Yeah ... the Painting is Finished

Last night I put the finishing touches on what is probably the most complicated, painstaking and detailed watercolor I have done for any of the cards to date. I am working on a card that is inspired by the amazing art nouveau stained glass windows by Louis C. Tiffany.


Transparent watercolors are perfect for capturing the vibrancy and luminosity of light filtering through a stained glass window.


The first stage, painting the frames of each individual glass pane in black ink took about a week of full time work. The ink is water soluble but waterproof once dry, so can be applied before the watercolors. Although this makes painting in watercolor a bit easier, it still took another week and a half of days, evenings and pretty much all my free time to complete the painting.


But now that it is complete I am rather thrilled with the result. I hope you will be to when you see the final card which will be set to Ave Maria, one of my favorite music pieces.

Free Watercolor Demo

In my previous post Striking a Balance I introduced some of my favorite watercolor books, including "Vibrant Flowers in Watercolor" by Soon Y. Warren as well as a free online demo from the book made available by the publisher. Here is another free online demo from the book that shows you how to use complimentary colors when painting objects from nature arranged against a background with a complimentary color.


Free Download: Soon Y. Warren on Using Complementary Colors

Striking a Balance

Click on the photo for an online demo from the book Vibrant Flowers in Watercolor by Soon Y. Warren

Most people think of watercolor as a medium best suited and usually used for quick, fluid compositions. But like any other medium, it can be used to create amazing detail, elaborated planned and executed paintings or quite simply paintings that spring alive. Finding this balance can be hard.

When I first started painting with watercolors as a child I mainly painted the Scandinavian landscapes where powerful skies, rolling hills and life by the sea lends itself very well to less fussy, quick paintings. Frankly so did my personality. Only with maturity did I learn some measure of patience. And techniques for improving my watercolors. Combining the fluid, almost zen like confidence of eastern brush painting with carefully painted, layered details is now my preferred style. One such example was the watercolors I painted for the card titled "Mandarin Ducks", although when I paint for the ecards I tend to paint backgrounds separate from the objects of the painting so that they can be animated.

Click on the mandarin duck to see the card "Mandarin Ducks"

There are a number of great watercolor books but I will just mention a few of the ones I have found most inspiring and helpful.


Light Up Your Watercolor Layer by Layer by Linda Moyer is more helpful for somewhat experienced watercolor artists who want to take their painting to the next level in my opinion, although it is apparently geared to even novice painters with coverage of some more basic things like color theory and studio setup. The techniques described will take some practice and lots of patience to master but are well worth it.

Watercolor Depth And Realism: 5 Simple Techniques For Adding Dimension To Your Paintings by Laurie Humble is another favorite of mine. I think the cover almost speaks for itself, but again best for intermediate watercolor artists.


Vibrant Flowers in Watercolor by Soon Y. Warren is another advanced book that merges some Eastern aesthetics with western watercolor techniques. The publisher has given access to a demo from the book, so you can get a taste. The layering of washes of primary colors shown in this demo illustrates one of the most important techniques I learned to take my paintings to a new level.

Watercolor Paper

I have set up my painting studio in the brightest corner of our home with linen curtains filtering the light. A little while back I was in a real bind because I could not find the paper I use for watercolor painting anywhere here.

I use Windsor & Newton Hot Press, 300 lb sheets, because the ultra fine smooth surface is best suited for scanning the images I use in the flash animated ecards. Tim frantically called a long list of stores, but each store said the distributor had stopped carrying the paper. Finally he convinced an employee at the distributor to go and dig around in the stock room. Low and behold he found 200 sheets! Yeah, we bought it all, and stuffed it under our bed. I would have been better to have all the money we paid for it stuffed into the mattress, but hey, at least the paper should last a few years I hope …