My Christmas Watercolor & Pen Illustrations

Every year, I take some time in the early fall to do watercolors and illustrations of Christmas. I give myself plenty of time to paint my Christmas pictures as I don't want to land up rushing the process.

A lot of my artwork is up for sale in various print-on-demand shops, which is where I spend the majority of my time when I am not writing.

I wanted to share with you this year's Christmas artwork, which I happily painted while listening to my latest audiobook or classical music.

Above is my Christmas Fox, which I illustrated with pen and watercolor. I first inked the fox and allowed it to dry for 24 hours before I painted it with watercolor. Using a Micron pen size 03, I can create finer details that would be a little harder with watercolor. The technique of ink and watercolor is quite trendy these days.

All of my watercolor paints are a mix of Winsor & Newton and Sennelier French Artists. The watercolor brushes I use is the SilverBlack Velvet Series and the paper is 100% Cotton Arches Watercolor Blocks.

This was nerve-racking to paint as I am not comfortable with wet on wet. For this painting, I used watercolor and salt to create the texture to give the illusion of snowing.

Snow is challenging to paint, and I wanted to create depth. I didn't want to use grey, as it isn't very appealing, and I wanted to tie the sky and snow together to create harmony. I used a soft lavender with a hint of ultramarine to give texture to the snowy hillside.

Here is a kitchen mixer wearing a Santa hat with pink roses and holly spilling out of the gold mixing bowl. A pair of Christmas ornaments sit by its side. I came up with this image for "Baked With Love" stickers for my shop. I figured that for all of the home bakers out there during the Christmas season, this picture on a sticker with their name would make a nice touch.

I am very proud of this picture. It took me four days to paint it, as I took extra care to wait for each layer and section to dry before moving on to the next. With watercolor, if you are trying to make your picture as realistic as possible, it's a process called wet-on-dry. So, having the paper dry before laying down the next color is vital to ensure the colors don't run together.

Also, I took the summer to perfect my roses, as floral watercolor intimidates me. By taking online classes at Skillshare, I felt more comfortable painting roses.

I was aiming for a minimalistic style. This simple yet elegant Christmas tree was first created with simple splatters of sap, emerald green, and gold watercolor paint in the corner of the tree. Then, using a medium-sized brush, I teased out the hues into making long wisps that resembled tree branches. Then, using a diluted version of the greens and golds with a hint of ultramarine blue, I worked on the shadows.

After the tree had dried for more than 24 hours, I added gold snow and gold accents to the tree branches to marry the colors together.

For my final piece, I went back to pen and watercolor. First, I worked on illustrating an elegant woman with gift bags and an ornamental hat. I thought of the women in the 50s walking on Fifth Avenue in New York City. If you are familiar with old Hollywood, Myrna Loy was in a movie called "The Thin Man", with William Powell. It took place during Christmas in New York. She was my inspiration for this illustration.

Once again, I waited over 24 hours before laying down my colors. I used my iPad's Procreate app to come up with the pastel color scheme, as I love working with soft pinks, teals, and reds. My elegant shopper came out very nicely, and I hope to illustrate more women in fashionable outfits again.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my artwork and learning about my process. It takes a lot of time and planning to work on my pieces. Right now, I am in my writing phase, and I know at some point, I will get back to watercolor after the New Year.

Thank you for reading.