Letter W and Winterberries

Letter W and Winterberries  

Letter W and Winterberries are part of a watercolor and ink study in letter styles and object styles beginning with that letter. Each study will focus on one letter and one object beginning with that letter in order to collect and practice various artistic styles and alphabets.

As I looked back through my notes from this study, Letter W has always been winterberries. Some of the other letters changed as time passed or were randomly selected from a large group of options. Not W.

I love winterberries! They add pizzazz to winter, a pop of color to a dull, sleeping landscape. Though, birds have devoured them by January. I know because I went out to look for some for a picture to add to this post. I might have seen one sad little berry forgotten on its branch. Not the oodles of berries I found in early December.

We grow two kinds of winterberries. One planted by nature in our hedgerow, growing spindly branches with small orange-red berries.

The other variety planted by me in our flowerbeds growing bunches of large, deep red berries on straight branches. At least they grow that way at the local tree farm. Here, they die one by one, leaving me disappointed and confused at the cause. I just want them to grow!

Both varieties are gorgeous for decoration at Christmas time and will dry inside to show their color throughout the winter.

Here is what I learned as I looked at Letter W and Winterberries with watercolor and ink.

Dip Pen Letter W Styles

• Letter W shows a lot of possibility for styles. I’d like to develop a few styles that I go to again and again. Elegant, whimsy, no frills, etc. with a few additional variations.
• I don’t often smudge, but I did here on style 8. I decided it’s fine to be real about it.
• Favorites: 1, 6, 8 (ignore the smudge), 11, 16, 19.
• My sons and husband usually choose styles 4, 5, 10, 14, and 18. Which styles are you?
• Least favorite: more and more style 15 doesn’t agree with me.

Watercolor and Ink Letter W Styles

• This was the letter for blobs. Sorry about that. Because this study is about learning, I let them alone in spite of the irritation. I will likely redo the styles I keep.
• Aside from that, letter W in watercolor and ink look great! The styles are consistent and the shapes are interesting.
• I love the whimsy mermaid W, and the originality of the turquoise W.
• But I can’t choose a favorite, and my least favorite is the gray one (not because I don’t like it. I do. It just has less personality).

Watercolor and Ink Winterberry Styles

• I feel I could have done a little better for winterberries. Too many ideas, too little space … or perhaps some of my Christmas pieces raised the bar for this study (see a couple below).  
• My favorite styles are the top and middle right. Love how they turned out. I could see the loose style on wrapping paper or a card.
• I imagined the top left much nicer with crisp color and cleaner edges.
• And I don’t care for the abstract this time. Any suggestions to make it better? Add them to the comment section below this post.

On to letter X … what will I do with X? It’s eXtremely hard to come up with X words.

If you are interested in looking at other letters from this study, you’ll find links to their posts here.

The deepest cold of our winter has set in. I thought we could avoid it this year, but no such luck. We recently had a winter storm freeze us out, leaving wind chills reaching -20°F. Frostbite warnings for exposed skin in 30 minutes or less. Who would have thought I’d be longing for my 30°F days again. At least this study gives me a pop of brightness on these cold days.

What do you do to keep yourself upbeat on your dark, cold days?

Happy creating!