Summer Creative Retreat: Funky Floral Watercolor

The third project I completed during Summer Creative Retreat was this Funky Floral Watercolor. I had so much fun painting it and I absolutely love how it turned out!

This class was taught by Julie Malizia of Harp + Crow. I loved her teaching style and the pacing of the class. Everything about it was so much fun! Here is the project she made during the class: 

The basic idea was to take the normal shape of a vase of flowers and stretch or compress the components so that they reach the edges of the paper. Where the vase or a flower touches the edge, that should be a flat line. It's a completely unique way of drawing and so much fun! 

I used my favorite watercolors to paint my project. I love the color palette. Those bright flowers would have fit right in at my wedding.

Watercolor Hamburger

Burgers are great year-round, but there's something about summer that makes them taste even better. They're also a really fun subject to paint. Affiliate links below. 

Watercolor Hamburger

Materials:

• watercolor / mixed media paper
• Koi travel watercolors
• Faber-Castell World Colors

Steps:

Note that, as usual, I've used a pen for the step-out photos so that you can see them easily. On the actual painting, I used a pencil to sketch as lightly as possible. 

I've found that the easiest way to draw a burger is from top to bottom. If you want to do the opposite, just reverse my directions. 

Start by drawing the arc of the top bun in the middle of your paper. Rather than drawing a straight line across to make a half-circle, use a very wiggly line to draw lettuce on the left side and a smoother line to make an onion on the right side. Then draw in a layer of tomato slices. 

Beneath the tomatoes, add the corners of some cheese slices. Draw the curved ends of a nice, thick burger patty, then draw a wiggly line to make more lettuce. Finally, draw the bottom bun.   

Now it's time to paint the burger. With watercolor, you want to make sure one section is dry before adding color to an adjacent part so that the color doesn't run. I do this by skipping around. Instead of painting the bun and then the lettuce, I do the bun and then the meat, because those sections don't touch. 

Start with a golden color for the bun, adding shadowing along the top and bottom. Use the same golden color to add dots of color to the meat. Choose a medium brown and add more dots of color to the meat. Continue adding dots of color to the patty until it resembles perfectly-cooked hamburger. Paint the onion a pale purple and the tomato red. Paint the lettuce using a similar technique as with the meat, adding dots of paint in different shades of light green. Paint the cheese yellow. 

Paint a horizon line behind the bottom bun, then color beneath that line with whatever shade you've chosen to represent your plate / countertop / serving tray. Allow that to dry, then add the color of the wall / sky / backsplash above the horizon line. 

This is what my burger looked like when I put away my paints. 

 

You can stop here, but I wanted a cleaner look. I went in with my colored pencils to add definition. This is most evident on the cheese, onion, and lettuce. I also added the hint of sesame seeds to the top bun. 

It looks almost good enough to eat!

Creativation VIP Swag Bag Challenge Hop

Welcome to the Creativation VIP Swag Bag Challenge Hop!

So what's the Creativation VIP Swag Bag Challenge Hop, you ask? Each of the VIP Creators who attended the Creativation show received a huge bag of products donated by 26 of the exhibiting manufacturers. Each of us is using the same products from eight of those manufacturers to make something original. You can hop from designer to designer to see which direction each of us went with the same materials. As you do, leave comments on each video or blog post as you hop, because the sponsors are giving away 7 *fabulous* prizes! The more places you comment, the better your chances of winning!

These are the eight items we used (affiliate links here and throughout the post): Hero Arts stamp set, Sakura pen, Westcott scissors, Supertite adhesive, Izink Diamond Paint, The Crafter's Workshop Medium, Joggles Art Parts and Charms, and a Paper Rose die. In most cases, we received more than one color, style, product etc. from each manufacturer, so you might see some variety in what we used.

While I use some of these items semi-regularly in my crafting, I can count on one hand (one finger?) the number of times I've used metal dies and texture pastes. And metal body parts are definitely not one of my frequently used supplies! Ah, but what fun is a challenge if it isn't challenging, right? Right!

Ready to see what I made?

I let the dresses, metal arms, and a sentiment from the stamp set guide the direction my project took. Here I played with the placement of the two girls on the die cut, which I cut from a pale grey cardstock. 

Once I had the basic concept in place, it was time to prepare the components. I spread the modeling paste onto a square board, using a palette tool. When I got it just the way I wanted it, I pressed the die cut shape into it, then lightly covered it here and there with the modeling paste. 

Before I put away the paste, I put the thinnest coat possible on the two metal arms. I wanted to paint them skin tone and was hoping the paste would both smooth out the metal and allow acrylic paint to adhere to it. Success on both counts! While I had the skin tone paints out, I painted the heads to match the arms. 

I used the Izink Diamond to color one dress green...

... then used Izink's spray ink to color another dress blue. I punched a heart from the grey cardstock scraps and colored it with Izink pigment ink. When the inks were dry, I added Stickles on top of the blue dress and the heart. I matted the stamped sentiment with another piece of the same grey cardstock and added silver Stickles to that. When it was dry, I matted it again with a piece of grey cardstock that I colored with the Sakura pen. I outlined the die with the pen as well, then colored the edges of the board before adding black Stickles on top. 

Time for the hair. I have this cool twisty DMC floss that I used to make the girls' hair. For the blond, I wrapped the floss around three of my fingers, then cut it along the outsides of each finger. I put glue on the head and wrapped the floss up and over so it hung down the back. 

For the brunette, I unraveled the floss first to give her curls. I wrapped the floss around two fingers and then cut it and glued it in place. 

I attached the heads to the dresses, then glued everything to the base.

Here's another look at my finished piece:

So, about those prizes...

We are giving away 2 Supertite Glue packages, a Hero Arts $25 Gift Card, three Joggles $25 Gift Cards, and A Vintage Girl $25 Gift Card! Comment below by March 8th for a chance to win. We'll be announcing the winners on March 12. We recommend subscribing so that you'll know if you win.

Now hop along to the next VIP Creator, Ann Strecko Koeman!