Spring ans summer watercolor painting adventures

Spring and summer are the perfect seasons to rediscover the joy of watercolor painting. As the world begins to bloom with vibrant greens, glowing skies, wildflowers, and endless changing light, inspiration can be found almost everywhere — from a quiet backyard garden to a busy café patio or a mountain trail adventure. Watercolor is one of the most beautiful mediums for capturing these fleeting moments because it encourages spontaneity, movement, and playfulness.

One of the most exciting ways to prepare for the warmer months is by creating your own travel watercolor palette. A small curated palette filled with your favorite handmade colors can become a creative companion wherever you go. Think about the shades that inspire you most during spring and summer: fresh sap greens, granulating blues for skies and water, warm earthy browns, glowing florals, and soft sunset pinks. Building a personal palette is not only practical for travel — it also helps you connect more deeply with your artistic style and the colors that make you happiest.

Painting outdoors, even for just a short time, can completely refresh your creativity. A tiny sketchbook, a travel brush, a cup of water, and a few paints are enough to turn a simple walk into an artistic adventure. Don’t worry about creating perfect paintings. Instead, focus on collecting moments, colors, textures, and memories. Quick sketches of flowers, market scenes, old buildings, forests, lakes, or even your morning coffee can become meaningful visual journals of your summer experiences.

Watercolor adventures are not about perfection — they are about curiosity, discovery, and learning to see beauty everywhere. Let this season inspire you to slow down, explore new places, and fill your sketchbooks with color, light, and joyful imperfections. Your handmade paints and travel palettes are waiting to come alive in the sunshine.

XOXO, Elena

Expressive watercolor florals

Painting expressive watercolor florals is a joyful dance between intuition and spontaneity. Unlike detailed botanical illustrations, expressive florals focus on capturing the feeling of the flower—its movement, mood, and essence—rather than every petal’s precision.

With watercolor, you're working with a medium that loves to flow, blend, and surprise. Let that work in your favor. Start with loose, confident brushstrokes—suggest rather than define the shapes. A single, well-placed swipe can say more than a hundred tiny lines.

Use color boldly and intuitively. You don’t need to stick to realism. Let roses blush with unexpected violets, let sunflowers burn with orange and rust, or let a daisy melt into the page with watery pastels. Allow pigments to bleed into one another—this movement mimics nature’s softness and unpredictability.

Play with wet-on-wet for dreamy petals, and use dry brush or negative painting techniques to carve out edges and add texture. Don’t be afraid to leave white space or let blooms fade at the edges; it creates breath and light.

Expressive watercolor florals aren’t about perfection—they’re about presence. Each brushstroke should feel alive, free, and emotionally charged. Whether your flowers are wild and abstract or soft and poetic, they’ll carry the energy you poured into them—and that’s what makes them bloom.

Hugs, Elena

How to make your characters more creative and expressive

1. To make your watercolor characters more expressive and creative, embrace the fluid, unpredictable nature of the medium and let it work with your imagination, not against it.

2. Changing proportions is a powerful way to make your watercolor characters more expressive, whimsical, or emotionally charged. Because watercolor thrives on suggestion and mood, altering proportions pushes your characters beyond realism and into the realm of imagination and storytelling.

The key is to think about what feeling you want to evoke, then exaggerate the parts that best express it. Don’t be afraid to let go of anatomical correctness. When proportions are shifted with intention, they make your character unforgettable—and watercolor, with all its looseness and texture, is the perfect medium to bring them to life.

3. Using color intentionally is one of the most exciting ways to create a unique and memorable character in watercolor. Color doesn’t just decorate your character—it tells their story, reflects their personality, and sets the emotional tone. In watercolor especially, the softness, transparency, and unexpected blends can make color choices feel alive and expressive.

Instead of sticking to realistic tones, assign colors based on the spirit of the character. 

Use unexpected combinations—like mint green skin with rose pink hair or indigo clothes with copper undertones. This helps your character stand apart and instantly feel imaginative. Watercolor is perfect for layering subtle color changes within one area, adding richness and surprise.

Color in watercolor is not just visual—it’s emotional. Trust your instincts. Let the paint speak, let colors run wild, and most of all, use them not just to color your character, but to reveal them.

4. Experiment with wet-on-wet effects for dreamy eyes or windswept hair, and use dry brush or lifting techniques for textured clothing, freckles, or fur. Adding touches of granulating handmade pigments or iridescent shimmer can also bring uniqueness and magic to your characters.

Most importantly, let go of perfection. Let the paint run, drip, and bloom. Those “happy accidents” often lead to the most expressive and unexpected moments in your characters. The freedom of watercolor is the perfect playground for creative expression—so lean in, let go, and have fun giving your characters a voice through the brush.

Until next time, hugs, Elena

ANCIENT MARSHES handcrafted granulating watercolor set of 4

 

ANCIENT MARSHES handmade watercolor paints set of 4 no tin

Set of 4 watercolor paints - 6 full pans.
NO TIN INCLUDED.
 
All handmade watercolor paints.
 
COLORS ARE:
1-ANCIENT MARSHES
2-WONDER STORM
3-LORD OF VERDE
4-ROSSO NATURALE
 
I use no fillers, just pure pigment and binder. Some colors may contain honey and a bit more "liquid". I use pure Canadian honey.

Some cracking of the paints is natural (it doesn't affect the quality of the paints).
 
Visit my website www.ElenaArtPages.com for mamy more new colors and unique sets of handmade watercolor paints.

Hedgehog - a warm watercolor painting

Every time I use my beloved brown and blues, ochres and warm pinks I think of something cozy and sweet - a forest sweller with little prickly needles - a cute hedgehog. Painting whimsical animals is one of my favorite things to do. I used my own handmade watercolor paints and also Derwent colored pencils for some detail work. They go over watercolors really well. Sometimes, I like to add some color charcoal pencils as well.

Praline handmade watercolor is a wonderful paint that lets me layer either a sheer some brownish-pink pearlescent tone over my illustration or with lots more pigment - bring out the warm tones in the ground.

Colors also used in this painting are: Amazing Warmth, Black Hematite, Enchanted Bear, Star Deer,  Brown Dune, Scarab Blue, Cobalt Blue and of course, Raw Sienna and Emperor's Gold.

Also, check out this new palette I just recently added - it has a beautiful selection of earthy and mineral granulating and regular handmade watercolor paints - NATURALE PLUS (set of 12).

XOXO, Elena

BEAUTIFUL MINERAL WATERCOLOR PAINT PALETTE WITH 12 half pans

NATURALE PLUS

A beautiful handmade watercolor paint set in an adorable tin (design on the lid may vary).

12 half-pans of gorgeous color yumminess!!!
These paints are all handmade with artist-quality pigments. Only a binder is used, no fillers. I add some honey for transparency and smooth application.
This handcrafted palette as a few mineral pigments, some granulating and some shimmery.








COLORS ARE:
1-Bushing Peach (rich, creamy, peachy-pink with a soft pearl shimmer)
2-Red Hematite (granulating)
3-Raw Sienna French
4- Hematite Black (granulating)
5-Rosso Naturale from Italy (granulating, such beautiful soft rose-brown pigment!)
6-Lions Forge (stunning mineral earthy orange pigment)
7-Ruby Stone (beautiful, warm deep red-brown color)
8-Spanish Burnt Umber (semi-granulating)
9-GreenOxide Chromium (semi-granulating)
10-Lord of Verde (granulating, stunning blue-green pigment with violet iridescence)
11-Callisto (granulating, shimmery copper tone-brown with green iridescence)
12- Brentonico Green (granulating, subtle pale green).
 
Thank you! xoxo, Elena
www.ElenaArtPages.com

Rabbit watercolor with handmade paints

Rabbit painted with elenaartpages.com handmade granulating watercolor paints, hematite, raw sienna, brown dune, potter's pink, blushing peach, red oxide.

All and more favorite pigments. I am absolutely in love with granulation in watercolors. Don't take me wrong, I love regular paints as well, of course, they have to be very rich and pigmented, lol. I guess, I have been a bit spoiled with nice paints considering when you do make your own paints, you become a lot more critical about all other types of paint. I hope you guys enjoy working with Elena's watercolors as much as I am.

Happy Easter!

XOXO, Elena