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If you’re looking for a fun project that will build your painting skills and show gratitude, try this watercolor thank you card tutorial! It features an eye-catching, vibrant border and playful lettering that is sure to please both you and your recipient.
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If you want to enjoy a few minutes of zen, there is nothing like painting a watercolor wreath! The action of combining colors and shapes into a flowy border is relaxing and satisfying, the perfect way to hone your watercolor skills. In today’s tutorial, I’m going to walk you through how to make a floral watercolor thank you card using watercolors and hand-lettering!
Follow step one in the Circular DIY Christmas Card Tutorial to make a 5.5″ x 5.5″ (140 mm x 140 mm) blank watercolor card.
If you like a whimsical look, you can use Lasso Lettering to write the greeting (in this case, “thank you”) on your blank watercolor card. Of course, any other hand-lettering or calligraphy style will work, too!
If you choose to make a pencil draft of your lettering first, you can trace over it with watercolor or ink.
Once you finish writing, erase any pencil guidelines along the edge of the card and wait a couple of minutes for your ink or watercolor to dry.
You’ll start your floral border by creating red flowers. Choose your favorite eye-catching red tone, and use a size 1 brush to draw three connected petals like the ones shown below:
Next, paint five thin, wavy lines under the three petals you just made. These new lines also represent petals; we’re just seeing these petals from a different perspective that makes them look smaller than the first petals you drew!
Now, paint three new flowers. These flowers won’t be as large as the first one, and they are fairly straightforward to make: just pretend you’re drawing a bird’s footprint! Fill in the space between the “toes” with a little stroke of paint.
Continue to draw big flowers and small flowers until you have a border that looks roughly like the one shown below.
You can use black watercolor or black ink and a dip pen to connect all the flowers together as shown!
Next, use your dip pen to draw several little twigs and solid leaves coming off of the lines that you just created.
Now, add accents to the flowers by scribbling over the white spaces in them with some of your black watercolor or ink. Then, draw in a few groups of dots here and there to add some substance to your wreath!
Pick out a subdued, natural yellow watercolor tone and use it to draw various size of leaves at the ends of some of your twigs.
To complete your wreath, cap off the remaining ends of twigs with blue watercolor flowers comprised of 3-4 short brush strokes that represent petals. Then, use that same blue watercolor to add various sizes of circles at random spots throughout the wreath.
Once you’re satisfied that your wreath’s colors and shapes work harmoniously together, you’re finished! By this point, any pencil guidelines you drew in order to write “Thank You” should be dry, so you can erase those … thus resulting in a polished, vibrant thank you card!
This is an irregularly-sized card, so you have two options when it comes to sending it. The first option is to purchase a 6″ x 6″ envelope from a specialty store like Envelopes.com. The second option is to DIY your own 6″ x 6″ envelope! You can find a 6″ x 6″ printable envelope template in The Letter Writer’s Complete Resource.
Now, since this envelope is 6″ x 6″, it’s an irregular size, which means it requires extra postage. Here in the US, you’ll need to pay a “non-machinable envelope fee” of $0.15 (as of January 2019). If you’re not located in the US, check your post office’s regulations to find out if this size of envelope requires extra postage!
I sincerely hope that you enjoyed today’s watercolor thank you card tutorial! It’s the first detailed greeting card tutorial I’ve gotten to sit down and make, really, since Remy was born six months ago. I had forgotten how good it feels to just “check out” and create! If you have any questions or suggestions about this tutorial, please feel free to ask in the comments; I’m always very happy to hear from you. 🙂
Have a great weekend, and thanks very much for reading TPK!
Warmly,
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