Happy Mail Watercolor Postcard

I have been spending extra time in the studio lately catching up on projects and starting new challenges. I also have gotten lots of mail from friends and family over the holiday and I love to send happy mail back whenever I can so when I saw the BRAND NEW stencil TCW683 Folk Art Moths I thought it would be perfect for a happy mail postcard, especially since the delicate flowers and butterflies of the summer seem so far away.

Project Supplies

Project Supplies

For this project I am using my Daniel Smith Watercolors. I bought a set of empty half pans and filled each one with my self selected tube watercolors to make my own favorite selection of colors set. You can use any type of watercolor for this process through. I also love my Windsor and Newton travel set so anything you have should work just fine!

To start I created a watercolor background on the postcard by using a large #10 brush and covering the entire card with water. I then loaded up my brush with color and spread the color into the water. I choose 3 colors for my background 2 cool blue and green analogous colors (next to each other on the color wheel) and one warm color.

creating a watercolor background with color

creating a watercolor background with color

Once my background dried completely (I used a a hair dryer to move things along) I lined up my stencil to where I wanted to place my “butterfly” on the postcard.

Stencil TCW683 Placement

Stencil TCW683 Folk Art Moths Placement

You can either paint directly through the stencil as shown above or you can use a pencil and very lightly trace out your image so you can remove the stencil and paint in between your lines as shown below.

Use a pencil to lightly outline your image

Use a pencil to lightly outline your image

Once you decide which way you would like to apply watercolor you can just work though the process of selecting colors and painting your image. I selected a Turquoise color to start with and painted all of the pieces I wanted in this color and then let it dry before moving onto the next color.

Turquoise and Orange colors together create interest

Turquoise and Orange colors together create interest

I selected orange next because I liked the contrast and interest that a warm and cool color have together and I thought it would be a nice contrast to the background as well.

I continued this process of selecting colors and filling in the image until my “butterfly” was complete. I selected Indigo and Magenta as my last 2 colors. You can see the final watercolor image below it has balance and pops off the background nicely. Since watercolor is a transparent medium there is some color shift since there is light to dark variation in the background, I like the interest this adds to the piece.

Finished Watercolor Butterfly

Finished Watercolor Butterfly

To finish up my happy mail postcard I used a Faber Castell S (Small) tip pen to add some dots and lines to the finished “butterfly” and also some hand lettered quotes and some doodled stars and circles.

The quotes I selected are below:

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough” – Rabindranath Tagore

“Butterflies are self propelled flowers” – R.H. Heinlein

Finished Postcard by Tori Weyers

Finished Postcard by Tori Weyers

Oh I can’t wait to drop this postcard in the mail and send a little creative joy “flying” to a friend! I would love to see how you use stencils in your happy mail or in other projects so be sure to share your creations or thoughts on The Crafter’s Workshop Facebook page or by tagging The Crafter’s Workshop on InstagramTwitter or Pinterest! Also tag me @Drawriot if you share on Instagram! 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

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