Creating watercolor flowers in your Bible with Q-tips is a fun and easy way to express Scripture in a meaningful way. You can use any type of watercolor palette that you have on hand, just be sure to gesso the page if you’ll be using a lot of water or a medium that bleeds through. Supplies are below as well as our ministry affiliate links if you’d like to support us with your purchase.

The supplies you need include:

• Art Basic Gesso – http://amzn.to/2urledp
• Makeup sponge
• Q-tips
• Kuretake water color – http://amzn.to/2ffewW7
• Rubber band
• Bible

To learn more about the supplies we recommend for Bible journaling, click here.

Step One – Apply the Gesso

The first thing that you’ll want to do is apply two thin coats of gesso across the Bible journaling page that you will be water coloring. Apply the first coat of gesso and let it dry. You can also use a heat tool to speed up the process. Once the first coat of gesso is dry, apply the second coat and let it dry too.

Step Two: Prepare the Q-tip Brushes

To make the Q-tip brushes, grab about five q-tips in your hand. Tie a rubber band around both ends of the Q-tips. That gives you one Q-tip brush with two ends. You may want to make a total three Q-tips brushes so that you can use multiple colors without mixing the paint and making mud.

Step 3: Activate Your Watercolors

To activate your water colors, you’ll need to get the watercolor cake palette slightly wet. I often use my Q-tips to do this. Place the Q-tip brush in clean water and brush it lightly across the watercolor to activate it.

Step 4: Create Watercolor Flowers

Using your Q-tips, load the brush with water color by placing them in the watercolor cake pallet. Make sure that you don’t have to much water on your Q-tips. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a blob instead of a bunch of little dots. Tap your Q-tips onto your Bible page and create the design of your choosing. In this example, I’m creating flowers by starting in the middle or at the bottom of the flower and moving the dots outward to create the flower.

Step 4: Add Details

Once you have the basic shape of your watercolor flowers, you’ll want to add details like shading, pedals, stems, and leaves. To add shading, choose a slightly darker color than the one you started with. Place dots onto the page to create depth in your flower or other images. Use one Q-tip to make a stem as well as the leaves.

You may even want to add petals that are falling to the ground and you can do this by placing dots from the flower towards the grass.

To make the grass, use one Q-tip starting from the base of your grass and lift the Q-tip up as you move the watercolor up the page.

Continue the process until you’re satisfied with your design. When you watercolor flowers with Q-tips you can create a nice Monet-like design without Monet-like prices! I’d love to see what you make when you watercolor with Q-tips. Let me know what you think in the comments below!