Draw Wildflowers with Fabric Markers

For many people ‘summer’ means the beach. Sand, water, seashells. But not for me. Summer, to me, means the mountains, where I spent every childhood summer. The mountains – pine trees, pinecones, crystal blue lakes, and wildflowers.

I’m trying to get Mom to our cabin as much as possible this year. I’ve made it my mission. She deserves it and I think we both need it. It’s actually a short drive – 45 minutes – from the house. I’ll write more later on why it’s so important to get Mom to the cabin this year. 

I bought this totebag at the Dollar Tree a while back with the intention of painting some bright summer images on it.

But after a few quick trips to the mountains, I knew I wouldn’t be painting any hibiscus or flip flops. Nope, this l’il guy called for the tiny pops of colors that dot the mountainside around our cabin.

I didn’t take any paint this trip, just these Tulip Fabric Markers I bought at Walmart.

I’ve been waiting for just the right opportunity to try them out.

Every trip to the cabin different varieties of wildflowers pop up here and there. I have no idea what they are or what they’re called. I just snap pics.

Then I found this poster buried under a bunch of junk stuff. It’s sorely faded but I could still make out some of the blossoms I’ve seen this summer.

There are 12 colors in the Tulip Fabric Markers. Twelve. Markers. As in, the colors don’t blend like paint. Ok. This might be interesting.

With the bright green pen I drew the stem and basic leaf structures.

For the blue stickweed, I outlined in turquoise blue and filled in with light pink, let it dry, and then covered the pink with turquoise blue.

The orange was a bit . . . shocking bright. If you’re a fan of the neon colors trending right now, then this orange is perfect. For me – notsomuch a fan. So I toned down the orange with a red topcoat. Turned out just about perfect.

So you see where I’m going with all of this, don’t you? I actually loved the markers and I’ll definitely use them on a lot more projects. They’re quick, and fun. But they have limitations because they’re markers.

After drawing a couple of leaves and blossoms I began to leave blank spots for highlighting, since there isn’t a white pen.

For the dragonfly I started with the dark pink. Like the orange, almost neon.

I went over the pink with purple then used black for the body. For some reason the black “wicked” or spread out more than the other colors. Not sure if that was me or just the marker but oh well. Stuff happens.

I added some dark green to all the stems and leaves for a little definition.

All in all, by the time I was done with the first side, I had a pretty good handle on the markers, what they’d do and what they wouldn’t do.

It was really fun, just drawing with colors.

Especially when there there was such beauty surrounding me!

I posted the wildflower patterns here. I’d love to see what you do with them!