Do you love crystals? Do you love watercolor (or want to)? Then welcome Crystal Designer friend, you're in the right place.
In this class we'll explore the delightful world of painting crystals in watercolor. From drawing, to color, to shading - you'll find all the tips to help you design your own crystal masterpieces.
Not only is painting crystals fun, it can also be a meditative, stress relieving process. This is a beginner friendly course, if you've got a basic understanding of watercolor, you'll love it!
This course is a 'pay what you can' offering.
There are many ways to feel and receive abundance and my hope is that we all connect with that energy and allow it to flow.
Please contribute what feels right for you and your situation.
I receive in love and ask for the circle of abundance and inspiration to flow for us all!
Thank you for supporting my work. I hope you enjoy this class!
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Supplies
Supplies are pretty simple!
Watercolor: obviously, right? Use any brand, any color. You are a crystal designer! I'll mention a few of my favorites during class, but truly anything goes for this class
Brushes: Use what you have and are comfortable with. I will mention these incredible brushes I've been using for about six months now because I really, really love them. They were created by artist Jenn Song (find her on Instagram: @jenmanship) They are so precise. And I love the colors of the handles. I've now got three sets because I'm a crazy craft hoarder. No really, I need them. What if I wear them out and I can't get them anymore?! Anyway, here they are on Amazon.
Paper: If you've taken a class with me then you already know that I am a big fan Arches 140lb cold press paper. That's what I'll be using, but you do you. Paper makes a big difference. If you are on the struggle bus with watercolor, it's probably not you - it's your paper. All that being said: the best thing about painting crystals is that the more character they have, the better - sometimes the inexpensive, lesser quality papers make the coolest ones.
Other stuff:
Pencils, erasers for the drawing bits
Colored pencils (regular or watercolor)
White gel pen (I love these)
Janky crystals are your friends :)
I like using quartz crystal points - the one's that are a bit messed up - because they are the most interesting to draw and they're inexpensive. Score.
One crystal can give you many different versions of drawings and paintings. The painting below is one crystal, from three different angles.
Quartz crystals are, for the most part, colorless. This best part about that to me is that I get to create my own.
I have found most of my grubby, little crystals on Etsy. Just do a search, you'll find a ton of them.
For this class, we'll be following the drawings that I've created - so you don't need your own crystals. Also, there are plenty of picture on the google :) Just don't break any copyright laws, okay?
Drawing and Design
Drawing: sometimes when I say this people run for the hills. Ha! I get it, but drawing crystals is fun and easy.
Drawing can be a meditative practice too - in fact, I find the whole crystal-making process to be relaxing and contemplative, quite the muse!
I've included an inspirational tip sheet on the drawing process at the very bottom of this page. I hope you'll find it helpful.
Let's get started with drawing crystals!
Studying crystal shapes with pencil first will be a great help when we start adding color. Deciding where our lights and darks will 'live' helps to create designs that really pop off the page.
If you have your own crystals, awesome! Use your own to study and work out the details. For the ease of teaching, I've also included a worksheet below with basic crystal shapes that I've drawn.
In this first video, we'll outline the 'facets'...
In this next video we'll add our lights and darks...
Here are the drawn crystals you can use for reference and shading practice.
ADDING COLOR
How much water? How much paint? This is the dance of watercolor...
Creating monochromatic crystal swatches is great practice and a fun way to further your knowledge of the watercolor 'dance'!
We'll keep our same structure of having dark, mid, and light tones. I've used a very simple crystal sketch - for this exercise, we're not trying to create a spectacular crystal - but exploring how to translate different tones with watercolor.
Here is a cool way to check for your darks vs. lights without getting confused about the color of it all!
It's fun to explore how many different shades you can achieve just from one simple color. Here is a swatch I created with the color Mineral Violet from Holbein
Facet Abstracts
I'm so excited to share this fun exercise with you! May I introduce my newest obsession: Facet Abstracts...
Let's chat about color..
Here is the extent of my intellectual knowledge on color :)...
Here are the basics of creating your Crystal Facet Abstract Masterpiece!
I hope you have as much fun with this exercise as I am... here's some inspiration for you to get started and keep going...
Just for reference, here are some of my fav funky colors to create crystals with... Let me know if you have any questions about these :)
Crystal Portraits
Okay crystal designers, let's paint crystals!
This first video that I'm sharing with you was a wild ride (you'll see why at around 9 mins!) - I almost did a retake, but I don't think you're here with me to see perfection or to be dazzled - I think you're here with me to have fun, share in a creative joy and yes, of course, learn! With those goals in mind, I think this is the perfect beginning to our crystal portrait design time together!
Fun right? Lizards are not an uncommon thing here in Florida, however, that little guy was flailing himself against the door and making all sorts of crazy gestures! ha! He was happy to be released :)
Here's the next video where I share with you a few extras you can add to your crystal once it dries...
I've tried to include a side-angle view for the crystals we'll create together. I think they'll be beneficial to see the amount of water and give you a close-up of the action. I hope they're helpful!
Note: The crystals that I create my paintings from are quartz - and therefore, mostly colorless. I like this because it allows me to create my own color schemes and not get too hung up on trying to get my painting to look exactly like a certain crystal. I like to be inspired by nature's brilliance, then use my own imagination to work it out.
The sky is the limit for the colors you can create your designs with... Next, we'll explore a crystal inspired by Turquoise...
Turquoise Pop
A little preview of what we're about to paint together... Yay!...
For this crystal I am using Burnt Umber, a little bit of Indigo and Pthalo Turquoise - you can substitute similar colors.
Let's get started on this beauty..
Part two...
I can't WAIT to show you this part...
Any metallic colors you already have will work, but if you NEED more...
The Metallic Accents set from Prima/Art Philosophy is still available (at the time of me writing this) You can find it here
(Try using the code 'melanieaprilart15%' - it might save you 15% off your entire order! Yay, more art supplies!)
The set I used for this crystal (and the one's I use most often) are from RiverVale Watercolors - you can find her on Etsy here. The specific colors I used are Phantom Jade, Phantom Turquoise and Phantom Fire (I love ALL the phantom colors!)
Check out this shimmer! SO gorgeous!
Here is the side-angle video for this one...
Try this combo with purple or green... or anything!!
Ethereal in the House!
Let's talk colors first - anything goes with this one!
Recap: Here are the colors I used for these
Purples - soup mixture of mostly mauve, mineral violet and amethyst
Warm toned blue: Ultramarine Blue
Cool toned blue: Pthalo Blue
Piemontite
Burnt Umber
Peachy mixture: I used rhodonite and hansa yellow
Also, greens I love: green apatite (primatek color from Daniel Smith) Green Gold (also by Daniel Smith, the Winsor Newton shade by this name is NOT the same!)
Let's get to painting!
And now to add some finishing touches...
These crystals look phenomenal when grouped together, a great reason to make many :)
Also - using slightly lighter, or slightly more intense color can create dramatic results, experiment
Try making facet abstracts with light tones, so pretty!
Here's a side-angle of the process...
Final Thoughts...
Some final thoughts and one more cool thing!
Thank you so much for taking my class. You're the best.
I hope you're inspired and I can't wait to see all of your beautiful crystals and creations!
