watercolor inspiration – Stephanie Richey Art

I have been painting a lot on Friday’s at the Farmer’s Market this summer, as well as doing a lot of small paintings in the evenings, rather than larger ones. Summer is hard to find lots of time to paint, mostly because I don’t want to find the time. There’s so much to do outside, and I also get lots of reference photos during the summer so I can paint all winter. So these small paintings keep me going until it starts to get cooler and I start spending more time in the house.

Arches 140 pound 6x10 inch spiral bound watercolor paper pad

I have a subscription to Emily Olson Art, so paintings are either painted from her tutorials, or inspired by her tutorials. Other’s are just things I wanted to try and paint. I have been using an Arches 140lb, 6×10 inch, spiral bound notebook, and it’s almost full, so I thought I would share the pictures I have painted in this particular book.

ExtraTuff Rubber Boots watercolor — XtraTuff rubber boots

Misty winter Forest watercolor painting — XtraTuff rubber boots

Ice Cubes and Blue bird painted in watercolor — Ice Cubes and Blue bird

Butterfly and nest of eggs painted in watercolor — Ice Cubes and Blue bird

Lady bug and blue Beatle painted in watercolor. — Bugs

Purple Beatle and Yellow Beatle painted in watercolor — Bugs

Little Girls splashing in puddles wearing a raincoat painted in watercolor and Yellow Daffodil painted in watercolor. — Pink Raincoat and Daffodil

Seagull painted in watercolor.
Beach and waves painted in watercolor. — Pink Raincoat and Daffodil

Love Birds sitting on a tree stump painted in watercolor — Love Birds

Pink Cherry tree blossoms on a lake painted in watercolor.
Clouds painted in watercolor. — Love Birds

Red mountain cliffs painted in watercolor.
Bear painted in watercolor. — Red Cliffs and Bear

Glass of pink lemonade with ice cubes painted in watercolor.
Purple flower blossom piantedi n watercolor. — Red Cliffs and Bear

Dirt road through a farm field painted in watercolor.
Ocean waves on a beach painted in watercolor. — Farm Road and Ocean waves

Red fox painted in watercolor.
Red Lily painted in watercolor. — Farm Road and Ocean waves

Baby sitting on the beach, painted in watercolor.
Tree Painted in watercolor — Baby on Beach and Tree

Underwater world painted in watercolor.
Cactus pals painted in watercolor. — Baby on Beach and Tree

Old garden tiller painted plein air in watercolor.
Dandelion fluff painted in watercolor. — Garden Tiller and Dandelion

Housefly on leaf painted in watercolor.
Cherries painted in watercolor. — Garden Tiller and Dandelion

None of these pictures has been digitized because they are all practice pieces. But several of them are some of my favorite paintings I have painted. Painting outside for the time this summer was interesting. The paper dried faster, and somewhat differently than in a more controlled environment. The sun also dries the paper unevenly depending on how it hits the paper. Painting upright instead of flat took a bit of getting used to. But it was so fun to do several of these outside, and share something I love doing with the passer bys at the market. Which ones do you like?

Recently I was watching a YouTube video from Emily Olson, and she did some word art that I thought was really nice. If you remember a while ago, I wrote about inspirational quotes that I love. I still love them, and I still have quotes hanging in my home. But this was a fun art project that I could use to decorate my home, as well as inspire me, that I made myself.

Picking words was interesting though, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write that would fit me for a while, although it was fun enough that when I decide to change the quote, I can just make a new piece of art. I also thought it would be a quicker project that it was. The first one I picked was a 3-word quote, and I was in a hurry to finish it. Consequently, there are things about it that I don’t like. If you look closely, you can see that the lines of paint are not as clean around the words, at least not as clean as I would have liked them to be, however standing back it doesn’t look too bad. But I had a little bit of time later in the day, so I did another with just one word. This time I really took my time to set it up, trace more carefully, and especially paint more carefully. I was pleased with how it worked out.

This is a great project to use up scrap paper and wouldn’t have to be done in watercolor. If you love markers or colored pencils, even acrylic on canvas would be fun. I would suggest shorter is better, and one word is great. You will need a computer unless you have really good handwriting. I used a word processing program to pick a font that I liked, and to make it about the size of the scrap piece of paper I was using. Also, and Emily covers this in her YouTube, you’ll want warm colors and cool colors, I used the warm colors for the letters (red and yellow, mixing to make the orange in places) and the cool colors for the background (blue and purple in one, and blue and green in the other), but you could reverse that as well.

When you get it printed on regular printer paper, you could use transfer paper if you have it. I just use a number 2 pencil and scribble darkly on the back, flip it over and tape it to the watercolor paper. Then I carefully trace around the words, being careful not to rest my hand too heavily on the paper around where I’m tracing as it will rub some of the pencil off on the watercolor paper. If that happens however, you can use a clean eraser to lightly remove the smudges. If you paint over them with watercolor, they become extremely difficult to remove. The above image was the first one I made, and the one below was the second one I took a little more time on. If you have a word of phrase that inspires you, this is a great way to remind you of it every day and makes a great piece of art as well!