Making Watercolor Sketches

Experimenting with Watercolor

It feels good to be painting in my studio today with the windows open here in L.A. Now, that the weather is cooler, I am savoring these days in my studio before it heats up again. I am working on creating and completing a few new sketches for textiles for Minted. 

For this collection of sketches, I did a lot of experimenting with paint and color on paper.  

I am enjoying my new 36 pan watercolor palette and having that range of color to choose from. Often, I like to mix in this artist's gouache in with the watercolor paints to make custom colors that are semi-opaque and create unique hues and shapes. 

Lately, I have been drawn to organic shapes and painting them loosely while leaving edges crispy once dry! The results have been surprising to me.

​I can't decide if this blue sketch is complete...Later, I plan to scan them into Photoshop to transform these sketches to digital textile designs. I will share my process for turning watercolor sketches into digital designs soon. I am still learning and practicing this!

---

For this last one, I decide to push myself to paint on a large scale, which is something that I have been wanting to do! This one is on 12" x 18" watercolor paper, whereas my prior smaller sketches are around 7" x 7". 

This weekend, I will be busy planning and preparing for my upcoming Shibori Textiles Workshop which is completely sold-out! yay:) I can't wait to spend the day with 10 creative people. I will be announcing additional workshop dates and collaborations soon, so be sure to sign-up for the newsletter to find out more!