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 Landscape

The spring landscape inspires me with its ever-changing swaths of color.

Every shade of green from chartreuse to seafoam, to deepest pine green fills the landscape.  Verdant new grass sweeps in to replace the old, dead meadow plants. 

On walks, I snap photos like this one.

Then I take them back to my studio to paint my version of the scene.  I think it's important in art, to give ourselves the freedom to create our version of reality.  When I started painting, I thought I should re-created every twig and pine needle in a scene.  

Folly!

But that lesson showed me that I am at liberty to play with any element of the scene I wish!  I have simplified this landscape, and I have used purple lavishly where it might not be evident in the photo above.  Why not?  I love purple and green together.

I began by making a simple pencil sketch.  With a kneaded eraser, I lightened the darker lines to keep the pencil marks from showing through the paint. 

I mixed different colors -- Phthalo blue with a touch of Hooker's green for the apple blossoms in the center of the scene, sap green with Winsor yellow for the yellowy greens, dioxazine purple with a touch of Phthalo blue for the distant hills and shadows, and Phthalo blue and burnt sienna for the spruces.

What would your version of this scene look like?

I hope you paint or draw it!

Happy Creating!

Botanical Weekly Planner Page

Each week in my planner is a new opportunity to experiment with my art. I try to let myself be free and let the art flow intuitively. 

Surprisingly, I feel more experimental than I do in my sketchbooks. 

One of the things I loved about our Watercolor Leaves and Florals class at CCBC was that we used the photos of wildflowers in field guides as references and created our own versions of real flowers.  

It gave us something to start with, yet we had none of the pressure to create anything realistic.

I created a "new" flower as I was making this page.  It's the yellow one. I was thinking of Queen Anne's Lace as I painted it.  

I can see now how much the drive for perfect realism puts a damper on my creativity.  Accepting that my painting isn't going to be photo-realistic releases my creative impulses and makes the process more fun and playful.

When I started painting landscapes, I wanted to capture every pine needle and flower in the scene.  Of course, that's impossible.  Learning to be playfully abstract in my watercolor paintings is far more fun for me than trying to recreate reality on the page.

Would you like to take a day in nature to play with your watercolors?  I hope you'll join me for my upcoming Nature in Watercolor Workshop for Beginners at Raccoon Creek State Park.  Read more about it in this post:

https://betsyblissart.blogspot.com/2026/05/osher-nature-in-watercolors-worshop-for.html 

I hope you'll join me!

Osher Nature in Watercolors Worshop for Beginners

There's still space left in my upcoming Nature in Watercolors Workshop for Beginners on May 26th!  If you are curious about watercolors and would like to learn more, I hope you'll join me.  Even if you're not currently a member of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at CMU, you can take the class!

Osher at CMU offers curious participants a chance to try out one class for free, and if they like the experience and want to try more classes, they can become a prospective member, pay $95, and take as many additional classes in that semester as they like.

Here's a link to more information about Osher at CMU: https://www.cmu.edu/osher/

Here's Osher at CMU membership information:  

https://www.cmu.edu/osher/membership/index.html

And here's a link to the summer 2026 catalog of classes: https://www.cmu.edu/osher/publications/weekly-essentials/2026/summer/registration-is-open.html

Nature in Watercolor Workshop for Beginners

Are you curious about painting with watercolors, but you don’t know where to start? Would you like to spend a day with your Osher friends in nature being creative? Join us at Raccoon Creek State Park for this day-long workshop. We will play with our art supplies to become friendly with them, then we’ll test them out in the beauty of nature. 

Please note: This workshop will be held rain or shine. The address to plug into your GPS is Raccoon Creek State Park Recreation Hall, 195 Cabin Rd #15050, Georgetown, PA 15043. Mobility Requirements: Hiking 1/2 mile on uneven terrain with art supplies will be part of this full day of activities. Bring your watercolor supplies and a brown bag lunch for a day of watercolor painting adventures.

Friday, May 29, 2026, from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.

$25 Materials fee.

Cost: Requires membership in Osher at CMU.  Membership information here:

 https://www.cmu.edu/osher/membership/index.html

Dues & fees information here:

 https://www.cmu.edu/osher/membership/dues-and-fees.html

Still have questions? Drop me a comment below.

I hope you'll join me on May 29th!

A Trip to the Beach

I recently escaped winter on a trip to Florida.

I took lots of photos, and sketched while I was on the beach.

When I returned home, I extended my travel experience by painting from some of my photos.

I laid out each painting with a few pencil marks, then painted the sky, with large washes first, blotting the wet paint with a paper towel to create clouds.  After the first washes dried, I added shadows to the sky and clouds.  

I worked on both of these little paintings at the same time, practicing my painting on the vertical version, and then repeating each step on the horizontal layout.

When the paint was dry in the sky, I began laying in washes for the ocean and waves, avoiding painting the white foamy areas.  When each layer was dry, I added another layer, building up colors and complexity.  I finished with layers of earthy brown beach sand.

The wet sand along the shore was darker.

After all of the paint had dried, I added some cloud reflections on the water with a white gel pen and white acrylic ink applied with a dip pen.  Above are the tools I used.

I propped up the finished paintings with a few seashells on my art table to remind me of the Florida sunshine.

I hope you'll dig out some old vacation photos and create art from them.  It's a lovely way to extend the joy of a getaway.

Happy Creating!

Mixed Media Valentines!

Each year when the winter snows fly, I make Valentine's Day cards to give to friends and family.  

 The process always starts with experimentation, ideas, & splashes of brightly colored paint.  I try out a variety of ideas and choose one to make multiple copies of.

This is the final design. The tri-fold card has hearts cut out with an X-acto blade so you can see into each of the interior pages.

Creating Multiples of the Design

Using 12" x 18" pieces of cold pressed watercolor paper, I measured off four-inch strips of the paper and creased it to make it easy to fold the cards after painting.  

I painted the whole paper with the design -- permanent rose watercolor paint and dioxazine purple.  Once the watercolor paint was dry, I added white "snowflakes" in the pink area using white acrylic ink.

Next, I cut each larger sheet of painted paper into three segments (6"X12") and folded each one at the crease marks to make a 4"x 6" card.

I traced & cut a large heart shape from the front page, and a medium heart shape from the middle page.

I painted the final, interior page on all of the cards, beginning with splashes of warm, Azo yellow. I traced a third, smaller heart in the center of that page before painting.

While the yellow paint was still wet, I mixed Alizarin crimson and permanent rose, and filled the rest of the page, letting the colors run together.

I played with splattering paint, too.

Once the paint was dry, I inked in the center heart, and added some finishing touches with a white Posca pen.  I wanted to repeat the white of the snowflakes.

I gave myself the luxury of experimenting with final decorative marks.  I let my intuition lead the way, and discovered that adding wobbly black marks around the purple heart-window set off the white stripes, making them look bolder.

In the center heart, I used an extra-small permanent marker to make playful, vibrant designs.  I loved the result! I discovered that the secret was to slow down and let myself play rather than trying to be perfect.

In fact, I made a mantra of telling myself that wobbly, wonky art is human art.  It's authentic and real, and the antithesis of plastic, AI "creations."  Every time I made a mark in the wrong place, I celebrated my humanness.

I finished up each card by writing the greeting in the inner page, being careful not to let the words show through the heart cut-outs.  

A pencil line traced from a yogurt cup gave me a guide for the words.

I wrote the greeting on the line and set it aside to dry. The last step was erasing the pencil marks.

Now my Valentines are ready to sign & mail!

 Wishing you happy creating and a happy Valentine's Day!

Phipps Collage Sketchbook: Final Watercolor Painting

This grand old palm tree elegantly stretches her fronds high & greets you when you first arrive to the central greenhouse of Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh.  Seeing her in January made me feel welcome, as if I'd stepped off a jet in Florida.

I painted the old palm tree in my collage sketchbook on a blank page (no background acrylic paint on this one).

I started with a light pencil sketch, then painted the first washes of color.  I practiced making the frond-y texture of the palm leaves with a fan brush on scrap paper before adding them to my painting.

The dark shadows under the palm tree make her lofty tips seem brighter, and set off the pink orchid blooms surrounding her. 

I kept layering in lights and darks until it felt right.  

Colors I used:

Hooker's green for the palm foliage.

Hooker's green plus yellow ochre for the yellowy fronds.

Burnt sienna and yellow ochre for the brick steps and retaining wall.

Permanent rose for the pink orchids.

Hooker's green and permanent blue violet for the dark shadows in and on the palm tree.

Sap green plus Winsor lemon for the touches of yellow-green.


If you're feeling winter's chill and can't escape to a greenhouse, I hope you'll make your own drawing or painting from my reference photo!

Happy Creating! 

Creating in my Collage Sketch Book

You may have seen my earlier posts on creating a painted paper collage sketchbook

here and here.

In this post, I'm sharing a few photos of the process and including the reference photos I took at Phipps Conservatory.

If you're inspired, I hope you'll make drawings and paintings from my reference pics!

I've always loved this little statue, and especially delighted in the sash of dried flowers she's now decorated with.  I started with a pencil drawing on a blank page.

I added in watercolor greens to the background, with yellow-green first.  When the first wash of green dried, I mixed a dark green with phthalo blue and burnt sienna.  I added a touch of permanent blue violet to make extra dark shadows.

It was fun to make shadowy leaves and then to use the shadows to "carve" lighter green leaves (bottom right area).

With the background done, I mixed a pale violet for the shadows on the statue.  

I wanted to show that she was made of stone, so I kept the colors cool and desaturated by mixing permanent blue violet with a touch of yellow ochre.  The yellow muted the purple's brightness.

I splashed in Azo yellow, permanent rose and permanent blue violet to the sash for the dried flowers.  I added a few touches of the warm Azo yellow to the background to unify the page.

I drew these orchids in with Posca paint markers.

Here is some gorgeous foliage with striking patterns.  I used a Stabilo All pencil for the dark markings on the leaves.

Here's a yellow orchid I drew with Neocolor II watercolor crayons and the Stabilo All pencil

The bold magenta color of these begonias caught my eye.  It was fun to mix the Posca marker colors to try to recreate that shade of pink. I love how the green from the painted paper page shows through in spots & contrasts with the pink.

I love the gnarly trunk and twisted limbs of this bonsai tree.  But there was very little contrast between the tree and the background.

I used the filters function on my phone's photo editor and turned the color photo black and white, then turned up the contrast.

I used both photos as references for this drawing.

Adding in the trunk first with Neocolor II watercolor crayons, I created foliage with Posca paint markers.

I found that having these painted papers made the process of drawing so much less "scary."  I realized that fear of the blank page is a real force holding me back from creating. 

Splashing paint on paper in a messy, no-pressure way is fun in itself, AND it helps me to jump into drawing faster.  Win-win!

I hope you give this technique a try!

Happy Creating!