Let’s pick watercolors and colored pencils and make a flower for your art journal! Scroll down to watch a step-by-step video!
This flower can be a rose or a peony or any round and layered species. For me, it’s not so important which flower it is, but what kind of personality it expresses. Here I aimed for a soft but unapologetic character. Every flower you create will become a bit different, and soon you’ll have a collection!
Flower for Art Journal Page – Watch the Video!
The instructions for the flower and all the inspiration for using it on a page is in the video below! We’ll start with watercolors to make the foundation for the layered look and then add more sharpness with colored pencils. Some patience is required because you need to let the watercolors dry between the first steps.
In the video, I encourage you to adjust the center of the flower, the flower’s sould. Find a look and personality that appeals to you!
Including the Flower in Art Journal
In the video, I also show how you can use the flower with almost any background and make a spread for the flower in the spirit of Freely Grown.
Torn paper collage – do you remember making them as a child? This project is not so much about the resulting image, but about the process.
You will need watercolors, thick drawing paper, and paper glue.
I have used Fabriano Accademia Drawing Paper (200 gsm/94 lbs). It’s not as thick as most watercolor papers but holds water well and is nice for collages. I bought this paper for the course Joyful Coloring, and it has become one of my favorites because it’s so versatile.
Step 1 – Paint the Papers
One of the best ways to grow your artistic skills is to move away from ready-made images and make the material for collages yourself.
While creating, think about this! There’s a hidden miracle in every brush stroke, even in the ugliest ones. The potential of them is huge. Your artistry grows when you keep creating.
When you make the papers yourself, you can choose colors and add variation that will make every torn paper piece unique.
With watercolors, you easily achieve translucent effects and get great pastel tones. But also make a paper with darker and more vivid colors!
Check that you have all these variations: light, bright, and dark!
For a small collage, not so many papers are needed. My papers are 1,5 times the size of the final artwork.
Before continueing, think about this! The papers are precious treasures. Handle them carefully like they would be glass!
Step 2 – Tore the Papers into Small Pieces
Next, let’s “break glass”! With fingers, tore the papers into pieces.
While creating, think about this! Art is born, when you question what you see, experience, and own. While tearing the paper, let go of pre-assumptions of what you are going to create.
Step 3 – Paint the Torn Edges
The edges are the best part of torn paper collages, but especially when you paint them too. This way you don’t get too much distracting white to your collage, but the result will more colorful and atmospheric.
While creating, think about this! Some people like to think a lot, some are more hands on. In artistic exploration, finding the balance is the key. This exercise is especially for thinkers. Look at the torn pieces – so many new beginnings, seeds for new ideas!
You can also spread the paint partly over the piece so that the color transition is less dramatic and the piece gets more depth. Some of my pieces have more colorful and some more blended edges. Variation is always good!
Step 4 – Glue the Pieces
Pick a blank background paper and glue the pieces on it. My background is fairly small, about 6 x 8 inches. I use Towbow Aqua Liquid Glue. It’s not perfect because it’s a bit brittle when it dries, but I like it because it doesn’t make my fingers sticky.
Start from one edge and work towards the center. Save most of the brights for the center and keep the edges less colorful. Create clusters and look for happy accidents.
While creating, think about this! Papers that have been destroyed now get a new beginning. It’s like a window has been shattered and a new stained glass one gives a new view. Always when you create is some kind of distortion. But that’s not a bad thing at alll. We need these new views to make a shift in our lives, to see beyond the obvious.
Notice, that you can leave the background partly visible here and there.
Step 5 – Finish with Watercolor
You can still adjust the collage by painting over the pieces.
You can add details, but more than that I would recommend adding a thin color layer on most of the pieces so that you get a more unified look. I added yellow over most of the pale greens, and also to the areas where I left the blank paper visible. I like to have white as a highlight color only, and not everywhere.
While creating, do this! Take a break! Don’t try to do everything in one sitting. Rest and give your mind some time to process what you have been doing!
The collage is now finished, but the process is not. So, proceed to the next step!
Step 6 – Explore Your Torn Paper Collage
Take photos of your torn paper collage. Don’t just take the realistic photo to your archive but get creative! Think about the light and the air and how they create a new layer to everything we see. Take the collage to a place where you get strong sunlight and dark shadows to get a new puzzle over it.
Or if you have a DSLR camera, do what I did: take the collage to a dark room, legthen the exposure so that taking the photo lasts many seconds. Then move the flashlight around the picture and its surroundings.
With the long exposure, you can also move the collage around to get an artistic photo.
You can start with a blank paper, but end up with painting with light.
Creating art is not only about mastering techniques or imagining things. Artistic exploration is where freely practice both.
Torn Paper Collage – Where Did This Idea Come From?
The oil painting that I am currently working on, is influenced by my artistic explorations. And, it’s also vice versa. When I looked at the painting that is still in progress, I felt the need to tear some paper, and so the torn paper collage was born.
I like to explore movement, so moving the collage under the camera produced an image that is related to this painting. That photo will inspire me when I am adding finishing touches to the painting.
I believe we have to explore to move forward in the path. What do you think?
The angel begins with a simple outline sketch. The hands and feet are hidden behind the dress, so it’s easy! The skirt is big so that you can treat it as a blank canvas for winter scenery.
Step 1 – Make an Outline Sketch
Pick an A4-size or US letter-size paper and a regular pencil.
Draw a horizontal center line and then another line that divides the upper part in half.
Place a head right above the upper line and draw a simple body and a long hem.
Add a circle for the halo behind the head, some marks for facial features, wings, and curves to divide the upper body into two parts.
Erase the sketched lines so that you can see them only vaguely. Compare the wings in the picture above with the next picture. After erasing, the pencil sketch is visible only barely.
Step 2 – Add Foundational Ideas
Change to colored pencils. Start with the face and color lightly. Get connected with the character that you are drawing. Add some skin tone and hair. You can also draw facial features, but do it with a light hand, aiming for a connection rather than perfection at this stage.
With neutral colors, add ideas for a winter feel. I draw fur on the top part of the dress and then sky and trees on the skirt.
Step 3 – Color Beyond the Outlines
Get more creative by breaking the outlines. Think about the air that rises from the cold and circulates around the dress. Imagine winds, polar lights, and layers of snow, but also immaterial things: thoughts and feelings and their liveliness.
You can now use more colors but keep the coloring light and progress gradually layer by layer.
Step 4 – Add Details by Coloring
Go through the angel many times and add more details and shadows at every go.
The more details you add, the more your imagination grows. For example, the wings can have decorative motifs.
Make the angel more interesting by adding more asymmetry.
Draw elements like ice so that it’s placed differently on the two sides of the angel.
Step 5 – Cut Out and Finish
Cut the angel out of the paper and make final adjustments, especially near the cut-out edges. Now it’s also the time to make final adjustments to the facial features.
I added more decoration and cut a notch to the halo so that it’s like a glamorous hat.
Step 6 – Play with the Winter Angel!
Combine other items with the doll, and enjoy making the settings! I like to pull out stuff from my boxes of hand-drawn elements – boxes of joy, as I call them!
I drew this little Christmas Girl one evening when I was too tired to do anything else. I think it looks lovely with the winter angel!
Doll World – Sign Up Now!
Come to draw more dolls and other beautiful items for your box of joy!
This week we will grab colored pencils and draw freely in full color. Follow me step by step!
This exercise is set so that we start simple and then get more creative. If you are a beginner, you can stop earlier, and if you have more skills and patience, you can go to the very end. You only need paper and colored pencils. I drew the picture in my colored pencil journal.
Step 1 – Draw a Flower and a Heart
Pick a brown or blue colored pencil and draw a flower and a heart.
There’s nothing creative here, these are just the basic symbols of a flower and a heart. Place these on the corner of the page so that they are like a starting point for the rest of the image.
Step 2 – Draw a Tilted Flower and a Heart
Now draw a flower and a heart so that they look tilted. Having variation makes the image!
Instead of a circle, draw an oval for the center of the flower. Change the length of the petals gradually. Draw the other side of the heart smaller so that it’s not symmetrical anymore.
I like to add some color right away – not much, just a light layer as a warmup.
Step 3 – Draw a Big Flower and Then a Heart Behind It
I bet your flowers and hearts are pretty similar in size and placed separately – like mine are! Let’s add variation by drawing a big flower and by placing a heart behind it. So here, the heart is only partly visible.
Again, I drew the flower a little differently than before. I made the petals go on the top of the center. Now when the flowers and hearts are all a bit different, they look more lively too.
Step 4 – Color the Hearts and Flowers and the Background Around Them
Now pick a wider selection of pencils and color the hearts and flowers. Also, choose a background color and add some of it to the background.
You can adjust the outlines if needed with the background color. Color lightly and leave most of the background blank.
Now you have a cute little drawing, but let’s draw more freely next!
Step 5 – Color Flowers on the Background
We now have stereotypes of flowers, but let’s go further and question them. When a flower wants to be free, it becomes less defined, and the center disappears. Make the background more lively by coloring three big blurry flowers freely.
Without thinking about typical flowers, color stripes that go in different directions. They can have different lengths, be straight or curvy, and the result can look pretty odd!
Then color rectangles on the top. Make three blurry flowers total – sets of stripes and rectangles, that is!
Connect the elements so that the new ones go a little behind the old ones. When you want to create an emotional connection, create a visual connection!
Step 6 – Color Hearts on the Background
Without outlining, color a set of hearts with the background color, and then make a second set of white hearts by coloring the background.
Color around the heart, not the actual heart! The hearts can have various sizes. Place a part of the hearts near the edges so that they are only partly visible.
Then add more background color so that it goes partly over the background elements and makes the image a little darker and calmer.
Now you have some free expression, but next, let’s go further and add more drama!
Step 7 – Color a Dark Path
Light always shines more brightly when there are also dark colors. Pick black and other dark pencils and plan a path that goes across your image from one corner to the opposite side of the center.
First, color the chosen corner and the nearest edge. Then move towards the center. There, add shorter stripes and spots that mark the path and highlight the best parts of the image.
Now you have set the basic lighting. But in nature, light often travels less straight and makes the overall impression less stiff. Next, we will get creative and free up the light!
Step 8 – Draw a Freeform Line and Color Its Sides Differently
Take a deep breath, and practice first. Stand up, and move a pencil in the air so that it creates curves. Then sit down and draw a curvy and continuous line that goes across the page.
Draw freely and lightly!
Then color around the line so that light and shadows alternate there. When darkening an area, notice that you can also color smaller shapes and patterns instead of using a solid color.
Hearts and flowers can also interact with the division so that they add more little curves to it.
Here, the petals push the line away, creating small bumps.
If you want to add more interest to any other area, you can do the same: draw a line and then color the sides differently.
Now you have an atmospheric image, but does it have a message? Next, let’s ponder what to express and color a little more!
Step 9 – Finishing with a Message
Ask yourself: what element do you like the best? My favorite thing was this blurry heart.
Even if it’s not a centerpiece like the big white flower, it felt like a force that affects the scenery the most. I often discover this kind of “background force” in my drawings and paintings. It seems to be the most strongly connected with the overall message that I want to tell.
The pink heart is like a lady who makes everybody fall in love with her. I want the overall scenery to look feminine but also have elements that include agony and the more desperate side of romantic feelings. I like the tension that I gave with some sharp lines and dramatic curves.
Because everything has two sides, often finishing with the message means adding more tension. It makes the image feel more real and more relatable.
