Watercolor Tutorial | Leaning In - Teach Me to Fly

Greetings Beloved Illustrated Faith Family!

So in 2017, I started a new journaling Bible. My first entry was my inspirational word for the year and this will be my second journaling entry.

It’s hard to start a new journaling Bible. The pages seem so perfect and new. There is a feeling you might ruin the new treasure. You miss all the worn goodness, bent pages, colorful tabs, and ribbon bookmarks. The old journaling Bible was comfortable, familiar, well loved, and known.

But this is how our Lord works. He is the Master of new beginnings, blank slates, and fresh starts. I am so grateful. Revelation 21:5 ESV reads,

And He who is seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also He said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

So we begin a new year, a new journey; and I love how in this scripture, God also says, “write these words down.” Hmmmm… sounds like “journal” those words. Don’t you just love Him? So I thought, “what should my second entry be?” It felt like it should be a statement of some kind, a declaration of new beginnings. And without hesitation, I knew I needed to document words God whispered in my heart that I still haven’t dared to believe.

Has God ever whispered something in a place of such fragileness that you doubted even He could make it come true?

This past fall, I had several times when I felt so weak and broken I doubted that God could use me at all. It was during one of those low moments God whispered, “you are going to fly Amy” and I cried. How could I fly when my wings felt broken?

Oh to fly…I love to imagine the feeling when I am rollerblading. The wind on my face and the strength and speed of movement. My favorite flying creatures are the large birds, especially eagles and hawks. They stretch out their wings and let the power of the wind carry them. Some birds even seek storm winds and dance in the strong currents. All I could think was,

Yes Lord. Please teach me to fly in the winds of adversity, weakness, and struggle. Yes Lord, help me to trust you so much that when storms come, I just stretch out my wings in trust and soar.

And I thought of Isaiah 40:31,

but they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Let’s journal truth friends.

I really wanted to emphasize the wings. A sweet friend, Tara Eiken, posted these words a few nights ago, “believe in yourself, be brave, use your wings…” so I decided to paint some undefined butterfly wings as a symbol of God giving me new wings to fly.

I made some puddles of color on my white board.

I wanted the butterfly to be more of an impression, not detailed. So I started with my #8 round brush and sketched out a few lines with clear water.

I did this to place the image and to give the color a bit of a “road” to travel on. Remember watercolor moves where water is and stops at the dry edges. You can see more on using this technique here: watercolor tutorial. I then started adding color by gently stroking the light green down onto the clear water butterfly shape with the tip of my brush. The green in our Illustrated Faith pallet is my favorite of all time. It’s so fresh and bright.

I am continuing to repeat the shape pattern of the butterfly with loose strokes, letting the color play in the clear water already down on the page.

Once I have a base of light green. I load my brush with teal.

And repeat the pattern of the wing shapes, letting the teal mix with the green and move within the boundaries of my clear water lines.

A quick dry with my Ranger Heat Tool.

I wanted lots of movement in these wings so I went back in using the tip of my #8 brush to add some more clearly defined lines in the same shape pattern. This time I am painting on a dry surface and loading my brush from the pallet to get pure pigment.

I love the whimsical, dream like effect of no detail.

Now to add words. I used my favorite combo, Illustrated Faith Bella Blvd stickers and handwriting.

A tab. I have organized all of my tabs and small paper pieces in two adorable bowls from DaySpring. I keep these on my desk. One has all the warm colors – red, orange, yellow and the other bowl has the cool colors.

How to find the right tab? Well, you could gingerly sort through them or just dump them out (my preferred method – LOL).

I added a tab with a bit of Illustrated Faith Bella Blvd washi sticker in the perfect color underneath.

I decided not to add my usual scribble details to the image of the butterfly because I wanted to retain the dreamy image of becoming. But I needed scribble somewhere, so I added it to my lettering. It’s been one of my favorite lettering techniques for a while.

Next up… date stamp. One of the things I want to be better at using this year. Do you have anything you want to add to your pages this year?

Next I underline my scripture. I like to use my Illustrated Faith paint card as a guide when I want straight lines.

And last, I wanted a funky paperclip with lots of personality. I gathered some string.

Cut whatever length you want. Just make it long enough that you can work with it. Fold the strands in half and thread them through the top of the paperclip.