Painting Tropical Flowers in Watercolor

1. Introduction: Hi everyone. My name is Irina Trzaskos. I am an artist and illustrator. Today, I'll show how to draw and paint different types of tropical flowers. Tropical flower is another trending topic in design world and it'll make a great addition to your portfolio. The flowers will be painting today, will compliment beautifully tropical foliage with painted in another class. I hope my classes will help you build a fresh and beautiful and successful portfolio. In next day that I'll show the supply we'll be using in this class. Let's get started. 2. Supplies: In this class, we'll be using following supplies, watercolor paint, watercolor paper. I'll be using canson called press, but you should use paper you like the most. A paint palette, a paper towel, pencil, eraser, a bigger water colored brush, I'll using a squirrel brush Number 6, a medium brush. This is a canson disabled Number 4, a small branch. This is Number 2, also canson disabled. If you want to make a small details then you'll need a really small brush which is zero canson disable. Also I'll be using some whitewash. If you don't like using gouache or to watercolor, you can use masking fluid for the areas you want to be lighter. Also need water. In next video, I'll show the colors will be using in this class. The list of all supplies is in the project section of a class. 3. Colors: For our tropical flowers we will be using bright vibrant colors, such as cadmium yellow, cadmium orange, carmine red, magenta, ultramarine blue, and the yellow-green which we'll be mixing with yellow for a lighter tones and if we need a darker we'll mix it with ultramarine blue, which is in other classes too. So mixed with yellow it will look like this. I'll be mixing colors a lot on the paper today, such as I'll be mixing cadmium orange with carmine red and a drop of magenta until I make a local color so radiant and alive. Also I'll be mixing magenta with ultramarine blue. Using some purple tones and more blue at your bottom. Also I'll be mixing some yellow with carmine red. For this unusual beautiful gradient. In next video, we'll be painting a plumeria. 4. Painting a Plumeria: Let's start our tropical collection with a very simple but two lovely flower called plumeria. It's a five petaled flower, and we'll start by drawing a circle, and then deciding where the middle of the flower will go, let's say here, and then just drawing a five, a little bit pointing petals. Usually, they may have the curl inside, this edge curling inside. You don't have to press the pencil so hard. As you see, they all curl in one direction, let's say on the left, and are the petal. Now I have to raise the pencil line of our circle and we can start edging the color which makes this flower really beautiful. I erased all unnecessary pencil line, and now I can start painting. As I always has said, we will be mixing the colors right on the paper and precisely we will just let our watercolor do this job. What we'll do, we'll take some magenta, and we'll start from the top of the petal, and this is to that, and we'll add some color. For now, I'll avoid this bending area of the petal, just a drop of magenta and a lot of water, and then we'll start bringing the paint down. When we'll get to this point, we'll dry our brush and I'll take one little drop of a color yellow, and I'll add it to our flower. Right here, at the bottom, I'll take a tiny drop of orange. Tiny orange and I'll add it here, and I will end it with another tiny drop of magenta. A smoke of gradient on, it's in a little bit of water, on the edge here. The same way we'll do with all the petals. Water, then a drop of magenta. You can do it as light or as bright as you like. It can be a really delegate white. White can be a vibrant and bright. I am having my paper towel next to me all the time. Yellow, you add an orange, and then another drop of magenta. Tropical flowers, unlike other flowers, are sometimes lighter closer to the middle of the flower and darker at the edge. Yellow, orange, and magenta. You can see how beautifully a watercolor aiming is mixing on the paper. Just don't try to control it, let it do its major concern. Now on those petals which are dry, we'll take a really light pink mixing magenta with a lot of water, and we'll just color this here, lighter than this, really light. Beautiful. We'll take a little more magenta with water, and they get on those petals which are already dry, and make it transparent or a little bit of shell next to this area where the petal is bending. This is our plumeria flower. 5. Painting a Hibiscus: Next let's paint a hibiscus. We'll start again with a circle. Then we'll decide where the middle of the flower is. Hibiscus also has only five petals but there are more currently and unpredictable than the primeria petals. You don't have to follow exactly the reference picture. You can improvise and make your own shapes. It's still to define, and it will do great. Also characteristic for this beautiful flower is this long pistil in the middle of a flower. Let's draw it like a trumpet. Then it has these stigmas to line with the circle at the end. Now lets erase all the lines we don't need and start painting our hibiscus. After we erased all our helpful lines, we can start painting our hibiscus. In project section of our class there is a link to an inspiration Pinterest board. You can see there is a big variety of colors for this beautiful flowers or you can just follow the color part I chose for mine. I'll start again painting petal by petal and I decided my hibiscus to be cadmium orange on the top and then I'll start painting some magenta getting closer to the middle. We start with really watery cadmium orange. Once I get to the middle of the petal, or a little lower, I'll take some magenta and I'll add to my petal. The same way the next petal. I'll just try to avoid painting this pistil. But I'm going to use a glass shaped head whitewash. Don't worry too much if your [inaudible] got some paint on the pistil. Cadmium orange again. I think this color combination is really vibrant and so suitable for tropical flowers. Again, orange and magenta. After we've colored all the petals, I'll take a smaller brush and some watery magenta and I'll add some texture. Maybe lighter magenta in there. A shadow under our pistil. Again, more lines for texture. Now mix some cadmium orange with a little bit of magenta and I'll have this light peach color, which I will apply on a pistil. Now I have to let our hibiscus dry a little bit. After our hibiscus is totally dry, we'll add some more dark details for it. We'll mix some magenta with one drop of watery in blue and the little bit of orange. This dark tone will draw like a small flower in the middle. A little darker, more blue. I'll darken a little bit our pistil and the stigma, and these little circles. We'll add some more texture on the petals, just here and there, few lines. Now I'm using a whitewash, I have it here in the lid. I'll add a few more lines with white. Also I'll brighten up our pistil and the stigma. Just few white dots. In the middle of the flower we'll add white dots, which are stamens. Also I think we need a little bit of orange on our pistil just to brighten it up a little. Now our hibiscus is greater. 6. Painting a Protea Flower: Next topic of flower will be painting is a Protea flower. We'll start off by drawing a cup shape, like elongated half a circle. Here we'll put by, a cone shape and a mantle and then we'll start drawing with petals. It's a very interesting flower. Here will have a stem. Now I have to raise some extra lines. Like this line on the top and maybe clean a little bit of the petals and we can start painting. The first thing that you do, add some color at the middle of the flower and it'll be [inaudible] light, ultramarine blue. It has to be little watery and while it's still wet, we'll take some carmine red and we'll add some lines. This part is drying [inaudible]. Later we'll add some decorative lines in these area and then will add some details and then I can start working on our petals. We'll take some uncommon red and I'll start painting every petal on the top and then will dilute it with water so it gets lighter. It sink to the bottom. It's brighten pink on top and then with a brush and drag it on a paper towel and just make it lighter to the bottom of the petal. For now we'll use this bottom of the petal white and later we'll add some green in there. Such a moment when I'm working on tops of the petals. Again, you can make it as light and let them dry as you like or as pale and gentle, as you wish. The same way all of the petals. Next, let's mix some yellow-green, with yellow and a little bit of ultramarine blue. Add a little bit of a green on the bottom of every petal. Again, I'll dilute it so it'll be a really soft gradient. This bottom, our stem we can all color in green. So a little bit of green on every petal. Now let's mix a darker shade of carmine red. So we'll mix carmine red with a little bit of ultramarine blue and I'll add a little bit of darker shade to each petal, on the top. Again we will soften a little bit the edges. So our flower got some depth. Also with same color, we'll add some lines to the middle of our flower. Next we'll make some our yellow green with ultramarine blue for a darker shade of green. I'll add a little bit between the petals. Also add some shadow on our stem. Then soften this greens here and there a little bit. Next lets take some ultramarine blue and add some more lines to the middle. Add little bit more shadows on the petals. Now I have to let it dry and then we'll add some details with whitewash. When our flower is all set and dry, the last step is with whitewash. To add just some more lines to the middle of the flower. Just a few lines and some frosting on the top of the petals. Just few dots. This step is totally optional and you can use some white gel pen or any white paint you like. So this is our pretty flower. 7. Painting a Lotus : Now let's draw and paint a lotus flower. Again we'll start with a circle, then we'll draw a beautiful middle of the flower. It's just a smaller circle. The petals are pointed, so first of all draw five-six petals. Then we'll draw some more behind them. Then a few more in-between. This is enough. Then we'll have to shove another circle, which will be the distance for our stamens. Now I have to erase the extra lines, this circle, and clean this circle and we can start painting. [inaudible] we erase the extra lines, we can start painting. I want my lotus flower to be pink-purple so I'll be using magenta and ultra marine blue for the petals. This flower will use a really whiter water color because the petals are translucent. We'll start with a petals which are situated far from us, at the bottom of the flower. I'm starting with magenta. Then we'll add some ultra marine blue to it. There is some petal situated at the very bottom of a flower. Some may have more pink and some may have more blue which will make it even more interesting. You can see on color mix we have this beautiful, gentle purple. So we painted all the petals which are situated the farthest from us at the bottom of the a flower, now we have to let it dry. After our first petals are totally dry, we'll paint the petals which are second the farthest from us, and we'll mix the color a little bit thicker, just a tiny bit. I'll go over previous petals right to the middle of the floor, and ultramarine blue. This petals to pink so add a little more blue in it. Again, I have to let it dry. After our second layer of petals is totally dry, we finally can paint our top petals. I'll take my paint again a little bit thicker than previous time. Let's still try to keep some transparency in it. So the petals won't be see-through anywhere. We use transparency of whiter colors to show this see-through features of the petals. I think it's beautiful. Now, I'll add a little a few more darker strokes on the second layer of petals. Just a few lines on that bottom layer. Next let's paint the middle of a flower and we will use yellow, and bright green. Just only yellow, green. On this part of the middle we'll just make lines with the same color with a small brush. Then I'll mix some Cadmium orange to the same color, I'll get some darker yellow orange. I'll put some more lines in between. While our middle is drying, we can add some more texture on our petals. Mixing magenta with ultramarine blue with a small brush for the lines are more delicate and beautiful. Also, we'll add some purple lines right to the middle of the flower. The last step is always is adding the details. So I'll take a little more green with yellow and orange and I'll make small circles on the middle of the flower. While they dry with white gouache. We'll add some more lines and dots, and maybe few lines on the petals with really watery white gouache, all of these lines. We can add some dots too. Maybe some dots in the middle too. When all the green circles are totally dry with a savior. We'll add dark dots in the middle of each green circle. This is our lotus flower. 8. Painting an Alpinia Flower: Now our tropical flower painting today is called Alpinia. It may have other names too. We don't have to do a lot of drawing for this flower. I'll just draw like a banana leaf shape and show where the middle of the flower is. Then with my medium brush, I'll take some common ground with quite a bit of color in it and I'll just start from the top of the flower with brush strokes showing the petals. We'll start with the middle, which is like a stamp, covered with beautiful petals. Let's make some ultramarine blue in it too to give different shades of common. I see I'm not so precise, I'm just pressing the brush on paper and bringing it down to the stem. Once we get to the bottom, we can fix some of the shapes when done with it. Then mixing different brands like magenta and polygrand , we'll add more petals to feel the space right to the boundaries. Ones are smaller or they are bigger.Some are curling down and some are curling up like this. Some are coming out of the boundaries, which is really beautiful. Unlike the other flowers we painted today this flower is totally painterly, free and fun to paint. I think we need a few more detail. Petals just tilted unpredictably curling here and there. Now we can add some green in here. Maybe even a leaf. Let's add some ultramarine blue next to our carbon red. Closer to the middle of the flower to edit some tip. Not a lot just a little bit and with wet gouache. I'll add some light to the top of the petals. If still wet, it's totally fine until mixing beautifully. Two more strokes here to more depth. This is our Alpinia flower. It's fun and easy. 9. Last Thoughts: Thank you for watching my classes. I hope you liked this class. Please leave a review and upload the project to the project section of the class. I can't wait to see your tropical flowers. See you in my next class.