This watercolor holiday wreath tutorial will disprove those who swear that they cannot use watercolors! I’ll walk you through this project step by simple step, and you’ll be delighted at the results. Keep in mind that while I used the wreath for a gift tag, it can be painted on anything! Sketchbooks, envelopes, DIY cards, and place cards can all benefit from this wonderful motif.
1. Prep Your Watercolors and Your Paper
This project doesn’t require fancy watercolors. Really, all you need is a nice, rich red and two tones of green: one dark, and one light. Use a spoon or a syringe to put a couple of drops of water onto these three colors, then let the water work on hydrating the paints as you move on to the next step.
If you’re making a gift tag, as I am, you’ll want to cut out a small piece of watercolor paper. Find a round object (I used an ink bottle), and trace around it with a pencil. The resulting circle roughly predicts the size of your watercolor holiday wreath.
Next, use an eraser to get rid of most of what you just traced. Erase until you can just barely see where your pencil lines were! I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but erasing most of these lines ensures that you won’t be able to see them through the watercolor once you’re finished painting the wreath.
2. Paint the Berries
Few things evoke the holiday season more than vivid red berries, so you want to prominently feature them in your holiday watercolor wreath. If you want to paint a fairly realistic berry, the trick lies in including a light spot. This is one spot on the berry that reflects light so completely that it’s white! To achieve that, you should first use your red watercolor to paint an open circle somewhere on our near the pencil outline that you drew earlier.
While the paint outline is still wet, use your paintbrush to draw a “U” shape within top of the circle. The “U” shape should look something like the one pictured below.
Now, fill in the rest of the circle. Congratulations; you’ve just painted a berry!
Continue to paint clusters of berries on different areas of the circle. Make sure you vary the numbers and sizes of berries within each cluster! Once you’re finished, your piece will look something like the photo below.
3. Paint Leaves
Simple dark green leaves add a nice contrast to the berries! To make a leaf, start by using your dark green watercolor to paint a partial almond shape. Make sure you leave one side of the almond shape open, as shown in the photo below.
Next, fill in the left half of the almond shape with paint.
Finish up by filling in the right half. Make sure you leave a white line in the center to evoke a center vein!
Continue to paint dark green leaves in random places around the berry clusters. The leaves should all be different sizes, and their colors will slightly vary due to differing water levels in the paint.
4. Paint Pine Needles
If you ask yourself what differentiates a holiday wreath from other types of wreaths, your answer will probably be “pine needles”. Luckily for us, pine needles are remarkably easy to paint! Start by using the same dark green watercolor that you used in the last step to create a slightly curved “V”.
Next, use a light green tone to paint another “V” on top of the “V” that you just made. The point of this new “V” should connect with the other “V”, and the light green paint will automatically blend with the dark green paint.
Continue alternating colors for the “V”s, stacking them one on top of the other to bridge the gap between berry clusters.
Once you finish, you’ll be impressed with how beautifully blended your pine needles are! And that’s it … that’s how you paint a holiday watercolor wreath.
5. Use the Watercolor Holiday Wreath for a Project
Truthfully, the applications for a project like this have no limit. You can paint a watercolor holiday wreath anywhere, and I hope you use it for a variety of projects from mail art to casual sketching! For the purposes of this blog post, though, I want to show you how easily you can make this wreath into a gift tag. All you need to do is cut around the edges of the wreath, then calligraph a name inside. Whimsical all-lowercase Kaitlin Style calligraphy lends itself well to this implementation!
Punch a hole in the top of the wreath, then run some baker’s twine through it. Voilà! A super-artistic and quick holiday gift tag.
Printable Gift Tag Template
If you like the concept of this holiday watercolor wreath but you don’t have the time to create it, you can print off this free gift tag template. The template includes nine 2.5″ holiday wreaths for you to print, cut out, and write names in. Feel free to print it as many times as you need to in order to embellish your holiday gift presentations!
I hope that this post encourages you to pick up a brush and give this tutorial a go! Even if, and especially if, you feel intimidated by watercolor paints, I think that you’ll find this wreath to be a blissfully simple introduction to painting. Of course, if you have any questions, please feel free to comment! Also, I love seeing your creations on Instagram! If you make something you like using this tutorial, please consider hashtagging #thepostmansknock or tagging @thepostmansknock so I can take a look and gush. 🙂
Thanks very much for reading TPK; I appreciate that you’re here … I know that there are a million other websites you could be on right now, and a thousand other things you could be doing! So: thanks for giving me a little chunk of your time, and have a wonderful, creative day.
Warmly,
I loved this tutorial! It was the first thing I’ve ever done with watercolor and this made it so easy to follow! I can’t wait to try some of your other tutorials! 😊
I can’t wait to try this. I’m not artistic at all, so I’m hoping it turns out. Eve
That’s the beauty of watercolor… the paint has a mind of its own, so it will turn out one way or another and may even surprise you.
This and all of your watercolor tutorials are amazing. I definitely look at them and think I could never do it. Then I read the tutorials and you spell it out so well that it seems simple. I feel like I should start now working on tags and cards for 2018 so that I don’t end up completely behind like I am this year. Maybe I’ll make these my creative projects for the year so that I’m practicing and being productive at the same time.
Hello,
Really enjoyed this. Tried it out and will need to try again to experiment with the darker green color. I love your little palette box and colors. Where did you find it? Looks like a great “on the go/travel” box.
THANKS!!
Thank you so much for this so lovely tags, I will use them for my Christmas gifts:)
Hi Lindsey,
I love this tutorial! To me it seems that I can manage to do it. I will definitely give it a try!
Thanks for your beautiful work, I love to see the beautiful things you always make.
Greetings from Germany
Maike
Absolutely love wreaths, thank you!
Thank you for this beautiful idea! Definitely a future project :^)
Thanks so much for this Lindsay. Also, thank you so much for all the frree tutorials you have on your blog. You make it very easy to replicate when you break it down into shapes and colours. Thank you as well, for all the giveaways you have on your blog. Kind regards Tracy
This is beyond gorgeous! I can’t wait to give it a try!
Thank you so much for this tutorial! I will definitely have to give this a try this weekend!
Lindsey, I LOVE this, I wish I would have found it while I was still making my Christmas cards! I will be filing it away for future use. I have somewhat of an unrelated question though. Do you have a post about how you digitize your handmade pieces like you did with these wreaths? I want to make my own wedding invitations and I would really really love to make one by hand and then digitize and print them. Thank you!!
Hi Brooklyn!
I don’t have a post over digitizing pieces, but I have an eCourse! It’s a little bit involved because you might want to do things like deepen the colors and tweak how much of the background is removed.
Just finished making two of these to use as gift tags. I found your tutorial easy to follow and well explained.
thanks Lindsey
I have never done watercolor before and I was impressed with how well my very first attempt turned out! Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for this AWESOME tutorial & taking the time to photograph the watercolor steps! This makes a world of a difference for beginners like me 🙂 Thank you again so much!
I can’t do this like you do. Everything is neat, the colors are perfect, and I wish I knew how long it took or how many classes to take to get to this — it’s NOT easy, not by a long shot.
Hi Kateren! Have you given it a try? I saw a lot of favorable results by Instagram users who are also new to watercolor. 🙂 I think you’ll be surprised at how well you do!
So beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing this!
Hey Lindsey! This is absolutely stunning and I definitely plan on using it! A weird and slightly unrelated question though: I really want to do calligraphy for the name in the center but have yet to receive my brush pens (they’re being shipped from Amazon and probably arriving after the holidays) so do you have any suggestions on other tools or items I could use to create calligraphy in the center? (I also don’t plan on trying actual calligraphy using nibs any time soon) Much love from Canada!
Hi Jamie! I’d try faux calligraphy — that’s a wonderful and approachable substitute that can be created with any pen!
Thank YOU for your generosity with tutorials!
I think I could actually do this watercolor and have it look good! Thanks so much!!
This is so pretty ….thank you so much for the tutorial and printable…and will look so pretty on my Christmas gifts…
An awesome project that I will have to try this holiday season!
This is cute! I have a very basic set of watercolors that I bought from Michael’s. It’s been fine for practicing, but I would love to get a set that has richer color. What did you use for this project? Those greens are so pretty!
Hi Kate!
I used one of Greenleaf & Blueberry‘s early sets … Jess (the proprietress of G&B) doesn’t make them anymore. 🙂 That said, she wrote a stellar guest post here a couple of years ago talking about different types of watercolor paints. She made some recommendations for good brands to buy! If you’re in the market to upgrade, it’s a must-read!
Perfect, I’ll give it a read. Thank you!