Need to just relax and get out of your head? Watching colors swirls in a pool of water on your page is soothing. So is playing with letters as you draw. When you dive deeper into the creative experience, you will easily find yourself in a mindful space where worries take a backseat and colors take over your attention.
About these birds: Most probably they are talking about something personal and important, and it’s comforting.
The process of creating the artwork
I made a video tutorial of the process. But that’s when my old computer decided it had enough and the colors got all messed up when I used my laptop. So below are updated photos instead, now with healthy colors.
Enjoy watercolor and word doodles
Would you like to enjoy the experience of mindfulness with easy watercolor painting? Download a free PDF that has the line illustration as well as swatches with the colors I used. It also has a practice sheet for doodling the word COMFORT yourself.
(Article continues below the photos).
Step 1: I drew the happy pigeons
Step 2: Painting the watercolor background with a lavish amount of water
Step 3: I painted the pigeons with watercolor.
Step 4: Lastly, I spiced up the illustration with colored pencils, gouache and watercolor gold paint.
All done!
Why I started doodling words around illustrations
After illustrating an intricate coloring calendar for a Norwegian publisher (published in Germany too), I discovered the joy of drawing words within illustrations. It’s a kind of doodling, a play, where I don’t try to write in any particular or beautiful font. Rather, I let words shape themselves around the illustration. It’s relaxing playing with words this way. Drawing the first word that comes to mind and then let it sneak into the illustration.
Tracing or printing out?
If you don’t want to trace the line art onto watercolor paper, you can print it out instead. The easiest way is to use light/thin watercolor paper. You can buy A4 size pads too with thin watercolor paper. Personally, I use 90g smooth, hot pressed paper from Arches. It comes in large sheets that I cut into several A4 sized sheets. When you print out, just make sure your printer has water fast ink if it’s an inkjet. Mine is a regular black-and-white laser printer. Toner in laser printers is water fast.
So – have fun, dive into a mindful, creative space and relax!
