Boring Bedtime Art Project: Watercolor Wildflowers

Fall asleep to the sounds of a cozy little art project. Settle into bed while I set up my watercolor supplies, and drift off to the sound of my boring voice as I paint some wildflowers. Picturing random images in your mind is a common way to distract yourself from the thoughts that are keeping you awake. I talk for 20 minutes over gentle background music, which lasts for 30 minutes. Music is Morning Light (Extended) from Chris Collins. Sweet dreams to you.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this bedtime art project. I'm Laura and I'm so glad you're here. Tonight we're going to slow down together and paint some watercolor wildflowers. You don't have to do anything actually. You get to get cozy in bed and fall asleep as you picture in your head what it is I'm doing. The reason I showed a picture of the watercolors and not the end result of my painting is that I want you to be able to picture whatever you see in your head and that's the right thing to picture. There's no right or wrong answer. You just get to get cozy and listen as you fall asleep. Now go gather your bedtime supplies while I gather mine. I've got my watercolor supplies here and a plastic bin. Let me get out my case of watercolors. It's got a watercolor guide. Actually done a little sample of all the colors so I know what it'll look like. I've got a small water bottle to spritz my watercolors and keep them wet. I'm going to give that a spray now. Get them wet. I've got a small piece of paper. It's actually the size and shape of a bookmark because I'm going to be painting a bookmark today with my watercolors. I like to keep my paper taped to a clipboard. I'm going to use some masking tape now and put that on there. I've also got a ceramic dish that I use for water or to mix my colors. I've got a small tin cup with water in it to rinse my brushes and I'm gonna grab my brushes right here. And the brushes that I'm going to be using for this project are just three brushes. One is a flat brush with basically a rectangle shape bristles. One is what I call a fine liner. The bristles are about the size of a grain of rice. And then I've got a more rounded brush that comes to a point. And that's kind of my bigger brush. So I've got those ready. All right, And I'm going to get started here. I'm going to take my flat brush and I'm going to start to get some sky blue going here on my ceramic dish. Just grab some water and grab some color and start mixing it together on the plate here. I'm putting a good amount of water in it to make it pretty thin. I just want to give a nice sky effect. So I'm going to take my flat brush now and pick up some of that thin watercolor and go straight across the very top of my bookmark. I'm doing a few flat strokes Just straight across it to just give a light wash of sky blue And I've got that about two-thirds of the way down my bookmark. And I'm going to use a little bit of a paper towel now to kind of lift up some of that blue to kind of give a little bit of like a cloud effect. Okay, I like that. Okay I'm gonna give my brush a rinse and now I want to put in just a background of a green color so I'm gonna pick a lighter green. And start putting that onto my plate to mix up kind of like a light grass green just for a background color. And again, I'm using quite a bit of water to make it really nice and thin just to give a quick background on it. And I'm going to start with my flat brush and pick up that green. And starting from the bottom, I'm just, Again, Washing straight across like horizontal lines that kind of blend together in a soft green. Kind of just to fill in all the space so that if there isn't a flower or a piece of grass in that space that there's still color on the page. I'm going to bring that all the way up to the blue. Okay, I like the way that came out. I'm going to go ahead and rinse that brush and set it aside. And while that dries a little bit, I'm going to take a paper towel actually and just wipe out my plate. Just to give me a little more room to mix my other colors. Okay. I'm gonna pick up that rounded brush with the point and I'm going to pick my first wildflower color. And for that I think I'm gonna do a lighter purple color kind of like to make a cone flower and I'm gonna get a little bit of purple going. Not as much water this time, More color. Kinda be a little more like milk. Consistency. And so I've got a purple and I'm just going to add a little bit of magenta and mix that together. And i'm gonna lay down some petals here starting towards the sky but in the grass area and these i like to think that they look a little bit like a badminton birdie so i'm just kind of painting like three or four or five petals in a downward line like a cone shape there's first one We'll add another one on the left side. And. . . Kind of smaller towards the back so I'm going to make them a little bit bigger as I get towards the bottom since they'll be closer to your eye. Just laying down, Nothing perfect, Just some basic flower shapes. Okay, I really like my cone flowers now. I'm gonna rinse that brush and I'm gonna go ahead and try more like a magenta color for my next set of flowers. I'm going to get that also to more of a milky. Consistency. And I'm just going to make kind of an abstract blob shape, I guess, For some kind of pinkish rose looking flowers. So put them kind of in between. I want to get some more paint on my brush when they get closer. Just kind of putting them randomly around the grass area. And then Yeah, I like the way those turned out. They're maybe a little more vertical than I thought. They're almost maybe more like a tulip shape. I'm going to rinse my brush once more. And I think I'm gonna do a small orange-ish yellow flower, Maybe. A daisy type flower. So I'm going to mix up a little bit of an orangish yellow on my dish. All right, I like that color and these are just going to be kind of small dot flowers, Even smaller than the magenta ones. These I'm going to make a little more round. Mmm. And just filling in that space around the cone flowers and the magenta tulip type shapes. There, I like that. All right, Now I'm gonna give my plate another clearing while those have some time to dry a little bit. Okay. Now my cone flowers are nice and dry so I can actually take a little bit of an orange on my fine liner and add the what would be the center of the flower but looking from the side it looks like the part that you hit on the badminton birdie. So I'm just going to take a little bit of orange And I've got this fine liner so I can make just a really small dot at the top of each cone flower. Just to give it that color that it needs. Goes along with the purple. I'm just going on to each cone flower and adding a small circle or small dots. Of yellowish orange. Alright, Yeah, That looks nice and I think Even though some of these. . . Magenta flowers look a little too lip shaped. I think I'm going to go and add a dot of black in the center of that one. Give it that flowery look. Just a tiny dot with my fine liner also. And Just using the tip of the small brush to do that. Starting each one, Tiny bit of paint. Okay, Got each one now. So I'm gonna. . . Rinse out my fine liner. And I'm going to work on Getting some green ready for the stems of these flowers. And I'm going to use my flat brush to get that paint and the water mixed. And i'm going to start with kind of a mid-tone green not super light not super dark We'll have a few different shades of green to kind of mix up the difference. Stems and give a little bit of difference to the depth and the different plants that are on there. Okay. I kind of want like something a little more earthy. So I'm going to mix in kind of more of a little bit of an olive green. I just find it easier to mix a bigger amount with my flat brush. I'm going to switch actually to my fine liner now that I have the color that I want. And I'm going to actually wait just a minute here on these because I think we've got some time to let this dry a little bit. I'm going to grab a sip of water. And I'm gonna while we wait I'm gonna spritz my paints a little bit just to re-wet them. Okay, I'm gonna grab that green. Kind of start to draw some thin lines coming from some of those cone flowers. And then if I cross another one of the flowers, That's okay. Just a thin line from the bottom down. Nothing too precise, Just nice and light. And then once I have those, I guess I'm going to add a little bit more of that olive green. Or just a little bit of a different color of green. I'm gonna go from those pink flowers now, The magenta ones. I'm just pulling a line kind of down. If it goes straight, It goes straight. If it goes a little off straight, That's okay. And all right, Got some lines going down for that. And I'm going to go one layer darker with that green. So I can add in some blades of grass and random leaves, Just again little lines, Tiny lines with my fine liner because this is a field of wildflowers. It's not a specific arrangement of flowers. Just kind of giving some leaves and little shapes off to the sides of some of the stems and add in some grass towards the bottom and it might cover up some of the flowers a little bit. Might not. Okay All right, Now we've got our wildflowers. I might take one last step here and mix up some like a reddish pink or red and do kind of like a little dot with magenta and red. Kind of tap my brush and dot some dots of paint all around. Just tapping my brush on my finger to let the paint dot it on there. Give a little more texture and fun. Let's see, I do actually want to go back in with my fine liner and maybe do like a little brown center on those yellow flowers that I did earlier. Okay. I'm gonna do a little bit of a yellowy-brown. Kind of a burnt sienna maybe looking color. And again, Just a tiny dot on those flowers. Okay Alright and I think I'm happy with that and I think that is the end of my watercolor bookmark that I'm gonna add a tassel later today and give that to a friend of mine. Thank you so much for painting along with me today, And I hope you have sweet dreams.