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Being in lock down for the passed 8 weeks or so has given us a chance to catch up with a lot of things that have been on our to-do list for years. For me, It has been getting back to the thing that used to bring me so much joy. I hadn’t put a brush to paper for more than 15 years!
I used to be someone who created an art piece almost everyday, and my love for watercolours was particularly strong. But 15 years ago we didn’t have YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and all these tools to inspire us. So now since we’ve been self quarantined and thankfully safe and healthy in Dubai, I’ve been free to pursue my lost love again. I’m literally losing sleep thinking of all the illustrations I want to do and the new art supplies I want to try. I recently had to purchase some new watercolours. After endless review videos, checking all things from light fastness, pans, tubes, 24 colours or 36, price, tin vs plastic palette (trust me, there were many hours of YouTube and many considerations weighing themselves in my Libra mind) I decided on White Nights 24 pan Watercolours in a 36 pan palette. I was really pleased with the quality of the palette and the colours were vibrant and clear.
I wanted to create something with them and since I love florals and Mother’s Day is around the corner I created a watercolour painting for my mum. I used spring colours and masked off the letters MAMA with washi tape and painted some of our favourite flowers. I added a few touches of gold paint for some subtle highlights that catch the light when shimmied. I plan on giving the original hand-painted piece to her when I see her when all the travel restrictions have been lifted.
If you would like to see the tutorial in a timelapse, visit our instagram stories @pretapapier and look for the WIP(Work in Progress) Highlight. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram to keep in touch.
I digitized the painting so that I could send it to her on Sunday,May 10 Mother’s Day morning, as a WhatApp message to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. My sister and I would normally send her a gift and flowers, and always an actual card because she appreciates hand written cards more than anything else. But these days with international shipping and delivery services suffering I thought I’d go digital. So here is a bouquet, a wish and card all in one. and since I digitized it I thought, why don’t I offer it to all of you to send to your mamas on Mother’s Day. I’ve created 3 colour versions, I’m sure you’ll find one that’s just right for your mum. You can download all or the one that you like for free to send to you mums. Don’t forget to share this blog post with your friends so that they can do the same.
Other Supplies used:
Princeton Brushes Elite Round No 6 Great for watercolours and especially for floral paintings. It comes to a fine point, so I did thick and fine strokes with the same brush.
Ceramic palette which is so beautiful, bright and easy to mix bigger quantities of one colour and cleans so easily. I love it.
and this simple closed palette to save some colours from tubes so that they can be easily used without drying up.
