With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, I thought this candy hearts painting would be a fun design to paint to get in the mood. I don’t know about you, but I also happen to love Valentine’s conversation hearts candies. They are so cute and nostalgic and the sayings are just fun.

Hope you enjoy this project!

Looking for a video lesson of our process? A video class lesson with painting demo, commentary + sketch template are available to our members, become a member to access.

Tools/Materials:

Canson watercolor paper, cold press, 140lb
Round paint brush, size 6
Holbein Gouache 18-color set
Palette

STEP 1: Sketch out your hearts

I did a quick sketch in my sketchbook to get an idea of the shape of hearts and the placement.

STEP 2: Refine the illustration and choose your colors

I like to refine my sketch and choose my colors on my ipad in procreate. It was fun to research the colors of the candy hearts and then add my own slight twist of color preferences for the illustration. The messages were also fun to research and hand letter as well.

STEP 3: Paint the hearts

Though I handlettered some of the conversation hearts sayings in my digital illustration, I thought for the painting I would just keep it simple with the hearts design. The pastel colors are pretty enough that you could paint them anytime, Valentine’s Day or not. 

I was planning to paint this project in only gouache, but then went ahead and painted them in gouache, watercolor and acryla gouache. Of course, you could paint these using any paints you like you use.

I have another blog post and studio membership class where I explore those paintings in different mediums and reflect on the results. We also have a simple painting demo video class with gouache available with our studio membership. 

Please tag us @paulinestanleystudio or @rarebirdco if you share your work on social media! We'd love to see what you create!