Creative Christmas Cards: Lights, Gnomes, and Trees

1. Intro: Hello and welcome. My name is Natalie. And in this class we'll explore how to create for delightful holiday sea and watercolor designs, a playful string of Christmas lights. Minimalist Leonard trees, cheerful gnomes, and a vibrant abstract tree. These simple yet creative designs are perfect for adding a personal touch to your holiday greetings or charming decorations. Let's have fun experimenting with watercolor and ink to bring these festive illustrations to life. 2. Materials: Here's a quick overview of the materials. We'll need to make postcards. We need watercolor paper, a little larger than the size of the postcard. You can use either cellulose or cotton paper, but it's important to choose sick paper, so the postcard keeps it cheap and looks nice. We'll also need watercolor pins, a palette, or a simple platform mixing and a container of water. Brushes. For sketches, we'll use a pencil and then need a eraser. And for the tails, a fine liner. The best size is 0.3 millimeter. It's a good idea to fix a paper to a board with tape to avoid it bending. Don't forget tissues to remove extra water. If you want to speed things up, you can use a head dryer, but it's not necessary. That's everything we need. Let's get started. 3. Christmas garlands: Now we will draw a quick and fun cut with garlands. You can draw directly with liner or you can make a pencil sketch first. Let's start with a pencil to reduce the chance of mistakes. We need to draw a line where lanterns will be placed. Let's make it something like this. And now let's draw the lanterns. You can come up with different versions. Let's make them like this. The lanterns can face different directions. You can draw ups in different shapes. For example, you get it almost tendarRound ones. It all depends on your preferences and imagination. Draw them at about the same distance. But if they turn out too close and overlap, it's better to leave a bit more space. There are no strict rules here, and no one is going to check. You can always adjust them if needed. You can intentionally make them not perfect with different shapes because this is a sketch after all. However, if you want them neat and precise, that's perfectly fine, too. And the last one. Now, since we won't be soaking the paper too much, I've only secured it in two places. That will be enough for this cut. Now let's move on to the watercolor. Take your brush, the one you like, and it the most comfortable and choose your colors. I want to use worm shades, so I'll take yellow, orange, and pink. I think it will look nice. You can leave some highlights on the lanterns. You can even make prints with your brush, and this will create beautiful streaks. I paint every third lantern. But if you go over the pencil lines, don't worry, that's fine. Sometimes too much precision only gets in the way. You can always fix the shape later with the liner. Actually, I want more yellow. Let me add a couple more lanterns. Now I'll move on to orange. You can choose your style of painting. You can focus on details and draw them more clearly if that's what you like. I prefer style with some looseness and playfulness. I even want to add water in some places to create extra streaks. Now, the last pin contents. Some of them I will also make with brush prints. Now the watercolor part of the work is done. I'll dry it with a hair dryer to speed up the process and avoid waiting. Now, let's add the liner details. Everything is dry and we can start. You can draw slowly. Let the lines go outside the contours. That's perfectly fine. And first, draw the galant itself. Go on with the bolts. Let me since the process up a little feel. Once you've done, gently remove the pencil marks with a needed razor. The garland is ready. No carefully removes a tip. Here is a quick and fun cut we've created. You can come up with your own arrangement for the garland, the shape of the bulbs, the colors of the ornaments. Take this idea and maybe create something of your own, change it a bit. I hope you like this idea. Happy painting. 4. Line drawing of trees: On the next cart, we will first make a colorful and interesting watercolor background and then draw different kinds of Christmas trees on top with a liner. Let's begin. You can choose the colors you like the most. I will use mix of green and blue shades. The background is ready. Now I want to dry it with a hair dryer, so we don't have to wait to learn. You can also use a dry brush to collect extra water. This will help it dry faster. Oh next, I suggest drawing four Christmas trees. To plan where they will be, you can lightly mark the spots with pencil dots. If you want, you can make a pencil sketch before adding watercolor. But I prefer a more spontaneous approach. Let's give it a try. For the first tree, I want to add a star on top and make the tree in a spiral shape. Start from the top. And slowly go down forming a spiral. For the second tree, let's make it from circles. We need to fill the whole tree with little round shapes. So bigger and some smaller. The tree will get wide at the bottom. Then carefully, fill the space between the circles, so it looks monte and complete. You can also add a star on top. It's a little bit detailed work, but it will look nice. The second tree is ready. The sir tree will be more empty inside, but will have an interesting outline. Let's draw the shape of the tree and at the bottom, add a fun edge to make it less empty. You can also add small decreions like dots to make it look like ornaments. The last tree will be different. Start with a strip trunk and don't forget to draw a star at the top. For these branches will have an interesting shape and will get wider at the bottom, too. The liner work is now done. You can carefully remove the tap. On this kind of paper, it can be tricky to remove the tape without tearing the paper. And before peeling it off, you can warm the edges with the head dryer. The heat will make the tip easier to remove. Let's try that. The cut is ready. You don't have to follow my instruction exactly. Feel free to use your imagination and create your own kinds of trees. You can make more than four trees, maybe nine or even 12, whatever you like. Be creative, express your inspiration and don't forget to share what you made. 5. Cheerful Gnomes: Yeah. Now I suggest we draw some gnomes. First, let's choose se they will be placed. For these pots, we will draw three gnomes with a certain bed size. So look here, we have one, two, and three. We can make them a little farther apart. Let's start with the nose. Then we draw the bed. The feet will be sticking out. At the bottom, I will make the bed a little wider. So it covers the feet. On top, there will be a head. I suggest we make heads different to make it look more interesting. These gnomes head can be curved. Now, let's make it to Btider. Let's say a boom box. The second nomes bat will be a little wider, maybe from here, about the same size on the other side, but a bit neater. And here we can see the feet. His nose should be bigger. For the heat will make it lower. And let's make it look to this side. Don't forget about the mouse. Here it's placing sideways, and here it places straight the head. And the last st gnome start from its bread. Draw the feet as well. The nose and a little smile on the side. H hat will be the tallest straight. Next, let's draw their arms. We can make them hold hands. One of the gnomes can hold a gift. I'll let just the bird a little here. So he will be holding the gift. Let's also think about making their hats different. For example, here, we can make around pattern circles. Let's draw those here. For the other non, we can make stripes with liner. And for the third one, we can paint stripes with watercolor. Let's get started. Actually, for the watercolor pod, we only need two colors. In some places, make a Jagger, but don't draw too much. Just enough to make it interesting. And for the last hat, we can make horizontal lines. My brush was too wet, so I blotted it on a tissue. And let's paint the shoes red. The paint has already soaked in, but it spread evenly, so we can remove some in places to add more watercolor effect. We can also use clean water to make a few spots, and it will look more interesting. Let's paint the noses. We can make them light orange. And also paint them. Now, let's dry everything and add details with liner. The everything is dry. And the most pleasant part of the work is when the picture comes to life. Draw the arms. The gift and don't forget about the nails. For the hats we decided on circles the Now, let's finish the shoes. And we move on to the next gnome. Outline the bed, mouse, nose, hands, the head. Yeah. Et's draw the stripes on it. Done, let's move on to the last one. That's all. Now, you can carefully go over the drawing with an eraser to remove extra pencil lines. Make sure everything is dry so you don't swear or ruin it at last moment. By the way, I suggest it in a final touch. Let's paint the gift too. We can make a thread. So it looks brighter. And that's it. Our ums are ready to congratulate the ones they were meant for. Oh, by the way, I missed one M. Thise little guys turned out really cute. Draw your own and show your results. I'd love to see what you made. 6. Multicolored Christmas tree: Now we will draw a very quick and effective Christmas tree. I've taped the paper on both sides, so it doesn't move, and it's easier to work with. But we still need a tip because it will help us draw a neat and beautiful tree. Look, here will be the start, and the tree will have roughly this shape up to here. Now I'm gently shaping the tree. And we'll begin the painting. Let's start with red. The next we'll use a red orange color. We'll draw lines like this. Now you can take a lighter orange and maybe even add a bit of yellow to it. You can remove any excess moisture here. Next, rinse a brush and use yellow. You can take a coul yellow if you like, and draw another line. Now let's move on to light green. Add a little bit of green if it's too light. Now take a more saturated green. Next, add a bit of blue to the green to make the bottom darker. Good. We've got a dark bottom now. And we can draw the trunk. You can mix green with the red and orange we have Now, let's dry everything so we can remove the tape, and then we can add some splashes. Well, look, we've got a neat and beautiful tree. Now take red color again. You can leave it like this if you like. I want to add a bit of playfulness. So I'll add red on top. You can blot excess color. As an option, you can add ornaments or some details with a liner. Here you can use your imagination and do whatever feels right for you. And there we have another greeting good. I hope you enjoyed it. Draw and definitely use your imagination. 7. Conclusion: Thank you for painting along with me. I hope these holiday designs have sparkled your creativity and inspired you to explore even more festive designs. Don't forget to upload your masterpieces in the project gallery. I can't wait to see your interpretations of these fun designs and whether you use them as holiday cards or display them as seasonal art. They are sure to spread joy. Keep creating and see you in the next class.