Valentines Day Card - from guest blogger Jasmine Smith

Valentines Day Card - from guest blogger Jasmine Smith

Hello my fellow artists! My name is Jazzy (@j.l.s_art on instagram) and I am gonna talk to you today about making your own cards for Valentine’s day. I had a lot of fun and it was relatively simple, so let’s get to it!



I was feeling a bit stumped on what I wanted to paint for this theme, so I turned to Pinterest for some inspiration and was not disappointed (I unfortunately could not find the artist’s name from the reference, so I included the account name where I found it).  As soon as I found my reference I knew I had to do something with a cheesy pickup line. I grabbed a pencil and started sketching. 



For my materials, I used a cup of water, painter’s tape, a pencil, a sharpie marker and pen, Crimson red and Cerulean blue watercolor paints, and some lovely red and silver glitter paints from Waves of Expression’s shop. 



I began by getting a base layer of paint down. While I’m doing this, I’m being sure to keep the paint light and fluid. This allows for any changes that may be made during my creative process. Another thing that I always try to do in my work is to avoid the highlighted areas until the end of the painting. If things don’t go according to plan and you do get pigment in these highlighted areas, you can always choose to take the painting a different route, try to get it off with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser*, or go in with white acrylic paint. 

*Watercolor hack: You can erase watercolor by waiting for the paint to dry and then going over it with a damp Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. While this works very well for sections that you are planning to paint a different color, you can still see a slight residue if you were planning to leave that section of paper white. Still an awesome hack though! 



Next, I build up those layers of red and blue, and begin adding some details. I add in a slightly darker shade of red to the left side of the hearts and start creating the illusion of a plastic wrapper. Keeping the paint light, I add thin lines of blue to the top, bottom, and sides of the wrapper, along with an outline around both suckers in blue. I tried to pay attention to the sucker’s sticks and where highlights were hitting in my reference, but I kept it relatively loose.



From this point on, my motto was layer, layer, layer. I went in with a heavier hand on the small blue lines surrounding the packaging of the suckers and tried to incorporate some of the shadows I was seeing in the reference. I also mixed my Crimson red with some of my Cerulean blue to slightly darken the shade. I then used it on the left and upper right sides of my heart suckers to try to create some depth. Once I had done this, I realized that the background was appearing a bit washed out, so I darkened it also. 



Once I was happy with the red, I was finally able to start on my favorite part; adding glitter! I chose a beautiful coppery-red shade that fit well with the design. Magically, when the glitter touched the paper I was immediately in the mood for Valentine’s Day, so I hope this post has a similar effect on you. 



I also decided to add some cloud-like designs to the bottom of the page which I accented using one of Waves of Expression’s watercolor paints. The paint I used was silver with iridescent flakes of blue and magenta that leveled up my cloud- painting game. I could’ve stared at it all day, but I had a few things to finish up, so I kept going. 



I finished up by outlining everything with a black sharpie pen and tweaking a few things before going in with the words. I added the cheesy line “ I’m a sucker for you” and the classic Valentine’s Day invitation, and she was complete. I had so much fun making this and it really helped pull me out of a creativity block. I definitely recommend making your own Valentine’s Day cards and will be doing so from now on. Whether you’re celebrating with a romantic partner, friends, family, or just aren’t celebrating it at all, remember that you make the day what it is, and no one can tell you differently. I hope everyone has an amazing Valentine’s Day! 

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