Watercolor-Resist Cards for Mother's Day

Mother’s Day is just around the corner… do you have your card ready? Not to fear, we’ve got you covered! Using Sakura’s awesomely vibrant Koi Water Colors and some oil pastels, you can whip up a beautiful and unique card that will make your mom, grandma, or the motherly friend in your life swoon. Better yet, it will make the fridge where it will likely be magnet-ed shine with beauty.

Watercolor-resist techniques involve putting a layer of oily pigment or tape onto your surface first, so when you apply the watercolor, it resists, or avoids, the oil or tape. It’s an awesome trick to try when you want to reveal a hidden message with color, or when you’re hitting an art-block and want to experiment with materials to spark a new idea.

Materials:

• Koi Water Colors

• Watercolor paper

• oil pastel (Sakura’s Cray-Pas pastels work great!) or china marker

Step 1: Draw your Mother’s Day message on your watercolor paper with an oil pastel or china marker. Be sure to make your letters nice and thick with lots of layer of pigment.

Your message will start off invisible… just wait ‘til we add color!

Step 2: Reveal your invisible message by painting on top of it with Sakura’s Koi Watercolors! We love the day-glo colors of this watercolor set. It even comes with a little mixing tray and refillable watercolor brush, making it portable and perfect for travel. Just fill up the bottom half of the brush with water and screw on the top. Squeeze the brush for water to fill the brush tip, and then mix it with your watercolors to create your shade!

Sakura’s Koi Watercolor set even has two side sponges for you to clean your brush. So compact!

Step 3: Once you’ve painted to your heart’s content, leave out the cards to dry. Your unique Mother’s Day card is complete! Now all it needs is a sweet message on the back. :-)

---

If you loved this DIY, you won’t want to miss our special Mother’s Day giveaway of a copy of ILLUSTORIA’s Issue #8: Home and your very own Sakura Koi Watercolor set! It’s the perfect gift to self or the creative mom in your life. Check out our instagram post for entry.

Huge thanks to Sakura of America for their continued support and sponsorship of our publication. They help to bring artfulness into our magazine and into your home with every issue.

Issue 7 Release + Pop-Up at Morningtide / Solano Stroll

Come celebrate the release of #7: The Black & White Issue with some black-and-white activities and crafts! We will provide all supplies to make zines, cards, and drawings using white ink on black paper. Also make your own adorable b&w pom-pom bookmarks! 

Our issue #7 sponsor Sakura of America will be giving away these FREE sets of Gelly Roll and Pigma Micron pens + pouch and stickers with every Illustoria Magazine purchase. All this at the lovely neighborhood shop, Morningtide, during the family-friendly, annual Solano Stroll. We look forward to seeing you there!

Free pens + pouch set by Sakura of America with every Illustoria magazine purchase on 9/9 at Morningtide!

Come doodle and craft with us and make some great art to take home. 

WHAT: ILLUSTORIA POP-UP + ISSUE 7 RELEASE!

WHERE: Morningtide
               847 Cornell Ave
               Albany, CA

WHEN: Sunday, September 9th, 2018
             11am-3pm

Art by Basak Agaoglu from "Not So Black-and-White Party," from Issue 7: Black & White.

We hope to see you there!

xoxo ~ ILLUSTORIA

White on Black: Sakura Gelly Roll White Pens

Today our art director, Elizabeth Haidle, shares a few tips on how to spark a certain magic with a simple tool which has quickly become our current best-ever, favorite doodle pen: Sakura's Gelly Roll White!

On the days when I put pencil to paper and nothing is coming to mind...or that point in a project where I've worked myself into a corner and none of the results are satisfying...I find that switching things up can work a certain magic.

Just reversing the light and darks—starting with black paper and drawing with white lines—usually leads to something refreshing, new and unexpected. 

Elizabeth's son Eli made this luminescent drawing of a feather using a White Gelly Roll Pen on black Strathmore paper.

My son Eli and I tried out a thin black Strathmore paper and also their thick and luscious 'blackboard' paper, more like a cardstock. 

(Which we both prefer, as more effects are possible....like smearing the paint before it dries and even layering more lines on top of that.)

Art by Elizabeth Haidle

We churned out a few as unusual birthday cards, with notes on the back—so much more interesting than buying something at the store.

Create your own original art. With these white pens you'll be guaranteed to get some stunning and impressive results.

Thanks to Sakura of America--our longtime sponsors--who will be giving away free Gelly Roll and Pigma Micron pens at the Illustoria pop-up shop at Morningtide next weekend, Sunday, Sept 9th.