I love to draw and paint. I find it helps me organize my thoughts and de-stress from the inside out. To create something, even a little watercolor, is a simple joy that seems good for my spirit. These miniature framed watercolors were a really fun project!
Starting with a piece of THIS watercolor paper that was about 9″ x 9″, (I had already cut off a section of it to create a small card, so this is what was left) I lightly sketched a collage of ‘frames’ with a pencil.
This actually took some time to consider shape and placement of each frame.
Once I was happy with the collage, using THIS pen, I went over the pencil sketched frames, adding bits of detail as inspiration hit me.
I’ve been earnestly working with watercolors for a year or two now. When I first started I used cheap watercolors and cheap paper and it was a bit frustrating. Having better quality products has made it so much more enjoyable for me. So, the shopping links I’m putting in this post are for the better quality products that I use now. Honestly, even if you’re only making greeting cards, it’s worth it to have the good stuff!
I didn’t use a ruler for the frames. I purposely wanted them to look more like a cartoon drawing.
It’s almost like I created my own coloring book page, isn’t it?!
For the actual pictures inside the mini frames, I just came up with random ideas, but this could be fun for different themes, like Christmas, fall, Easter or even a theme of a person for their birthday… so many different ideas!
Next, it was time to start filling the watercolor, little by little.
The ink in the pen I shared with you dries almost instantly and doesn’t run when it gets wet from the watercolor, which is an important feature!
The miniature frames are really small, but I tried to create as much detail with the watercolors that I could, within reason.
The juxtaposition of the cartoon-y black and white frames against the softly colored watercolors intrigues me.
Small, right?!
This larger frame is about an inch space for the watercolor. The smaller ones are around a half inch.
It’s that tiny feature that feels kinda magical when it’s all done.
On the larger frames I painted landscapes or scenes, and in the smaller frames I painted more of a single item, a leaf, flower etc.
To help define some of the details inside the watercolors I used THIS grey pen.
This was such a fun project, I’m definitely doing more…
I love the idea of creating personalized birthday cards with this style!
Here is the Amazon shopping list of what I used for this project:
The watercolor paper is this beautiful heavy Strathmore paper.
THESE are the black marker pen for the frames. They are wonderful to work with and the ink doesn’t run when I go over it with watercolor.
I now use these Daniel Smith watercolors. What a difference!
The grey marker pen to detail inside watercolors came in a pack of mixed colors. I also used the orange from the pack to define the pumpkins in the painting.
My favorite brush that I primarily use, is from this set of brushes, I think for this project it was the #2 or so one the smaller brushes.
Thank you for stopping by, I appreciate you reading along.
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Kathy Harer says
I love this idea Liz.
Liz says
Thank you! đŸ’•