Watercolor Greeting Cards
I’m not a big fan of watercolors. I’ve just not studied art long enough deal with a medium with so little control. Despite this, I decided to make some watercolor greeting cards based off of the designs I came up with for my parade t-shirts. I thought watercolors would give them the ethereal look I was after and would also be quick. They took a little longer than I expected but I think that’s a control issue on my part.
On a 9” x 12” sheet of Arches 140 lb. watercolor paper, I used a ruler and a HB pencil to quarter the sheet up to make four cards. Using masking tape, I secured the paper around the edges onto a piece of old matte board. The green background to my cards was suppose to go all the way to the edge so I only taped down two edges and I tried to cover as little of the Archers as possible. With the HB pencil, I lightly sketched out my design in each quarter. The design is really loose so all I really needed was make sure it was composed well in the space.
The first time I ever heard of watercolors in stick or pencil form of any kind was in my Introduction to Illustration class. A student presented an ad cover that was so vibrant and colorful. I asked her what she used and it was watercolor pencils. Pencils? That’s fabulous. What a great idea.
I used yellow green, purple and orange Lyra Aquacolor crayons on my cards. This is a surprising choice for me because I could get a lot more control out of the micro sharpened thin lead pencils than I could from the quarter inch crayons. But I try to force myself to let go. I usually work from lightest to darkest. I put down the green background first and used a large flat watercolor brush to blend it in really well. Next I put down the gold. I blended it just enough to make it solid. Lastly I put down the pink. Once I had it blended into a smooth line I went back with more water and thinned out the edges more.
I set my sheet aside to dry overnight before putting down the black detail with India ink and a rapidograph pen. Then I simply cut the four cards apart and mounted them on a matching gold card. I really like this technique for a greeting card. I’ll have to come up with some new designs.
Labels: art
posted by rhon at
3:37 PM
3 Comments:
RAPIDOGRAPH???
By
Anais Anais, at 9:41 PM
The Rapidograph pen, by Koh-i-Noor and Rotring, is a high end technical drawing pen. I was required to buy a set when I took Ray-Mel Cornelius' Illustration class at Brookhaven Community College. It's used by artists, architects, designers, engineers and hobbyists, although not so much now since the advent of sophisticated computer software.
These pens are designed to produce a consistant, uninterrupted flow of ink. The nibs are beautifully designed and range in size from .13 mm to 1.40 mm. You can buy them individually or in sets. Check the on-line art supply stores and e-bay. You will find them a lot cheaper than I did 5 years ago.
I tried to use an extra fine tipped sharpie but the felt tip seemed to get gummed up with the watercolor paint and wouldn't flow. I didn't have that problem with the rapidograph and I also had more control over the width of the line.
Thanks for asking.
By
rhon, at 8:16 AM
I'm visiting this entry via your link at SoulPerBlog.
I remember loving this card design! You did a great job.
My Sharpies got gunked during my watercolor project too, but it was the white gesso that gunked them up. The gesso's chalkiness just doesn't go well with a felt tip pen.
Does the rapidograph's nib cut into the paper? Is it a metal tip, or a ball point, or what?
On your heart design, especially, you'd want to make sure the black detail lines popped. Did you have to go over them several times to make the line as bold as you wanted?
By
Erin, at 9:17 PM
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