Transcripts
1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Hi, everyone. I'm Sharon an artist living in the great Peach
State of Georgia. I'm excited to be bringing you my second Skillshare class. This class is similar to my first Skillshare
class and that we will be creating
a greeting card. But this time we'll be creating a Christmas greeting card just
in time for the holidays. If you're a returning
student, welcome back. If you're just joining
me for the first time, I'm glad to have you here. Welcome. This class is best suited for those that have some prior knowledge
of watercolor. However, if you're just
starting out in watercolor, I would suggest that you have a look at my first
Skillshare class, specifically at
those lessons that deal with the fundamentals
such as wet and wet, wet and dry, and layering. By the end of this class, you'll gain confidence in watercolor and have
fun in the process. Let's see what
we'll be creating. In this class you'll be creating three Christmas
watercolor botanicals using a very simple
outlining approach. This takes the guesswork
out of where to put the paint which can be tricky. Keep in mind these illustrations
are not meant to be photorealistic but more of a stylized version
of the subject. I've broken down this class
into three main categories. The point set up,
the holly leaves, and the pine branch which are the botanical illustrations
that you will be creating. If this time of year gets
your creative juices flowing, then this is the class for you. For your class project, you'll be creating a
Christmas card out of the three botanical
illustrations that I mentioned. The point set up,
the holly leaves, and the pine branch. To make it a bit
easier I've included a card template in
the resource section. I have also provided a couple of bonus videos at the
end of the class demonstrating how you can use these illustrations to make an ornament or some gift tags. You could also have your
illustration stand-alone to be framed and keep for
yourself or to give to someone. Let's get started by gathering our supplies which is what
our next lesson involves. See you there. [MUSIC]
2. Supplies: I have provided a
detailed list of materials in the
resource section. The stationary I use to create
the point set of card are these watercolor
greeting cards by Master's Touch Fine Art Studio. The cards are five
by seven inches. If you are making your
own greeting card, I would suggest
watercolor paper or this Canson mixed media paper. The seven by 10 size makes
it easy to fold in half and then you have your five
by seven greeting card. Also, it will be good to have
some tracing paper on hand. You'll need a ruler, a pencil. You'll need an eraser and these micron markers by Saqqara. These are 0.05 and
they work well with watercolor and that
they will not bleed. A couple of metallic gel pens, these are by Pentel. I use the Krazy pop
lemon lime slime and a sparkle pop gold. I use mostly Winsor Newton Professional
Grade Watercolor Paints. I also like these Holbein
Watercolor Paints. Keep in mind that you
don't have to use these specific brand
watercolor paints. However, I would suggest that you have at
least one yellow, a light and a dark green, an orange and a cadmium red and some form of a darker red. This is a rose madder. You could also use a
student grade paint. These are Cotman
by Winsor Newton. There are several
different kinds of watercolor palettes
that you can choose. This one is a workhorse
artist portable palette. Just make sure the palette has areas for which to
mix your paint. These are a couple
of ceramic palettes. The brushes I use
for this project are this Master's Touch
round size eight, this Master's Touch
round size two, and this royal and nickels
size 20/0 fine line. On the end of this royal
and nickel brush is a sharp edge which I'll show you how I use in our
painting lesson. You will need a couple
of containers for water, one for dirty water,
one for clean. These are Faber Castell
Clic and Go Water Pots. They have a sculpt edge
to rest your brush. Drafting tape, an old towel, and plenty of paper towels. A small spray bottle is
good to have on hand so you can spritz your paints to get them activated
if they've dried out. In order to trace your
design onto your card, you'll need a light box. I am using an AGPtek
LED Artcraft Light Pad. If you don't have a light box, a window with sufficient light coming through it
should be sufficient. The rubber stamp you
choose will depend on the greeting text you
want on your card. I'm using greeting peace enjoy
stamp made by Penny Black. The ink pad I'm using is by Recollections and the
color is cranberry. You can find the
specific product name in the detailed
supply list provided. A pair of scissors, an exact dough knife, and a thick piece of mat
board for which to cut on. The additional
materials required to create the ornament and the gift tags is also detailed in the
supply list provided. In the next lesson, we will be gathering some
resource material. This will help us
become familiar with the botanical elements
that we will be creating. The point setter,
the high leaves, and the pine branch.
3. Gathering Inspiration: Simply doing a Google
search will bring up a wealth of information
from which to study. Another great site
to visit is Pixabay. Keep in mind in looking at
this research material, it is not to copy any particular photograph
or artist's illustration, but more a way to
familiarize ourselves with the shapes and the colors of
the flower and the leaves. A great place to view these
botanicals up-close and personal in real life
is your local nursery. There's nothing that
compares to viewing this subject matter
up-close in real life to bring clarity to the colors and the shapes of the
flower and the leaves. In the next lesson, we will be drawing and outlining
the point setup.
4. Drawing the Poinsettia: To sketch out the simple
version of the point setter, I'm starting with the
center of the flower, and the circles I've just drawn here are actually
the flower parts. Next, making sure I keep in mind that everything is going to come from the center
of the flower. I'm starting to make the inner petals but they're actually leaves
of the point setter, so starting with that
center vine makes it easier because you know
the outline of that petal or leaf will
actually meet at the end of that
center vine so you can keep them at
an equal distance, and again, it just makes
it a little bit easier. Now I'll be making the outer, a little bit larger, red leaves again, making that one center vine
stroke to make it easier. Oops, I forgot this
inner red leaf. Let me get that in there. Again, making sure that the outer edges of that leaf come up to
meet that center vine, and keeping in mind that everything comes
from that middle. Just visually thinking
about that as I make the outer edges of
these red leaves now. You'll probably see that on
some of these red leaves, especially the outer ones, I've added just a
little bit of variation to that outline of the leaf. They tend to have a little bit of bumps and curves on some
of these petals or leaves. Make five inner and five outer red leaves just
to keep it simple. I don't think there's
really a correct number. I'm going to speed things
up just a bit as I make these background leaves, these are actually
the green leaves in the background and how
many you choose to make just depends
on getting I guess, a pleasing look to the flower. That's what I'm thinking
about right now, making these outer
green leaves just what, where and how big to make them, to make it a nice
shape to the flower. Once I'm happy with
the sketch I've made, I take the needed
eraser and erase the line so that there's just a ghost image
of the outline. I decided that after
looking at the sketch, I thought it would look a lot better adding one more leaf, one more background
leaf in this area. Cleaned up the sketch a
little bit and now I'm adding that extra leaf just to make
it a little more pleasing. Using my 0.05-micron permanent
marker made by Sakura, I'm going to now outline all the red leaves of
this point setter. Speeding things up
just a bit here. Again, you'll notice
that with the outline of these outer red leaves, I'm varying the
outline a bit with a little more bumps
and curves to them. Now, I'll trace over the
background leaves with my green micron marker. The flower part of
this point setter, the circles or the balls that you'll see in
the middle tend to be a very bright green with a small red center to them. Now to erase those
pencil lines completely. The point setter is now
ready to be painted which is what we'll be
doing in our next lesson.
5. Painting the Poinsettia: I'm using a cadmium
red, rose madder, a Winsor orange,
a perylene green, and sap green here. Keep in mind, you don't have to have these particular colors, but at least two
reds and two greens, and also an orange. The brush I'm using is a
number 8 by Master's Touch. I'll also be using this
Royal and Langnickel 20/0. It's a very thin, fine point. It also has this
nice sharp edge, this plastic edge
that I'll be using. I'll show you that when
we start painting. Now we'll be getting some
puddles of color ready. What I call puddles, they're just some variation of water down pigment to
very saturated pigment and getting most of the
colors that I'll be using ready so that I'm not having to go back and do this
while I'm trying to paint. I'll be adding a little
bit of this rose madder for just
some of the petals, and I also want to have some heavily
saturated orange and also maybe a little
more diluted orange when I start painting. I like to have an old towel that my pots of water will sit on so that it's available to dry my brush off right
away and clean it. But also I have that
paper towel ready. I'll first be painting all the red leaves
of the poinsettia. Starting out with the
well diluted light red for these red leaves. I felt I had a little bit
too much water on my brush, so I damped a little
bit on the paper towel. I'm treating all these
red leaves as one object. Be careful not to go over
any of the green areas, but not worried about painting one individual red
leaf at a time. When I get close to the
edge of these red leaves, I'm using the point
of my brush so that it doesn't go
outside the line. Periodically, I'll
have to go back and grab some more pigment, I I to try and keep these
red leaves in a wet state. I'm now going back and
grabbing some saturated red, mostly pigment, very
little bit of water, and using wet on wet technique, I'm going back into
these red petals or leaves that are still wet and wanting to get that
nice bleed effect. I'm not worried about each
individual leaf at this point, just treating it as one object. Now, I'll switch to a lifting
technique where I'm going to be lifting the pigment
off in a few places, so cleaning off my
brush real good and going back into each petal
with the downstroke, lifting that pigment
up, dabbing. I dry my brush again, lifting and then dabbing
on my paper towel, lifting, dabbing on
my paper towel again. After the painting
stride a little bit, I want to make these
inner petals pop. I'm using just the
tip of my brush and some very well
saturated red pigment going back into each
inner red leaf here, wanting to try and get those
to pop out a little bit. You do see some bleeding
occurring between the petals. But I'm not too
concerned about that. I'm going to be doing a
little bit of lifting again. So getting that paper towel, clean part of it, and
drawing that off. With these inner leaves, I
just want to go in and look, lift a little bit
of that pigment out so it gives these
petals some dimension. You'll see that I lift towards the lower part of the leaf, but then leave quite a bit of that red pigment at the bottom. While painting these leaves, I'll be working on two
of them at a time. We're using mostly sap
green with a little bit of this perylene green for
some of the darker areas. I'll be using a more
diluted and lighter shade of green to begin with. Because I'll be
using a wet-on-wet technique on these leaves, it's best to just do about
two leaves at a time. That way, they're sure to probably be wet enough to use
the wet on wet technique. While the leaves are still wet, I'm using the perylene green
and it's more saturated. I'm using the pigment more down towards the
bottom of the leaves, but also maybe in just
a few other spots. I think I need to go a
bit darker here so that these appear in the background. It's nice to have
that dark green up against that red too, it really makes that red
petal in front pop out. Using the tip here just because going into
some tight spots. Again, it's a matter
of the right amount of pigment and just being careful to use the
tip of this brush. I'm going to speed
things up a bit as I do these last
couple of leaves. I'll now be concentrating on the petals in the background,
the larger petals. I'm going to make
them a bit darker and a little bit cooler by using
more of the rose madder. I want a wet and wet effect, so I'm wetting these petals
first and then I'll go back in with this more
intense but cooler red. This will help the petals in
the front to stand out more and then also set the
larger petals in the back, it'll set them back a bit more. I'll be working with just
a couple of petals at a time so that I can be sure the paper will remain somewhat
damp so I can continue to use this wet-on-wet technique and continue to
get a nice bleed. Making it just a bit darker and wanting it to
remain wet so that I can go in with my other
brush and use the end of it to
create a nice effect. This is the Royal and Langnickel
brush that I'm using. I'm going in while it's
still wet and just gently creating this
line into the paper. If the object you're
painting is wet, then doing this will
create a dark outline. That's what I'm
achieving right here. To ensure that the small petals in front will really pop out, I want to even go a
little bit darker. Again, cool colors
tend to recede. So even though this
is a red color, it being a cool red will
set these back a bit. Getting rid of
this little bit of red that went outside
the petal with a clean damp brush
and then going back in with a piece of paper towel. Keeping in mind that
cool colors recede and warm colors appear
closer to the viewer, I'm going to go in
with a little bit of orange over these smaller
petals in the front. Trying to get the right
consistency of water to pigment. I don't want it really
strong and not too thick. I want it diluted. Just very gently going
over the dry petal. This is called layering, where one color is
put over a dry color. I don't want the colors to mix too much and being careful to just try not to use
too many strokes going into the petal so that you
get a nice layering effect. I want these petals to have
a little bit more dimension. They look relatively flat. Again, I'm using now a warm red and trying to
keep it limited to just at the bottom of that petal where it goes into
the center of the flower. Smoothing out the
color a bit with a clean, damp brush so I don't end up with
some blotchy effect here. Now, we'll paint what the
actual flower part is, using a little bit of this
Winsor yellow to mix with the sap green to make
a very bright green. Also, lemon yellow
will make a very bright green too when
mixed with sap green. Keeping in mind that
all the leaves, petals will always come back towards the center
of the flower, I want to make sure
to get these green leaves attached to the
center of the flower. Using the green, I'll visually imagine where that petal or leaf will end up coming down
towards the center, so just following the
outside line at the top and imagining it going in towards
the center of the flower. Using a dark green
because these are behind all these other petals. Using a dark green so
that it's set back. Now, I'm using the very tip of the brush here to
just go back in and outline these circles that represent the
actual flower part. That'll make the
light green part of these circles pop out more. It's maybe a little difficult on using this brush with the tip, so you can always use the smaller brush if you
have difficulty doing this. I'm using my very thin brush, the Royal and Langnickel, and painting some lines into these leaves that will
represent the vein of the leaf. To paint the bright
red center of these inner flower parts, I'm using cad red, right out of the tube. It's a little tricky,
but just dabbing it in there to get a nice blob
on the tip of the brush. All it really takes is
just a very light touch of the brush to the paper. Because you'll be making
a smaller version of this poinsettia on the card, you'll want to practice making a smaller version with
your small brush. Next, we'll be making
the holly leaves.
6. Drawing the Holly Leaves: There are many different
types of holly leaves. These in particular are
oval in shape and on the outside edges they have these little spikes that turn up towards the tip of the leaf. I start by drawing
three circles that represent the berries
of the holly leaf. Then thinking of the
center vein of the leaf, I'll use that to start
out with and then form the shape of the leaf
around that center vein. At this point, I'm not
worried about the spikes yet. I'm just getting the general
shape of the leaf first. After I'm happy
with the shape of the leaf and the way
that it is positioned, I'll go ahead and put those
spikes along the edge. They vary in just how
far apart they are. So it's up to you just
how many to include. However, I would be
careful not to include too many of these spikes
along the edge. I'll be erasing
these lines almost completely so that outside
line won't be visible, especially when I paint over it. Right now after
erasing the lines, but not completely, I'll end
up with this ghost image. I'll start out with my
micron fine tip marker, the red one, and outline the circles that represent
the berries first. To trace the lines
of the leaves, you can either use
this light green or the dark green marker. These micron markers are good permanent
markers because they truly do remain permanent when water is put
on top of them. Some permanent markers
I have found bleed just a little bit when water
is put on top of them. These are good. Making one more set
of holly leaves, this will be smaller in scale. We'll add just one
more right here. Now we're ready to
paint these leaves, they will be quite
a bit easier than the point set and
go a bit faster.
7. Painting the Holly Leaves: Making sure that all my
pencil lines are erased, and this is the Canson
XL Mix Media paper. The colors I'll be using are the light green, the sap green, and the perylene green
which is the dark green, Winsor yellow, and
the lemon yellow. The lemon yellow is nice
that it really makes a very, very bright green, almost a neon green when mixed
with the sap green. For the berries of
the holly leaves, I'll be using this cadmium red. I like to save an old
brush to mix my paints. That way I'm not so concerned about
damaging the bristles, and that's what I have here, an old brush that I'm mixing
the puddles of paint with. I've made the couple
of puddles of yellow, and now I'll make a couple
puddles of the green, a dark green and a light green. I also want to make a puddle
of a very light green, so I'll be mixing the lemon yellow here
with the sap green. You can see it does make
for a very brilliant green. I'll be using my number 8 brush, but just using the tip
of it as I paint inside the leaves and I'm starting out with that brilliant green. Trying to get that correct
ratio of pigment to water. I'm going to use this
brilliant green on both leaves and given the
size of these leaves, they should remain relatively wet so that I will
be able to use a wet and wet technique as I
go in with a darker green. While the leaves are still wet, I'm using mostly sap green here. You can tell right there
I have too much water. So I'm going back in, dabbing my brush, and picking up a little bit of that pigment. But again, this is
mostly sap green. I'm adding wet and
wet technique here. Lifting a little more
pigment off the leaves now. I'll now add the perylene green, the dark green to these leaves. This will create a
lot more dimension in how the leaves appear. You can tell by the way
the color is bleeding out, the leaves are
still slightly wet. So I am using a somewhat
wet and wet technique, but the paint is drying
a bit on these leaves. Now I'm doing a bit more
lifting of the pigment. You'll find that when you
paint with watercolor, it's quite a bit of back
and forth between adding pigment and then
lifting it up a bit, just going back and
forth between the two. While those leaves dry, I'll head over to
this other group of small leaves that I have. I'm using my number
2, the smaller brush, to paint these leaves. But the technique is the same. Starting out with brilliant
green and trying to get that correct ratio
of pigment to water. I will be painting all these
leaves at the same time. They're quite small and I
feel confident they'll retain that wetness to where I can continue to work in a
wet and wet technique. Because I knew I was going to be coming in and lifting
some of that green up, I wasn't so concerned
about exactly where that dark green paint went. It's a matter now of dabbing my brush in and
lifting this paint, pushing that green paint
to where I want it to be. I'm going to increase
the vibrancy of these leaves by going back
in with a Winsor yellow. The paint on the
leaves has dried, so this is now a
layering technique. I want to darken
these leaves just a bit at the base
and maybe along some of the areas where the
vines of the leaves are. Every now and then
I'll have to clean up a little bit where the paint
has gone outside the edge, and that's what I'm
doing here right now. Just with a clean brush and then dabbing on the paper towel, going back in, and lifting that a little bit of paint up. To paint the berries, I'll be starting out with a
well diluted cadmium red. Because the berries are
ball-like in nature, I'm trying to leave just a
small area of white where the light will be hitting it and leaving a
highlight on these. Not so easy to do when
working the small. Adding now some
saturated pigment, the cadmium red, and going around the
edges here and trying to make sure that
the area around the highlight stays
a lighter red so that it has the look of a ball. I'll be going back
in and cleaning up these areas that
look a bit blotchy, going in with a medium green and just smoothing
out the paint here. So I will dab my brush
and I'll go back in to smooth that out
so I don't end up with other blotchy areas. Painting these berries on
the smaller group of leaves. It's a little difficult to try and create a
highlight on these, but you do still want
them to look spherical. So you want to just go around those edges with some
of the darker red. Cleaning up some of these areas where a little bit of paint has gotten over the edge here. These now have dried and I will be increasing the vibrancy of these by going in with the yellow using a
layering technique. We'll now move on to drawing and painting
the pine branch.
8. The Pine Bough: The pine branches
that we paint will act as embellishments
for the card. I start by simply drawing
lines for the branches. For the pine needles, I'll be using the Sap
Green and Perylene Green, and the Royal & Langnickel
fine line brush. Still using my Canson
XL Mix Media paper, and I am now trying to get the correct consistency
of water and paint. Using a gentle sweeping motion, I'm going over the pencil lines. You could also choose, instead, to use your Micron fine
tip permanent marker. I'll be painting
the pine needles in various shades of green, and I'll start out by
using a light green. Use a flicking stroke coming
out from the branch and vary the angles at which you
create the strokes. Typically, the
needles are shorter when they reach the
tip of the branch. Using a medium shade of green now and try not to overdo it, I will also keep these needles relatively
close to the center. Keeping mind that I want
those light green needles to still stand out when I go in with this
dark green again, I'm making less strokes and trying to keep towards
that center of the branch. For these next
group of branches, I'll be using the Micron marker. I'll be painting these couple of branches exactly the same way
I painted the first group. Where the marker has
left a blunt edge, I'm just smoothing it out
with some of the watercolor. Now for the fun part, where we'll create a
little bit of sparkle using these metallic gel pens, the Krazy Pop and the
Sparkle Pop by Pentel. It's best to test it out on some scrap paper to get a feel for how these
flow on the paper. This Krazy Pop metallic gel pen seems to not flow
quite as easily as the Sparkle Pop gold. When adding these to
your pine branch, you want to make sure
not to overdo it. In this case, usually
less is better, and vary the sizes of the
dots that you put down. Now it's time to put
all these elements together to create our
Christmas greeting card.
9. Completing the Card: Before starting to put
your design on the card, it would be wise to test out
the watercolor card paper. On these watercolor greeting
cards by Master's Touch, I prefer the little
bit more rough side, so that is going to be
the outside of my card. You may prefer the smooth side, which when I open this packet, the smooth side was actually
the inside of the card. So it's best to sacrifice
one of these cards to get a feeling of how
the paint goes on each side and that's
what I'm doing here. Once you decide what surface
you want to paint on, the next step will be
to create a frame, one one in from each side. This ensures that the lines
will be even once you start to trace on your
design to the card. Using a lightbox or your window, you can then use
the card template to draw your design
onto your card. I'm erasing the corners
of the frame here, just so it doesn't
interfere when I go to draw the poinsettias
onto this card. Now it's just a matter of
tracing over the lines of the poinsettias and the
other botanical elements. Before painting, we'll want to plan where to put the greeting. You could choose to do the greeting in your
own handwriting. Here, I'm looking to see, I may have to add some
more elements around the upper left corner if I use
the Merry Christmas there. This peace and joy written in my handwriting seems
to fit nicely. I've gone ahead and stamped some greetings on
the tracing paper to get a feeling of how these
look on top of the card. I've decided to use the
peace and joy rubber stamp. Once I've decided where I
like the rubber stamp to be, I'll make some marks to use
as guidelines when I go to actually place with the
rubber stamp when it's inked. Before I actually ink
the rubber stamp, I want to just go through and see where exactly I'm going to be placing
the rubber stamp. After the stamp has been inked, I carefully place it along the guidelines and press firmly. The ink will remain wet for a little bit so be
careful not to smudge, and wait and erase the
lines when it's dry. Now it's just a
matter of going over the light pencil lines
with your micron markers, starting out with the flower
part of the poinsettia. Now to paint the
botanical elements and painting in the same way
that you have practiced. I'm going to speed
things up a bit here since it's more of the same that we
have been practicing. Only painting just about three
petals at a time so that they remain wet and I can continue to use a wet
and wet technique. If I try to paint anymore, then the paint would
probably start to dry. Layering the bright
orange on now. Now putting those center
little dots of bright red on. Giving it some sparkle now
with these metallic gel pens. Remember, to not overdo it. Lastly, we'll be using
the red micron marker and the green micron marker to complete the frame
around the card. To give it a more finished look, I'm going in and painting just a few extra
needles where the lines of the frame end. Just like that, you have your
finished Christmas card.
10. Final Thoughts : [MUSIC] Congratulations
on finishing the class. I hope you learned
a lot from it. I also hope you'll continue to explore this wonderful
medium of watercolor. I'd love to hear your suggestions
for any future classes. Please leave a comment in the discussion section along with any questions
you might have. If you're interested in seeing
more of my current work, you can follow me on Instagram. I look forward to seeing you
in my next Skillshare class. Bye. [MUSIC].
11. Keepsake Ornament: There are several things
you can create with these few floral elements. One of them is this keepsake
ornament that I made with paper mache ornaments
purchased from Hobby Lobby. Keep in mind you can find all the materials
for this ornament in the detailed supply list provided in the
resource section. First, I'm using a piece
of tracing paper and tracing this large
poinsettia onto it. I'll be using this tracing
paper as a type of carbon paper to transfer the
image onto the ornament. Simply turn over
the tracing paper and using a number 2 pencil, I'm covering all those lines. This will then act as a carbon
piece of paper lining up the center and then figuring out the best position
for my point setup. After taping the
tracing paper to the ornament in the
position I like, I simply trace over
the lines now. You can see that some
of the pencil lines are a little difficult to see. So I'll be going over the lines
again with my pencil now. The pencil lines are
now more distinct, but to make sure that they
don't show through the paint, I'm going to just dab very gently with the kneaded eraser. Using my number 2 round brush, I'll now paint the poinsettia. I found that the paper
buckle just slightly, but after it dried, it seemed to flatten out. Just be cautious not to use
a large amount of water on this ornament because the paper will probably not be
able to handle it. I know I want something around the outer edge of this ornament. What I plan to do
is make a sketch, a roadmap to plan out what I want to put
there and that way, when I go to put it
on the ornament, there won't be so much erasing. The planning will all be done. I'm choosing to go with a
very simple design using some of the pine branches with
the few of the berries. I'll be putting
the berries in at the 12 o'clock position, the 3, 6, and 9 o'clock position with the pine branches in between. I'm using a metallic gel pens, but did find them difficult to flow on this type of paper. You may want to instead use your Micron fine-point markers. I am using cadmium red to
go over these berries, and now I'm also
using the cadmium red simply just brushing the edge of this ornament
to give it a finished look. On the other side
of this ornament, I'm choosing to put a greeting. You can simply use
a rubber stamp. I'll be writing out
the greeting in my own handwriting to make
it a bit more personal. Here I've sketched out
how I want it to look. I've used some
tracing paper to line up exactly where I want
the text to appear. I've cut a slit to
leave a mark where the letter M will appear and
the letter C will appear. Making my marks on the ornament. Making sure I make the mark close enough so that
I know where to put the letter M and the
letter C. Again, just to remind you, these
metallic gel pens are just a bit difficult to get
to work on this paper. I'm just now adding a few
accents around the greeting, being careful again
not to overdo it. Once again be
brushing the edge of the ornament with
this cadmium red, just using the belly of my brush and gently going along the edge. Painting the entire edge of the ornament now with
the cadmium red. Here is the front and
the back finished. Because it is water color, it is subject to getting
wet, maybe being damaged. To keep it a true
keepsake ornament, I am going to use these self-adhesive
laminating sheets to cover the surface
and protect it. I've found that the
easiest way to remove the excess adhesive paper was doing just a small
section at a time, cutting really close to
the edge and ripping. Cutting very close
to the edge a little bit and then ripping
off the excess. This seemed to work well. Firmly pressing the
adhesive paper down, making sure that
there are no bubbles.
12. Gift Tags: Creating gift tags is
another fun way to use the flora elements you've
learned to illustrate. One tag is cut out
of watercolor paper. The other is a brown
gift tag ornament purchased at Hobby Lobby. You can find the additional
materials needed for these tags in
the supply list. Sketch the simple design onto the tag and then gently dab
with the kneaded eraser. This white gouache always looks
nice on this brown paper. I've decided to move the words to and from down
just a bit from the design. Simply adding some
red circles now with my red micron fine point
marker varying in size, it will accent these
white pine branches nicely and also a little
bit of that gold. Checking out which
washi tape looks nice with this design. You could also simply go
around the border with your fine tip micron marker. Using my exacto blade on top
of my mat board for cutting, just cutting away the
edges of this washi tape. I cut out this tag from a
piece of watercolor paper. Using the same approach for painting these
holly leaves as you learned in designing
the Christmas card. Layering this yellow
over the dried holly leaves really does
increase its vibrancy. Going over the veins and
the outline of these holly leaves gives it
a nice finished look. Using again some washi tape, but here just at the
bottom of the tag. There are numerous ways to use these three flora elements
you've learned to paint. I hope you experiment and come up with some
designs on your own, but above all else, I hope you just have fun.
Sharon Margolies, Artist | Watercolor + Lettering
