Watercolor Floral Heart Tutorial

Happy Sunday you all!

I am so excited to share another easy watercolor tutorial with you guys for Valentine's Day. In my previous post, we painted a leafy valentine heart, how about some florals this time? Let's fill the heart with pretty lilacs.

To create a floral heart, gather the following supplies:

Watercolor paper

Watercolor paints 

Brush

Pencil and eraser

Sketchbook/scrap paper

First practise painting lilacs in your sketchbook/or scrap piece of paper. Mix ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson with lots of water for a light shade of purple. Next load your brush and paint four dots or petals to represent a lilac flower.  Add more flowers around the first one that you just painted.

Then add more blue to your mixture to make a darker shade of purple and paint more lilacs to fill the spaces in between.  Keep adding more flowers and vary the shade.

Using sap green, add in the stems. Load your brush with black paint or mix a blackish purple and paint a tiny dot in the center of each flower.

Great, you have learnt how to paint simple watercolor lilacs. Give yourself a pat on the back :)

Now lightly sketch a heart on your watercolor paper and repeat what you just did in your sketchbook. Fill the heart with lilacs, starting from the lightest shade of purple to represent flowers in the front. Then use darker shades to represent flowers at the back. Play with different shades of purple and wet on wet technique to create interest in your work.

Once you have filled the heart with beautiful lilacs, erase the pencil marks. And you are done. Wasn't it easy? 

I hope I have inspired you  to create your own watercolor valentine hearts this year. Have a fabulous day! xx

Other projects that you might enjoy:

Ombre Watercolor Heart 

Leafy Valentine Heart

For The Love Of Florals

I have been busy painting watercolor florals. They are so much fun to paint!

I had a wonderful time painting these blue roses with shimmering silver leaves.

Painting loose florals can be addictive. And I would love to paint a lot more!

Roses

Florals

Bouquet

But for now, these three are in the shop

Have a fabulous week!  

Accordion-pleated paper flower and Christmas tree garland

Deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Tis the season to be jolly,

Fa la la la la, la la la la 

  

Christmas is just around the corner and thinking about it brought back memories of school and the fun we used to have as kids around this time of the year. 

There would be the much awaited Christmas play, rehearsals and if you were lucky you would be part of it which meant missing classes. So I always made sure I was in the play, no matter how small (or mute:p) the part! Then there would be Christmas carols  and school party where the lower grades got to show off their classrooms which were decked up with stockings, hollies, bells and what not made by little hands to the rest of the school. And let's not forget the much longed for holidays and break from school! 

So I thought I will do two tutorials today. In the first we will make accordion style paper flowers and in the second we will use that technique to create a Christmas tree garland. So lets begin.

 

Accordion-pleated paper flower.

Gather the following supplies:  2 pieces of square paper, scissors, pencil, ruler and a stapler. 

Mark one inch from the corner and make a fold. 

Use your first fold as a guide to make more accordion style folds. Remember how we used to make paper fans as kids? You are using the same technique here, but it has been given a more fancy name- so simply fold and flip, fold and flip..

until it is folded up like this:

Now cut off the ends in a pointed or rounded shape or leave as it is. Fold it in half and staple the ends together (you can also glue it or use a clear tape). Do the same with your other piece of paper so that you have two half circles.

Simply staple the two halves together to form a full circle and you are almost done.

To cover the center of the circle, pretty it up with a button, lace or a fancy piece of scalloped paper.

And that's about it. You just made your self an accordion style paper flower. 

Christmas tree garland

You will need: 

Red wrapping paper cut into 5 inch squares
Green card stock cut into 4 inch squares
Cream card stock cut into 3 inch circles (and if you want the circle to show from behind the tree, cut 5 inch or larger circles. You'll know what I am talking about in a bit.)
Stapler/tape/glue
UHU petafix (available at any stationary shop)

Grab your red squares and using the first tutorial make accordion flowers. I kept half inch wide accordion folds.

Now glue your circles to the center of each paper flower.

Next take your green card stock and draw a Christmas tree. I roughly drew a christmas tree on one, cut it out and used the template to draw and cut the rest. Once you have your trees cut out..

Take out your UHU petafix and following the manufacturer's instructions fix it to the circle like so:

Next, attach your trees to it.

Grab some twine, ribbon or whatever you'd like to use and tape it on the back of your flowers.

And you are ready to hang your garland.

Enjoy!

x