Creation of Rosette Watercolor Artwork
FINDING INSPIRATION
The creation of this rosette watercolor artwork. Traveling around, gathering inspiration, my breath is taken away in Barcelona, Spain. The awe and wonder of the beautiful Cathedral – La Familia Sagrada. A masterpiece by Antoni Gaudi and a few others, however, credit is given to him. I could not get enough of this beautiful place. I took in each detail, remembering and documenting as many details as possible. It was so nice as there was unusual traffic at the cathedral, not as many people were there.
As an artist, I am always looking for inspiration. Color, motifs, subjects, and sayings, can all provide that. I had been on a week-long retreat with some great artists and instructors, Cat Coq and Logan Elliot. My brain was in full overload mode but this place, WOW, was over the top. I saw the rainbow of color in the rosettes and could not wait to get back to my hotel to sketch my idea out. I had gotten some inspiration at the retreat from another artist, Elizabeth Weglein, she was drawing a Cathedral she had seen on her travels and I loved her details and final artwork – see it here. When I saw this Cathedral and the rosettes I knew immediately what I wanted to create.
finding time to create
As soon as I got back to the hotel I got my watercolor paper out (archival paper, Strathmore), found and prepped a painting surface, got out the pencil, and started sketching. I knew I wanted to use a blooming watercolor technique on the final piece. This meant that the drawing needed to be large enough to accomplish this effect. That painting method ended up not working as well as I wanted, but I am still very happy with the results. Even though the rosettes in person are a single hue each I wanted to combine them into a rainbow rosette using all the different colors in one. This piece took several days but brush stroke after brush stroke I complete the watercolour painting before heading home. I worked on the piece a little each day while in Barcelona. I would tour and walk around the city, then each evening work on it a little more. I used a wet-on-dry method, what are some of your favorite watercolor painting techniques?
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The process
As watercolor artists, we each have found our own way of creating our watercolor artworks. I thought I would take a minute here and share some insight into my process.
- The first step is finding inspiration, traveling to another country made that easy for me. 😉 Here are a few pictures from the cathedral.
- Next, I got out my watercolor pencils, Helix circle maker, and ruler to sketch the rosette. I started by making construction lines, also called guidelines. This allowed me to evenly divide a circle into 12 sections. I also drew my center circle and then marked the dimensions for each oval shape.
- After I had all the outlines of each shape complete I then drew in the stained glass shapes of all the rosette elements.
- Last it was time to prep to paint. I always erase with a kneadable eraser to lighten the markers. These were watercolor pencil marks so not too big of a deal if they did not lighten much.
- Now got the paints out and put together a plan on how I wanted to paint the piece. As I mentioned earlier I had really wanted to paint with lots of blooms in watercolor. however, this did not work out since the piece was not large enough for that. I just decided to use the wet-on-dry technique and paint it in the shades of a rainbow. However, I did not paint it in the order of the rainbow. I actually started with the blues since those are some of my favorite colors.
Once I was home I was able to scan the piece in and start creating some patterns. I love how the art works on products. The home decor pieces are my favorites, especially the wall art, shower curtain, and comforter!! I have thought about painting another one in pastel colors as well. This would make a great design for a teen’s bedroom. Maybe I will create some similar new art pieces along these same lines or compliment this artwork. I am thinking about what kind of abstract watercolor paintings I could create to go with it and create a whole rosette collection. I have also thought about making a few limited editions available, these would be printed on archival paper and ink, and I would add some metallic/glitter details to each one. What would you like to see me create as part of this collection?
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