Sketchbook Revival 2024: Happy Watercolor Flowers and Modern Collage Bouquet

Here are the next two projects I made during Sketchbook Revival 2024. I love how they look together!

Day 2 of Sketchbook Revival started with Happy Watercolor Flowers, which is what you see on the right-hand side above. 

I was really excited for this class because I used masking fluid for the first time (affiliate link). I can't wait to play with it again! We started by painting flower-shaped blobs of masking fluid in our sketchbook, then used watercolors to add a sky and meadow right over the dried masking fluid. We added a bunch of splatters and let that dry. It was so much fun peeling away the masking fluid to reveal perfectly white flowers!

Then we painted, drew, splattered, and painted some more. Repeat, repeat, repeat. The project was fun, but I struggled. The instructor pre-recorded herself making the project, then put it on double speed to do the voiceover, cutting out the (MANY) times when she stopped for drying time. She switched back and forth between paints and pencils multiple times. It was impossible to keep up (literally, since it was double time) and a real nuisance to have to pause 30+ times during the 1- hour class. Despite the frustration, I learned a lot and I did have fun. If I did this project again, it would be a thousand times better, since now I know what all the steps are and I could just do them instead of trying to follow along.  

I watched the next six sessions without crafting along. Obviously, you learn a lot when you try things yourself, but there's still plenty to learn by watching others. 

I was especially inspired by Salli Swindell's session about Crafting a Colorfully Cohesive Sketchbook. She took 30+ colored pencils and picked them up randomly to color a triangle tessellation, then chose a set of 5 adjacent colors to draw in her sketchbook. I thought that was a really fun way to branch out beyond your favorite color palettes. I gravitate toward the same color combinations, so I'd like to give this a try. 

I loved loved loved Lucie Duclos' session called Modern Collage Bouquet. I played along with this one; that's what you see on the left-hand side at the top of my post. I want to make hundreds more of these vases and explore different shapes, patterns, and colors. This class reminded me of how much I love collage. I really need to do it more often, given how much I enjoy it. 

Tomorrow I'll share the next project I made during Sketchbook Revival. I enjoyed it so much and it was such a simple project that I did it twice!