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Reclaiming Naptime: Testing Watercolors for a 20-minute Sanity Break
Interruptibility Scoreâ„¢: 4/5
If you walk away, the paint just dries. It’s abstract, just roll with it.
Mess Meterâ„¢: 2/5
You need to protect your surface from a little water damage and paint. Which makes for easy clean up.
Crafting Tips and Techniques
Be abstract.
Use techniques that do not require drying time.
Crafting Supplies
- Crafty Mom Binâ„¢
- Pencil
- Tape
- Markers
- Watercolors
- Watercolor Brushes
- Watercolor Paper
- Water – 2 cups
Let’s be real: sometimes you need a creative “win” that doesn’t involve firing up a power tool or cleaning glue out of the carpet. This project is for the mom who wants to make something beautiful for Valentine’s Day but needs it to be achievable during an episode or two of Blaze and the Monster Machines. It’s quick, it’s relatively quiet, and it makes you feel like a serious artist—even if you’re wearing your child’s latest art project.
This week I decided to get a jump start on Valentine’s day. I didn’t want to buy generic box cards. So I set out to make my own. I love the look of watercolor and over the COVID shut down in 2021 I took a quick watercolor class from our local library. It gave me some confidence and skill to use watercolors when I wanted to in my crafting journey.
The Supplies
- Watercolor paper: Do not try this on printer paper. It cannot handle water.
- Decent Watercolors: I tested some set I had at home and this Grabie Watercolor set is my top choice. I picked them for the neon and metalic choices which I will use at a later time.
- Brushes: You only need two. One thinner round brush and one thicker round brush. You could probably even get by with one. the set I got came with a water filled brush which is nice and you could also use but I opted for regular brushes. You still need a rinse cup though.
- Two cups of water: One for wetting the paint the other for rinsing the brush. Put them on the opposite side of your work area from your coffee.
- Your Crafty Mom Binâ„¢ already contains
- Pencil and Eraser
- Tape: I recommend masking or washi
- Scissors
Making Your Cards
Setup: Get your two cups of water ready. Cut your paper to size standard sizes are 5″ x 7″, 4.5″ x. 6.25″. There are smaller choices but I wanted space to paint.
Draw the Heart: Use your pencil and draw a hear in the centerish of your paper. I went for horizontal center and vertically slightly above center. If you find yourself erasing more than a few times to get it perfectly symmetrical, grab a pieces of scrap paper and cut yourself a heart.
Choose Your Style: You have two choices. Paint the inside of the heart or pain the outside of the heart (negative space). I didn’t like how my paint test hearts went so I want with the outside of the heart. To me it’s more forgiving because I can always make the heart a little smaller or trace the outline with a sharpie and it will give smoother lines.
Paint: Wet your paints. Now focus on your card. Pick one of the 2 designs below.
Painting the negative space: Take your brush and apply a concentrated line of color right along the outside of your pencil lines. I would do about 1/4 of your heart outline for starters. I am a little bit of a perfectionist for this next part so I work in chunks. Get your brush wet and pull water along that concentrated line you just made. Then do it again pulling the watercolor pigment out from the heart. Add more color whenever you need it but try to add it close to the heart and pull out. I switched up my colors as I went around the heart. I used a lighter and darker red along with a pink and even a bit of purple. It’s abstract. Do what you want.
Painting the heart: You are going to do a similar step above. but you are going to start with filling your heart with water. Just plain clear water. It needs to be fairly wet for this next part because we’re just going to drop our paints in. dip into some color and then just dab your brush in the water somewhere. the color will spread within the water. Keep going.
Let it Dry: Pull off the tape. That’s it. You are done. I let mine dry for a few days. ( I got distracted by the kiddo.) My tape ended up sticking to the paper and ripping it a bit.
Testing Water Colors
The Contenders
- The Kid’s Set
- Prang Watercolors
- Grabie Watercolor Pallet
- Crayola Watercolor Pencils
You need to know, I am no artist. I’m actually the farthest thing from it. I am crafty and a mom and that does mean using art supplies differently. It also means having some knowledge about products and how they work so I know what to use. My review is simply for the task at hand. Using these watercolors to make a card.
I chose to just draw some hearts and paint them. I started with the kids water color and then moved to the Prang water colors. The Prang water colors were much better than the kids for getting a fill effect but I felt both of them had a hard time staying put on the paper. I know watercolors move and I really like watching when they do. It appeals to my math nerd side. However. When drying they tended to show water lines where the water was heavier.
I got a well reviewed set on Amazon from the brand Grabie that has not only metallic paints but also neon ones I wanted for some later projects. It came with some water filled brushes I didn’t use. The pigment seemed a lot heavier if that’s a thing and had some staying power. I was happy with the way these looked and the colors played well together.
And the ones I thought would be really cool for this project Crayola watercolor pencils. The idea is that you draw with the pencils, add water and it looks like water color. I thought being able to color in what I wanted then spread softer versions around my paper would be great for this task. I was wrong. The amount of what can only be described as scrubbing with water that was required took all the fun out of this project. They are not bad. Just not the right style for this project.
I can safely say I am happy with my Grabie watercolor pallet from Amazon. I am really glad I bought it because it definitely elevated what my cards looked like as well as ease of use in getting the desired effect. I was playing around with the neon colors and metallics a bit and made an extra card I don’t know who I will be giving it to. Maybe my work sister.
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