Paint Watercolor Florals to Build a Daily Creative Routine

1. Introduction: When life gets super busy, it's important to enjoy little pockets of time and invest in your creativity, not just as a hobby, but also a therapy. But establishing that creative routine can be a bit tricky. That's where I'm bringing my learning to help you get started with your creative practice. Hi, my name is Garima Srivastava. I'm an Artist, Surface Designer, and a Top Teacher here on Skillshare. My class is focused on making art more approachable and less stressful. I've been painting since 2011 and make joyful designs for fashion, home decor, and stationery products. Apart from managing my design business, I'm also a stay-at-home mom. Finding the perfect window for my creative practice is tricky most of the days. But over the years, I've built this discipline to paint for myself 15-20 minutes each night, regardless of how my day has been. I love sharing snippets of this time with my social media audience. People often wonder how do I manage to stay so consistent. With this class, I'm sharing with you my experience and tips based on years of following a daily creative practice. In the first half of this class you will learn how my own creative routine has evolved, what are some of the benefits of having a creative habit, and tips on making it easy for you. In the second half of this class, I will gently ease you into a seven-day art challenge where we will be painting seven simple but beautiful flowers and pot projects with all the lessons available to you right away. Flowers and pots is a great subject to paint, especially if you're a little short on time. Painting them small makes them perfect for a cozy home decor or as a greeting card for your family and friends. This class is meant for all skill levels as I've included the lessons on watercolor concepts, breaststroke practice, and individual flower practice lessons to help those of you who are new to watercolors. Apart from learning useful practical tips, you will also learn important watercolor skills like painting wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, and adding textures and details to make your work stand out. I'll be showing you simple watercolor art supplies I've used in this class, but feel free to use your favorite art medium. As the project for this class, you can choose to paint one or more of the seven sweet and simple floral projects with 10-15 minute long individual lessons. The goal of this class is to equip you with handy tips to overcome the hurdles in establishing your creative routine and to give you enough motivational fuel with the seven-day art challenge to get your creative wheels turning. Whether you're looking for some inspiration to start or restart a creative habit or simply want to follow along and paint some pretty floral projects, come join me in this class. 2. Your Project & Resources: Welcome to the class. Your project for this class is to paint one or more of the seven flowers in pots paintings that I've shown in this class. I'll be painting them with watercolors, but feel free to use any other art medium that you like. You can find the list of art supplies under the resources of this class. Under the Resources section, you will also find a list of the art challenge prompts, the images of the finished project, and line drawings to make it easier for you to get started. To submit your project, you can go under Projects and Resources, and then Create Project/ Your Project to upload your progress, and project photographs. I would love to give feedback on your projects, so please do make sure to upload your projects here on Skillshare. If you have any query, please do use the Discussion tab, and I'll try my best to answer them. 3. Class Framework: Let's have a look at how this class is formatted. In the next lesson, I'm sharing with you the art supplies I have used in this class, but feel free to use the art supplies that you already have. In the following lessons, I'm sharing with you how my creative journey has evolved, benefits of having a creative habit, and my tips to help you build this routine. After that, I'll introduce you to the topic of our seven-day challenge, followed by some important lessons for watercolor beginners. They include watercolor concepts and techniques and brushstroke practice lessons. Then we will move on to our seven individual painting projects. Before each project, there's a separate flower practice lesson to help those of you who are new to watercolor florals. Now, let's get started. 4. Art Supplies: Well, I don't deny the difference that professional grade art supplies make, but it's also important to find options that you can continue using everyday without hesitating. Let's have a look at the art supplies I'm using today. But please remember, you do not need these exact ad supplies. Try to find something similar that you have to get started. When it comes to paper, a premium quality, 100 percent cotton paper, heavy in weight anywhere above 300 GSM will always give you a really nice result. But you have to understand most of these papers are not that budget friendly. When you are painting every single day, try to find something that you will use without any hesitation. For practice, I recommend Canson XL, 300 GSM paper. It's a cold press paper, but slightly smoother as compared to other papers in the market. This is a student grade paper, so don't expect great results from it. Your washes will not come out very smooth. But it's a great paper just to practice your brush strokes or for your everyday practice. For the projects today I'm using Canson Montval 300 GSM, cold press, watercolor paper, 24*32 centimeter in size. I mostly paint on smooth hot press paper, but most of my students do prefer using cold press paper. For this class, I'm using a cold press paper this time. This block is glued on all four edges. So all the four edges have glue on them apart from a small area on one corner. You can insert a palette knife to detach this paper and further chop it down into smaller sizes. If you paint small or if you paint larger than you can directly paint on it and then detach it from the side. So I have chopped down this paper into four smaller pieces, something like this. Since I do not use too much water, I just tape the paper to a small cardboard piece like this on just the top edge. It just helps prevent the paper from moving too much underneath my wrist. But if you're planning to paint something where you will be using a lot of water, then make sure to attach the paper to cardboard on all the four edges with some masking tape before you paint. Then once you're done and the painting has dried, you can remove the masking tape. It helps prevent the paper from buckling too much. If you would like to keep all your work organized in one place, you can use a sketch book like this. This one is a watercolor paper sketchbook. So all the sheets in here are watercolor paper. This is 300 GSM. So it will take nice amount of water. But there are sketchbooks which have lighter paper in them. If you're planning to paint with watercolors, try to look for a sketchbook where the paper weight is slightly above 150 GSM and preferably closer to 250 GSM because that will allow you to work with watercolor a little bit. Let me show you the brushes I'm using today. I will be later showing you these brushes in detail. For my color mixing, I'm using a number 6, Da Vinci pure Kolinsky natural hair brush. It's quite an old brush, has lost this point. So I use it to mix colors. It holds good amount of water in it. For most of my floral paintings, I use this number 4 Princeton Velve Touch round brush. It's a synthetic blend brush, holds the perfect amount of water for me. Comes to a nice point. If your brush holds too much water, then it becomes a bit difficult to control that water while you're painting. If it doesn't hold enough water, then your brushstrokes will come out quite dry and will have streaks in them. So it's important to find a brush that works perfectly for you or for your brush strokes. I have Da Vinci Cosmo Top spin number 2, synthetic brush. This has a nice point and a similar one in 000 number. These I will use for smaller details. For geometric shapes or rectangular areas or bigger shapes that I want to fill quickly. I use this number 8 flat synthetic brush. It's a Local Art Shop brand. You can find similar shape brushes in other brands as well. So something like this. This is Da Vinci Cosmo Topspin number 8, but I prefer this brush. I've been using it for a long time and I have my own comfort level with this brush. To create some drawing, I will use my number 2B pencil. It just gives me the perfect darkness of lines and easy to remove as well. My kneaded gum eraser. For adding white details, I'll be using Dr. Ph.Martin's Bleedproof White. Simply add a little bit of water in it and use your brush to create white details. I will also be using Uniball's Posca pen, [NOISE] before using it, shake it like this to mix the color. Then if you haven't used it in a while, you will need to pump it a couple of times. Then you can start using this to add white details. Apart from all of this, I keep kitchen paper towel next to me. I rinse my brush that it's slightly dry on the kitchen paper towel that absorbs excess moisture out of my brush. It becomes a bit easier to control the water in my brush. So always keep an absorbent cloth or kitchen paper towel like this next to you. You will also need two jars of water, one to clean your brushes, and the other one to mix your colors. Whether you use tube colors, or individual pans, or a pan sets like this. You will also need a spritz bottle like this to spray water on your colors and activate it before you paint. Now, let's have a look at the colors I'm using today. I've squeezed out my watercolor tubes onto these two ceramic color palettes. This one on the left has got my yellows, pinks, and reds. On the right one I've got the blues, greens, purples, and some of the neutral colors. For yellows, I've got transparent yellow, cadmium free yellow, quinacridone gold. For pinks, I've got opera rose, quinacridone magenta, rose madder genuine. For reds, I've got Winsor red Permanent Alizarin crimson. I've also got some perylene maroon here. I have transparent orange here and some burnt umber. Let's have a look at the blues. I've got cerulean blue, cobalt blue, french ultramarine blue, phthalo turquoise, and indigo. I've also got dioxazine violet, sap green. I've got some titanium white here. You can also use white gouache or bleedproof white. I've got some Payne's gray to quickly make some gray, but you can also create your own gray mix. Then I've got some lamp black here. I'll be mixing my colors. This mixing tray has got some nice different sizes compartments. You can also use your plastic mixing trays or a ceramic plate to mix your colors. Here's the list of the colors and the art supplies I've used in this class. For colors, try to find something similar if you do not have these exact shades. 5. My Creative Routine Journey: In this lesson, I want to share with you how my own creative routine has evolved over the years. I started painting in 2011. Initially it was just on weekends to escape my work stress. A couple of years later, even when I was pursuing art full-time, I was still painting pretty irregularly. Someday I would be super productive and produce quite a few artworks and then there would be a gap of a few days. It was this break during my difficult first year as a mother that I realized how much I missed art. It was the Inktober of 2017 that inspired me to start creating again. While my husband held our baby, I was able to spend 5-10 minutes every day for 30 days and paint some sketches using ink and watercolor. This brought the joy of creating back into my life. Although it was short, those 10 minutes for a month almost worked as a therapy for me. Just a month or two later, the January of 2018, I decided to paint every single day no matter how small. To keep myself accountable, I decided to share my work with my barely used Instagram page that I had since 2015. As the free time I actually had was pretty limited, the size of my art kept getting smaller. Yet slowly, but surely, the size of my Instagram community started to grow. Since then quite a bit has changed. I've evolved from an artist into a surface pattern designer. Although quite a big part of my day goes into working on various aspects of my design business, something that doesn't change is my daily creative routine. No matter what I've been doing whole day, whether it includes painting or not, I do make sure to paint for myself every single night. This is how my creative journey has evolved. 6. Benefits of a Creative Routine: When you start creating every day, you start to notice a few changes. I'm sharing with you some that I noticed myself. Mental relaxation. When life was difficult, I did look forward to those few minutes and I would allow myself to embrace my art and let it gradually heal me. While this process might look a bit different from one person to another, I do want you to take this time and try to concentrate a bit on yourself. We absorb so much throughout the day and now this is the time to express the inspiration and let the clutter just mellow down for a bit. I can't promise life-changing drastically or all your problems vanishing away. But what I can promise you is these few moments of creativity will give you a clearer mind and provide you with a channel to communicate with yourself. Improved confidence. Something I noticed improving very fast was my confidence with the brushes. As a professional artist, I have premium-grade art supplies, but I've never really chased the brand because the magic doesn't lie in the brush, it's in my hand. While I do believe that professional grade art supplies make a difference, they're not a must-have. I can use a cheap Dollar store brush meant for kids and paint pretty flowers on a simple card stock and you would be wondering what popular brands of art supplies I've used. What I want to say is it's all about muscle memory, the more you use it, the more it grows. You will notice the improved confidence once you consistently start using the tools of your creative practice. Develop your personal taste in art supplies. In this world of social media influencing, it's very easy to borrow opinions about something. When you start creating every day, you will find art supplies that are budget-friendly but also some nice premium ones. When you use them yourself, you'll be able to compare which one works for you and which one not. I will give you an example. Arches cold pressed paper is a highly recommended paper for watercolors, but it didn't work for me. The paper was too textured to my taste and I still have the very first block that I bought and used just once. What I mean to say is with time, you'll be able to build your own opinion about art supplies and which one works for you, especially on a day-to-day basis. Visible improvement. Whether you're following a curated art prompt to create daily or simply following your own inspiration, working regularly does start to build you a body of work, and when you will look back at it, you will surely see improvement over time. But remember, your comparison should be with your own work and not with somebody else's creative progress. Monetizing opportunities. Working daily helps you produce work that you can monetize. Whether selling originals or art as prints, greeting cards, stickers, and other products yourself or via print-on-demand sites like Society6, Zazzle Redbubble, or licensing your art to companies to produce products featuring them. There are tons of ways to monetize your art. That being said, if monetizing your art is not something you're interested in, it's perfectly fine. It's equally rewarding to create art just for yourself or to share with your family and friends. Evolving personal style. Although we often can't see it for ourselves, when we start to create regularly, a style starts to emerge in our work. It's just like our own handwriting. For some people, it's very distinctly visible, but for some, you need a finer eye to notice. It can be the line work that you add, your quirky lettering style, the types of flowers you paint, or the kind of texture that you add. All of these features start to collectively show up as your recognizable style. Even if you're a style or subject grasshopper, over time, you will notice your signature style emerge in the variety of work that you create. Supportive community. People admire the dedication to follow a goal. Once you will start sharing your work regularly on social media, you will find encouragement in the form of increased engagement from your social media audience. This builds a supportive community for you. I can't emphasize enough the importance of positive words set at the right time when you really need it. That being said, we need to learn to become a bit immune to the negative aspects of social media. But do not let a few bad experiences deter you from sharing your artwork. The world needs to see your art and cheer you on your commitment. 7. Tips for Keeping a Creative Routine: In today's busy lives we lead, there can be tones of reasons or hurdles holding us from pursuing your creative practice. In my own experience, I faced some common and some unique challenges when trying to establish my creative routine. I have a few tips that might help you to deal with some of the challenges you might be facing. Set expectations right. It's important not to restrict yourself, but it is equally important to set some real expectations before you start. Are you doing this to improve a skill, or to build a discipline, or relaxation is your goal? If you don't have much time, do you plan to paint something small or do you want to continue working on something over a few days? It's important to make some mental or physical reminders about this before you start. As your creative practice will evolve, your goals will change. But if anything discourages you, I want you to always remember the reasons why you started this creative practice. It will always help you feel grounded and safe. Find a window for creativity. Whether you have a busy study or work schedule, or you are a mom taking care of little kids, it's quite hard to carve out time out of our busy lives for something that sometimes might seem a bit useless. You can be doing so many other chores during that time, but I want you to really look for a window of 5, 10, or 15 minutes in your day-to-day schedule for your creative practice. I try to look for this window in a time slot where I'm not rushing for something. Most often, it's late at night when everybody has gone to bed or early in the morning. It can be on your bus or cab ride to work or a little coffee break at work, all you need is a pen and paper to express your creativity. I know it's easier said than done and some days you won't find this creative window. On those days, I want you to be gentle to yourself, but keep a lookout for another time when you can create again. Keep art supplies ready. Something that really helped me was keeping my art supplies ready for the time when I would actually get to paint. Not all of us have dedicated art studio space, but there are few ways with which you can make your actual creative time a bit more efficiently productive. For example, are you ready to use sketchbook or your paper of choice chopped up and ready to be used, or your favorite colors laid out in a color palette? All of these helps. I used to have some of these art supplies ready in a little organizer like this to give painting right away without spending while assembling things and probably losing the momentum to procrastination. Concentrate on the process. It's very easy to fall in the trap of comparing your work to someone else's and it kills the joy of creativity. For this, my advice is to concentrate on the process without too much worrying about how you wanted the results to be. It's all right to have expectations of improvement in your work over time, but try to find improvement in your work and not chase perfection. Keep exploring. I advise you not to set too many boundaries for yourself, because while following these boundaries, you lose the joy in between them. Be open to trying new techniques, new styles, or art supplies. They not only keep our creative journey interesting, but also help evolve our style. Consider sharing your work. I do understand that not all of us have a supportive family or a group of friends who really appreciate our journey. But I can assure you that among all the negative aspects of social media, there's also the beauty of a very supportive artist community. The act of sharing regularly not just kept me disciplined, but the response I received gave me immense encouragement and helped me grow as an artist. Follow art challenges. While inspiration is all around us, I want to emphasize the importance of art challenges or curated art prompts, whether it was a 30-day art challenge like Inktober, March Meet the Maker, or longer runs like 100 Day Project. I tried most of them, but on my own terms. I did not need extra stress on top of what I already had. It's nice to have theme-based prompts ready to produce a body of work without thinking too much about inspiration, because it can sometimes eat away your actual creative time. Pick a challenge that you like, small or big, follow the prompts and don't go down the eternal scrolling lane while looking for inspiration. Pick something quick that fits your taste and simply get started. I've included an easy to follow seven-day floral art challenge in this class. In the next lesson, let's have a look what it is about. 8. Flowers in Pots Art Challenge: One of my go-to subjects to paint is Flowers in Pots. It might seem like a simple topic, but it gives me enough space to express my creativity and I often paint them small enough to finish in one sitting. These are perfect size to fit in a photo frame or a greeting card, and if you're familiar with the process of digitizing your art, then there are unlimited uses for them as patterns or placement designs for various products. I paint this subject so often that I do not need to actively look for inspiration. With the help of my day-to-day observation and a bit of my own imagination, I'm able to paint these little illustrations, but something different each time. You can obviously look for inspiration around you in magazines, shops, or your own home decor items or on a copyright-free image website, Pinterest or Instagram. My suggestion is not to copy and try to add your own personal touches. I have created seven prompts based on different flowers that we are going to paint, along with seven fun fuzzes. Feel free to add your own creative touches. You can add different other floral elements or try out a different kind of fuzz. It's just about painting something small for a few days to get your creative real turning. I'll be painting these projects using watercolors, but feel free to use your favorite art media. If you're new to watercolors, do check out the following lessons on watercolor concepts and brushstroke practice. 9. Watercolor Techniques: In this lesson, let's have a look at some of the watercolor concepts and techniques that I've used in this class. This lesson will be really helpful if you are a watercolor beginner. I've got my tube colors squeezed out into these color palettes. You can also use your pan colors or freshly squeeze out some of your tube colors. If your colors have dried, you will need to activate them. Simply spray some water on them and wait just a little bit. There are few ways of watercolor application. One of them is wet-on-wet. What that means is you're applying wet color on a wet surface. Wet surface can be a paper that you have added some water to. Here, I have added simple water to this block. Now I'm going to pick some color, and I'm going to add this wet color on this wet paper. See how it bleeds. It creates a really soft look. It can also mean that you've painted something with the color and the base layer is still wet. While it's still wet, you're adding another wet color on top of it. Green is wet, I'm picking some red and adding that red on this green. You can see how it has spread a little bit, those little dots have become a bit softer. If you want your two colors to bleed and blend really softly, you want your edges to be soft, you can use wet-on-wet application technique. Another one is wet-on-dry. What that means, you're applying a wet color on a dry surface. This paper is dry and I'm applying a wet color. Wet-on-dry gives you nice sharp defined edges. You can see this block of green, it has nice sharp edges. While here you can see a much softer look because I had already added some water to the paper, the paper was wet. That's the difference between the two techniques. Wet-on-dry can also mean that you're adding a wet color on top of a dry paint. The earlier yellow layer was dried already, and now I've added a green bar on top. This is wet-on-dry. You get sharp edges, sharp details with wet-on-dry, and fuzzy and softer look with wet-on-wet. Sometimes for some details, you might need to use a technique called dry brushing. I've got a little block of color that is still wet. Be careful, dry brushing can damage the point of your brush. This block is still wet, and here the paper is completely dry. What I'm going to do is, I've got this brush, I've removed most of the moisture from it. With that, I'm picking a very saturated color. Again, removing most of the moisture from my brush. With that, if I'll just make marks like this, I'm rubbing a dry brush on top of a dry surface. This is dry-on-dry. I'll again pick some more, remove the moisture, and then I'll make same marks on this one. This is dry-on-wet. It creates slightly different look because the base is wet, but this is dry brushing on top of wet layer. With this, you can add different kinds of detail. I thought it's important to know these two techniques. Now, let's look at the concept called glazing. What that means is, you are layering a transparent layer of color on top of an already existing layer. With that, you can darken up one color. I've got some brown here, some burnt umber. If I lay another layer on top, I get a darker version of that color. With a transparent layer of that same color, I get a darker version of that color. I will try one more time. Here, I get even darker version of this color. This was the base layer, and then I added another layer. I got a bit darker color, and now another layer has given me an even darker color. With the help of glazing, you're able to darken up a color. Another use of glazing can be to shift the colors. I've got a yellow color here. If I'll pick some red, this is Winsor red, and I'll add a layer of Winsor red on top of this already existing layer of yellow. I'm able to create the effect of an orange. I've laid a transparent layer of red on top of a yellow, and that gives me the look of orange color. With the help of glazing, you're able to shift colors as well. With the help of glazing, you'll be able to add different details for projects in this class. I'm just adding a transparent color on top of an existing one, and just adding little details with it. Let's have a look what difference the amount of water in your color mix will make. I've just rinsed my brush, and I'm going to create a mix here. If I add more water to it, it will give me a really light color. But if I'll add a mix which has lesser water, it will give me a bit darker color. This one barely had any water in it. By varying the amount of water in your brush, you can get different saturation of the same color. Now let's have a look how we can control the amount of water in your brush. I've just rinsed my brush. I'm going to pick this mix that I had created, and with that, I'll create this petal here. You can see the water has pooled up quite a bit. If you do not want that, what you can do is pick your color and then touch the brush against a kitchen paper towel. With that, you'll be able to create a petal. You can see the color is not pooling as much as here. I always try to keep some kitchen paper towel with me. Or you can also use an absorbent cloth. Either rinse your brush, pat it slightly dry before picking the color. If your brush holds a lot of water, then after picking the color as well, you can touch the brush against the paper and remove excess moisture. Another concept I want to show you is how to soften up a color. I've got this bar of indigo color. The top edges are really sharp, but I want to soften up the bottom edge. What I will do is rinse my brush, pat it slightly dry, and then simply run it along this bottom edge. What that does is, it softens up that bottom edge. This technique comes useful when you want to soften up some of the shadows that you've added. If you've made a mistake, dropped some color, and you want to remove that mistake, what you can do is, if it's still wet, simply rinse your brush, pat it dry and touch that drop, it picks the excess color. Dry your brush on a kitchen paper towel, rinse and dry. What you can also do is put clean water in your brush and then simply and gently rub on that detail. Then push a kitchen paper towel on it to lift the color. Based on the staining quality of the color and the paper, you will be able to remove most of the color mark. Sometimes two colors start to bleed uncontrollably. For example, I've got this red round shape, and here is a little blue detail I painted, and they start to bleed into each other, and I want to stop this from spreading too much. What I'll do is rinse my brush, pat it slightly dry, and stop this bleed here. What I'm doing is I'm picking the moisture from where the two of them were meeting. It does cause a bit of fading there. You have run this dry brush, but you can fix that later by adding another layer of color on top. But if this color had bled into the whole round shape, it would have completely changed the base color. To prevent that, I remove the moisture from where the two colors are meeting together. These were some of the basic concepts and techniques that we have used in this class. I hope you found this lesson helpful. 10. Brushstroke Practice: In this lesson, let's get to know the brushes I've used in this class a bit better. To mix my colors, I'm using a number 6 round brush. It is quite an old brush, has lost its point. So I use it to mix my colors, and sometimes I also paint with it. It holds good amount of water in it. It doesn't make very fine marks anymore. But to create some nice soft petals, I'm still able to use this brush. For most of my paintings I use this Number 4 round Princeton velvet touch brush. It holds just the perfect amount of water that I need and has a good point. If you paint bigger, you can go for a bigger brush, and if you paint even smaller than I do, then you can reduce the size of the brush. If you have a round brush like this, what you can do is try to practice a few brushstrokes. If you'll hold the brush quite low like this, you'll be comfortably able to make marks like this by just moving your wrist. A straight line. I'm just moving my wrist. Vertical ones, I'm not changing the pressure of the brush. Keeping it quiet steady. If you will change the pressure of the brush, you'll be able to make different width lines. So if you'll keep it really light, no pressure, fine line. If you push the brush down, you get thicker marks. Fine if I remove the pressure, thicker marks. Fine if I keep the pressure low. So try practicing changing the amount of pressure you're putting. So just the tip of the brush, you can create fine lines. But if you push the brush down, you can create broader marks. This brush is also perfect for making petal shapes. So just touch, push, and let go. Now let's mix some green to practice some leaves. It's important to practice your leaves, it's a nice exercise. So I'm going to paint a very simple leaf first, touch, push, and let go. Touch, push, and let go. Let's turn this leaf a little rounder. Touch, push the brush a bit more down, and let go. Let's use the same brush stroke but on the other side, touch, push the brush belly down, and let go. Let's create a bit wavy leaf. Give a bit of wave to your brush and let go. So practice your leaves and little fine lines like this. They help with adding designs and other botanical elements. You can practice similar brushstrokes with smaller brushes like number 0, number 2, or even triple zero. I'll be using smaller brushes like number 2 and triple zero to add little details like dots or dashes or little floral elements. They behave just like the bigger round brushes. Using them needs a little bit of control, but with a bit of practice, you'll be able to achieve that. The last brush that I want to show you is one of my favorite brushes. It's a flat number 8 brush. With this brush, I'm literally able to do most of my work and people are often surprised by what fine marks I'm able to make with it. So it's a flat brush. It's handy to paint shapes which need sharp edges, so like a box here. If I want to quickly paint a bucket or a small planters I'm able to paint with this brush very quickly. But with this brush, I'm also able to make broad marks like this, if I want to paint some stripes. If I hold the brush like this and run just the edge of the brush down, I'm able to achieve a thinner line. If I tilt the brush a little bit and use just the corner of the brush, I'm able to paint really fine lines with it. If I push the brush down, it creates a different mark of a petal shape, but if I let go of the pressure, it creates really fine marks. So with this one brush, I'm able to paint florals or the little vases right underneath them. So if you have a flat brush like this, try practicing some of these brushstrokes to get a bit more confident with this versatile brush. 11. Cherry Blossom Practice: Let's paint some cherry blossoms, also known as the Sakura in Japanese. These beautiful flowers symbolize the arrival of spring. You will find them in beautiful colors, like white, pinks, and even yellow. The petal numbers vary anywhere from five, all the way to some fluffy ones which have up to 50 petals. Today let's practice painting some simple five-petal cherry blossoms. For that, let's mix the colors. I'm going to make some light pink color. This is rose madder genuine. You will also need a deeper red. For that, I'm picking some permanent alizarin crimson and adding just a touch of burnt umber to it. For the stem, you can either use black or mix a deeper reddish brown. For that, some burnt umber and then some permanent alizarin crimson. I also need some opaque yellow for the stamen. For that I'm first picking some bleed proof white, you can also pick some white gouache. Onto that, I will add some cadmium free yellow. Now, let's paint the flowers. I will show you two techniques. First one, simply rinse your brush. This is a number 4 round brush. Rinse your brush, pat it slightly dry. Pick the color and simply paint a five petal flower, 1, 2, 3, 4, and the fifth one here. While their center is still wet, pick your deeper red and drop it in there. Let's see it one more time. One, I'm using multiple brushstrokes to shape the petals, 2, 3, 4, and fifth one here. If you don't want this red to spread too much, then wait just a little bit longer. Else if the petals are wet, it will bleed uncontrollably like it happened here. You can wait just a little bit so that it doesn't bleed too much. I will wait to add the anthers dots. In the meantime, let me show you how to paint some of the flowers that you are seeing from the side. One petal, another one on the side. Third one from the side. Then you can show a petal. Another here and add the sepal at the base. Something like this. Two on the side, third here, and just an impression of the petals behind these. To show some flower buds, you can create a little petal shape. Then add the brown color sepal at the base. I'll first paint the sepal and then add the flower bud. While these two flowers are drying, let me show you another technique of painting these flowers. With my number 2 round brush, I'm picking some saturated rose madder genuine , quite thick mix. Simply make five dots. Rinse your brush. Remove excess moisture, and simply spread out these five dots into individual petals. That's another technique. Adding some deeper red in between the petals, some in the center as well, and letting it dry. That's again the side view. Now let's add some stamen to these ones. For that, I'm going to pick in my triple zero brush, some bleed proof white and yellow mix, and add these little yellow stamen. Now with some deeper red, I'm going to add the little anthers on top of them. You can also paint these stamen with white. Let's add to this one. If you don't have bleed proof white, feel free to use the deeper red with which you're painting the anther dots. Now to make a stem, I'm going to pick some of the burnt umber and alizarin crimson number 4 round brush, holding it at the base, and then taking the brush up using just the tip of the brush, making it wavy. The branches. You can attach flower here, or hang a few buds from the sides. This was a quick way of painting some cherry blossoms. Now, let's get started with our project. 12. Day 1 Cherry Blossom Project: For this project, let's paint some cherry blossom branches in a vase. If you're coming directly to the project, in the previous lesson, I've shown two different ways of painting the cherry blossom flowers. Now let's get started and mix some colors. For the vase, I'm going to start with a light reddish brown color. For that, I'm mixing some Burnt Umber. To that I will add a little bit of Permanent Alizarin Crimson. For the flowers we will use some Rose Madder Genuine. For the deeper red color center, I'm going to pick some Permanent Alizarin Crimson and add a touch of Burnt Umber to it. We will add the anther dots later, for that I'm not mixing the opaque yellow yet. For the stem, I will also use a deeper reddish brown color. But for now, let's use this mixture to paint the base layer for the vase. I'm using my Number 8 flat brush. [NOISE] With that I'm first going to paint the vase. I'm painting without any drawing this time so it might be a little bit wonky, but I'm not going to worry about it. If you want, you can create a drawing first. We'll be working on the vase later. Right now, with some pencil, I will create a little branch guideline just to remind me how I want the branches to look like and where I should add the flowers. Now we will get started. In my Number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick some pure Rose Madder Genuine. Add little five dots. [NOISE] Rinse my brush, and then spread the color into five petals. You can also directly paint these petals first without adding some color at the base. Adding some deeper red to the center. Just some five petal flowers. Some of them visible from this side. Some just as little flower buds. I keep adding the deeper red center before the center dries out completely. To lift some color, I'm simply patting my brush on a dry kitchen towel and then picking the excess moisture from the paper. Let's add a few more flowers here. If you want to, you can paint the flowers even smaller. Use a smaller brush. Let's add one more down here closer to the vase. If you added too much color, simply lift it. I think we have enough flowers now. I'm going to pick some Burnt Umber mixed with some Permanent Alizarin Crimson and add little sepals behind these flowers that are visible from their side and the flower buds. With a slightly wet brush, I'm just softening the edges of this one. Now, let's mix a really deep brown color. For that, I'm picking some Burnt Umber, I'll add a touch of Permanent Alizarin Crimson. With this thick color. I'm going to add the branch for these cherry blossoms. A little bit wavy. It doesn't need to be completely visible because it's loaded with these flowers. Just make it visible at a few places and add a few little extensions like this. Now you can go back in and add a few more little flower buds. Don't forget to add the darker backs to all of these flowerbeds. The extra ones you've just added. Now, let's add some finishing touches to our vase here. I'm again mixing the same base color with Burnt Umber and Permanent Alizarin Crimson. Not too much water in my brush. This is still a number 2 round brush. Holding the brush quite low. I'm going to make these vertical stripes, not pushing the brush too much down. You can decide to add a floral pattern. I thought since the flowers are so beautiful, do not distract it by adding a floral pattern at the base as well, and simply add these lines. This is a very simple way of decorating a plain vase. Now I'm going to pick some of my bleed proof white. I'll add some here. To this I will mix some cadmium free yellow. Now with my detail brush, which is a triple zero brush, I'm going to pick this opaque yellow color and add a few stamen to the flowers. You can also use white for this. Since the flowers are quite small, try to use a smaller brush for this to make these lines quite fine. I'm seeing that the white is better visible than the yellow. You can simply use opaque white. Now with your deeper red color, for me it's Permanent Alizarin Crimson. I'm going to add the little anther dotes. I'm making the center bit more visible again. Gets hidden a little bit by the white we have added. Just adding the deeper red again, a little bit in the center. Almost done with that project. Just go around and see if you would like to change something. With this, our vase with the few cherry blossom branches is ready. 13. Forget-Me-Not-Practice: Let's paint one of my favorite flowers, Forget Me Not. These beautiful little flowers are recognized by their blue color. But I've also seen some bite and lilac ones. The five petaled flower has blue-colored petals with a yellow ring in-between them, a dark pointed center and some white color radial dashes in between the petals. Now let's make some colors to practice painting these flowers. You can start by mixing either Cerulean blue, which I find is a little too light for this flower. Or you can start with a color like Cobalt Blue, or even Ultramarine Blue. Based on the colors you have, try to use something similar. I will shift between these three colors to see which one looks nice. Now, let's practice the flower, so for that, I'm picking a Number 4 round brush just to show you. We'll be painting with a smaller brush because the flowers are quite small and Number 4 round brush is a bit too big. But just to show you. Petal number one, two, three, four, five. Now we will wait for this to dry before adding the yellow center. You can also start with the yellow center first. I'm picking some cadmium free yellow, creating the center first. I will wait for that to dry before I add the petals. I often paint quite a few of them at the same time, quite close to each other. This way while I'm painting the others, some of the earlier ones have dried and I can add the center. You can see how close I'm painting them. Then simply pick your yellow, add it to the center. I'm not adding the center to the ones that are still wet because it will bleed into the blue. Just add a little green dot in the center, making it really dark. This one has almost dried, so let's add the yellow ring, darker center. Then with my bleed proof white or if you have a white fine liner, some white, the two radial marks between the petals. Really simple, five petals, yellow ring, a darker center, and then white radial lines. Let's attach the stem. Just using the tip of the brush, some leaves at the base. This was a very simple way of painting some Forget Me Not. Now, let's create our project. 14. Day 2 Forget-Me-Not Project: Let's paint a project with some forget-me-not. In the previous lesson, I've shown you how to paint these flowers. For the base, I'm going to paint a little teacup. For that, let's mix the color. I want to start with a very light pink base. For that, I've picked some Rose Madder Genuine. You can use any one of your pinks. I've got my number 8 flat brush. I'm going to paint the cap without creating a drawing. Feel free to create a drawing. It's a little tricky to paint something symmetric, but we don't need it to be perfect. This is almost okay. Not perfect. But let's not worry too much about it. Going to add the handle, the side. As I've shown you in the previous lesson, you can have a look on internet to see which type of blue you would like for your forget-me-not there are quite a few different variants. Based on the colors that you have, you can mix your blue. I've got cerulean blue here. I've also got cobalt blue. I have ultramarine blue, and I also have some phthalo turquoise. Try to see which blue you like for these flowers. We will have some green mixed, although will barely be using it since leaves are quite low for these flowers. They won't really be visible. For the center yellow, we will need some cadmium free yellow that we will pick directly from here. We'll be adding some details on that cup here so don't worry about it drying unevenly. It will be covered with some pattern on it. I like to create a little guideline for myself just to remember how high I want to add the flowers. Now, I'm going to shift to my number 2 round brush. With that, I'll pick sometimes a mix of cerulean blue, cobalt blue, or sometimes just cobalt blue. We will start by painting little five petaled flowers with some center left in-between them. I paint them quite close to each other. I'm not pressing my brush down, just using the tip of the brush to paint these five petal flowers. I'm starting to paint them a bit farther apart. As I will insert a few more in-between them, but with slightly darker petals as if they're in a little bit of shadow. As you can see, the petals are not perfectly rounded. I'm not paying too much attention to make them perfect. There are quite a few of them. Just painting them loosely. I'm picking a little bit of indigo and mixing it with my cobalt blue. With that, I will paint a few hiding behind the earlier ones. Just a few petals visible. Now with my triple zero brush, I'm going to pick cadmium yellow and add the yellow center to the ones that have dried already. A circular ring. Still leaving the center white. I'm being careful with the ones that are still wet. The yellow will bleed. Also don't forget to add some of the centers for the flowers that are only partially visible as they're hiding behind the front ones. Now with that same triple zero brush, I'm going to add little visible stems. Not to all of them, but just in-between some of the gaps. Just connect the flowers a little bit. Using just the tip of the brush to create these little stems. I'll pick some of the pure sap green and add that to the center we left, in between the yellow ring. You just need to make it dark. Five petals, a yellow ring in-between them, a darker center. Then we will soon add little white lines in between the petals. I'll just go back in with some of that cobalt blue and indigo mix, add a few filler petals. I'm going to go back in with my number 2 round brush and mix a little bit more of that rose madder genuine. With that, I will start decorating the tea cup. You can look on internet for some reference or decide to paint one of your favorite tea cups. I'm just giving that same rose madder genuine to the handle here and a little bar at the base. Now I'll make some orangish blush color. I will pick some transparent yellow and mix it with some opera rose. Now I'm picking this orangish color to add to the cup here. I will add a little bit of burnt umber to this mix because I wanted it to be a bit darker. Now I'll make another bar here with some more of that pink. Create these loops using my number 2 round brush for all of this. Again, picking that burnt umber plus that orangish blush color that we had mixed, I'm just making up this design. I don't really have a reference for this, but feel free to look for some reference. Now while all of this is drying, let's not forget the little white marks on the flowers. For that, either use your white gel pen, white gouache, or a bleed proof white like this, and add these white radial marks between the petals. It's a very small detail so you can even skip it. The flowers are so small. You'd barely notice this. I like to add these at least to some of them. Now we're almost done. Just have a look if you would like to fix anything or add some more details. But with this, our little project with some forget-me-not flowers is ready. 15. Forsythia Practice: Let's paint another spring season flower, forsythia. This plant belongs to olive family and the flowers are yellow in color, with four petals joined only at the base. So now let's practice painting this flower. To mix the yellow, you can start with any yellow you have. I've got transparent yellow here, but I've also got some cadmium-free yellow. I've got some quinacridone gold and let's also mix a little bit of burnt umber and add just a touch of permanent alizarin crimson to it. I'm going to pick my Number 4 round brush and with that, I'll pick some cadmium-free yellow. Let's paint four petals that are joined in the center, some on the side. For little flower buds just make one mark like this. We'll add some green at their base later. Just four long petals. If you want, you can add a quinacridone gold in the center. I'll pick some green, add some to the base of the flower buds and to the flowers which are visible from their sides. Now, with the brown we had mixed, we can add the stem in-between them. So this is a quick and loose way of painting forsythia flowers. Let's see it one more time. We're just painting four petals joined at the base. When you are showing them on their side, you can show two or three petals and then add some green at their base. You can also add some leaves. [NOISE] This was a quick and easy way of painting forsythia flowers. Now, let's work on our project. 16. Day 3 Forsythia Project: Let's paint a project with some forsythia. For this project, I want to paint some forsythia branches placed in a gardening or rain boot. For that I'm going to first freehand draw some guidelines for the boot. I'm going to press my kneaded gum eraser on the drawing to remove the excess graphite. Let's first paint this gardening boot and while it dries, we will add the flowering branches. You can paint the boot in any one of your favorite colors or add some pattern. I want to give it a base color, of a neutral dark green. For that, I'm starting with some lamp black. To that, I will add some cadmium free yellow. Now with my number 8 flat brush, I'm going to add this dark green color to this shoe. I'm going to leave the base of the shoe for now. I will add some pure black to that. While this dries, I'm adding little pencil lines just to guide me where to place the flowers. You can paint them quite small and add quite a few branches. Or if you would like to show the flower shape a bit more, then paint the flowers a bit bigger and add just a few branches. If you're coming directly to the project. In the previous lesson, I've shown you how to paint these flowers. They're yellow in color. For that, I'm going to pick my cadmium free yellow. This is my number 2 round brush. I will paint the flower by painting four petals joined at the base. All along the branch, you can add these four petal flowers. Or if you're seeing them from the side, you'll see either two or three petals. If it's just a flower bud, you will see just a little petal shape. We'll add some green at its base later. Just follow the branch guideline and add some four petal, some two visible on this side and some three petal versions. As you go up on top, you can also add a few buds. While they're still wet, I'm going to pick some quinacridone gold and add that to the center of the four petal flowers. Let's continue adding more. I'm just using the tip of the brush to paint these petals. Now I'll pick some sap green. Still using the number 2 round brush. With that, I will add little sepals at the base of the two petal flowers are, right at the bottom of the buds. You can add some leaves, although leaves come after the flowers. For these plants, you can add two opposite leaves when you're adding them. Now for the branches, I'm going to pick some burnt umber. To that I'll add a little bit of permanent alizarin crimson. With this, I'm going to paint the branches starting at the base. Just being careful where the boot is still wet. Add the branches where there is space between the flowers. Now I will add some black at the base of this boot; simple lamp black. I'm using my number 2 round brush for this. Now that the base layer has almost dried on this boot, I'm going to add a little strap with the black. You can leave the boot plain or add some pattern to it. I'm going to add some white polka dot with this uni-ball Posca pen. If you're using it for the first time, don't forget to shake it like this. It has a little ball inside that mixes the color. Then you will need to pump the paint a couple of times by pushing it down. Then the color will flow on the tip. If you're using it after awhile, don't forget to clean the tip of the pen. You can also use white gouache for this. Or your bleed proof white. It's just a little bit easier to make round shapes with the pen like this. I will also add little white dot in the center of the four petal flowers. I'm going to pick some of that lamp black and with that, add just a little border on top of the shoe. With this, our simple project, with some forsythia branches is ready. 17. Aster Practice: Now let's paint some aster. They're called so because of the star-like appearance of the flower head. The flowers have a bright yellow or orange center surrounded by lots of really thin petals varying in different kinds of purple. Now let's paint this simple flower. For the center of the flower, you can pick any one of your yellow or orange. I'm picking some cadmium-free yellow and some transparent yellow. To cadmium-free yellow, I will add a little bit of permanent alizarin crimson. Now, with the yellow, I'm going to use my number two round brush and just with the tip of the brush, add little dotted marks. I'm going to create a circular shape. Just little dots, leaving some white in between them. Don't worry about it. Now you have two options. One is to wait for this to dry and then create the petals. But if you would like a bit more loose watercolor look, you can already start adding the petals. What that does is center and the petals bleed a little bit, but that adds to the look. While this dries, let's mix some color for the petals. You can mix your own purple by combining your pinks and reds with your blues, or start with some ready-to-use purple, like dioxazine violet here. To this one, I'm going to add some quinacridone magenta to it to change it a little bit. Now, the center has almost dried. With my number two round brush, I'm going to pick either one of these two colors. Start in the center, touch and push my brush and move it away from the center. Just the tip of the brush to start and then push and let it go. Depending on the variety of aster, they can have single layer of petals or multiple layers. If it's easier, you can also paint the petals by coming from out and then going towards the center. It just creates a little different look. But if you're not used to, in turning the paper around, it might be a bit easier for some of the petals to paint them this way. Just keep them quite close to each other. Now, with some orange, I'll add just a little bit around the center, giving it a better shape. Now let's see how to paint it a bit more loosely. I've got some orange for the center. While it's still wet, I'm going to go back in and start creating the petals. If you would like to keep the center light, then you will need to stick to moving the petal away from the center. But if you don't mind a bit of color reaching the center, then you can go from out towards in. This was a bit more loose look. You can see some petals have a little bit of center color bleeding in them. But that's okay. Now, let's see how the flower looks from the side, especially one that is opening up. You paint the petals. Then with some green, you can add the sepals behind it. Quite often the stem is slightly reddish brown in color. I'm picking some alizarin crimson, mixing it with sap green. Leaves can vary based on what aster it is. Some of them have leaves starting very close to the flower. The leaves are clasped around the stem. This was a very simple way of painting some aster. 18. Day 4 Aster Project: Now let's paint a project with pretty little aster placed in a ceramic milk creamer. I'm going to create a rough guideline, just a free-hand drawing to help me paint the creamer. I'm going to also create little guidelines just to remind me how big I want the flowers to be, how many I want to add, so now let's get started. We'll first paint the flowers. For that, let's mix the color for the center. If you're coming directly to the project, do check out the lesson right before this one, where I've shown you how to paint these flowers. I'm going to pick some transparent yellow, and I'll also make some orange with some cadmium-free yellow and a touch of permanent Alizarin crimson in it. Now, based on the guidelines, I'm going to add little centers to the aster I'm going to paint. We will refine the center a bit more after the petals have been added. While these dry, let's mix the color for the petals. I'm going to start with two petals of dioxazine violet. You can mix your own purple by combining your pinks and reds with your blues. I'm starting with dioxazine violet, all by itself, and in another mix, I'll add some quinacridone magenta to it. Now with the smallest brush that I have, which is the triple zero, I'm going to pick either one of these two colors, and starting near the center, I'm going to paint these little flowers. Just really thin petals touching the center. For petals, sometimes I go from out towards the center, and sometimes from the center moving away. Really thin petals and quite a few of them. varying my purple now using just dioxazine violet. It's okay, the center gets a bit messed up. Don't worry about it. Simply rinse your brush, pat it slightly dry, and pick the excess color from it. Let's paint a few on their side. Just about to open up. Now we will wait for these to dry. In the meantime, let's work on the creamer at the bottom. [NOISE] For that, I'm going to make some stripes with blue. I'm picking some ultramarine blue, and starting from top, I'll paint some stripes. I'm planning to keep the milk creamer white at the base so I'm not adding any base color yet. Just giving it shape with these stripes. I'm not worrying too much about spacing them uniformly, just roughly try that and now I need some gray. For that, I will mix a little bit of cobalt blue with some burnt umber and it gives me a nice cool, gray to work with. Just adding the handle on the side here. Also adding this color a little bit near the edges, not coloring the entire shape with it, just adding it near the edges and softening it. Now let's mix some green to add to our flowers and a little bit of reddish brown. Starting with some permanent alizarin crimson and adding a touch of sap green to it. For the leaves, I will add a little bit of indigo to my sap green. Now with the reddish brown, I'll add some stems. You don't need to connect every single one of them. Let's first add some sepals right underneath the ones that are visible from their side. Just add some little green marks in between these flowers to give an impression of some leaves attached to these stems. I'm just adding some green to some of the negative whitespace. Now, let's fix some of the centers. Again, picking my orange, our cadmium freeyellow all by itself and just add quite saturated color to the centers, especially the ones that have become a bit blurred with the wet color bleeding into them adding just a touch of red towards the base of these circular shapes, giving them a rounded look. I'm adding another layer of color to some of the petals. If they're looking a bit faded, just add a little bit more color to them. Now, let's fix the stripes. Again, picking my ultramarine blue, and with that, I'll add stripes where they have gotten a bit blurred. Still keeping it quite loose, not repainting all of the stripes, just adding a bit of color where it has faded. I'll just add a few shadow marks on the handle here. Adding a little bit of gray just above the rim here to give an impression of the little portion of the inside visible. I'm almost done with the project, just softening up some of these shadows. With this, our project with some aster is ready. 19. Ranunculus Practice: Now let's paint some ranunculus. They can be a bit overwhelming with their layers and layers of petals. But I'll show you an easy way to paint them. They come in a variety of gorgeous colors. We'll be painting some pink ones. For that, let's make some colors. You can start with any of the pinks that you have. I've got rose madder genuine here. I'm creating a mix for it here. I will also create a mix of some sap green. I'm keeping pure sap green here. To this second one, I will add some quinacridone gold. Now let's get started. I've picked my number 4 round brush. I'll rinse it, and then I'm going to pick some of this light pink mixture. With that, we'll start in the center. Start creating these little C marks right. Right now don't worry about creating layers and layers. I'm leaving some white in between, with some normal C and some inverted Cs. Just laying some initial color down. Very light-color this point. While it's still wet pick some of the mixture of quinacridone gold and sap green and add that to the center. I don't have too much water in my brush. I don't want it to bleed too much. Just a little bit in the center. Now I will change to a smaller brush. This is a number 2 round brush. With that, I'm already going to start adding some more Cs. If your flower is too wet in the center, then wait just a little bit longer. Just close to the center, I'm going to start adding some more of these marks. You can use a slightly darker mix of pink this time. Some crossing over, some overlapping. Little curvy marks. Mostly using just the tip of the brush. You can go quite saturated with this as well, make them quite a bit darker. But I want to keep them looking quite light. Now I'm going back in with that green. Doing the same in the center. Go back in with some pink, a bit darker. Rose madder genuine this time, very less water in my brush. Just add a few darker curves. Now for this enter, either take a little bit of sap green. Just add. If it starts to bleed too much, run your brush on the kitchen paper towel and absorb excess moisture. Just adding a few more darker petal marks. For this technique, we painted a base layer first. But you can skip that and directly pick first some mixture of sap green and quinacridone gold. Start in the center, some crossing over C marks and then change the color to your pink and continue making those overlapping C marks. This is a bit faster way. Then you can add some darker color marks as well. This way the base is not too wet, so you can add darker color and you don't have to wait for the base layer to dry. Picking some more of that initial green color. Add that. A bit more darker green in the center. This is another ranunculus for you. For the stem, I'm picking simple sap green. Quite a broad stem. Holding my brush quite low and just dragging the tip down. To create its leaves, start with a straight line first. The leaves are split in 3-5 parts. Little brush strokes joined together. Let's see the brushstroke one more time. Just little Cs and when you're coming outside they get bigger and overlapping, crossing a little bit. Just using the tip of the brush and only when I'm almost to the outside part of the flower, then I press the brush down to make a bit broader marks. Else for the rest of the flower, just using the tip of the brush. For the project we'll also be painting some eucalyptus leaves. For that, let's mix a neutral green color. One of the quickest way is to start with a lamp black or any black and then add some yellow to it and it very quickly gives you a neutral green. For the eucalyptus leaves, I'm starting with my number 2 round brush. I like to create a little guideline for myself first. Now I'll start at the base with one or multiple brushstroke. I make these rounded leaves narrower at the base. Some right in front and some of them in pairs like this. There is no pressure of painting this in one brushstroke. Make the leaves smaller as you go up. This was a quick way of painting some eucalyptus leaves. Now let's get started with our project. 20. Day 5 Ranunculus Project: Now let's paint a project with some ranunculus. If you're coming directly to the project, in the previous lesson, I've shown you two different ways of painting the ranunculus flowers. We will start with mixing some colors. Some rose madder genuine, quite a light mix. I'll also mix a little bit of transparent yellow with a little bit of opera rose. Gives me a nice orange-ish blush color. Now I'm going to pick my Number 4 Princeton velvet touch brush. First, I'll start in the center, just some overlapping C marks. This is just the base layer. I'm adding a very light pink color to the base. Don't worry about creating the layers of petals at this point. Just add some color at the base, leaving a little bit white in-between these brushstrokes. I'll also quickly mix some sap green with some quinacridone gold. You can keep this mixture ready before you start. With a smaller brush like a Number 2 round, I'm going to pick this color and quickly add the same kind of brushstrokes in the center. Now I'll go in with some more rose madder genuine. This time a little less water in my brush. I'm going to add some more of those C-shaped marks on top of the previous layer. Some of them a bit darker, some of them with the same mix. These are just some overlapping curve marks. Picking some pure rose madder genuine for a bit darker color marks. I'll just add a few of them, not too many. I'll pick a little bit of sap green, add that to the center. Same kind of marks, this time with green. The colors are bleeding here too much. So rinsing my brush, patting it dry on the kitchen towel and lifting it from the paper. Now let's add one more, slightly behind it, this time with the blush we have mixed. Same kind of brushstrokes. It's hiding a little bit behind this front one. I'll add the green to the center. Now I'll mix a little thicker mix of opera rose with some transparent yellow. Now we'll add some more marks. Going back in with the green. I'll add a little bit more pink to the first one here. We had lifted some colors, so it had faded a little bit. Keeping the color of these flowers quite light. But you can paint them with darker color as well. Picking some sap green, adding that to the center a little bit. Now our flowers are almost ready. Let's paint a little vase at the base. For that, let's mix the colors. I'm going to start with some indigo, with a touch of phthalo turquoise. I also want you to keep your white ready. This is bleed proof white. You can also use white gouache. Keep a thick mix ready. You can use any base color for your vase. Now I'm going to pick my favorite flat Number 8 brush. This mix is quite saturated with color, but also has good amount of moisture in it so that my brush doesn't dry in between. I'll start with a thin top, drag it down a little bit. Move slightly to the side. I'm painting this vase without any drawing underneath it. So it does take a little bit to make it look almost symmetric. Sometimes I end up increasing the size of the vase a bit more than I intended to. But that's okay. Feel free to add a little drawing if you would like to have some guidelines. You can also try to step back a little just to see if it's not too wonky. Now while it's still wet, I'm going to pick my Number 2 round brush. You can pick even a smaller brush. With that I'm going to pick some of my bleed proof white and I'm going to add some texture marks. Just using the tip of the brush, I'm adding these marks while the base is still wet. You can skip this part if you would like to leave the vase plain. This is just a nice way to add some texture. I'm using my Number 2 round brush. With that let's pick some sap green and add stems to these flowers. Just make sure the vase has dried underneath, else the colors will bleed. Now with the pencil, I'll create a little guideline for the eucalyptus leaves. For that, let's mix the colors. Starting with some lamp black. To that let's add some cadmium free yellow to create a neutral darker green. Now with my Number 2 round brush, I'll pick this color. Using just the tip of the brush, I'm adding some color to the guidelines. Starting at the base, some round leaves. You don't have to paint these in one brushstroke. Making them slightly smaller towards the outside. Not pressing my brush down too much, rather just giving the color to these leaves with just the tip of the brush. Some of them right in the front and some visible from the sides. Don't forget to attach them to the vase. We're almost done. Just go around to see if you would like to add a few more extra marks to the flower. With this, our project with ranunculus flower is ready. 21. Echinacea Practice: Let's paint some echinacea, also known as cornflower. The actual flowers grow collectively in the shape of a hemisphere, or sometimes a cone shape. Little flowers grow on this hemisphere. Then what we think of its petals are actually modified leaves, also known as bract. It can have 15-20 bracts underneath it, and then some leaves. The flower head can be anywhere from orange to reddish purple. These bracts, you will find in all colors like orange, white, or different kinds of pinks and purples. Now let's practice painting it. For that let's mix our colors. For the flower head, I usually start with some orange. I'm picking some cadmium-free yellow, and to that I'm adding a little bit of permanent alizarin crimson. You can also use your ready-to-use orange, like transparent orange. For petals, I will mix a little bit of dioxazine violet with some quinacridone magenta. With my Number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick the orange color. With that, touching the tip of the brush and then pushing it down to create this hemispherical shape. I like to add a little bit of brown underneath it. Just picking some burnt umber, adding it at the base. You can also add some purple. Just giving the base a bit darker color. Helps making it look more like a hemisphere. Now with my Number 2 round brush, I'm going to create the bracts. Starting close to this base of this hemisphere, thin at first, and then push your brush down and lift as you're coming out. Just like a leaf, a bit more flowy. It's okay if the color bleeds, we're painting it quite loose. If you want to prevent that, then you will have to wait for the flower head to dry. This is a very simple way of showing the echinacea flower. If you want to, you can wait a bit, let this dry first and then go back in with a bit darker color. Then paint a few more of these brats right behind these first ones to show more of them. I like to add a bit darker color at their base. Let's add the stem. Then for the leaves, let's mix a bit of indigo and sap green, just the tip of the brush, and then push the brush down and let go. Giving it a bit of a wave. That's one. Let's see one more. Touch, push, give it a bit of wave, and let go one more time. Now you can add some more detail to the center. With the darker color, you can add little dots. Now, let's see it a bit quickly one more time. You can paint the flower head conical or hemispherical, like we painted earlier, with some orange or yellow. Then either pick a pink, magenta, orange or any purple and paint these thin flowy brat. They look like petals, but they are actually modified leaves. If you want, just add a single layer of them. You don't need to create the impression of the ones hiding behind. Then either with purple or brown, add these dots on the flower head. This one we painted quickly and a bit loosely. Now, let's paint our project. 22. Day 6 Echinacea Project: Let's paint a project with some echinacea in a bucket. For that, I'll quickly create a little guideline for the bucket. I've got a rough shape of the bucket here. Just removing the excess graphite. Now let's mix the color. I want the bucket in a old grayish color. For that you can either use your Payne's tray or how I like to do is I pick some cobalt blue and mix it with some burnt umber. This gives me a nice cool gray and now with my number 8 flat brush, I'll pick this color, [NOISE] and I'll first paint the bucket. For a simple shape like this, you don't even need a drawing. Now that we have painted the base of the bucket, let's concentrate on adding the flowers. With the pencil I'm just going to create little guidelines. If you're coming directly to the project, in the previous lesson, I've shown you how to paint these flowers. To paint them, I'm going to start with the flower head. I'll pick some yellow. This is cadmium free yellow, and with that I'll paint the hemispherical shape, or you can also make it conical of the flower heads. While these are drying, let's mix the color for the modified leaf, also known as bracts, which looked like the petals of these flowers. You can paint them white, orange, yellow or different kinds of pinks and purple. Today I want to paint them in simple magenta. I've got my number 2 round brush and with that, I'll pick the color, start at the base. Touch, push, and let go. You don't need to show all 15 or 20 of them. You can decide to show just the front of them. But if you would like to show the ones that are behind, you can wait for these to dry, and then add a few visible marks in between these to show the petals behind them. It's quite thin leaf-like brushstroke. I'm adding just a few darker magenta spots at the base of these. [NOISE] Now, I'll pick some permanent alizarin crimson. [NOISE] To do that, I'll add just a touch of ultramarine blue. With this reddish purple, I'll add little dots on this flower head. You can also paint the flower head dark and then add yellow colored dots on top of it. I find this a bit easier. Since finding an opaque yellow might be a bit difficult. First I'm creating a little shadow on one side and then using just the tip of the brush to create these dots. Now let's mix the green. We need for the stem and leaves. Some sap green and to that, I'll add a bit of indigo, gives me a nice dark green. Using just the tip of the brush, adding some leaves at the base. Now while these leaves are drying, I'm going to paint a few details on the bucket underneath there. I've picked some burnt umber, mixed it with that same base color and with that, I'll create a little handle for this bucket. It's a little bent on this side, but that's okay. Now with this same brown mix, I'll add a little base here. It's burnt umber mixed with the initial gray mix. I'll also create similar one on top and I will let this dry. In the meantime, let's add a little bit more color to some of the bracts. Just adding little bit color where two of them almost have merged. You can leave the project at this, but I'm getting tempted to add a little leafy pattern on this bucket. For that, I'll pick some indigo and with that I'll add just some leafy design on this. Feel free to skip this. I just like adding a little extra to simple shapes like this. Using just the tip of the brush if you want, feel free to use even a smaller brush for this. I'll pick some of the burnt umber and just add a little bit of it at the base of the flower head, making it even darker. With one of these darker brown and gray mix, I'm adding some more marks to the handle as well. Just some final details. Just adding a little bit more color to some of the bracts and with this our little project with some echinacea flowers is ready. 23. Spanish Lavender Practice: Now let's paint some lavender. Although there are quite a few different kinds, two of the most popular varieties are English lavender and Spanish lavender. English lavender plant is slightly taller than Spanish lavender plant. The leaves are also a bit longer than the Spanish ones, but the main difference lies in how the flowers are arranged. For English lavender, the flowers are loosely arranged in these little groups along the leafless long stem. For Spanish lavender, the flowers are arranged in a cylindrical form on top of a leaflet's long stem. They also have some upright bright-colored petals 'bracts' right on top of this cylindrical arrangement of the flowers. English lavender colors varies from light to dark purple, and for Spanish lavender, you will see anywhere from pink to purple color. Now let's practice painting some lavender. For that, let's first mix some colors. I'm going to pick some Quinacridone Magenta in two puddles. The first one, I'm going to keep your Quinacridone Magenta. To the second one, you can either decide to add some blue or simply pick a ready-to-use violet. I've got Dioxazine violet here. [NOISE] This is Dioxazine violet plus Quinacridone Magenta. Here is Quinacridone Magenta all by itself. You can try to mix your own purple by combining your reds, pinks, with the blues that you have. This is Quinacridone Magenta mixed with ultramarine blue. You can vary your different kinds of purple while you're painting the flowers. For greens, you can mix your greens by combining your yellows and blues, or you can also start with a ready-to-use green like sap green, and then add different colors to it to create a variety of greens to use. This is pure sap green. To this one, I'm adding some indigo, and here, a little bit of Quinacridone Gold. This is Quinacridone Gold plus sap green, this is sap green by itself, and this is sap green plus indigo. Now let's practice painting some English lavender. For that, you can either first paint a stem and then add the flowers, or you can take any of your pallets. I'm using a number 4 round Princeton velvet touch brush. You can use even a smaller number brush if you'd like a bit more control. I'm just creating these little dashes joined together at the base. You can paint a bit faster if you want a bit more looseness in the work. You can vary the amount of blue and magenta. Just little dashes joined at the base, and then picking the darker green. Using just the tip of the brush. Adding in between these using just the tip, not pressing the brush down. Some more green, just sap green. For the leaves, you can start in the middle and go outwards or start from out and go in. Just the tip of the brush, pushing it gently and lifting. Let's see it one more time, a bit faster. This time I'll paint the stem first. Let's add the flowers. You can see I'm varying my mix of magenta and violet. Adding little dots sometimes connect them nicely. Then don't forget to add the leaves. This was a very simple way of painting English lavender. Just these little brush strokes joined together and then a vertical line. You can make it slightly curved and this is the brush stroke for leaves. Now, let's practice painting some Spanish lavender. For Spanish lavender, let's first start by making a cylindrical shape. I'm picking some of the Dioxazine, violet and Quinacridone Magenta mix. With that, you can paint the cylindrical shape first. While it is drying, you can pick some of the Quinacridone Magenta. I'm still using the number 4 round-pointed brush. Starting at the tip of the cylindrical form, I'm going to create loose petals or bracts. You can start from out, come back in. About four of them. Up on top here you can add a little bit of vein in-between there. Now with my darker green, indigo, and sap green, I'll add a little bit of green at the base and then keep the line almost straight and then add some leaves at the base. Now, I'm going to go back in with some Dioxazine violet and just add little dots. All along this cylindrical shape we earlier painted to depict the actual flowers. Now I'll go back in with some magenta, just giving little dots. You can also add a little bit of transparent yellow in there to show a little ampere sometimes a little bit of texture on this cylindrical shape. Let's try it one more time. This time we will not paint the base, will paint it a bit more faster way. Starting with Dioxazine violet all by itself and just little dots and dabs depict the actual flowers. I'll add a little bit of transparent yellow in between them, gives a nice color variation. Instead of just painting with one color, then a little bit of magenta. Now, with that magenta, let's paint the top sterile bract. Quite loosely. Now, the bottom stem. This time I've painted it quite loosely, the colors are emerging, but that's the beauty of it. You can decide which of the two ways you would like to paint. When you have a bit more time, you can go back and simply add a little bit of details like a central vein into these upright bracts. Dropping in just a little bit more of violet. This was my Spanish lavender. You can decide which of the two you would like to paint for our project. You can paint the English lavender or the Spanish one. You can paint it in a bit more tighter way or go in a bit more loose way. Now let's get started with our project. 24. Day 7 Spanish Lavender Project: Now, let's paint a project with some Spanish lavender. The idea is to have a broken repurposed teapot with some Spanish lavender growing out of it. For that, Let's mix some colors. Going to start with some magenta, I'll add a little bit of transparent yellow to it. That's a nice color. I will use this color for the base of the teapot. Let's mix it a little bit more so that we have enough color. Now, as we practiced earlier, let's make some colors for the lavender. Some quinacridone magenta and another separate puddle where I'll add a little bit of dioxazine violet to it. Let's make some greens. Some pure sap green, I'll add a little bit of alizarin crimson as well. Makes a nice olive green. We will need to more colors just to decorate the pot and add a little bit of stem, but we'll mix them as we go. For now, let's get started. You can go ahead and draw your teapot if you would like. This time I want to just try it to paint in a freestyle. It might be a bit wonky and not very symmetric, but that's okay. I'm going to pick my number eight flat brush. It's a bit older brush, but I feel quite confident with it. This is the one I'm using. You can also paint this with a round brush if that's what you like. I'm picking that orangeish mix. I'm first going to create the edge. My idea is to create a teapot that's broken, has a bit of part missing. A little jagged edge. You can also make a complete one if that's what you prefer. Like I said, I have not drawn it beforehand, so it might be a bit wonky. You can step back a bit just to see if you would like to improve the shape a little bit. Obviously, you can first draw it. Let's add the spout and the handle. While this dries, let's add some lavender on top. You can decide which of the two lavender she would like to paint, and which way you would like to paint. I'm painting the Spanish lavender. You can decide to paint first the cylindrical base, add the texture on top, or simply go in with some violet and magenta mix, add cluster of dots in this almond shape. I'll be adding little pink petals on top of them. I'm leaving enough space between them. It's entirely up to you how much detail you would like to put into these projects. If you have enough time, enjoy the process, paint little details. But if you do not have the time, try to enjoy painting in this loose style. Now, let's pick some of the magenta. I've added a little bit of water to it to make it lighter, and let's add some of these loose petals. If you're coming straight to the project, I have added a lesson right before this project, where I'm showing you how to paint these flowers. For some of the petals, I'm pressing my brush down and lifting, and for some I'm keeping them quite thin, and it's okay if they overlap a little bit. Now, I'm picking that permanent alizarin crimson and sap green mix, adding a little bit at the base and then adding this stem. I'm using the number two, Da Vinci Cosmotop spin brush. There's a bit of color puddle here, so I've just dabbed my brush and I'm going to pick the excess color. So just little marks at the base and then a long stem. You can decide to fill it more, add more flowers in between, and don't worry if colors mix a little bit. Pick a different green sometime. Just trying to fill up the base a little bit more by adding some extra leaves, some extra stems because it should look like they're growing in there and not just placed like a vase. If you want to fill up some of the spaces, go back in, add a few more of the flowers. Now I'm going to pick some dioxazine violet and then add some darker dots in vertical stripes on each of these cylindrical shapes to show the real flowers. Some of these bases are still wet, but I'm still adding them. It keeps the looseness. I'm not painting it all over because I want to keep some of those initial variations of yellow mixed with some of our initial violet color. Now flowers are almost done. We might add some veins at the very end, but now let's concentrate on the teapot a little bit here. I'm going to pick that same mix of magenta and transparent orange. But this time there is less water in it. With that mix, first I'm going to add a little bit of shading to the shape. Just a little saturated color along some of these edges. Now you can leave it like this, add some pattern. I'm going to add a few windows in here and make it look like a house. First, some bunting here. I'll add a little bit of burnt umber to this mix. Add little windows. I'm not pressing my brush too much, just using the tip with slight pressure. Adding a little door here. You can decide to leave it just as it is. I always love painting little houses. This one was a great base to create the house. Adding a little bit more of the darker color on some of this chipped part. A little bit more color to the handle here. Let's go back in with a little bit of magenta to add some fine lines to these loose, upright petals. We're almost done with this. I'm going to pick a little bit of bleed proof white. This part you can completely skip. I like to add a little bit of highlight, a little bit of attention by adding these little dots. You can even add little base underneath these windows. It's entirely up to you how many details you would like to add. Let's not forget to add a stem here. Just look around if you'd like to add any more details. I'll just add a little bit more color up here, and a few vertical marks here as well. Just giving it a little bit more texture. With a project like this, the choice is all yours. You can decide to paint English lavender instead of the Spanish lavender. Add a bit more detail or paint this more loosely. But the most important thing is try to enjoy this whole process. Without worrying too much about the result, try to enjoy your brushstrokes and also little details that you will add in the end. It's all about the process. With this, other project featuring Spanish lavender is ready. I really hope you enjoyed this project. 25. Bonus Lesson Playful Bouquet-I: Now let's get started with a bonus lesson where we will be painting a sweet little bouquet that you can paint on a greeting card or as a gift for Mother's Day or even birthdays. I've got a light sketch here. I've drawn it with a Number 2B pencil. You can download the sketch under the resources of this class. With my needing gum eraser, I'm going to remove the excess pencil lines, leaving just paint marks for me to see the guidelines. For this project we are going to be painting quite generic flowers. I'll be painting some chamomile flowers towards the left. For that, I'm going to pick little bit of cadmium-free yellow from my color palette and with my Number 2 round brush, this is Da Vinci Cosmotop Spin. I'm going to pick this cadmium-free yellow and paint little circular shapes, leaving some gap to add the petals later. While these dry, I'm going to mix a little bit of a gray to paint the petals. My quickest way of mixing the gray I like is by combining cobalt blue with some burnt umber. Here is some cobalt blue. I'm going to add just a touch of burnt umber to it. It instantly gives me a nice cool gray. You can add a bit more cobalt blue. Now with my same Number 2 round brush, I'm going to pick this gray. With a very light gray, I'm going to paint little petals around these yellow circular shapes. Don't worry if the yellow bleeds a little bit. The flowers are white in color, but on a white paper painting white with watercolors is a bit difficult. For that, you can use a shadow color like this. I'm just painting some round petals, six or seven, all around the circular shape, keeping them quite close. Now our chamomiles are ready. I'm going to stay with this many flowers for now. Later we might add one or two more just to add as filler. Now let's add some more other flowers. For that, I'm going to pick some permanent rose. I'll make another mix of some permanent rose mixed with some lemon yellow. With this mix of permanent rose and lemon yellow, I'm going to paint a little circular shape with very rough edges. A very generic round flower shape with wavy edges. I'll add one more here. This is one of the easiest flowers you can paint, a very simplified form of a flower. Now with some permanent rose, I'm going to paint some multi petal flowers close to the chamomile. A little bit like Aster. Some of them are hiding behind this flower in the front. Just a few petals are visible. Now I'm going to mix some orange. For that, I'll take some cadmium-free yellow and add a touch of Winsor red to it. With this, I'll add some circular shapes. Now with this same orange, I'm going to add a bit of center to some of these bigger flowers that we have added. While these flowers are drying, let's move on and paint the little paper around the bouquet. For that, I'll simply pick some burnt umber, adding a bit more water to it to make it lighter. We don't want to immediately go too dark with it. With my Number 2 round brush, I'm painting this paper around the bouquet, kind of a brown paper. Leaving a little bit of gap behind before adding the bottom part of it, we'll be adding a little twine here and also leaving a little bit of gap between the two parts at the bottom so that we can show a little bit of the flower stem. Before we mix the green to add the stem, I'm going to add a few more flowers just to fill the space a bit as all of this space will become green. I'm just adding a few more flowers here. So the chamomile first with the yellow center, and then the gray petals around it. 26. Bonus Lesson Playful Bouquet-II: While these dry, let's make some green. I'll start with some sap green. With this plain sap green, I'm going to add some stems here, showing some stem in-between some of these flowers. Adding a few extra twigs popping out from the bouquet. I'm intentionally adding some of this green color near the paper that's surrounding this bouquet. Now I'm going to pick some indigo and mix it with the green I already had, do add a bit of darker green in-between these lighter green stems that we had added, to create a bit of depth. I'd also add some green here. While all of this is drying, I'm going to take the burnt amber and add just a little curve around the yellow centers of the chamomile flowers, giving them a bit more defined shape. We painted them quite loosely, so the petals and the center sometimes blend together. This give them a bit more defined shape. Now with some of that same burnt amber with which we painted the paper, I'm going to add a little bit of that color in some of the gaps between these flowers, giving an impression that this paper surrounds the bouquet with the same color that we use to paint the brown paper. I'm giving it another layer of the color. It was looking a bit too faded. Also making some of these marks that looked like a bit of shadow and creases. Let's add a bit of twine here. You can add a colorful ribbon here as well. I'm just painting a simple twine and adding a knot here with the bow. You can go around and see if you would like to add some more details. Simply want to improve the shape of some of the flowers, give them extra petals. With some permanent Alizarin crimson, I'm going to add a few dots on the centers of some of these flowers. Just darkening them a bit. With some of that burnt umber again, I'll make this little shadow here a bit more defined, making it look like an edge of paper that's folded. With a fine brush, I'm just adding some of that brown in between the flowers just to give an impression of the paper behind. If you want to, you can go back in with the gray and define some of the petals of the chamomile flowers a bit better, kind of like drawing with your brush. With this, our sweet little bouquet is ready, I would love to see what you create, so do submit your projects. 27. Closing: Congratulations on reaching the end of this art challenge, and this class. Whether you were able to paint along or not, or whether you painted just one or all the projects, I want you to give yourself a pat on your back because you already made a step forward in your creative practice. I hope some of the projects were able to inspire you to give them a try in your own free time. I would love to see what you create, so please make sure to upload your projects here on Skillshare. If you're sharing them on Instagram, you can tag me. If you have any queries, please feel free to use the Discussion tab and I'll try my best to answer them. It's also a great place to engage with other students of this class. I hope with this class you feel encouraged to start or restart your creative routine. But please remember to focus on process before results and be kind to yourself. If you enjoyed this class, please consider leaving a review. If you're interested in learning how to paint vases made out of metal, wood, ceramic, or glass, do check out my previous class, Watercolor beyond loose florals, eight unique flowers and pots project. You can follow me here on Skillshare to get updates about my future classes. Thank you so much for watching. Until next time, stay creative.