By and large, the coolest thing about having this blog is getting to connect with creative people. It opens up a whole world of opportunity to expose myself to incredible talent, whether it comes from Germany, Italy, or places closer to {my} home, like New Mexico! Today’s blog post comes to you from illustrator Zakkiya Hamza in Qatar.
Recently, a couple of comments on TPK blog posts by Zakkiya led me to explore her website, Inkstruck Studio. I was immediately drawn to the whimsical, sweet style of her watercolor illustrations. Her work possesses a certain soothing harmony that I love.
When she was kind enough to agree to write a watercolor illustration tutorial, I was thrilled! Not only has she written a wonderful tutorial for us, but she has thoughtfully provided the image as a background for desktop/iPhone/iPad {find the download links at the bottom of this post}. So, without further ado, I’ll hand it over to Zakkiya.
Step 1
Before starting an illustration of any kind, you need to have an idea of what you’re going to put on to paper. First, take a rough paper or sketch book of your choice and start roughly sketching out your idea. Below you can see how I’ve done a rough sketch with the color scheme and other things marked. I then either trace the design onto paper or freehand it on good quality watercolor paper.
Step 2
After the sketch has been completed, start doing the line work neatly using a fine tip pen such as Micron. Make sure that the pen does not bleed on the paper and it should also be a waterproof one so that the watercolor will not smudge or dissolve it.
Step 3
Start filling in color using watercolors or inks of your choice. What I’ve used here is Fuji colors which are a sort of paper pigments. You can tear off bits of paper and put it in your color and when you use it with water, it gives bright beautiful colors. Below you can see me start filling my teapot outline in with the color crimson.
Step 4
To give dimension to the painting, I started giving some shade to the painting using colored pencil. I used my trusted Faber Castell Polychromos in the color “Burnt Carmine”, but you can use any colored pencil that you have on hand.
Step 5
Start filling in the colors for the terrarium bits. I used Foliage Green and Dark green from my Fuji colors set.
Step 6
After completing the watercolor illustration, I decided to add a little heart-warming quote using the Faux Calligraphy technique following Lindsey’s tutorial. I was so thrilled to discover that this technique is so effective and creates beautiful results.
I hope you had an interesting time reading this tutorial. I had lots of fun working on this post. You can see the full list of materials I’ve used for this illustration in the image below.
- Staedler Mars Lumograph pencils
- Winson & Newton watercolor brush
- Faber Castell polychromos pencil in the color Burnt Carmine
- Daler Rowney cold pressed watercolor paper
- Fuji colors*
- Sakura koi watercolor set
- Pallete
- Tuff Stuff eraser
- Micron pen
*Fuji colors are a kind of watercolor that I bought from Bangalore in India. I have not come across it on any online sites or in stores I have visited in Dubai or Doha.
Thanks so much, Zakkiya! For those of you who would like to download this illustration as a desktop/laptop, iPhone, or iPad background, you may do so by clicking here. If you have any questions or observations, always feel free to comment.
Until next time, thank you for reading!
XO,
Hi Zakkiya, thanks for this wonderful tutorial. I might be venturing towards Banagalore in a few days. Do you still have the address of the shop that you bought the Fuji color strips from? I’d like to go there and take a look.
Hi Swati! I’d recommend contacting Zakkiya through her site, Inkstruck Studio, to check!
Thanks so much for the suggestions! I’m going straight to Amazon and putting them in my shopping cart 🙂
Yes — thank you, Zakkiya! Joanna, if you live near a Michael’s, I think they are having a 40% off sale this weekend — not sure if that just applies to Boulder or other stores as well. They sell the W&N drawing ink set for $40, they would be $24 there. I think Emily is right on the money about the Peerless watercolors; I have never used them, but they certainly sound similar to the Fuji colors that Zakkiya describes.
Hi Lindsay, great tutorial! I think the closest watercolours to those used would be Peerless watercolours;a link is here http://www.peerlesscolor.com/ 🙂
Wow, those look really cool — and the shipping is super reasonable! (Like, $2.00!) Do you have any of these, Emily? If so, do you like them? Before Zakkiya’s guest post, I hadn’t heard of dissolvable watercolor sheets.
Thanks so much for the tutorial and list of supplies 🙂 Does anyone have any suggestions for a comparable substitute to the Fuji watercolors? Watercolors with just as vivid color results (and easily available)? Thanks again 🙂
Hi Joanna. You may use winsor & newton colored inks to get a similar result. They are bright,vivid colors with a thin consistency which can be easily diluted with water to get the desired hue. I hope this helps 🙂
I enjoyed this tutorial…it looks like fun to try! I appreciated the list of supplies you used at the end.
Too bad those Fuji watercolors aren’t available here!
Yay Lindsey! Thank you so much once again for this wonderful opportunity! I’m so glad I bumped into your lovely blog 🙂
Thank you for letting me showcase your talent! This is fantastic!