Traveling with Watercolors and Stencils

I love to travel! Sometimes I even get to travel for work. Whenever I go on vacations, long trips or short I always end up bringing way to many art supplies with me. I can’t help it, especially if I am going to be gone for a week or more I feel like I might want to paint or draw or do some mixed media work or, or, or, the list goes on and on. When I drive to my location I allow myself to load up but when flying especially internationally I try to keep things to the bare minimum. I worry about loosing my supplies and lugging them through airports and the possibilities of various temperatures affecting them.

When I traveled recently to the Bahamas for work I decided I would take only watercolors, a few stencils, some colored pencils, a pad of watercolor paper and the small pencil case with various ink pens, pencils and a washi tape that I carry everyday. I thought the limited supplies would be a fun challenge and it was! I ended up with a finished piece I might not have created if I had access to my typical box of everything! 🙂 I included a few pictures of my recent trip so you can see the inspiration for my finished piece.

Bahamas Travel Inspiration Photos

Bahamas Travel Inspiration Photos

I took progress shots of my watercolor piece to share but first here is a shot of the supplies I used.

Art supplies: watercolors, brushes, stencil TCW594, Faber Castell Marker

Art supplies: watercolors, various brushes, stencil TCW594, Faber Castell Marker and a mechanical pencil

I started off by using my washi tape to create a square area for my painting. By doing this I will have a clean edge on my finished piece for the hand letting I will add at the end. This also helps it look more refined but soft edges can be nice as well, this is just a personal preference.

Washi tape square tapped off to start

Washi tape square tapped off to start

Next I looked at my source photos and sketched in the buildings, waterway, tiny boats and palm trees. I selected a space in the sky for the fish (stencil TCW594) and used a XS Faber Castel to ink in those lines.

Pencil sketch from my photo inspiration

Pencil sketch from my photo inspiration

Next I put down my watercolors, I laid each color down quickly over a wet page to allow the colors to bleed together a bit. I love the little places where the colors come together in an unexpected way. These unexpected places add personality and a bit of quirkiness to the piece.

Watercolor over my pencil and ink sketch

Watercolor over my pencil and ink sketch

After the watercolor was completely dry I used my Faber Castell marker to ink in some details and define the spaces around the buildings, palm trees, windows etc. This adds contrast to the piece and helps pop the shapes out of the background a bit.

Ink Details added after watercolor was dry

Ink Details added after watercolor was dry

Next I used my Caran D’Ache Prismalo watercolor pencils to add some depth and dimension of color to the fish, buildings, grass and sky areas. I have included a close up detail shot below as well.

Colored pencil added over watercolor

Colored pencil added over watercolor

Close up detail shot of the buildings and colored pencil detailing.

Close up detail shot of the buildings and colored pencil detailing.

To finish this piece I carefully removed the Washi tape by pulling from the corner of the artwork up away from the edges. I then cleaned up any additional pencil lines and added any extra details with ink and colored pencil. Once I felt the piece looked done and all of the details were added I lightly penciled in the hand lettering at the bottom so I could work out the spacing and the letter types I wanted to use. I then inked my letters using my Faber Castell marker and added a bit of extra flare to the word fish. I then erased the pencil marks and the piece was finished!

The Whole Town Dreamed of Fish by Tori Weyers

The Whole Town Dreamed of Fish by Tori Weyers

This was a really fun and whimsical piece to create and it would work well as a card or as a framed piece of art. I hope you enjoyed my travel inspired piece. Be sure to share your creations on The Crafter’s Workshop Facebook page or by tagging The Crafter’s Workshop on InstagramTwitter or Pinterest! Until next time, keep creating! ?

The Crafter’s Workshop provided me with some product to create this project. This post also contains affiliate links. The opinions I share are solely my own.

Tori Weyers
The Crafter’s Workshop Design Team Member

4 thoughts on “Traveling with Watercolors and Stencils

  1. Oh Tori I NEED that washi tape! lol. I love your artwork and your imagination is fantastic! Thank you for sharing, this really brightened my day xx

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