How to Paint a Viola Tricolor

1. Class Introduction: Hi, I'm Katya. I'm a watercolor artist, specialized in botanical painting. My last job as a scientist has pushed me to study each subject very closely, observing every detail. My technique with watercolor includes initial washes, but then I use the dry brush technique which allows for total control or where the color is applied. In this class, you will learn how to create a botanical watercolor painting of a viola tricolor. First, we will review the necessary materials to complete our project. Then we will mix the colors. I will then show you my technique step by step from first wash to second layer to applying the T DLs and final touches. I've included a tracing of the flower and reference picture and a photo of the finished painting to help you every step of the way. From the first delicate wash to building layers of colors and adding those fine details at the end that bring your painting to life. I'll show you how to create depth and realism in your work. By the end of the class, you will have your very own viola tricolor and the confidence to tackle more botanical paintings. Whether you are a beginner or an intermediate artist looking to develop your technique, this class is for you. So grab your brushes, and let's get started. 2. Class Project: Your project for this class is, of course, to paint a viola tree color. I love for you to share your final piece in the project section. And remember, it doesn't have to be perfect. Every painting is unique, and this is a space to celebrate your creativity and progress. So here is how to approach your project. Upload a photo or your finished painting in the project section. Feel free to share any work in progress shots or details. So anything like color mixing or anything else, how you tackle a specific areas of your flower, for example, if you're feeling extra creative, try painting a small collection of latric flowers experimenting with different shades and composition. Sharing your project is a great way to inspire others and get feedback from me. I can't wait to see your beautiful work and happy painting and don't forget to have fun with it. 3. Materials: The materials you will need for this class are just your basic watercolor supplies. So you will need some paints, of course. Not that many. I will write which paints exactly you need, but you need some watercolor paints. And then, of course, you need the paper. I'm using arches, watercolor paper, hot press, 300 grams. I advise you to use at least 300 grams because otherwise, the paper might start to buckle. Um, you can use a different type. You can use fabriano but I also would advise to use a hot press paper because it's quite smooth and is the best paper for botanical painting. Then you will need a palette. I'm using a palette with the whales and it's a ceramic one. You can use a plastic palette, but I do love the ceramic palettes, much better than the plastic ones because they tend to stain and, um, the water sort of behaves a bit weird on the plastic palettes. You need some water. So I have some water for washing my brushes, so for rinsing them and everything. And then I usually keep some clean water in a small container like this one. Just a little bit, and I pick it up with a dropper. So pick up the water like this or with a clean brush and use that to dilute your paint. So it's clean water. Then you will need brushes, of course. So I have one brush that is just to mix the paint because the brush will get damaged when when you pick up the paint from your pants and so on. So use an old brush or a cheaper brush. And then I have my painting brushes which Winter and Newton Series seven, I have the miniature version and I have the normal version. So the number two and number no, the number two only is the miniature version. The number one and number 00 are series seven. And you can use different brushes. Of course, you don't have to use these ones. But as long as they are soft and not too big, so zero, zero, one and two is all you need. And then some paper, preferably the same type of paper you're going to use for painting to do your color testing. So something like that. I do all my color testing in here. When I do the color match, you need something to dry your brush. So a towel and paper towel, kitchen towel, and also some scrap paper as well. It's always useful to have handy. And I have provided you with a tracing of the flour, so you need to print it and then transfer it onto tracing paper so that you can transfer it to your good paper. And for this, you will need, of course, pencils and erasers, as well. Okay, so I think this is all you need, and we're ready to start mixing some colors. 4. Color Mixing : M. The first thing to do is to match the colors. And unfortunately, I don't have a real flower, but I have the picture with my iPad, so the colors are quite good. And I'm going to use this. So I have here a swatch of all the paints that I have. And usually I start by looking at what color is closer to the color I see, to the local color. And in this case, the local color will be this sort of lighter color. And so for me, this brilliant violet, this is from Sminke. It's the closest. And then I think the next one would be if you don't have that one, probably the bright violet. I think this is also from Shmken but I'll have to check. They're not Winter Newton these ones. The winter Newton will be cobalt violet. So you could try that if you don't have the other two colors. So this is the bright violet, and it's quite close, but it needs something to bring it more to the violet hue that I can see. I think I'm going to add some carbazle violet, which is from Daniel's meat. If you don't have that, you can try the Windsor Newton. Let me see Winter violet. I'm using the carbazol violet, this one here, but the Windsor violet is not too far off, you can try that. This one here, I'm going to add it a little bit. So always add it a little bit at the time, because it's quite a strong color. And I'm not sure if you can see because this emits a glow, of course, the iPad, but it's quite close to the color the local color of the violet. And then to make this darker, what I'll do is I make a red darkening mix. If you've seen my other classes, you know that I like to use darkening mixes, and I got one for the red, and one for the green, and I show you here on this page. So the red darkening mix is this one, and the green is this one. And then I have another couple of sorry, this one is the green. I have another couple of darkening mixes, cool and warm color. So I'm going to use the red one for this because this is sort of reddish bias, and it's winsor blue, red shade, que cdragena and transparent yellow. And what I do I start. Normally, I start with the blue and the red to make a violet. The red in this case is the Quine quidra magenta, and I make a violet. And then to this, I add the yellow. So in this case, the transparent yellow. And when you mix these three colors, you always get a gray or depending on the amounts you mix, you could get a brown. And usually, I mean, it's very rare that you get this mix right the first time. So it's just a matter of adjusting your quantities of red, blue, and yellow. It should be it shouldn't have, you know, too much of a obvious bias towards red or blue or yellow. So I think when this is okay. And then what I do I will mix a bit more color. But what I do is I take some of these at the moment, and I'll add the darkening mix just to show you and it makes the color quite a bit darker. So it's a bit diluted, but that's how I make the darker color. So I might just make a bit more to show you better. Always try to mix enough color to last for the whole painting this color here, and I will add the darkening mix, maybe a bit more. As you can see, is making it darker. Then we have the yellow bit, which I'll do with transparent yellow to this, see the yellow is not very bright, so it needs to be tone down a bit. I will add a little bit of this color here. The first one for the flower, just to tone it down and make it more like this color that we can see here. So I will add less of the violet color of the A mix, the first mix for these areas here, which are lighter, and I will add a bit more for these other areas. And then I will finish with the dry brush. And I think we're ready for the next step, which is start painting. And what I'll do is I'll mix a little bit more paints. One more thing I wanted to show you, I usually label my mixes with the letters of the alphabet, A, B, C, and so on. To remember which mix is where just in case you may forget. This was the mix A. T I called the B. This we call it C and the yellow mix was the last one D. And so you can use this little trick, especially if you have many mixes. This is only four, but if you have quite a few, then you can label them like this. Okay, so we're ready to continue. 5. First Wash: The first thing we need to do when we start painting is the first wash. And what I do normally is to apply a wash wetting wet wash. So what I do is I apply water, just clean water. So make sure you have a separate pot for your clean water, different from where you wash the brushes. Otherwise, you will have a tinge to it, and then pick up some colour. Try not to leave the colour too thick, but not too watery either. And so the consistency of maybe semi skimmed milk, something like that. And pick up the color and I start to apply the color where I see the darkest area. Then after that, I use a damp brush to transition the paint from dark to light to ensure a smooth transition instead of creating the marks of the paint, defined marks. This way, you will smooth the paint and I can see there is a lighter area around the petals. So that's why I try to leave that area as light as possible. And I like to use a different brush to do this. First because you don't have to pick up always more paint because otherwise you will have to rinse your brush that you're using for painting and make sure you rinse it properly, and you will you know it doesn't take a long time, but with water color, it might dry while you do that. So you will use this time to rinse your brush, and then your paint may start to dry depending on your conditions, you might do this in a hot day or live in a hot area and you paint dries while you're doing this. And secondly, if you have a brush that you use only for this purpose, I'm just showing you here that the water as a shine on the paper instead of being very, very wet. So what I was saying is about the brushes. When you use the damp brush, it will always be clean. You just dip it in the water, tap it on your paper towel, and it's ready to go. So it's much faster. So again here, I'm applying the paint where I see the darker area and then make the transition with a damp brush, teasing the paint a little bit towards the lighter area. So when you apply the paint, don't go all the way, like all the area. Don't cover all the area that you see dark. Cover a little bit less, and then you can tease the pigment towards the lighter area and you will have covered the right amount of space. Hopefully, this makes sense. So if you apply too much paint, then by the time you try to make the transition with your clean brush, you will have covered the entire petal. So you can always expand the area with more layers, but sometimes it's difficult to lift the paint. For example, these paints here, they stain, so it would be more difficult. And I'll sped up the video a little bit here because it's the same technique. So just apply the water. Make sure there is a sin to the paper, but there's not much water on the surface, you know, just stay on the surface and make sure that it's not dry, of course, and then start applying the paint. And I always apply the paint, even if this is a wash and it will dry quite smooth. Always apply the paint the direction of the growth in this case, of the petal. So if you look at the petal, you can see many little veins and they go a certain direction. Always apply the paint in that particular direction because it helps with recreating the three D effect. So even if it looks like that you don't really see at the end a texture, but it still helps because it does leave a little bit of a texture, very, very light at the moment because it's a light wash. But it will contribute to the final look of the petals. And when the petal is still when the paint is still wet, you can apply a little bit more paint if you feel that you can that you need a little bit more paint or you can make it a little bit darker. So you can do that. But if you see that the paint is drying, then don't try to work it anymore because you might create areas of like they look like stains. So when the paint starts to dry, leave it, and then you can always go back when it's dry and reapply another layer. So it doesn't have to be two layers or three layers or four. You can apply more. Or less depending. But don't try to work the paint when it starts to dry because you will have problems. Then it will start making these little, like, white spots, and it's very difficult to, sort of, you know, correct these mistakes. So I'm doing the same thing here. This petal is quite dark. And also try, if you observe the picture of the flower, there are lighter areas around the petal that is on top. So let's try to leave those light areas. Now just going to apply the first wash on the largest petal as well. And so for this one, we need the yellow paint. And of course, always make sure that the petals next to the one you are going to work on that they are dry because if they're still wet, the paint might just merge. So I'm just using the yellow as it is at the moment, because the top area is lighter. If you look, you know, through those dark veins, dark markings, that area is quite light. And then it becomes to be a bit darker towards the edge of the petal and towards the bottom. So I will do the area with a little bit of the purple color mixed to the yellow. To make it sort of darker yellow. So just applying in the middle of the petal where there is that very dark area. So I just apply the purple color, and I will make that darker and darker as I work. And always the same technique. Use your damp brush to just transition the paint and give it a smooth transition. And always be mindful of the edges as well. Try to be as neat as possible with the edges. And remember to keep rinsing your damp brush as well, because it will pick up the paint and start transferring it everywhere. So sometimes it's something that you want. Like, in this case, for example, it's okay to have a little bit of paint because the area is darker, so it's alright to do that. But otherwise, if you want to leave the surface light or white, just remember to rinse your second brush quite often. And in here I'm just applying a little bit of lemon yellow because the area is a bit lighter. That's it. This is the first layer, and in the next step, we're going to leave this dry and apply a second layer. 6. Second Layer: Now that the first wash is completely dry, we can apply the second wash or second layer. And what I do in this case, I actually do a wet on dry. I use a wet on dry technique. So in this case, I won't apply a wash. The petos are not too big. So maybe if it was a larger area, I would apply, again, a wash with water, always being careful not to disturb the layers underneath. But in this case, the petals are, you know, quite small. So I start applying this wash by using the wet on dry technique. So the paper is dry, then I apply the paint. And I work on small areas, so it's easier to control the paint in this way. And at least for me, I have more control over where the paint goes. And you don't have, you know, the pressure of rushing before the paint dries and it creates, you know, watermarks and all that. So apply the paint a little bit thicker but not too thick because you still want to be able to work well with the paint and not apply too much. It's better to add more layers and make it dark by adding more layers rather than apply a really dark color straight away, and then maybe if you make a mistake, you don't know how to fix that. So apply a little bit of paint, and then again with the damp brush, create the transition. And keep looking at your reference photo. And as you can see, I apply the paint and then just touch the brush on the edge of the area of paint that I have applied. So that way, you create the smooth transition. It's like if you use a pencil and then you use what is it called torchon or something like that to make that, you know, smooth out the pencil lines and make the transition. It's in a way, it's a bit like that, but you use a damp brush instead. So slowly keep applying your wet paint on the dry paper and keep doing the transition with your damp brush. Make sure you leave the lighter areas. So don't apply too much paint on the on the area where it should be left white. And again, keep following the direction of the veins of the petal. So in this case, it's almost like a vertical vertical lines. And don't worry if the area on the edge of the petal looks too light because we will fix that with another wash, so that it's okay for the moment. You don't need to worry about that. So in here, I've sped up the video a little bit because the technique is the same as before. So as you can see, I applied a little bit of paint and then transition it with a damp brush and then keep doing. I'm just working in sections so you don't have to work on the entire petal at the same time. So it's a very relaxed way to approach this watercolor painting. And I'm not sure you could do that with, for example, a landscape painting. But with the botanical painting, you can easily do that, as you can see here. So make sure you always give a little bit of mix to your colors in your palette as well, because sometimes very often, the pigments tend to settle at the bottom. And depending on what pans you're using, they tend to separate as well. So every now and then just give it a good mix. In here, I'm doing the same thing always starting with the area is darker. So keep looking at your reference photo. Of course, it doesn't have to be photorealistic. We're not trying to do that here. We're using that as a reference. But I don't actually don't like photorealism. I like to be you know, as accurate as possible. And when we do botanical illustration or scientific illustration, then you have to be as close as possible, of course, to your subject. But I don't really like to do photorealism. I like it, you know, to see it from other artists. But for me, the way I work, I don't like to do it myself. So I use the picture here as a reference. Uh, and yes, I try to follow the light and dark areas, but I'm not going to do it, you know, photorealistic version of it. So again, using little strokes to apply the paint so that it reminds of the venation of these petals. And if you have a real flower, it will be good to really look at it before you start, really study it, look at the veins and look at the different markings of the flower, look at the inside, you know, the central area, and really study your subject. This is a good thing to do for all of your subject, whether you're painting a leaf or a flower or something else or a fruit. It's always a good idea to really, really observe it properly. Here, I'm just going over the central part again because we need to make it much darker. So I'm just applying many layers here to make it darker. So just apply a little bit more of the purple paint. And then I will add later on some the darker version of the paint. And also, that purple is mixing with a yellow in the flowers. So you will need to do that as well, just add a little bit more purple like I'm doing on the sides of the peto. And I always try to do that transition from the dark area to the light area. I never really ve really neat lines unless it's like this on the flour. Here I'm just mixing some of the yellow mix with the purple mix. As I was saying earlier, just to make the yellow a little bit darker to mimic what's happening in the petal because in that area, the yellow goes a little bit darker and it's a good idea to use the mixes that you already have instead of trying to make a new one and it works pretty well, in my opinion. And just use your damp brush again to smooth the color and smooth the transition. I use little strokes here. And always remember to leave the light area on the top a bit lighter because it's more yellow at the top of the petal. So this is the second layer done, and we are now ready for the next step. 7. Details: Now that the painting is dry, we can start working on some details. And what I'm going to do now is to apply some very, very diluted darkening mix to the Petos. So I will apply it to the light area or white area of the Petos because if you want to depict a white flower, you use a darkening mix like a gray to show the shadows and the folds of the white flower. So in this case, I'm adding a little bit of darkening mix in those areas that are white, which have a little bit of shadow. So it's not a lot. Always go very light. At first, you can always add a bit more. And then I'm adding a little bit more of the green for the like, very center of the flower. And then I will do some dry brush work on the petals. And what I do is I pick up some paint, and then I use a bit of scrap paper to do some lines and basically get rid of the excess paint in my brush. And then just use the brush almost like a color pencil. So you just do some light strokes always in the direction of the veins, and then just either short or longer strokes, but just very, very light with your brush. Don't press too hard or you're risking leaving too much paint on the paper. And just basically color the petal. So this way, I find that gives you a lot of control over where the color ends up. And I always finish my paintings like this with a dry brush, which it might seem that it takes a little bit of time, but it's quite relaxing, actually, and you can apply the color exactly where you want instead of wearing with the wash that it would go in areas where it shouldn't go. And when you work like this, as you work, of course, the amount of paint in the brush will become less and less. And so what you can do at this point is to move towards the lighter areas if you feel that you need to add a little bit of color there, but you don't want to add too much. So basically, as soon as I pick up the paint and get rid of the excess paint from the brush, I start coloring in the darkest area of the petals, in this case. So where I see the darkest area. And then as the paint wears off, I move to the lighter areas. And as you can see, I pick up a very tiny amount of paint. You don't need a lot in your brush. You only need a little tiny amount. And if one day you want to paint on vellum, for example, this technique is very similar to what you would do if you painted on vellum, because there you can't use a wash. Basically on vellum, you're not able to do a watercolor wash. So you need to use dry brushing. And I proceed like this for all of the petos and it's also in this way, it's also easier to leave that little tiny area of light or almost white, which is around the pets. Sometimes you can see in certain areas here, you have the area which is almost white. So you can leave that in a more comfortable way if you use the dry brush. And I sped up the video because basically it's just that same technique. You just use your brush very lightly on the paper and just color as if you would colour with any pencil. And sometimes you might feel that you're not leaving any paint on the paper, but rest assured that you are. And if you want to test this, you can take a little bit of scrap paper just white and then do the same technique on that bit of paper, and you will see how much paint you actually will deposit on the paper. So this way, you can strengthen the color a little bit at the time and exactly where you want, you know, specific areas. And you can always add a little bit more if you need to, and you won't have any pressure, any worry, any stress about water going where it shouldn't go. And you can shape the three D of the petal as well. In this central area, I'm going to add the darker version of the paint as well. But at the moment, I'm just strengthening this color because you can see that area is dark. So I will add more paint and more darker paint. And then as you can see, sometimes I feel like I still have too much paint on my brush, even if I've been using it a little bit. So you just keep some scrap paper nearby. It doesn't have to be watercolor paper. It can be just any paper. And you can get rid of the excess paint. And then if you want to smooth out some of the strokes, you can use your damp brush to just go over your strokes so it will smooth them out a little bit. And then over the yellow underneath, I will just use the purple color. So there will be the yellow still shining through, but then you will have the darker color that you can see on the reference picture. I'm just using small strokes in here. So the damp brush is really just damp. There's no water whatsoever in it, you know, like a lot of water because otherwise it would maybe wet your paint too much. You might disturb the layers underneath. So just a little bit damp, and that's it. So this is how I apply the details. And then in the next step, I will apply a wash just to bring everything together and also to give the colour a more violet bias. 8. Final Wash: Now that I have applied the details, I'm going to apply a wash and I'm using just the brilliant violet as it is, but very diluted so that I can give a little bit of color to the area which is the area at the edge of the petals, which is quite light is too light. That will get this, the violet color. Also this wash will bring together all your strokes. So we make it more harmonious. And also to the entire petal, it will give a little bit of more violet bias, which is what I wanted to achieve as well with the wash. So I'm just applying the wash all over the petals. Well, the darker Petos, of course. And I'm still applying the wash one petro at a time, even though it's the same color and still following the growth in the venation of the petals. Of course, be careful when you get to the light area, which is supposed to remain basically white. So don't put color in that area. And don't rub too much your brush because you would start disturbing the layers underneath. So always be with a very light touch. Always add the layers with a very light touch. And then I'm adding a little bit of this wash at the bottom of the larger petal because there is the darker area, just on that and then with a clean brush, I just make the transition towards the yellow. And then I strengthen the green part, like the center of the flower. And I also add some lemon yellow, where the pollen sack is because that's a very light yellow. So I'm just adding this lemon yellow and a little bit in the very center there, and that's it. Now the next thing I want to do is to add the very darkest details just to finish off the petals. 9. Darker Details: Now, I'm just going to add the very darkest details. So I'm using my dark mix. And again, I'm using the dry brush technique. So I pick up a very tiny amount of paint as I did before. And in this case, you have to be careful, you know, even more careful with the darker paint. So pick up a little tiny amount. Use your scrap paper if you're not sure if you have too much paint in your brush, and then just apply this dark paint only where you see the darkest details in your flower. So on the top pet, there is a very dark area and also on the back petal as well. Again, I just use the brush very lightly. And always start in the darkest area and then just apply the paint as we did before. So make sure you apply some of the darker paint on the petals that are underneath. So between the two petals so that you will see the three D effect. It looks like the petal underneath is really sort of in shadow of the petal from the top. And again, I'm applying some of the darker paint in the center of the lower petal as well. And that's it. What is left now to do is to apply the final touches, which are the markings of the petals. 10. Final Touches: We're almost finished now with painting. And what I do is I use my darkening mix, and I add quite a lot of that to my violet color, the local color. So it's not completely gray or dark. There is a little bit of violet coming through. And then carefully, I apply this mix quite thickly. I shouldn't be very diluted at all to the markings that I can see in the violet. And I'm using a double zero brush. This is the winter Newton Series seven double zero brush. You can use any very small brush that you have available and just slightly apply the paint. And it's easier if you apply the paint coming from top to bottom, so dragging the brush towards you. And if you're not sure how to do this, try to do some test runs on some scrap paper. So as you can see, I pick up some paint and then just slightly apply the markings. It doesn't have to be perfectly exactly the same as the markings on the picture. But you can follow you should still be able to see the markings from the tracing. Follow those which are very similar to the one in the picture. And, of course, don't forget to apply the ones in the side petals as well. And I'm trying not to move the painting too much, but it's easier, as I was saying, to bring the brush towards you when you apply the paint. And that's it. So I'm applying a little bit of really dark paint in the very center as well, because that's quite dark. And I will leave the painting for a few days and then go back and check if there is anything else that needs adjusting. But that's it, we finished. I hope we have enjoyed these lessons, and I can't wait to see your violets. 11. Final Thoughts: Congratulations. You've completed the class on painting a viola tri color. I hope you have enjoyed learning the step by step process and feel proud of the artwork you have created. Botanical painting is such a rewarding practice. It allows us to slow down, appreciate nature's details and express our creativity. Whether this was your first botanical painting or one of many, each brush stock adds to your skill and confidence. So here are your next steps. Don't forget to upload your finished painting in the project section. I love to see your work, and sharing it helps inspire others in the community. If you are looking for your next project, check out my other classes here on Skillshare. There will be classes on painting, but also on book binding as well if you want to make your own sketchbook. For more botanical inspiration and tutorials and behind the scenes and different content, visit my YouTube channel or follow me on Instagram and Facebook. And finally, thank you for spending your time with me and for trusting me to guide you through this creative journey. Your support and enthusiasm mean the word to me. If you enjoyed this class, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review. It helps students find the class and keeps me motivated to create more for you. So until next time, happy painting. Bye.