump into making our first design using
those simple strokes. We do this together
from start to finish. Our second bookmark
design is all about repurposing old artwork. Lastly, I share my
simple hack for making these wedge
Brush floral bookmarks. These flowers just
pop off the page. Feel free to come and see
how I paint these flowers, even if you're not interested
in making a bookmark. This class is designed
for all levels. Stick around till the end, I share some artwork that
may inspire you to create something similar using
watercolor and stamps. Are you ready to create
something beautiful? Well, let's get started. Yes
2. Class Supplies: I have so many supplies that
I want to share with you, but I can't express
enough that you do not need all of the things that
I'm showing you today. I just want to give you a
heads up of what I'm using. And as we go through
the lessons, you'll see these
supplies in action, and I'll tell you a little bit more about them as we go along. As for paper, I'll be using Canson watercolor
paper 140 pound. I also will be using the
Stonehenge Legion craft paper. Love this paper. The only reason I'm using this black Canson. You can use any
black that you want. I just use it as a mount as
I put some of the bookmarks on that just as like the one
that we will be doing today. Tracing paper, you only
need one tiny little piece. I show you how I
use that when I'm marking out some bookmarks
on older pieces of artwork. So if you don't have
it, no big deal. I've got a bazillion stamps, but I'll just show you a few. And then the ink pads as well. Let me start with the ink pads. What's super important
about these, not the brand, but that your inkpad is
permanent and waterproof, because as you'll see,
we'll either paint over the stamp or stamp
over our artwork. And we don't want a big
old mess with our ink. If it's not permanent
and waterproof, we'll get just that
a big old mess. As for stamps, I use a
variety of different ones either on a wooden block or I use it just
as this is here. I didn't even bother taking
off the plastic backing. I use these little
acrylic blocks to adhere the vinyl stamps too. All kinds of different
sizes there. I have my nice little tel, can tell it's been well
loved and well used. I have a wet sponge here. I use that for two reasons. One for wiping off
my brush and another one or another reason for wiping off my stamp
after I've inked it. So a couple variety
of wedge brushes or sizes of wedge
brushes, detail brushes. I've got a couple rulers here. Let's see. Obviously,
my water jars, my paint is off to the side. I've got this Gromet tool
that I will be using. Again, it's just one
I found on Amazon. I'm still working out
some of the bugs on this because it is a little bit It
is a little tricky to use, and I'll show you more
as we get to that point. But it's got a couple
eyelets that it comes with. And that, again, is
just to help secure ribbon onto your
bookmark without it tearing the pages. It's
going to protect that. If this would start to get
pulled or something like that, you're not going to have
to worry about it if you place this little
eyelet in there. I've got a variety of ribbons
that I will be using. I've got a white pencil. Gosh, this looks like a hot
mess in here right now. I've got double sided tape or one of these
dot glue runners. And I've got scissors. I've got paper towels, erasers, all kinds of things
here. This is fun to use. This little half inch
paper trimmer cutter, whatever we want to call it. And then I think, gosh, that's probably it for now. Like I said, we will
go through these in much more detail as we paint our designs and we use the
tools throughout the lesson.
3. Brief Intro to Stamps and Ink Pads: We'll talk a little
bit more about our ink and our stamps before we
get going on our designs. So the ink pads that I have had really great results with are these Ranger archival ink pads. Four colors I enjoy
using coffee, watering can, jet black,
and Pebble Beach. I probably use
these two the most, but these are really
good as well. The white ink pads,
they're okay. I haven't found a
really great one yet, but it still works. Just like I've done on
this bookmark here, the white stamp on the
background, it's fine, but there's just a few
little inconsistencies about these that you just
have to work through. As for stamps, goodness, this is just a small look into what I have
in my studio here. I usually either get
them on a wooden block, either small like these, or they do come very
large like this one. I usually get them at
a craft store such as Michael's or Hobby
Lobby or online. Or I get them such
as single pads like this or even they come a lot, a lot of the smaller ones
on a plastic pad like this, and then you just peel them off, adhere it to a vinyl block. I like these clear
vinyl blocks because as you turn it over
and go to stamp, you can see exactly
what you're stamping and it has little
lines on here too, if you want to be
really particular about it and get it
lined up correctly. But there is a ton of
these stamps available, and I've just gone down the rabbit hole of just
getting several of them, but like everything, you end up using only a few at a time, but it is so fun to mix
and match these stamps. Next, I want to show you
a few of my tips that I like to use when I'm
stamping my artwork.
4. Stamping Tips: Just a quick visual of
what these inks look like. This is not an advertisement, but I just want to show
you the difference between the four here. The watering can, the jet black, Pebble Beach and coffee. I tend to stick with
this watering can because it's very similar
to the jet black, but it is a little bit lighter. Sometimes when I
use this jet black, it just overwhelms my piece
a little bit too much. Even if I press
lightly on the stamp, sometimes it's just a
little too dark for me. Other times, it works just fine. Pebble Beach, I need to get this one out
a little bit more. I do like that one.
And the coffee, that gives a nice
sepia vintage tone. And that's a really
nice one, as well. I first started incorporating
stamps into my artwork, it used to drive me
absolutely nuts that I could not get a complete
stamp down on the paper. I would have these wonky edges, missing edges, darker spots, and it just would drive me nuts. And after a while, I thought,
What are you talking about? That looks beautiful. I
love that irregular look. I love how it goes off
the page sometimes. I love how it's just
sometimes upside down. But it just gives an extra
charm to your piece. We don't need to have anything
perfect in our artwork. We should not strive for that. We want to strive
for unique and eye appealing and things of interest
that draw the viewer in. So I love this missing
piece up here. It provides, like I said, extra character, extra charm. It also provides extra space for me to add additional stamps. We want our stamps to
be an accent piece, not the main focus. I do typically pick one larger
stamp as my main focus, and then I add a
couple little extras. Typically down at the bottom. Either left or right off to
the side because I'm going to have my floral stem typically going up
and out this way. That's just my natural
progression and my natural the natural way
my flowers tend to lean. So how I would do one like this I haven't even taken
this plastic piece off. I could and then mount it to
a larger acrylic block here, but I just use it as is. So I take my ink pad and just press the stamp
purposely just in the middle. Move that off to the side, lay it down, press it
quickly, and then lift it. Now I would take this one, quick press on the ink pad, purposely put it in the
corner and at an angle. Now that this is a circle here, I like to change up the shape so we'll
just take this one. I'm not worried about it being in alignment with any lines. I can see through it and I
can adjust it as needed. A quick tap on the pad, figure out where I
want my placement. Quick push, and
we're good to go. Do be careful when
you push really hard. Obviously, you're going to
release a whole lot more ink. If you want just a light
color, very quick. Can take your paper towel, dab a little bit of ink off. I don't think there's even much left on there a little bit. So the difference
in dark and light is also another way
to add interest. I love this one here. This is just a splotch of dots, and it just adds that extra
vintage old weathered look. We've got the
musical notes here. I do want to make sure this
one is in the right position. So I'm just gonna tap it down, leaving obviously
this part open, maybe a little bit down here. And let's just see what we get. Nice. Love that. I'll take this one,
the splotchiness. I don't know if you
saw it, but it's a little bit loose on here. So what I will do, definitely
use that one a lot. I'll put a little bit
of water on there, tap it, and then it
easily stays in place. Tap it on my ink pad. A couple little
spots of splotch. We're good to go
there. Then mixing up some shapes here.
Got a triangle. Just doing this very quickly. Again, this is all
an accent piece. This dries very quickly. So in a matter of minutes, we can stamp and then get working on our
watercolor design. Another way to add,
I appeal harm and characters to have your
stamps go off the page. So take this musical stamp. Just quickly mushing it down on the ink pad and then
decide placement. Quickly lay it down.
Love the emptiness here and just going
right off the edge. So now what I would
do, let's see. Let's take one of these stopwatches or clocks
here, this little one. Now I know this one. Sometimes
it gets really dark. So you'll learn
which stamps work better or worse
for you over time. Have that a little
bit. Let's just get a little bit off here.
That's fairly dark. What I could do is do it again, dab it again on my paper
towel or the wet sponge. But let's see what we get here. That's fine. I like that. The contrast between the
darkness and the lightness here. Then maybe add
these coordinates. Plenty of times I have absolutely zero plan for what I'm going to
use with my stamps. It just comes to you sometimes. Now that I have this down
here in the left hand corner, what I'll do is go to
the opposite corner and add just another smaller stamp. Maybe this guy here. I want it pretty light. Let's get a little
bit of ink off, and that's already irregular, which I like missing some spots. I don't want it straight
angle it a little bit. We're good to go. Now I have all of this room
to add my floral. And of course, after you're
done with your design, if you think you
see some open spots and you want to add more stamps, you can certainly do that. So my main stamping
tips that I would offer that I found that have worked for
me over the years, again, this is not any rules or anything you have
to follow 100%. It's just what's worked for me and what I found
to be eye appealing. When we think about composition and some rules of composition,
things like that. I like the irregular
look of a stamp, half inked or half on the page, half off, various
shapes and sizes. Sometimes working
in odd numbers, that's always eye appealing. So we've got our
focal stamp here. We've got two down here, and then two of these
little blotches right here, stamps that are overlapping, stamps that are a little bit lighter compared to
some darker ones. But really don't overthink this. What is fun is to
just do a bunch of practice stamping and then
do some designs over that, and you'll quickly
learn what you like or what you don't like
and what works for you.
5. Floral Bookmark Part 1: Well, this is a ton of supplies
for one little bookmark, but here's what I have
for this section. One piece of watercolor
paper, this is Canson. It measures one and three 4 " across and six and
three 4 " long. You can make your bookmark
whatever size that you prefer. Black paper, if you want to
mount your bookmark to that. Watercolors I have
Daniel Smith Indigo and Undersea Green. If you choose to do pink or
red or yellow floral stems, perfect. That's totally fine. Ribbon, the eyelid
and the grommet tool. Of course, our stamps
and inkpad tape, half inch paper cutter, trimmer, our size eight wedge or whatever
brush you prefer to use, our sponge, practice paper. I think that is it. I might have skipped over
something. I'm not sure. You can choose to either
paint your design first and then stamp it
or stamp and then paint. I think I'm going
to go ahead and stamp first and then
paint afterwards. Okay, our bookmark is obviously much smaller than what I
was showing you before, so we want to be careful not to overdo it with our stamps. It's definitely going to
be going off the page. That's why I've got my
paper towel down here. So let's just get this inked up. Go, go. Let's try something
a little bit different here. Sometimes it's just
a big old surprise what you get when you stamp. All right. I've got
opposite ends here. I'm going to put that one down. And let's grab this one. See a spot down here. Then let's do got a
little bit of a triangle, but I'm going to have that
one just kind of peeking out. Okay. And then a couple of
these little splotches. Give it that weathered look. All right. I think I'm going
to stick with that for now. We can always add
more if we need to. These three bookmarks
were really the inspiration for this class. This made up floral design with what I call my
little coffee bean buds. You'll see how we make
those in a second. But it's a really simple
design using two colors, and then with the addition of
the stamps, it just gives, I think, a really sweet,
eye appealing bookmark. To make these
little floral buds, I use the side of
my wedge brush. The strokes are very
quick, very organic. There's two strokes in the
beginning that I lay down, and then I just kind of add
some brush marks around them. So if I load my brush, I'm going to tap
it on the sponge to get some of that paint off. I'll do it a little bit larger so you can see what
I'm talking about. So I'm holding fairly down
close on around the crimp. So it's a pretty
good tight grip. That gives me more control. The closer to the tip
I hold the brush. My hand is resting on
the table, but gently, I don't want to
hold it so tight or push my hand so hard
into the paper. Then you just a little
bit too tight and you don't get some of that
loose organic movement. So I lean the brush
into the paper quickly, come off the page quickly, go back into that starting
point and just kind of fill in that side with a little bit of
squiggly movements. I flip the brush or you
don't have to and just add a little bit of a top
there, a little squiggle, and then I'll just add maybe some extra little marks around the first two
marks that I did. These are not ever the same. Every time I do them, they're
a little bit different, but the process is the same. Very simple. Laying the
brush into the paper. Kind of that little see stroke, but going from the
bottom to the top, and then the second stroke
is a little bit less, but it kind of squiggles
as I go around the side. Do a little mark for the tip, and then just add a few
extra little strokes around the side because
eventually we'll get in there and
add some contrast. But these are little
strokes that you just don't want to
overthink or overdo. So if I work quicker, Like I said, they're
different every time loose and organic. My hand is still on the table because once you add some
greenery around this, somebody's going to recognize
that as a floral stem. They're not gonna judge you on how exact and
botanical it looks. That's not the
point. Loose, fun, organic quick movements.
6. Floral Bookmark Part 2: So let's take our bookmark. For the stem, all I'm doing my hand again
is on the table, start at the bottom, and
just gradually go up. Maybe a little
thinner than that. We can always darken
that up if we need to. I probably still have
enough paint on my brush. We'll see. I start, I'm holding the bookmark.
Hand on the table. All right, now, from here with this stem acting as our guide, we're gonna place our
little buds going up, and we don't want it
perfectly placed, meaning two here,
two here, two here. We want to switch
it up a little bit. So I tap my brush on the sponge just to deposit some
of that blue quickly. I don't want it too
dark right away. So I go out just let's
see. Here's the bottom. I'll start here. I don't
go right on the stem. I go just beyond it, and then start adding my buds. Pretty light to begin with. That's totally fine.
We'll darken it up. It's actually really a little bit lighter
than I normally go. It's okay. I'd rather go
too light than too dark. And I am getting a little bit smaller as I get
to the top here. I think what I'll do is just I didn't even
rinse my brush. I just went right
into the green, dab that on my sponge. And then what I
like to do is just add a couple little
dots at the top there. While I've got some
green on my brush, I'm going to darken the stem. And I'm just taking the tip, pretty much going
along one side, the right side, and just
dropping in some darker pigment. Now we'll get back. I
know this is dry already. It's very warm where
I am right now. So I'm going to go
back in and add another layer of this
blue for some contrast. When I add the contrast, I don't want to cover up
everything that I just did. So I'm going to go a
little bit smaller, but generally in the same
areas those first two strokes. Wipe off a little bit more. It's kind of like, Okay, I laid down those
first two strokes. Now I'm kind of
covering them up. But you can still see
them underneath there. It's just a very subtle blue. Let's start down here. I can go even darker. It's pretty thick at this point. So I'm gonna cover
even less area. Then I usually go
darker on the tip. Just using the side of
the brush or the tip. And just fill it
in as you see fit. That one got a little wonky. We're just giving
the impression. All right. At this point, I'm going to rinse my brush
really well and then get back into the green and kind of
connect these little buds. I want this fairly thick
and fairly concentrated. So I'm going to dab
it on my towel. I'm going to flip my brush
over and then just quickly add just a couple little
connections here. And at this point, knowing I have plenty of
green on my brush, now is when I get
in at the bottom of these little buds and
add little squiggies just for another
little area of charm. Quick movements. Just using the tip. Now, I feel like I can add
even darker green to the stem. So this at this point
is really thick. Rolling my brush. We'll get back in here. Using the tip, laying down the
darker green for contrast. I'll do the same with
those little squiggles. I won't cover up
everything I just did. I'll add some new ones. Oops, that got a little
wonky, too. That's okay. Sometimes the brush gets a little a little out of control when we're
moving fast like that. But nobody's gonna notice that. Alright, I think we could probably I'm thinking
I'm thinking, let's add a little bit darker blue to the top of
these little buds. And I don't want to overwork
this or overthink it. But just adding be a little
too dark. Let's see. Just at the top here. Kind of pulls the eye upward. Alright, good to go on that. Now we need to let this dry
fool. I think we're good. I don't think we need to
add anything else to this. It's gonna start to
get a little bit too busy if we keep fooling with
it and messing with it.
7. Floral Bookmark Part 3: Okay, with my corner clipper, what I like to do is
do opposite ends. People ask me, why don't
you do the whole thing? It's just that extra
little sweet detail that just gives some eye
appeal, I think. So now what we can do get this mounted to
our black paper, and then I'll have to
trim this off camera. So either take your
double sided tape or one of these dot runners. I don't know if I have enough
on here, but let's see. Old piece of paper, clearly. Just go round the edges
quickly down the center. There we go. Mount
it to the black. I like just enough
to show. Not a lot. Press it in place, and I'll go trim this
and be right back. Next up, we want to
get our eyelet on our bookmark to protect this area from tearing
once we get our ribbon on. Now, this guy is a little
challenging to sometimes. We've got a hole punch
here at the top, and then this is the section
where we're going to squeeze our eyelet
together onto our paper. So let's get our whole
punch in there first. So I know I've got
this part here. I'm gonna pull
back a little bit. This whole punch only goes
so far as they all do, but I'm gonna pull
back a little bit. Sorry, that might
be super close. And I'm just gauging
where the middle is. I'm not really concerned. I I don't get it
exactly in the middle, and I can see through
there that I'm gonna punch right through
some of that top part, which no big deal. Okay, now I stick
the eyelet in here. Now, this is the important part, at least with this
type of grommet. I don't remember the name
of this one in particular. But when you squeeze
this eyelet together, when you squeeze it in here, this part must be facing up. I've learned the hard way. If I squeeze it this way, it is a hot mess and it
gets stuck in there. And I've thought a couple of
times I might have to throw this thing away because I just couldn't I couldn't
get it loosened. So make sure if you
have this style, I don't know if they all
work the same or not. And I just noticed you can move that hole with this
little dial there. See, you learn new
things all the time. But when I squeeze that eyelet, I want to make sure that
this is facing upward. It's a bit of a tricky process. I need to get it
secured in the bottom there and then give
it a good squeeze. And then you can see how I didn't do it a perfect squeeze, but those little metal
pieces splay out. But we're good to go there. That's nice and tight in there. Now we can get our ribbon on. Many ways to attach your ribbon
the way I like to do it. Oh, I don't ever measure, but I just cut more than I need, and I fold it in half and then squeeze it down at the bottom to get
through this eyelet. I've had plenty of ribbon
that don't go through. It's just too thick. Pull it through. And then with this loop, stick my fingers in there, pull the other two
pieces from the back, and give it a good tug. All right. There we go.
8. Torn Bookmarks Part 1: We're not painting
in this section, but we are stamping and
tearing up some old artwork. I know. That sounds terrible. But it really does turn into some really
beautiful art pieces. We all have things that we've created that are sitting
around the house. Maybe we like parts of it, maybe we don't like
other parts of it. But we can always find
something about our artwork that we love that we can
turn into a beautiful piece. So what I'll be using
in this section, I've got old artwork. I've got black
paper, craft paper. I'm going to be using
the white stamp, this ink pad this time,
variety of stamps, and what I will do as a hack is cut out a
piece of tracing paper, whatever size you want
for your bookmark, and then I place it over old pieces of artwork
where I maybe can't visualize exactly what part I want for the bookmark or
whatever piece I'm doing. But tracing paper
is a lifesaver. So with my tracing paper, to get a good visual, I'll just lay it over the piece I'm going
to be working on. I take my pencil
and once I decide, Okay, that looks pretty good. Maybe need to take my
hands like this so I can get a little bit
better picture as well. But I see I've got some
white space up here. I like how the florals
are on the left side. So depending on if
I'm going to make just a standard bookmark like
we did in the first lesson, I would just mark pencil lines so I know
where I'm going to cut. If I'm going to tear this, I'm going to pull my pencil line out a little bit farther
because I want to have enough give on this
paper that I can hold it on one side and
tear down the right side. So that's that piece. This piece, I like part of it. So maybe I would just so
this is the part I like, but I'm looking here. I could stamp this or not
stamp it, call it a day. There are so many different
ways you can make these, but I'm just eyeballing where
I would want to cut this. Now, I think I would want to
go up a little bit further. So this is obviously going to shorten my bookmark.
No big deal. I'm going to decide all of
these off camera and then cut them and come
back and show you. It's a little hard to do
it right here and now, but I'm just showing you
this tracing paper hack that has helped me many
times in the past. So I can decide if I want so all this white
space down here, if I want to tear it and just
have the bottom part open and put like a
black mounted paper underneath it and stamp that, or I can move it up,
shorten the bookmark. Move it off to the side here, but I like the center
part a bit more. So I'm probably going to do
something with that area. I'm trying to look
as I'm talking here, maybe even move it up. Not sure yet. We'll
figure that out. This one here kind of like these big bright
florals in the center. So I'm trying to think
about what I have at the bottom in the
middle and the top, what's on either side, and what's going to work for the style that I'm going for. Again, this goes
well beyond where I wanted that original size to be, but don't get caught up on that. Bookmarks and all of that
can be any size you want. Then this one, I would probably do something
more in the middle here, and I might just leave that
one alone. I might change it. So it's gonna be a big
guessing game where you think I'm gonna
cut these papers.
9. Torn Bookmarks Part 2: All right, here's
what I came up with using my tracing
paper as a guide, kind of getting a plan as
I was looking at these, not a full plan because sometimes you just got to
wing it and go for it. So these two, I'm going to
mount on the craft paper. These three, I'll do
on the black paper. And I've marked off in pencil where I thought is a
good spot to tear these. When I tear these papers, I get a good grip, and I'm tearing it
towards myself. I've got a pencil line on there. I don't need to
follow it exactly. But I just do little by little. I might even want to tear
that off a little bit more. And then I get an idea. Obviously, I'll cut
it down about here, and I can add some
stamp underneath here, some stamp design, or I can even write a little something in calligraphy if I
choose to do that. But let's erase
these pencil lines. We'll get everything torn up, and then we will
do our stamping. So then this one, I'm going
to go straight across. Little by little,
tiny little tears, doing it a little bit jagged. Alright, now with this one, I'm going to start at the top, come jag it all the way down
and kind of cut in this way. So holding the paper tight, following the pencil line
closely, but not exactly. Probably what I'll
do, obviously, we'll trim up here. We want to make sure we have
room for the eyelet, too. Let's just do this then. Alright. Next one, I didn't cut this too much
because I wanted to just kind of do this
blindly, basically. It is easier. This
is a good point. This is a big spot,
big piece right here. So I really should
have cut it down because as I get
down to the bottom, it's gonna get
harder and harder. So let me grab my scissors
and do that real quick. Okay, and then the last one kind of the same thing.
You know what? Let's take my own advice. Start at the top. Little tears. If we need to go back
in with paint and touch up any of these pieces, we certainly can do that. Let's get our pencil
lines out of here. So now looking at these, I'm just gonna clip the top two corners here just
for something different. I'll do the same on this one. You want to make sure it's
all the way in there. I have clipped
these so many times and it doesn't get a
good rounded edge. If that's the case, just
grab some scissors and snip that little piece
off if you want to. Maybe let's just do on
the side of this one. I think I'll do this one, too. See, like that little edge. I didn't get it quite
enough old paper again. So then I would just
take my scissors. I mean, we're splitting
hairs at that point, but if you're like me, and those little things bug you, then grab the scissors
and trim away. Alright, I'm gonna
take these and go off camera and trim them. I'm gonna cut to the side here, but just I'm gonna
leave this area open. Obviously, cut off
all this down here. I will leave about
this much open here and just do that
with all of these. We'll come back and we'll stamp them and get
them all trimmed up.
10. Torn Bookmarks Part 3: Here's what they look
like so far so good. This one is a little
bit extra long. I'll explain my
rationale for that. They're not taped
down, of course, we've got all the
stamping to do, but I did trim this
piece a little bit more. It was just a little too wide
for me for my preference, but just trim down
that left side. I'm going to use likely just
the calligraphy stamps or this musical one with
the white ink pad. But then also I'm
going to pull out the coffee ink for
just this one here. I have a little thank you stamp that I'll
use for this one. But like I said before,
sometimes if I don't get it correctly straight,
it just bugs me. That's why I gave myself a couple chances here
to get it right. We'll do one at a
time. You know, for this one, I think
I'm going to go ahead and use the coffee
ink on this as well. I don't always block
out the edges here, you can see on this one, the stamp just covers
the whole page. Totally fine with that. But if I were to block it out, if I wanted that clean border, I would just take it
doesn't have to be perfect, but take a little bit
of sticky notes here. Move that, of course.
Let's do this one. I would recommend having a test page just to see
what it looks like. Certainly, you can
go well above if you need to because
that's going to cover. But I want to watch
my edge here. Okay. Easy enough. I like that irregular here. It's just that little peekaboo
of a stamp. All right. Next up is this little
thank you stamp, and I want to try to get it
as straight as possible. If it's a little
wonky, that's okay. But I'm going to
start down here. Let's just that'll
be dark enough. See how that's a
little off there, not the end of the world, but I want to try to get that a bit straighter.
So I have room. I'm just gonna work
myself up here. I mean, it is really
not off that much, but That one's a little bit better. Let me go cut that and
I'll be right back. Here's this one. I had to do some creative cutting to get
it a little bit straighter. I could actually tear
a little bit more here if I wanted
this to show more, but we're not going to overthink that and we are going to move on to these three here. Put our paper towel down, get our white ink out. Let's do this calligraphy one. But also let's test it first. This one can get a little
blotchy and globby sometimes. Not bad at all. I could
even just take this, do a little bit more down here, that is a good point.
You can do either way. If you don't want to work on a small size when
you're stamping, just go ahead and stamp it on the bigger page and then
cut it down to size. Really just need this edge
here, not much at all. All right. Again, just a
little peekaboo there. Let's try the musical
notes on this one. So my sponge off to the side, I will wipe my stamp sometimes. Sometimes, I say. Not
always great about that. Let's just practice
on this one, too. I can see my fingers are getting dirty with
stamp and ink. But that is great. Now, that one too much. I think that would
overwhelm not too bad, but I do I want to go lighter. So let's see what happens.
It's not too bad. All right, so I lost some here, so I'm just going to go
right back over that. See what we get. Now, obviously, if
I didn't like this, I would get up
grab another piece of paper and start over, but I'm not too
unhappy with that. Again, I'm not looking for the stamp to be
the star of the show. I think I'm okay with that. I could do a little a
little darker down here, but I'm not going to worry
about that right now. Looks good. Last one here. Let's do this calligraphy stamp. All right, we're just
gonna go for it. I actually don't mind a little bit darker like
that now that I see it. Just do a little more
right down at the bottom. All right. I think
I'm good with that. Next, we'll get
these all taped up, get their eyelet in, and
then get a ribbon on these. I won't do all of these because
it's just taping it down, getting the eyelet in like we
did with the previous one. And then with the ribbon. Okay, here we go. Five
brand new bookmarks made from torn pieces
of old artwork. One last thing I wanted to
say about these ribbons. I don't remember if I
mentioned it before or not, but when you're putting
it through the eyelet, you may need to poke
through with back of the paint brush or a little stylus or
something like that. Even though this is
thin ribbon and I was crunching it up to a point
and poking it in the back, pulling it through,
it still some of them had a little bit
harder time going through. So just use something sharp but not too sharp to get
through that eyelet. All right. I'll see you
in the next lesson.
11. Kraft Floral Bookmarks Part 1: For the last bookmark, what I'm going to be using, the Legions
StonehdgeKraft paper. I have a six inch ruler, a white pen, pencil. If you don't have that, regular
pencil is totally fine. The watercolors I'm
going to be using, I have quin gold, I have undersea green,
napsimd maroon, indigo. This is burnt sienna, and I have some white guash. I have my size. I'm going to use
the size ten wedge. A couple detail brushes. Not sure if I'm
going to use those, and then I've got a fine liner. This is Windsor and Newton. It's a gray fine liner. I really like using that, or a black fine liner is
completely fine, too. So my hack for this
type of bookmark, I've taken a nine by
12 piece of paper, craft paper, and I've cut
it down to 6 " by 12. So I just cut it
off at 6 " there. Reason being, I have my six inch ruler and the way
I measure out my bookmarks, I might need to trim
this at the end here, but all I do, I can see I've got a
little bit extra there. That's totally fine. All
I do line up my bookmark. This is going to actually
be the back of our paper. We're going to flip it over
and paint on top of this. So I take my white pencil and just move on down the paper. So without measuring
anything to be my bookmark, I'm just using the ruler as my guide for the width and
length of my bookmark. So essentially, this one we won't count,
but we'll get one, two, three, four, five, six, seven bookmarks
out of this. So now what we do
we flip it over. And we start making these
wedge brush florals. What I love about the white
guash and the watercolor, it just makes these florals
pop on this craft paper. So what we're going
to do on this side is basically just a random
pattern of florals, flower buds, leaves, things like that,
because at the end, we're going to flip it
over once it's all dry, and I'm going to cut with
my big guillotine cutter. I'm going to cut down these
lines, flip it back over, and we're going to have seven hopefully really
beautiful bookmarks. So we are going to go
ahead and get started, and I'm just going
to use this as my practice page as I'm teaching you how
to do these florals. Does take a little
bit of practice with this white guash and dipping your brush
into another pigment. But once it works out, it works out very well. Now, what I need
to do first is get a little bit more water
and some of these. I'm just dropping in a
little bit because I want these colors to be
fairly concentrated. I want them a bit
thicker because this is the pigment that
I'm going to drag my tip of my brush through. It is a bit of a
guessing game with how much to load your
brush with the guash. But I roll my brush. Again, this is a size ten wedge. Can use a triangle
or petals brush. Pull a little bit more in. So this is Holbein guash. You can use any brand, and the watercolor
is Daniel Smith. So my brush is fully loaded. Tap it on the sponge, and then let's try
with this quin gold. I'm just dragging the tip through the more
concentrated part. Tap it a little bit more on my sponge that felt
a little heavy. So then just typical
wedge brush florals. If you've done this before,
you know the strokes. The point of my brush
is at about 5:00. I land the brush and just
quickly wiggle it around. Come back over on this
side. Do another stroke. I'm going to dip into
the yellow a little bit more. Come on this side. Now, I could go all the way
around and make it a circle, but I like to do what I
call my smile stroke. I lay the brush down. The wedge portion
is facing upward. The point is about 9:00. I lay the brush down and
give it a little swoop. I will sometimes get back in
there and do a second swoop. Now let's dip into the
napsimide maroon or any kind of maroon that
you have. Same thing here. We'll leave that opening there, and then we'll add a
little bit of a center. We'll add our leaves. But right now, we're
just gonna get all different kinds of
florals, all different colors. Let's do the indigo. Is says a lot of rinsing
in between your strokes. Move the paper around
if you need to. Rinsing my brush. Tap
it on the sponge, and then let's do
a burnt sienna. I can tell, this one is lighter. I didn't get the same amount of white guash on my
brush in the first place, but that's fine.
You want variety. A lot of these are going to be cut in half anyway or sliced on the side depending on where
our cut lines are gonna be. So if the white is
looking a little bit cloudy to you or a
little bit transparent, I should say, pull some
more of the white in. You do want a cloudy
look to your guash. Tap it on my sponge.
Then let's see. We're just going to
go back and forth with all different colors. Let's go all the way
around with this one. Rinsing my brush back
into the white guash. Tap on the sponge. Tell you what? Let's go
back into this quin gone. 'Cause what I do I'll stack the flowers
sometimes Like one, this one is peeking out from
behind this bigger one. Well, I've got this on my brush. Let's come over here and
just do a little bud. And it's just like we did the last time those
coffee bean shapes. Rinse my brush. It's the same same
technique over and over. Pull the white wash in as you
need to rolling that brush, tap it on your sponge
or your towel. I use the sponge because I don't want a whole
lot off of my brush. I want to keep my brush damp. If I do it on the towel, sometimes it gets too dry and I remove too much of the
paint that I have on there. So We want our flowers in different directions, too. I've got the blue still on here. Let's do another bud. I have no plan for this. I'm just laying down color and going in
any which way I want. I don't want all
blue on one section, all yellow in one section. I'm going around. I
am watching for that. Now, I know I have
enough on my brush, but I'm gonna go back into
that maroon. Then let's do. Let's do a bud this. I'm
trying to look where I don't want to put my hand
right into wet paint. Rinsing my brush again. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. That's what we're doing. I will speed this up
just a little bit, and then once we get to our
leaves or any of the centers, I will certainly
slow it down again.
12. Kraft Floral Bookmarks Part 2: Alright, let's stop here and
we'll work on our green. This is going to be just
a total surprise at the end of the day how these
bookmarks are gonna look. The cool thing is, we can always make repairs if we need to. And usually by repairs, I just mean adding
a little bit more. I just get in here
and start adding a little bit of leaves and
I go really pretty quickly. You don't want to spend a
whole lot of time on this. But I'm really just watching
where my hand placement is. I should have a better
sequence of how I do this. So I avoid getting
my hand in there. What's nice about
these open spots, too, we can just
add random leaves. So I'm leaning my brush
into the paper, come back. I do this little razor edge. But this is really important to not
overthink your leaves. You can tell, as we're adding the greenery, these
are just popping. And a lot of times I am
just taking my brush, making marks around the flowers, just giving that indication that we've got a
stem or we've got leaves there cause again, we are cutting this up. I'm going pretty dark
on the green already, but that's by design. I'm just looking for
some open spots. I don't want to
cover everything. Some of this dry
brushing. I love that. But I'm going darker on this. I just like on this paper, I like the green to be
a little bit more bold. I'm probably going to
have to let some of this dry and then get up in
some of these other ones. All right. We'll speed
this up a little bit. But all of these marks, like I said, over and over,
don't overthink these. Definitely some
spots at the top to have some of these leaves
come cascading down. I get in there. Alright, I think we
will stop for now. So I need to let
this dry completely, and then I will get into
these centers here. I'm afraid some of
this, I can see is just still a
little bit too wet, and I'm afraid I'm going to
get my hand all over there. So right, let this dry
and we will be back.
13. Kraft Floral Bookmarks Part 3: We have some options when we
want to add floral centers. I will do that with
a detail brush with paint or grab a fine liner. So just with the quinol, this is a size one
round, pretty thick. Contest that. I'm just going to add a
little bit of dots in here. Really nothing much. Dots and little squiggles. I'll do that on all
the yellow ones. I will leave just the dots or sometimes paint little
lines from them. Get a few more dots in here, and then I'll do the lines. So I will switch out to a
more detailed brush the 5/0. Get a little bit watery quinol. Not too watery, but I just want tiny little
tiny little lines. Sometimes this detail brush
is a little bit too small, but I like how fine
the lines get. So just depending on
how thick your pain is, how long these bristles are, you might need to reload, a little bit more often. To do it even more. So
those little lines, I'm not sure if you
can even see those, but I will just even add some dots at the end
of those little lines. Just trying to pull the
eye into that center area. So while I have
this brown here on my palette to reactivate that. But just for some contrast, I'll add some dots
in that center right over the Quinle
and then even pull out a couple little dots here. Now, depending on
where the line is, we may go right through
the middle of this. We'll see. So let's just add a
couple little dots of brown over that quin gold. A burnt sienna would
be pretty, too. Just enough to give
it some contrast. So still with my 5/0, five tenths detail brush, getting in some white guash. I could grab a
white pen for this, too, but I noticed this
little guy down here. So just some long lines That's pretty much
all this one needs. Maybe a little bit of dots. I don't want to
overdo it on some of these centers because
once we cut them, we still have plenty of
time to add more detail. Okay, I'm gonna go
back to my size one, get in this burnt sienna and do the same thing, some dots. Let's start on this side. Dots and squiggles. That's
all we're going for. Okay. Now, I'll leave
the dots in the center, go back to my 5/0, get in the burnt sienna. I should do is pull
some of it out here because I want to
dilute it a little bit. Just show you another option for enhancing some
of these flowers. Little fine lines on
some of these petals. Sometimes I regret this
decision after I've done it, but just to show you we don't want all these flowers with the same center,
the same petals. Give it some variety. I just follow the
contour of the petals, curving them in as we need to. I think I will stop
while I'm ahead there. Okay, still, in my detail brush, I'll get into the maroon. A little bit. Well, let's see. Let's just do some lines. I will often go right back over some of the white with
the same color of the flower. I could add white to that one, but I think I'll leave it alone. I think I'll switch back to
a size one in the maroon. And then we'll just
You know what? I'm looking at that. I'm gonna change my
mind right away. I'm going to add some
gold to that center. Change it up a bit. I think we'll just do
it on this one, too. All right. I kind of like how the brown is on some of
these. So let's do that. Just adds another little element that's going to pull the eye in. Not too much. Just enough. I forgot this guy down here. I think I'll just
leave that as is. This one got washed
out a little bit. So before I cut, I am going to go in
and do a few repairs. So cleaning my wedge brush
back to the white guash. Dab it on my sponge, drag the tip through the gold. One. All right. Looking at this, I think
I'm pretty happy with it. I did add some
leaves off camera a little while ago before
we did the centers. But I think we're just going to let it dry and
then we'll cut it. And if we need to add more, we can add more,
but I think we're pretty good with
what we have here.
14. Kraft Floral Bookmarks Part 4: Okay, all dry. Ready to cut on my lines. I'm going to take it over to
my paper cutter and do that. I only added just a very
few more brown dots on some of the centers,
but that was it. Okay, here's all our
hard work. All cut up. But I think it turned
out really pretty well, pretty pleased with
the end result here. This was that
little extra piece. I probably won't use that,
although it's not too bad. We could figure out
something for that. But now we need to
get these mounted. We need to decide
if we want to put any stamps with them or
even tear some of these. Honestly, I think what I'll
do is just leave them as is, maybe clip some of
the corners of them. Get some ribbon on there, and we will be good to go. So I have Canson
watercolor paper here. I do want a thicker paper to
mount these bookmarks onto. And the more I look at these, I don't want to add anything else. I think we're good to go. There are some nice open spaces. I don't want to do
any stamps on these. I like the integrity of
the flowers as they are. So I will get these
taped down, cut up, get the eyelets in,
and ribbons on, and we'll call it a day. Alright, as I'm getting
these eyelets in here, I just wanted to give you a
friendly reminder again how important it is to know which position your
gramat needs to be. With this one, as I said, the whole punch
needs to be facing up as you squeeze
that eyelet through. If not, it is a disaster to try to get
that eyelet out of there. In fact, the Gromt tool itself has a really
hard time even opening. So as we look at these, what I decided to do, this one, I didn't
cut any corners. Cut the corners of the
craft paper and the Canson, the white watercolor paper.
Nothing on this one. I cut all four corners
with the little clipper, the half edge clipper, all four corners on this
one, nothing on this one. Opposite ends on this, and then all four corners of
the craft paper on this one. So for the ribbon on these, I'm going to use the
same blue ribbon that I used on the first
design that we did. I think the blue goes very well with all of these very
light, very subtle. But of course, we have the blue, and most of these, this one didn't get
it, but that's okay. It's light enough,
but I think that will go nicely with all of these. Alright, on our last one here, I do like this blue. This is, gosh, I don't know
my fabric well enough or ribbon maybe like an
organza type ribbon, but it is pretty fragile, so you want to be careful with whatever kind
of ribbon you get. Pulling that through
from the back, splitting that open, pulling the two from
the back forward. Give it a gentle tug. Gentle because sometimes, well, more than sometimes
I've pulled too hard and I've split some of
the fibers down here. So just a reminder
to be careful. Then hold it gently, give it a little trim. And we are good to go.
I'm happy with that. I like these, and I think they will serve
their purpose well. What a fun gift to give somebody
with a couple new books. Yeah, what a fun gift. Alright, I'll meet you
in the next lesson.
15. Class project with additional ideas: Well, this is quite the happy, pretty little bunch
that we created today. I had such a good time in this class in creating
this for you. I sure hope you did, as well. Don't forget to
upload your projects into the project
gallery so we can all see how creative you are and the different ways that you
use watercolor and stamps, the ribbons, how you mount
the different bookmarks. I'm just excited to see
what you come up with. But hang tight, I want
to show you a little bit more of how I've used
watercolor and stamps. Last few pieces of artwork
I wanted to share with you, hopefully to just spark some
creative ideas of your own, and perhaps you'd want
to do something like one of these for
your class project, in addition to your
bookmarks, maybe. So I love making
this little card, of course, stamped it and put the watercolor
florals on there. Is Canson watercolor paper, put a little piece of
pastel paper in there, tied it with twine. I love working on this
round watercolor paper. This was fun. These are
just wooden tags from Hobby Lobby covered
with watercolor ground, and it takes the paint
and the stamps very well. But just a few
ideas to show here. I won't go through each and every one of them specifically, but I'm just hopeful that
once you learn the lessons, learn how to combine
the watercolor and the stamps that your
creativity just takes off. All right, so take care, enjoy your day, and I hope to
see you in future classes.
Jen Sweeney, Watercolor, Calligraphy, Cycling
