How to Make Watercolor Florals for Mother's Day

First, add the airbrush colors of your choice to a paint palette, leaving empty cavities in between each color.  In those empty spaces, add water.  Airbrush color is dark and heavily pigmented on its own, so mixing with water will give you that perfect watercolor paint you’re going for.  Simply pick up some of the airbrush color with your paintbrush and dab into the adjacent water—you’ll see that satisfying bloom of color immediately.  Add more color to achieve darker shades, and dab off excess liquid on the palette itself. 

For a large rosette, use a wide, flat brush. Dip the brush in your color (Wil used Countess Pink here) and make large, vaguely petal-shaped swoops across the cookie. Work your way inwards towards the center of the rose. Go back for more color when you need it, and pick up more of the concentrated color to achieve some darker shading and dimension. The beauty of this technique is that it doesn’t have to be perfect to have really stunning results! 

To add a “Happy Mother’s Day” stencil on top of your floral, you want to first make sure that the flower you paint will be big enough to be the full background of the stencil. Put your stencil in place over the cookie and just mark the outer points of the text, so you know how far you need to paint.  Remove the stencil, and make the same swooping petals, again working your way towards the center of the flower.  If you find that you have picked up a little too much color, simply dab off a little of the excess onto your palette and adjust as needed. Let those large rosettes dry completely so that when you add the next color, they don’t immediately bleed together.