Many thanks to today’s guest blogger, Marcia Beckett. An elementary art specialist who teaches at a school for gifted children, Beckett shares her love of color and whimsy on her blog.

This is a tutorial I recently posted on my other blog Art is Basic, which is all about teaching art to kids. I thought readers here might like it as well.

I hope you are having a good summer. I have spent some time doodling with watercolors, my favorite artsy thing to do. Today I am going to show you how I transform puddles of watercolor to flower doodles. Here is an example of a finished watercolor flower doodle.

This step-by-step is fun, summery art project for you or your kids to try. I like to share what is fun and exciting for me, because maybe you will take something from it and create your own spin on the idea. Here’s what you need:

• Watercolor paints and/or Metallic watercolor paints
• Watercolor paper
• Brush, water, water cup
• Colorful markers
• Black fine point permanent marker

Step 1: Dip your brush in water and create a small puddle of water on your paper. Dip your brush in a color from your watercolor palette. Touch the puddle with the color and watch the colors spread. 
Drop in additional colors to create different effects.

Fill a whole page with the watercolor blobs.


Step 2: Allow your watercolor puddles to dry. Use permanent black marker to outline the puddles. Or, you can draw flowers right on top, radiating from the center of the petal.

Step 3: Draw flower petals in various shapes and sizes around the outside of the outlined puddles.

You can stop right there, or you can add additional color with brush markers or your other favorite type of coloring tools.
Step 4: Add additional color and patterns with markers. Use a white paint pen on top to make highlights and embellishments.

I had so much fun, I covered several sheets of paper with watercolor flower doodles.