Hello everyone! Anjali here from ‘The Letters of an Architect’ and I’m back with my first blog post of 2018; a tutorial on Handmade Watercolor Bookmarks. These are easy to make and I thoroughly enjoy the process. I also love gifting these to friends who love reading, but mostly I just keep them for myself since I’m a huge bookworm! I’m sure you’ll enjoy making and using these!
The theme for January is Hope, so I decided to make a set of 4 bookmarks with the words: Faith, Hope, Love, and Peace. I’ve used the Classics palette of Prima watercolor Confections and the results were stunning since the colors are vibrant and bright. I wanted to make use of all the gorgeous colors and so the bookmarks are vivid and colorful as well.
The materials I used for this project are:
- Speedball Art Products Bienfang Lightweight Watercolor Paper Pad 9″X12″, 15 Sheets
- Pentel Arts Sign Pens With Brush Tip 2/Pkg Gold & Silver
- Inkssentials Mini Misters 3/Pkg
- Sakura of America White-Gelly Roll Pen Med
- Prima Marketing Watercolor Confections: The Classics
- Ph. Martin’s Bleedproof White, 1.0 OZ
- Washi Tape – 620
- Sakura Of America Gold-Pentouch Calligraphy
I only needed half a sheet of watercolor paper from the pad, so I cut the paper in half and taped it to my work surface and separated it into four areas using washi tape/masking tape.
For the first bookmark, I created the blended watercolor background using the wet-on-wet technique. I first applied a light wash over the paper using a flat brush, then applied the watercolor after spritzing the palette using the Mini Mister.
This wets all the paints and it makes it easier to use them since I will be using most of the colors for this project.
I also love how this paper makes it so much easier for the paints to blend uniformly. And even though it is light-weight there was minimal warping. After the first layer of paint had dried I applied one more layer using the same three colors. I chose analogous colors for this bookmark. I used the same technique for the third bookmark as well.
For the second bookmark, I decided to paint different types of leaves, then added some gold accents after it had dried using a golden marker. For the fourth bookmark, I painted color blocks in rainbow colors.
When all four backgrounds had dried, I doodled on them using the white Gelly Roll pen. Then added the words Faith, Hope, Love, and Peace using the Pentel Sign Touch Pens, PH. Martin’s Bleedproof white and the Gold marker. I added shadows to the letters using contrasting colors. I used black Pentel Sign pen on ‘Faith’ (since it was lettered using white paint with a brush) and white Gelly Roll on ‘Love’ (since it was lettered using black Sign Pen). The point to be noted when making shadows is to keep it all consistently to one side. I drew all shadows to the right side.
Once you’re happy with the final results, peel off the masking tape, and cut the bookmarks out. I like to leave a little white border around it while doing so. You may add tassels or ribbons using a hole-punch if you’d like, but I decided to keep them as they are.
And there you go, your beautiful vibrant bookmarks are ready to grab a spot in your favorite book!
Thank you for reading! I hope you create bookmarks of your own using this tutorial, and if you do, be sure to tag @ppsuae and @thelettersofanarchitect on Instagram. If you have any feedback or queries, do leave them in the comments section below.
