Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hey, artist friends. My name is L. And I'm a painter and a teacher. Welcome to my class. Easy acrylic flowers for beginners, this class is super beginner level. So even if you have no painting experience at all, don't worry. I'm gonna teach you all the skills you need to know to create your own floral painting. I'm going to start off by showing you the supplies I'm using for this class. Then I'll walk you through my painting process step by step. I'll show you how to create a very simple sketch of your painting. Then I'll show you how to transpose that sketch onto your canvas using pastels. Next, I'll walk you through the process of painting your first layers and finally how to add details. Ready? Let's get started.
2. Supplies: I'm just going to quickly show you the supplies that I will be using to create my painting . Today, I'm using a 10 by 10 square canvas that I got it in my local art supply store. I'm using Strathmore palette paper, but you can use a paper plate or any other pallet that you already have. I'll be using a couple of pastels to sketch my painting onto my canvas. I have some craft store paintbrushes, and I have clean water for cleaning off my brushes and a paper towel. I'm also using Liquid Tex basics acrylic paint. I like this paint a lot because it comes in a wide variety of colors and it's relatively inexpensive. I'm going to list all of the colors that I used and all of my supplies below the video. So check that out. If you have any questions and let's get started with our painting
3. Simple Sketch: Sometimes looking at a blank canvas can seem really intimidating. So I like to create a quick sketch of what I'm planning to paint. I know that I am using a 10 by 10 square canvas, and I know that I like my vase a little bit off center. I'm just going to draw very simple lines, diamonds and circles so that I know the placement of everything. Your sketch doesnt not have to be fancy. These will be my stems inside my face. I'm gonna draw my leaves in a diamond shape. So draw couple coming off the side of the base. I'm gonna keep my leaves on this side of the canvas and my flowers on this side of the campus. You can experiment with different compositions to change up your painting. If you like. This will be a large flower, and this will be a large flower. And then to fill up this space will have a smaller one here. I do like to put leaves in the corners, put a couple of top. You don't have to be exact. This should just be very simple. I'm gonna have a flower coming off the side here and probably a medium size one there. I like to change up the size of my flowers, so I'm gonna put a couple of smaller ones in this area and then maybe one coming off the top, and then any adjustments that you feel like you need to make in the process of your painting, you can go ahead and do that. But at least now we have an idea of what we want to do.
4. Marking Your Canvas: I'm going to start off by marking my canvas with some pastel. You can use anything you have pencil. You can use paint. It doesn't really matter. You could probably even use a marker. The first thing of it, a Marcus where I'm putting my vase, I want mine to be slightly off center and then I'm going Teoh, add a few leaves and I'm gonna make them in sort of a diamond shape. Just very simple. You really don't even have to do this exact at all. I think I'll also have one coming off this side when coming this way. It's OK if they overlap. Maybe one facing down like that. Maybe I'll have one in here. I'm not sure we can always painted flower over that. If we want to later for this painting, I'm gonna stick to having my leaves, mostly on this side and my flowers going in that direction. It's a really bad diamond, but that's OK. Maybe I'll have a little spot in here, but that's it. And then for my flowers, I'm going to try to have a few flowers that are different sizes. I'm gonna have a big one down here sitting on my face. So I'm just going to make some circles. I'll have one coming off the side here, medium size flour and here, another one hanging off the side. I think I might do a couple of very small flowers, and here they might end up sort of blending together and then another one there, and that's it. That's all I'm gonna do with the Pasto. If you want. Teoh, you can mark where maybe you want some of your stems and your vase, but you don't have to do that.
5. Outline Everything: I'm going to start with my darkest colors and I'm going to just outline all my flowers and leaves. My darkest color today is Prussian blue. I'm gonna list all the colors that I use below the video. But don't feel like you have to use my colors. Choose your own that I'm gonna take a flat brush and I'm just going to outline the shapes that I made. You don't need to be exact when you're doing this. If you want to change it up, you can outline some of thumb and blue and some of them in another color that will. It will be totally up to you. If you do this a few times, you can change it up each time. Try some different colors. Experiment a little that's too thick. Try not to put it on too thick you can, but it'll just take longer to dry, and we're not gonna be able to add flowers until this blue dries or else we're going to get a lot of blue in our flowers, which we don't really want. I'm also an outline, my base, and I'm gonna put some of this dark in my face as Well, we forgot this little one here. Don't worry about this. Stems that you drew. If you drew them, we're gonna paint over those marks. Anyway, In the next step, we're going to just fill in our leaves. I'm gonna clean off my brush and get some green paint.
6. Blocking part 1: okay. I added two different color greens to my palette. One a little bit darker and one a little bit more medium. And even though my blue is not completely dry, I'm just gonna fill in my leaves and with green and blue I don't mind if they mix. I think it looks good. So I'm gonna fill in some dark. Didn't some a little bit later in some mixed some. We'll have more blue. You can just wipe off your brush to if you pick up too much blue. I have this lighter color here, just simple brushstrokes to fill in your leaves. This is only our first layer. We're going to go back into these leaves later. So don't worry about being to exact. We just want to get a base coat and there gonna add a little more dark to my palette. Been finish these leaves over here. Just make sure they're all filled in. If you want to go back and add some variation some dark and some light in the same leaf. Go for it. Okay. Next we're going to fill in our negative space
7. Negative Space: for my negative space. I'm going to use a medium gray color and by negative space, I mean the space that is not a flower and not believe so. Anywhere around the outside or in between my circles and diamonds that blue wasn't totally dry. But that's okay agains we're still working on our first layers. We can go over this once it's dry and fix any mistakes. We really just want to get a base coat on the canvas. At this point, I can see that I forgot a leaf right there. You can go back and fix that from even gonna add a little bit of this Great to my face. Just a tiny bit. I like to get a bunch of different colors and my vase and the great works well for stems. I was gonna make a little line here and maybe there. Okay, so your canvas should be mostly covered in the area of leaves and negative space, and I'm going to just fill in that green that I forgot. And I'm gonna let this dry for a few minutes before I paint anything on my flowers because I don't want any blue or green or gray to bleed into my flowers
8. 7 Blocking part 2: Now that this layer is mostly dry, I'm going to just fill in my flowers. Very simply, I chose purples, yellows, pinks, orange and white. I'm going to start with my dark purple. This one's deep Violet, This is one of my favorite colors. And I think I'm gonna make three of my flowers. This color, this one, this one and and one down here? I'm not sure yet. So I'm just taking a flat brush again. And I'm just going to simply fill in the circle for my first layer, putting it on fairly thin. It's okay if you go over the blue a little, we don't need to be exact. I just want to cover all of the white of the canvas, and I'm gonna use a little bit of orange. This is actually cave me in red, but it looks more orange and I'm using the same brush. I don't mind if these two colors mix. Actually, kind of like it. You're gonna fill in a couple of my smaller flowers with this color here and then my other flowers. I think I will do a bit lighter. I'm going to get a clean brush for my pink because I don't want all of that orange and there, and I think I'm gonna have this one be pink and this one as well, you can see I totally went over the lines. That's okay. When we're painting are details of the flowers later on, there's gonna be a lot of overlapping, and that's going to be a good thing. I'm just gonna wipe the pink off this brush. It's light enough that it won't affect my white too much. We're not gonna paint a true white flour anyway, though it wouldn't really stand out. So we're gonna mix in a little bit of grey and pink, maybe yellow when we're adding details to our white flour so you can't even see that I'm gonna pick up a little of this gray that's already on my palette and mix it in with the white, a lighter grey. Then we painted for our negative space. But I want to be able to see the white when I painted on top of the gray. Okay. Now, any areas that are not filled in, I'm just going to go and fill those in. I I think I could probably I could really add anything here. I'm gonna fill this in with a little bit of green. And I'm also gonna take green That was already on my palate before. And add a few more stems to my vase. It was bringing all these colors down into the base. Hey, and I'm gonna let this dry for a few minutes, and then I'm going to start adding my details.
9. Greenery details: While I was waiting for that layer to dry, I went and got some fresh water and cleaned off my brushes. I also added some more green paint to my palette since it was dried up. I'm going to work on greens now, and I'm just gonna add some details into my leaves. I was going to make some marks. May be going in different directions. You can outline some of the blue and a darker green just to change things up. You can outline one side of a leaf. I just don't like them to look all exactly the same. So all I'm doing right now is picking up some different colors and trying to make some different marks. You don't even have to make your leaves all green. You can use yellow. You can use light blue, definitely experiment. You can even use the side of your brush to make a thinner line and then the flat part of your brush to make a thicker line. You can add some subtle stripes, maybe even a few dots, and don't forget about your vase. So now we want to just make some stems, draw some diagonal, some thin, some thick. I'm gonna put a little bit more blue on my palette. I like my base to be mostly dark, but to have some later marks in it if you can't really see your stems than just go for a bit of a lighter color. And if you want to outline some of your leaves again, you can do that at this point as well. Okay, next will add some details to our flowers.
10. Flower details 1: this part is my absolute favorite. So we're going to start working on our flowers, and I'm just going to make sure I have enough of my colors on my palette. I'm gonna add a little bit of yellow because I like the way it looks with that purple and also with the pink on and freshen up my orange here, What's key to your flowers is having your brush strokes go in different directions, use the side of the brush. Use the flat part of the brush. Vary your hand motions just to make some different marks. And also, if you use just one color solid the whole time, the flower is gonna look flat. So you want to add a little white at a little gray into the color that you're using so that you have some variation in your flower. I'm gonna start off just with the deep violet. I did not mix it so you can make some marks going in the same direction. But your paintings gonna look more interesting if you very the size, direction and color of the brush strokes. Turn your paintbrush, flip your hand around a little and you know what overlap. It's OK that you're going over the lines. You should be going over the lines. Now. If I want to make this color more interesting, I can mix a little gray. I can mix a little pink or something else into it just to change it up a little so that I get some different tones and I usually go over my flowers with several layers. I think that's the key to making flowers that really stand out. I jump from flower to flower because I want some of this to dry a little bit so that I can add more paint on top of it. If I try to add the paint on top while it's still wet, it's just gonna all blend together. So I'm just gonna wipe this off on my paper towel. I'm gonna keep using the same brush, and I'm gonna add some details onto my orange. It's kind of flat looking, so I'm gonna do the same thing and add in other colors. If you mix too many colors, you'll see that you end up sort of making a brownish color. But if you stick to colors on the same side of the color wheel. You should be all right, so mixing pink and orange is going to be fine. I'm gonna wipe that off and get some of this pink. I usually only use a couple of different brushes for a whole painting, especially if it's a small painting like this. I just wipe it off and keep going. You know, sometimes you have to clean it. Like if I had dark blue on this, I would have to clean it. But if I'm just going to a similar color, I leave it and it's OK that these two flowers overlapped and no, from my white, I picked up some pink with that by accident, but that's all right when I think my white flowers air, not really standing out as much as I want them to. So I'm going to add a little bit of gray to them. Just a very small amount me a little more than that. If you do too much, don't worry. You can always paint over it once it's dry, so don't fear making a mistake. You make a mistake in acrylics. It's very easy to correct it. After a few minutes. Once everything is dry was made like a triangle over here. I don't like my flowers to be two circular, So feel free to make maybe a little triangle Mark, if you want to, you could add some dots. Just remember to change it up. Put a little pink in there. Don't be afraid to go over your leaves. Overlapping is always good. Okay, My pink looks really flat. I'm gonna add in some yellow and some white to my pink. I meant to add weight. A little bit of gray. Not too much. Gonna wipe that off and pick up some yellow. You're like that right on the pink. Yellow is also a nice color with thieve violet, as you can see. But I'm not going to do too much of that. I'm gonna mix my violet now I think was a little bit of gray. And what will really darken? My violet is a little bit of brown. This raw number is nice. If you use just a little bit of it in the deep violet, it will make it a nice, rich color. I do that a lot. You'll notice this color in a lot of my paintings. I'm feeling like I need one more flour here. I'm going to make a very small violet flower. You know, just because you didn't market in the beginning doesn't mean you can't do it. So you really have to see what you think will balance out your painting. Maybe I will add a little bit of yellow to this one. You also can add color to your stems if you want to. And if you do that and you don't like it, you can always paint over it. These were looking a little too flat to me. So I'm gonna make some areas that are a bit more highlighted. Gonna mix this with a little bit of white. And I also want to try to darken it a little bit. And I might need to let it dry so that I can go back on top with a darker layer is if I put the dark paint on it right now, it's just going to blend in with what's already there. So a lot of times, if you're feeling frustrated, that color is not coming out the way you want it to, that you're painting dry and then go back on top with that color. So I'm gonna let this dry and then we're going to dark in these flowers and add any final details.
11. Flower details 2: This is mostly dry now. And so I just want to add details. At this point, I'm gonna darken something's lighten some things, and then make a few fund marks and then we're going to be done. So I'm darkening my deep violet with the raw number to get a darker caller here. I don't like this brush, so I'm gonna switch it out. I'm gonna leave that pop of yellow on there. And I made this too dark right here in the middle. But it's flexible. Everything's flexible. Okay, this one, I like that one. I like the white I like, I'm going Teoh, add some detail to my orange and I'm gonna lighten up my purple one here a little bit. I'm gonna wipe this off and pick up some white. It's all right. If it's blended with my purple, I just want it. Add some highlights there calling these purple flowers done. I'm gonna white off this brush and gonna grab some of this orange. I'm gonna put a tiny but violet into that because I don't have enough variation here. You can't really see my brush strokes. This flower isn't even look like a flower anymore. But that's all right. It's abstract, right? All right, Orange this fighting with me right now. Better. There we go. I think we can see that a little bit better there. You can really see the difference when you add a pop of white or dark onto a color. Couple of white highlights are always good on a flower. I'm just gonna cover that a little bit. There we go. And I think I like all my flowers. I'm gonna leave everything like this and just add a few more pops of color to my leaves, and then I'm gonna go over my negative space one more time just to finish things up.
12. Final Details: for my finishing touches. I like to add a couple of little pups of light blue and maybe a little bit of white into the, um, vase. I'm gonna go back to my blues and greens. I love this light blue permanent. Use it sparingly. It is pretty bright. You could always tent it if you wanted. With a little white to tone it down. I like to add, um, Chinese little details or I should say, thin details to a few of my leaves. Maybe that's too much. But that's OK. This color is cute next to the white, so I'm just adding a little there. I encourage you to experiment with colors, see what you like, and, um, and add a tiny bit of this down here in my these. I'm gonna make that line a little dollar by going over it with green, too much paint on my brush and some little stripes there. It's all about the details at this point. At some variety dot stripes little pops of color. I'm liking how my base looks. I'm just gonna add a little bit of white. I always do that to my face. Kind of makes it stand out a little bit more. - That's enough. Going to start to overdo it at this point. And all I have left to do is fix my negative space. It's not really, um, opaque enough for me. I can still see parts of my canvas. So I'm just gonna go over that one last time with my neutral gray. Gonna take a smaller brush this time. Experiment with your negative space color, too. Sometimes it looks good if it's maybe a light neutral. Some paintings look good when the negative space is blue. I use this neutral gray a lot. I'm gonna just put blue right there. I don't know if you can see it on the camera. Are not I don't think, um, Gray would work right there. There. Everything's all filled in. It looks cute. I really like this. I hope you're happy with the one you created. If you are, I'd love to see a photo of it. So click on the projects tab below the video and share it with me. Please. What? For my finishing touches. I like to add a couple of little pups of light blue and maybe a little bit of white into the, um, vase. I'm gonna go back to my blues and greens. I love this light blue permanent. Use it sparingly. It is pretty bright. You could always tent it if you wanted. With a little white to tone it down. I like to add, um Chinea little details or I should say thin details to a few of my leaves. Maybe that's too much. But that's OK. This color is cute next to the white. So I'm just adding a little there. I encourage you to experiment with colors, see what you like, and, um, and add a tiny bit of this down here in my these. I'm gonna make that line a little dollar by going over it with green, too much paint on my brush and some little stripes there. It's all about the details at this point. At some variety dot stripes little pops of color. I'm liking how my face looks. I'm just gonna add a little bit of white. I always do that to my face. Kind of makes it stand out a little bit more. - That's enough going to start to overdo it at this point and all I have left to do is fix my negative space. It's not really, um, opaque enough for me. I can still see parts of my canvas. So I'm just gonna go over that one last time with my neutral gray. Gonna take a smaller brush this time. Experiment with your negative space color, too. Sometimes it looks good if it's maybe a light neutral. Some paintings look good when the negative space is blue. I use this neutral gray a lot. I'm gonna just put blue right there. I don't know if you can see it on the camera or not. I don't think, um, Gray would work right there. There, everything's all filled in. It looks cute. I really like this. I hope you're happy with the one you created. If you are, I'd love to see a photo of it. So click on the projects tab below the video and share it with me. Please.
13. Final Tips: when you're painting is dry, you might want to paint the sides of your canvas the same color as your negative space or dark color works well to, um, I signed the back of my canvases with my name and title of my painting, and I usually just do that with a regular Sharpie marker. I also like to varnish my paintings. There's lots of different varnishes you can use. Some of them you just paint right on. This one's in aerosol. I do recommend using the area souls outside because they do have a strong smell. The smell goes away once it's dry and they do dry fairly quickly. I have a few other skill share classes available, so if you liked this class, please check out my other classes. And if you want to be notified of new classes, you can click the follow button and you'll get an email every time I post a new class. Thanks for following along with me. And remember, if you make a painting, please share it with me in the projects have below
Elle Byers, Artist and Teacher
