Welcome to Lesson 3 of the Creative Prayer Book. So far, I’ve built a couple of initial layers using watercolor, pencil, and collage, and I’ve begun quite a number of pages in my small Stillman & Birn Alpha Series softcover journal.
Now I want to focus on creating some structure and texture using watercolor pencil, as a way to add more layers. I’m a big fan of using a variety of materials to create rich layered pages, and one of my favorite materials to use for this is watercolor pencil. The pencil gives me a lot of control, but with a little water, I get some nice painterly effects. Watercolor crayons can be used as well, and act in a similar manner.
Structure
I want to use the watercolor pencil in two main ways in my little book. The first is to create some structure using some simple geometric shapes — mostly squares and rectangles. Most people might think to color or shade in the shape, but I like to shade around the shape. This creates a “window” effect when I paint plain water over the pencil. I can use this technique on top of pages that already have something on them, but I could easily use the technique to start new pages. I could use watercolor paint or a water-based marker to activate the watercolor pencil, but I use them mostly use plain water. Feel free to experiment and explore the pencil.
Texture
The second way that I use the pencil is to create textures and patterns on top of my pages. I can trace stencils and items to create patterns, and I can use marks, dashes, dots, and more to create textures. Again I use water to activate the pencil, but I spread the water all over the marks to make them blend into the page.
As I work with the watercolor pencil, I also begin to think about the content that I want to include in my book. I’m envisioning my book as one of creative affirmations — words, phrases, and quotes that will be reminders and motivators for my creative journey.
I hope that you will experiment with watercolor pencils, and begin to think about the content, the prayers, the affirmations, the words that you want to include.
Happy creating!