Acrylic Painting: How to Paint Loose Flowers on a Large Canvas Step by Step!

1. Introduction : everyone I'm l And today I'm gonna show you how I painted this large floral on canvas with acrylic paint. All of the supplies that I'm using for today's class are listed in the about section below the video. And if you create your own painting inspired by this class today, I would love to see it. You can click on projects underneath the video on upload a picture of your work. 2. Color Mixing & Brushwork : I am going to show you the colors that I'm using for today's painting. I have three primary colors. I have my quinacrine own Red Hansa, yellow, medium and turquoise fellow. This is my red, yellow and blue. I'm using titanium white, a little bit of carbon black And then I like to use teal as an accent color. You could probably mix this, but I really like the golden teal. So I use it like this right out of the bottle and the black on using today really only to darken my turquoise so that I can create some really dark shadows around my flowers. So turquoise, kind of agreeing blue color. If you put a little black into it, probably too much black. I try to go for a more like this like a very dark turquoise. You can use the black if you like that, it would look good around your flowers and to mix my green I used ter khweis, handsy yellow and why it? So little turquoise into the yellow will give you a nice bright green. Depending on how dark or light you want it, you add more yellow or turquoise and then you can always lighten it up with some white. You can also dark in this with a little black, which I do. Sometimes it's sort of d saturates the color a bit. If you want a really vibrant green, you can mix your teal and you're yellow. Put a little white in there and I'll give you a nice fluorescent green color so the yellow it's pretty break straight out of a tube. You add a little bit of your red. You get a nice orange color. I like to make a dark orange, sometimes a lot more rent to that. You can see the quinacrine own. Red is a really pretty color, so these are the colors that I'm going to be using. You'll also see me having a lot of white to make colors like pink and peach. If you want to make a purple, which I'm not doing in today's painting, but the turquoise mixed with just a tiny bit of turquoise mixed into your red. We'll make a really nice shade of purple and because we are using a limited amount of colors, a limited palate, no matter what combination of these colors that you use, you're going to have a cohesive painting. If you don't have these exact colors, don't worry about it. Just find three primary colors that when you mix them together. So when you mix the yellow and the red and the red and the blue on the blue in the green blue and the yellow to me green, just make sure that you like the green on orange and purple colors that they make together . Um, I will list some other color options in the about section below the video. In case you don't have golden paints for today's painting, I'm using three different brushes. For the most part, I'm going to use the one inch brush when I'm painting my flowers. When I first start painting the background, I'm using a large brush. This one is about 2.5 inches, but you could definitely use something larger, and I also use a 1.5 brush a little bit. One question that I get asked all the time is that your paint doesn't seem to flow across the canvas like mine does. Um, one reason for that is that I am using fluid acrylics, which are, um, sort of thin, very thin consistency. And I don't need any water or medium with these. But if you are using a heavy body ACC ehrlich, or if your paint is a little bit dried out, you're gonna want to add water to your paint so that it flows smooth across your canvas. If you feel like you're paint is clumpy and dragging, then definitely add some water. Four brushwork. Um, I recommend when you're trying to paint loose that you hold the end of the brush. If you hold it really close and stand really close to the campus, you're gonna get a lot of tighter brushstrokes. But when you stand back, a good arm's length away from your Candace and you hold the brush at the end kind of loose . Then you can make some nice, weird swirling marks like this to create your flowers, right, and then add in your white a little bit a little bit of red. It's up to you. Um, I would not. I don't paint my flowers like this. This is something I see people do all the time, and I did have to have a traitor grip to do that, so I try to turn my wrist, move my whole arm been create flowers more like this outside. You can see like outside the circle. Don't be afraid to push your whole brush down canvas and then just start flipping it around . Also, you'll notice that I didn't over mix my colors. You can see streaks of red in with the peach and streaks of white here, and that will add a lot more detail to your flowers when you are painting your greenery. Same thing. Don't hold the papers too tightly and again. I'm not over mixing right, my greenery. I'm gonna have a variety of light and dark brush strokes going in different directions. So everything is not going to be up and down or side to side. I try to vary what I do with my brush. I would have a lot of darker colors around my flowers and then some medium and light going out you can use use the whole brush, use the tip, use the flat end, push it down, swirling around anything you do that's different is going to be more interesting to the I 3. Cover the Canvas with Warm Colors: I'm starting off with yellow, red and white paint on my palette, and I'm using a to 1/2 inch paintbrush, and I am going to just cover the campus with a mixture of these colors not going to make it a solid color. I am carrying my paint over Sasae. It's It might help if you went your paintbrush, so you're pains will go on a little smooth there I am doing this for two reasons. First, it these some of these lines will be the first layer of some of my flowers. And also I like when some of the under painting shows through in the final painting. So I like to have pops of color showing through the blues and greens. You don't have to use red and yellow. You can use purples or any other color that you like that you want to show through in your final painting. - Oh , - I don't want all my paint lines going in the same direction, so I'm gonna do some side side up and down, and then I'll do some diagonal. - No . Oh, - don't worry. If the whole thing isn't covered as long as it's mostly covered. It should be fine. This is just the first layer. We're going to be putting lots of paint on this canvas today, so anything that didn't get covered will get covered up later. That's a good start. I'm gonna let this completely dry before I go on to the next step. 4. Plot Your Composition: I would normally do this next step with a piece of chalk, but I know that you're not gonna be able to see it on camera. So I'm going to use some red paint and a small paintbrush, and it was going to start to mark out where I want my flowers to be. I want to have some dark areas. I'm not covering the entire thing with flowers, but I am going to have a lot of flowers. And I'm going to try to have some sort of cascade this way and cluster over here and then cascade back this way. So I'll have a dark space here, here and up here I am going, Teoh, just make some marks roughly where I want some flowers to be. If you do this with a piece of chalk, then you can just wipe off the chalk lines when you're finished. If they're still there, I'm gonna cover a lot of thes road marks up. Anyway, once I start painting a bigger flower in the middle, maybe and that if you like this and then I am going Tiu, take my darkest paint, which is my turquoise, and I'm gonna start at some shadows underneath these flowers. So I'm going. Teoh, take my one inch brush. I'm gonna start Teoh ad dark shadows around my flowers. Your darkest colors are what is going to create a sense of depth in your painting. And so it's good to have a lot of dark areas in between flowers and underneath flowers to create that shadow. - There is not an exact strategy to this. I'm just attempting to create some darker areas. And now that I defined where my flowers are going to be, I'm just going out at a few more darker spots. I know this area is going to be dark here and here, but I don't want to just go in and cover the whole thing with my turquoise pain because I want Teoh. Leave some of this under painting showing just very small pops of color throughout. It will add some interest to you are final painting. I'm also going to add some yellow to my panel it and start to mix a darker green. You'll notice when I'm painting that my pain bridge is not always going in the same direction. I'm trying to vary my brush strokes. I'm also not over lending my paint on my palette. I am allowing for streaky marks on the canvas, which is gonna add some nice detail. If you want to de saturate your green a little, you can put a drop of red into your green, and that'll help to de saturate the green so it will give it a little bit of a different color. I always paint the sides of my paintings so that they don't need to be framed, and they look a little bit more finished when they're hanging on the wall. That's just a personal preference. Since I'm working on my blues, I'm gonna take a little bit of my teal and just add a few pops in. - I had a little white to try to change up the color a little. Definitely overlap your colors and keep varying your brush strokes. You can use the side of the brush to make something marks. You can kind of just drag your whole paintbrush around. If you want a looser style, hold your paint brush by the end so you have less control. You'll see me do that a lot more. When I'm painting my flowers, I am also going to make a little bit of a darker color by using my carbon black on my turquoise. So that's who look almost black with a slight blue tent. Teoh it. I'm trying to work really quickly because this is a big canvas. Andi, I don't want this video to end up being five hours long. Some painting quickly, but also when I'm trying to paint loose. It's best when I paint. Quick. Doesn't give you too much time, Teoh. Over. Think what you're doing. Okay, I'm gonna let this layer completely dry, and then I am going to move on to my flowers. 5. Layer Flowers 1: Okay. I have some red, yellow and white on my palette, and I have a one inch brush and a 1.5 inch brush. I made sure that my blue and green was completely dry, and you can see I have a nice first cope here for my flowers. I'm gonna work around what's there and try to leave some of it showing every time I add a layer, I try to keep some of the previous layer showing and just cover a little on build on what's already there. I'm to start with white, and you can see that I am not making circles. Try to just put some white around some of my flowers. They have more white in the middle and then also cascading down to the right. I am holding my paintbrush loosely, and I'm just turning my wrist as I paint. That wasn't dry, so I smudged over here. Be OK. Swish to my one inch brush you don't have. Teoh really shouldn't have them all looking the same. You Some different brush strokes just kind of throw your hand around a little. These air still the early layers, and there's always room to fix what you don't like. I'm gonna mix a little bit of my red and yellow into my white now, and I'm gonna start Teoh, create some just different shades of orange, red and yellow. I also I'm not going to have all of my flowers the same color. So I think I'm gonna do some orange and yellow here, moving down to more white and lighter pinks and some pops of red. So I'm gonna try to really change up what I'm doing. I'm not over mixing my paint on my palette. I'm leaving it very streaky so that I get streaky brush marks on my painting. If I start to see something that's looking to round, I will intentionally make a mark that goes in the opposite direction. A lot of strings I stand. Or usually I would stand right in front of the campus when I'm painting. But obviously I'm off to the side a little bit so that you can see. Um, I think this helps with the looseness because there's less control. So it might be something that you want to try. Also, try to stand back away from the campus and work more with your arm and your shoulder than just with your hand. If you hold the paintbrush really close up here and work really closely, you're going to get a lot of like, small, tight for strokes rather than if you just kind of stand back and and let your arm move around. I am taking some of my red, but I'm gonna put a lot more read on to some of my flowers. I'm using the fluid acrylic paint, which is a lot more fluid or watery. If your pain isn't flowing on your campus and you're using acrylics, you probably want to add some water either what your paintbrush or spritz a little water onto your paint so that you get a better flow when you're using acrylics. If your paint starts to get, um, it's kind of blobby and chunky. You probably need to have water mixing some orange. I'm trying Teoh like areas like this and like this, so I'm trying Teoh, you know, painting quickly. Be mindful not to cover up every single part of my canvas. My previous layers always try to leave a little bit of your previously or showing who in the grounds are white can kind of just turn your wrist around and get some weird looking marks like this. You can really push the paintbrush down onto the canvas to get some bigger globs of paint. Try to use all sides of the paintbrush and even change it up. Use some bigger paintbrushes and some smaller paintbrushes as well. I need a flower, something over here And what you see me doing here is basically what I do the entire time. So I I'm gonna quit, is much paint on my flowers as I can until I'm not really getting the colors that I want because things air smudging together and then I'll go back on work on my green I go back and forth between the green and the flowers sometimes 345 times until I'm I'm happy with the amount of layering that I have on my flowers. - You can always add in more flowers as you go along. You can take them away to I'll show you that in the next step when I go back, Teoh, um the green Or if you make some flowers too big or something that I do a lot is I like my flowers to touch and overlap. But sometimes I just kind of make the one giant blow that I need to separate them. And in that case, I just go back in with my dark paint and correct that. Sure. I'm really we'll see. Hey, I'm going to leave this layer alone and let it dry for a few minutes and mix up some more of my green on and dark blue paints here. 6. Add More Blue & Green: Hey, I added some turquoise on a little bit of black and some yellow to my palace and a mixing some black right now with my Turk Wais and I'm gonna go around some of my flowers like I was explaining before. Sometimes if I don't like the shape of my flowers or if they seem to round or they're too close together like this cluster here, I want them to be touching. But this is too much of a single blob. So I'm gonna go in here and just kind of reshaped this flower. So next time I go back to work on my flowers, they'll seem a little bit more separated, and I can fix what I was originally trying to do with, um, I also think in here, this seems a little close. Remember that this is this darkest color is what is going to create a sense of depth in your paintings. So you want to make sure you have a good amount of dark paint, whether it's blue or green or black, especially around a lot of your flowers. And so I like that I have my a lot of my under painting showing, but I'm gonna cover a little bit more of it up. I do want to leave some pops of color like this right here, showing and may be here, but I don't want too many off. Hm. So my greenery doesn't really seem like much right now. I'm gonna have a lot of layers of just different colors, different shades of blue and green and just want to keep working until I like, um kind of like what I have going. So what I'm gonna keep doing is layering making some diagonal marks, vertical horizontal, holding the paintbrush loose. Just keep doing this all around the cannabis mix all different shades of your blue, black, green and white. And if you're using teal or some kind of light blue, that always adds a nice little pop, I try not to overdo it with that color. But I do like the way that it looks against the red. Oh, I'm gonna start. Teoh paid a little quicker. No, and start to add in. Some are collars, though. See, I didn't over blend this on my palette. I picked up some green and blue together, and I like the way that that looks right there. So I'm trying to leave that, and I'm gonna try to replicate that on some other parts of my canvas. I'm using my one inch brush. Might be good to even use a 1.5 inch if you have one. Now, I am a little bit of turquoise and white mixed together. - I'm also going to I was just using, um just kind of, like short strokes a few inches to start. Teoh, Uh, some, I guess. Lying work. Some thinner trailing paint lines that, um, that sort of go up, which might, in a loose kind of way, just mimic some, maybe some stems abstract. Really? I'm not trying to make anything that looks exactly like a stem. Remember to hold your paintbrush loosely. Stand back a little, try standing off to the side, see what works best for you. Just mixed some of my carbon black and my yellow and made this kind of a green gray color that I'm gonna add in some spots. If you have an area where it seems like all the brush strokes air going in one direction than at something no different. - If you don't like where one of your flower is this place. Just go ahead and paint right over it. Kind of like what I have right now. Um, I like that. I still have a few of thes spots here where my under painting is showing through I Now I'm gonna let this dry completely so that I can go back on bond, add more layers to my flowers. I think my greenery It might need some a few more touch ups, but it's mostly going to be finished. I'm gonna take a lot more time now to I just work on my my flowers here. 7. Layering flowers 2: Hey, so I am happy with this painting. So far, I think my flowers all look too similar. So I want to now try to separate some of my colors a little bit. I'm thinking of having some orange and yellow up in this area. That kind of comes down a little more red and a little bit of white in the middle. And then maybe some white on bond, some pastel colors over here. I don't want everything to look exactly the same. I want some different colors in my flowers. Like for me. I think it makes a painting look more interesting that with a I'm starting with white, red and yellow. I have my 1.5 inch brush that I'm going to start with, and I also have my one inch brush, one a couple of my flowers and the metal here to have some more weight. We never I don't want my flowers to be round. I didn't mean to do that, but it's okay. Don't worry about accidents like that. You can paint over it. You can leave it. There's really nothing you can do when you're painting in this style, that's completely wrong. Everything is flexible with a curling paint can just paint right over at once it dries. Usually it's weird marks that you end up liking in the end, so just leave them, let them sit, walk away for a bit and then come back and look at your painting with fresh eyes. I'm gonna take a clean brush on, make some marks with my read. If I use the brush that has a white I'm just gonna get a lot of pink and looking for some darker red spots. Could you? Orange, Red? I always leave some of the previous layers showing so you can see I painted the red over the white and it made pink right on the canvas, which is fine. It gave me that nice, um, swirled brushstroke. They're gonna leave Teoh or run down here. I spend a lot more time on the flowers than I do on the green, so I'm probably gonna go over these flowers three or four times. You just have to decide what level of detail you want in your own painting. Mixing a little orange. Many use of here this flower like and you can see it's really not a circle at all. Just everything going in different directions. Some brush strokes way outside. The lining here. Andi, I like that color. I'm gonna take that down a little bit into the side of the painting, but not overdo it over here with yellow and orange. Lighten this up a little. No, I just dripped paint somewhere. We'll see from that. Well, - this flower here is mostly under painting. And I'm leaving that I like a lot. Nothing some more white to my palate to make a really faint peach color. - Using just the tip of my brush to make some detailed marks dripping. This is to you can leave the drips or fix Hm to you. It's dripping too much. Hey, trending a little more of this kind of yellow down here. I'm just blending it right on my palate with everything that's already here in a switch to the larger brush 8. Layer Flowers 3: I think I prefer the one inch brush for flowers When an animal pink into this one here. - I think I'm starting to have too much yellow, so I'm gonna make some pink. - Okay . I think I need Teoh. Just gonna step back, see what I have going on here. I am going to grab a clean brush. Still the one inch brush and clean palette so that I can add in some Wait. And since my pink paint my red and orange is what my white just gonna blend right into that ? Give me some highlights. It's not gonna be pure white. It's already mixing up on my palette Here. - You could stop here and you would have a beautiful painting. Um, a question I get asked a lot is how do you know when to stop? And I don't have a good answer for that because I am a chronic over painter. I would, uh, three more five more layers to this if I didn't stop myself. So it's good to sometimes some timer for when you feel like you don't know what to do next or that you might be over doing it a little. It's a that might be a good time to step away for a few minutes what you're painting dry and then come back with fresh eyes. Whether that's five minutes later or a few hours later, I find that helps me a lot. I think that's one of the most difficulty things is to know when to stop. It's also a really good idea. Teoh back away 10 feet or so, if you can, from your painting and get a different perspective on it. Put it across the room, hanging on a wall and just leave it for a while, Okay? So I'm gonna take my own advice on and let this dry and step back and evaluate what I need to do next. 9. Finish Flowers 4: Hey, So what I found when I was just looking at my painting across the room is my flowers. I like Hm. But they look too similar to each other. So I think I want to just try toe, go over the light and dark again. So the white someone make them a little lighter, and then the dark around in the dark orange, I'm gonna make a little darker. And I think that'll help too. I don't know. Just maketh, um, a little little different from each other. So it is not completely dry, but that's OK. I just want Teoh go over these white spots. Like I like that for a little more white People here probably use a little white here. - I think that's a good amount of white. No, I'm going to go over the red, but I want to grab a clean brush cause I don't want it to mix with my white. I don't want it pink. I want some darker areas of red neglecting this little flower up here and with the same brush. Same palette. I'm gonna mix some dark orange, spending a couple of drops of yellow into my red. More yellow. I like the orange up here putting that such a white in it just to get those streaky marks that I have up here not sending me some nice detail having a little more yellow because I like the Yellow Streak center here. - Okay , Now, I think I have a little more variety in my flowers. I'm happy with those. I'm gonna force myself to stop because I would just continue on for hours. I do want to add a few more details to my greenery on. Then I am going. Teoh, call this painting Finished. 10. Finishing Touches: my flowers there still wet Someone to try to be careful. I have some teal, turquoise and yellow. I covered up a lot of my teal earlier, so I would just add a little bit. If you mix the teal and the yellow, you get a really vibrant green. Do a little of that at some greens. A lighter green, yellow. I just like to have a lot of marks in the background. I had a wife. - Don't forget to have your background brushstrokes going in different directions. You can make some that are thin, Some letter thick. The worry variety you have, the better sides are all touched. And so you can see how I have pieces of my under painting showing through Still which I think its interest to the painting. Um, I could like I said, I could continue on and on with this painting, but I think I'm gonna call it finished for for right now. Thanks for watching today's class. Don't forget. If you create your own painting and you'd like to share it with me, you can click on projects right below the video on Upload a photo of your work. Thanks for watching