Floral Watercolor Monogram

Sharing this simple beginner watercolor floral monogram tutorial to brighten up your home for spring! This easy watercolour tutorial doesn’t mix any colours and can be painted in one sitting.

Today I’m excited to be sharing a simple water-colour tutorial that you can make in an afternoon without any skills… this floral watercolor monogram! Watercolor is such a relaxing and calming activity that takes only a few supplies and if you’ve clicked through to this tutorial, I’m going to guess that you might have everything it takes to make this yourself!

I actually first started making these floral watercolor monograms a few years ago with the intention of doing the whole alphabet, then scanning them in to sell them. I made about 13 of them then forgot about them until recently! I decided to make a little tutorial for you guys to share how easy and how calming they are to create one for yourself- plus they’re so beautiful for your home decor. 

Alright, let’s see the how-to for this floral watercolor monogram!

For this project, I used multimedia paper instead of water color paper- it’s generally more affordable and I had it on hand. I used my kuretaki pallet– but any watercolours will do. I almost always choose to use a round brush– size 2 or 3 are my go-tos. To mix solid watercolour pallets into beautiful transparent paint like we love, I suggest having a pallet or a plate where you can add water to your paint then drop it onto the pallet to get the perfect wash. You can see how I do that in the video. 

I chose all my colours by using a scrap piece of paper and then got started!

The first thing you’ll need to do is trace out your outline. I just freehanded a serif capital letter, you could pick a font you love and trace that out. Make sure to draw it in pencil super lightly- you can erase pencil through watercolor but you can’t get rid of an indent from pressing too hard. 

Next, I started adding some longer vines of green leaves to the watercolor monogram- those take up most of the space. What’s great about this design is you don’t need to mix any colours. I start by painting them pretty light, then can drop in more colour to the WET painted area if I’d like to have some variation.  

After some long vines of leaves, add in the other big things. I chose to keep each colour of paint to one style of flower. I made roses with the bright pink, little buttercups (?) with the orange and cornflowers with the blue. Add in the big ones and step back often to check in if the colours are balanced over your design.

Then… you just keep adding. Go back and fill in all the gaps with leaves. I love the look when the majority of space is filled with the green (neutral in this case). When you think it’s full, I go back in and add little dots of colour. The fuller it is, the clearer the monogram will be to recognize.

Let it dry completely, then you can erase your outline. Even through the watercolor (as long as it’s dry!). then you can frame it up, gift it, or pop it up on your shelf as decor. It’s such a therapeutic activity, a simple watercolor monogram like this- no mixing of colours to worry about… Even if you mess up on a flower and drop extra water (I did, can you find it?)… the overall design really isn’t affected. Just have fun with it!

As always, if this floral watercolor monogram tutorial inspires you to get creating- I’d love to see it! Shoot me an email colleen@lemonthistle.com or on social @colleenpastoor. Looking for more really simple watercolour tutorials? Find mine here!