ANOTHER HYDRANGEA PAINTING WITH A TWIST

I drew the next hydrangea painting using one of my photos as reference.

Then I saw Carol King paint pansies using a technique shared by Karlyn Holman on YouTube (see Carol's blog for the painting she did and the link to Karlyn's video).  

With this technique, you draw using the black Elegant Writer calligraphic pens because the ink bleeds out into colors when you touch the lines with water.  

So I thought, "Well, why not try it with this hydrangea?  If it doesn't work, I can go back and do it again with watercolor."

So that's what I did.  

This is on a half sheet of watercolor paper but the right edge is cropped off so it is actually

15" x 17.5"
Arches 300# cold press paper

Next step = put the watercolor on after the paper dries.  This makes the painting a mixed media painting but who cares if it looks good!  I had heard about using these pens before but it was "in one ear and out the other" so it never stuck how I was supposed to use them.  I just had them and have always used them for saying in homemade cards :)

The Elegant Writer markers come in many colors - I have some blue ones and a couple of red ones and a brown one...wonder what colors they would bleed out to or if black is the color of choice when using it this way.  (You can buy them at an art supply store or any craft store that sells calligraphy materials, like Hobby Lobby or Michaels.)

Nota bene:  I did spray mist the paper when I had the shadow colors on by bleeding out the Elegant Writer pens, like Karlyn says will set the ink and keep it from bleeding out - it still bled a bit as I was putting on the watercolor pigment but not too much.  Guess I didn't spray enough or leave it long enough?