Watercolor Nature Journal: Violets

I love Johnny Jump-Up Violets and the way they create a carpet of violet and green in the lawn in early spring.  I've always wanted to take a photo that captures the parade of blossoms, and finally managed it this spring.

Of course I wanted to paint the scene in my new concertina watercolor journal.  I started with a pencil sketch. Then I painted in the various violets -- the closer ones I painted in detail, and as the violets grew farther away, I painted them as flower shapes, and finally as blobs.

When the flowers were dry, I painted around the many violets in shades of green, and created a shadow color by mixing permanent blue violet with Hooker's green.

I created the concertina sketchbook by cutting a 6" x 20" strip from a sheet of 300 pound Stonehenge watercolor paper, then scoring the paper every 5" with a bone folding tool and folding in a zig-zag folding pattern.

Blick sells sheets of 300# Stonehenge Aqua watercolor paper for $12.  The sheets are 22" x 30" so you can make 3 of these accordion-fold journals for $12.  That's reasonable for journals, and the paper is absolutely lovely to work on.

You can paint on both sides of watercolor paper, so when I fill up one side, I'll flip it and paint on the other side, creating a folded record of my spring in nature.

You may recognize the cover of this sketchbook from an earlier post about painting phlox.

I love this little watercolor sketchbook!  It's pocket-sized, and the 300 pound paper is a dream to work on. 

 

Watercolor Nature Sketches: Phlox

I love to sit in nature and sketch.  Sometimes, I only have time for a quick hike, so I snap photos of anything I wanted to sketch on the spot, like these wild phlox in bloom.

It's often the tiniest things in nature that draw me in.

I began this sketch with a pencil drawing, then painted in the flower petals in mixtures of permanent blue violet, Phthalo blue, & permanent rose.  I let the first wash of color dry before adding in shadows on the petals.  

I laid in the background by painting in one big wet layer, touching in darker bits and letting the color spread.

With watercolor, you control the flow of the paint by controlling the water.  Watercolor blooms and spreads within a wet area, and won't flow to dry areas of your paper unless it's very runny and dribbles.

To create the little shadowed spots behind the flowers, I let the flowers dry fully, then carefully painted the area beside the flower with clear water and touched in a dark mixture of permanent blue violet and Hooker's green. 

I worked quickly to touch in other green mixtures to give the sense of foliage on a forest floor.  By keeping the background indistinct and more abstract, the phlox flowers pop forward to catch our eye.

I finished the sketch by adding lines with a fine black pen with permanent ink.
 

Would you like to make paintings of tiny things?  

Here are a few photos to practice with!

Happy Creating!

Mixed Media Concertina Sketchbook

My cat, Grover, kindly posed for sketches in my latest accordion-fold sketchbook.

I love to read in the evenings, and have been delving into Jane Stobart's Extraordinary Sketchbooks, where I got the idea to make a collaged sketchbook like architect Karen Butti.

I used a base of 140 pound watercolor paper, and glued on painted papers & old maps with Yes! Paste. 

Below is the cover of the sketchbook, decorated with music sheeting that's been painted with several thin layers of acrylic paint.

 

 The surface of these papers is slick, which would make it difficult to draw on top of them with graphite, charcoal or colored pencils.  I applied clear gesso over both sides of the sketchbook to add a layer of grit without obscuring the designs underneath it.   

My cats were hanging out in the studio when I started sketching, so they fill the first pages.

I love that I can sketch with rich, black charcoal and white pastel pencils.  The painted paper underneath adds another layer of pattern and color.  It feels exciting to have a new sketchbook with a variety of colorful papers

The songbirds hunting seeds in the flower box outside my studio window fit perfectly on the map of Glacier Bay, Alaska.  

Dark-Eyed Juncos scratch on the earth for seeds, so I put black oiler sunflower seeds in my flower beds for them. It's a protected spot, and it brings them closer for me to draw.

Collaging colorful papers onto a plain sketchbook adds a playfulness and imperfection that invites doodling.  If you're feeling anxiety facing the blank page, maybe a collaged page would help you push past that feeling and make drawings.

The beauty of drawing in a sketchbook is that your artwork doesn't have to be "pretty" or "perfect."  Truly in this world, there is no such thing as perfect, so try looking at drawing as an exploration, a voyage of discovery. Every drawing teaches you something.

Happy Creating!