 Well, hi there. I'm Sandy Onak, artist and paper crafter here on YouTube and today I want to share with you a watercolor video in the watercolor flowers series using the Mondo flowers These are all giant flower stamps that were designed by Julie Eversole for Ellen Hudson And I stamped them all onto six inch eclipse tape The six inch is really helpful when you've got big images I used to use a two inch tape and kind of paste things together But the six inch really makes a huge difference and I just fussy cut these out And I'm going to use them with one of these stamps for my sentiment from the lovely set There's a lot of beautiful ones in here. I like the wording. I like the mix of text plus script So I'm going to place it on my card so I can kind of get a general idea Where I want the sentiment and then arrange my flowers around it when you do this with masks It's a whole lot easier to pick things up move them around Figure out which ones in front of which one because when you do the stamping you want to work from the front to the back Here when you're working with masks on a piece of scratch paper, you can change your mind Indefinitely and just keep moving them around decide which flowers you want where on this kind of a thing You could also stamp one of the flowers many times and do one with all peonies on it or do one with all Hydrangees on it and those would be equally beautiful to one that has a Mix of different kinds of flowers like what I'm doing But you can see I'm just changing my mind and move things around and lift things up so that I can have certain ones stick out from behind Others and just have a whole lot of fun trying to figure out which direction I want this card to go and I realized here that I had not actually added My large poinsettia so I move the small one to the top so I'd have room at the bottom to have the large one sticking out and arrange some leaves on there, etc and Make a final decision that I can still change my mind on as I go But at least this gives me a really good idea where I'm starting but all these masks you notice are sticking out So how do I use this with my misty? Well, I'm gonna make a spot in the misty where I'm gonna use for my center so that I can have all these masks Hanging out and I can have stamps hanging off the edge of the card So I've just put some tape on the misty to mark it where it's supposed to go And I put my master in here and add in my stamps. All I have to do is line them up with the dyes Are they did dyes with the masks? Gosh? I can't speak today and Then pick the stamp up. It's going to stamp in place right there And that flower is going to be stamped on top so now I can put my real watercolor paper in there We use some arches rough and I'm going to stamp the image I'm going to use some distressed ink. We use a lot of different colors But I'm going to use some tattered rose just because that's what I had in hand Because a lot of the distressed ink is going to melt into the painting and that's kind of what I want it to do so then I replace my master and Find one of the other stamps look for one that's in the front that hydrangea is right up in the front So I'm going to stamp it next and I'll keep going through this process over and over again Until I build up the entire image Just trade out my master sheet so I could do the stamping on it You can re-stamp if it doesn't stamp really well, which distressed in all often don't stamp really perfectly So it's easy to go and re-stamp in the same position And in between each one just add on more masks and then you can take the next stamps in the series And ink them up and add them on and just keep going until your image is complete And you can also do this and make multiples at the same time And that is one of the things that I find really helpful Especially when I'm making videos because if I mess up on one I can just start again with another and I don't have to re-stamp but here you can see I've got all the Masking is all finished the stamping is all done and I've got lines all over the card I'm going to start by spraying just using the distress sprayer To spritz some water on here and let some of that ink start to melt into the paper Just so it's softer and it's going to disappear a little bit I still know where all these lines are and even if I don't I can make them up as I go with my watercolor So don't feel like you know you have to stick to exactly what's there So I'm going to use a bunch of quinacridone colors from Daniel Smith and this one is quinacridone coral Which is a little more on the reddish side a lot of the others are pinker So I liked the fact that this one had more red in it and I'm using a number 12 brush Someone had told me at one point in a video that she did I wish I could remember who because I would love to give her credit to use a bigger brush than you think you need So even though I've used a lot of number fours and number sixes Um in order to get looser I find that I do a little bit better If I use a larger brush and you can see here that petal is really the same size as that number 12 brush So I can get a lot of A lot of really big beautiful petals done in a really swift and efficient pattern and not get all fussy And then I'm going to actually spray a little bit. I know crazy, right? We're always trying to control our watercolor. Well, let's let it be soft and mushy And I'm going to tap off some color. I'm going to make it lighter And you can do this same kind of thing without tapping off by mixing your colors So they're not as heavily pigmented and just do layers But with watercolor you always want to start light and get darker and darker as time goes on Now since this is damp, I have not dried it or anything I can actually add in a little bit more red at this point and add slight details and I'm letting them be washy details. I'm doing wet into wet so that I don't end up Getting all tight and and regimented with it. I want it to be soft and loose And as I'm working on this, I'm going to continue to dab off and add back in dab off and add back in throughout Now I did have a watercolor teacher tell me to stop removing color so much Just be more committed to the movement of the paint as I put it on there and Yeah, that's just not what I do So I'm speeding this camera up a little bit speeding the film up so that We're not here for the entire time of doing this card It actually took me probably about an hour and a half to paint this whole one Because I did have a lot of time also letting it dry in between I like air drying a little bit better than heat setting But you can decide if you like that look better for some reason I like the way it dries better when it air dries so here I've added a lot of color into these and Dabbed it off and then I can do a little wet into wet And you can see how the wet into wet just adding a little bit in the center around The centers of each one of the hydrangea flowers just gives them a real interesting watercolor look For the peonies, I got out one of my favorite pinks, which is quinacridone rose In order to get a a different kind of pink than I did for the poinsettias. Remember those were in the coral So this one is in rose And I'm just adding a little bit of color in and leaving some white spaces With a lot of watercolor Our biggest problem is we try to make it look like Copics instead of Instead of leaving some white areas and some highlight spots Which is what makes watercolor look like watercolor when you you leave some open areas And allow some darker areas around it So it's an ongoing challenge for me as I learn more and more about watercolor But I challenge you to try not to paint everything so that it's perfect Let that watercolor look Like paint let it look all washy It's one of the reasons why I'm starting to paint more With using a spritzer because that's helping me to get looser and to add more water and let the color Just move around on its own So here i'm adding a little bit more Detail and then that spritzer. Yay for lots of water To let it get all soft Now there are many points in here at which you may look at it and go Oh, you should have left it exactly like that. It was beautiful just as it was And that's okay. There are times when I will do that and there are times when I work it harder And I was trying to see how far to push it how far not to push it I do like how this one came out There are things that I learned from it that I'll apply next time I do something But just because something doesn't come out perfectly When you're creating something don't let it stop you from using that card From saving that image from framing that painting Because you'll learn something every time you do it And rather than stop when you may think oh my gosh, I just ruined it. Just keep going see what happens And let yourself learn from each piece of paper. You've already put paint on it. So why Toss it and say it's awful Until it's done because you can at least use the rest of the page to test colors So you can try different colors out try different combinations Uh test out different brushstrokes There's a lot of things that you can use that paper that you thought you had ruined And do it in a different way To get some education out of it because that's always important to keep on learning So I'm using a little bit of green around the car just popping in a few details And sap green is one of my favorite greens for all kinds of greenery things. It's a very soft Soft kind of green, but it can also be really intense if you put a lot of color a lot of pigment into it But it's Not a really bright green and I tend to like those duller colors. They're a little more realistic So here i'm working on adding another layer now into my My hydrangeas And you can see i'm Using the work that was underneath of it and allowing that to guide me into okay How much more do I need to put in here? Do I want to add more strong color? Do I want to let some of that from underneath show through and where am I going to allow those white highlights? Where am I gonna allow those hard edges to Kind of make the watercolor sing Not sure how to describe that any better than that There's just some things that that make me feel a little happier when I I allow the watercolor to do what it wants rather than trying to force it to do what I want So here I am again painting a little wet into wet and that's going to make the watercolor a little bit softer Checking where my sentiment is because I didn't want my petals to go too far I wasn't sure if I was going to do that the sentiment in white or in black and didn't want to Make that decision based on putting too much color in there if I changed my mind and wanted a different type of ink to use for the sentiment Another layer over my pinks just to give me a little more detail in those those peonies And that spritz just loosens it up and softens it up And I know that that is stressful to many people. I've tried getting folks to Spray something on something they've water colored in classes and I see the meltdown look on everybody's faces So please know I do understand how hard it is It's taken me a lot of practice to get comfortable with Potentially ruining it because it's possible when you take that spritzer to your your paint that you're going to go too far And that's okay. It's just how things happen sometimes and you just got to be okay with it That's the only way to learn and grow But I really like in how those those peonies are starting to settle in those are really particularly beautiful There's a couple of those hydrangea flowers that are just making me smile And now I wanted to add a little stronger in that sap green little little stronger detail in that Because I I started feeling like I want that area around the sentiment to be the focal area And so I wanted to get a little darker little more layers of color and a little bit more in there It'll give definition to my flowers But I'm not being super careful with outlining the flowers. Make sure you don't put color Equally around every edge of every flower or it's just going to look like you outlined them So I'm letting parts of them be outlined And again, I'm going to spray I'm going to let it be loose because you really want to allow A lot of this color to do what it wants to do And here I'm sitting here staring at the thing. I know what was running through my mind at the time was do I Wait for it to dry. Do I lift off more? Do I what do I do? What do we do? What do I do? And that thought does run through my mind. So if it runs through yours, don't panic It's okay Because that's just the way the way it is with watercolor And especially as we all start to practice trying to get loose or some people might be practicing to get tighter Because they're really good at loose. I envy them because I find it easier to get tighter and more detailed with watercolor than Looser, which is what I want to be But we all have our struggles, don't we the struggles of artists So now I'm going to add even a little more detail in the centers of my peonies And less detail as it gets out to the outside edge. That's going to create some real interest on the centers And I'm really being careful to preserve some of those highlights. It's a little too easy to get a little bit overly crazy with adding Too much so that you end up with no white no No positive beautiful white highlights in it and that's going to Make everything settle in a whole different way by the time you're finished with the Now as I'm nearing the end of this card, I remember exactly what was going through my brain Which was am I done yet? Am I done yet? Have I gone too far? Have I pushed it too far? Have I ruined it yet? If I do this one more stroke, is that going to ruin it? And please don't feel like you're weird if you have those thoughts too because the same thing happens to all of us It's hard to know when a piece of art is done But the one thing I did know was that the yellow flower on here didn't have enough yellow in it So I went in with my quingold and added just a little bit more Because everything I do has some yellow in it, right? So I've got to add a little bit more of a pop of yellow I'm just kind of touching up a few areas And there we are being all done I did add some faux stitching around the edges with a white pen And I stamped my sentiment in black because I didn't think the white was going to pop enough I didn't want it to fall into the painting and disappear completely But this was a really fun experience. I learned a lot from it and I hope you will do the same Take one of your mondo flowers and repeat it multiple times Or if you have all of them like I do if you're addicted Use them all and it's really fun, right? It's always fun to Try painting something with a lot of images on it There's a couple other videos if you're interested on the left is the whole playlist of the watercolor Flower series and I will see you guys next time. Have an awesome awesome weekend. Bye. Bye