Paint a dreamy galaxy bookmark with me | beginner friendly, step by step watercolor tutorial

Hello my friends and welcome back to my channel. Today we are going to be having a lot of fun and painting some little galaxy bookmarks. These bookmarks are perfect for beginners. If you are not super comfortable with watercolor, this is a really easy and really fun kind of composition to try out. I also love a little handmade holiday gift moment, so if you're looking for that, this would be a perfect little option for you. If you're giving someone a book as a gift, this would be great to tuck into the book, or just a little stocking stuffer would be perfect. Now a little shameless plug for me, if you are looking for a bookmark with slightly more intricate design, or you don't want to make one yourself, I do have a lot of bookmarks in my Etsy shop. Here are some of the designs, but there's a lot more in there, so make sure you check out my shop. It is linked in the description of this video. There are hand-painted ones, and then there are also printed bookmarks, which are great for little, you know, gifts for co-workers or friends, or you know, if you need a gift for a lot of people, these are great and not very expensive. So make sure you check out my shop, that would mean a lot to me. And without further ado, you will go ahead and get into the tutorial. So to make this bookmark, you need a few things. You need some watercolor paper. I cut my watercolor paper down to this size, it is two inches by six inches. I buy it in big sheets of paper, and then I just cut it down with a paper cutter. If you don't have a paper cutter, this is a great thing to invest in. You can get it from the art store for like ten dollars, and it just cuts paper nice and straight with a little blade, so highly recommend this. If you don't have that, you can use the X-Acto knife to cut your paper down to the correct size. If you want a bigger or smaller size, feel free, I just think this is a good kind of ratio. Sometimes I do have paper that's kind of on the edge of that big watercolor paper, so I've got this like natural edge, and I like how that looks too. You can see how this one has it. I do like to have the left side be the straight edge, so that when you put it into the book, you're not like folding up the deckled edge here, so this side goes into the spine of the book. That's just a little personal preference for me. So I'm just going to pick out one of these to work on today. We'll go with a straight edge one just for funsies. The other things you'll need are watercolor paints, of course. I am using my Winsor & Newton watercolor paints. Whatever you have will be totally fine. You will also need some brushes. I am using one big brush and one detail brush. So this one here is a 10 round, and this one here is a triple zero, I believe. A little tiny one. These are both linked in the description, and my Amazon storefront with all of my materials that I would recommend to you is also in my description. This is my gouache. I would recommend a white paint of some sort to paint these stars on. It doesn't have to be gouache. It can be acrylic. It could be a white gel pen. It could be whiteout. Whatever kind of white paint you have. It is not necessary specifically. You could just leave it with the watercolor and not include these stars, and it will still look like a galaxy. So if you don't have white paint, don't feel like you can't do this tutorial. You just won't be able to get those specific stars in there. Now the first thing we want to do, as usual, is add a little drop of water to each of our watercolor paints. We may not use all of these colors, but it's good to have them prepped just in case. And this just helps the paint to start to dissolve, and it really helps us to get the saturation of the paint that we want when we actually start painting. So I'm just using my brush, adding a little bit of water to each color, and we're going to let this soak for a minute. And while that soaks, we are going to tape down our bookmark. So I buy my masking tape from Blick. It is like three dollars a roll, and you can get it online and get it shipped to you, but you can also just go to the hardware store and get some masking tape. And this is what helps me get those nice straight borders around the outside. I also recommend taping your bookmark to a board of some kind. This is my board that I use. It is just 9 by 12, a little masonite board. You could use cardboard or an old book, anything you want. This way, when you have your bookmark taped down, you can pick it up and tilt it, and this helps you to blend that paint together instead of just having it taped down to the table and you can't move it. So I use my pencil and my ruler, and I just make a little mark at about the eighth of an inch mark here, and I do that on both the long sides here. And then with my masking tape, I just connect those two lines from top to bottom, and that way you get a perfectly straight border. It is measured out and it will look even all the way down. And I just use my thumbnail to really press that tape into the paper. And then once that tape is on, I do the same thing with the long sides. I like to do this in this order just so that I can still see those marks. If I put the tape down over the marks, it's a little harder to see. So I just do the marks right on top of the tape, and again press down with your thumbnail just to get that seal there. Okay, so now that our bookmark is taped down and these paints have been soaking for a couple minutes, we need to prep our colors. So the four colors that I'm going to use are Alizarin Crimson, which is this kind of cool-toned, closer to purple, red, and we want some really, really saturated colors. So I'm really getting in there with my brush and trying to get as saturated of a color as I can. So the paint should be pretty thick on your palette here. Okay, next color is going to be Ultramarine Blue. If you don't have these exact colors, just find ones that are similar, or if you'd like to go and just pick four kind of random colors or four of your favorite colors, it'll work. My next color is going to be this kind of teal, dark turquoise color. So I'm really going to get in there with my brush, grab some of that. There we go. And then for our background color, we are going to use Payne's Gray. If you just have black in your palette, that's okay. Payne's Gray is just a little bit lighter and it's more blue-toned. So if you mix black and blue together, you'd get a pretty similar color to Payne's Gray. And that's what I'm going to use for kind of the background. We are going to do a wet-on-wet technique for this bookmark here. So that means we are going to put a layer of water down on this entire piece of paper. And then we are going to add in that watercolor paint kind of in the same order that we put it onto our palette. So we have the red, the blue, the teal, and the Payne's Gray. We're going to kind of do it in that order, and you'll see what I mean. So I'm going to take my brush, take some water from my cup, and spread it out on this piece of paper. You want a good layer of water. If you live somewhere with a dry climate, this will dry faster. If it is humid where you are, it'll dry slower. Since it's raining here, this is going to dry pretty slow because it's humid. So I will have a little bit more time to work on it. So just keep that in mind. So nice even layer. Then I'm going to immediately go into my red, and I'm going to figure out the kind of direction I want the galaxy to go in. I would recommend not straight up and down. I'd recommend just a little bit of a diagonal. So I'm going to start the red kind of right here and just work it up in this diagonal shape that we want. Look at how much that spreads out. That's so fun. Okay, once I've done that, I'm going to rinse off my brush, quickly transition to my blue, ultramarine blue. Do the same thing, just kind of dot that into the direction of our galaxy here. Don't think about it too much, just kind of put it in there. I'm going to start moving that kind of outward, away from the red there. All right, and then I'm going to go into my aqua green, and we're going to work that out towards the edges. We're going to try not to mix that too much with the red, just because it'll make kind of a gross color. So we have the blue there as a buffer between the green and the red. Bring that all the way down, dot that in a few places. Okay, now with this, we are going to pick up our paper. So you remember how I told you to tape it down to a board? We are going to pick up our paper and just slowly rotate it in different directions. And if you get an area where you're getting a lot of paint pooling, I'm just going to take the corner of my paper towel, pick up some of that extra paint, and then keep rotating. This will just help those colors blend together nicely. It's easier to blend them this way than it is with a brush. It just blends a lot smoother. But we don't want it to blend all the way together. You still want to be able to see the colors individually. So once you're happy with kind of how it's blended together, which I am now, I'm just going to lay it flat and that will quit that blending. Okay, now we're still working on this while it's wet, so don't take too long with that tilting and blending. I'm going to go straight into my Payne's Gray, so that really dark color, and I'm going to start kind of carving out where I want this galaxy to be. So I'm going to start from the outside and just start dropping in this Payne's Gray, again using that dotting motion. And anywhere that I'm not putting this paint is going to be lighter, and that's going to be kind of our galaxy. So I'm just kind of figuring out where that's going to go, dotting that paint in there. And you can see we're starting to get a little bit more of a galaxy here. Oh my god, it is pouring. I'm going to leave a little bit down here, just a little bit lighter, so that we have room to add our mountain range at the end. So don't take this all the way down to the bottom if you haven't already. Okay, now I'm going to throw a little bit of that Payne's Gray into the galaxy here. We want it to be not too wide. All right, so now that we've done this, we can do another little tilt to blend a little bit. Once it kind of starts to dry though, this will have a little bit less efficiency, but we're still getting a little bit of a blend there. Okay, and now we're just going to use our brush and kind of go back and forth between those colors and refine our galaxy here. So I'm noticing I don't really have any aqua teal in the galaxy, so I'm going to go back and grab a little bit of that and just drop it in here a little bit. More dots. So if there's a color that you see that you don't have kind of in the galaxy there, you can just go back and add it. And then we can use a completely dry brush. So I'm going to dry off my brush completely, squeeze it with my paper towel, and we can use that to start adding some little highlights here. And I like to just do this lightly and just do some little kind of dots and swishes with my brush. Once it stops picking up paint, just dry it off again. And this is how we're going to really define where that galaxy is. So I'm adding those light spots, taking away that paint, just really gently with my brush, going all the way up to where the galaxy goes off the page there. Make sure to make kind of an uneven edge around there too. We don't want just like a straight line of light there. So just continuing to kind of pick up paint in the very center to find where that galaxy is going to be. And then you can just go back and forth between that technique and adding paint. And you can just start to add some little kind of details. And I can just start to add some like little slightly more defined textures in there. Just again, continuing to use that dotting motion. And you're just going to go back and forth between these textures until you're happy with it, or until the painting has started to dry, in which case you need to just kind of let it dry. Once the paper starts to dry, you won't really be able to add too much more. So just keep that in mind. I can go back into my ultramarine blue, maybe add a little bit of that in here. And if you find a spot where you're happy with it, just leave it be. Let it dry. Okay, and I think that spot for me is going to be right now. So I'm going to let this dry all the way. I use a hairdryer to speed up that drying time, so feel free to do the same. And we will meet back here and start adding some more detail. Alright, so now that our galaxy is all dry, it looks a little bit of a mess right now, but we're going to dig it out of the ugly stage. Don't worry. We are going to take some of that Payne's Gray, so same dark color that you used for the outside of the galaxy. Get some pretty strong paint going on your palette there, and then we're just going to paint in a mountain range here. I like to go right where it starts to get a little bit lighter here. Remember, we didn't paint all the way to the bottom, and that just helps it stand out a little bit. So I'm just going to use kind of the edge of my brush and create just a jagged little mountain range there. Feel free to be creative with that. Make it look however you like it to look, and then we will just fill in everything underneath that mountain range with that Payne's Gray. Alright, and we're going to let this dry completely. Now something I want to edit about my galaxy here is that you've kind of lost my mountain range in this section here. It's too dark and the contrast isn't there, and so if you have any situations like that, what you can do is take a slightly smaller damp brush. So I put it in my water and then I'm just cleaning it off on my paper towel, and you're just going to use this and just do some little swirls where you want that color to be lighter. A few seconds, and then dab it with a paper towel, and you can see how that immediately lightens that up. And you can do this wherever on your galaxy, so if you have any spots that need a little bit more texture and that are a little too dark, just take that damp brush, swirl it, and then dab it with a paper towel, and you'll get that really nice texture there. And you can paint back over it too, you don't have to leave it like this. If you want to do another layer of color over it, you can. It just helps to kind of lighten things up a little bit. And the longer you do it, the lighter that will be, and so if you just do it for a couple seconds, it won't change very much, but if you do it for several seconds, it will change a lot. So just keep that in mind, that is always an option that you have. You can do that to add more highlights in the middle here if you want to, something like that. And then if you wanted a little bit more color, you could paint over it. I'm using that teal color, painting over it, and then that changes the highlight to that color. You can blend that out with a dry brush. So there's lots of options for you. You don't have to be done with that galaxy right now, and you know, there's things that you can do to kind of edit this as you're painting, if you so choose. So I'm just going to lighten this up just a little bit more down here, and then once I dry it all the way, I'm going to repaint that mountain range, and it will stand out a little bit better. And there we go. So now we can see that stands out a little bit better, and I can see that mountain range much better. Once you are completely happy with how the watercolor part looks, you can move on to adding stars, if you so choose. So I'm going to use gouache. This is my gouache from M. Graham. I got it from Amazon. Just remember that if you are not happy with the watercolor part of this, keep editing doing that technique that I just taught you, because once you add the stars, you will not be able to change the watercolor underneath. So just be super happy with that before you move on, or just move on. You don't have to be super happy with it. And then grab whatever white paint you're going to use. So I'm just going to put a little bit of this onto my palette here, just a little dab. And then I am switching over to my little tiny detail brush, teeny tiny. I would recommend the smallest brush that you have for this technique here. And what I would recommend for the stars, and you can kind of see on my finished bookmark here, is that we concentrate them mostly on the galaxy, so mostly in the light part. That's kind of where the Milky Way would be, and it would have more stars. But you do make sure to include stars around the outside too. And the biggest thing that I would recommend is varying the sizes of the stars. So lots of little teeny tiny, like barely there stars, and then a few bigger, kind of more prominent stars. Don't make them all the same size. Try not to cluster them in any sort of like pattern. Try and make it the most random that you can. So I'm just going to get some wash on my paintbrush here, and I'm going to start in the center. And it helps to kind of do this quickly, as long as you can make good dots quickly. And I'm just going to kind of move my hand around randomly to start. And because I'm moving my hand around randomly, I will get a bit of a variation in the size of those stars, but I can also purposefully kind of press down and make a bigger one, or just really lightly touch the paper and make some smaller ones. So you have control over that. I like to make little clusters here, especially in the lighter areas of the galaxy. They can be overlapping. And this part can be a little bit time consuming, but I find it to be pretty relaxing, actually. Get into the zen. When you're adding stars to a piece, here's my philosophy. You either add a few, or you add a ton. There's kind of an awkward spot in the middle there where you haven't filled up the entire page, where it just kind of looks awkward. So if you want to add stars, you either add just a couple in the composition, or you spend 10 minutes on it and you add a lot of stars. I would recommend not trying for the middle there. So we're just gonna go for a lot of stars, because why not? And I'm just going to work toward the outside here, again spreading out those clusters of stars as we work toward the outside. Make sure you get all the way to the edge here, the tape line. And go all the way down to your mountain range as well. So I've skipped ahead just a little bit, so you didn't have to watch me painting a thousand dots. But I have kind of added all of the tiny tiny dots, so I'm just going to go in and strategically add some larger ones, just where I think the painting kind of needs them. And I'm just kind of carefully pressing down with my brush to create those larger circles. They don't have to be perfect circles, and if you spend time trying to make them perfect circles, you'll eventually make them too big. So just go with whatever kind of slightly irregular shape it turns out as, it's okay. All right, and I think I am pretty happy with the amount of stars on here. And when you are too, you can just go ahead and call it good. Now I can take off the tape. I've never had a problem with my tape ripping my paper with this combination, but if you do use a hairdryer to heat up that tape just a little bit before you pull it, that really helps to kind of release the glue. And this is the step that really just brings it all together. I love a border, it really just helps to make it look professional and polished. And then some last little cleanup things. You'll have some pencil marks on here from where we put the marks down for the tape. So I just use a kneaded eraser. You can use whatever regular eraser you have. That's going to bounce my camera, but you get the idea. I'm just erasing those pencil marks so that it's cleaned up there. And then if you want to add like a little note or, you know, your signature or anything like that, I like to do that on the back. You can make it personalized if you happen to be giving it as a bookmark. I hope you enjoyed painting this along with me. A couple quick notes about sealing the bookmarks, because I always get questions. Generally with watercolor, you do not need to seal the painting. As long as the person handles them, you know, not super carefully, but just like not bending them or anything, they will last forever just kind of in the pages of the book like this. And the paint will not rub off as long as you give it adequate time to dry, meaning like an hour or two. If you really, really want to seal it, you can get some sprayable sealer from the art store. That can help, but I really don't think it has that much of an effect. And watercolor is pretty permanent once it's on the paper. So that is up to you. I usually don't seal mine, but if you want to, that is up to you. Otherwise, please do let me know in the comments if you give this a try. I would love to hear how it went for you. Leave a like and a comment and make sure you subscribe. That helps me out a lot. And make sure you check out my Etsy shop and stuff for all of holiday gift shopping. If you'd like something that I paint to give as a gift this holiday season, that would mean a lot to me. Otherwise, I will see you in the next video. Thanks for watching.