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Creative Watercolor: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners
Creative Watercolor: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners
Creative Watercolor: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners
Ebook272 pages1 hour

Creative Watercolor: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

By Ana Victoria Calderón

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About this ebook

A fun, modern, and practical approach with instructions on how to paint simple motifs, create elegant lettering, and embellish projects beautifully.

Popular watercolor artist and workshop instructor Ana Victoria Calderón shares her step-by-step techniques for painting modern designs in this classic medium. All the fundamentals needed to get started in watercolor are here, allowing you to quickly learn how to create beautiful watercolor paintings. Through a series of easy tutorials and projects, you will:
  • Discover basic materials and tools, plus options for embellishing your paintings
  • Master essential techniques, starting with easy warm-up activities. Then, learn to layer, and get into the flow with watercolor
  • Get an introduction to scanning and digital editing for making multiples
  • Paint a variety of simple, beautiful designs: flowers and leaves, butterflies and critters, fruits and vegetables, and delightful lettering
  • Use what you’ve learned to create unique, stylish stationery, including beautiful invitations, place cards, menus, monograms, recipe gift cards, thank you notes—any project you can imagine, for any kind of event you can think of!


There’s never been a better time to dive into the world of watercolor, so why wait? Grab a brush and get painting!

Perfect for all skill levels, the books in the Art for Modern Makers series take a fun, practical approach to learning about and working with paints and other art mediums to create beautiful DIY projects and crafts.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
Release dateDec 11, 2018
ISBN9781631596001
Creative Watercolor: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners
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Author

Ana Victoria Calderón

Ana Victoria Calderón es acuarelista, autora y profesora. Comenzó como diseñadora gráfica para dar el salto al mundo del arte en 2011. Ha publicado cuatro libros (traducidos a varios idiomas) y ha colaborado con marcas de todo el mundo y revistas de alto nivel. Apasionada también por la enseñanza, hoy cuenta con más de medio millón de estudiantes.

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    if you have NEVER opened any other book or article regarding watercolor or any paint ever... if you have had ZERO past opportunities to peer at another self improvement for the DIY artist, and therefor had nothing to compare it to.

Book preview

Creative Watercolor - Ana Victoria Calderón

Creative watercolor

Creative Watercolor

A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS

Ana Victoria Calderón

CONTENTS

Introduction

1ESSENTIAL SUPPLIES

Watercolor Paints

Color and Watercolor

Papers

Brushes

Extras

2BASIC TECHNIQUES

Watercolor Warm-Ups

Wet on Wet

Wet on Dry

Transparencies

Building Up Color

Creating Gradients

Fine Lines & Thin Strokes

Getting Precise

Spatter

Layering

Getting into the Flow

Scanning and Editing in Photoshop

3FLOWERS & FOLIAGE

Leaf Studies

Adding Details: Structured Daisies

Loose & Watery Roses

Painting a Bouquet

Projects & Ideas

4BUTTERFLIES & OTHER CRITTERS

Drawing Trick

Butterfly Poses

Ladybugs

Beetles

Projects & Ideas

5FRUITS, VEGGIES & NUTS

Citrus

Berries

Kiwi

Almonds & Peas

Garlic & Red Onion

Projects & Ideas

6LETTERING

Brushstroke Practice

Alphabet Activity

Creating Your Own Lettering Style

Decorating & Enhancing Lettering with Mixed Media

Projects & Ideas

More Project Ideas

Alphabet Activity Samplers

Resources

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Index

INTRODUCTION

Painting means so much to me. It’s a delightful companion I can always rely on, a soothing, yet stimulating, activity that transports my mind to the most relaxed state. I’m thinking about my next move while repeatedly stroking my paper with my brush.

Experiencing the movement and flow of watercolor is a beautiful and rewarding sensation. The more you paint, the more you learn to trust the process and appreciate that watercolor dries in mysterious ways. Texture, flow, surprises, timing, and an almost mathematical way of thinking is implied when painting with watercolors. This medium has its secrets; its translucent nature makes layering completely different from other mediums. We must paint in a strategic manner to achieve interesting results while letting the medium do its magic. We know, and embrace, that there are some results we won’t able to control completely.

This may sound a bit intimidating or complex; watercolor definitely is unique and has an approach all its own. But the good news is it’s easier than you think! All you need to know are a few basic techniques, some imagination, and, in my opinion, the spirit of experimentation and being happy just playing around to achieve some truly magical results. Keep in mind that there are many ways to use your watercolors, and there are no rules. In this book, I teach basic techniques that have worked for me and my illustrative style, followed by step-by-step activities and ideas for projects you can do at home.

You might think that someone who paints for a living—this is my full-time job—doesn’t have any room left for personal projects, but you’d be mistaken! Some of my favorite watercolor projects are the ones I’ve created for my day-to-day life. Making personalized place cards when friends come over for brunch, seeing the menus I painted for my best friend when I arrive at my table at his wedding, watching my family’s reactions when they see my handmade Christmas cards, gifting my friend the painted and framed name of her newborn child to hang in the baby’s room and knowing it’s something she’ll see throughout her childhood… all these projects make my heart glow and add sentiment to special occasions. I’ll illustrate ideas and motifs you can apply to your life’s special moments to make them memorable with your own handmade projects.

Nature has always been a great source of inspiration: Organic shapes, colorful subjects, and textures encourage us to observe and attempt to re-create versions of our own. Although I demonstrate specific motifs in this book, including daisies, roses, leaves, beetles, butterflies, and berries, I highly encourage experimentation. (Experiment is my favorite word when it comes to teaching watercolor!) Use what you learn here, continue to develop subjects on your own, and find a personal style.

CHAPTER 1

ESSENTIAL SUPPLIES

WHEN PAINTING WITH WATERCOLORS, you can keep it simple with a paint set (that will last for years) and paper—or be an avid collector, like me. Supplies are like candy, they’re colorful, fun, and sometimes you just can’t get enough. Whether you’re keeping it simple or love to play around with art supplies and mix it up, this chapter will give you a good overall view of what you need to know about this medium. I also share some of my favorites brands and tips on how to mix color.

WATERCOLOR PAINTS

Watercolors are an incredibly versatile art medium. Although they come in a few different forms, the key characteristic they all share is that they can be reactivated with water on a palette even if they’ve dried completely. Because watercolor paints contain very few ingredients, they dry true to the pigment in each color.

For the activities and projects in this book, you can use any or all the watercolor paints described here—either on their own or mixed together. I like to create my own palette for each project by using some of each type. Sometimes, I like how a pan paint works with a tube color that I’ve mixed with a vibrant liquid. The sky’s the limit!

In the chart on the right-hand page, I summarize the pros and cons of each paint type and mention some brands I like to work with. I encourage you to experiment—try out new paints and brands or work with what you have—to find which types and brands work best for you.

Pan Watercolors

One of the most widely available types of watercolor, pan watercolors are small, square cakes of dried watercolor paint that are typically sold as a set in a metal or plastic box. The pans can also be purchased separately to add colors to a set. Pan

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