A New Hobby: Watercolor Painting

Last spring, I developed a sudden interest in learning to paint with watercolors. My mom gave me some materials for my birthday, and I started following tutorials that I found on YouTube and Pinterest. The painting below was one of my first. 

A few early practice sketches

I had fun with some Christmas paintings. 

For Christmas, Kelson gave me watercolor lessons with Pam Grant, a local artist. Best gift ever! Not only did I get to have painting lessons, but Kelson came home from work early, took the kids, and sent me off to paint for 2 hours on Friday afternoons. It was a beautiful thing.

These two were from my first lesson. The coolest thing about taking lessons from her was that it made me try painting things I would never have tried before. 

For Christmas I also received a watercolor book on painting flowers. The book gives you the tracing of the sketch and step by step instructions for painting. I thought that painting realistic flowers was way out of my league, but it turned out to be really fun. The roses were my first attempt.

At my next lesson, I was supposed to try painting a flower from a picture. I learned about painting on hot press paper and some interesting elements of color mixing. 

My next lesson was on painting children's faces. This was definitely out of my comfort zone. This poor baby is a little cross-eyed and funny looking, but not as bad as I thought it might turn out.

 I had been looking for a picture of the Portland temple for the living room, but I couldn't find one I liked, so I decided to paint one based on one I found on Etsy. I think it turned out pretty fun.

I went to my parents' house for a few days, and I was in need of a project. My mom started this for my sister at least 2 years ago. She stretched the canvas, covered it in gesso, and then used masking fluid to draw the dandelions. I decided to finish it for her. This piece is huge - about 2 feet by 3 feet. Tackling something so large was kind of daunting, but it was also really fun. I ended up drawing in the dandelion seeds with a sharpie after I finished painting, and I cheated and used the Cricut to make a stencil for the words. It turned out pretty cool, and Katy loved it. 

For her birthday, my mom requested a painting of poppies. I painted this one using the same book I used for the roses. My goal this time was to make the colors really vibrant. 

At my last lesson, I learned about negative painting. That is the technique used to paint the background in this piece. It was fun to tackle painting flowers like this quickly rather than with all of the painstaking detail I had put into my other flower paintings.

This is my latest piece from the flower book. Since it is finally Spring, I needed to paint some daffodils. I wasn't liking this very much as I painted it, but I actually really like the finished product.

 I am learning so much with every new project. Tackling a new hobby and learning new things is always exciting to me. I have found painting to be a great stress reliever. It is also something that Sarah and I can do together. She will paint a picture of her own while I work on mine. I can't wait to learn more!