Tastes of Culture

How about making your own design and then mounting it as a card, or even using it as a picture? This could just enhance a watercolour picture or just make you a very acceptable greeting card. You will not need too much to do this.

A cutting mat, craft knife, watercolour paper, watercolours, scrap paper, compasses, 12mm flat brush, no.5 brush and a ruler.

Most handicraft shops and art supply centres actually sell ready made mounts and these are available in all types of sizing and forms, but personally it is much more interesting if you create your own. This is quite an easy exercise, making and decorating your own mount, to blend with a watercolour background.

To make a start you will need to have your knife and cutting mat to hand. Do not get too ambitious with your subject, so I am suggesting that you use a flower with quite a big face.

The watercolour paper needs cutting into two pieces, about 4 inches by 6 inches. With your compasses draw a circle in the centre of both papers, of about 3 inches in diameter. You only really need feint outlines, so do not apply too much pressure.

Your flower needs a centre, so you need to make an inner ring to use for this. With a no.5 brush you can then paint round this, after you have mixed a few water colours, to get a realistic shade.

Now, bearing in mind the kind of flower you picked, paint in with a paler shade the centre of this, to make up your flower centre.

It is time now to begin colouring the petals of your flower. So dip your brush into whatever colour paint you need for your petals. When you paint your petals, all you actually need to do, is to put pressure on the bristles, so they are flat, to achieve petal shaping.

Proceed by creating your petals all the way round the outside of your flower centre. It is entirely up to you whether you add a tinge of another colour to these.

You have your big circle, plus the circle in the middle, which you filled in with paint. At this stage the very centre could be made darker by applying some small dots in brown paint, or something similar, so that it will look like seeds. Also, you could put a few bigger dots on the circle surrounding this. Personally, I would probably add a thin edging of gold or silver with a gel pen to the petals.

We now require the mount, so on the second piece of paper, cut out your marked circle. Make sure you use your scrap paper as protection and continue by covering the mount with a toning, watery, watercolour wash, with your 12mm brush.

After you are sure that this is completely dry, you could add some decoration of your choice below and above the cut out. You could use colours that tone and contrast, or just let them bleed.

To mount this now, make sure the mount is completely dry before placing this directly over your flower. You will see that this now is ideal as a picture to frame or a card.