Modern Blooms: An Acrylic Journey into Abstract Floral Painting

1. Welcome to Modern Blooms!: Hi, I'm Jessie Role, and welcome to Modern Blooms. An acrylic journey into abstract floral painting. If you've ever wanted to paint in a loose, expressive and creative way, then this class is for you. Together, we'll explore abstract floral painting with acrylics. Rather than focusing on realism or painting every petal perfectly, you'll learn how to capture the feeling and beauty of flowers through color, shape, texture, and expressive brushwork. One of the things I love the most about abstract painting is the freedom it gives us to experiment, trust our instincts, and create something that is uniquely our own. Throughout this class, I'll share my process while encouraging you to make creative choices that reflect your personal style. We'll complete three quick projects together. First, you'll paint a single expressive flower and learn how to simplify floral forms. Next, you'll create an abstract bouquet exploring composition and layering. And finally, you'll paint an abstract field of flowers, bringing everything together in a vibrant landscape full of movement and atmosphere. A little bit about me, I'm Jessie Role. I'm an artist, teacher, author, and the creative director of the colorful lifestyle brand Eta V. I've built a career as a commercial artist with abstract art leading the way. Whether you're a beginner or simply looking to loosen up your painting style, this class will help you build confidence and enjoy the creative process. Feel free to follow me on Skillshare to be instantly notified when I post a new class or freebies. And please do share your work in the class gallery so that we can all give you your flowers. So grab your paint brushes and your favorite colors, and let's get started. I cannot wait to see what you create. Oh 2. Single Flower Intro: Hi, friends. In this project, you will be creating a single abstract flower using acrylic paint. This project is all about learning to see flowers differently. Instead of focusing on realism or perfect details, you'll be exploring shape, color, texture, and expressive brushwork. Think of this flower as an interpretation rather than a copy. As you paint, I encourage you to make your own choices, choose colors that excite you, experiment with different brush marks, and allow yourself to simplify the flower as much as you'd like. Remember, abstract painting is about capturing a feeling or an impression. If your flower looks different than mine, that's a good thing. The goal isn't to recreate my painting to perfection is to create your own. And that's what helps us build confidence as artists. Use me simply as your guide. When you're finished, upload your project to the class gallery. I would love to see your color choices, your brush marks, and the unique details you chose to add. And with that said, let's get going. Our first project will be to paint a quick and expressive flower. When given a closer look, our lovely flower here looks like a burst of brightly colored and layered brushstrokes. And the reason why I wanted to start with this project is because it's the perfect way to get warmed up and let loose in terms of painting expressively. Now, when it comes to expression or abstract, I try to think of the emotion I'm trying to convey. To me, when I see a flower, I think of joy, optimism, whimsy. And as you can see here on our flower, there's freedom in the movement of the brushstrokes. You can see they're kind of pushing out, moving they're free, they're going where they want to. And so in this exercise, we're going to just really kind of trying to hone in that energy of expressing freedom and movement, joy, optimism, and whimsy. Now, let's go over the materials. 3. Single Flower: Materials: For the materials, I have first and foremost, acrylic paint. You can use any acrylic paint that you have on hand. I personally I am going to be using the EtiV multisurface acrylic paint, which is my personal paint line that I have. But like I said, any paint any brand of paint will do. I will kind of just go through the colors, though. That'll help you know which ones to grab. So I have a nice cadmium yellow medium hue, a fluorescent pink. A Prussian blue. Mine's not quite as deep as Prussian blue, but if you have a Prussian blue on hand or any kind of blue, that'll do. Turquoise blue and titanium white. If you're new to acrylics, here is some general information. So acrylic paint is a fast drying water soluble paint. It's made up of a polymer emulsion, which means it's very durable when dry. It's a very versatile paint, so it can be painted on many different surfaces. And because it's water soluble, we use water to clean our brushes. You can also add water to the paint to dilute it, which makes it more transparent and easier to manipulate. Now, when it comes to acrylics, there are generally two types of acrylic paint that we work with or that I tend to work with, which is basic acrylic paint and heavy body acrylic paint. So for this project, I'm going to be using more of a basic acrylic paint. The difference is pretty much that basic acrylic paint, it has a medium viscosity, which means it's not that thick. It is still you're able to move the paint across the canvas quite easily. It's easy to blend. It's a great price point, and it's the perfect paint for learning. Heavy body acrylic paint, it's a thicker paint, which means it's a high viscosity paint. When it comes out of the tube, it's just a thicker consistency. And it really allows you to get those nice thick, creamy, brushstroke marks in your work. It's a higher end product, and that is definitely reflected in the price. I tend to use heavy body acrylics more so whenever I'm working on commissions for clients. But for this project, I will be using a basic acrylic paint. As for brushes, I have two brushes for this first project. I am using they're both round brushes. The first one I have is simply Simon, size eight, and the second one that I have is from SastrnGrin here in town, but it's a round brush as well, size four. So pretty much the idea is you want two round brushes, one that's larger, and another one that's smaller to where you can get some nice details going. I also have my water to clean my brushes and a paint cloth, as well as a palette sheet to mix my colors. And then I will be painting on paper today. So I'm going to be painting on Kansen, acrylic paper, What up? You can find a shopping list of all supplies in the Download resources. And you can also snag two freebies that I created just for you at atavi.com slashMODBlooMS. I've created a floral abstraction worksheet and flower inspiration board to help you with your projects. Okay, so I think that we are ready to go ahead and get started with mixing our colors. 4. Single Flower: Color Mixing: Now, to mix my colors, I'm going to go ahead and kind of just clear this space out a little bit. And I'm going to grab my lovely palette sheet. And before I start mixing colors, I do just want to quickly show you. So here is the piece that we're going to be painting. As you can see, there are five colors represented here on this piece. So pretty much most of the colors I'm going to be using are the colors straight out of the tube. However, we're going to only need to mix two colors for this project. So we're going to mix this nice hot coral color that we have here, as well as the soft green. Okay. Gonna get my paints back over here. Now, I'm going to go ahead and start with my titanium white. Go ahead and place that right there in the center. I'm going to next grab my cadmium yellow medium hue. Put some of that over here, followed by my fluorescent pink. Next up, Turquoise blue. And last but not least, my Prussian blue. Okay. So pretty much these five colors. Usually, I also add, like, a magenta, but these are pretty much the colors that I always use when color mixing. I feel like they produce quite vibrant colors. Once mixed properly, they're just perfect for creating a nice, lush, vibrant color. And so we're just going to mix our two colors real quick. I am just going to go ahead and use my brush in order to mix my colors. I'm going to start off by mixing that lovely hot coral color that we saw in the example piece. So whenever I mix colors, I like to start with the lightest color and then slowly add my darker colors little by little. So I'm going to go ahead and start with the titanium white. Pull that out over here. And I'm going to now pull in some of that lovely cadmium yellow medium hue and mix that in until I get a nice pale yellow. Kind of like this. And I am now going to snag just a little bit of my fluorescent pink and mix that in. So that's kind of giving me a pale orange. I want it to be a little bit more coral, so I'm going to need more pink. Okay. I think I'd like a little bit more pink as well, so I'm just going to keep, like I said, mixing in those colors little by little. And here's what I've ended up with. I love it. Might even snag a little bit more of that pink in there. But feel free to mix it to your taste. And that's the color that we get. It's very nice. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and clean my brush. And next up, I'm going to mix the soft green. Okay. Now, for that, I am going to start with the yellow. Okay. Just kind of put it right there. And I'm going to take a teeny bit of the turquoise and mix that in. No, I'm really just mixing this in little by little. 'cause I don't want it to get too teal. If I mix in too much of that turquoise, it's going to start to turn teal. I do want it to be green. Okay, so I think I'm liking this green here. Kind of like that. And next up, what I'm going to do is I'm going to snag just a tiny bit of this white and mix that in. Little by little, what we're doing is creating a tint. We're changing the tint of the color. Okay, like that. That's nice and soft. Okay. And that's the color I've ended up with. Actually might snag a little bit more of that blue. There we go. All right. And those are the two colors that I'm going to be using. I'm even, even looking at this, I might even just snag a little bit of the Prussian blue to see what that gives me. Oh, yeah, that's nice. That kind of gives me a softer hue here. Okay. That's really nice. Okay. Okay. I'm pretty happy with that, but feel free to play around with the colors. You know, you can mix purples, if you want to mix the fluorescent pink with a little bit of that turquoise blue, sky's the limits. So I'm going to go ahead and wash my brush, and I will see you guys in the next video to get started on our flower. 5. Single Flower: Base Layer: All right. So I went ahead and got myself some fresh water before getting started on our painting. Now, before we get started, let's quickly just observe our subject here. I may look like the brushstrokes are bursting from the center, but they're actually swinging inwards. So even though it looks like this, I actually achieved this look by doing the opposite. So the brushstroke starts on the outside and it swoops in to the center of the flower. Okay. So that's kind of what we're going to be doing here. And as you can see, there are curves in the brush strokes. These curves here, those are what gives our flower movement. So they just kind of visually create the effect that the flower is alive and moving, maybe blowing in the wind. And so we achieve that with these slightly curved brush strokes, and so that's what we're going to be doing. Now, I'm going to be starting with the bottom layer, and as you can see here, we have lots of colors going on. But if you take a closer look, the bottom layer is this nice hot coral here. So we're going to start with the hot coral, and then we're going to move on to the two middle layers, which will be the yellow and the fluorescent pink. All right, so let's get started. Now, this is just for practice. No worry. You know, if maybe you're a little hesitant at first, this is just a nice way for us to warm up and get our expressive abstract juices flowing. So no pressure to create something perfect. We're just going for trying to really capture that movement in our piece. That's what this practice is all about. Okay. All right, so let's go ahead and get started with this base layer. I am going to snag some of this lovely Hot coral. Now, it's been sitting here for a little bit, so it might get a little dry. So I am going to dip my brush ever so slightly, just a little bit in the water, kind of just just the tip of my brush. And I'm going to add that to my paint just to kind of loosen that up a bit. And I'm going to go ahead and get started. Okay, so as I mentioned, we start from the outside, we work our way in with our brush strokes. I'm going to show you the first brush stroke quite slowly. Start out, bring it in. Now, when I bring it in, I'm kind of pressing. And then at the end, as I release, I give it a little tiny flick of the brush at the end. Okay. Kind of like that. And that's my first petal. Now, I'm going to move my way around the flower, and we want to kind of make sure that, like, our brushstrokes are different lengths. So we don't want them all to be the same length. We want some variation in there, so it feels more like an organic flour. Okay. Now, I am I just keep adding some of that water to my paint mixture because I really want my brush to really glide across the paper. But what I think is really lovely about this type of paper is that I get that nice toothy brush stroky effect, which is really lovely. Now, I did add a little bit of white into my hot coral because I think just like a little differentiation is really nice. And I want you to really loosen up with it, really test out doing different lengths. As you can see, this bottom one, I've really let it go a little bit longer than the others just 'cause it's nice, it creates some interest for the eye. And as you saw there, kind of this last one, like, really explore making a confident movement. Don't overthink it. This is really an exercise in flow, following a shape, letting the organic shape take place, and letting go. I am obsessed. This is already just looking really lovely, I feel. Since I do already have this hot coral on my brush, I am going to go around and add just some little markings that are kind of as if they're coming off of the flour. And I'm achieving this by just lightly adding short little brush strokes around the flour. And I'm moving in the same motion. I'm going from out to inward. So I am going to let this layer dry. While this layer dries, I'm going to wash my brush. If you have a hair dryer on hand, you can go ahead and use that for quicker drying. Next up, we are going to layer in with the yellow paint. 6. Single Flower: Middle Layer: Now that my first layer here is dry, I am going to go in and bring in our next layer, which is going to be the yellow. Now, what I love about the yellow is that it's just going to add a nice highlight, a nice little glow, a visual glow to our piece. I'm not going to now, we're not going to want to really, you know, we're not going to want to cover here, let me move the sideways so we can get a little bit more light. We're not going to want to cover our work here. We're really just adding layers on top. So I guess I'll just go ahead and show you. So, like, maybe, for example, I bring one in here. So as you can see, I just layered it over the top part of this section here. Let's see where else can I go bring in a piece up here and a piece up here. Now, remember, I'm starting outside and working my way in. Okay. Now, what we want to make sure is that we can still see that orange underneath. So it's really just adding a nice little fun warmth highlight on top of our base layer. And a. And that's it. So that was all the yellow that I plan to add. I'm going to let the yellow dry and next up, I'm going to go in with the fluorescent pink. Now that my yellow layer is dry, I'm going to go in with the fluorescent pink, and I'm going to do the same thing as I did with the yellow layer. Just kind of add in some of those little little highlight moments and just slightly layering those on top. And I'm just kind of moving my way around kind of looking at maybe areas that need to be broken up with color a little bit. Yeah, I really like that. And I am going to go ahead and start to push out some of these little marks on the edges, just like we did with our first color. Always making sure I start on the outside and work my way in Okay. I like how it looks. Okay, so that is looking great. And now we are going to move forward with our two top layers, and then our lovely flower will be complete. I will see you in the next video. 7. Single Flower: Top Layer: Now that the middle layers are dry, we are going to finish by adding the top two layers. I'm going to grab some of this lovely soft green that we mix. So I'm going to grab my brush. I'm still using the larger brush. And let's see if it's still might need to remix it. It's been a while since I've touched it. So let's see. Let's just pull in a little bit of that white and the turquoise blue in there. And she's back. Okay. Fabulous. Okay. And okay, so now I'm going to go through, and this layer is going to be kind of a little just lighter than when I say lighter, I mean thinner. Like the brushstrok is going to be a little bit more daintier than what we had in the other layers here. Because what we're doing is we're kind of starting to build our way towards detail. So I'm going to go in and kind of just lightly press my brush from the outside to the inside. So just going ever so lightly. And when you press lighter, you get a thinner brushstroke. Okay. Kind of like that. Okay. And we're doing the same thing, just kind of adding those, like, little dashes where you feel like you need. Now, I really want you to, like, I really want you to hone in and try to take some creative liberties here wherever you feel, you know, like there's an area that needs a little bit more love. If you're really loving this color, and you want to add more, go for it. Now that this piece is this layer is on there, I think I'm going to let this dry. And while I let this dry, I'm going to switch to my smaller brush. And I'm going to add some details. Alright, so using still using this green, I'm going to go in and start to add some of these little round ovals to the center of my flowers. So I'm just gently dabbing my brush. Since it's a round brush, when I gently dab it, it gives me a nice little oval shape. And you can play around with making some of them bigger, some of them smaller. Okay. I think I like that, just like that. And now that I have this smaller brush, I might just add a few of these little smaller flourishes in the green. And I'm going to now go ahead and switch over to the blue. Now, for the blue, let me show you the example we're gonna be kind of doing something different this time around. Okay, so as you see, what we have been doing is that we have been, as you know, taking our brushstroke from the outside and moving it in. But for the blue, we're actually going to be starting in and moving out. And we're also going to be using shorter brush strokes as well. So the blue is really just to add detail, some contrast. I am going to start with my larger brush. I'm going to grab some of that blue. Okay. And I will add just a little bit of water to that just so it really flows. I really want it to I don't want to I think, yeah, it's nice if it has, like, a little transparency to it just a little bit. Helps it flow. Okay, so here I go. As I said, I'm going to go from the inside. Go to work my way out. Very, very short and very light touch. Okay. Just like that. Okay. And as you can see, this really just brings our peace to life. Okay. H It's really lovely, really nice. Love how this is looking. Okay. All right. Now, I think, while that dries, I am going to grab my smaller brush, go in and add some detail to the center of the flower. I'm not fully covering the green dots, I'm just adding a little layer that's slightly offset from the green. Now, looking at the flower, I feel like this space is a little empty right here, so I am going to maybe bring in I think I'll just bring in, like, a little maybe, like, some of that hot coral color from the beginning just to kind of fill that space a little bit. Sometimes we have to edit as we go. But that's just a personal preference. If yours if you are happy with yours, go for it. Don't worry about me. Valla. Okay, that's much better. Okay. I'm gonna bring in a little yellow layer as well just to keep it a little consistent. And there we have it. Now, I'm looking at it. I'm like, oh, maybe I could add You know, I think I might just bring in a little bit more of this Mm, maybe I'll just use some of this turquoise, actually, 'cause we haven't used that yet, and I think that could add a nice little extra color in there. And I'm going to use a small brush, and I'm just going to kind of add really small dashes. All right. And my friends, we did it. Here is our first project, this beautiful, expressive flower. I am really curious to see how you guys did, so please post in the class project. Probably what I will do with this now. This can probably actually looking at it, it would make a great repeat pattern. I'll probably scan this into the computer and create a pattern for it to be used on fabric. I think that'd be really gorgeous. But it could also just simply be beautiful framed on the wall or given as a gift. So I hope you guys enjoyed this first project, and I will see you for project number two, which will be a lovely bouquet. So I hope that this first lesson kind of got you warmed up and a little bit more confident with your brush strokes as we go into this next lesson. See you over there. 8. Bouquet Intro: Now that you've painted a single flower, it's time to create an abstract bouquet. You'll combine flowers, leaves, shapes all into a balanced composition, focusing on movement, color, and energy rather than perfection. Youths the techniques that you've learned, but I really also want you to trust your instincts and explore your own creative ideas. Each abstract bouquet is going to be completely unique. So this is actually the perfect opportunity to develop confidence in your personal style. When you're finished, share your project in the class gallery so that we can all celebrate your work. Our next project is going to be creating this beautiful abstract bouquet. And when we give this a closer look, you may notice that we will be using the same brushstroke technique as we used in project number one. So as you can see, we're going to be using that same outward to inward swooping technique as we did on the first project. And I think, pretty much, um, you know, we have in terms of color, we're going to be using the same colors as we did for project one. The only difference is this time we're going to be adding in a magenta to get these nice deep details here on our pink flower. So we'll go ahead and get to remixing some of those colors. 9. Bouquet: Color Mixing: Now, just reminder, the colors I will be using are titanium white, cadmium yellow, medium hue, I have my turquoise, although I already have some turquoise on my palate, so I am going to not need to add anywhere, but a little bit of the Prussian blue, which I already have on my palate. This time around, I am going to be bringing in some of that magenta. So magenta, just a little bit I don't need too much, and I will top that off with the fluorescent pink. Okay. Now, for this piece, we are only going to be needing to mix two colors again. So this time around, we're going to start again with our lovely hot coral color. So let me go ahead and bring this over so we can get that mixed up. So remember, that was taking a little bit of this titanium white, bringing in that cadmium yellow, mixing it in there, and then bringing in our fluorescent pink. Now, remember, you can add more pink or more yellow based on your personal preference. I tend to like mine a little bit more pink. Just feel like it makes it a little warmer. Okay. And here's the color I ended up with. Gorgeous, gorgeous. And for my second color, I am going to go ahead and just clean my brush real quick. For my second color, I'm going to mix a lime green. So for the lime green, it's going to be similar to that soft green. But this time, we're just going to add to the tiniest bits. So I'm gonna pull out some of that titanium yellow or not titanium yellow, cadmium yellow medium hue, and snag just a bit of that turquoise. Mix it in. Okay, it's looking good. I think I can take just a little bit more. Mix it in there. Gorgeous. Now, the more yellow you have, the more lime it will be. The more blue you add, the more closer to a teal you'll get. So just go to add a little bit more yellow in there. And it's perfect. It's looking great. And there it is. All right. So now we can go ahead and get started on our piece. 10. Bouquet: Sketching & Base Layers: Oh. Now, for this piece, you are going to need a color pencil or a plain pencil, but I tend to like to use a color pencil whenever I'm doing my projects. So I have a What color is this? Let's see. Kind of a maroon color pencil on hand. And if we look at our example piece, we can see that we have six flowers, and they're all kind of bunched together, all reaching for the sky. And what I really love about this is that I don't know, it feels alive. It feels effervescent. It feels like you just scooped up a bunch of flowers, ready to give them to someone. I really just love the energy. And so for this piece, we're really just going to kind of also still be focusing on getting that movement in there. And with our color pencil, pretty much what we're going to be doing is creating a little guide for ourselves. So we're going to lightly kind of sketch a U shape kind of like a wide U shape, kind of like a bowl, if you will. And we'll sketch six of those very lightly just so we know where our flowers are going to be placed. Alright. So I have my trusty color pencil, and I think I'll start kind of up here. Now, impressing a little harder just so that you guys can see it on camera. Usually, I would kind of go in with a lighter touch. So that's one. That's two. That's three. We got four. Let's do five over here and six. And I made sure to leave some space on the bottom so that I can kind of feed my flowers down. Those are going to get painted over, but it's just an idea to know where they're going to go. Alright. So I think we can go ahead and get started on our base layers. For the base layers, I'm going to get started with, let's see. I have the same two brushes as in Project one. I'm going to get started with my larger round brush size eight, and I'm going to get started with the hot coral. Now, these pieces are all going to have different they're going to have different bases. They're not all going to have the same color base. I think I'll do maybe three of them with this hot coral base to it or maybe two. Let's see. We'll see how it goes. So pretty much we're going to be approaching this the same way as we did the last project, where we start on the outside, we press and we bring that brushstroke into the center. I'm just going to simply do that on the two outer sides of my first flower. Now I'm going to go back in and add another brushy swish in there. And I'm just going to keep adding them, pressing and releasing it, kind of giving it a nice little flick as I get to the center because it adds like a nice we get a nice movement happening at the end. We get the nice little brush stroke texture there. So I really like how that looks. And I think for, you know, I think I'm going to go in and just kind of start adding since I have the color on my brush, I'll add a little bit of these little effervescent moments. And I guess I will go ahead and bring this color in also for this flower here. So I did get a little aggressive with this line, but that's okay. Okay, so yeah, this is going to be my base layer for this as well. So I'm going to try to cover up some of those lines. Okay, bring those into the center swish, swish, swish. Kind of like that. It's really nice. And I think maybe also for this center guy here, we'll go ahead and do the same Swish. Swish. Now, we're not overthinking this. This is abstract, it's expressive. We're really just letting our hands kind of do that brushwork, but we're not overthinking it. This is not about realism. It's really just about capturing that feeling that effervescent feeling of movement. Okay, well, those dry. I'm going to snag some of this yellow, the yellow as it is. And I'm going to dipping my breast just a little bit in the water just to loosen up that yellow a little bit. And I'm gonna do the same thing. But I'm going to bring it to this flower. So swish swish and make sure you're really bending it, exploring getting very wispy with with the movements. Okay. And maybe I'll do this guy over here. Beautiful. Just gorgeous. And for the last one, you know, maybe I'll make a light green. That could be pretty if I just pull some of this white off to the side of my green. I think the base let's try that. I would like to invite you to use whatever color you wish for this last flower. If you want to experiment with a completely different color than me, that is very much so encouraged. And I'm going to add those little hits of effervescence. Also, I forgot to add a little effervescence in yellow to this guy up here, so I'm going to go ahead and bring some of those in. Now the goal about this it's to not overthink, right? So that's why I'm moving kind of quickly because I'm wanting to kind of go with the flow. I'm not overthinking. I just want this to really capture. I want to capture that wispinss, that freedom, that organic feel in the flowers. And so we don't you know, if we're too careful, and then it's not gonna feel as organic. Okay, so I'm really liking how that's looking. I think while these guys dry right here, I'm just going to go ahead and start to bring some stems down to the bottom. So I do have this light green that I had before. I'm going to add a little bit of water. And just gonna kind of bring a little bit of it to the base of this flower here and lightly bring the stem down. Now, I'm not going to be able to see the stems for all of this, all of these flowers because it is a bouquet, so some of them, you know, theoretically are hidden behind the flowers in front of it, but I will, you know, kind of create suggestions. So I'll pop that there. Let's imagine it continues down here, draw a line and bring it down, Lila. Okay. Going to move to my next flower, which is the center flower, but I'll just kind of do a suggestion there. This flower up here, bring that down. And this guy over here. Perfect. Okay. So this is looking very lovely. So far, I think now I will go ahead and wash my brush. And I'm gonna go ahead and start to, you know, since I do still have some of this green mm. I was going to go ahead and finish the stems, but you know what? I think I think everything is looking quite dry up here, so I'm ready to go in with my second layer. I'm going to bring some of that hot coral onto my yellow pieces as the next layer. I might even make it just a little bit more pink just to get a little differentiation. I have my hot coral mixture right here and I'm pulling in some more of that pink just so we get a slightly different variation. Adding my little bit of water. So it really flows. Honestly, I could use more pink on there. I think I really want to I really want to warm those warm those up. Oh, so much pink. Okay. Yes. Alright. So, so we're going to start with this yellow flower here, and I'm going to add my next layer. Now, I'm not going to completely cover all my work here. I just want to add a layer on top, right? So I'm going to kind of just overlap and swish it down and towards the center, just like that. And I'm going to add some little fun moments up there. I really liking that. Mixing a little bit more pinkinF my next flower. I'm going to add the layer up here to this other yellow flower up here. Gorgeous. The beauty is in the wispiness. Okay, now for the next for this, like, center flower here, I think I'm going to I want this one to be more of the fluorescent pink. So I am just going to take the pink as is. And I'm going to Just go ahead and bring that in there like that. That is gorgeous. I love that. Okay, I'm going to now let this dry before going in and bringing in some of those cooler tones back into this piece, because right now it's feeling quite warm, and what these cool tones are going to do is they're gonna bring some more contrast back into the piece. So I will see you in the next video once this dries. 11. Bouquet: Adding Cool Tones: Now we're ready to bring in some cooler tones to our piece. I'm going to move my palette over just a little bit so you can see some more of those cool colors that I have on there. I will be starting with the turquoise. So I'm going to bring some turquoise into this flower here. I think it'll add a nice contrast with this warm orangy base. I'm going to bring some turquoise onto this guy as well, and a little bit onto this one. Let's see. I think I'm going, let's just take some of that turquoise, as is straight out of the tube. No mixing to it. I am going to add just a tiny bit of water to this mixture here. And I'm going to do the same thing as this next layer starting on the outside and bringing those brush strokes. And now I am kind of being a little bit more wispy with it. Ooh, what if we added a little white to that mixture? That could be really nice, just to get a few different variations of the color. Yes. Very nice. I love that. I'm going to let that dry. And I'm going to bring some blues down into my bottom flower here. Now, remember, we're not completely covering that base layer. We want it to shine through. We're just adding this extra outside layer on top. It's kind of like it's all overlapping is the idea. Okay. Jado. So pretty. I might even add, like, a little short one on the outside. Yeah, like that. Okay. Really love. Love the movement. Now I'm going to add some blue here and to this sky, as well. Adding some water to loosen it up. Okay. See how much that blue just really adds. Gorgeous contrast and, like, almost almost dimension to it all. And for my last flower. Really playing around with shape, size, thickness, all of that. Keeping it wispy, bending it around that shape. Okay, pretty happy with that. 12. Bouquet: Flourishes: I'm now going to switch to my smaller brush. And I'm going to go in and kind of start adding in some little details and wispiness. So I have my smaller size four brush here. And because I really want this paint to glide, I am dipping my brush ever so slightly in my water. And I'm going to start with that magenta. We haven't used the magenta yet. Pulling just a little bit of that out and I'm going to go in and kind of just add these little dashes, bringing them also down towards the center and bending them along the shape of my brush strokes. This is just so beautiful. This painting is actually quite sentimental to me. It's a painting that I originally painted sitting at the kitchen table with my husband's grandmother in Brittany, France, by the sea. And it was just a really wonderful moment. She loved to color. She loved coloring books and color pencils. And so we always had little art sessions where we would sit together and make art. And so this is one of the This is inspired by one of the pieces that I painted at her table. The peas actually went on to become a stationary line here in France, so I thought that was really cool. Okay, I'm taking this taking some of this down this magenta down into this bottom flower. Okay. Doing little dots. Just gorgeous. All right. It's looking good. Go to wash my brush, and I'm going to bring in some of let's see. Let's go with the turquoise next. It and I'm just going to add some details. Bring that water back into my turquoise just so that it glides. I'm just going to bring in some smaller moments. I really adds to everything. I bring it down to my greener flower. Add just some small little hits. Gorgeous. Same thing here. Okay. It's beautiful. And you know what? I think I'll kind of bring a little bit of this turquoise down into the stem as well. Okay, it's really nice. Going to wash my brush, and I'm going to kind of snag a little bit of that Prussian blue that I have left over from my last project, and I'm going to inject that into a few of these flowers just to add some nice, gorgeous contrast. I really just love the boldness that that Prussian blue brings. And I'm going to add a couple of leaves. So I'm going to use my Prussian blue and just kind of paint in a couple of leaves. Now, I'm pressing, letting my brush fan out a bit to get that leaf shape. And I think I'll also think it could be pretty to add a little bit of that hot coral as a leaf, as well. I'm gonna do a different shape this time. Experiment with different leaf shapes. It's kind of pretty. I really like that. I'm gonna let that dry. But other than that, our beautiful bouquet is complete, quite in love. Maybe I'll add a little bit of that Prussian blue in the stem, as well. I'm so happy with how it turned out. It's gorgeous. It's effervescent. It's beautiful. I'm going to definitely frame this one hanging in my home as a nice reminder of a loved family member. But, yes, I hope that you guys were able to loosen up and continue working on layering those colors up. What's really cool about these projects is that we're kind of seeing how to layer color without making a muddy mess. But also just by doing simple brushstrokes, how we can get a nice shape that translates to read flour. So Curious to see, please share your piece in the class gallery. I would love to check it out, see how you guys did. Also, if you used a different color palette, I would love to see that as well. I'm actually thinking of trying this out using blues and purples. I think that could be really gorgeous, as well. And I think we are ready for project number three. See you over there. 13. Field of Flowers Intro: For our final project, you'll create an abstract field of flowers, filled with color, mark making, and a whole lot of atmosphere. Now, this project really asks you to let loose. As you paint, think about the mood you want to create. Perhaps your field feels bright and joyful. It could also maybe feel soft and peaceful or bold and energetic. Let your color choices and brush work tell that story. When you've completed your flower field, head over to the class project gallery, and along with your previous projects, upload them into the gallery. I would love to see how your creativity and confidence developed over the course of this class. We are now ready to get started on our abstract field of flowers. Here is the reference image that I'm going to be painting off. This is what we're going to be creating. So just to quickly walk you through, what we're seeing here is kind of imagine that you are looking at a vast field of flowers, the most important thing to cull out here is that the flowers that are in the foreground that are closer to you are going to be larger. The flowers that are in the center, the midground of the page will be kind of slightly smaller, more of a medium size. And then as you look off into the distance, just like in real life, the flowers get smaller and smaller the further you look away. So that is the only type of I suppose, that's the way that we're going to approach this so that you still so that the brain visually reads that it is a field of flowers and that we're looking off into the distance. Is that the most important thing is that the flowers in the foreground are largest, midground, they get smaller. And as you get off into the distance, you can see that these flowers actually just turn into little dots and suggestions of flowers. So I think we are ready to get started. You will need to grab a color pencil. And I am going to walk you through the materials. They're pretty similar to every Well, they are the same as the other projects, but color pencil, brushes, water, cloth. Acrylic paper and a palette. And then the colors I have on hand for this project, I have my fluorescent my fluorescent pink, my cadmium yellow, medium hue, titanium white, turquoise blue, and Prussian blue. Gonna go ahead, pop those onto my palette and get those colors mixed up. 14. Field of Flowers: Color Mixing: Go to start with my titanium white. Followed by the turquoise blue. Cadmium yellow fluorescent pink, and the Prussian blue. Okay. Now, for this piece, as you can see, I have a few oranges happening here, so I'm going to mix this kind of hot orange, kind of a yellow orange and the lovely hot coral that we love to use, as well as a few greens. So I'm going to start with my worms. I love to start with my worms. First up, I will mix our classic hot coral, titanium white, cadmium yellow, and pull that pink in. Perfect. This time around, I'm also going to mix a pale pink. In order to get that pale pink, I am going to pull out some of this titanium white and mix it just with a little bit of that fluorescent pink to get a nice pastel pale pink. It gives me a color like this. I'm not sure if that's focusing, but it's really nice. Okay. And I'm going to also mix up an orange. And for that, I am simply going to just be kneading. Let's see. Let's take out some of this yellow and mix it with equal parts of the fluorescent pink. Okay. Looks pretty good. Oh, yes. It's a nice hot orange. And honestly, I'm thinking I might even want a slightly maybe deeper. I'm not sure at this moment, but I think I think this is really This will do. This will do. I can always just keep adding the fluorescent pink to it if I wanted to get a little deeper, more in the pink realm, but I'm pretty happy with this. And I will just snag a little bit of that cadmium yellow and mix it off to the side of my orange that I mix just to get kind of this pretty yellow, orange color because we want options for our field of flowers, so that is why I'm making sure to mix all kinds of lovely shades. Alright, I'm going to go ahead and wash my brush. Now, feel free to use whatever colors you want for your field of flowers. Maybe you want yours to be more cooler tones with blues and purples. That'd be so pretty. Okay, next, I'm going to mix a few greens. I will start with kind of a lighter lime green, so I'm gonna pull out some of that yellow. And I'm going to snag just a little bit of that turquoise blue, mix it in there. And we have a gorgeous lime green. Really pretty. And next, I'll mix a darker green. So I have some yellow already pulled out here. So all I'm going to do is just add more of the turquoise than I had the first time around. And pretty much just kind of add the turquoise blue to the yellow little by little until you get the desired color or color that you like. It's all about personal preference. Okay, that's really nice. And I would like to even try one with this Prussian blue. So take some of that yellow and snag some of that Prussian blue. And I get a nice deep green. Ooh, it's really pretty. It's like a nice forest green. Okay, so I have just mixed up one, two, three, four, seven colors. And now I have a lot of options that I can use for my field of flowers. So I think we are now ready to go ahead and get started. 15. Field of Flowers: Sketching: Before we get started, I do want to just kind of show you the beautiful water color effect happening here. So these are acrylics, but what I like to do sometimes, if I kind of want to create this watercolor effect, I just add a whole bunch of water to my paints, and it kind of I let it pool and dry in different areas, and this creates a nice watercolor esque effect. So we are going to be exploring that today, which I think is really exciting, something a little different. I'm just going to simply take my color pencil here, and I'm going to quickly just sketch a little border or barrier. You can, of course, do this with painter's tape, but I'm not being too precious about it. I'm just kind of getting that border on there. I am going to go ahead and kind of just kind of starting off by sketching a few of my flowers. So I'm not going to sketch all of the flowers in the field, but I do want to kind of put a few anchors just so that my brain has an idea of how the composition will be built, where the larger flowers is, where the midground will be in the background. So I'm going to just kind of loosely and lightly sketch a larger flower for the foreground. Just being really loose about it, making it more just like a suggestion of a flower. Okay, so these are kind of my larger foreground flowers that I want to make sure to call out. And these will be the ones that I'm gonna probably paint first. So I have like a nice little grouping down there. Now I'm going to, you know, maybe, I'd like one over here. And I'm going to kind of start working my way up, but as I work up, I'm going to make sure my flowers are just slightly smaller than this grouping below. And really just kind of be loose with your shapes. Think of a flower field, how sometimes when you have these little wild flowers, they're kind of bunched up into little groups, right? So that's kind of why I'm sketching these somewhat in little clusters. Okay. And let's see. I think I love the idea if we had, like, a nice little wildflower cluster over here. Very pretty. And I think I'm going to bring these around to the back. So let's get these smaller little suggestions of flowers as we work our way back. And the ones in the back should be the smallest flowers, right? The rest of those, I'll probably achieve that with little mark making, stuff like that. So 16. Field of Flowers: Adding Flowers: Ready to get started with painting. I think I will start with my larger brush. Always love doing that. And I'm going to kind of start with these statement flowers right along the bottom. So I'm gonna go for that lovely orange that we mixed earlier. And using those same techniques as we did on the other projects, I'm starting outward and swooping my way towards the center. Feel free to put your own spin on it. Okay. So there's my first loose flower, go to one with a little more pink in it. I definitely don't want these all to be the same color, right? So I'm kind of really play around with adding different variations to flowers. Okay. And I'm not worried about following the guideans too carefully. We're just keeping it loose. It just needs to suggest flour, but it doesn't have to be a literal flower. Now, I'm just alternating all of my colors. Gorgeous. Okay. Now, as I'm starting to kind of move my way up, I'm probably going to have to switch to my smaller brush soon because I don't want the brush strokes to be too thick as I get closer to the I think it would be lovely if the little clusters I'm gonna have a little gripping of flowers right up here. So I think I will make those kind of not the same color, but similar colors just because I think that could be a cute little way to show that they're all the same flowers. But yes, my brush is definitely starting to get a little too big. So I will need to switch over to my smaller brush very soon. Okay. Okay. Beautiful, beautiful. I'm going to go ahead and wash my brush, and I'm going to bring in my smaller, more detailed size four round brush. And I'm just going to go ahead and continue. Okay. And as I start to work my way to the back, they kind of become less flowers and more little blobs. Just a suggestion of a flower. Now, by adding water to my brush, it does allow me to kind of paint with a lighter touch in the back because the paint is thinner and is just kind of dropping on to the paper. I don't have to press as hard, which is what makes the brush fan out. Okay. I'm really just keeping these brushstrokes wispy. Okay. I really like that. And before I start adding my painterly background, I am going to bring in just some of that fluorescent pink as is straight out of the tube. Kind of add some more pink moments. Okay. Okay. What I love about this is you can kind of see the movement happening here. We have these flowers in the front and then they kind of start to dance their way back and off into the distance. So you see we can create some movement, by the way in where we place our flowers, visually creates a little trail often to the distance. Okay, I think I like this is a pretty good base. So I'm going to go ahead and wash my brush, and we are next. We're gonna go and get started on adding in our lovely water coolory painterly background. 17. Field of Flowers: Background: Now that we're going to get started on our pin chilly background, I did go ahead and switch out my water. Just that way, it's less murky, and I can use it more just to get a cleaner background mix. So I am going to get started with let's get started with this light green. I'm going to dip my brush in my water. I'm going to actually pull a little bit of the titanium white into my pale green mixture, and I'm going to mix, mix, mix. Now, like I said, we're going for kind of a watercolor consistency, so I am going to really thin my paint out. Okay. And pretty much, we want to just kind of start bringing our paint in. Loosely, it's grass, right? So we're not going to be too precious about it. It's just to add the suggestion of grass. And I'm not going to fill it in everywhere. And what I'm doing is, as I add the paint, I'm going back in and dipping my brush back into the water. And I just keep pushing the existing paint that's already. On my paper around these flour sketches. And I'm pretty much like, just letting it sit there, and I'm gonna let it dry. And that's what's gonna give us that gorgeous watercolor effect. So, I don't want to put the same color everywhere. I want kind of little patches of grain. So go ahead and play around with adding maybe, you know, you don't have to place it exactly in the same place, but just different areas. Okay. Now, in this area, I think I'm going to play around with keeping the background white but kind of sketching a flower. So let me show you what I mean. I'm going to lightly sketch a flower. Well, I guess not sketch. I guess I'm painting. So I went ahead and painted a flower shape, and I'll do a smaller one as well next to it. And I'm going to simply paint around it. So kind of implies a white flower. And I'm going to also just leave some areas white. We can imagine that these are maybe by leaving these little I'm just kind of painting organic small organic shapes. And let me pull that closer so you can see. That's just a suggestion of little white flowers. Okay. I'm going to let that dry and I'm going to just keep bringing this pale green color around dipping my brush back into the water and pushing the existing paint that is already on the paper around the flowers. Okay. And whenever we're looking at a field, as we go further off into the distance, as we go further off into the distance, the colors get lighter. And so I do want to make sure that this whole back section is lighter. So I'm going to take this lighter green, and I'm going to make sure to put this in the back. So, yes, we have some of the lighter in the foreground, but I am going to be bringing in some of those darker greens and layering them over the lighter color. But I do want to make sure I pull a lot of this lighter green into my field in the back. And I'm just loosely dancing the color around my flowers. Keep it loose. Wherever your brush wants to go is where it goes. 18. Field of Flowers: Middle Layers: I'm now ready to start adding in some more of these middle green layers. So I'm going to refreshen that lovely green that I mixed up earlier, and I'm going to add a healthy amount of water until it's a little transparent. And I am going to go in and start adding that in some of these emptier areas of my flower field. Going to dip my water in my brush my brush in my water. Sorry. And I'm going to continue pushing those colors around my field. And it's okay to go ahead, go in there and connect with other that lighter green color if you want to overlap. That's kind of the idea. And I'm going to kind of do the same thing as I did before with the lighter green. I'm going to leave some of these whiter areas. Okay. And go ahead and even explore moving your brush in different ways. Like, this could suggest a plant. I'll do another one over here where I kind of loop my brush a little bit. Feels kind of like a plant like leaves grass, just the suggestion of greenery. A Okay. And I just keep adding water to my lovely mixture and bringing all of these. This lovely grain in there. Now, as you can see, what I'm starting to do is that since I do have this green, I am starting to add little dashes, little mark making moments on some of that first layer that I already painted. This is really going to be about building up the color. I'm alternating, using my brush vertically, horizontally. I'm not being too precious about it, really wanting this to feel organic and painterly. So, you know, I'm just really using a light touch. Okay. Now, I am going to bring a little bit more of that green up into this space, but I am going to kind of reserve that top area to still mostly be that lighter green color. I will dance some of this paint up there, but not too much. Maybe just by doing small little marks, just the suggestion of some darker areas of grass, but we want to really reserve that for lighter colors. As you can see, I'm painting this quickly because I'm not trying to overthink. I really want this to be an exercise of taking kind of these ideas that we got from our first two projects and really just letting our brush have a little fun, dancing it in between the objects because by putting these flowers as our guide, that kind of allows us to have fun. There are no rules. We're just filling in the space between the flowers. Okay. I like that. I think it's looking pretty good. I'm now ready to add in my next layer, and I would love to add some more of, like, a blue, maybe bring some of that turquoise in to start to bring in a little bit of contrast. And I think, let's see, I'm going to mix some water into my turquoise. Okay. Now, I kind of have this area in the center where there's not much going on. So I think I'm going to introduce my turquoise over here. I might mix a little of my green into the turquoise. Just really play around with kind of mixing all these lovely little colors you have on your palette, playing around to get all types of different shades. I love that. It kind of makes a suggestion of a pond almost. It's really beautiful. Bring some of these deeper colors into the foreground. Maybe start playing with that deeper green we mixed earlier, which was the yellow and the Prussian blue. So what I really want you to do right now, it's like a freestyle. Have fun. Start mixing in some of those deeper colors, bringing them to the foreground. Okay. This is really nice. Okay. Right. So I'm just really going through adding some of these more rich colors in there, which is creating a nice contrast in my piece. A Now that I'm bringing this darker color to the top, I do want to make sure to water it out since we are kind of off in the distance. And I'm keeping some of that white showing through, as well. It's gonna keep it nice and bright. Okay. I love painting these scenes. They're so peaceful. I came up with this composition. One day, whenever every now and then, I do kind of these free little free painting sessions. Kind of came up with this idea. Every month I do a 1 hour studio session, a live, kind of like a live painting session, and where I just kind of make something up off of the spot, and this was the result of that. So I thought that I could, you know, it could be a good idea to kind of teach it in a more formal way, but still keep it loose and natural. O. And the inspiration is after looking at a field of flowers here in Strasbourg, France, I was walking in the park, and it was at the beginning of spring, and all of the little wildflowers, the dandelions, the daisies. They were all popping up all over the field, and so I was inspired to snap a shot. Okay, so yes, this is how it's looking now that we've added some of that turquoise in there, some of those deeper, richer colors. Feel free to add little dashes throughout And this creates a lot of movement. Wherever you feel like a dash needs to go, that's where you will put it. Okay, so I'm going to let this dry. And once this dries, I'm going to go back in with my yellows and also kind of maybe take before well, maybe before we bring the yellows in, we'll stick with this darker color and kind of dance a few more suggestions of flowers up through this area. So let's go ahead and let our piece dry. 19. Field of Flowers: Flourishes: Now that my piece has had a little time to dry, I am going to go back in with that Prussian blue mixed with a little bit of that yellow. So I have my deep green color, kind of like a deep lagoon blue green color. And I'm just going to bring some of these little mark making dashes up into the higher part of my piece. I'm keeping them all together like little clusters using just the tip of my brush and I'm staying in that area where I have all of these other little flowers, so I'm staying on my little path. And I'm just adding these little tiny hits along the way. Very nice. It really just adds a lot of interest, a lot of visual texture to the piece. A lot of expression feels painterly. Okay. Loving this. All right. Gonna wash my brush. And next, I'm going to bring in some yellow for warmth. So I'm kind of kind of look around, look at these areas. I think where the yellow is really successful we'll be kind of in these lighter areas on top of the light green, the pale green color. So go to do the same thing. Gonna add some water to my yellow mixture to my yellow paint and really just thin that out. And what I'm going to do? I think I'm going to do a little test on this area over here. I'm just going to kind of drop in a little hit of yellow on the side. Okay. And let's see. I still have some wet paint happening here, so I'm going to try not to overlap with that darker color because I really want the yellow to stay a true yellow. Gonna kind of maybe bring some hit over into this area where I have a lot of white. Okay. I'm going to bring some more over here. Okay, really dancing the yellow kind of over the lighter, more white areas. And I feel like the yellow just really warms the piece up. Okay. All right. Bring a little bit more up this way. So pretty. All right. And maybe, like, a little down here. Okay. I'm really loving that. As the background dries, I am going to kind of just add a little teeny, teeny, teeny bit of detail to the centers of my flowers. I'm going to use my smaller brush and kind of just take a little bit of this fluorescent pink and, you know, alternate before, you know, bringing just extra little swishes inside of existing flowers, just kind of adding a layer. You can take it, add centers to your flowers, maybe a few, so it's not too perfect. It's nice to keep a little imperfection. So pretty. Okay. Just kind of adding little hits of the color around. Okay. And yeah, I think this is looking pretty finished. I think that something great about this is like, let's say you have metallic pins on hand or even gel pins, you can really still keep going, adding your own personal touch to the centers of the flowers or to the grass. But I think this is such a fun abstract project just to kind of show you not only how to take this style into a different type of composition, but also to turn your acrylics into watercolor. I just think it's a really fun, beautiful project. So I would love to see what you guys created. Please upload your finished piece into the project gallery, and I would love to check it out and cheer you guys on. 20. You Did It!: Congratulations on completing the class. I hope you've enjoyed exploring abstract floral painting and discovered how fun and expressive it can be. Along the way, you've created three projects and practice simplifying shapes, experimenting with color and texture, and developing your own artistic style. As you continue painting, remember that there is no single right way to create abstract flowers. Keep experimenting, trying new ideas, and trusting your instincts. This is where the most exciting work is going to emerge. If you haven't already, please share your projects in the class gallery. I'd love to see your paintings and your unique interpretations. And if you enjoyed this class, leaving a review would be greatly appreciated. Make sure you're following me on Skillshare to be notified of when any new classes come your way. You can also check out my other Skillshare classes, such as joyful abstracts, where we paint a bright rainbow esque abstract or mesmerizing metallics, where I teach you my favorite gold leafing techniques. You can also follow my creative journey on Instagram and Substack. Thank you for painting with me. I really hope this class has inspired you to approach abstract painting with greater confidence, creativity, and curiosity. Until next time, happy painting. Oh