Watercolor Animal Invitations

I’m pretty excited to share my newest project with you.  If you’re a regular attendee of DM family birthday parties- your invitation is coming asap! They took me a little bit longer than I thought they would but, hey. You can’t rush art! 😉 Ok, ok. I procrastinated just a touch. I didn’t want to set anything in stone until I was SURE of the theme and details for my girls’ 1st (tear) and 3rd (‘nother tear) birthday party extravaganza. But it’s all settled now. Animals it is!

I know I’ve blogged about this book before but I can’t stop raving about it! It’s so much fun. I love how simple the instructions are for each animal.  I’m more of a look-and-copy kind of girl, rather than a step by step drawer but for these little animals, I was able to look-and-adapt the little illustrations into my own animals that are realistic, but cute at the same time.

The book would be a great gift for any little artist in your life. No bells and whistles- just the good stuff.

Against my natural inclination to BUY BUY BUY, I decided to make these all myself, no new stamps, new calligraphy pens, new print paper/cartridges/stickers etc. etc. etc. I used old card stock I had on hand from a past party, and used my own old watercolors and sharpies for the animals and the lettering. We ended up with invitations that Lilly adores as much as I do, and they were completely FREE!

Instead of smothering each little guy in an envelope, I decided to hand deliver most of these since they are almost all to family and friends that we see fairly regularly. A few will travel by mail to some special people that live far away, but other than that, we’re literally snail “mailing” them to their invitees. Lilly is super excited to “deliver attitudes for her dirfday party” as she likes to say. Not sure when invitations became attitudes but I’ll take it.

If you want to make your own little note cards here’s the process:

1. Buy the book (or not… you could totally just copy mine/make up your own!)
2. Draw each animal in pencil lightly on your note cards.
3. Draw over top of your animals in Sharpie marker, coloring in any areas you want completely black- this is all up to you. You can also use your watercolors to fill in the black shapes. Either one will look equally lovely.
4. Start painting!  My best advice is to start with your lightest colors first. Don’t use too much water. This will keep your paint from spreading too far outside your Sharpie lines. Add darker colors near lines where shadows would naturally fall (underneath arms, legs, tails- near neck folds and creases etc.)
5. Have fun! Want a pink elephant? Go for it. Always dreamed of a sea of rainbow whales? Make it happen. No rules here, peeps. Just fun.
6. Let them dry, then, if necessary, fold them all up again and put them underneath some heavy books for a few days to flatten them out. Watercolor has a tendency to make the paper curl but if will surely flatten with a little bit o’ old fashioned weight!

My wonderful and amazing knows-me-so-well-husband couldn’t have known how incredible the drawing tablet would be that he got me for Christmas… I was able to transfer and save every animal in a separate file on the computer to make other things for Lilly with them.  She’s in love with the parrot and the orangutan so I’m super excited that I don’t have to break her heart by mailing the only copies away. Now we can do whatever we want with them! (Not sure why that sounds so evil in my mind…we’ll be nice to them. Promise.)