Watercoloring a Light Strand

 This week Linda has shared with us this tutorial on Glowing Christmas lights from Nianiani found here on YouTube. 

I watched the video and then just winged it sketching a strand across this cotton sketch book ( Windsor & Newton 5X7 ) I did not draw the long center lines as I had forgotten that part by the time I went to sketch my strand. I did clean up stray lead with an eraser. 

I didn't really remember much about the video by this point so, I did just pick 5 colors and this is first layer of paint.

So, after that dried I did add more paint trying for some depth in the bulbs.

And this was my finished look at the strand, the shadows are on, the line was painted the white bleed proof was added to the bulbs and strand. I think this may have been a little easier to do if I had sketched them larger. and I do own lots of say critters holding light strands as Christmas rubber stamps but, those the lights are tiny in the scene so, taking what I learned from this exercise it does make me want to try to shade those bulbs for some depth in the future. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here at Splitcoaststampers. Thanks for stopping by.