Mini Class: Painting a Vibrant Bird of Paradise in Watercolor

1. Welcome & Class Overview: Hi, friends. I'm Jenny Ka, also known as Living pattern, and I'm excited to teach you how to paint a bird of paradise in watercolor. And this quick ten minute class will capture the exotic beauty of this tropical flower using a wet on dry technique in a loose, modern style. This method will allow us to create crisp, vibrant details that truly bring out the bird of paradise's unique shape and colors. As a fun finale, we'll add some energetic paint splatters to bring our painting together. Get ready to bring a touch of paradise to your paper with some exciting techniques. 2. Essential Materials & Supply List: Let's walk through all of the materials you're going to need for this project. I'm going to use a ceramic daisy palette and some swatch paper for color testing. Tube watercolors in permanent yellow light, orange, permanent red, ultramarine blue, and sap green. I'm using Arches watercolor paper, 140 pound with a nice decled edge. And this is my new favorite brush. By Jackson's, it's a quill. It's a nice mix of a synthetic and natural rags, a water bottle, and two jars, one for warm and one for cool rinsing. And that's it. That is all the supplies you'll need for this bird of paradise project. 3. Step-by-Step Bird of Paradise Watercolor Tutorial: Now, it's time for the fun part. Let's get going with the painting. In just a few brush strokes, you are going to paint your very own bird of paradise. Let's start with the sap green, load it onto the quill brush, and we are going to start in on the flower stalk. I'm careful just to have one big stroke as the full stalk. And I don't really want to move around the watercolor too much because I want the paint to kind of settle and flow. And create some detail by itself. So I'm going to carefully plan out just a couple of strokes for this and get it nice and wet wet enough where when I start adding in some of the other colors, it will flow. If it's too dry, it's not going to bleed as much. And I want this piece to be very expressive and bleeding. So I mixed ultramarine with some of the permanent red, and I get this really pretty red violet with a hint of blue. And I'm going to just paint these petals one stroke at a time. And if you notice, if I put a mark down, I try not to move through it too much. I don't want to overwork the watercolor. I just grabbed a little bit of water, and I'm going to pull out some of the green that's already on the paper into a lighter green. And I'm going to touch it with just a little yellow. There we go. I'm varying my colors. It almost feels rainbow esque, which I love, which is absolutely the feeling of these bird of paradise. All of these bold colors are what makes the bird of paradise feel like the bird of paradise. So if you feel like you're overdoing it, don't. See this bright purple I'm using. I'm going to collide it with the red, and I'm just going to let all of these colors flow together. And then some orange. I'm going to leave that one a little separate. So I have a couple that are solid. Just a few more marks. A little bit of this ultramarine blue. Those little blue petals are also trademark. You have to have them in this painting. Just a few and a little bit of one more color, and I'm thinking I'm done. I'm going to use a little yellow to bring the yellow from the center over to the side. Just adding a couple little lines. And that is about to be done. I'm just kind of dragging off and adding in as I see fit, but I don't want to overdo it. Okay, so I love how all of my bleeds are interacting. I love my expressive marks that I made just one by one. Now it's time to bring it all together with one of my favorite techniques splattering. So I grabbed a piece of newsprint. I'm going to kind of keep my table a little bit clean, especially with this technique. So put a piece of newsprint under your painting, grab your brush, get it nice and wet and pick up some of the pop colors from your painting and do a quick splatter. Now, just kind of leave your brush on its side when you're doing that and take your other hand and just kind of hit it. So I'm gonna grab some green and just tap. Just tap kind of lightly and at an angle now, it's really cool when some of the paint from the painting is still wet and it picks up, but there might be a couple spots that you want to pull a little off like that. I wanted that purple to stay just a little bit undisturbed. But I love the effect that I just got with the green and the yellow. I just gave it energy. Just that little missing piece that I needed. And especially with that bright white background. I'm just going to grab a little bit more and if you notice, I pulled my dirty paint water because I actually like to use dirty paint water sometimes. It's a harmonious color from your palette. Now, I just see one spot left on the tip of the bra. That I want to go in, and I just want to make it slightly pointier and a little bit longer. And that is just about it. I am really happy with how this came out. It feels energetic. It feels like the bird of paradise. I hope you love yours, too. And look at that. I under 10 minutes, you made a full Bird of Paradise watercolor painting. 4. Share Your Paradise: Conclusion: If you've been painting along, you've created your very own Bird of Paradise watercolor. Remember, each painting is unique, just like the flowers in nature. Take a moment to appreciate your creation. It's a piece of tropical paradise you've brought to life with your brush. Don't forget to share your work in the class project gallery. I'd love to see your artwork and cheer you on. If you enjoyed this mini class, please consider leaving a review. I'd appreciate it so much. For more botanical watercolor inspiration, follow me at Living Pattern on Instagram. You can also find a link to my created supply list for this class in the class details section. Until next time, Happy Creating.