Create a Greeting Card with Watercolor Pencils

This is a ‘rewind’ project while I’m in the midst of a slew of new paintings. Enjoy!

You know when you get so used to using the same thing over and over again that you forget what you have? Like in the kitchen – we get into a rut with ingredients, tools, spices. Then you dig around in a drawer and – Aha! – you find a cool tool you bought years ago.

That’s what happened this weekend. I always send a Thank You card to my mural clients. So I was digging around in a drawer and found a package of watercolor paper cards. Hmmm, maybe I should paint a l’il quickie for the Disney Horse Mural client & her daughters. I dig around in another drawer and find my watercolor pencils!

I use acrylic paint so much I forget all the fun stuff I’ve bought thru the years. 

 

If you’ve never tried these before, I highly recommend them. They are so much fun! You use them like pencils, then wet a paintbrush and your pencil strokes become watercolor. Cool beans, huh?

Okay. If you’re saying right now you’re one of those who can’t draw a stick figure. No worries. I’m really working on creating more painting tutorials. I was really encouraged to create more tutorials by Amy over at ModPodgeRocks because she thought people could use the line art patterns for anything – fabric, painting, blog backgrounds – all kinds of great stuff. I’ll be posting as I get each done. If there’s a design you’d like to see, please email me. I’d be happy to sketch it & do a step-by-step paint tutorial for you.

Back to the watercolor cards . . .

First, I sketched out some simple crowns and a wand then lightly filled them in with the watercolor pencils. Can’t draw? Just go to Google Images, enter the search term you want and print it off. Try ‘clip art’. Like, “Princess crown clip art”. You can find nearly anything you want.

You can use any paintbrush you’re comfortable with. I used a #6 flat and a liner, but anything will work.

Look at the bottom crown, on the right side. See the pencil strokes? And see how the rest of the crown now looks painted? That’s what the watercolor pencils do, with just water!

I thought this was too light. So I just added more pencil strokes to darken it a bit.

You can even blend colors if you want. Since it’s been so long since I’ve used watercolor pencils, I was just kind of playing around.

Then I added a bunch of swirls from the magic wand.

This is after I’ve gone over everything with a damp (not wet) paintbrush. I could’ve stopped right here.

If you follow my blog, you know I’m totally into Sharpies right now.

I’m just in love with my Sharpies. They’re so quick, compared to trying to get a fine line of paint. I added little shapes on top of the crowns, drew outlines around the swirls & crowns and that was it!

Then a little note to my client, thanking her for hiring me.

And if she wants to, she can frame the card for the girls’ room, because it matches all of their colors and princess decor.

Next time your in a craft store I hope you pick up some watercolor pencils for your crafting arsenal. They’re super user-friendly and I just bet you can come up with some great creative projects to share.

At a linky party. For all things paint-related. Starting in September. On Friday nights. Hosted by a blog that starts with ‘mural’ and ends with ‘more’. {hint, hint}