The Red Pencil Box: watercolor

Showing posts with label watercolor. Show all posts

From mid-February to about mid-March, I worked in the Psychiatric ER. Working an entire month of almost exclusively night shifts (mostly 7pm to 7am) meant completely shifting my schedule to a nocturnal one if I wanted to survive the rotation. This included the days that I wasn't scheduled to work. I was initially apprehensive about working through the entire night, and found myself wondering what I would do on the nights I'm off at home and have the whole night to kill. After all, there's only so much Netflix one can watch. So what did I do long after H retired to bed and I was left all by myself? Work on art projects that I almost never get time for anymore!

DIY watercolor galaxy

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

It's been a while since I've had the time/chance/patience to sit down and actually work on an art piece. At some point in college, I became more attracted to little DIY crafts and projects because I found them to be much faster than completing artwork. A good art piece can take me weeks to finish if I'm spending a solid few hours a day, and even longer depending on my work schedule. This watercolor teapot was something I was able to quickly accomplish one recent afternoon (turned evening), and it reminded me of how therapeutic painting can be.

I used my Winsor & Newton watercolor set on a new watercolor paper journal I bought from a local art store. For the longest time, I had been using watercolors on any paper and would get so frustrated when the paper inevitably became wavy from the watercolors. Enter watercolor paper- the texture and weight of the paper sparked a whole new level of love and appreciation for the versatility of watercolors.

watercolor teapot + discovering watercolor paper

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Back to the topic of over-zealously hand-making every thank you card for the wedding. These pun thank you cards were a lot easier to make than the calligraphy cards (see previous post). While I googled most of the puns, I did have fun coming up with the drawings. I bought the cards + envelopes from Paper Source and used my watercolors and Micron black pens. I've posted some of my favorites here!

(This pun I can take credit for)

DIY pun thank you cards

Saturday, September 24, 2016

I really wish I had come up with a better idea than over-zealously deciding to hand-make every single thank you card from our wedding. I figured "hey, I still have a few months before I start working, why not?". Silly, naive me. While I did have more free time, I didn't realize just how exhausting it would be making 100+ cards. I eventually gave up and bought some punny store cards for the last few cards. If I could do it again, I would probably draw out a few designs and get them printed.

DIY calligraphy thank you cards

Friday, September 9, 2016

With the free time I had before residency began, I really wanted to put a lot of time into my hobby of card-making and practice my calligraphy. This meant finding any and every excuse to make a card (many more posts on that to come soon) instead of getting store-bought ones. Although there is no lack of creative and cute cards out there (ahem Paper Source), I love making cards when I have time. Making cards for my two dads this Father's Day was no exception this handmade card bender, and I used my favorite combination: watercolors & calligraphy.

I will admit the pun was a stretch.

punny father's day cards

Sunday, July 3, 2016

This past week I had the fun opportunity to work on a custom piece- transforming the newlywed couple Maria & Ahmed into cartoon superheros for their thank you cards. A daunting task at first, googling how to draw cartoon superheros made it much less intimidating. I was so pleased with how it turned out, I wish I had thought of a similarly cute idea for my wedding thank you cards!

I used Windsor & Newton watercolors, Sakura Pigma Micron pens to outline, and just the black Prismacolor watercolor pencil for the hair (because my watercolor set doesn't come with the color black, which makes little sense to me). The duo featured capes, gloves (the usual superhero attire), and each person's signature features- Ahmed's glasses, and Maria's glasses + curly hair. I tried to go for a lighter pastel look for the colors, but with the end product being a scanned .JPG file, I didn't want the colors to wash out in the scan.

The non-cartooned couple!

superheros maria & ahmed: cartoon edition

Thursday, June 16, 2016

This is a piece I did using Prismacolor watercolor pencils (which I previously gushed about here). It started out as a still life which quickly turned into... whatever this ended up being when I realized how difficult it was to replicate a saxophone. Nonetheless, I think the watercolor pencils helped capture the reflections and shine of the brass.The background is acrylic paint haphazardly rolled on. The most difficult part of the piece was using the xacto knife to cut out all the small pieces that went along with the saxophone.

If you look closely, you can see a bit of a flute in the upper right corner

jazzy

Sunday, December 6, 2015

I've always been a fan of handmade cards, but I've lately gotten into incorporating watercolor and "modern calligraphy" into my cardmaking to create simple and fun designs. Watercolor is such a versatile medium and adding black ink makes things instantly look so polished. I'm still working on the handwriting and modern calligraphy part- it definitely requires a steady hand. I think the hardest part has been trying different fonts. I'm taking a modern calligraphy workshop next month and am excited to hopefully learn a few tools of the trade there.

In the meantime, I wanted to shamelessly promote some of my work I've posted in my Etsy shop (check it out here). I go on cardmaking binges (it's so relaxing), and then later realize I don't have enough people to give these to, so I post them on Etsy! All of the cards are 100% handmade by me (totally freehand, no tracing/templates) and are all unique designs.

handmade cards on etsy

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

watermelons + ralph waldo emerson

Thursday, October 22, 2015

I've always kept a journal of my favorite quotes and thoughts, but now I've decided to paint and letter them into a notebook a good friend of mine got for me. I hope to be able to share some on here!

inspirational cacti

Monday, September 14, 2015

With the alarming news that monarch butterfly populations are rapidly decreasing, I figured I could pay homage to these pretty creatures with a post featuring them.

I used a combination of regular Prismacolor colored pencils and Prismacolor watercolor pencils. The watercolor pencils are like using watercolors (as the name would aptly suggest), but with the precision and control of a pencil. Simply sketch with the pencils using varying pressures (a light hand for a hint of color, and more pressure for more vibrant colors), dip a brush in water, and bleed out the colors.

I used a Chuck Close-inspired pattern with regular colored pencils that blended into areas where I used the watercolor pencils. The only downside to using the watercolor pencils is you have to be extra careful to never get water or raindrops on the piece.