Valentine Cutie
So I know that most people around this time are consuming large amounts of chocolate and going out on romantic dates with their s.o. Since I’m obviously as single as a pringle, this year I plan to spend my VDay feeding the homeless with my friend Kasie, making homemade cookies with MiSue (my momma), and wallow with a glass of pino while watching the best romantic, tear-jerking movie that I can find on Netflix. This is a very festive yet mellow VDay compared to the past. I’ve had the typical types- “young love” dinner dates and a day filled with my favorite chocolates and stuffed animals to the “college single” wearing all black to signify my soul then drinking way too of the pink colored hunch punch and going home to order myself a heart shaped pizza for one. Since I am leaving in three months it doesn’t surprise me that I’m spending this years with my friends and family.
Even though I’ve switched up how I celebrate there is one tradition I have done for years- making my friends Valentines cards.
My tradition started during my young love phase, when I used to make homemade cards for every occasion. But since then not only have my card skills evolved, I’ve also expanded to making cards for my friends. So this year I started by looking on Pinterest for some cute card ideas, after an hour and many screenshots, I found some good cards that would match my friends personalities. Being a list person, I made a list of the people that I needed to make cards for and wrote down what card I was making for who. Next I draw out each card in pencil before I risked it all and dipped my nib in the ink and prayed that my skills would be up to par. My writing wasn’t too shabby but it was obvious that this wasn’t the best paper for it because the ink would spread and fibers kept getting caught in my nib. After it dried I grabbed my acrylics and with a little water and BAM the perfect way to do a background without truly covering all the work I just did.
I used a Nikko G nib with an oblique holder
I used just regular sketchbook paper which was a MISTAKE. My nib got caught a lot of the paper.
MiSue gave me the best Valentine's Day gift. I've been wanting a travel watercolor palette and that's exactly what she got me :)
Winsor & Newton Cotman Compact Set
I hope everyone had an amazing Valentines:)
xoxo,
chels
Side note: I’ve always been big on having good handwriting (I think it’s from all the spelling/writing drills my mom used to make me do when I was younger) but recently I’ve finally bit the bullet and decided to learn calligraphy. After finding Lindsey Bugbee’s blog, founder of The Postman’s Knock, I was inspired and thought okay I can do this. Her blog tells you all the materials you need and she has free worksheets and full worksheet sets for cheap Learn Calligraphy for a Latte.