In August and September last year, I created 5 watercolor paintings for our nursery: three smaller paintings, 8"x10" in size, each featuring a cartoonish woodland creature (a fox and two owls), and two larger watercolors, 22"x30" in size, each featuring one of my pattern designs and a quotation.
I picked out one quotation; my husband picked the other. The first was from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling - "It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be." The second was from Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor - "You don't know yet what you're capable of, but I'm willing to be it's extraordinary." These were quotes that we found inspiring, and with messages that we wanted to instill in our baby, both from female authors who'd written works we loved.
I spent some time working out the composition on my computer first, spacing out the quotations in Adobe Illustrator and coupling each with a pattern. I knew I wanted to use a script-y font for some of the words but not the whole quotation, so I picked what I considered to be the two most important words in each quote, and decided to make those large and in the script font I liked, while keeping the rest of the quotation simpler.
I also considered using multiple patterns in the background (since I have so many patterns I've designed, might as well use them, right?) but it ultimately kept looking too busy, no matter which combination of patterns I tried. So I decided to use just one single pattern for each painting.
Here are the two digital compositions I created:
Once I had the design, I printed them 8.5"x11" size to show my husband and get his approval before tiling them out and printing them to size. Each painting used 12 sheets of 8.5"x11" paper, with 1/12th of the design printed on each piece. I then taped these pieces together to make the 22"x30" design, so I could trace the pattern and quote onto my 22"x30" full size watercolor paper.
Here is a close-up of the two patterns traced onto two sheets of watercolor paper:
Here is the entire first quotation, traced and ready for me to start painting:
And here is the entire second quotation, traced and ready to go:
I did something similar for the three smaller woodland creatures - I found images of cartoon owls and foxes that I liked online, printed them out, and traced them onto 9"x12" watercolor paper (so that there would be room around the edges for me to tape down the paper while I was painting).
With my planning complete, I was ready to begin the real fun! My next several posts will show the step by step process of how I painted and finished off these watercolors, hanging them in the nursery before our baby's arrival.
I picked out one quotation; my husband picked the other. The first was from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling - "It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be." The second was from Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor - "You don't know yet what you're capable of, but I'm willing to be it's extraordinary." These were quotes that we found inspiring, and with messages that we wanted to instill in our baby, both from female authors who'd written works we loved.
I spent some time working out the composition on my computer first, spacing out the quotations in Adobe Illustrator and coupling each with a pattern. I knew I wanted to use a script-y font for some of the words but not the whole quotation, so I picked what I considered to be the two most important words in each quote, and decided to make those large and in the script font I liked, while keeping the rest of the quotation simpler.
I also considered using multiple patterns in the background (since I have so many patterns I've designed, might as well use them, right?) but it ultimately kept looking too busy, no matter which combination of patterns I tried. So I decided to use just one single pattern for each painting.
Here are the two digital compositions I created:
Once I had the design, I printed them 8.5"x11" size to show my husband and get his approval before tiling them out and printing them to size. Each painting used 12 sheets of 8.5"x11" paper, with 1/12th of the design printed on each piece. I then taped these pieces together to make the 22"x30" design, so I could trace the pattern and quote onto my 22"x30" full size watercolor paper.
Here is a close-up of the two patterns traced onto two sheets of watercolor paper:
Here is the entire first quotation, traced and ready for me to start painting:
And here is the entire second quotation, traced and ready to go:
With my planning complete, I was ready to begin the real fun! My next several posts will show the step by step process of how I painted and finished off these watercolors, hanging them in the nursery before our baby's arrival.
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