August 18, 2021

Watercolor Wednesday: Spooky Season

Susan Art, Watercolor Wednesday 6 Comments

Tis the season to get spooky!

Too soon? Not for me! I’m in total fall prep mode. Have I decorated? No. Well, yes. A little. Don’t judge me okay?

But what really gets me in the spirit is a seasonal Watercolor Wednesday. I have done several of these paintings, and around this time of the year, I will start doing fall paintings.

I’ve compiled a little catalog of some fall projects from Let’s Make Art so you can get in the spirit too! All the outlines are available on their website for FREE! And the tutorial videos are on YouTube for FREE! It’s incredible! All you need is paint, paper, and some bravery to get started. You can do it!

Here are the projects with links to the YouTube tutorials. You’ll need to go to the website to download the outlines- here’s a link. Use the titles of the project to find them!

PLEASE post them when you’re done- can’t wait to see all the art you make!

Fall wreath https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rfVmZuuvfI

Autumn lake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TTolZIazn4

Fall pumpkin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGfIhq-3-Jc

Frankenstein https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOb8PuAF4ZU

Apples to apples https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhEATPyEMWk

Halloween cat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wDWGgoz2KY

Fall leaves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRthHYfhr5c

Foxy fox https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsJn1_qik04

Haunted house https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X6MUPq94AI

Skull https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUBzR_aR8a8

Maple leaves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhTrXvGpIrE

Fall trees https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvFjDvYma7E

Creepin black cat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLyHQmUj34A

Dragon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_znKzCXMFIU

**Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Let’s Make Art in any way. I am not compensated by them in any way. I am just a longtime fan!

August 11, 2021

Watercolor Wednesday: Hamilton

Susan Art, Travel, Watercolor Wednesday 0 Comments

Last week, I discussed Let’s Make Art. I wanted to tell you about my recent visit to them.

While we were traversing our beautiful state a couple weeks ago, we found ourselves in a part of Missouri we rarely venture to- the Northwest. We visited Hamilton, Missouri- self-proclaimed Quilt Town, USA, but also universally known as the Disneyland of Quilting and the Quilting Capital of the World! It is also home to Let’s Make Art, the art company I mentioned in last week’s Watercolor Wednesday post.

Hamilton is a delightful small town with a population under 2,000 but with many, many quilt shops. It’s the home of Missouri Star Quilt Company, which is a HUGE quilting empire. There are tons of YouTube quilting tutorials from them as well. Let’s Make Art is a sister company of theirs, as I understand it. Anyway, speaking of tutorials, that’s how I got turned on to Let’s Make Art! And that’s how we ended up in Hamilton!

Hamilton greeted us with a large, cheery mural- one of several in town- and the phrase “find your happy” was everywhere.

We immediately visited Let’s Make Art, where we were greeted warmly. I got to “tour” the “studio” where they film the YouTube tutorials, and they proudly showed me their YouTube award- it was super cool!

The shop was a beautiful space as well, and we browsed for a long time. I did get a cool acrylic kit that I am looking forward to doing this weekend, and we just had a great time talking to the Let’s Make Art people (new Insta friend!) and browsing. Kareem is so cute- he’s like, buy everything! Get whatever you want! 🙂

After our Let’s Make Art time, we strolled the town and stopped and had a soda at the sweet shop. At this point, we were kind of shutting the town down- most of the shops close at 5 pm. The boyhood home of JC Penney is in Hamilton as well, and it is not far from Kansas City. So if you are looking for other things to do or to add Hamilton in to another trip, it is easy to do.

On our way back to the car, we stopped at a table a family had set up to sell their sweets, jams, honeys, and produce. I got some cherry jam (my absolute FAVORITE!) and some hand pies, and Kareem got some goodies too. Then we drove about half an hour/forty minutes east to Macon where we dined with a good friend’s daughter who lives in Kirksville.

So I will leave you with this on a fine watercolor Wednesday. This is the Let’s Make Art watercolor artist’s oath, and she starts every tutorial with it: I promise to be kind to myself. I promise not to compare my work. I promise to have fun.

Pretty wise advice for both watercolor and life.

Check out their tutorials here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzzCo7lZGJ-sTCgpI7BJKEg

August 4, 2021

Watercolor Wednesday: Rainbow Parrot

Susan Art, Family, Watercolor Wednesday 1 Comment

Last week for watercolor Wednesday, I let Rami choose a project. He chose the Rainbow Parrot project by Let’s Make Art. Let’s Make Art is an ah-mazing company that offers subscription boxes of art supplies and projects. They have a YouTube channel with tons of FREE tutorials for watercolor, art journaling, lettering, and kids’ art! They have all different levels of ability, and I highly recommend them.

Anyway. More about them next week though.

So the best thing about these rainbow parrots is that we get to use the straw blowing technique- I’m pretty sure that’s the technical name, ha ha. I have used this on a few projects with the kids, and it is something they always really enjoy. I mean, who doesn’t? Word of warning- if you have a very concrete thinking child, they might not enjoy the unpredictability of the paint blowing. Just frontload for them, telling them about the process and that it is very loose and it is fun to see where the colors may blow and how they may mix! Keep it positive, and they will really enjoy it.

We were unable to trace the outline, so we free handed it. I actually think the kids really enjoyed this aspect of it. You will notice that Nick doesn’t always participate. He was really excited about this project for some reason and got super into it. That was fun! Lucy, who is usually very amped about Watercolor Wednesday chose not to participate in this project, but she did hang out with us. She wanted to learn how to draw a ferret. She had a very, very hard time with it and got really frustrated. I was so proud of her because she was able to say her feelings, and even though she said she was going to quit multiple times, she never actually did. She ended up with a ferret she was very proud of!