Watercolour Card Gift Set for Beginners

1. Hello!: Hello, everyone. Today you were going to make a watercolor card gift sets. This matching set can be made out of one sheet of nine by 12 inch watercolor paper, plus our cards, and this class comes with a drawing template. Just in case your drawings, Gil learned where you'd like them to be just yet. Now you can use any water colors you like. Actually, we can go check out the other supplies that you'll need and how to use that drawing template in the next lesson. And if you stick around until the end, I'll show you a really neat way to personalize your gift. 2. Supplies & Using Your Template: So you're gonna need one sheet of nine by 12 inch watercolor paper. Um, you'll need that size because the template princip on regular printer paper and it will fit best on that size. Now I'm going to use my white Knights watercolors. Um, you can use whatever you like, but I will show you some swatches of the colors I use. You're going to need a paintbrush. I'm going to use to one for some smaller details. You can even use water brush if you'd like. You'll also need a little bit of paper tile or a rag. Clean your paint, brush off with you'll need a pencil for drawing or you're drawing template and need something to Enquist. I'm going to use a micro on pen, and you'll need something to cut your watercolor paper afterwards. Um, you'll also need your drawing template so you can find that by going to the projects and resources, tap in this class and you'll find there that you can download and print it. Once you have that all printed, it will look like this, and I'll show you how you can transfer your image onto watercolor paper. There's two ways that you can do that. One. You can use a window like a light box so you can put your drawing template behind your watercolor sheet. And even though it's very thick, if you put it up to the window, you can see through. And you can draw over that now, an easier way is you can, ah, draw right on top. So we're gonna make surface that will, um, transmit some of the graphite onto your paper. So we're just gonna lay down with the side of the pencil. A nice coating of the graphite. A mechanical pencil does not work well for this because it's too sharp. Um, but a regular pencil works really well. So you just want to lay down a nice layer of the graphite. If you have, um, a softer pencil, it will lay down pretty easy. And then once you have that on their by just putting it where you want it on the paper and then making sure that your pencil is sharp enough and by drawing over the drawing template , um, you did speed this up a little bit. I don't draw quite quickly. Um, then you will transfer the image onto your watercolor paper. Now, you don't want to cross super hard like to leave a dent in your paper, but just enough so that you'll be able to have a painting guide. We're not going to ink all of the things that you see on your drawing template. So I'm just gonna go ahead and cover the rest of the back of the images with some graphite and so that we don't know go crazy watching me do this. Let's magically speed it up. Okay, so now that it's all covered, we're just going to take it and put it back onto our lor watercolor sheet and so that it doesn't move around on you too much. I suggest using ah, little piece of washi tape. Um, I'm going to just use a little bit of painter's tape, and this isn't meant to make it like, supremely secure or anything. It's just to keep it from moving around on you. Um, when you don't want it to, Of course, why would you want it to him? And then once you get that tape down, you want to get a pencil. That is hopefully sharp enough to do the job. But not sharp enough to go through the Baber. We don't want that. And then you can begin to trace over the drawing template. Now, remember, just like I said before when we were tracing the cat. So I'm going to speed this up a little bit because you can trace on your own. Um, don't press so hard that you dent through the paper. You just want it enough to transfer that graphite, um, onto the back. And like I said, this is a painting guy, not an inking guide. We're not gonna Inc everything that you see on here. Um, but you do want to know where you put your paint, and this will help you to do that. Um, now, I could have drawn this all load onto the paper, but I wanted to show you how to use this drawing template. And, um, it worked really well. So I'm very pleased to be able to provide this for you. Ah, once you get most of your things traced out, then we will head over to check out some paint swatches. And when you decide what you want to paint your things, they don't have to be the same paint colors that I chose, but you're more than welcome to follow along with me. That's why I included as much information as possible so that you could, um, paint the set to be a matching set to give as a gift to someone, Um, if you don't have the exact same paint color, so I have Well, that's no worry. You can paint them to match another way. You can't make the match with other colors. That's what I was trying to say. Good grief. 3. Paint Swatches: Okay, so now we're gonna just look at a few paint swatches in case you want to follow along with me. Like I said, I'm using my white Knights pilot. And, um, I will show you the colors that I'm using from that the first color that I'm using. I have sped this up just a tiny bit. I don't paint quite this quickly. Ah, the first co that I'm using is a magenta in the white knight set its quinacrine own rose. And this is, ah, pr 1 22 And I'm mixing it quite a few times with this violet. I don't use the violet on its own, but when you let it mix in with the magenta looks really nice. Another color that I'm going to be using a lot of is this turquoise blue. And as you can see, it can go on very dark, or you can make a really nice, greedy int with it. Um, the next color that I will be using is actually an indigo, but it's called in Dan three in blue, in the white knight set, it's a p B 60 so that's normally, um, on indigo blue, and I'll be using that both stronger and quite diluted as well. Have a few colors and I'm going to be using a little bit of So I have this green. It's just called green in white nights and this all of green. You can use whatever greens you like. I'll be mixing them in various shades to get, um, some different greens for our grass and things like that. This is just Payne's gray, abusing that a little bit and hear some burnt number for some coffee colors and some things like that. I'll also be using the color golden um, for our orange kept. You can use whatever color you like for the cat. I just like how this orange contrasts well with the different blues that we have around, And one last color I'll be using just to throw in a little bit of blue sky is surreal. Liam Blue Um, you can use a very light form of your indigo if you'd like. But that civilians great. Here's a screenshot of our colors and the pigment names 4. Let’s Paint!: Okay, let's get those paints out. So we're gonna start with our little kitty, and we're gonna use the big brush just to paint in some water. We want to put in a background. Um, kind of make the square more obvious. Um, this is just silos paper. Um, I'm trying. My goal here is to paint more water than where the pain will go. But I don't want to go all the way down into where the cat is, because we're gonna paint him right after this, so keep him dry. Um, I want to put a background of color. I'm using turquoise, obviously. Um, but I want the color to only come down about half way down the square. You can put in any color that you want here. To be honest, I'm using turquoise because I like this color. So that's that's my big reason. Anyway, um, I tipped the paper a little bit there to make it run a little bit more. I didn't have, like, a big stopping what? Lake of water. So the paint is not zooming all over the place, which is what I want. I don't want it to, um run where I don't want it to. So right now I'm just controlling the flow of the water. My waving my paper around like a crazy person. Um, and once I get it where I wanted to kind of have futz with it a little bit here cause it was doing strange things, as watercolor does, and then I'm done, and that's it. So, no, I'm going to move on to, um uh, more detailed brush. So I'm gonna grab my little brush, and I'm just putting a little bit of that, uh, into go. Um, no, I'm sorry. That's the pains. Great. Um, so I'm gonna mix this guy a little bit, He's gonna have some Payne's gray, and then we're gonna add in a little bit of the burnt number. And I'm not just filling him in, like all one, um, solid color. Um, the idea here is to leave some white so that his for looks nice and fluffy. Um, now, remember, we're gonna Inc over him. So if you do make a tiny mistake or something like that, it's not like a huge deal, because once we think over it, it will hide any little mistakes that you happen to make, and you don't have to worry a boat. Um, what you do with his nose? Because we're just gonna add his nose in with ink later. So just leave his eyes, um, white, the white of the paper. And you're gonna drop in now some burn number and different places. And you can wait until the Paynes grey is dry. Or you can put it on when it's still a little bit wet and let those to kind of flow together a little bit of your choice. Um, I am going to make his two little paws just ah, flat gray. In that way, it will make them look a little bit different from his head. And guess what he's done. So now we're gonna move on to our hearts. Um, if you are left handed, I suggest working in a slightly different order than I'm working. I'm right handed, so I'm gonna work from the top, left to the bottom, right? Basically, um, but if you're left handed, you might want to start with the birdbath picture first, just so you don't end up being in your own way. Now I'm gonna use two different brushes to paint these hurts, basically, because I don't want to keep loading and washing off my brush for each heart. But I also don't want them to dry too much. So I'm painting them magenta, just solid magenta. And then I'm gonna add in a little bit of that violet into each heart. I tried to put it in. Not exactly all in the same place with each art. Although at this point, it does kind of look like that. Um, And I also, um, let the hearts get a little bit lighter as we move closer down into the card or the bottom of the image. So I kind of let the pigment run out a little bit in the brush, If that's makes sense, Um, and I make the hearts this particular shape. You could make your hearts fatter rounder skinnier. However you enjoy making hearts make them. So you see here how it's getting, like, a little bit lighter. And I did that on purpose because I want them to look like they're growing. And intensity is they come out of the card and then you can just go in and drop in. Still, some of your Violet. And we're gonna leave that card a little bit now, Baldwin, and paint the actual card part in the envelope once those hearts are dry. So once again, we're going to go in and wet this area where the scribe will be. This is gonna be even a lot quicker than the turquoise part. This is the cerulean blue that I talked about, and you just want to dab a little bit of this is a very late pigment. I'm not like watering it down a lot. It's just light, um, and basically leave a lot of white spots up there for some clouds and just a very a hint of a blue sky in the background. Okay, Now we're gonna grab our little detailer brush again, and we're gonna go in dry. So you notice that again. We just painted the sky to do what and went with sky. But this bottom detail in part, we will be painting, um, dry. Well, what? On dry? Okay, so the first thing we're gonna do is go in and paint our kitty. Now, um, I am going to paint him in a little wet on wet. Just this, uh, the front half of him because I want these colors to blend. Well, um, so just that first half, and then you can drop in some orange and move it around so that you know, his eyes stand out that they're round. And I'm trying to put a little bit of ah, darker pigment down by his feet. And also, I'm gonna drop in a little bit more darker pigment up a the top of his head up by his ears . And now I'm gonna leave him to dry and will paint the rest of his body afterwards. So I'm gonna mix up a very light version of our indigo or in Dan three in blue for the birdbath, and we're gonna paint this in pieces, um, so that they don't bleed into each other. You have that control again. And, um, this is not difficult. You're just gonna follow your little, um, guide that we drew in and paint the back piece first, and you can leave Ah, little highlight of some white paper showing if you want. And I'm now going to skip down here because it's nice and safe and far away from that spot and paint in the base. Now I want the bottom of the base of the birdbath to just fade away into nothing because I'm gonna have grass down here at the bottom. So if you paint white, paint white, paint water at the bottom and then sweep it up into the top, it will connect itself just fine. These are the most fun flowers there are to paint their pink blobs very, very easy. Ah ha! You can paint them according to where the drawing template is, or paint them however you want. And I'm once again gonna add in a little drop not to all of them, just to a few, to add some like color variation of that violet. And it looks having Alex Concho. Now, these ones, I'm just doing pink without adding in the violet. But they will have some color variation to, because I will be adding the green stem in while they are wet. 5. Painting, continued : Okay, so we have those magenta flowers, and now we're gonna mix their greens a little bit. You can use whatever greens you like, and you're just gonna very gently sweep those stems right up. And don't be afraid to let them go right into touching those flowers because it just adds something. This is what watercolor dole boat, how things bleed and blend in together and how it's a little bit uncontrollable, and it's just great. That's what makes watercolor special. Now, when you're adding in this foliage to the flowers on the right, try to make sure that you leave a fair amount of white space. You can drop in some extra dark greens in there if you want, but try to leave a fair amount of white space that makes it looks like there's some sunlight coming in through that foliage, and you can see how easy it is to throw in some grass. Now, here, you see why I'm using two different greens. Um, you couldn't have a green and add more and more yellow if you want to. It what? However you want a mixture? Greens is fine. I just find these two are easy to use together. Now, this little patch of flowers, flowers, this little patch of green whatever this plant is, um, you want this to be darker Now, the reason that you want this to be darker is because it's in the foreground. So it's going to look a little bit darker, and mine is going to look a little bit smudged in a second or two because, yeah, I stuck my hand in it. So anyway, lesson learned, and you'll see me have to figure out ways to fix it. So hey, I'm teaching you something by making big mistake. Look, it's all smudged anyway. Um, I'm also going to leave a couple of highlights when I do this side of the birdbath. I just gestured Likas, if that's gonna help you, um and Ah, yeah, that made a lesson. I know where the bottom of the birdbath pedestal is dry already. I'm also gonna add in just another layer. It's not like a whole lot darker. Anything of that indigo that we mixed up and that will make it look like there's a shadow coming down that side. And we also need Teoh. Um, finish up our kitty cat and he's dry to now so we can go in. That's the beauty. Sometimes I'm working on cellulose paper drives crazy fast. Um, so I'm gonna add a little bit of dark again around his head and just put a little bit of texture in his nice little mean that he has. So it's safe now to go in and add the rest of his body color. And I am going to still leave a little bit of white there in between, like, not just make one flat color. But if you choose to make one flight color, do you think I'm going to make his tail look like it has some nice stripes? Just by making these little lines and leaving a white space in between, it's really easy. Um, I apologize for the changes in light. That's the perils of recording and natural aiding. But it's it's great. I like painting and natural late. It's nice, so we're gonna add a little bit of green grass shadow. This just will, um, ground our character here, this little kitty, and help him not to look like a floating orange cat, which no one really wants that integrated, Um, so here I am fixing up my little boo boo. And you know, most people are probably not gonna even notice that some crazy person put their hand in it . So, you know, no big deal if you happen to Makilala boo Boo and making a little bit of water reflection in there, Um, just enough to make it obvious that there's water in there. The's hearts air now dry. So it's really easy for us to go in and paint our car that they're coming popping out of, um, you can paint this car, but every, like this is, um, just once again, very watered down version of our, um, and to go in Dan thrown blue. It's the same blue that we used for the birdbath, and it's the same blue that we're going to use for the envelope that I'm painting now. It's just darker, so that blue has an incredible range in values. Um, it's an excellent color. Any indigo's excellent. Now we are soon going to move on to our coffee cup. Now, if you chose to use a different color for the background behind your kitty, that's looking out from the little frame, um, to make this a matching set. You might want to make this coffee cup or teacup that same color. So I'm gonna make this turquoise slid. It matches my set. But if you don't like turquoise or you wanted to use a different color than make these two things match, just so you're set. Looks like it matches. I'm trying to paint around, um, the light reflections that I left. Oh, you know, leaving the whites of the paper and taking off the cat hair off your paintbrush. The perils of painting with a cat in the house. Um, so you'll notice that this, um, paint kind of has dark spots and light spots. That's watercolor. It's snow. Be deal. I could go over it if I wanted it to be, um, super. Ah, Flat. I don't, um I wanted it to look like that. So I I like to leave it like that. Um, this is a very fast, um, cup. We're not making this very complicated. Um, if you don't want to paint in or if you don't want to leave in all of those highlights, um, paint over, do do your thing. Um, I'm now going to mix up a super duper, a light version of the pains. Great. We're going to use that to be the steam that's going to come out of the car pickup in a heart shape, and it's going to get a little bit sunny right now. And so it's going to get a little bit hard to see, and I apologize. But I'll show you in a second what it looks like now. The only really important part of the steam is just the inside of this section. The heart shape, the outside part of the steam. You can make that blobby in any direction that you choose to paint it, um, and add water and make it continue to blah boat. So what it will look like is it that the steam is dissipating? Um, I'm using my little brush there to just add a little better point to my heart. Um, you can Then, once this is where you want it to be, go back in next to the heart and drop in, um, some darker pigment and that will make that area stand out a little bit better. I actually wish that I dropped in a much darker pigment right there, but I didn't. So, um, that's lesson that you can learn from me. Um, no. Once the cup is dry, you can go in and paint in a table that it can sit on. Then I'm going to use that same Payne's gray mix that I used for the steam just to make it kind of a harmonious looking painting. And you can, um, wash your brush and just blend out that color a little bit. I'm just making sure right here, that there's no white like I didn't want a paint right over the bottom and have that turquoise smear. Oh, but I want to make sure that there's no white between the cup and the table because that would look a wee bit odd. And once that is a little bit drier, Um, we can go in and add in or coffee. Now, when you put in your coffee, don't just make it all one solid brown. Um, leave some whites that will be your reflection off the liquid in the cup, and then you can also go back in and drop in a little bit of extra. When I say brown, I'm talking about the burnt number pigment that we talked about. Um, you can go back in and like this, drop in just a little bit of darker colors. And that's like, you know, the swirling of the coffee in the cup. Oh, yes. So awesome. Um, okay. Now I'm gonna go in and add in darker bit of that indigo, and we're pretty much done painting. We just have to wait for it to dry and then Inc. 6. Inking: OK, now let's get ready to do some thinking. I'm gonna use my pick my micron, like I talked about before, and we're not gonna think over everything like we talked about. Um, but thinking is great because it can, you know, help us hide some things. When you do his little nose, you could make it a little heart. What's what I do? Um, you don't have to do that if you don't want to, Uh, when you're thinking around, especially an animal that's furry don't draw just one solid line that goes all the way around the outside. That makes him look almost like a coloring book that you colored in. Um, but your I will naturally fill in any gaps that you leave in the outline of this for, And any of those sort of fuzzy bits those lines that don't quite connect, they just make him look more for furry and fuzzy. You know, kittens are they look like they just top it of a dry or somewhere. Um, now, just do this outline like super rough. The point of this is to make it like a rustic square. Um, I'm not just being messy. I actually wanted it to look like that. Um, Now, in this particular illustration, the Onley thing I'm going to think is the cat you can choose Dink the flowers and everything like that, if you want to. Um I just wanted him to stand out as the subject of the painting a little bit more. And when you do in his little pupils, with whatever you choose to think with, um, try to leave a little bit of white just for the highlight, it's easier than going in with a gel pin afterwards. Once again, we're not making a solid line when we're thinking you want to leave some fuzzy bits. So he kind of looks well free. He's free, right? And I'm going to draw in those little white spaces that we left in his tail. I'm just gonna add in some little black lines and make his tail look straight, be that way and that's that Kurds done. Now we're gonna move on to thinking in the heart card. This one is very easy to ink. Um, the way that I do the hearts is basically that same rustic e look that we did with the the frame for the kitten. Once you do the card and the envelope, I try to do those, like, properly inked, But the hearts I purposely do fast and loose. Um, they I don't know. I just like the way that that looks. If you want to make your outline exactly match up with every little hurt. Um, go ahead. This is your card. It's gonna be your gift that you give to someone. So make it, make it you. But that, my friend, is the end of the inking. And it was super quick, right? Yeah. 7. Card Assembly : Okay, so we're gonna put these cards together. So first of all, you gotta cut thumb up to put them together. We're gonna cut him up. Um, you can use scissors. You can use whatever you like. I like to use, um, this cutting blade because it makes ah, straight edge. And I'm terrible with straight edges. So this works for me. Use whatever you have on hand. All you need to do is cut them into four cards. Um, so I did do a little bit of trimming off screen because I kind of wanted to centralize them . That's the word I'm looking for. Uh, I wanted them to be a little bit more. Um, centered. That's better. Um, but once you have them all, cut your biking. You have four little paintings and we're going to turn them into four little cards. This is really easy. Now. I'm using this set. It's a card set. Its cards and envelopes. Um, it's just card stock, but they come with envelopes, so it was really handy to use. Um, Now, if you don't happen to have access to something like this, um, a pre mate set, you can just make your own owed of card stock, so this particular piece of card stock is 10 inches by 6.5 inches. Or if you're into centimeters. Um, this is 25 a half centimeters by 16.5 centimeters. You can see that as well as I can. So you can just caught a piece of cards, doc to those dimensions and then score it and you've got one. That's exactly the right size for your little paintings that we made out of, Ah, one single sheet. This envelope is seven and 1/4 inches to fit the that card and five and 1/4 inches, or, if you're into centimeters 18.5. But I was 13.5. Now, the only reason I'm telling you those dimensions is if you choose to make your own. The other thing you can do is go out and buy a set. You can get these at, like the dollar store dollar tree and not sure what all you have for a dollar store. I have paint on my hands, um, but if you get a blank card, there just is easy to glue your painting right onto the front as any other card, and they come with envelopes. So you're all set, right? Um, you can make your own little set of watercolor cards with those Justus. Well, as you can with the set that I have made out of card stock and these ones come in all different colors. But, I mean, you could get blank cards everywhere. So to glue your image on you can use a glue stick. That would be what I would suggest. I'm going to use this Tom Bowman. Oh glue, because it's what I have on hand. If you do choose to use a liquid glue, try not to overdo it. You don't want your card or your painting to warp, because wetness of the glue. But one thing I do recommend is making sure you get those edges while covered. I'm going to give a little hit there in the middle to, but you want the edges to be down really well. That way, it doesn't accidentally get caught on something and pull off, and when you're gluing it down, I prefer not to rub my hands across the painting, just in case I accidentally smear some pigment somehow because its that's gonna happen. It's gonna happen to me. So, uh, this is That's it, It's It's ready. There's occurred. There's painting. My envelope sealed itself shut, but now it's so there's your little card set, and that's really super easy, right? 8. Finishing Touches: Okay, so now we're gonna personalize our cards just like we talked about, right at the very beginning to do this. Um, all you'll need is some India ink. You can also use watercolor to do this if you want, but I like using Indian ink. I'm using a teal ah, India ink to match my turquoise of my card. I have some water here to clean my pen. And a dip pen will also need. You can use paper tile. A rag soft rag would actually be easier. Better but pivotal works, too. So what we're gonna do is going to write a little statement on the back of the Kurds. Remember, we're making these as a gift for someone else, so we don't want to write on the inside. We want to leave that for them. But on the back of the card, that's where we can add this little statement. This particular statement you can use if you're making a whole bunch of these and you're not quite sure who you're going to give this particular card to first. Um So all I'm writing here is made especially for you. But you you can really right. Anything you want in this spot? Um, the reason I like using India ink is because first of all, it's waterproof, so I'm gonna go anywhere. But also it has an isil sheen to it. And once it's dry, if you run your hand over it, it has a little. It's raised a little bit, so it's almost like it's m bossed or something. It just adds a little something special. You can just as easily paint a drop of matching watercolor onto your dip pen and away you go. Don't forget to clean your debt pen off. That's important, especially with India ink and seal your ink afterwards. So here's what this looks like. Ah, once it's dry and I kind of I like the, um, shading effect that it gives now. You can also do another matching color. So this set that I got of Dr PH. Martin's Inc. Both of these came in set number one of the India ink. So I'm using the magenta ink to go with our cards. This sentiment is a little bit easier to use. You'll notice my ink is frothy because I shook it up because it was all settled anyway. Um, So this particular sentiment you can write if you actually do know who you're making the cards at four. I'm going to write my own name because I couldn't think of someone who I wanted to put on camera and not, like, embarrassed, um, or something. But ah, this is a great way to make it kind of neat for them. So you can write from the dusk off and, like, their full name, Or you can write from the desk of and then just have, like, their first initial and their last name. So, like our Humphries or whatever else that you wanted to put in there, um, make it cute. I don't. Whatever you want to write on here, you got your depend. Now, I don't do like the whole, um, calligraphy writing. I'm just trying to have a little quick statement that I'm putting on here. Um, I have tried it before with the proper pressure and everything with clear V. I just find it takes too long. So, um yep. I just wanted to do something quick, So don't forget to clean off your nib again. That's important. Pursuit India ink. And there you go. There's your little personalized cards, and I really like it. I think it's really cute. It makes a really nice gift to give to someone. It's something that someone can actually use. You need a card for lots of different occasions, right? And, um, now you've made them a nice little set. So here we have finished. We've made four matching watercolor cards that you can give to someone as a little set, and I've given these sets two people before, and they're always well received. It's just a nice way to give someone a little tiny piece of art so you can make many sets as you like many different colors you like, and you're ready to go.