2016 Watercolor Calendar - April

We're up to April on our Watercolor Technique Calendar!  Today I wanted to make some posies...cause we'll, we do have some flowers starting to bloom in April but mostly I'm tired of snow and cold - LOL!!

So here goes...

I thought it would be fun to make posies...they are really easy to use and way fun to make.

1. Start off by securing your paper to your work surface with a bit of washi or painters tape.

2.  Apply a wash of light blue for the background.

3. Once the background is mostly dry, paint on several medium sized circles using whatever color you want your flowers to be.

4. Apply one or more additional layers of color to your flowers.

5. Now the fun begins...  Pick up a darker shade of paint and start making swirls on each "flower".

This is what mine looked like after 1 layer - notice they aren't perfect...no need.  We've got many more layers to add.

6. Continue to layer on swirls of color to each flower.  Use varying shades of paint as you go - more water = lighter colors, less water = darker colors.

7.  I used a bit of purple in my flowers to make shadows.  

8. After I had all the swirls on I wanted, I took a #2 (small) round brush that had been dipped in water and swirled it around to mix and blend the previous layers of color until I was satisfied with the look.

9.  Now it's time to add stems, leaves and grass.  I didn't take photos of this process...it's pretty self explanatory.

After it was dry I removed the tape.

and this is how it turned out!

So then I began on my calendar page - I squeezed in 5 blossoms but of course you can make more or less depending on your taste.

This is about 1/2 way done...

And after I swirled everything together with just water.

Added my leaves, stems and grass...

And here's how it turned out!  I'm so pleased with it, I almost hated to add the calendar - LOL!!  I had a hard time deciding where to put it.  I ended up just plunking it down near the center because ...well, not sure why but I just did.

Someone asked why I demo on a card then make the calendar page...  I always test out my design idea more than once.  When I decide on a design (on the right), I make one to take photos of the process (card in the center) then I make the actual calendar page.  I use the 2 smaller versions for cards - when we're done with the calendar I will have 12+ watercolor cards as well!

Hope you're having fun playing along.