1. Start by putting your Titanium White, Scarlet, Burnt Sienna, Brilliant Green Deep, and Viridian (hue) gouache in your palette

2. Using your Princeton Velvetouch round size 2 brush, start with Brilliant Green Deep gouache and paint the main branch of the holly. Add in more water as needed because you want your paint to flow easily.

3. Add in smaller branches and stagger them (this is where you will put all of your red berries). Make them smaller towards the top of the branch.

4. Thicken up the bottom of the branch more than the top.

5. Next take the Viridian to add a shadow to the right side of your branch. Add a thin line to all the smaller branches on the right side as well.

6. Create the center stem of your first holly leaf and add little swoops that connect in a point to form your leaf. 2-3 points on each edge of the leaf is typically what I do, but feel free to paint as many as you want. Then fill in your leaf with Viridian.

7. On the right side, add a second leaf with the previous steps.

8. Switch out your water because we will be using red paint next. This will prevent your colors from getting muddy.

9. Put a little water on your brush and dip it in the scarlet gouache. We’re going to paint little circular berries at the end of each little branch. They don’t have to be perfect or all the same size! Have fun with it.

10. Next take the titanium white and add a highlight to the left side of each of the berries. The highlight should be on the opposite side of your shadow. You can water the white down to make it more of a pink or use more gouache to make it more white.

11. Take the black gouache to create a tiny little stem on each of your berries. It should start near the edge of the berry and extend just past the edge of it into the white space.

12. Rinse your water again because we’re switching back to green paint. Mix some veridian and white together and water it down to make a lighter green to add the veins to the holly leaves. Create one long line down the center of the leaf and add little lines to it that extend out to the tips of the leaf.

13. Mix white with veridian to create an icy blue color to add evergreen branches behind the holly. Create one long branch first and add little lines for individual needles coming off the branches.

14. Fill up the white space with more evergreen branches as you like.

15. Next dip your brush in the water and add some of the gold ink to your brush. Begin painting a bow on the bottom of your holly branch. Start with a small circle then add a loop on each side of it to form the bow.

16. Create the ends of the ribbon by bringing your paint strokes down and leave to little thin points at the end.

17. Next use burnt sienna to add shadows to your bow. I added a little bit behind the front of the bow, underneath the knot of the bow, and along the edges.

18. Take white paint to add a highlight to the bow on the front of the loops and the bottom ribbons.

19. You can add a personalized greeting below the holly branch with a marker/pen if you want to add more!

1. First, we are going to create the folded stars. Tear out 2 sheets of paper from the drawing paper pad.

2. Fold the pieces of paper in half and use the crease as a guide to cut down the middle. Now you have 4 pieces of paper that are 12“x18 “.

3. Decide on a color palette for your card, you can choose up to four colors for the stars.

4. Start mixing your colors. For the first color, I chose cadmium red hue and black to make a darker red.

5. Next mix buff titanium, cadmium red hue, yellow, and a touch of white to make a pink color.

6. For a green color mix buff titanium, sap green, and a touch of cadmium red hue.

7. For a dark green mix sap green, ultramarine and a touch of cadmium red hue.

8. Now paint one entire sheet of 12” x 18” paper with one color.  Repeat with your other three colors you created. Let the sheets fully dry before moving onto the next step.

9. Flip the painted sheet over to the white side (unpainted side). Using a ruler, mark a strip that is ½” wide. Repeat this step with all four of your colors so you have one 18” long strip in each color for your star.

10. Grab your pink strip of paper and fold it in half (painted side out). Do this with all four colors.

11. Now we’re going to weave the strips together. Put the pink strip in between the folded area of the green strip.

12. Then put the green strip in between the folded part of the red.

13. Lastly, place the red strip in between the fold of the gold strip. Now you’ll lock it all together by putting the gold strip end through the loop of the pink.

14. All the strips should come together in a square when you pull them.

15. Fold the top strip down across the square. Then fold the one next to it across the square and so on until you get to the last strip.

16. To lock it down, tuck your last strip through the loop on the left.

17. Now we’re going to fold the points of the star by starting with the top strip. Fold it behind itself at an angle so if forms a right triangle.

18. Take the same strip and fold it again so the edge lines up with the other side.

19. Then fold that in half to form a right triangle with the right angle on the right side.

20. Trim the strip to leave about a ¼” of paper and tuck the white edge underneath the green strip. Save the extra paper that you just trimmed off because we will use them for decoration on the card.

21. Next you will do the same thing on the opposite side. Then continue this around the entire star.

22. Repeat steps 10-21 to create 4 stars.

23. Use your paint pens to add fun details to your stars like dots or hearts.

24. Take one of your spare strips of paper and a marker to write a greeting on it like “happy holidays”. We’ll add this as a banner to the card.

25. If you want to add a border to your card, choose your colors from your spare strips and place them on the card.

26. One you have your layout decided, glue everything down.

27. Grab your paint pen again and add any final details to the card borders like dots or small stars.

28. Finally put your card under a heavy book overnight so that it dries nice and flat.