This mindful watercolor jellyfish exercise is the third one of my animal series. This one is also inspired by my son’s Finding Nemo obsession.
For the last two animal exercises, we used colored pencils and alcohol markers. This time I want to use watercolor.
Watercolor is a really relaxing medium and it is wonderful to swirl your brush in your water jar and paint. I love that tinkling sound you hear when you tap against your jar. Also, look at how your watercolor paint flows across the page.
These are all things that make watercolor a very mindful experience. Try to focus on all these details and that will help you be in the moment.
In this mindful watercolor jellyfish exercise, we will experiment with different shades of the same color. Try to go slow and add as many layers as you want.
Have fun with this exercise! Please let me know if you liked this one.
You can find a small video of this exercise on my Instagram @thecreativecooldown
Supplies used:
Watercolor paper 300gr (Arches), watercolor (Winsor & Newton), paintbrushes (da Vinci), fineliner (Copic), washi tape, light pad (Wafer 2).
Alternative supply suggestions:
Of course, this exercise is easiest with watercolor or watercolor pencils. You can even use your kids’ watercolor paints. They may not have as much pigment as the ones in the art stores, but it’s definitely something you can start with at the beginning.
If you only have regular paper, please be aware that your paper cannot hold that much water and will probably warp. Try taping it down to prevent it from warping too much.
A light pad is not necessary, you can just sketch your jellyfish on your paper. Try to do this lightly with a pencil.
Instructions:
1. Sketch a jellyfish. You can make this as detailed as you like. A semicircle with some lines as tentacles is the minimum you’d need. I used a light pad because I did not want any pencil lines in my painting. However, you can also watercolor pencils to sketch, because they will disappear when you add water or you can just sketch very lightly.
2. Choose a color. Add a lot of water to it to make it really light and transparent. Go over the complete outline of your jellyfish with this color. It is supposed to be really watery. Concentrate on how your brush feels and how the paint flows across your paper.
3. Wait for the first layer to dry and mix a bit more color into your puddle of paint. This makes it a little bit darker. Paint over the parts that have shadows. For instance, if you imagine that the sun is on the right then the left side of your jellyfish will be darker. Repeat this step multiple times with a slightly darker shade each time. Try to experiment and see how far you can go.
4. Add some texture to your jellyfish. I added small dots to his body.
5. Add some finishing touches if necessary and you’re done with your mindful watercolor jellyfish exercise!
If you liked this exercise, you might like my Mindful fun with galaxy and shadow exercise as well.
