When it comes to art supplies I admit to being a bit of a hoarder.  You never know when something will come in handy.  So when a printer offered me 500 small scraps of leftover watercolor paper, I gladly took them.   They sat on a shelf for a while until it dawned on me that the small sheets could  be a good way to introduce simple ink and watercolor techniques to one of my classes.   Because the pieces are quite small, 4 x 6 inches, it’s pretty hard to get carried away with detail.   We did some floral arrangements and I rather enjoyed the simplicity of the basic outline and wash.  Here’s a couple of my demos.

Recently I was invited to do an art demonstration. The goal was to do something easy that others could try themselves.  I thought it might be fun to do more with these flowers. Using a colorful bouquet of various types of flowers as my inspiration, I drew individual stems as well as arrangements.   Because I rarely draw flowers or still life, this was a nice change of pace.

Now I have a pile of mini watercolors, what should I do with them?  Make cards!  Selecting some brightly colored paper,  I glued the watercolors on top, and presto!  Lovely, one of a kind cards.  No more last minute runs to the card shop, I now have a supply of cards for any occasion.  You just never know what will come of a few scraps of paper.