Paper Flowers

Spring is finally here, and I just keep taking pictures! One of my favorite spring blossom in Arkansas is the dogwood. We have a green space behind our house and have a couple dogwoods growing "in the wild" that I can see from my back porch. Flowers are definitely my favorite art inspiration-I think I could paint and draw them all day. Since I've been doing more art journaling lately, than painting, I've made a collection of paper flowers to keep on hand to use for page accents. I wanted to share how simple these are to make.

First any old book will do-this book happens to have aged pages, but even a book from the Dollar Store, or an unused one from your self will work. With pencil, draw out your design. In this sample, I used some actual dogwood pictures that I took and found online as my inspiration.

Next I used my Faber-Castell black or brown big brush pitt pens to outline. If you want to go for a more realistic look, you could skip this step, or outline with the actual flower color.

I used Faber-Castell Gelatos and Gel Sticks for my color. I love the control factor you get with these. You can make the color very intense (see red flower) or water it down like I did with the dogwood flowers. With these flowers, I wanted the book print to show through so I went with the more transparent look.

These flowers were done with a combination of Gelatos and Neocolors for more intense color.

I added my colors and then blended with a small damp brush. With the Gel type sticks, it's so easy to add or remove color. For very intense color, you can also add in some color with a blend able watercolor crayon like the Neocolor 2 (refer back to red flower picture).

I really wanted my centers to pop, so I used Elmer's neon acrylic paint markers in green and yellow. With the dark outline, the pop of color really adds dimension.

Last step is to cut your flowers out, and they are ready to use on a variety of projects. I'd love to see your results if you give this a try!

Great for accents! I've included links for the products I mentioned above-just click on the name and you can all the details.

If you want to see more of my art, visit my website at www.stacyspanglerart.com, or follow me under Sleepyhead Designs Studio on Facebook and Instagram.