A Love-Themed Watercolor Art Piece

Being in my art studio, is way up there as one of my favorite places in my very small world, to be!
For the month of February, I was inspired to create something ‘love-themed’, to add as a decorative art piece for our home’s double-mantels. I was very much in the mood to get into a watercolor project, and I had some text in mind that I wanted to make a part of it, as well.
In this post I’m sharing the general concepts I used in creating this fun little piece, with a little chit-chat along the way. I hope you enjoy it.

Although I have sold several watercolor scenery or subject paintings in my earlier years, I still do not consider myself to be  an artist who is good with using watercolors. Not by a long shot. I certainly want to be. But I simply haven’t yet mastered control of the paint, or creating the exact effect that I want, with various watercoloring techniques. Even with this very free-flowing wet-on-wet technique (in right photo above), that I very much enjoy working with, I am attempting for it to come out a specific way, that I’m envisioning. But it didn’t. So it is with all of my watercolor work; it comes out however it comes out; not necessarily quite how I intended. Sometimes close! Usually not.  Nevertheless, this project was fun, as art always is for me, and I am content enough with the final piece. (Even though the results were as much of a surprise to me as anyone else!)

After completing all of the wet-on-wet part of the painting, I sketched out the lettering of the text I wanted, and then worked at pulling the paint back off the paper, with a plain damp water brush, rinsing and wiping my brush over and over. Then, I outlined my blocky-serif focus word, LOVE, with a waterproof black art pen, in a very sketchy style.  The cursive words I helped pop just a little more, with some colored pencils in similar tones surrounding the letters.

Then I brought in some textile. I matted the artwork with cut pieces of some dyed burlap I had in the studio.

This kind of very loose painting, and even the haphazard piecing of the fraying burlap, is a very good exercise for me, being a super nit-picky perfectionist in  nature.

The 12 x 12″ wooden frame (15.5 x 15.5″;outside dimensions) I picked up at the Michael’s store.
I first painted it red as a base color, then gave it 2-3 coats of white for the finish coat.

From that point in the process, I distressed the frame using #100 sand paper, in a couple of different ways, to achieve the more worn look of the frame that I wanted, and reveal some of the red paint beneath, in an effort to tie the frame in with my watercolor artwork.

The above; a closer look at the finish of the frame.

And here is the final art piece . . . . . .

I’m happy with it. It brought me joy in the creative process of making it, it brings me more joy in seeing it, and it speaks the truth!
What’s more, it just looks pretty hanging on our beadboard walls over our mantels, for the month of February!