Hawthorne Berries

This is the card I did from my watercolour class on Wednesday. I love the colours used to paint this card, and thought you might enjoy seeing it as well. 

 The colours were applied in layers, starting with lighter versions of the final colour. The background is done using Raw Sienna and Permanent Rose. The leaves have layers of Sap Green and Cerulean Blue, and the berries were done with Permanent Rose and Quinacridone Pink. My teacher called for Alizarin Crimson, which has a purple undertone, but I was not fond of the look, so I switched it to Quinacridone Pink. The "Quins" pigment is normally pale yellow to orange, but during processing the particles can be manipulated with heat, or have salt added, which produces a bright, and beautiful pink and red hue.  

The branches I did with Burnt Umber, Sepia and a bit of Ultramarine Blue. You don't notice the blue, but it does keep the branches from looking dull. On the top branches I also added some Dr. Ph Martin's Bleed Proof White for the snow, and I also used it to splatter the card. And finally I used Burnt Umber to do more splatters, where I used a smaller brush to get the smaller splatters.  

I hope you have enjoyed this card today, and wish to thank you for joining me. I hope I have inspired you to try a bit of watercolour painting. You don't have to invest in watercolours straight away, the perfect start can be with the Dot Colour Charts offered by Daniel Smith. There are also many line drawings you can search online that can be traced then painted using graphite, so don't be discouraged and give it a go.