How to Paint Anemones in Watercolor

1. Intro: Hello everyone. In this tutorial, I'll show you how we can paint these nominees in a fun, loose way and how we can add some special effects. We're going to start with a drawing and masking the main flowers. Then I will show you how to paint a nice, soft wet on wet background with beautiful color transitions. Will also experiment a bit and add some special effects to the background. After that, we will use some basic techniques to paint the flowers. You will see how to achieve smooth gradients, the interesting shadows. Finally, we'll add an extra touch, will create ghost flowers, as I call them in the background. They will nicely complement the whole composition and also add an interesting, unique touched the painting. 2. Sketch: Hi, and thank you for joining me. In this tutorial. I'll show you how to paint these anemone. I hope you'll enjoy painting them as much as I did. It's a really fun painting with no details. Really. Feel free to be creative and use your imagination because you can really customize this painting exactly the way you like it to be. My process for this painting started from very rough sketches in my sketchbook. I had a reference photo. I knew I wanted to paint these nominees, but I didn't want to paint them very realistically this time. Instead, I wanted to have fun and explore some color combinations and special effects. So here you can see I made two sketches. I was trying to find a good composition. I used just regular school colored pencils for this. But what's nice about them is that they have an eraser. I can erase them if I make a mistake. That's quite helpful. I really enjoy drawing with colored pencils instead of just gray pencil. I like the composition in the second sketch because it had more opened flowers turned to the viewer and the composition was Fuller. But I also like the blue-green color composition in the first sketch. So as you know from my final painting, I use the second composition, but the color scheme is from the first sketch with a little change. So now when I had an idea of how I wanted to place my flowers on paper, I started to draw them directly on the paper. This is not something that I usually do. I usually just trace the photo to get perfect shapes. But this time, I really felt the need to just go with the flow to have fun. I didn't care about making any mistakes. Perfect proportions, perfect sketch, going outside the lines, etc. It was just the pure joy of experimentation. A very relaxing experience with no stress at all. So I'm making a drawing on my watercolor paper. It is already attached to the gator board. I didn't wet the paper. It's just a piece of arch cold press paper. But I did staple it to my gator board because they knew that when I applied lots of water, it would start to buckle and the tape itself would not be enough. So just in case I also use staples to ensure the papers stayed in place. And the tape. I always use the tape because I like those nice clean white borders around the finished painting. And of course, tape also helps to hold the paper. As you can see, my drawing is very loose and I'm using my blue colored pencil. Maybe I should invest in watercolor pencils. But honestly, I even liked the look of pencil lines in the finished painting. It gives some additional interests, additional texture. I don't know, maybe it's because recently I'm more into children's book illustrations where there are a lot of textures and imperfections. Perhaps I was also inspired by those illustrations. When it comes to the drawing itself, I already knew what my composition should be. So I started from the left side and then moved to the right side to make sure that my flowers would not be too small or too big. I started with a very light circles to indicate where I should draw the flowers and how big they should be. When I knew more or less where I should put them, I started drawing the shapes of the petals with a very light pressure first until I got the right shape. And then with heavier pressure to define the petals a bit better. When I drew four main flowers, I realized that it was not the perfect composition because it was divided into two halves. Two flowers on the left, two flowers on the right. Something was missing. I knew I had to add something in the middle and perhaps on the side to make it more exciting. At this point, I didn't have a plan for how to do it because I knew I wanted to mask out only those four main flowers. So I had to figure it out later. 3. Masking: At this point I realized that I had to use masking fluid and when I use it, I always have a nice clean drawing and I know precisely where to apply the masking. This sketch is not so perfect, but at least I had the main shapes. When it comes to the masking fluid. I'm using Winsor and Newton masking fluid with a yellow tinge. I like it because that light yellow tinge is not too distracting. But I can see where exactly I applied the masking with color less masking fluid. It's always hard to see where it is on the paper because it's transparent. So I prefer this colored one. I'm pouring some masking fluid into an old cup and for applying it, I'll be using an old brush, which I use only for applying the masking. I don't use it for painting. We will also need a piece of soap. Here's the soap in this little container. I dip the brush in water and wrap this up a few times with wet bristles. The soap will create a protective coat on the bristles and masking fluid will not glue them together. Now, apply the masking fluid along the edges. And again, I'm not super accurate here. It's hard to be with such a rough sketch, but I really don't mind that it doesn't have to be perfect. I'm trying to keep within the lines though. I'm not applying the masking like crazy as you can see. I'm also not covering whole flowers, just the edges. So the paint from the background doesn't get to the flowers. It's like a protective wall. Now here you can see that I accidentally dropped a drop of masking on the paper. If it happens to you, don't panic. Just leave it where it is and let it dry. When it's dry, you can remove it if you try to remove it. Now when it's still wet, I guarantee that you will fail. Believe me. I know it from experience. So just don't do it. I'm also covering the stems with masking fluid. I also wanted to point out one more thing. Be generous when you are applying the masking. If you have a nice thick layer of it, it will better protect your shapes. And it will also come off easier later. Don't forget to reigns and rub your brush on a piece of soap from time to time. When you finish, leave it to dry completely. Don't use a hairdryer. Let it dry naturally for about 30 min or so. 4. Background: When the masking is dry, I can remove that happy accident. And now we are ready to paint the background. First, wet the entire background with clean water. I'm using a brush size ten. I started with a brush size 12th, but it was dirty, so I switched to number ten. You can apply a lot of water at this very early stage. It takes time to cover the whole background. Before you get to the bottom part, the upper part will start to dry out. That's why I like to add a lot of water at this stage to make sure the whole background is completely wet. And then if I decide that it's too wet, I can either wait for awhile over remove the excess water. It's better to have more water now than not enough. Besides, usually, I prepare my colors first, but this time I went straight to wearing the background. I don't know why. So if I have more water now, I will then have some time to prepare my colors. When you wet the background, prepare your colors. I'm going to use mainly Windsor blue, green shade. This will be my main blue. I'm also preparing a Winsor green, yellow shade. This green we'll make a nice turquoise when we mix it with the blue. And then of course, green, gold, which is probably one of my favorite colors. I think I noticed, I use it a lot. It makes all greens much more vibrant. And when we mix it with blue, it creates gorgeous juicy greens. So now start applying Windsor blue in the upper left corner. Notice how watery my paint is. It's really well diluted. The consistency is very runny. I don't have any particular plan when it comes to colors. I want something blue and green, but I don't know exactly where to apply them. I'm just reacting to what is happening on the paper. Now I got to the point where I think it's too much blue and it would be nice to change the color. So I'm starting to mix in some of my green to get that nice turquoise. Notice again how wet my paint is on the paper. It's beating up along the masking fluid edges. Here I left a wide gap. I think that this simple trick can help to create more open space in the background and add some air. I'm adding Payne's gray to my blue because I want to darken that part above the flower. I like to draw your attention to one thing. When we paint flowers with stems like this, the stems divide the background into parts. However, when you paint the background, make sure that it's not actually divided by the stem. What I mean by that is that we should try to paint the background continuously as if there was no stem. Tried to avoid painting the background, e.g. on the right side of the stem. And then after a while, you go back and you paint the background on the left side of the stem. Now, don't do that because on the right side and on the left side, you will most probably get different color in the background will be divided. On one side. It will be different. On the other side of the stem, it will be different. We want to achieve that evenness in the background. So when you come to the stem, paint both sides straightaway. At this point, I thought this bluish green color scheme was too boring and it needed some extra touch. Now, let's take a break for a second. When I want to live and up some colors, my first thought is always to use a complimentary color. A complimentary color is a color on the opposite side of the color wheel. Complimentary color to red is green. A complimentary color to orange is blue, and so on. When we place complimentary colors next to each other, they tend to create contrast, vivid, and energizing effect. However, be careful if we paint something with only strong complimentary colors, it will be way too much, our eyes will burn from looking at it. To avoid that aggressive effect, we can use two tricks. One is to use a complimentary color sparingly, just as an accent here and there, so that both colors don't compete with each other. And the second way is to use one of the complimentary colors in a subdued, less saturated form. Here in our case, we are using blue and green as our main colors. So our main color is blue green, or blue green is on the right-hand side, and directly opposite the blue-green, we have red orange. So we could use red, orange in the background as a compliment. It could be also orange or red. Analogous colors because, you know, it's art, not math. So we can get it super accurately. But you get the idea. So if we used red, orange in full strength, we would have to use it very sparingly. Otherwise, we would get a very high contrast. That would be hard to look at it. However, the second option is to use a less saturated form of the complimentary color. And the less saturated form of red, orange is brown, precisely. Burnt sienna. Burnt sienna is an exact subdued version of red orange. It is a reddish brown, so it has a reddish shade, but it's brown. And brown is a less saturated version of orange. So there we have it. A great color that we can add to our painting. So let's go back to the painting and prepare some burnt sienna and we will see what we get. I'm actually adding also a touch of transparent yellow to burnt sienna to make it more golden in a few spots. I know that transparent yellow makes great greens with Winsor blue. So I think it might work. However, I have to watch out because it's a very strong color. Our aim is to use more burnt sienna. Notice how beautifully that golden brown mixes with the blue on the paper. It creates a new range of greens, which is totally fine because here we were generally using analogous color scheme. So we are using blue, green tour, which are on one side of the color wheel, and we complement them with burnt sienna. Now, go wild with the colors. Apply them wherever you like. I'm just throwing them in a way that I think will be pleasing to the eyes. I'm splattering some water drops. Just add some interests because at this point, I didn't yet know that I would use salt. That was not my plan. So I wanted to add some lighter spots by dropping in some clean water. I like that effect in the background. We can mix the burnt sienna with Winsor blue and we'll get a gorgeous deep green. As you can see. I'm also tilting my painting all the time. This is also crucial. We want to get that paint moving. The colors will blend nicely. Only if the paint is in the move. If you leave it flat, you won't achieve smooth color transitions. And perhaps you will also get some blooms. You have to tilt your painting as long as the paint is moving on the paper. Stop only when you see that the paint has settled down. You see I'm not blending the colors with my brush. I just delivered the colors. I applied them to the paper and I'm allowing gravity to do the rest of the work. Remove the excess paint from the edges. If you live it, you may get unwanted blooms later. Now at this point, an idea came to my mind. What if I use salt to add some special effects? I really like this. Soft blurry background. But this time I wanted to experiment. So this is just regular table salt from my kitchen. The salt crystals are really, really tiny. My paper is not trying evenly. In some parts. It has already lost its sheen, so it's starting to dry out. And in other parts, it's still quite wet. I'm going to add the salt to both areas and we'll see what effect we will get. Here. The paper is not so wet already, it's still damp, but the surface is not so shiny anymore. In the upper right corner, it's much more wet. And here in the bottom left corner, it's also pretty wet. You can still see that excess paint that has gathered along the edges on the blue paint. It has already started working. You can see those tiny white spots. When we sprinkle salt on a damp or wet paint, the salt dissolves in the liquid and pushes away the pigment. That's why around each salt grain, we can see a lighter spot. Those spots are often called starburst models or sparkles. When you sprinkle the salt, leave the painting to dry naturally. In a second, we'll see the magic. Here. It is true magic, right? It's actually fascinating what salt can do. Now notice that here, where the paper was dry air. In result, we got more distinct shapes with slightly sharper edges. While here at the bottom, in the bottom-left corner, the paint was still wet when I was sprinkling that salt. And as you can see, the effect is much softer. I actually like it much better because it's not so harsh looking. It reminds me small comments. So the effect is totally unpredictable. It all depends on how wet the surface is, how big the salt crystals are, and what salt we are using. As you know, there are many kinds of salt. Remember using salt with very big grains ones. And I didn't like that effect at all. When the crystals are small, like here, they will dissolve almost entirely in the water. But when the crystals are big, they will not dissolve entirely. They will stick to the paper and a dark border will form around each grain. The crystals will also be hard to remove from the paper. That's why I prefer to use salt with very tiny crystals. This stage of the background is finished. We can now remove the masking fluid. I'm using here a rubber masking pickup tool. It's a great, really helpful tool for this. I recommend that, as you can see, because I wasn't greedy and I applied a thick layer of masking. Now it's coming off almost in one piece. Just have to pull it and it comes off very easily. Also make sure there are no remaining grains of salt. Now we can move on to the next step, which is painting the flowers. 5. Flowers - Initial Layer: We're going to start painting the flowers from the one on the bottom left. And I think we'll start from the centers. I'll be using a brush size eight. Use transparent yellow and apply it to the area with the statements. Paint around that oval shape in the middle. I'm not sure how it's called. Pull a beta of that yellow paint also to the petals. Petals are white so they catch some colors from the surroundings. That's why we can add some yellow to them. We can even add some browns, blues, and greens, which are the colors from the background. Apply the paint, wet on dry. Now rings and blot your brush. And with that slightly wet brush, try to soften the edges of that yellow paint. This softening technique is really important and we're going to use and practice it in this painting. A lot. Wet your brush blooded on a paper towel or a regular towel like I'm using to remove the excess water and then soften the paint. Sometimes only one stroke is enough. Other times, you have to come back several times. Each time, wet the brush and remove the excess moisture. It is important that your brush was not too wet or too dry. It should have a similar wetness as the paint on the paper. If it's too dry, you will just drag the paint and the edge will still remain sharp. If it's too wet, the excess water will flow into that yellow and it will create a bloom. It really comes with practice. And if you do this many times, you will feel how wet your brush should be. It's also crucial to rinse the brush after each stroke to get rid of that paint from the bristles. Otherwise, you will just transfer the paint from one place to another. And we don't want that. The flower in the bottom right corner is in the shadow. It's colors are generally darker. Let's start by applying some greens. I'm picking up my blue-green mix with a touch of green gold. I think it's a bit too cool. So to warm it up, I'm adding more green gold. I'm painting the center of the flower and I'm using a wet on dry technique. After applying paint to that center, I'm immediately softening the edges. If we want to soften those edges, we cannot wait for too long because the paint will become too dry. So soften the edges as soon as you apply the paint. Here, I want to continue applying the paint. I'm looking at the shadows on the flower. I'm adding more blue in darker areas. In fact, the colors are not so important. We could look at the black and white reference photo and choose whatever colors we like. More important are the tonal values because they create the form of the petals. So make sure that dark areas are dark enough and that you'll leave highlights in lighter areas. Paint carefully around the curled pedal to bring out its shape. A little bit of negative painting here. I'm adding more green and even some yellow and blue. And I'm softening the edges. I'm playing around with the colors. I get inspiration from the photo, but I'm not following the photo precisely. I'm going back to the first two petals to add the cast shadows. The first flower has already dried, so now we can add more colors to the petals. Start from the one on the left hand side. Paint wet on dry. We have cast shadows there with hard edges. So we are using wet on dry technique. And again, I'm playing around with the colors. I'm adding more blue, green, or yellow along the way. Closer to the center, I decided to add even a touch of burnt sienna to reflect the colors from the background. It also adds more variety in green shades. The light source is somewhere in the upper-right corner. So here we can see some elongated cast shadows of the statements. When you paint any shadow, try to vary the colors. Here we have a great example. Notice that I'm not only varying the colors, but also tones. This way the shadows are more interesting. You can see that on this petal where I added more yellow and more burnt sienna, it looks like if the shadow was glowing, It's not boring, lifeless, flat shadow. It has life and it's interesting because of all those color and tone variations. Here you can see I'm using a lot of that softening technique. I'm applying the paint and I'm quickly dipping the brush in water, removing the excess moisture and softening those edges. When I'm pulling that paint across the pedal, it creates those beautiful soft gradients from green to almost white paper. Cast shadows usually have sharp edges, like the one on the top of this pedal. Core shadows or form shadows are usually soft. They have soft edges. But we also have a combination of soft and sharp edges. In this case, after applying the paint, soften only that part that you would like to look soft and leave the hard edge as it is. That combination of soft and hard edges in watercolor painting is unique, makes the painting more interesting. Now let's move on to the flower in the upper-left. I'm starting here with a nice juicy green line running through the middle of the petal. It's mainly green gold with some Winsor green. I'm adding the edges on both sides to define this petal shape. I'm adding more blue and more of that green. And then while the paint is still wet, I'm quickly softening those edges by pulling the paint towards the tip of the petal. You can see how beautiful those gradients are. The key here is to use that clean damp brush that is not too wet and not too dry. You can also see that at the tip of the petal, that green line in the middle is still sharp. This is because it has already dried. And I also left it untouched on purpose. I wanted to leave it like that because I think it looks pretty. Now paint the other petals the same way. Apply some blue or green, bluish green, and then soften those edges. On the right-hand side, I'm using more green gold. I want this petal to be slightly warmer since the light source is on that side. That's all for now. When it comes to this petal, this is an initial layer and we will see you later if we want to darken some areas or not. Finally, the last flower in the upper right corner, start with a light tone of that blue-green mix, close to the middle part of the flower at some Windsor blue and the burnt sienna. I think there is a dash of transparent yellow in my burnt sienna to I really liked that deep dark green that comes from a mix of Winsor green and burnt sienna. It looks really great. As you can see in darker areas. I'm just adding all of my colors I've been using so far. There's green, there's blue, burnt sienna, and transparent yellow, depending on what is happening on the paper and what color I'm getting. I may add more blue or brown or more green. It just depends on what I like at the moment and what I think would look nice. Here I am adding some lines. First, these lines indicates small indentations in the pedal. And now when I soften the edges of those lines, I may get that effect of slightly wavy form of the pedal. Lighter places are small hills and darker ones are a little valleys. I'm also dropping in a touch of green gold at the top to match the previous flower. And also to add a warmer touch. The pedal on the right-hand side also has warmer colors. I even added some trends. And yellow, again to suggest that the warm light source coming from the right site. There is also one pedal left here. I didn't paint it earlier because if I added paint here, it would blend with the greens and blues and I wouldn't get that hard edge on the pedal. Now when it's all dry, I can add some colors to this small pedal. I'm starting with some yellow. Then I'm dropping in Windsor blue than burnt sienna. And finally green, gold, many colors because I was looking for the right colors for this pedal. Notice also that I left some white areas to suggest highlights. Okay, so now leave everything to dry. And in the next part, we're going to add some details and darken some areas. 6. Flowers - Details and Dark Tones: Before you start applying another layer, make sure that everything is completely dry. I'll be using a smaller brush now and it will be a size for use, transparent yellow mixed with a little bit of green, gold and paint the anthers. No details. I'm just trying to paint more or less oval shapes. What is important here is their direction. We have to imagine that they are coming out from the center. So all of those oval shapes are facing that big oval structure in the middle. Now we need a dark green. I'm mixing Windsor blue with burnt sienna. Use this dark color to paint the shadow on that structure. After applying the paint, soften it quickly. The right hand side should be lighter in tone because that's the part in the light. Use this dark green to paint the spaces between the anthers on the left side, which is in the shadow. I know that the answers are already dry here so I can paint around them. If yours are still wet, wait a minute or two. You don't want to have a mess here. You don't want to blend the colors. Use that dark green also on the pedal to paint the dark shadow. Use the same technique. Applied the paint and quickly soften the wet edge. The next petal, I just want to deepen the shadow. I think it's not dark enough. So I'm just applying one more layer of color. I'm starting with some green gold, then I'm changing the color to burnt sienna. You can see in the final painting that it gives that nice glow. And then I'm continuing with green. I'm painting more spaces between the anthers, but this time with a lighter tone of green. Now add more anthers and also thin filaments. We want to create an impression that there are lots of anthers. Some of them in the back are lighter in tone, some of them in front or darker. They overlap each other and create that nice result. Add also some random dots to that egg shape in the middle, just to add some texture to it. Now switch to a bigger brush and deepen the shadows on the petals. I'm again using my blue and green and the same softening technique as before. I'm also adding some lines to the petals to add some texture. Now I'm this flower, I can see the lines, so I will have to improvise a bit. If you are not comfortable enough to paint straight away and you can see the lines. Feel free to draw them first to make sure that you know where to make your brushstrokes. I'm using my brush like a pencil now. I'm just indicating with a few lines, where is that egg shape in the middle. And then I'm painting straight away. I'm using a warm green mix of green gold and some Windsor blue. It's my favorite mics. When I need a juicy fresh green, it looks like sap green or Hooker's green. And that's why I don't have those colors on my palette because I can mix them really easily with Winsor blue and green gold. And they are even more intense and also more transparent than original sap green or hookers green. I'm preparing bigger puddles of paint on my palette. I think I will need more paint for this flower. I have here burnt sienna, transparent, yellow, and Winsor blue, green shade. I'm picking up a mix of Windsor blue and burnt sienna. And I'm painting that dark shadow on the left petal. Paint around the anthers to bring out their shapes. I'm also adding green gold, of course, to vary the colors here. And again, while the paint is still wet, I'm softening the edges quickly. So at this stage, our aim is to darken the shadows and use them to make clear distinctions between each petal. Now using a very dark green and mix of Windsor blue and burnt sienna, add a shadow to that oval structure in the middle. Make it darker on the left and soften the paint towards the right-hand side with the highlight. Added just a dash of green, gold or transparent yellow on the right to suggest warm light. With the same dark green paint, the negative spaces between the Ampere's to bring out their shapes. And then add more amperes with filaments around the same way as we did with the previous flower. This flower looks like it really needs some more contrast. It's quite pale. We can't really see individual petals. And the bottom part definitely needs darkening. Use dark green. Again, a mix of Windsor blue and burnt sienna. And start from the bottom of the flower. Apply that dark color there and soften it towards the stem. Now add a shadow on the right end. Quickly soften the edges. Add shadow also on the left side. Here I'm using more green gold and a bit more burnt sienna to introduce more variety in colors. Surf and everything nicely. We want to see those smooth, beautiful color and tonal gradients applied that neutral green and mix of Windsor blue and the burnt sienna with more burnt sienna this time. Middle part of the pedal, more in the lower part and soften the edges. This core shadow will help to create a round form because the edges are a lighter and that transition from light to dark creates that more three-dimensional form. I'm also adding a stronger mix of transparent yellow with green gold in the middle. This adds more interest. Now I still think the bottom part of the petal and this whole flower is still too pale. So I'm adding more dark green. Here. I added transparent yellow and green gold. And now look what happens when a smooth everything out. Gorgeous. I love those color transitions. It's like colorful fog. Finally with a very light tone, I want to separate one more petal on the right. I'm just painting a light shadow here. This will be enough to make a distinction between the two petals. And we have one more flower to paint. If you like, you can pause the video and try to paint it without looking at what I'm doing. I'm not doing here anything new. I'm following the same steps. I'm starting with the darkest shadows. I'm applying dark colors and then I'm softening them out. It is just a process of constant adjustments. When you make one brush stroke, you soften it, you go to another place, you'll make another brushstroke, you soften it. Then it turns out that the previous one has dried too pale and it's not dark enough, so we'll go over it once again. You make another brushstroke, you soften it, and so on. It's just a matter of adjusting the tones while also keeping an eye on the colors, of course. But remember the colors are less important than tones. For this process of adjusting the colors and tones I like to use, as you can see, very light layers of paint. Because with each brush stroke, I can adjust either color or tone. If I went straight away with a very dark or thick paint, it would be very hard to do anything with that. But if we use very thin lines, one above another and another and another, it's just easier to adjust colors and tones with each layer as we go along. Now to finish the flowers completely, Let's also paint the stems. They are very easy so you can paint them quickly. First, apply a basic color in a light tone. It may be brown or green, or something more neutral wherever you like. Here this stem is more brownish in my case, cover the entire stem with a light color. Now, mix a dark color. I'm using Winsor blue and burnt sienna, but this time, make sure it has a thicker consistency. It is important. It can't be too watery. It should be thicker than the paint we have just applied to the stem. And with that dark color, in a thicker consistency, run your brush through the middle of the entire stem. This way we are creating a round form of this stem. Both edges or a light in tone. There is the reflected light on those edges. And when we run our brush through the middle with the dark paint, we create a shadow. This simple trick creates a nice rounded form of shapes like this. If you are dark paint is spreading too much. Don't worry. With a clean damp brush. Try to lift out the paint from the edges. Use your brush like a sponge and leafed out the paint from from the edges to reveal more of that light. In my case, the consistency of the dark paint was okay. And it spread just right. Let's paint others stems the same way. For our base light layer, we can use one solid color or we can introduce more variety. We can make it more greenish or yellowish in some areas. Why not? Here I'm adding even more of that darker green just under the petals to show that the stems are in the shadow of the flower. Now I decided to use more green with Brown on these two stems. Finally, in this last stem, I'm using our dark green bar in a lighter tone as my base. And I'm also adding transparent yellow to indicate a worm highlight. And again, thick dark green consistency paint running through the middle. And our flowers are finished. Congratulations. Now I always like to leave the painting for a moment, go somewhere else, get a coffee, and come back after awhile to look at it with fresh eyes. If there are any areas that I want to fix. Now this is the time to do that. So here I noticed that the center of the flower is not dark enough, so I'm just adding one more dark green layer of paint here. And I also thought that this stem needs a bit more definition and the more darkening close to the flower. And I think that the rest looks fine. If I noticed something more, I can always fix it somehow. Now we can move on to the last step. We're going to create some ghost flowers. 7. Ghost Flowers: After finishing the flowers, I was considering for quite a long time whether I should do something more in the background or not. On the one hand, I knew that in my initial sketch, in my composition, I drew more flowers in the background. I thought they were really important and necessary here to balance the composition because without them, the background is a bit too empty. On the other hand, that salt effect was really strong and I wasn't sure if I should mess with it. It could have ended really badly. Eventually, I thought that, hey, this whole painting is one big experiment. Let's just take a risk and add some flowers. And I'm really glad I did that. They add much more interest to the painting. They complement the composition in a nice, gentle way. And they just look really lovely. Flowers, spirits. I really like that effect. I'll show you how to do this. I used my blue pencil to draw very, very light lines to know where I want to see this flower. More or less. Flowers look transparent. That's a very nice and unique look. In order to achieve this effect, we have to combine two techniques, lifting out and negative painting. I started by wetting the paint with my regular round brush, but I quickly realized that it was way too soft. Windsor Blue is a staining color and it's difficult to lift out, so we need to use a scrubber brush. So I switched to my Winsor and Newtons Galleria brush, and I started to rub it quite intensively. I'm using a wet brush. I'm rubbing the surface of the paper NMR, lifting out the paint by dabbing it with a paper towel. I'm trying to create petal shapes with my brush. Now, the crucial thing here is that I'm lifting out the paint from the highlighted areas of the petals. So I'm not trying to lift out the paint from the entire petal shape, but only from light places of those petals. The paint that is on the paper creates the shadows of those petals. I hope that makes sense. I'm looking at the reference photo now to know where those light areas are. I just chose one of the flowers from the photo. Now when we are lifted out the paint, we can then use the negative painting technique to define that flower a little bit more. I'm picking a burnt sienna and I'm applying it to the shadow areas on the petals. I just want to define those shadows a little bit more. Now I'm using the blue color to paint the negative space close to the petals to bring out the shapes of those petals. This is the negative painting. Can you see how it helps to define the shape of those petals? I'm not painting the petals themselves, but the background around them. I'm also painting the negative space at the bottom with the brown. I'm also lifting out the paint to suggest a stem. Now the second flower here, I'm going straight to lifting out. I didn't add any pencil lines, but if you like, of course please draw the flower shape here. It will be easier for you. I now have a pretty clear idea of how I want it to look like. So I just started lifting out straightaway. This one was more difficult to leafed out because there is a lot of blue that staining blue. So it required more rubbing and more water. If the paint doesn't want to move, use more water. Here. I used really a lot of water and I actually damage the paper a bit. I was rubbing so hard. But that's fine. This paper is really forgiving because I used so much water here. The surface is now dump. So in this case, I don't want to add paint to the shadows and negative spaces because I will get a blurry effect. I have to wait until this area dries. So in the meantime, I will move on to the third flower, and I'll come back to this one in a minute. The third one is just a simple bud from the reference photo. As you can see, it's partially lead by the sun and partially in the shadow. I'm going to lift out the paint from those areas lead by the sum. Okay, now I can come back to the second flower. I'm using Winsor blue to paint the negative space around the pedal. I'm adding our dark green in the shadows to make a more apparent distinction between the petals. Much more dark green to suggest that nice core shadow and the round form. And another shadow on the right. Now with more brown, I want to bring out the stem shape and with the Winsor blue, again, a negative space at the top to get that nice pedal shape. And that's it. We can now move on to the bud. Here I'm just painting that nice round shape in the shadow. I'm using a light tone first to make this shape. And then I'm dropping in a darker tone when I'm sure that I got the shape right. Finally, I'm adding a bit of blue to the stem. The stems that we created by lifting out the paint don't have to remain so pale. We can also add some color to them. And I think I can call this one finished. Just one last good look at the whole painting. I'm looking for any areas that stand out too much or need more adjustments. This shadow here. And if there are no more major issues with it, then it's done. After removing the tape, we have that nice clean border around. Here's a closer look at the painting. I hope you enjoyed the videos and I hope you will give this one a go because it was fun to paint. And I'm really curious what results you will get. It will be fun to see different versions of it. Thanks for watching and happy painting. Bye.