Mother Nature Has by Carisa Zglobicki

Hi everyone! Carisa here with you today and I’m so excited to be back on the Ranger blog sharing a watercolor painting I did recently using Dina Wakley Media Scribble Sticks. For a long time, I allowed these beautiful little sticks of color sit there taunting me while they intimidated me with their awesomeness. Then I started playing with them without expectation in my Dina Wakley Media Journal…pages that will never make it onto a blog but I learned that these sticks of color are amazing and I immediately knew I had to try them on a canvas as watercolors. I also filmed my process for you in a short video at the end of this post.

Instructions

Step 1: From my art journal play, I learned that I loved the Scribble Sticks on a gesso surface more than non-gesso. You can use them either way but for the look I was going for, I knew I wanted the ability to scrub out my drawing lines with water and that would be best achieved with gesso. So I used Dina Waklely Media White Gesso to prime my entire Dina Wakley Media Board before starting. Once that was dry, I drew my pumpkins directly with the Scribble Sticks on my surface. I love pumpkins because they are a simple shape and Dina Wakley encouraged me in one of her books that anyone can draw simple shapes. I don’t think of creating realistic pumpkins at all – just the shape of a pumpkin with color and texture. Next I took one of the short handled Dina Wakley Media brushes and started to pull out the color from the lines I drew. If I wanted more color in certain areas, I went direct to the Scribble Stick with my paint brush and added color where I wanted. I did the same with the sky. The colors I used for my painting from the Scribble Stick pack were Tangerine, Lemon, Umber, Night and Turquoise.

Step 2: I love using quotes in my journal pages and wanted to add one to this painting. I’ve been wanting to try hand lettering with Perfect Pearls and decided to add that to my canvas. I was super nervous though as I had never tried it before and I didn’t know how the Perfect Pearls Medium pens would react over the Scribble Sticks. First I did a practice run on plain non-gessoed media board and it turned out great so I went for it and started lettering on the canvas.

Step 3: I have 4 colors of Perfect Pearls so I pulled them all out to create a multicolored quote. One of the colors is Grape Fizz and in hindsight I think I should have added a little bit of purple in my sky to unify my painting with my quote, but all in all I’m super happy with the way it turned out. The way the Perfect Pearls work in this technique is that wherever I lettered my quote with the Perfect Pearls Medium pens, that’s where the Perfect Pearls would stick on my canvas.

Step 4: I was worried it would want to stick in other places, but as long as the surface was completely dry before I started my lettering, that was never an issue as you can see once I brushed it away using the Perfect Pearls Brush. I really love the way it pops and shimmers on my painting.
Here are some close ups of my completed art journal page. I love this page so much I can’t wait to transfer it to a large canvas! That is one of the beautiful things about art journaling – you get to practice different ideas and techniques without the pressure of making something perfect.

Here are some close ups of my completed Scribble Sticks watercolor painting. I can’t wait to frame it and hang it on my wall. I did use a spray fixative on my canvas when it was done to seal it. I didn’t want a bump here or there to mess up my lettering.


As I mentioned earlier in the post, I filmed my process for you today. You can enjoy it here or on my YouTube channel InkyFairyDesigns.

Thank you, Ranger, again for inviting me to share my art with your readers using my favorite Ranger products. They truly are some of my favorite mediums I turn to again and again as I continue my journey as an artist. My hope for this post is that if you’ve been intimidated or intrigued by the Dina Wakley Media Scribble Sticks, that you are encouraged to pull them out or try them the next time you are in your art room. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a new tin of 12 colors soon to expand the possibilities!

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