DreaDIYs -- Watercolour World Map

Recently, a very important event took place. LILING GOT OLDERRRRRRRR~ 

♥ HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILING ♥

For those who've read my previous entries, you'd know that Liling is a very special happy jelly that plopped into my life only 3 years ago, and her presence has since become an immovable jelly rock. In case you couldn't tell, I mean that in the best possible way. I love my jelly. CUE JELLY DANCE! (~*v*)~  (~*v*)~

tadaaaa~ look at that smile!
Above: Merryl
L-R: Jen, LILING, Me

For her birthday this year, we FINALLY managed to surprise her successfully, after years of trying. \o/ WE DID IT! It took 3 years and even more tries, but we did it! Other than a meal, I also wanted to give her something extra special, so I went the DIY route, especially since I've been feeling rather crafty. Heh heh heh... What i came up with at the end was a watercolour world map! Liling really enjoys travelling, but I didn't want to just get her a plain old map. In fact, she already has one of those cool scratch maps, where you scratch of places where you've been to, and the colour below the gold scratch layer varies. Mine was meant to be more of an ornamental piece. Like those boards with inspirational quotes on 'em in those pinterest rooms? This map has a personal touch, okay. I decided on the quote "the joy is in the journey" after pestering Jen a TONNE. So... ... JJA JJANGGGG!

check out that watercolour ombre -proud-

The space/small markings at the bottom left (depending on how good your vision is) are indications for her to put a nice Polaroid of the two of us (#^u^#) It's definitely not perfect, and there definitely are mistakes, but I'm still pretty proud of it! First time working with watercolours outside of primary school art class, so I enlisted Joey's help (she's one of my best friends from secondary school, seriously artsy and had a watercolour phase). Here's how we did it! ;D

*disclaimer: Not really to scale. If you're great at geography, be prepared to cough up a little blood. You have been warned.*

STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS

MATERIALS

Photo Frame -- unless you don't want to frame it. I used a standing one, not a hanging one.

Printed out world map -- get a pic from Google images, and scale it down to the size you want.

Watercolour paper -- I stole a page from Joey.

Watercolours/cups of water/brushes -- Again, stolen from Joey.

Markers -- If you wish to outline the map in ink and for any words/quotes.

Scissors/pencils/erasers -- To trace out the map onto watercolour paper.

A HELL LOTTA PATIENCE

#1

Make sure your map fits within the area of the frame. Remember to leave allowance for the sides of the frame. Don't want to offend anyone by cutting off their beloved country. Then cut out each chunk of land, and trace them out on the watercolour paper before you lose the tiny cut out pieces. I did mine by continents.

this is the one I used (I think)

Tip: Try to make your map as huge as possible. Seriously. And don't worry thaaat much about accuracy, I free handed some parts and left out some islands because they were just too much work. (Sorry Indonesia...) Just include what's important. Eg. The map I printed out had so many tiny islands, but not Singapore. So I drew it in. I don't care if it's not to scale, or if its a negligible dot, IT WILL BE THERE.

#2

Once you've got your general map down, go back in with the reference picture to check for any glaring mistakes and correct them. You can't really erase pencil marks after painting without taking the paint of and stripping the paper too, so this is important!

Tip: I wouldn't outline it too darkly, because the watercolours will bleed out and will most probably go out of the lines, forcing you to reshape the geographical boundaries of the countries like you're Genghis Khan.

#3

It was my first time painting like this too, so pardon the clumsy explanation... First, decide on your colour scheme, and in what order/direction the ombre would go.

7+ hours later... thanks again, Joey ♥

The colours are kinda washed out in the picture, but as (I hope) you can see, we did a vertical ombre. The colours went from cool to warm: blue > purple > pink > red > orange > yellow!

clearer pic of the colours~

#4

Basically, take your watercolour paper and dampen small sections at a time.

Type I: If you like the effect of the paint spreading out, just dot small drops of paint onto the wet paper and watch it diffuse. SCIENCE. However, if your paper isn't wet enough, or you use too much paint, you end up with polka dots, basically.

Type II: Just paint it normally, pushing the paint to where you want it to go. Same with the above, too little water and/or too much paint is bad, only you get streaks/stripes instead of dots.

Note: If you use too much water the paper WILL crinkle a little. You may also get some blotches of very pale colour. Going over it again will make the colour darker, but the water marks and crinkling will remain, which is what happened to Russia...

sorry... /:

See the folds of the paper? My frame is actually already exerting some pressure on the paper to keep it flatter... Moral of the story? Be careful and don't make mistakes. If you do, just start printing, cutting, tracing and colouring all over again. No pressure or anything. That was pretty much my thought process during the entire painting session. That and "My neck/shoulders/back ache".

#5

Darken the outlines and add any wordings you may want on your map. As mentioned earlier, I left a gap at the bottom left for a Polaroid picture. DONE!

my masterpiece, in all it's (limited) glory

I bought these wooden letters from Spotlight, but was unsure if I should use them...

To Liling, blessed birthday, lovie! EYE LUBB CHOO MANY MANY. -huuuug- I'm sorry this post basically showed you what was wrong with the map, which will probably bother you for years to come... You are gonna keep this for at least that long, aren't you? Anyhoo, if you ever doubt my friendship, just look at the stupid super awesome completely perfectly drawn beautiful work of art that is this map.

Signing off throwing sunshine, sparkles and sakura petals at Liling,

Andrea (♥v♥)