Watercolor Journaling - from guest blogger Diana Perez

Watercolor Journaling - from guest blogger Diana Perez

Hello everyone! I’m back again this week with another blog post showing you how you can incorporate glitter watercolors into your practice. This time I’ll be showing you something a little different from my previous works: a journal entry! If you like to journal or have been thinking about starting an art journal then keep on reading because I’ll go over ways in which Smiling Hippo watercolors can enhance your journal spreads. 

Firstly, I like to start off by thinking of an idea for my journal spread and then gathering supplies that can bring my idea to life. Some items you can use are magazine cut outs, printed images, stickers, stamps, washi tape, pens, markers, and of course Smiling Hippo watercolors.

 

    If you’re having a hard time deciding on a theme I recommend picking out a color or two and making that your color scheme. That will make creating a theme much easier. For my journal spread I decided to go with blue and pink along with a few other accent colors. 

    Once you’ve gathered your materials and decided on a theme or color scheme, you can finally start planning out your spread. Think of it like a puzzle piece. Before you glue anything down, move things around and see what layout you like best. And of course, don't forget to use watercolors to enhance your spread!

A few ways in which you can include watercolors into your spread include:

  • Painting the background 
  • Filling in white spaces with watercolor
  • Painting designs with watercolor

    Adding a watercolor background to your journal spread adds dimension to your spread and it makes your journal more interesting to look at. You can choose to paint the whole background or only sections of the background. If you don’t want to paint the whole background, I recommend painting sections that have a lot of empty white space. That way your spread will feel more balanced. You can also paint certain sections as a way to accent your other items. Additionally, you can always paint designs onto your paper. For example, I painted flowers on a pink paper that I then glued on my spread. I also painted a few bronze sparkles directly onto my spread. If your theme is whimsical and dreamy then glitter watercolors would look specially pretty in your spread. If your theme is a bit more edgy then glow in the dark colors would work well with your theme. No matter what theme you go for, there will always be a watercolor paint that will enhance your work. 

Once you have your layout planned out, you can start painting and gluing. And remember, you can always add more paint once everything is in place. So if you feel like there’s a spot that’s missing something, paint a brushstroke or paint a simple flower design. Journaling is a journey and sometimes you don’t know what you will paint until you start putting things into place. 

So there you have it. I hope this blog post gave you a new project idea for your Smiling Hippo watercolor paints. Until next time! 

Back to blog

Leave a comment