Open Studio: Printing with Watercolor

Yesterday at art association weekly open studio, we had a lesson incorporating printing into a watercolor painting. We gathered various leaves from our yards. I chose some fern leaves and the soft fuzzy leaves of lamb’s ear.

There are just a few steps. First, lightly pencil in your subject. I chose to draw a vase of flowers based on my memories. The paper is wet over the background and allowed to dry to the “low gloss” stage. Next, choose a leaf and paint a few colors on it. I started with yellow, then added stripes of blue. Then the leaf is pressed onto the paper, held in place briefly and removed. In addition to pressing the two shapes of leaves wherever I wanted leaves, I used a paper doily as a stencil, painting through the holes to make a pattern in the foreground. Next, I painted on some small tulips

Here is my painting after the paint had dried, showing these steps completed.

Today I finished the painting. This involved building up color and adding some details to the leaves, the vase and the flowers.

While it is a very simple style, I will call this experiment a success.

Painted on Arches cold press paper with yellow ocher, Winsor yellow, ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson, carbazole violet, transparent orange, and viridian. A little white gouache played up the highlights.