Mastering Watercolor: Painting Lilies and Light

1. Introduction: Watercolor painting has brought a sense of calmness to my life and has taught me patience in every brushstroke. It's a relaxing and expressive medium that allows me to bring beautiful floral designs to life. Hey, I'm Chris, an artist who finds joy and inspiration in watercolor painting. Over the years, I've explored various artistic techniques and mediums, but watercolor remains my favorite. You may have seen some of my artwork online, or perhaps you've attended one of my classes on Skillshare. In this class, we will be creating a stunning lily painting. Whether you're looking to decorate your home, gift a personalized piece or enhance your artistic portfolio. This class is for you. This tutorial is perfect for intermediate and advanced painters. As well as beginners ready to take their skills to the next level. I believe that the skills you will learn in this class, such as layering, color blending, and softening will be transferable to many other watercolor projects in the future. We'll start by going over some basic information about the symbolism of lilies and their role in art history. Then we'll discuss the correct mindset for longer and more challenging projects like this one. Finally, we'll dive into mixing colors and painting the background. Next, we will focus on adding layers to create depth and detail in the petals and leaves. I'll share tips and tricks for achieving realism and vibrant colors. By the end of this class, you will have a beautiful lily painting and a solid understanding of fundamental watercolor techniques. I'm excited to guide you through this process and share the techniques that I've found over the years. If you're ready to start painting, grab your watercolor paints, brushes, and paper, and let's get started. 2. Project and Resources: I've prepared some helpful resources for your project, which you can access in the projects and resources section. There you will find a PDF file containing a list of the supplies I used for this particular painting, a reference photo, and my finished painting to guide you. Line drawings are available in different sizes that you can print and transfer into your watercolor paper, allowing you to choose the size that suits your preferences. Painted this on a 16 by 12 size. Additionally, there are work in progress photos that will help you follow the process and focus on specific areas. Feel free to explore these resources and use them to create your unique and beautiful painting. Please don't hesitate to share your progress shots and the final painting with the class in the projects and resources section. Also strongly recommend that you take a look at each other's work in the student project gallery. It's always inspiring to see others work and extremely comforting to get the support of your fellow students. Don't forget to like and comment on each other's work. Lastly, I highly recommend, especially in this class, watching each lesson before you start your painting. This will help you get a better understanding of what to expect in each part of the tutorial. If you find this class helpful, I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave an honest review. Your feedback will help me create better content and assist other students in deciding whether to take this class. Thank you in advance. 3. Lillies Across Art History: Lilies have been celebrated for centuries, not just for their beauty, but also for their deep symbolic meaning. In ancient Greek mythology, the origin of Lilies is said to be divine and closely linked to Hera, the Queen of the Gods. It all started with a clever trick by Zeus, Hera's husband and the king of the goods. Zeus wanted his mortal son, Hracles, who we often known as Hercules, to gain divine strength by nursing from Hera, even though Hracles was born to Zeus and a mortal woman. To accomplish this, Zeus brought the infant Hracles to Hera while she was asleep, allowing the baby to nurse from her divine milk, However, Hera soon awakened and realizing what was happening, pushed Heracles away. As she did, drops of her milk spilled across the heavens. Those droplets of divine milk created a brilliant, milky smear across the sky, which we now know as the milky way. But the story doesn't end there. According to legend, some of Hera's milk also fell to the earth. From these sacred drops, beautiful white flowers emerged. The very first lilies. These lilies were not just ordinary flowers. These exquisite flowers symbolize purity, beauty, and the divine connection between the heavens and the myrtal world. In Christian art, the lily is often associated with the Virgin Mary. The connection is deep and meaningful. Lilies, especially the white lily, have long been seen as symbols of Mary's purity and holiness. In religious art, lilies often appear with Mary in scenes like the annunciation, where the angel Gabriel gives her a lily to announce she would be the mother of Jesus. During the Renaissance, artists like Leonardo Da vinci and Sandra Botticelli included lilies in their works to convey these themes. The delicate petals and elegant form of the lily made it a favorite among artists seeking to infuse their works with both aesthetic beauty and profound meaning. Art Nouveau embraced the lilies elegant form, incorporating it into decorative designs and stained glass. Across various periods and styles, lilies have consistently been used to convey themes of beauty, purity, and spiritual significance, making them a timeless and beloved motive in art. Those of you who are interested in artemanc may also be familiar with L enorman cards. In this deck, card number 30 is the lily or Lilies. The lily card is rich with meanings and connotations that often revolve around themes of purity, virtue, peace, tranquility, maturity, wisdom, as well as family, ancestry, and sexuality. Understanding the historical and symbolic significance of lilies enriches our appreciation and approach to painting them. I hope you feel a bit more inspired. Now as we transition to the next part of our tutorial, let's explore the mindset needed to capture the essence of these remarkable flowers in our artwork. 4. Mindset: Before we begin painting, I want to emphasize the importance of correct mindset. Painting lilies and light requires patience, perseverance, and willingness to experiment with various techniques. Throughout this journey, remember that it's not just about the final result, but the joy of painting itself. Each brush stroke is an opportunity to learn and grow as an artist. I encourage you to embrace the process, take your time, and enjoy every moment of creating this artwork. We won't complete this painting in one setting. That's for sure. It's perfectly normal to take breaks, step back, and return with fresh eyes. This approach not only helps maintain the quality of your work, but also allows you to appreciate the process you're making. Here are some key points for the correct mindset. Focus on enjoying the act of painting rather than stressing about the final product. Each brushstroke and technique practiced adds to your growth as an artist. Think about setting small achievable goals for each painting session to celebrate your progress. Understand that you won't finish this painting in one setting. Taking breaks is essential to maintain high quality work and prevent frustration. Be patient and trust the process. Plan your sessions and take breaks to let the paint dry and to return with a fresh perspective. Strike for consistent practice rather than perfect results. Mistakes are part of the learning process and can lead to unexpected and beautiful outcomes. If you're not familiar with some techniques and you would like to practice them first, keep a sketchbook or practice sheets to experiment without the pressure of perfection. Advanced projects like this one can be challenging, and it's normal to feel frustrated at times. Maintaining a positive attitude helps you overcome obstacles. When you encounter difficulties, step back, review your work, and approach the problem with a calm mind. Preparation is key to success. Before starting, gather all necessary materials and create a comfortable workspace. Before you apply the paint, take a moment to consider your small goal and what you aim to achieve. Can be something as simple as applying one layer to one petal. That's it. Keep your goal in mind. Be open to changes and adjustments as you paint. Sometimes the painting will take a different direction than plant, and that's okay. Adapt to the flow of the painting and trust your instincts. After each session, take time to reflect on what you've learned and how you can improve. Every painting is a learning opportunity. Consider creating a visual progress log where you document each stage of your painting journey with photos. This log can help you track your improvements over time and provide a visual reference for future projects. Take notes alongside your visuals to capture insides techniques explored and ideas to refinement. With these key points in mind, let's now begin our painting journey. Happy painting, 5. Masking: Let's begin by masking out the main shapes. The outline of the lies is not difficult and it is possible to paint around it. If you don't have masking fluid or don't want to use it, you don't have to. I like the comfort of not worrying about the main shape, so I'm going to mask it out. I'll be using Windsor Newton's masking fluid with a yellow tinge, which I always use and have never had problems with. Here I have an old cup. This is a piece of soap. And here's my old brush just for applying the masking. Never use your good brushes for this. We will also need water. I'll start by puring some masking from the bottle into an old cup. Then I will quickly close the bottle. If masking in the bottle has contact with oxygen for too long, it will create clumps. It's best to keep it open for as short a time as possible. First deep the brush in water and then rub it several times on the piece of soap. This creates a protective coat that will help keep the bristles in good condition for much longer. Now with the soap applied, Dep the brush in masking fluid and start applying it to the edges of the main shapes. Do this very carefully. Don't hurry and try to create smooth edges. Remember that the edges that you create with masking fluid will define the edge of your main subject. Try to keep them as smooth as possible. Smaller elements like this leaf can be covered entirely. For bigger shapes, it's enough to apply the masking just to the edges. Be very generous. A layer of masking fluid should be thick. If it's thick, it will be easier to remove later. If it's too thin, it might not protect the shapes well and could be harder to remove. When it comes to the leaves at the bottom and the stem, you have a choice. If you like, you can mask them out and then paint those shapes the same way as we will be painting the flowers. However, I decided not to mask out the leaves and the stem because I know the background will be green. Green is a color that is very easy to lift. The leaves and the stem don't have many light colors. They are mainly highlights. In this case, I thought I could use the lifting out technique to create what I call ghost shapes. This means I won't be painting the leaves as we normally would. Instead, I will create their shapes by lifting off the paint in the highlight areas. Adding some colors were necessary. If you're not sure what to do, you can take a break now and watch the part with the leaves. Then you can decide whether you want to follow my technique or mask out the leaves and paint them later in the usual way. I think the way I created the leaves adds a bit of a mystic feel to it. Those subtle shapes are not very prominent. They blend with the background and create a nice cohesive hole with the background. Painting them in a regular way would probably connect the leaves more with the flower than with the background, they would be more prominent. So it's really a matter of personal choice. By creating them this way, I put less emphasis on the leaves. In the class resources, you can find an illustration showing exactly where I applied masking fluid. I think it will help you apply the masking in the correct areas. When you finish, dep the brush in water and rub it on a piece of soap several times to clean it. Now, let's wait until the masking dries completely. When you're ready, we can move on to painting the background. 6. Background: Now that the masking fluid is completely dry, we can start painting the background. Let's first prepare some colors. I'll start by mixing winds or yellow deep with permanent rose. This mix gives a nice, red, warm pink or orange, depending on the proportions. We will use these colors a in this painting. I want to keep it more on the pink side. I will use this color to paint the blurry pink shape in the background. We will also need greens, of course, I will be using my standard colors, which I use most often, green gold for the warm light green, and windsor green yellow shade for a rich, vibrant green. On its own, windsor green yellow shade is too strong, so I always mix it with either green gold or something else to mute it a bit. At the top of the mixing space, I will also keep paints gray, which will help me create dark shades of green. We will need a lot of paints gray for this dark background. The flower petal in the upper part divides the background into two shapes, which is always nice because it allows us to manage smaller sections. Let's start by painting the upper part. Begin by applying a layer of water to this area. We will be painting wet on wet. Always use this technique if I want to achieve a smooth background with nice smooth colored transitions. It's the easiest way to paint such a background without getting an overwork to look if you follow a few rules. First of all, apply a lot of water. It's better to apply more water than not enough. The paint needs water to spread freely on the paper. I'm using a size 12 brush here. The size of the brush also matters. You cannot use a small brush because you will quickly get an overworked look. The bigger the brush, the better. This area should be glistening. If you see paddles of water, try to spread them across the surface to maintain an even wetness in this area. Now, pick up the reddish pink mix of winds are yellow, deep and permanent rose and start by painting the pink shape in the back. I'm adding slightly more permanent rose to keep it on the rose side. Oh. Next switch to the worm green with more green gold and less windsor green. Apply this color in the lightest areas. If you use dabbing motions with the brush, just dabbing it on the paper several times, you will release more paint than with the regular brush strokes. I often use this technique to release more paint from the brush to paper. The paint will slowly spread in the water. Try to keep the shapes a little distance from each other. Now start adding the darkest green, which is a mix of the two greens and paints gray. Don't force the paint to move with your brush or try to blend the colors with your brush. The colors will blend naturally on their own. Our task is just to transfer the paint from the palette to the paper and apply the colors in specific areas. In a minute, we will start tilting the painting, and the colors will blend on their own. In the darkest places, I'm using more concentrated paint. This gives us a darker tone, but concentrated paint also spreads less, allowing us to control the spreading by adjusting the concentration. Once I finish adding the colors, it's time to tilt the painting in different directions to make the paint move on the paper. During this process, the colors blend smoothly. We're not using a brush for this. We only use the brush to remove any excess gathering on the edges. I found that many students often say their backgrounds look overworked. I think the reason for this is that they use not enough water and try to blend the colors with the brush. Often when the paint is already too dry for blending. As a result, instead of a nice smooth background, you get a lot of brush marks creating that overworked look. To avoid this, you need to use more water and more watery paint, also bigger brush and try to resist the urge to blend the colors with your brush. Use your brush just to drop the colors onto the paper and blend them only by tilting the paper. Also, if possible, try to paint the background in one layer, especially if it's green. A second layer on the background may disturb the previous layer, no matter how dry it was and create a mess. This is especially true for green, which is very easy to lift off. If it's a green background, paint it in one layer. That's what we're trying to do here. Remember that the paint will dry paler. When it's wet, it should be darker than your intended result color. Janet Whittle, one of my favorite watercolor artists, and my first inspiration, once said, if it's right, when it's wet, then it's wrong. This means that if the tonal value of the color looks correct to you when the paint is still wet. It will be incorrect when it dries because it will dry paler. That's why we need to use a bit darker paint at the very beginning to get the result we are aiming for. Tilt your painting until you see that the paint settles down and stops moving. If you notice any larger paddles of water gathering on the edges, remove them with a clean dumb brush. While this area is drying, we can start painting the next one. Make sure you have enough paint on your palette. I always think I have enough, but usually during painting, I have to prepare more. I'm always surprised by how much paint I need, especially when painting something dark. As you can see, I use a different brush for preparing colors. It's just a cheap flat brush. It allows me to pick up more paint quickly, and it's easier to prepare colors with it because it's not as soft as my regular round brushes for painting. Now start again by applying a water glaze. Begin in the upper right corner. My water isn't clean anymore, but that's okay since the background will be dark anyway. I'm applying the paint up to the area under the butt. I won't be able to paint the rest of the background in one go, the entire background, so I'm wetting a smaller, more manageable section. Start by applying the pink. Notice that my pink areas are initially much bigger than in the final painting. That's because I know that when I apply green around it, it will spread and push some of that pink. I want to make room for that. If I applied a smaller area of pink, the green might push the pink too and the pink might disappear. Now switch to dark green and start applying it from the upper part. The petal there divides the background into sections. We want to keep the continuity of the background, so try to match the dark tone of the green to the dark green on the left side of the petal. Again, use dabbing motions with the brush to release more paint onto the paper. Notice that my color is really dark but not dry. The paint consistency is not creamy, not battery. There is a lot of water. I would say the consistency is milky, perhaps slightly more dense than masking fluid. It's fluid, but you can feel that it's not creamy yet. Apply dark green and lighter green with more green gold. Try to control the spreading of the paint by adjusting the consistency. If you see that the paint is spreading too much, it's a sign that you need slightly thicker paint. For example, ad the pink areas, I'm using thicker paint because I don't want the green to spread and completely cover the pink. In other green areas, I may use slightly more watery paint and allow it to spread freely. While the paint is still wet, I can add more paint to darken the tone. The paint that I'm adding on top of the paint already on the paper has a thicker consistency. Oh. While I'm adding the colors, I'm also tilting the painting to encourage the paint to move and colors to blend. Now we can continue applying a water layer at the bottom and finish painting the background there. I'm starting by applying green gold. This time, I'm keeping in mind that there are leaves here, so the colors I'm applying will also be the colors of those leaves more or less. On the left side, I'm also adding some pink. It's okay if it blends with green here and create neutral colors. Add some darker green in the small spot between the petals. Now that we've applied the colors to the background, tilt the painting again so that all the colors blend naturally. When everything settles down, let it dry completely. I suggest leaving it to dry naturally. But if you want to speed up the drying time with a hair dryer, wait until the sheen is gone from the paper. This is how the painting looks after this stage. When the background dries completely, we will paint the leaves and the stem. Oh. Oh. 7. Leaves and Stem: The background is now completely dry, and we can begin painting the leaves and stem or creating them, I should say. For this stage, I will be using my scrubber brush, although a regular round brush will also work. In fact, you will see that I will switch to a round brush shortly. The idea now is to use a clean damp brush to lift out green paint from the highlighted areas on the leaves. If the green is not moving, then your brush still. However, be extremely careful because, as I mentioned, green is very, very easy to lift out. You need to find the right dampness of your brush, a sweet spot. Gently wet the area from where you want to lift off the paint, dab it with a paper towel and reveal a lighter spot. B. I've noticed that my scrubber brush leaves two harsh brush marks due to its stiff bristles. Here I've switched to my regular round brush size eight, which is very soft. I'm gently wetting the areas from where I want to lift out the paint. This brush works well for green. For many other colors, it might be too soft. Now, imagine you're painting the light. The more paint you lift out, the lighter the area will become. We may leave those lighter areas as they are, but I think they might not look good because they would be a bit, so we will also apply some color to blend them with the rest. On the stem, we just need to lift out a little bit of paint from the left end the right sides. The leaf on the right side has two distinct highlights on the edges, so we want to leave them off. They meet at the tip of the leaf. Additionally, there is a lighter reflected light at the bottom of the leaf. M Now with a slightly darker green tone, I want to add some shadows. But be very careful here. Remember that green is very easy to lift out. So when you want to apply more color, do this quickly and in just one move if possible. Apply the paint quickly soften the edges and finish. If you fiddle too, you might end up lifting out the paint instead of applying more. On those lighter areas that we've just re, I'm applying green gold just to add some green to them. These areas will still remain lighter, but they won't be almost white anymore. We want to add some green to blend them in. Let's gently and quickly add some green to other parts as well. T That's all for the leaves. I think they look really good. Now I'm going to use this rubber masking pick up tool to remove the masking fluid. You can use your fingers if you don't have the tool, but I prefer using it. Remember earlier when I mentioned that masking fluid should be applied thickly. This is when it's applied in a thick layer, we can now remove it almost in one piece. We can leave the beginning and then peel off the rest easily like this. The masking fluid is off, and now we can move on to the next part where we will soften some edges and apply masking fluid again this time to the statements. 8. Softening the Edges, Masking the Stamens: When we remove the masking fluid, sometimes the edges are not as smooth as we would like. This depends on how careful we were during application. If some edges are not smooth enough, this is the time to smooth them out before we start painting. For example, this edge of the bd could have been a bit smoother. It's not bad, but I just want to demonstrate the idea. To smooth out the edges, I always use a flat scrubber brush with stiff bristles. With a slightly damp brush, tease the edge gently. When you see the paint start to smear, dab it with a clean paper towel to remove the activated paint. This technique helps us to smooth out the edges effectively. Now, before we start painting the flowers, I think it's a good idea to apply masking fluid to the statements. It would be quite difficult to paint around those shapes, so masking fluid will allow us to paint freely without worrying too much about those elements. We didn't apply masking fluid earlier when we were applying it on the edges of the flowers because the staeens are connected to those edges. This means that if we had applied masking fluid to both at once, when we remove the masking, we would also remove it from the stamments, because they are connected with the edges, which wouldn't make sense. That's why we had to divide this process and apply masking fluid to the stamens separately. Again, be patient and precise. Take your time with applying the masking fluid. It's better to apply the masking fluid inside the shapes not up to the edges, rather than going over the pencil lines, if that makes sense. If we go over the pencil lines, we will create thicker boundaries, which can be difficult to refine later. On the other hand, if we apply masking fluid inside the pencil lines and overlap with the colors of the petals of what's around it, it will be easier to remove the paint with a scrubber brush, create a smooth edge, and adjust the statemen if necessary. Hope this makes sense. Of course, ideally, we always want to apply masking fluid precisely along the pencil lines. Leave the masking fluid to dry completely, and when it's dry, we will start painting the flowers. 9. Yellow Layer: The masking fluid is dry, the statements are protected, and now we can start painting the flowers. The entire white area may seem quite overwhelming. To alleviate that feeling, I think it would be beneficial to apply as much color as possible right from the beginning. Let's start with the yellow in the center, which is the most prominent. We can see yellow not only in the centers of the flowers, but also at the back of the petals and on the bud. By applying yellow to all these areas, we will cover quite large sections, and the white paper should not be as overwhelming anymore. My paints have already dried, so I'm spraying them with clean water. This is also a good moment to change the water in your water container. At this stage, we want to keep the colors as clean as possible. I'll clean the left side of my palette and prepare winds or yellow deep on a clean surface. This will be our main warm yellow. I'll prepare plenty of this color. We'll also need Windsor yellow, which I use as my cool yellow. When you mix a warm color with its cool counterpart, like warm winds are yellow, deep, with cool Windsor yellow, you get a neutral shade of that color. The same principle applies when mixing other warm and cool colors, such as warm ten blue and cool windsor blue, or worm Windsor red with cool quinacrodon magenta. All right, the yellow is ready. Now I'm placing my brushes close to the shapes I'm going to paint. This helps me to judge which size of the brush I want to use. I initially thought I would need a smaller size than the one I used for the background, but since the shapes are quite big, I feel like a brush size 12 will be suitable for this. Wet your brush and pick up the warm yellow. Let's start from this area. We're painting wet and dry, which many of you find easier than wet and wet. Will mainly use wet on dry for this painting, but in a few places, we will also employ wet on wet technique. After applying the paint, rinse your brush in water, and dab it on a towel to remove the excess water. With a clean tu brush, blend away the color on the left. Now pick up yellow again and apply generously in the center of the flower. Keep the paint in a milky consistency. The color should be strong, achieving full saturation. Because we are painting wet and dry, we need to work fairly quickly to avoid unintended drying of edges. If edges start to dry in places we didn't intend, we can try to smooth them out, but ideally, we want to keep everything wet until we finish. It's important to use a big brush at this stage because if you use a too small brush, we will get too caught up into details and won't be able to cover large areas quickly. We are not focusing on details now. Our aim at this stage is to apply yellow wherever we see yellow. This forms our base. Around the middle of the petal, we can transition to winds or yellow, a cleaner, slightly cooler yellow. This variety in yellow shades will add interest and freshness to the petals. Somewhere around here when you apply yellow to half of the petal, inser brush and with a clean brush, start blending away the yellow. The brush doesn't have to be dump. It can be moist with some water on it, as this will help move the paint and create a transition from a darker yellow tone to the almost white paper. We're aiming to create a smooth transition here. Though it doesn't need to be perfectly smooth. With the wet on wet technique, we could strive for a perfectly graded wash from yellow to almost white. However, with wet on dry technique, it may be slightly more challenging, but perfection isn't necessary. The reason is that we will add more layers here so any blooms or hard edges can be covered up. The most crucial aspect is where to apply the yellow. Follow the reference photo closely and concentrate only on the yellow areas. Let's repeat this process on the second flower. Here, the yellow is concentrated mainly in the center and fades towards the tips of the petals. Oh. Use a fairly wet brush to blend away the color. It's perfectly fine if this very pale yellow layer covers the entire petal. This will contribute to the worm feel of the petals. I'm aiming to leave the whitest areas unpainted. But if I accidentally paint over them with this, very pale yellow, that's okay. I would have a very light, creamy color. I'm painting very freely right now. You might have noticed that I'm not overly concerned about the pencil lines. I'm enjoying the process of applying the paint and blending it out. That's my small goal for this stage. Applying yellow in the yellow areas and blending it away. That's all I'm focusing on. I'm not worrying about anything else right now. I know I will add more layers later to refine the details and tonal values. This base layer gives me a sense of accomplishment. I see some yellow on the pink petal. No problem. I'll apply yellow here and quickly blend the color with the wet brush. Oh. Oh. Yellow here. All right, let's do it just a little bit of yellow here, and then I'll move on to find another spot. Forget about perfection. We just need some yellows in specific areas. A touch of warm yellow here and there on the back of the petals. Very light wash. Lastly, some yellow on the bud. A light wash blended away. That's it. This is our first yellow layer, base, mission accomplished. Now let this layer completely. In the meantime, let's move on to the next lesson. We we'll talk about botanical gray. 10. Botanical Gray: O H In this short lesson, I would like to talk about a color called botanical gray. Botanical gray is a versatile color that adds depth and realism to botanical illustrations, such as those of lilies. Let's explore how to mix and use botanical gray effectively to enhance your painting. Botanical gray is a neutral color mixed from the three primary colors. Its name comes from its popularity among botanical illustration artists who often use it in very detailed botanical illustrations. Myself used it a few years ago when I was more into botanical illustration. Of course, I'm using it now because it's a very, very helpful color. Here you can see some of my older works. If there is a section in a painting with a neutral color that is difficult to identify. It's somewhere between gray, brown, beige, or creamy color, perhaps leaning towards green, yellow or blue, but you're still not sure what it is and how to mix it, then botanical gray is your way to go. It can be a huge help. To mix botanical gray. First, think about the colors in your painting that you have already used or you know you will use later and try to identify whether you have primary colors among them. Think about red, yellow, and blue. For example, in our lily painting, we have already used two yellows, Winds are yellow, deep, and winds are yellow. One of them can be an ingredient in our botanical gray. It doesn't matter which one. What matters is that it's yellow. Have already used permanent rose in the background, and I know I will use it on the flowers as well, so permanent rose can be the second ingredient in our botanical gray, and we still need blue. We've already used pines gray in the background, which is actually a very dark blue So this could be our third ingredient. But if for example, we haven't already used any blue and we're not planning to use any blue in our painting, then just for the purpose of creating botanical gray, we can use any blue from the palette. Paints gray is actually quite dark and I probably wouldn't use it for botanical gray, so in this case, I would replace paints gray with ultramarine blue. The reason we're looking for primary colors we've already used or are planning to use in our painting is to maintain color harmony and cohesiveness. If we used a totally different red, yellow, and blue than the ones in our painting, they would also create botanical gray, but it wouldn't match well with the rest of the colors. Now when we have the three primary colors, we can mix them together, and the resulting color will be botanical gray. Start with a very small amounts of paint and gradually build up the intensity until you get the shade you're looking for. Let's now examine why botanical gray is actually called gray and explore the mechanics behind mixing it. This is important to understand because it can help you tremendously in mixing tricky colors. Let's take a look at a simple color wheel. Here we can identify three primary colors, red, yellow, and blue. If we mix these three together, we will end up with a neutral color. It can be gray, it can be something brownish, creamy, beige, or something along those lines. But it will be neutral. But why do these three colors create those shades? Take a look. If we mix yellow and red, we get orange. Orange is a complimentary color to blue. If we add blue to our mix, we will neutralize the orange. If we mix yellow and blue, we get green. Green is a complimentary color to red. So if we add red, we will neutralize the green. Finally, if we mix red and blue, we get purple. Purple is a complimentary color to yellow. So if we add yellow, it will neutralize the purple. The idea is that we are actually mixing complimentary colors, which, as we know, neutralize each other. In botanical gray, we mix three primary colors instead of two complimentary colors straightaway because this process gives us another advantage. We can shift the resulting color more towards blue, yellow or red, depending on the amounts of those colors. Because we use colors that we've already used in the painting, we will always keep the color harmony of colors by not introducing anything new unless it's really necessary, such as when there is no blue in our painting, but we must paint something with a neutral color. The fact that we can shift the color depending on the ratio of its ingredients is very important, helpful and worth understanding. We can start by mixing the three primaries to get a neutral tone and then add more red, yellow or blue, depending on the shade we need. Sometimes when I need a really neutral gray like steel gray or bluish gray, I will take a short cut and mix burnt sienna with ultramarine blue. Alternatively, burn Siena with cobalt blue for a different tone or burn Siena with pines gray, for a very dark brown or black. Now let's come back to our painting and see how we can use botanical gray. 11. Applying Botanical Gray: The yellow wash is now completely dry so we can continue painting. At this stage, we can apply some neutral grayish color of the shadow to the petals. When we were applying yellow, we could have actually applied gray at the same time to create transitions from yellow to gray straightaway. But that would be too much to handle. There's no need to make our lives more complex. We divided painting the petals into stages. First, we apply yellow. Now we can apply gray, and later we will refine the colors and add details. For our botanical gray, we will use our yellows. Here on the palette, I have a mix of winds are yellow deep and winds are yellow. We can use both of them. That's a good start. Then let's add permanent rows, and we also need blue. We've used paints gray in the background, which is a very dark blue, but that blue is too dark, so instead, I will introduce ultramarine blue. At least two colors that we've already used in painting are enough. The third one usually has to be added with discretion because it often happens that we don't use three primaries in one painting. Now I'm mixing these three colors until I get a neutral worm base color. You can see how the color changes depending on which color I'm adding. Also notice that I keep this color very watery. It has to be light in tone because we want to build up the tone on the paper with thin layers. Now we can apply this color either using the wet on dry technique, like we did with yellow or wet on wet. It doesn't really matter because we can achieve similar results with both techniques. I applied yellow wet on dry, so here I will show you wet on wet. I'm first applying a water layer on the left side of this petal from the left edge up to that lighter white stripe running through the middle. I remove the excess water with a clean dam brush. And now I can pick up just a little bit of that botanical gray and apply it along the middle section and on the left. Because there is water on the paper, the paint will spread and create that super smooth transition. I don't have to work with my brush too much. Let's repeat this on the right side. In wet on dry painting, after applying the paint, we need to quickly lease and blotter brush and then smooth out the edges quickly before they dry. Here in wet on wet, we have a bit more time to work because the paper is wet and smooth edges are created naturally on their own when the paint spreads in the water. Can just slightly direct the paint with the tip of the brush. We can also drop in some yellow. White flowers reflect colors from the surroundings, so we can drop in some colors from other petals, the background, or the leaves. This will create a nice cohesive hole. Notice that the tonal value I'm using is very light. We don't want to go too dark and destroy the effect. The petals are light and catch sunlight, so we have to be careful. Now let's move on to the petal on the left. Here I'm applying the water not on the entire petal, but more or less in the area I want to paint. Pick up a little bit of your gray and apply it along the bottom edge and on the right side. Notice that in the place where I didn't apply water, I was able to create a hard edge to suggest that cast shadow. I'm adjusting the color of the gray by adding a bit more permanent rose. Again, notice how light those layers are. Now let's move on to the bigger petal on the left. Begin by applying a water layer. This time, leave a dry gap at the bottom part where we can see highlights. We want to paint around that highlight. This illustration shows more or less where I applied the water. Now, pick up your gray mix. I'm adjusting it slightly by adding more ultramarine blue. Start adding the gray from the left side, the paint should spread in the water, creating a very soft edge and blending smoothly with the yellow underneath. At the bottom, paint around that highlight. Leave also a small gap on the edge. Add a slightly darker tone on the right, behind the stems, and on the left side if you feel it's a bit too light. Now I'm going to pick up windsor yellow deep and add a little bit in the shadow area because I see it in the reference. I'm also painting long stripes. The yellow shouldn't be too watery because it would spa. I noticed even some green in the petal, so I'm dropping in a touch of green as well. It's a reflection of the green leaves and background. Okay, great. That's all for this petal at this stage. Let's move on to another one. This petal is even bigger so to make it more manageable. I'll start by painting the side of it. I'm applying a water layer on the left side and starting with warm yellow. Now I will transition smoothly to my botanical gray. I'll try to leave some lighter areas for the highlights. Now, I noticed more green on this petal, so I'm adding a bit more of this color as well. As you can see, it's a process of constant adjustments, and it's also art, not math, so I never worry too much about perfect colors. I can get similar colors, but it really doesn't have to be exact. At the end of the day, it's my painting, and nobody will be comparing it with the reference photo, except, of course, you and me. Other viewers of our painting will just see the result, and that's all that matters. I feel like I need to add a slightly darker tone here. Now on the other side of the petal, it's a bit more tricky because we have to paint around the highlights. Here I'm painting more wet and dry with a very watery paint consistency. Thanks to wet and dry, I can create those sharp edges. If I decide that I need smooth edges, I can always smooth them out. With wet and wet here, I would only get soft edges. I've also adjusted the color slightly by adding more permanent rows. And the final petal in this flower. Here I just want to paint this nice shadow on the curled petal. I'm trying to mix a neutral gray with our three primaries. I started with ultramarine blue and permanent rose, which gave me purple, and I'm mixing in a touch of yellow to neutralize it. It's all very watered down and very light in tone. Start by painting the edge of that shadow in an arc shape. Then quickly rinse your brush and blot it and with a clean dum brush, blend away the other side towards the tip of the petal. I feel like there should be a touch of more yellow on the edge, so I'm dropping it in and I'm trying to blend it with the rest. I also noticed a bit of pink here, so I'm lightly dropping in permanent rows. I also want to add a bit more yellow here and blend it away. Now on the second flower, I want to start with this prominent shadow. This is one of those colors which is quite difficult to identify, so the botanical gray works perfectly here. It's like a light brown, warm, base color. I'm starting with winds are yellow deep and permanent rows to create orange. Now I'll be adding ultramarine blue to tone it down until I see a similar color to the one from the reference photo. Again, remember it's art, so it doesn't have to perfectly match. Paint this nice round shape first and then blend away the edges. Now, use a strong mix of windsor yellow, deep with a touch of permanent rose and paint the next shadow. Fill also gaps between the stems and blend away the color on the second petal. The petal in the first flower is steel wet, so now I want to dry it with a hair dryer. I don't want to disturb the petal while I'll paint the second flower. I want to add some of our g, which is now more brown than gray. Apply the color and smooth it out. I see more pink here, so I'm applying pure permanent rows in a very, very light tone, very water mix. I can also see some yellow, so I'm adding that too. Everything is very light like washes that I can quickly blend without leaving any hard edges. Add more pink if you want it to be a bit more prominent. Also add more yellow if it feels right. When the paint is drying, I can see that the high sheen is gone. The paint is just dump. I'm using a clean damp brush, and with just the tip of the brush, I'm lifting out some lighter stripes to create some textures on the petals. We're almost finished with this part. B patient. There are only three small parts remaining. First, this wavy shape in the upper part, this is very easy, start with the gray, and then add a bit of pink and yellow, a simple wash wet on dry. There are also two small petals left. Let's start with this one. Begin by applying a light tone of permanent rose, running your brush through the middle of the petal. Now add warm yellow at the tip and at the bottom and try to soften the edges. Paint also this petal in the back. Use our gray and permanent rows. Add more yellow where necessary. Apply those basic colors and. That's all for this part. I hope you're happy with your result so far, and you still have patients because we're in the middle of the road. Take a break, may be finished for today if you're tired or paint something else if you've had enough of this and come back with fresh ice. In the next part, we're going to use more permanent and apply it to the lily in the back on the left side to the back side of the petals and to the butt. Oh. 12. Initial Pink Layer: This stage took me around 10 minutes, so it shouldn't take you too long to finish this part. I will be using a brush size ten. I'll clean a part of my mixing space so that I can prepare clean permanent rows. Now, here is the permanent rows and above it, I will have winds are yellow deep. Let's start with a light pink layer over this area. Just a simple flat wash. Notice that I left a small gap close to the pencil line. Now, let's add just a little bit of pink to the petal in the back. After applying the paint quickly rinse and blot your brush and blend away the color. We'll be painting wet and dry in this part. I want you to really relax and paint freely without worrying about perfection. Just have fun and enjoy the process. The next petal has quite a lot of pink. I'm starting with a very light tone. When I apply it and soften the edges, the paint will still be wet, so then I can add a darker tone in a few places. However, this is just a very basic pink layer. We're not thinking about the details and finalizing the petals yet. We'll be adding more details in the next parts. Now we just want to apply pink everywhere we see it. Notice also how it interacts with the yellow from the previous layer. That's the beauty of transparent water colors. It's also something you should always keep in mind. When we apply layer upon layer, they interact with each other. You need to know how one layer affects another in order to avoid muddy colors. We know that pink applied over yellow will create a warmer shade of pink, orange or red. But the same pink applied over green would create brown. On this petal, try to pay attention to that light edge. I think this petal is really beautiful and leaving that almost white edge will add more interest and character here. We can already suggest some tonal values with lighter and darker tones of pink. The pattern on this petal looks almost like a feather. Try to recreate that. Uh finish this flower with a soft pink blush on this petal. Now, let's paint this small area. In general, I can see purple here, so I'll use a mix of permanent rose with a touch of ultramarine blue. After applying this color, while the paint is still wet, let's drop in a little bit of yellow. Now, with a clean damp brush, try to lift out the paint in the highlights. This is the first base layer. We will deepen the colors here at a later stage. Finally, the flower on the right. Start by applying permanent rows and then transition to winds or yellow deep. We want to apply a variegated wash here. A variegated wash is a technique where two or more colors are blended together on the paper to create a smooth transition or gradient between them. We created a variegated wash earlier using two separate layers. First, we applied the yellow layer on the petals, and then in the next stage, we applied botanical gray, creating a smooth transition from yellow to gray. Here we are creating a variegated wash in the same layer. It's good to remember that in order to create smooth color transitions, the paint must not be too dry. If it's too, it will dry too quickly, creating hard edges. It's easier to create a variegated wash with the wet on wet technique, but as you can see, it's also possible with the wet on dry technique. The key is the consistency of the paint, which should be quite watery, so it doesn't dry too quickly. In the upper part a yellow and pink and blend the colors towards the tip of the petal. We're almost finished. There is also the bad that we have to take care of. Nothing complex here, just as before, pick up a very light tone of permanent rose and apply it on the left side, running it through the middle part. It's just a suggestion of color, not the final color. We're building up the tones slowly while maintaining this beautiful transparency of colors andity. Now we can dry everything with a hair dryer. When you're ready, we can move on to the next part. 13. Initial Green Layer: This part is even shorter than the previous one, and it's very easy. We want to apply an initial green layer on all green elements. The green I'm using here is a mix of green gold and windsor green yellow shade, which are the greens we also used for the background. Let's start with this leaf on the left. Apply a light green wash and transition to a slightly darker tone closer to the flower. Now pick up a darker tone of green, adding a bit of paints gray, and with this darker tone, run your brush through the middle. That's all for this leaf. Paint the smaller leaf below with the same dark green mix. Use the same green to paint the stem. The stem has a high light in the upper part. Leave that area unpainted. After applying this green, add more paints gray to your green mix to create a darker tone and apply this color running your brush through the middle of the stem. Making the middle part of the stem than both sides creates an of ness for the stem. Now, let's concentrate on the color of the bud. Besides the green, I want to apply also different colors. I think I'll start with winds are yellow deep. I noticed a different shade of yellow in the middle, so I'm now picking up winds are yellow. And finally green. We're using the same greens all the time, just in various proportions and tonal values. Make sure you blend all the colors, creating smooth transitions between them. While the paint is still wet at a darker green tone at the bottom side. In the upper part, add more green gold for a warmer green. This is my painting at this stage. I'm pretty happy with how it's unfolding so far. I have to say that the size of the painting is really enjoyable to work with. We now have the base for all elements in the painting, except the statements, of course. This base layer is a great starting point. After this stage, it's up to you how much detail you want to add, how precise you want to be in the upcoming layers. Generally, how you want to finish your painting. In the next part, we will finish the pink flower on the left side. Oh. 14. Finishing Pink Flower on the Left Side: Now the fun part begins. I like the stage because now that I have the base, I can slowly and calmly build up each shape. We will be painting each petal one by one, slowly finishing the entire painting section by section. I'll be using a brush size eight now. Let's prepare some colors. We will need permanent rows. That's for sure. We'll also need windsor yellow deep to deepen the yellow parts. Next to permanent rows, I'm also placing pines gray. A mix of those two will give us a neutral dark purple. Let's begin with this pink section. We have to deepen the pink color so pick up permanent rows and applied over this entire section. Now, I think we could introduce one more color, permanent lysern crimson. Paint a darker stripe running through the middle of the pink shape. If it's not dark enough, add a touch of paints gray. Next, use a more concentrated permanent rose and apply it roughly in the corners of this shape. No. Then fill the gap with a lighter tone of pink. I think that's enough. Now pick up a very light purple tone created by mixing paints gray and permanent rows and apply it along the edge of this petal. After that quickly blend away the color. M. Also add a tiny bit of purple between the small green leaf and the deep pink petal. Leave the white edge unpainted. We will smooth it out later with a scrubber brush. Now let's move on to the next petal. I like to start with the most prominent elements that stand out to me. Here it's that deep purple shade. Use a mix of paints gray and permanent lysern crimson and apply the color to the darkest area. Next, pick up Windsor yellow deep and apply it at the bottom. When this warm yellow meets the dark purple, they should create a nice brown tone. There is also quite a lot of pink on this petal. So apply permanent rows. At this stage, we're trying to finish each element, so pay attention to tonal values. In the upper part of this petal, the pink is lighter than in the lower part. Try to that in your painting. In the upper part, I can also see some yellow, so I will drop in that color too. Now when I compare this petal with the pink section we painted earlier, I can see that the bottom of this petal should be der as the tonal value is as as that pink petal. I'm adding more brown to the bottom. There is that tiny section between the petals, so painted with a dark green. For the next petal, I need to prepare more of this dark brown color. Let's mi the winds are yellow, deep, paints gray, and permanent. You should get a purplish brown. Apply this color in the darkest places. It's good to apply the darkest colors first because this sets the correct tonal value scale. We already have light tones from the previous layer. By applying the dark tone now, we create a range from light to dark. Remember we can always adjust middle values as we proceed. Create a transition from this deep dark brown through warm yellow, to pink, and purple. Don't worry about any imperfections. They will add more interest and the natural look to the pedal. Apply yellow followed by purple on the edge in the shadow area and blend away the sclor leaving part of the edge. Add deeper tones of purple and pink, if necessary. Apply more intense pink in the upper part and the yellow in the middle. Blend the colors. Here is another way to create an interesting neutral color. If we mix purple with green, we will get another neutral shade of gray. I will use this color here to paint the shadow. H The tone is too light, so I will add a darker tone until I see a higher contrast between this shadow and the white petal above. Now switch to warm yellow and apply the color in the yellowish areas. Switch to permanent rows, and after applying it, blend it with the yellow. Now use our dark brown to paint the darkest areas. Switch back and forth between the dark brown, yellow and pink. Areas like this can be tricky to paint because we have to deal with a few colors at a time, but it's important to stayed and patient. B. On this side of the petal, I will be using the neutral gray resulting from mixing purple and green. Paint around the highlight. Don't worry about leaving a hard edge. We will soften it later. Remember that the colors will dry slightly paler. Make sure that tonal values are dark enough. Adjust the colors and tones if necessary. Apply a very pale yellow in the highlight area. Apply a deep pink color to this small section. Then mix permanent with paints gray and use a deep purple toned down by a touch of yellow to paint the shadow within that shape. Now let's move on to the last petal. Here I'm starting with yet another kind of gray. This is a mix of permanent rose and green. As you can see, there are many different ways to create gray. If we stay within the same color palette, they will all do good because we're using the same colors all the time. Here I'm applying slightly more pinkish gray in the top part and transitioning to a more greenish shade at the bottom. While the paint is still wet, I'm dropping in permanent rose and even a touch of yellow. I'm adjusting the colors as I go. M. Soften the edges with a clean damp brush. Use a more concentrated, darker pink to paint the dark pink stripe in the middle. Add a touch of yellow to paint the shadow. There are a of colors within that small shape. O darken the shadow on the left, if it's too light and soften the edges in the end. I dried this petal with a hair dryer and decided that it's too light compared to the previous petals. I bravely decided to apply one more layer. I started with deeper pink, and then I added a touch of yellow to a a warmer tone. Finally, I applied a mix of green and purple on the left to darken that whole side. I also use the scler to darken the shadow on the previous petal. After drying everything with a hair dryer, we can take care of the hard edges and highlights. I will be using my scrubber brush now. Deep the brush in water and remove the excess water by dubbing it on a paper towel. Now with a clean damp brush, gently rub along the edge. When the paint is activated, remove it by dubbing that area with a paper towel. This way, we will soften some of the edges and also create highlights or lighter spots that I can see in the petals. A scrubber brush is such a helpful tool. It simplifies creating some effects. I worry less about making hard edges because I know I can soften them with a scrubber brush. If I apply too much paint in a highlight area, I know I can lift it out with a scrubber brush. There are many things that can be corrected in watercolor painting, and I think it's a myth that it's a very difficult medium to fix mistakes. Most mistakes can be easily fixed, not all of them, but most of them. Our first flower is completed. I'm really happy with how it turned out. Now I have a good news and a bad news. Which one you would like to hear first? The bad news. The bad news is that there are still two flowers and a bad to paint. The good news is that they will be easier to paint. I think so. After painting this flower, you may be tired, so take a break if you need to. When you're ready, we will move on to the next part where I will show you how to paint the back parts of the flowers. 15. Back Parts of the Flowers: Let's start by finishing this small section. I'll be using a size six brush here. Mix permanent rows with paints gray to create a muted purple. If there's a bit of yellow in the mix, that's okay. It will just mute down that purple. It's not a saturated purple that we need here. Apply this dark purple around the highlights and then soften the edges. Add a darker tone of di smuted purple if you feel it's too light. Once you finish, dry this section with a hair dryer, if you went to d in the highlight areas, use a scrub brush to lift out some paint, and that's all for this section. Now, let's paint the back of the flower on the right. I will start with a size eight bruh, but I will switch to a size as needed. Begin by applying the dark purple mix in the darkest areas. Here I switched back to size six because size eight was slightly too big for this detail. Paint this long dark line and the dark elements near the stem. Use a clean damp brush to soften the edges to create a smoother transition between this dark color and other colors. After painting these dark elements, dry them completely with a hair dryer. Now switch back to a size eight brush. We will paint larger areas. Prepare a mix of green gold, winds are green, and paints gray. Start with a warm green, mainly green gold, and apply it from the top of the flower. Transition to yellow, as you move lower, and then to pink. Apply a dark pink tone in the middle of that section and add a stronger green at the top. Paint over those dark elements. This build up of color will slightly darken those darker areas, and we will achieve a smoother transition between colors. Pick up winds or yellow deep and apply it in the more yellowish areas. Use a darker pinkish purple to deepen some areas. Now use a mix of green and pink for the upper part of the flower, start with a light tone and adjust with yellow or pink as needed. O. Let's dry everything with a hair dryer now. Finally, add some small details with a size six brush, and the dark mix of purple and green, add darker lines to create a clear distinction between sections. These darker tones suggest indentations while shaded areas create rounded forms. Paint two parallel lines running on this petal and darken them if needed. H. Finish this section by lifting out paint with a scrubber brush from the edge of the flower. This creates a nice highlight and softens the edge of the flower, making it look more natural. You can also create highlights in other areas. With this, we finish the spart. Now it's time for a break, and after that, we will begin painting the main petals. 16. Deepening Oranges: In this part, we're going to work a bit more on the centers of the flowers. I'll be using a size tan brush. At this stage, the centers have only a yellow initial layer. This is great because now when we apply deeper tones, the yellow will show through and give us that nice warm glow. What we want to do now is add more oranges and darken the tones. Let's prepare a lot of windsor yellow deep and also permanent rows on the side. Here at the bottom, I'm cleaning this area and preparing a dark reddish brown color. I'm staying within the same color palette and mixing winds are yellow, deep, permanent rose, and paints gray. Let's begin by picking up an orange mix of yellow and pink. Start with the area between the petals, painting wet and dry. While the paint is still wet, drop in a touch of dark brown. Now, switch to winds or yellow, deep and finish this section with this yellow. We can now adjust this area. I think adding a bit more permanent rose and shifting the color to a more reddish orange will look nice. At this point, we can compare this small section with other sections in terms of tonal value. For example, the pink area on the left has a pretty similar tonal value in the reference, and it's also pretty similar in my painting. I think it's all good. Before continuing, let's quickly dry this small section and wait until the paper cools down. Now we'll focus on the big left petal. Again, let's begin with an orange. This time, I want to be slightly more careful using yellow than p. My orange is just one tone darker than the yellow I already have on the paper. I think I need a bit more pink near the center. It always amazes me how dark we can go and how dark we should go with watercolors to get the tones right. Try to blend away the color, not letting the paint create a hard edge. Oh I can compare this area with the previous petal. Now the tonal value of these two petals in this area is almost the same. Looking at the reference photo, I can see that I need more contrast between these two petals to make a clearer distinction. I have to add a slightly darker tone now. Use dark brown near the center to darken that area even more. Again, smooth everything out. This is not the final layer here. Once this one dries, we will also paint the darkest indentation, but we have to do this gradually. Now, try to repeat this process in the second petal. The general idea here is to deepen the colors, make the yellows deeper, add more orange near the center, and gradually darken that c. We're painting wet and, but if you prefer, you can also paint. It should be easier to blend the colors. Here I'm thinking about this elongated diamond shape in the middle. I'm applying more permanent rows here. I think that's enough for this petal. I also want to apply more yellow and then drop in some orange on this petal above. I can see that the edge of this petal is lighter, so I'm leaving a gap along that lower edge. To finish this flower, let's also add more yellow to the petal on the left, and while it's still wet, drop in more orange. In comparison with other petals, this one looked a bit unfinished. I thought it should have a bit more color to it. Now we can move on to the second flower. Begin by applying winds or yellow deep. Use the highest now and make the yellow the intense you can. Try to stay from that orange shadow below. Leave a small gap there. Blend away this yellow color. Now pick up a very concentrated permanent rose. It should be more concentrated because we want to apply it over the yellow, but we don't want it to spread too much. At a touch of brown near the center. Now with winds are yellow deep, and a little bit of permanent rose, deepen the colors on the bottom petal. E cleaner yellow behind the statements and blend away the colors. Now we can dry everything with a hair dryer, and in the next part, when everything is completely dry, we will finish darkening the petals. 17. Final Darkening of the Petals: No. When everything is completely dry, we can finally add the darkest elements to the petals. I'm thinking about this deep dark indentation in the middle near the center. Because there are hard edges there, we couldn't paint this earlier. With wet paint, we wouldn't get those hard edges. Now that the overall colors of this petal are fine, we can focus on this dark element with hard edges. We'll be using the same dark brown, which is a mix of winds are yellow, deep, permanent rose, and paints gray. Let's begin by carefully painting the dest part. Because we are now painting wet and dry and using more concentrated paint, this dark tone should remain dark enough. Switch to an orange mix and continue painting. Blend away the colors. Darken the areas near the center. Apply more permanent rows in the center. You see how we're building the tonnel value and the color with many transparent layers. The colors are now really intense, but at the same time, they look fresh and not. Now, let's repeat the process on the other petal. Again, start with the dark tone and transition to an orange mix of windsor, yellow, deep, and permanent rose. Add more permanent rows in that diamond shape and near the stamens. Blend everything away. Notice how each thin transparent layer also affects the color of those almost white areas. They are not white at all. However, if we leave almost white paper in some areas in the highlights, we will achieve the effect of white petals because of the relativity of colors. I think I want to apply even more dark orange near the center. Oh. Now pick up a dense consistency mix of permanent and the dark brown and paint the dark spot on the other flower. Now clean your brush and pick up a thick consistency of winds are yellow mixed with pink again. We need thick consistency because we want to achieve very deep tones here with full saturation. Apply this red color roughly around that dark brown. Now pick up just winds are yellow deep and apply it around the red, creating a transition. Finally, clean your brush and with a moist brush, blend everything away. This way, we've created this fiery center of this petal. L et's dry everything with a hair dryer now. And when it's dry add orange to the left side of the petal above. We wanted to match the rest of the petals and create a nice cohesive hole. Use a very watery mix of the brown and yellow and apply it to the petal in the back. If we darken it slightly, we will push it a bit more to the background. Pick up more concentrated permanent rows and gently add some pink marks. Because the color is more concentrated, it shouldn't spread too much, but it should create nice blurry edges. Now it's a good time to take a break and come back in a moment with fresh eyes. We will take an overall look at the entire painting and identify areas that we could at. 18. Final Adjustments: Now I want you to take a good look at the flowers and identify any areas that you think you should adjust. I'm thinking mainly about areas that either need more darkening or where you want to intensify or add more color. For example, I want to darken the shadow on this petal to create more contrast with the white petal in front and push this one more to the back. I also want to add a bit more pink to this petal. I think this curled petal also needs some more color. With a light tone of our brown, which looks like a very light tone of a muted purple. I'm painting the darker line running through the middle of this petal, and then I'm adding yellow at the and more permanent at the bottom. Notice that I'm painting very freely. I don't worry about perfect shapes. I just want to convey the overall feel of it. I'm even holding my brush very high so that my brush movements are looser. When the dark tones are applied to the flower, I can see that many of the shadows are slightly too light. For example, this shadow here. I'm applying one more thin layer to make the tone one step, and I'm blending away the colors. I do the same with this shadow. I feel it should be one ton darker in comparison with all other elements in the painting. I don't want to exaggerate, so I'm adding really light layers. I feel like this area should be much darker. In fact, in the final painting, it's still too light in comparison with the reference photo. But I was afraid that if I applied too dark a color, I would destroy the effect. It might have been too dark and I might get a dirty look. Besides it's my painting, and the photo is just a reference. I don't have to follow the reference exactly. If everything looks good to my eyes in my painting, then I don't have to strictly follow the reference. Oh Finally, just a little bit of darkening on the left petal, and that's all for this part. Now we can dry everything completely. It all looks pretty good. Of course, if you like, you can work more on the petals. There are a lot of details, a lot of textures. You can see that I still have some pencil lines marking the areas where there should be some lines or folds. But it doesn't mean I have to paint all of this. I'm assessing the overall look of the painting, and at some point, like right now, I decide that it's enough. I don't have to go into more details. The painting looks good now, and I'm happy with it. When you dry everything, we can move on to the next part where we will be using a scrubber brush. 19. Softening the Edges, Retrieving Light: In this short part, we will be using a scrubber brush to soften some of the edges and create spots of light. Make sure that everything is completely dry. Keep a piece of paper towel in one hand and your scrubber brush in the other. Deep the brush in water and remove the excess on the paper towel. With a damp brush, start softening or fixing the edges. For example, here I went a little bit over the middle part, so I can gently remove that overlapping paint by rubbing it with a scrubber brush and then dubbing it with a paper towel. Just realized that I should change the water in my container because I might transfer the color of that water to my painting. We want clean water and a clean brush because we will also be creating light spots and they should be clean. Make sure you have clean water in your water container. Let's soften this edge. Notice that softening the edge of the paint where it meets white paper creates a glowing light effect. When the edge is sharp, we have a harsh cast shadow. But if we soften that edge, it not only creates a softer shadow, but also enhances the illusion of glowing light. I'm gently creating some light spots on the edge. On the next pedal, we can also remove the paint to create those beautiful light spots. It looks like we are painting with light. Create a high light running through the middle of the pedal. On the right side, we were painting around those highlights. We didn't worry about leaving hard edges because we knew that we would beautifully soften them now and create a fabulous light effect. We can also lift out some paint from orange areas to create those highlights. This is another shadow that meets with white paper. This is a perfect area to soften that edge and create a glowing light effect. Let's also bring out some highlights on the second flower. With that, we can finish this part. With took good care of the petals. Now they look really beautiful. The only thing left before painting the stamens is to add those n dark dots. M. 20. Dark Dots: For this part, I will be using a smaller brush size six. We will be painting those dark dots on the petals, so we need a dark color. Again, we will mix permanent rows, winds are yellow, deep, and paints gray. Keep the mix pretty concentrated. The paint shod have a creamy consistency because this will allow us to achieve dark dots in just one go. There is no risk of overworking this because those are really tiny areas. Now, following the pencil drawing, the reference photo, or just your imagination and intuition, paint those dots to add more interest to the petals. Don't hurry. Take your time. Try to make each dot different. If they are too similar, they would look unnatural, Vary the size and the shapes. I initially painted two small dots, and then I went over them again to make them bigger. I'm also using this dark color here and there to darken some areas even more. For example, I applied a bit of that dark tone near the center again to make that area even darker. Of course, I quickly softened the edges. From this angle, you can see how smooth my color transitions are, even though I was painting mainly wet and dry. This is because I was using enough water. I was able to blend away the colors quickly and blend them together. Wet paint wasn't drying quickly, so I was able to remove all hard edges. Besides we applied a few very thin layers, and each layer also smooths out the previous one and hides all imperfections. That's why in the end the colors look so smooth. Oh. On the second flower, the dots are more reddish, so I'm using more permanent rows here, mixed with a touch of winds or yellow deep. With those dots, we have finished the petals. I hope you're happy with your achievement. It was a very long process, but I think it is really worth taking all the necessary time because it's a really beautiful painting. Now let's take a break and in the next part, we will paint the bud. 21. Bud: I know what you're thinking. You forgot about the bd, and you thought that only statements were left. I know, I know. This painting takes a lot of time, but that's how I paint. If you want to achieve similar results, unfortunately, there are no shortcuts. We have to do everything step by step with patients, and in the end, we will have a beautiful painting.'ll be using a brush size six now. We will need various colors, dark brown, a mix of pink, yellow, and paints gray. We will also need green gold, winds are green, permanent rose, winds are yellow, deep, and a dark green mix of green gold, winds are green, and paints gray, so all the colors we've been using so far. Let's begin with this dark brown and paint the most prominent dark lines in the middle. Now switch to permanent rose and continue painting with the color. Add green gold to that middle section of the bud. Now with that dark green, start painting the lines at the bottom of the bud, Switch to permanent rows and add a bit of that color here. Now come back to green. This time, e a mix of green gold and windsor green and continue painting. Switch back and forth between darker and lighter shades of green. Use green gold to paint warmer green stripes. Start painting individual lines that will result in that characteristic look of the bd. Leave unpainted gaps between those lines for highlights. But if you accidentally cover the whole area, don't worry we can always lift out the highlights with a brush. Near the petals use more permanent rows and yellow. The colors of the bad generally transition from orange, brownish, pink, on the left to green on the right, with some yellows in the middle. But of course, you can use any colors. You may want to paint the entire bad with just green. That would be absolutely fine too. Paint the stripes on the entire bat with a lighter tone. Try to establish first where those stripes should be with a lighter tone, and later, you can always darken them. Now with a darker tone, I will be darkening those stripes while still trying to keep those places between the stripes lighter. The bottom side of the bud is generally than the rest, but the bottom edge is slightly lighter. There is a reflected light that helps to create an of a round form. Now, build the tonal values of those stripes by adding more green, pink, orange, or whatever is necessary. A When you're happy with the tonal values, dry everything with a hair dryer. When it's dry, use a scrubber brush to lift out some highlights from those lighter areas in between the stripes. We're not only softening the edges now, but also creating those highlights that will eventually form the nice texture of the butt. O. Finally, I decided to apply a unifying glaze on the left side, and for that, I'm using Windsor yellow deep. I'm applying a transparent layer of this color on the left part of the bad and blending away the yellow. This adds a nice yellowish tone and reflects the colors from the flowers. 22. Small Leaves and Stem: We're almost there, really. We're very close to the end. Now let's finish the small leaves and the stem. Use a dark mix of green gold, winds are green and paints gray, and paint two stripes like this. 00. Now, clean your brush and with a clean tum brush, blend away the upper side of each stripe so that the upper edge is soft while the bottom edge is hard. Paint a similar single stripe on the smaller leaf and also soften it towards the upper part. Next, darken the middle part of the stem with a darker green. Make the stripe wider at the bottom and narrow it towards the top. Now let's dry everything with a hair dryer. When everything is dry, use a slightly bigger brush size eight. Pick up a warm shade of green green gold and apply a unifying glaze over the leaves. Apply more of that green near the petals and keep the tip of the leaf lighter in. Apply a unifying glaze over the entire smaller leaf as well. Now, let's also apply a unifying glaze over the stem. Use a mix of green gold and windsor green. After drying everything completely with a hair dryer, we can also lift out some paint to create highlights. It's not necessary, but I think I want to do this. I especially want to lift out and soften the highlight at the top of the stem. Now we can finally remove the masking fluid from the stamens, and in the next and the final part, can you believe it? We will finish our painting. Oh. Oh. 23. Stamens: Oh. I Welcome to the final part of these tortures. I promise this is the last one. For painting the statements, I will be using a brush size six. Let's begin by applying a yellowish green color to the filaments. I'm using a mix of winds or yellow deep, and some green. Use more yellow near the center and more green towards the anthers. Don't paint individual filaments. Apply this base color on all of them. In the second layer, we will add shadows and make clear distinctions between them. Dry everything with a hair dryer. Now use a mix of windsor yellow deep and permanent and apply this orange color to the ans. While the paint is still wet, drop in some of our dark brown mix to suggest the shadow. Repeat this process and all other ans. Here, I'm leaving an an unpainted edge to suggest the highlight. After drying everything completely, we are now ready to add the details. I'm preparing a dark green with our mix of green gold, windsor green, and paints gray. With this dark green, paint the dark shadow between the filaments. Now pick up a lighter green and continue painting with this green. Paint the main filament and add more dark green if needed. Apply this dark green also to the edge and near the anther. This should create a round form. You can also lift out a highlight. Now before moving on, dry this filament. Paint other filaments similarly changing the colors accordingly. Some of them are more yellowish with more orange near the center of the flower, while others are more green. Reflect that in your painting. After drying everything, use a scrubber brush to lift out the paint and create the highlights. Now, prepare a dark mix of yellow, pink, and paints gray. This time, add more paints gray so that the resulting color is almost black. Now use this black color to paint the darkest parts of the anthers. I know your patience is running out, but instead of regular brush strokes, use the spling technique. Apply, many short brush strokes or dots close to each other to create this texture. This way, we can create an illusion of pollen on the anthers. The surface will not be flat, but will have this nice texture. At this stage, paint only the black, the darkest parts. A When you finish, use a mix of yellow and pink to apply this brownish color to the ans to unify the shapes. Try to the color using more yellow at the top of each and making the bottom part slightly. A an With that, we could finish this painting. But I went one step further, but I didn't record it. I can only tell you about it. If you take a closer look at the anthers, you will notice that each of them is covered with one more layer of tiny dots. This is not very important, but I think it creates a nice texture effect. If you still have a bit of patience, you can do this too. I think it looks really nice. Now we can finally call this painting finished. That was a really long project. I usually don't make such long tutorials because I know it can be tiresome. It's very overwhelming. It also takes really, really long time to edit all the videos. It takes a really long time to edit such long tutorials, especially if I'm painting on a bigger size. But this is an example of a more complex painting. You can see how much time it takes and how much patience it requires. If you enjoy the process instead of focusing on the result, if you break it down, if you take breaks, it's always a very pleasant journey. In the end, you have a beautiful painting. In the last part, we will make a summary of what we've learned. 24. Summary: Let's summarize what we've covered in this tutorial. We explored the symbolism of lilies in art history. We discussed adapting the right mindset for longer and more challenging projects. We learned how to effectively use masking fluid and create smooth dark backgrounds. We practiced various techniques such as wet on wet, wet on, and softening, applicable to any watercolor painting. Discovered how to build thin layers of transparent colors to achieve depth. We explored botanical gray, including how to mix and apply it. We studied techniques for achieving light effects on white petals and understanding their true colors. Thank you for joining me on this creative journey. I appreciate the time you've spent with me. I encourage you to give this painting a try, even though it's really challenging. It was enjoyable to paint, and I'm pleased with the result. If you've already completed your painting, congratulations, well done. I'm really proud of you, and you can be really proud of your result. Thank you very much for watching and happy painting by