Hi! Anjali here from The Letters of an Architect, posting for the first time today on PPS UAE blog and I’m beyond thrilled to share some watercolor and lettering projects with you in the coming months! I truly hope these inspire you to try new things with watercolors.
For this month’s theme “Anything Goes”, I decided to stick with a Tropical-themed artwork with hand lettering using brush pens. Although I love painting loose watercolor florals, I decided to try painting some Monstera leaves and coconut leaves this time using my gorgeous Prima Watercolor Confections Tropicals Palette, which was part of my Design Team Kit for November. Something tropical out of a tropical palette, doesn’t that sound fun?
The products I used for this project were:
- Prima Watercolor Confections: Tropicals Palette
- 3M Painter’s Tape
- Speedball nib holder
- Speedball Calligraphy Pen Nibs 2/Pkg, 512 & 513EF
- Princeton Select Synthetic Brush Round Size 8
- Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Twin Tip Pen VIO
- Winsor & Newton Art Masking Fluid
- Gold Ink or watercolors
- Gold marker
- Pencil and eraser
There are so many great art supplies on PPS craft store, it was really difficult to decide what to get. I absolutely love stationery, if you’re reading this I’m sure you can relate!
This was my first time using Prima Watercolor confections and I love how intense the pigments are while also maintaining transparency, which is something I love about watercolors.
The paper I used is Winsor and Newton Cotman Cold pressed 300gsm watercolor pad. This holds water without warping much and has a great texture which is great for botanical and floral paintings.
I started with taping off the borders of the paper using Painter’s Tape and then drawing the pencil outline of the circle and the tropical elements around it. Then proceeded to mask off some of the line drawings using Winsor and Newton Masking fluid. I used a Speedball pen holder and nib for this as it’s much easier and mess-free than doing with a brush. This creates interesting negative spaces in the painting once the masking fluid is removed.
I then painted the Monstera leaves using the wet-on-wet technique, after making sure the masking fluid was completely dry. If not, it can ruin your brushes. For the wet-on-wet technique, we first apply a wet wash over the leaf and then proceed to dab on wet watercolor in different shades of green. This creates a stunning bleed effect.
I painted the rest of the leaves using this technique as well, but I first painted a light color wash around the masking fluid. Then I proceeded to paint the flowers in bright cheery colors and waited until the paints dried, to peel the masking tape off. You can let it air-dry or you can use a Heat Tool or blow-dryer to do the job quickly.
Then I added some shimmer to the painting by drawing the outline of the circle using a Gold marker and flicked some gold ink over the florals.
Now the only thing left to complete this piece is some simple lettering using my favorite Fude pens from Tombow. After that erase the pencil lines and voila! The perfect piece to frame and decorate your creative space with.
And that’s the finished work. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial as much as I enjoyed creating it! Do let us know your feedback or queries in the comments below. Until next time,
Anjali.
Here are the things you need to know, to join this month’s challenge:
1. Create a project with the theme “Anything Goes”.
2. Upload your project images to the challenge photo album “November 2017: Anything Goes” on the PPS Group Facebook page (not on the main feed).
Challenge winner will receive a prize pack worth AED50.
