I posted this a couple of years ago, and it's one of my best/favorite posts all time. I might to share some of my other best older posts once per week or couple of weeks.
I love watercolor paintings, but scarcely use them as I'm rather messy and impatient for the work to dry. So, I tried them for something simpler: bookmarks!
Getting Started
Before I got started I watched a few top results for "bookmark tutorials" on youtube and searched on pinterest for a few additional ideas.
Setting up the work table took me longer than expected as I was totally unprepared. However, starting with an organized work space is the first step to avoiding chaos and confusion.
Painting
I used a watercolor set that I received as a present several years ago. It's really great and it has much thicker consistency than many other watercolor sets that I've tried as a kid.
At first I wasn't sure the width I wanted for the bookmarks, but thinner feels more elegant to me. I also was planning to leave white space on the edges, but I forgot the cover some of the edges with rim sealing tape. You can usually find the various sizes of tapes in home depo sections of shop. I suggest getting the better quality one, because mine peeled off paper in a few spots.
The Techniques
The salt trick: sprinkle some salt for it to absorb the water leaving cool patterns. This didn't work out for me as planned, because I probably should have used big crystal salt. The table salt I used completely got stuck to the paper. I had to scrape it off and the rainbow bookmark is impossible to clean, so it's unusable.
The cling foil was interesting, but I didn't wait log enough for it to dry before removing, so only half of the bookmark is good. The idea is to use a bit more water when painting then to put the foil over it preferably with some folds. Leave it to dry completely and then peel off.
More Bookmarks: Page 2
For the second page I felt a bit more confident and decided to work simpler and more controlled. I got a hang of the water brush, which is probably my favorite now. I'd like to get one with a longer grip and maybe various tips if available.
I used the leftover colors on my mixing palette to make the soft base color for the feather and some flowers. I didn't use much water so it dried much faster, so painting second layer turned out much cleaner.
It's probably obvious by now, what are my favorite colors :D
The dots bookmark is probably the simplest one I've done, but I love the way it turned out. Sometimes simpler can be better.
I was going to paint some poppy flowers, but I decided to just paint freely without any reference. The result is interesting, but probably could have been a bit better.
My favorite bookmark.
Finally I put the bookmarks between pages of a spare notebook and put it under a couple of heavy books to flatten completely.