March to June are always very busy months for me, as there are quite a few birthdays and celebrations during this time. My whole family and my husband all have birthdays within these months, and to top it off we also celebrate our wedding anniversary. Since I naturally have the ambition to make the cards myself (sigh…), I often find myself very busy painting and creating during this season.

This year, my sister wished for a surprise weekend at our place in Zurich. Instead of simply giving her a gift card, I wanted to package each experience in a more creative way. So I designed four small watercolor cards, all representing one of the activities we would do together during the weekend.

The cards included:

A visit to the zoo
A picnic by the lake
A painting class with watercolor or gouache
A drink made by my husband

Since I have been painting with watercolor quite a lot recently, I wanted to create a matching illustration with it on each gift card.

I am very happy with the cocktail drawing. I particularly love how the ice cubes turned out. They were created in a very simple way: after the paint had completely dried, I used a wet brush to “erase” parts of the watercolor and carefully lift away some of the paint. This created the light, transparent look of the ice cubes.

At the end, I often add very thin black outlines to my art. This helps make the details a little sharper and gives the artwork more depth.

The panda was a big challenge to paint. Not only was getting the proportions right difficult (and I’m still not completely happy with them), but creating the texture of the fur with watercolor was also a challenge.

The watercolor is probably the card I enjoyed creating the most and I also love the outcome. I think the individual objects turned out well, but I especially love is the composition, with all the diagonal lines and the cropped paint box.

Watercolor box painted with Watercolor — Art Course

I wrapped each card individually in paper so that my sister would have plenty to unwrap and each illustration could be appreciated on its own. These kinds of handmade gifts are exactly what makes creating them so special to me – they are personal, unique, and often become memories that last much longer than a regular card.

I’m already looking forward to the weekend when my sister gets to use all the gift cards and we can enjoy spending this time together!

Handmade Birthday Gift Ideas with Watercolor