2016 Watercolor Calendar - September

September in Indiana is when the leaves start to change from green to golds, reds and orange and mornings are crisp, cool and refreshing.  Such a lovely time of the year which is what inspired todays calendar page....

This is SUCH a fun technique...

You start off by painting a basic tree trunk with a few limbs sticking off to one side (or if you're putting your tree in the center - off both sides).

And here's where you loose me...

I started playing and TOTALLY forgot the camera....oops!

Let's try that again - for this example I painted the background with a light wash of blue for the sky.

I then drew my tree trunk & limbs.

Next fill up your brush with desired color of paint.  I started off with a dark red.  Tap the loaded brush on your finger in the general area that you want your "leaves" to be.  Dry this layer of paint.  Pick up your next leaf color and tap it over the branches of the tree then dry.  Continue adding more and more layers of speckles until you get the look you're going for.

As the last step you can add your grass at the base of the tree.

Now, you've got a pretty messy area because no matter how careful you are there are going to be dots of paint everywhere...  Don't let it go to waste, since it's watercolor paint simply mist with water and dab up the excess with a few tags, watercolor paper or plain old white cardstock.

You'll end up with lots of lovely tags ready for use.

All that's left to do is add your calendar and you're all set!

Now I have a question for you....  Are you following along?  Have you used one or more of these techniques to create your own calendar or card project?  I hope so because when we finish up with the calendar I have a special surprise for one of you... but the catch is that you have to have made something using at least one of the watercolor techniques.  So, if you haven't started you still have time...   More on this later!