Painting Tutorial: Citrus Illustration

Another 1-min video tutorial today! I absolutely love painting fruit—especially citrus and I think you’ll find these oranges a lot of fun to paint. I hope you give it a try!

SUPPLIES

• Orange and Green Watercolor Paint

• 140 lb Bee Paper, Cold Pressed

• Simply Simmons Round Brush, Size 8

• Cup of water

• Paper towel

STEP-BY-STEP

• Fill your brush with paint and water (but make sure it’s not dripping wet)

• Place the tip of the brush on the paper and apply pressure as you make the shape of a “c” (often called a comma stroke)

• Add another comma stroke opposite the first and don’t quite join them at the top

• Fill in the area with paint

• Add a stem using just the tip of your brush

• Add a leaf by joining two slight comma curves together and filling them in

Painting Tutorial: Watercolor Leaves

I learned to paint with watercolor thanks to the internet and lots of practice. I’m grateful for the artists who shared their talent and knowledge online because it allowed me to discover this creative outlet that’s made my life more fun.

If you want to get started with watercolor, here’s a quick 1-min video that will hopefully encourage you to give it a try. Step-by-step instructions are listed below. Let’s paint leaves!

SUPPLIES

• Green Watercolor Paint
  - Winsor & Newton Cotman Sap Green
  - Winsor & Newton Cotman Hookers Green
  - Van Gogh Permanent Yellow Green

• 140 lb Bee Paper, Cold Pressed

• Simply Simmons Round Brush, Size 8

• Cup of water

• Paper towel

STEP-BY-STEP

• Fill your brush with paint and water (but make sure it’s not dripping wet)

• Start by placing the tip of the brush on the paper and apply pressure (press down) as you move the brush upward into a slight c-curve (often called a comma stroke), and lift the brush to finish

• Do the same thing on the opposite side to make the other side of the leaf

• Add a stem using the tip of your brush

• Practice, practice, practice

• And have fun!

My Work: Watercolor Landscape Studies

Over spring break our family took a road trip from the bay area to Las Vegas, to the Grand Canyon, to a friend's home in Arizona, to Santa Monica, and back home. Lots of driving. And lots of scenery.

About a year ago I went to a watercolor class at the local library where the teacher shared how she would paint on a train and the challenge was painting fast (like within two minutes) because you only have so much time before your view is gone. I thought painting landscapes would be a fun challenge and pass some time during our trip and it was! I couldn't do as many as I'd like because I am prone to car sickness but I was able to complete a handful. Here are my three favorites.

Highway 5 South

From the train ride to the Grand Canyon

Leaving Arizona

For these paintings, I used used:

• 6x9 in 140lb watercolor paper from Bee Paper Company that I found on sale at Michael's
• Winsor & Newton Cotman Box Paint Set
• Grumbacher Academy Size 12 Round Paint Brush

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

My Work: Bouquet Paintings

For the past few weeks I've been painting bouquets as often as I can and have shared many of them on Instagram. For inspiration, I've referenced bouquets in books, magazines, on instagram and pinterest, and fresh flowers on my desk from Trader Joe's (the best!!).

It's been fun painting arrangements in vases, some without, in various color palettes, adding details with color pencils or pen, and exploring different shapes and styles. 

Zipper Pouches

Over the summer I ordered swatches of fabric with my patterns for a potential project I decided not to move forward with (for now, at least)...but I was super happy with the fabric and loved how my designs printed on it, and thought you might too.

So I sweet talked my mom into sewing these mini zipper pouches (she said yes!), found some great quality brass YKK zippers, various fabric for lining, and we got to work.

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Now I get to introduce these fun mini pouches to you which will be for sale next week when my shop opens on Wednesday 11/1. There's literally only one of each design (with a couple patterns showing up twice but in a different scale), and I have no plans to ask my mom to make more ;) so they're one of a kind and only available while they last.

They'll be available here starting on Wednesday: amandagomes.com/shop/zipper-pouches

My Work: Recent Sketches

I've been experimenting with sketches adding background colors in watercolor and like the extra boldness it adds to my work. I don't know if I'll make it a regular thing, but it's been fun to try.

The biggest struggle is knowing how to paint the background without it looking too messy. Some strokes and puddles look cool and others, not so much. One tip I can share is that it's obviously easier to do the background with a larger round brush...so I used a size 10 brush. The wide part gives a nice swash and the round tip helps me get around the detail areas.

Here are some of the sketches. What do you think?

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For more of my work, follow along on Instagram to see my daily sketches and patterns.