Chinese Lanterns: Watercolor and Colored Pencil

Underpainting? With Watercolor?

Yes! Watercolor is beautiful but it has one major drawback.

You can mix the most vibrant watercolor colors imaginable on your palette. Gorgeous, wet, and amazing color! But once they go onto the paper and dry, the color will fade.

It's the nature of the beast. Watercolor loses its potency as it dries.

But there are ways to keep your paintings from washing out and looking pale. It's called underpainting. We are going to try preserving vibrancy!

**Taught as a local class in 2016. Now available as a full page digital stamp**

Chinese Lanterns

Designed for Watercolor but perfect for Copic or colored pencil.

This full page digital image is an original stamp used in my H2Oh! watercoloring classes in 2016. It was designed as a full page stamp (8.5" x 11") but can be scaled down if desired.

"Chinese Lanterns" has wide open areas with no texture marks and is perfect for colored pencil, alcohol markers, watercolor... your options are endless!

Lettering is not included in the digital stamp as it was hand lettered by me after the project was compled.

This stamp was taught as a watercolor class, therefore I do not have a recipe guide to include in the stamp package. You can view my “Work in Progress” photos for this project on Instagram here.

Yes, I want Beans!

“Tonic”: Advanced Copic Techniques for Glass and Transparent Objects

Coloring Glass is a Challenge

I'm not going to lie. Glass is something you work at but never master.

I know there are a lot of internet coloring tutorials for how to color glass, they almost always use a few BG Copics and you spend most of the time tracing the outline of the bottle, jar, or drinking glass.

Does that really look real to you?

Join us for art based coloring lessons on how to look at glass through an artist's eye- clues to look for, materials to use, and when + how to highlight. This class is the first step to really coloring glass rather than outlining it!

Tonic

Join me for a fun Copic Marker + Colored Pencil lesson in the Vanilla Workshop

Tonic is an intermediate skills class, that introduces you to coloring glass & Amy’s exclusive Parchment technique

Learn to incorporate real artistry into your coloring projects, one concept at a time. Every Workshop details a new method for enhancing realism, depth, and dimension.

Each class stands on its own as independent learning. You don't have to take six of my other classes to understand this lesson.

Workshops are NON-SEQUENTIAL!

All of my Workshop classes are ANYTIME ACCESS. Work at your own pace and repeat the project as many times as you'd like.

Come color with me. It's a ton of fun!

Class Printable Pack Includes: 

• Class syllabus with detailed recipe guide

• Full color project sample

• Guide to Copic base

• Detailed color map

• Project inspiration references

Yes, I want Beans!

Looking for live classes?

Check out the Vanilla Arts Calendar for all our leaning opportunities!

Palette Detective: Watercolor Mixes for "Nasturtium" Botanical

Colorers tend to use color names as a security blanket

What colors did you use on this project?

What's the marker list for that image?

What's your favorite red blending combination?

Admittedly, this has always been a hard thing for me to wrap my brain around.

I totally understand that using the same exact marker or pencil colors as the instructor increases the odds that a student will be able to duplicate the look of a class project... but it seems to me that holding the same supplies in your hand is only about 20% of the necessary information.

This is especially hard for crafters, people who are used to working with detailed supply lists and step by step tutorials. 

I get it. You want specifics, lots and lots and lots of specifics.

But I'm warning you. The next time I'm up in the bell tower ranting at the top of my voice, this is what I'll be yelling-

It's not the colors you use, it's how you use them!

Write that down and tack it on your craft room cork board. Tie a string around your finger to remember it. Tattoo it onto your dog's forehead so that you see it multiple times daily.

I can tell you every single color that I use on a project. I can list all minute details right down to the UPC code and link to the best price on the internet. And yet that tells you virtually nothing.

It's especially true with paint

Very few painters use color straight out of the tube.

For my watercolor classes, it's not enough for me to tell you what brands and what color paints I used. If you want to duplicate my look, you need to understand the mixes I make and their concentration levels.

Yes, I want Beans!

I saw a photo on instagram a few weeks ago

The watercolorist had captioned it something along the lines of "Isn't my palette almost as pretty as the painting?"

And she was right. Her palette was absolutely beautiful. But the more I stared at it, the more I understood her painting. Her palette told me what colors she was mixing and I could trace the mixes on her palette right back to specific areas of her project.

Her palette was a road map to recreating her artwork.

And that idea has been brewing in the back of my mind for weeks now.

Here's "Nasturtium":

And here's my palette, which was clean when I started:

Now be a palette detective

The greens are mixes of:

• OH Sap Green

• DS Hansa Light

• MG Prussian Blue

The oranges* are mixes of:

• DS Hansa Light

• DS Pyrrol Scarlet

• DS Carbazole Violet

• sometimes I instinctively grab bits of MG Quin Red or Rose to brighten things

* remember that I shade last, so some of these oranges have now been neutralized by the violet. They appear dirtier than they did when I made my original passes on the petals.

We can make palette shots a regular thing

If you think it helps.

Thoughts?

Can't wait to paint with you tonight!!!

Nasturtium

Designed for watercolor but perfect for Copic or colored pencil.

This full page digital image is an original stamp used in my H2Oh! watercoloring classes in 2016. It was designed as a full page stamp (8.5" x 11") but can be scaled down if desired.

"Nasturtium" has wide open areas with no texture marks and is perfect for colored pencil, alcohol markers, watercolor... your options are endless!

Lettering is not included in the digital stamp as it was hand lettered by me after the project was completed.

This stamp was taught as a watercolor class, therefore I do not have a recipe guide to include in the stamp package. You can view my “work in progress” photos for this project on Instagram here.

Friday Art: Autumn Smile (closeup), Acrylic on Dylusions Journal

Happy Friday!

Here's a little taste of fall to get you into the mood for chilly nights, football, and trying to decide if there are enough leaves down to make it worth raking.

Yes, I have a 60 year old Box Elder tree which is already shedding golden yellow teardrops onto my front lawn. It's officially fall in my small corner of Michigan.

This is a closeup of my latest art journaling kit in the 12 Pages class series. No drawing skills necessary to take this class, students just sit back and enjoy playing with color.

Make some time for craftiness this weekend!

The world always feels a little better and looks a little brighter when you can color and paint.

Yes, I want Beans!