Watercolor Play for Paper Doll Clothes | Healing & Whimsical Collage Papers

Key Points

• Watercolor play offers a gentle, healing approach to creating whimsical collage papers and fabric for paper doll clothes, art journals, and mixed-media projects.

• The process encourages artists to release control and embrace spontaneity through blooms, brush marks, stencils, and playful color mixing.

• Using materials like book pages, tissue paper, muslin, and lace allows for unique effects and layered textures that transform simple scraps into expressive art.

• Sealing finished pieces with matte medium ensures durability, making them ready for use in future creative projects.

Today on The Paper Doll Chronicles we’re painting paper and fabric with watercolor paints—creating beautiful, soft, and whimsical materials we’ll later use to collage clothes for our paper dolls.

Why Watercolor is great for Expressive Arts

Watercolor is one of my favorite mediums for expressive arts because it naturally teaches us how to:

• 🎨 Let go of control – the paint flows where it wants, blending and blooming in ways we can’t always predict.
• 💖 Relax and heal – the gentle movement of brush and water is soothing, meditative, and helps quiet the inner critic.
• 🌈 Embrace softness & playfulness – the translucent washes and fluid patterns create a dreamy, whimsical look that’s perfect for doll clothing and art journaling.

This is more than just painting—it’s an invitation to slow down, breathe, and give yourself permission to enjoy the process.

Every brushstroke becomes a reminder of acceptance, trust, and joy. So gather your paints, papers, or scraps of fabric, and join me in creating a collection of magical watercolor collage papers. These will become the “wardrobe” of our future dolls—a visual reminder of how beautiful things can emerge when we allow flow, play, and gentle creativity to lead the way.

Suggested supplies

• A variety of types of paper, book pages, tags, etc.
• Dig into your stash and see what you have on hand
• Watercolor paints,
• watercolor pencils
• Spray bottle Brushes
• water
• paper towels
• baby wipes
• Stencils, stamps and other mark making tools
• Stabilo Marks All pencil

Transcript

Video title: Watercolor Play for Paper Doll Clothes | Healing & Whimsical Collage Papers
    
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcFN-a2s2Dg
    
Video language: English (auto-generated)
    
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[0:01] : Good morning, my creative friends, and welcome to Painting in Your PJs with
[0:06] : Manette. I'm Dr. Manette Ryarden. If this is your first time here, welcome. If you are a regular, make sure you drop
[0:14] : me a like below or leave me a little note and let me know, hey, you stopped by. It always means the world to me when
[0:21] : you let me know you took a minute to appreciate what I'm putting out there
[0:27] : for you and let me know it resonates or if there's something else you would like me to focus on. This year we have been
[0:33] : in a beautiful flow of creating paper dolls. We took a little side step this
[0:39] : month to work on a variety of painty papers, hand painted collage papers that
[0:46] : in September we will use. Good morning, Lorraine. Good to see you. Um, and next
[0:54] : month we'll have a new theme and continue on our journey for paper dolls. This is the last call for August as I
[1:02] : will be attending someone else's art retreat this week and which is really nice instead of hosting my own. I'm
[1:09] : ready for a little bit of a break. Good morning Tori. So today we're going to enter the gentle
[1:16] : world of watercolor play. I love watercolor because it's all about
[1:21] : releasing control, learning to soften and flow and trust ourselves to enjoy
[1:27] : the experience of watching colors bloom and blend. And these painted pages
[1:34] : become more than just collage materials, but they really become an expression of
[1:39] : our creativity, a love note to our inner artist. They become a gentle invitation to play.
[1:48] : So, I want to dive right in today and get started. We're going to get a little wet and painty and see what we can
[1:57] : create on fabric and on paper using watercolor. And one of the things to
[2:03] : think about when you're thinking about using watercolor paint
[2:09] : as a media for collage is that it's always water-soluble. So once we create
[2:16] : pages and we have bits and pieces that we like, we can add a layer of matte medium over the top of our watercolor to
[2:24] : seal the watercolor so that it doesn't continue to bloom. This works on paper
[2:31] : with fabric. It might be a little bit different, but maybe you use your watercolor fabric as is, or you add some
[2:39] : stitching to it, but the watercolor fabric won't necessarily work the same
[2:45] : way as some of the acrylic paint or acrylic inks that we tried over the last
[2:50] : couple of weeks. So, let me go ahead and get my Good morning, Tori. Good morning, Ivonne. Great to see everybody.
[2:58] : So, my mom, look at that fun rolling pen. I don't know where that came from.
[3:04] : My mom gifted me her set of watercolors because she wasn't painting. So, I have
[3:10] : this big wonderful set. These are probably a lot of Windsor Newton. I've
[3:16] : added in some Daniel Smith as well, which is my pretty much favorite brand.
[3:24] : And I'm going to come in and just add a little bit of spritz of water. If you're new to watercolor, you want to
[3:31] : definitely activate those watercolors. You can see I've mixed some other colors
[3:36] : in here. This is a Oh, what is it called? I can't remember. This is like a
[3:41] : sparkly red. And there's a little copper. And even this little puddle here. I could even just dip my fabric in
[3:49] : there and let it sort of play around. So, you're definitely going to spray
[3:54] : bottle helps a lot when you're playing with watercolor on paper. I also have
[4:00] : just some clean water and should have grabbed some my big
[4:06] : round brush, which maybe let me grab a big round brush. Hang on just a second. It's right
[4:12] : here beside me. And I don't love painting like traditional
[4:20] : watercolor painting, but I love watercolor for the meditative
[4:27] : effect and impact, for the opportunity to just be a little more free flowing
[4:34] : and expressive. If I know that I need to really work on releasing control, then
[4:41] : watercolor is such a great way to do that. I even grabbed a stencil to kind
[4:46] : of see how would the color work through a stencil. Um, and I've got some of the
[4:52] : same papers I've been using all along. And see if we can get this organized a
[4:59] : little bit better. So, I have some book pages here. Still a little bit of that
[5:04] : pattern paper, a little scrap of white fabric, a little piece of lace, or I'll
[5:12] : cut some of this off. I love working with lace in my collage. And this was a
[5:18] : old tablecloth or something that I found at my stepmom's house. It's not old or
[5:27] : antiques. And uh she just loved lace. and I brought home
[5:32] : lots of bits of it from her house. So, I'm just going to cut that into a couple of pieces. It even smells like their
[5:39] : house, which is lovely. I tried washing this. It did not wash
[5:45] : well. If you're working with acrylic paint on a piece of muslin like this,
[5:53] : good morning. Good to see you, Anna. Um, and there's some other fun things in there. So, this is a a piece of the same
[6:00] : lace that I coffee dyed. And look at the yummy color in that. And I think this is
[6:07] : some muslin that I washed. And then this is probably tea dyed, a little bit of
[6:12] : hibiscus. And I was just experimenting and playing. This muslin was washed. But
[6:18] : they're kind of boring. So, I thought this morning I would see if I could put
[6:24] : maybe some different colors into this and just kind of the fabric up a little
[6:30] : bit. And I grabbed a few pieces of this and I dipped it right in the watercolor.
[6:37] : Few pieces of this artist weight watercolor um or this uh tissue paper and some of
[6:45] : that sulfite paper because I love this for making collage. goodies. So, I have
[6:50] : a lot of different things to play and explore. This isn't as free flowing as
[6:56] : the acrylic inks from last week because those, you know, you can kind of squirt
[7:01] : and go. I do have some liquid watercolors that would also be really fun to play with, but today I wanted to
[7:08] : play with watercolor paints. And then I also have not enough room on my little
[7:17] : table here. And then I also have this box of water-soluble crayons,
[7:24] : my favorite Derwent Inktense pencils, which are beautiful to work with on
[7:30] : fabric. And the Derwent Inktense, you can actually iron these and heat set
[7:37] : them and they will be permanent unlike other watercolors. So, they're really great for adding color to fabric. So, I
[7:45] : have some kind of fine-tuned things to play with. I have my black Stabilo
[7:50] : pencils. And then I also love these guys.
[7:57] : These are Stabilo. They're called Woodies and they're these big fat chunky
[8:04] : water-soluble crayons and they're super fun for creating
[8:09] : just uh abstract marks or color on pages. So, I'm just going to grab a few
[8:15] : of those colors and maybe we'll start with this and mix it with some watercolor. So, this was one that looks
[8:22] : like I did some rubbing on this stencil with and it's kind of boring. So, let's
[8:29] : see what we can do. And when you're working with a water soluble pencil, a
[8:35] : watercolor pencil, the Derwent Inktense, you can work with it in a couple of
[8:40] : ways. I can come in here and just do some mark making on the paper. And then,
[8:51] : okay, how can I lose my paint brushes in like 30 seconds? And then you can come in and these also dry a little more
[8:59] : opaque. I love the way they look when they dry. You can see it's taking kind
[9:05] : of a lot of water to activate those. So they have a very vibrant color. They're
[9:10] : creamy like a a crayon. So I'm actually really digging that. But I can also just
[9:17] : take that pencil and dip it right into the water as well.
[9:24] : And then it kind of stays put, but I still get that watery look. And just by
[9:30] : adding these few marks over the top of the graphite and some extra paint that
[9:35] : got on there, all of a sudden, I have a really interesting page that I can use
[9:42] : for collage. And when we're thinking about collage for our art journals or
[9:48] : future painty pages, um, or clothes for our
[9:53] : dolls, we don't need them to have a ton of texture. Sometimes all you need are
[9:59] : just a few fun little marks. And remember, we talked last week about kind of being your own little viewfinder. And
[10:05] : I love that little bit right there. I'm looking at this and thinking, "Oh, it would be fun to splatter some white
[10:12] : acrylic paint over the top of this and just add one more layer or even maybe a
[10:20] : little pop of this yellow in here
[10:26] : where I've got some of the circles in there already from that
[10:34] : stencil. and what changes when we add just a tiny bit of color and what
[10:39] : changes with this yellow when it's dry versus when it's wet. So then we're
[10:45] : going to get some softer, more flowy circles. So this whole series this month is just
[10:52] : really about being willing to experiment and play with your supplies. Right? I
[10:59] : love turquoise and yellow together. And there's part of me that wants to just keep going. Like I could just keep
[11:06] : playing with this page. And I'm gonna set it aside to dry.
[11:13] : And I'm wondering because the rubbing idea worked well. What would happen if
[11:19] : we did that with one of these crayons? And interestingly, it's kind of sort of
[11:27] : working. but not like it did with the graphite. It's too chunky. You can see a little
[11:33] : bit of dots in there, but not a lot. So then what do we do with a page like this? Well, I'm going to come in and I'm
[11:41] : just going to get a layer of that orange down. Move that color around.
[11:52] : What I love also about these Stabilos are they're very transparent, so I can
[11:57] : still see all the fun text through there. Right. Again, this feels like
[12:04] : would be a fun one to come in over the top with some maybe some stenciling and
[12:10] : just kind of start to build up the colors. So, I'm going to let this one dry also and I will come back to that
[12:17] : one in a little bit. I as soon as I started picking papers this morning, I was so drawn to book pages and thinking,
[12:23] : "Oh, I need more book pages." So, if I were going to use watercolor paints to
[12:29] : just create some collage backgrounds, this is where I'm just going to play in
[12:35] : two ways. One, I'm going to play with the shape of my brush and make marks. And two, I'm going to play with
[12:40] : watercolor and water to create some beautiful blooms. And I'm kind of liking
[12:46] : this purple here. And I love these big brushes. Look, that purple is so dark.
[12:53] : It almost looks black. And I'm creating kind of an interesting
[12:59] : sort of feather effect on there without really trying. My brush was pretty dry.
[13:06] : So, what happens if I get a little more water on my brush? A little perhaps less
[13:12] : pigment. Then we start to get more of that transparency.
[13:20] : And you can see where the brush holds the paint. The brush holds the paint in
[13:25] : the nib even though there's paint all the way down. So I'm getting that nice
[13:30] : dark at the top there, which feels very petalike. And again, just like with that first
[13:37] : turquoise pencil, it's okay to have a peach that just has one color on it. You
[13:45] : may be working on something where you need just that little bit of pop of
[13:50] : purple on there, right? So, don't feel like every page has to be super
[13:55] : dramatic. So, we're going to set that one aside and we're going to come back at the end.
[14:01] : And hopefully those will be dry enough and we will um look at putting some matte medium over the top and just see
[14:08] : what happens and experiment a little bit. So I could pretty happily
[14:15] : go on all day with just filling pages with some of my favorite shapes. Notice
[14:23] : how I'm holding my brush loosely and way at the top of the brush, not like a
[14:29] : pencil. when you hold a pencil uh or hold it like a a pencil, you're going to press down too hard and you don't
[14:38] : actually get as interesting a line or a flow. So, holding that brush very
[14:44] : lightly, just barely touching it down to the tip of the paper here.
[14:52] : This is uh came from a pretty old book and so I love the the pages are
[14:59] : yellowed. There's also something soothing about
[15:05] : working monochromatically with just one color or shades of a color.
[15:16] : We don't have to overthink it. Notice how as they dry, they're fading, right?
[15:21] : As watercolor dries, it becomes lighter than it went on. And if you want
[15:27] : it to be a bolder color, you can build up those layers. Just go
[15:34] : right back over the top of them. But sometimes that little faded look is really interesting. And I'm looking at
[15:41] : this and it's feeling a little boring and I'm like, how can I mess this up? So, I'm just going to come in with my
[15:47] : spray bottle and soften up all the edges of this. Get some flow going, which is
[15:52] : what watercolor is best at is we get to just let go of control
[15:59] : on the page and let it do its own thing, right? Do its own thing. So, these are
[16:06] : some of my just fun ways to start to play with watercolor paint. This is a
[16:13] : great warmup. Like if you're kind of looking at a blank page and thinking, "Oh, I don't know what to do today."
[16:19] : Grab your journal or actually I'm going to grab some of that sulfite paper. A little more room to play here.
[16:28] : Grab a journal or some, you know, blank sheets of paper and just put color on paper. It's such a beautiful way to
[16:34] : connect with that sort of inner childlike wonder. So this time and this
[16:41] : paper is not watercolor paper. So my water is a little bit purple. So you can
[16:48] : kind of see that. Um we're just going to play with the color and see what
[16:53] : happens. This is a little bit like the acrylic inks last week
[16:59] : and we're going to get some of these just really beautiful blooms happening that we can't control.
[17:07] : What's fascinating about watercolors, you can see where the outline of the water is. The color will stay inside of
[17:16] : the water because this isn't watercolor paper. It's going to buckle and ripple.
[17:22] : It's fine. I'm going to use it for collage. It's going to get, you know, pressed down and used in other ways. So
[17:28] : you can see I can come right along the edge of that circle
[17:34] : and unless I move it outside of the water, it will
[17:40] : just stay inside of the water. So having pages full of these watercolor blooms,
[17:48] : so fun. These are so much fun to draw over the top of. You can have them
[17:53] : connect to each other. So, let's come down here and do another one.
[18:01] : And I like to fill whole pages with these. And again, use either parts of
[18:07] : them. Let's see if this yellow will like little crumbly bits of yellow in there.
[18:14] : So, I'm going to put lots of pigment right in the center. And just It looks like a fried egg.
[18:22] : I could hear Brad making breakfast and I'm like, "Oh, I'm hungry this morning."
[18:28] : And I still have this lots of yellow on my brush. So, I can also see you what
[18:35] : the difference between when I put the dry paint right down on the paper
[18:41] : without the water. It stays put. It doesn't flow or move.
[18:48] : Right? So, we want to pay attention to that. I still have a lot of yellow. So, I'm just going to grab one of these
[18:54] : little book pages and just use up some of the yellow on here.
[19:04] : And I can come back now that I that is staying put. And I
[19:10] : can add a circle around it. And you can see it's going to flow. If I pull more
[19:16] : water over here, I'm gonna get some of that pink flowing
[19:21] : into my orange. And this is such a fun
[19:28] : way to just get color in the page, get out of my head.
[19:38] : But it also teaches me what acrylic paint does,
[19:45] : right? Like if you're afraid of watercolor, this is such a wonderful way
[19:51] : to sort of get your hands in there and just see what it does and how it
[19:58] : flows. And when you take a watercolor class, they always talk about two
[20:03] : different techniques. There's many, but the two most popular are either wet on
[20:09] : wet, like we're doing here, or what's called wet on dry, where we have a very
[20:15] : wet brush, but we keep our paper dry. And it's just simply a preference.
[20:22] : I'm going to come put a little one in between here and just see what happens.
[20:28] : This is one that it's good to also kind of work quickly.
[20:35] : Just put a little blue in there to mix that one up.
[20:40] : And maybe I'm going to come connect all these together.
[20:50] : And we're just going to see what happens. You can see how my paper is buckling here.
[20:57] : I've got lots of water flowing. I can have all those colors move around
[21:04] : and flow and just see what happens.
[21:13] : There are so many different fun creative techniques that you can do with watercolor, but this is definitely one
[21:22] : of my favorites. And what I love about this is then coming back in with a micron pen and
[21:30] : adding, you know, doodled flowers or zenangle patterns
[21:37] : to these designs. I'm not worrying about palette. I'm not trying to make these match. I'm just
[21:44] : sort of dipping this great big brush. This is a 10 number 10 round.
[21:51] : can't control much about it, but I'm just sort of letting the colors
[21:56] : flow and go where they will. And I'm just curious what it's going to look like when it's dry. You can see places
[22:04] : where my paper was dry and it stayed white. I love that. I don't need every
[22:11] : little bit of this to be colored with color, right? So, and once it's dry, you
[22:19] : can always come back and add a little more definition. As long as it's wet, you can continue to have that color
[22:27] : flow. Being a little careful here because that purple and yellow, if they mix, I'm just
[22:34] : going to get brown, which maybe is not the look that I'm going for.
[22:40] : And I'm noticing there's some granulation of the color on the sulfite paper, right, where it didn't quite
[22:47] : absorb all the pigment. It's just interesting, right? It's just interesting. And there's a lot of paint
[22:55] : here on the page. And
[23:00] : I lost my paper towels. Where am I? Well, okay. So, I'm just gonna
[23:07] : grab a piece of this fabric because my paper towels moved to the other table.
[23:13] : And I'm just I would do this with a paper towel, a tissue, but what will happen if we try it with fabric? And I'm
[23:19] : just going to stick it in here and let it absorb some of that color.
[23:28] : And because it's watercolor on fabric, that color will continue to spread and
[23:34] : get some nice blooms. And I want to just pick up some
[23:40] : of the water here. This wasn't my intention to use with the
[23:46] : fabric, but everything is an experiment, right? I want to just soak up a little bit of
[23:53] : that water so that I can pick up this piece of paper and move it somewhere to dry. And then we're going to see what's
[24:01] : going to happen here. So, I'm loving the purple and the green color. I love that
[24:07] : uh this fabric, the where the thread stitching is absorbed more of the
[24:14] : pigment. So, it's hard to see, but I've got a little bit darker color. It's funny. I got one little spot of red
[24:21] : there. So, I'm going to keep playing with this piece of fabric and we're going to see what happens. And I'm going
[24:26] : to set this aside to dry.
[24:37] : And this is a similar process to painting on the paper where we don't
[24:44] : have a lot of control and I don't necessarily want to have a lot of control. So, I'm going to get my paper
[24:51] : just a little bit damp. It's going to create kind of a a beautiful tie-dyed effect that looks very vibrant when it's
[24:59] : wet, but once we get it dry, what will happen is those colors will fade quite a
[25:05] : bit. And I'm sort of being called this green. Who else loves abstract
[25:11] : watercolor play? Am I the only one? I'm gonna see if I can work through this
[25:18] : stencil. I only grabbed one stencil. But it might be fun to grab a few more
[25:26] : of the stencils.
[25:37] : And we're just going to see what happens to create some marks. I've got some extra water on top of that stencil. So,
[25:45] : I'm going to come in and pick up some of that color. Nothing ever gets wasted.
[25:53] : And see what happens. Lovely. So, we got some of that nice
[25:58] : purple circles. We got some more marks. Again, a fun way to start to build up
[26:04] : the color and use up the ink. So, let's see if it's too wet through the stencil
[26:09] : on the fabric. If it just went everywhere, or if we got a little bit of
[26:14] : pattern in there. We got a little bit of pattern on there to kind of create that
[26:20] : tie-dyed effect. Kind of fun. Again, we just don't know until we try.
[26:27] : Uh same Tori. I used to be so afraid of watercolors.
[26:33] : And then my dear friend Andrea Shebaloo like really taught me how to play with
[26:40] : them. That's what I wanted with some of this.
[26:47] : So imagine just painting this up with a variety of
[26:53] : colors. Again, I can imagine a beautiful dress
[26:59] : for a doll coming out of this.
[27:06] : Kind of liking this pink. So now over here, my fabric is dry.
[27:13] : I didn't spray the fabric all the way down here and so I'm getting a
[27:19] : completely different effect. Kind of liking that rosy bloom. So, because the
[27:25] : fabric is wet, it will spread some, but not as much as it might if we add some
[27:33] : more water. So, as soon as we add the water, we have no control over what's
[27:38] : happening, right? Um, I also like that I've got some darker pigment and then
[27:44] : some lighter around the edges. So, that's creating just a magical
[27:50] : bloom there. And every fabric is different, right? You just don't know how it's going to
[27:58] : react until you sit down and play with it. And I love using the little scraps
[28:05] : and bits and pieces of this for all kinds of things. for slow stitching
[28:10] : projects, right? For fabric collage. So, I've got a lot of this color in here
[28:16] : that I'd like to kind of use up and clean out. So, what happens if we do
[28:21] : like we did at the beginning and we just come in with some brush
[28:27] : marks and we put some pattern.
[28:34] : My curiosity is like we've got this big wash of color at the top
[28:42] : and it's a scrap of something. I don't even know where I got it from. It looks like, you know, it was hemmed. It feels
[28:50] : like cotton. Um, but it's hard to know if it's 100% cotton. I have some that is
[28:56] : 100% cotton that we're going to play with also. And this one has a just a really subtle
[29:04] : stitched pattern on it. Okay. I really love what those marks did. Oops. So,
[29:10] : that was an accidental Let's move that up. An accidental drip there. So, can we
[29:19] : do just some splatter marks on there?
[29:25] : I tend to buy stuff at, you know, thrift stores or resale stores and, you know,
[29:31] : often they don't know what it is or where it came from. Um, it's funny with
[29:37] : the fabric in there. These look like the edges of cactus, like prickly pear cactus, like they have some little
[29:43] : thorns in there. Okay, this just feels like it needs some
[29:49] : more color smooshed in. Maybe a little more kind of galacticy
[29:56] : looking.
[30:02] : This is an old violet one that when it came out of the tube was so sort of plasticky for watercolor.
[30:11] : So don't be afraid to layer and blend. And I'm intentionally not putting water
[30:17] : on the fabric because then we start to get it drying in some interesting ways.
[30:22] : And remember, this is just a layer. I can always come back and layer in more.
[30:30] : And if I want that to sort of have that little bit of galacticy
[30:38] : lack of control, right, just continuing to play. So, I can see I'm getting my
[30:45] : Got to have pretty painty paper underneath the fabric as well. All right, Annette, don't put the wet paint
[30:51] : on the keyboard. Move that one up.
[31:00] : And again, I'm not looking to make a cohesive whole piece of fabric. I'm
[31:05] : creating visual interest that I'm going to use pieces and parts of at a later
[31:11] : date. So, I'm looking at this going, I want more green. There's no green on
[31:16] : here. So, we're gonna try that same sort of circle effect and see what
[31:23] : happens when So, it doesn't act the same as it does on paper. And of course, it's going
[31:31] : through underneath. Look how much more it flows on the paper than on the
[31:36] : fabric. Notice when I folded that over on itself, right, we
[31:42] : got color spread. So, it definitely acts differently on the fabric. And you can't
[31:50] : control the spread like you can on paper. On paper, I could contain where I
[31:57] : wanted the water to flow, but I don't have that control here at all. As soon as I add water, it pretty much goes
[32:04] : wherever it wants to.
[32:12] : So maybe some kind of funky green abstract flower or growth in here.
[32:22] : Just playing with the shape of the brush. Intentionally using this quite large brush. I love how this green I
[32:30] : don't even know what that green is. When it's spreading out, you get this vibrant
[32:35] : yellow around the edges. So sometimes you think the watercolor is going to look one way and then when you put it
[32:43] : down on the paper, it does all kinds of interesting magical things. And I'm
[32:49] : wondering if I can brighten up this green in the center with some of that
[32:54] : because it looks a little bit dark. And we're going to see. I don't know what it's going to be like to layer that up.
[33:02] : But now I have something green over here that's kind of making me happy. I do
[33:08] : like this olivey green on my palette.
[33:14] : It's a kind of sagey green and when I put it down against those bright greens, it looks a little more brown.
[33:23] : Just filling this in a little bit. Again, keeping it super abstract.
[33:31] : And we never know what these are going to look like until they're completely dry, right? And so don't get attached to
[33:40] : what you're seeing on the surface yet. Oh, look how fabulous this is. So, where
[33:48] : I put the brush down, I got a nice hard edge from the color. Even though the um
[33:58] : a lot of the color has flared out, it looks like there's an actual outline
[34:03] : around each of those edges. Super fun. So, I'm looking at this thinking it
[34:09] : needs some orange and I'm kind of liking the more watery flowy effect.
[34:17] : So, I'm spraying up that fabric. Pull that up there so you can see it.
[34:23] : Going to come in here with some of this orange.
[34:28] : My water's starting to get pretty muddy, so at some point I would, you know, probably want to change up that water.
[34:37] : So, what happens if we just try some different shapes,
[34:44] : right? The more water you add, the more it's going to move. Again, imagine
[34:49] : taking those beautiful orange stripes and for those of you that love
[34:55] : stitching, adding that to a handstitched piece. So, it becomes very unique, very
[35:02] : much your own look. And plain white muslin
[35:11] : is so inexpensive, easy to get, you know, at resale stores. Like don't buy
[35:18] : expensive fabric. Buy stuff on sale to experiment. Oh, I love the idea of
[35:23] : painting on raphia. Nice. That's a great idea, Tori. I can't wait to see your
[35:30] : pictures when you post them.
[35:36] : So, I'm kind of liking these sort of petal shapes today with this big brush.
[35:48] : just kind of start letting things flow into each other.
[35:55] : Maybe we'll come in with a little of this sort of sepia here
[36:02] : in the center. And if you want to control the spread, start small and have it grow. like this
[36:10] : started out with definite marks and we have lost all the def definition here
[36:16] : into this sort of abstract flow. But it still looks really cool. But I can also
[36:22] : come back now and maybe add some patterns even, you know,
[36:28] : come back in with a little bit of that green.
[36:34] : And let's see if we can get more specific here.
[36:40] : I don't know. Everything's an experiment.
[36:49] : And the thing about watercolor is the softness and the fluidity of it is by
[36:55] : design. So, it's about learning to lean into that. And isn't that like so much
[37:01] : of our life where we have to lean in to the changes to the
[37:08] : opportunities, right? To decisions that other people make, right?
[37:15] : Like you know, we uh we don't have as much control as we like to imagine that
[37:21] : we do. And so the more that we can use our creative practice as a place to
[37:29] : practice letting go of control. I didn't think I was a controlling
[37:35] : person, but I was working with a wonderful mentor a couple of years ago
[37:41] : um who pointed out to me that I was spending with my family specifically a lot of time in hypervigilance.
[37:48] : A lot of time really worrying about everyone's emotions, trying to keep the
[37:55] : peace. Anybody else the peacekeeper in their family? you know, making sure everyone's happy and that nothing was
[38:02] : going to explode. And it all goes back to a childhood of parents fighting,
[38:08] : right? And being nervous that if people fight, they leave. My parents got divorced when I was young. So, there's
[38:16] : clear reason for my hyper vigilance, but it doesn't serve me at this stage of my
[38:22] : life, right? So, I've learned to not be so hypervigilant and to not
[38:31] : get so upset when things happen in the family that are outside of my control.
[38:38] : So, because this paper is wet, all these little details are just
[38:44] : keep subtly softening into the paper. But I'm kind of digging whatever is going to happen
[38:51] : here with this flower. That's going to give me one something a little more
[38:57] : specific on the page. So, I'm going to set this one aside to dry. But, oh, look
[39:05] : how pretty my under paper is. I love that. So, I have this beautiful piece of
[39:11] : painty fabric here. You can see it better if I Let me change my camera real quick.
[39:19] : So, hand painted, tie-dyed magic that I can
[39:24] : see me cutting snippets out of this piece to do all kinds of wonderful things with. So, I'm going to hang that
[39:32] : up over here to dry. I'm going to change out
[39:37] : this piece of paper here, my under paper. I'm going to turn this around
[39:43] : because this is a magical piece of paper. all by itself. Right. So, this is
[39:50] : a a keeper. And so, I think let's see. I'm just gonna turn that up that way and
[39:56] : we'll see what else happens. And I'm curious if that beautiful tissue paper
[40:03] : will do the same thing. We discovered last week that the tissue paper
[40:08] : definitely tends to the water goes straight through.
[40:15] : What I love about tissue paper, I know I've probably said this over the last couple of weeks, um, over and over, and
[40:20] : I think I'm going to try some of my Derwent inktense on here, is it's so
[40:27] : beautiful for collage and building up layers because of its transparency.
[40:33] : So, it's tricky to work with in the the making of it, but in the using of it, we
[40:41] : end up having some real magic happen. Let's see.
[40:50] : Oh, I might even do that's a dark indico. Some darker colors. I have so
[40:56] : many different uh varieties of watercolor pencils in here, but the Derwents are by
[41:03] : far my favorite. I have never used them on tissue paper.
[41:09] : So, today is about play and experimentation.
[41:14] : Excuse me. And I leave Saturday morning to head to New Mexico for an to attend
[41:20] : an art retreat. And this is a lovely warm up to enter into that space from a
[41:28] : place of play. So, I'm just curious. No idea what this is going to do.
[41:35] : So, I think I just need to kind of make a bit of a scribbly mess.
[41:43] : I'm gonna I have two layers here and I'm kind of leave both of those layers. This already had a little bit of watercolor
[41:51] : on it. And what's going to happen if we kind of layer them? Again, notice I'm holding
[41:58] : that pencil like my brush. This kind of loose scribbly.
[42:04] : We're just getting some color down. We want that dark indigo. So, I'm going
[42:11] : to get some of that indigo in here. Maybe a little contrast. It wasn't my
[42:16] : intention to have this be landscapy, but it's looking a little landscapy.
[42:29] : All right. Um, I'm going to try the spray bottle. See if it has any effect.
[42:34] : Normally, I do this with a brush. So, it's sort of softening everything. I can see the paper rippling.
[42:43] : What happens if I come in with this fun fan brush and just sort of gently move those marks
[42:51] : around? So, the thing about Derwent is you never really get rid of all of the lines,
[42:59] : right? But you can soften the lines. So, that one is really glary from your
[43:05] : perspective, but it has a softness and a subtlety to it that I'm really loving.
[43:12] : And I'm going to come back. I'm going to dip my pencil in water,
[43:18] : which I think is going to give me a little more intense vibrancy here.
[43:25] : There's water, lots of water on my paper. So, I'm just playing.
[43:32] : So, I could see this be like a a nice underpiece in a art journal.
[43:45] : I definitely have botanicals on the mind. I have just uh put the finishing touches on the sales pages for both of
[43:53] : my 2026 art retreats. They'll be opening for enrollment as soon as I get back
[44:00] : from New Mexico. And I'm super excited
[44:05] : about both the themes and want to just express gratitude to Tori who I did a
[44:10] : little brainstorming with and she sent me some fun ideas and is going to come
[44:18] : and support me next fall up in Estis Park, Colorado for the Moonwise retreat
[44:24] : where we're going to be creating with, playing with, and learning about the
[44:29] : phases of the moon and how They impact and support us. Okay, so this one feels
[44:37] : super fun. Interesting once it's dry. The thing about Derwents is they dry
[44:43] : pretty permanent. So that feels kind of juicy, but I'm very curious when I pull
[44:49] : this up. I think we might get a little magic magic underneath too on this other page with a little more abstraction. So,
[44:58] : where that went through, we got some interesting things happening. And I'm
[45:03] : going to plop this wet one right on the top of this other wet watercolor down
[45:09] : here. Absorb some more of that ink and just make a big happy mess. So, this
[45:14] : feels fun. So, what happens if I come in with my
[46:34] : Yes, I bumped my microphone. Can you hear me now? Sorry about that. How did you know? Because I do that all the time
[46:40] : like a goofball. So, I should be back. Let me know if that sound is back. Sorry about that.
[46:54] : All right, coming in with a different color. And again, I'm imagining, you
[47:00] : know, snippets of this, not the whole page, right?
[47:11] : Just letting that color kind of play on the page. So, this was kind of wet to
[47:17] : start, right? So, um, I'm wondering if we were to work
[47:23] : wet on dry with this paper, what might happen? I'm going to get a little bit of
[47:29] : this lighter greens in here.
[47:36] : Okay, this one looks like lychen on a rock, right? I love where it's going
[47:44] : and it's making me think about lyken. Oh, then I'm like, it needs a little bit of the
[47:50] : I think about the Colorado rocks. The the lyken can be brilliant orange or
[47:55] : brilliant yellow or a beautiful mossy green. So, this to me is like this
[48:02] : luscious piece of paper and I can't wait to see what it's going to look like when
[48:07] : it's going to dry. Plus, I bet we have something really fun happening underneath. But I'm gonna leave that on
[48:15] : there for now. Take this whole painty piece of paper, set it aside for dry. Oh
[48:21] : my gosh, it's been 45 minutes already. And so I'm noticing that this is not as
[48:27] : fast, right? When we have done the other
[48:32] : types of paper and process, we have ended up, you know, moving a lot more
[48:39] : quickly, kind of covering a lot more ground. And this hasn't been like that.
[48:44] : So with something like this here, I've got, you know, kind of this big sort of just puddle of leftover color.
[48:53] : There might be a tiny little bit of pigment in there. I see. Oh, and my
[48:58] : water is getting super dirty. So, it's about time to stop because everything's going to just end up mud.
[49:04] : And maybe I'm gonna drop a little more. So, we're gonna like maybe just sort of
[49:11] : tie this a little bit and see what might happen
[49:17] : with something a little less intentional and maybe just
[49:25] : a faster way to get some color down on this.
[49:31] : Again, everything's an experiment. This is not something I have tried before.
[49:37] : You have to be fearless in your play. So, I can see that I want a little more
[49:45] : blue in there. That's a lot of purple, but I like the way the variations in
[49:51] : color are adhering. So, I'm going to come in and plop some
[49:58] : more blue in there. And I'm also maybe gonna get this wet and see if that helps
[50:05] : with that absorbency. So, this is not handmade lace. It's machineade, probably
[50:12] : polyester. It does not feel like cotton. The pattern in the lace is really lovely.
[50:18] : So, I love using it and um
[50:23] : noticing the impact. So, look at that. Just simple quick dying process. This
[50:30] : one I would probably let it completely dry and then iron it
[50:37] : to see if I can get the color to stay.
[50:43] : So, there's still some in there. Dry my hands off.
[50:50] : And I'm going to come in from the other side also.
[50:59] : So, I want to use up whatever paint is in here. It's a great way to use up
[51:05] : leftover watercolor paint in a in a palette
[51:11] : and get some different marks on there. So, again, everything is just such a
[51:16] : happy experiment with watercolors. And I want to go back to some of those ones
[51:22] : that we started with. So, let's see what we got here.
[51:29] : I can see I dipped just the tiny edges in that little bit of green. But now, instead of just that uh piece of cream
[51:37] : colored lace that we started with, I have this beautiful purple lace that would be absolutely gorgeous as part of
[51:45] : a paper doll. And it feels pretty wet.
[51:52] : So, let's See if we can come in here with that paper that we started with.
[52:00] : It's interesting. It's not really making a pattern, but you know, I'm just continuing to build up color on these
[52:07] : little scrappy bits. And I bet we got some also of those patterns. I mean,
[52:13] : look how everything just becomes a chance to play and
[52:21] : experiment, right? And we just don't know what's going to happen
[52:27] : with any of these bits and pieces except that they are so much fun to make. Okay,
[52:35] : I'm happy with my purple lace that might get packed up and go on retreat with me.
[52:40] : So, I'm going to come back to some of to like this one here.
[52:49] : And I'm going to come back with my this is a deep indigo Derwent.
[52:59] : And so this is kind of similar to working with the Stabilo Marx all
[53:06] : pencil. And again, we're just looking to get
[53:13] : some shape and texture on the page. And rather than activating this with water,
[53:22] : one of my favorite things to do is to activate those Derwents with some matte
[53:28] : medium. I like the Liquitex brand. Make sure you use a brush that you don't
[53:37] : care about very much. Maybe an older brush because the it can be hard to get
[53:43] : that matte medium out of
[53:48] : And what's interesting is that blue is going to mix with the orange because the orange is also water soluble.
[53:56] : So I'm thinking we're going to get a little more subtle color from that
[54:01] : indigo. It's not as dramatic as using that dark
[54:07] : dark black stabilo.
[54:15] : And I'd probably even come in, I might let this dry and then get that
[54:23] : matte medium over the orange part as well, so that when I go to use this as
[54:29] : collage, that color is going to stay put and not move around. When you're working
[54:35] : with collage and water soluble
[54:40] : crayons like the car into ash or these woodies or the Derwent,
[54:47] : they go on the upper layers of collage, not the under layers. Unless you've
[54:52] : sealed the color. If you've sealed the color, it doesn't matter where they go.
[54:58] : Let's see. Where's my happy little? So, my favorite handy dandy tool. So,
[55:06] : I'm just going to come in here and just put that layer of matte medium all over
[55:11] : the top of this. And I'm actually really loving how this one is looking.
[55:19] : And I might even come in and just little water, a little bit of matte
[55:24] : medium, go back over it with another layer again.
[55:33] : So over the last three weeks we have played with acrylic paint. We have
[55:39] : played with acrylic ink and this week we have played with watercolor.
[55:45] : And whether you're here with me live today or catching the replay, what are
[55:50] : you feeling drawn to? It's not about what which one of mine you liked, but more as you play and experiment, what do
[56:00] : you feel pulled towards in your own art? The whole point of this is to really
[56:07] : use what we have. learn to let go of holding on to really just kind of play
[56:14] : and experiment and explore
[56:19] : and try new things like to bring a spirit of freedom to get back into some
[56:26] : of our own creative flow.
[56:33] : Okay, I'm loving these little blue bubbles on the orange background. So,
[56:38] : this is one of those pages that makes me super happy.
[56:47] : And again, just dipping that crayon right into
[56:52] : the color. So, this is a a beautiful page, right?
[56:58] : That will be gorgeous in collage when it's done. This one feels like it just
[57:04] : needs a little something something. It might need just some little
[57:10] : pops of orange and maybe some different shapes in here.
[57:20] : You just love the playing. Thank you. Yeah, Tori. I think it's so important
[57:26] : that we just learn to relax and let go, right? To relax and let go. So, this one
[57:32] : is begging for some white acrylic paint. And I don't have that right here. Or
[57:39] : even maybe some acrylic paint. It just needs some white splatters which will kind of just give it a little more fun
[57:46] : and play. So this was the sheet of just the sheer, you know, the watercolor
[57:52] : brush marks. And I'm going to put some matte medium just right on the page and
[57:57] : go over the top of this with the matte medium because I'm curious if the matte medium is going to activate the watercolor or it's going to stay put. I
[58:05] : don't know. Right. My hope is that it would stay put. And it's sort of staying
[58:11] : put, but I'm getting a little bit of spread, which is just kind of adding even a little more purple to the
[58:19] : background. So, this is a fun one that is also begging for like a white gel pen
[58:26] : and some details. like I don't want to
[58:31] : add another color to it, but probably some detail effort to it. So, this might
[58:36] : be one where like that top piece right there, I would rip that off, add it to a
[58:42] : collage, maybe even one line of these little shapes and then come in and
[58:48] : fine-tune by putting the matt medium over it. I can paint over it. I can use
[58:54] : gel pen or paint pens over the the top of it. If you try to use a gel pen or a
[59:00] : paint pen on top of your watercolors, the paint will absorb the watercolor
[59:05] : underneath, right? So, it's really important to understand how all these
[59:11] : different things start to layer up together. So, I want to see how our
[59:18] : bubbles did. So, they're still kind of wet.
[59:26] : And I Whoops. Standing on my microphone. Um, and I also put the piece of tissue
[59:32] : paper down on top to pick up some ink. So, now I just kind of have a painty
[59:38] : mess. It's got a little bit of sparkler sparkle in it. It has a few And you can
[59:43] : see it takes a really long time to dry because I was playing with so much water, right? But it has some
[59:49] : interesting spots. Like I love this spot right here. I love where this is all
[59:55] : mixed together. I love the purple and yellow. So, um you can see where I
[1:00:01] : smooshed that tissue paper into it just to see what would happen and if that tissue paper would pick up some of the
[1:00:08] : color. And um I'm going to have to do a video and show all the things from the
[1:00:14] : last three weeks because we had a lot of variety. But just quickly before we go,
[1:00:21] : so this I think was tea dyed with uh hibiscus tea. Maybe a little coffee in
[1:00:29] : there too from some of those. And it's just kind of boring. So I want to just add some color to it. And I think that
[1:00:39] : I'm going to go back to the watercolors. Like I thought I wanted to play with the Derwins today and then I'm kind of like
[1:00:45] : no that's not exactly what I wanted. I wanted I think more color and less
[1:00:51] : definition. And I'm happy that I pulled all the
[1:00:57] : things out to experiment with because when you get started you don't necessarily know what you want to dive
[1:01:06] : into. And I can see on my palette this bright
[1:01:11] : shiny copper is really calling to me. So I'm gonna see if I can activate that
[1:01:19] : copper. And it's going to probably mix with the green there just a little bit.
[1:01:33] : And I think I want to have that kind of tie-dyed
[1:01:39] : effect. And I'm looking at that copper going. Oh, but it needs some of this
[1:01:45] : turquoise. So, let's see if these guys work
[1:01:52] : on the fabric. No idea.
[1:01:59] : So, uh, I think that they're going to blend nicely on there, but perhaps not
[1:02:07] : spread quite as much as our um,
[1:02:13] : paint does. So, and when this copper dries, it's hard to see, but it has
[1:02:20] : some, there you go, some little sparkle sparkles in it. Love this combination.
[1:02:26] : And I'm thinking where do I want to build from there?
[1:02:32] : And I'm curious if the paint will invade the turquoise.
[1:02:40] : It's a different material, right? It's a little waxy because it's a crayon. So,
[1:02:45] : we're going to see what's going to happen, if it's going to bleed in with the line of where the crayon is or not.
[1:02:52] : But kind of a a fun combo.
[1:03:05] : And again, little pieces like this just become little moments of magic for those of you
[1:03:14] : that love slow stitching. I love or you know adding fabric into
[1:03:20] : your art journal. I love having these little handpainted snippets.
[1:03:31] : I love I've got some nice little chunky bits in there that make it feel a little more
[1:03:38] : painterly and a little less watercoly.
[1:03:45] : And metallic watercolors are like other metallics. They have more transparency
[1:03:52] : to them. So, you don't always get a robust Okay.
[1:03:57] : Actually, I kind of like this sort of marbley look of the not as much water on
[1:04:04] : there, but what's left behind is often the sparkle, if not as much of the color.
[1:04:12] : Interesting color palette, right? I just kind of went with the flow. I wasn't judging it. I was just curious what we
[1:04:20] : could make happen here. So, look, dry brush. Okay, dry brush is giving me a
[1:04:27] : very interesting effect. I'm kind of digging
[1:04:33] : a little bit more grungy with that dry
[1:04:39] : little bit less water. But something even as simple as this can take this,
[1:04:45] : you know, just drab piece of fabric left over from another project and bring it
[1:04:52] : back to life again. So, you know, don't discard things or give up on things like
[1:04:59] : there. You can always bring them back to life again.
[1:05:18] : just feels like it needs a little something something. And so it's interesting because this color did not
[1:05:26] : completely bleed into where the crayon is. So, I have some interesting
[1:05:32] : separation there that I probably couldn't have known or created unless I
[1:05:40] : just gave it a try. And I could easily sit and fill this whole piece of fabric
[1:05:48] : with just color this way. Or we can do like we did on that white piece of
[1:05:55] : fabric. And let's just try some color blooms
[1:06:02] : over on this side. Noticing how the pink color underneath
[1:06:09] : adds to the effect, right? So,
[1:06:14] : I'm not working on a white piece of paper, right? I'm working on a or piece of fabric. I'm
[1:06:22] : working on a pink piece of fabric. Getting those pretty purple blooms underneath.
[1:06:33] : Apparently I'm needing lots of purple and pink today.
[1:06:46] : And I like the way this is going down. And I know I can't be attached because as that
[1:06:53] : color continues to get absorbed into the water. I don't know what it's going to
[1:07:00] : do, right? It's totally going to take on a life of its own. So, this is the purple from underneath the page where I
[1:07:08] : put that first blob is coming through here, right? So so interesting the
[1:07:14] : different shapes that are being created um that I have absolutely no control
[1:07:19] : over and I am okay with that. So I think it's
[1:07:25] : the one of the biggest gifts of my own creative practice has been to practice
[1:07:33] : non-attachment to outcomes. And it's amazing how that practicing
[1:07:38] : non-attachment in my art has bled over into other areas of my life as well.
[1:07:51] : I'm not as attached to ideas, to feedback,
[1:07:56] : to judgement. I have a lot more courage to just
[1:08:02] : experiment and play and explore.
[1:08:12] : And I'm kind of just making a happy happy mess here. Right.
[1:08:20] : And again, I'm clueless about where all of this is going to end up. I'm going to leave this out on my desk to dry. If
[1:08:26] : you're newer to watercolor, make sure your palette is dry before you put the
[1:08:32] : lid on to avoid it getting moldy.
[1:08:37] : Lessons learned the the hard way. Right. So, this is an interesting one. And
[1:08:42] : again, we have this beautiful underper. So, if I move that over a
[1:08:48] : little bit, those blooms are still going to come through underneath.
[1:08:53] : So, we had a few fun things, but what's fascinating to me is how much longer this took and like how much fewer pieces
[1:09:02] : of paper that I created today relative to last week. Um,
[1:09:10] : so this one is that first one we started with. And look what happened where I put
[1:09:17] : in some of that detail work there. So, uh, some fun fun tools and experiments
[1:09:24] : today. Making a pretty page there so Brad can make a nice cover image for the
[1:09:30] : video. Right. But look at those vibrant colors. Like, I didn't create a lot of
[1:09:35] : different pieces today, but I created a few pieces that I absolutely love. So,
[1:09:41] : thank you as always for joining me. I so appreciate you. I really want to
[1:09:47] : encourage you to get out there and dive in to some expressive arts watercolor
[1:09:54] : play. Get out of your own way and explore, experiment, and just to notice
[1:10:01] : what your response is. Notice when the inner critic pops up. Notice that voice in your head that says I can't or this
[1:10:08] : is wasteful, etc., etc. And I will see you guys the first Thursday in September
[1:10:14] : with a new theme for our paper doll making as we step into the fall. And
[1:10:21] : thank you everybody. I will have a wonderful time on your retreat. Grateful for joining me. Please click that like
[1:10:26] : button, drop a comment. Lorraine, you are the best with all your comments. I so appreciate you. and let's just let
[1:10:33] : other people know this is a show worth watching so we can continue to grow and
[1:10:38] : put this out there for everybody. Thank you everyone and have a wonderful rest of your week.