Transcripts
1. Introduction: If you're new to
painting flowers, especially with complex
flowers such as sunflowers. This class will
immensely help you. Hi and Basu, I'm a
watercolor artist from India and I'm known for my
realistic style of paintings. I teach watercolor and sketching in offline workshops
currently in China. You can paint along with
me in this class as I have short this class in real time while explaining my strokes, we will learn together how to simplify the process
of painting a flower, its various parts,
how to preserve tenderness and of a delicate
subject like flowers. In this class, you
will learn how to plan and strategize
your painting. How to choose the key
aspect of your subject. How to draw skillfully a flower, how to paint a wet
on wet background. And then we will learn where
to start the painting, how to maintain the harmony and mood in a flower painting. And finally, how to
finish a floral work. I congratulate you on
choosing this course. You can see my work
on my Instagram and learn more about my
podcast, watercolor wash.
2. Drawing: So drawing this image is not going to be very
difficult for us because we already know that I
can see a little bit of axis around this area. You can just get some idea. First, you want to where
to put the flower. So this is an A4 size paper and I'm putting it
in a vertical way. And I'm thinking it should be in the center and somewhere around a little bit
on the right side, so that I can get
this leaf as well. I want to start from
the center right here, and this is the axis
that I'm drawing. And this is the, this is the axis that I'm
thinking where it is. And it has a circular area, which is quite dark
in the center. And then it is again covered by similar darkness and
which is quite grayish. And as you might have
seen in the center, the sunflower seeds, seeds. It, it kind of spiral,
goes outwards. And then there is
something similar to this design that you can see in the center of the
flower that I can see. You don't have to draw that
because we're not going to we're not going to print individual
lines in this case. And so you don't
have to do that. But if you are willing, you
can just mentioned it market. Then there's a third circle, which is basically that
reddish brownish circle. And in the end there is a final
circular area which goes, which would be quite
darker than the third one. And so here's the center of the flower that we're
making right now. Now how do I paint? How do I draw this? Petals? So you might measure
it a little bit. So the standard width
of a good petal is same as standard length is same as the length from
the center of the circle. So if I do this, this is the center. So this will be my pedal height. So once I establish this height, I try and draw one petal
just to check the site. I think this comes
out really well. And then you can, you can choose the petals
you are interested in, and you can draw them
more accurately. But those which you are not interested at all,
like some petals, are not that much
of an important, so you can just choose them
in bunches like I did, is this is like three, the bunches of three. I just did this three. And then there is a
little bit of gap here. And again, maintaining quite
some lesser of accuracy. But at the same time I'm
trying to capture whatever I can see from there. Also. Notice that this petal
is on the backside. So what kind of texture
is going to have? I'm just marking them
as I'm just marking them as dark because
this is in the bag. So I'm just marking them
as a little bit dark so that when I come
back to paint it, I know which one to put more darker colors and which
one to put lighter values. You can definitely go ahead and draw each individual petal
if you are interested in. Or you can just give attention
to only few which are, which are worth drawing. So as you can see in no time
or in a very little time, we are able to capture a
good amount of battles. I think we're halfway there. Also notice that there are some petals which
are not vertically perpendicular to the center and their alignment is
somewhat changed. For instance, this one. Little bit tilted. Then there's another
one which is tilted. So you're not going to get exact same petals every
time that you are doing so. You can always put some randomness in what your petals are
going to look like. And at the same time, maintain a good quality of sketch of the shape
of these petals. We are pretty much there. Just holding on. And also like for instance, this place has some sort of gap. Like the overall diameter
is little bit bigger, but here it will go
down in somewhere and then you will have another petal which
is going out through. You can have those gap as well, just to maintain some
interest in the drawing, in the painting process. So maintaining a good
drawing is the first step. Many people like to trace, and I don't blame them
because when you're painting, most of your energy should go towards the painting and
not towards the drawing. And you can just put up this this paper and
turn off the light. And you can also trace it. But I, I personally wish to draw because I have
been a lifelong sketcher. But if you don't feel
comfortable drawing it, you can simply draw by just putting the paper
on the top of this and doing, doing the drawing. But anyways, I think
we are drawing. Our drawing is pretty much done and not worried
about that method. Let's draw the stem. The stem is nothing
but a straight line. Is straighter than it should be. Quite straight. And that's good for us. It's night cylindrical shape. And then there is a stem, branch of this stem
coming out nicely. So maintain the same width that you have drawn on the top. Same the bottom. And this branch of the stem
eventually becoming the, this little loves him here. Little veins of the leaf. So this nerves and veins
of the leaf is yeah, this is what I'm extending
this particular vein. Then this is going
in and trusting direction and then coming back towards it and then there are some more wins
going up from here. But overall shape of
this leaf is like this. So we are done with this leaf. And I think this is pretty
much I'm going to draw. And we will ignore the
rest of the leaves. And I think there's
one more that can go well and we can put here, but then we have to
put everything else. So I think this is
enough for the drawing. The stem looks a little
bit thicker than it than the size of the flowers. So I'm going to run it and I'm using this kneaded
eraser to do that. Also, I'm going to drop some of the extra dark on
the top because I don't want it to look
very drawn painting. It should be quite clean,
cleaner paintings. So I think there
should be your sketch.
3. Background: So I want to change the
background of this painting. And the reason I'm doing it, because if you see the color
in the back is pretty much the color in the values
of these two colors. This is much more brighter, but this is very dull. And I want to come out this, this petal is the beauty
of this petal small. So I would like to go with
a much darker background. In this case, I'm going to have this darkish green color
with me right now. And I made it a little bit
more darker with the help of some, some burnt umber. And I think this is dark enough. And the idea of doing this background first is I
don't want to interfere this, this background with
these petals in the later part of
the painting when I'm painting the petals. And also using this round
brush so that I can have enough control over
what I'm going to draw. So let's start doing this
and I will do it very quickly that I
don't have to wait. And also I have. So the trick to do a quick background is to have enough color
mixed in your palette. Make sure that the color
is ready with you. And you cover this part quite
quickly. Rather quickly. And keep having
wetness in your brush. The color should be dark and the water should be more than, this is what you should
be worried about. And this edge of this brush
is helping me get that clear, crisp edge around the petals. To be quite careful.
While doing it. I did a little bit
of a mistake and this this branch is now
a little bit slant. So I'm going to correct
it to a straight line. And I think that
should be enough. That much should be enough. If your color is dark,
you do not have to. And it's quite wet as well. If your color is dark, you do not have to worry much about mixing of it while
painting it outside. So it's quite dark
and consistent. Make sure your color
is consistent and not wavy and not light on some
places in dark ones, others. If you're going dark, go all the way dark. This will not take
too much of time. But since our color
has to be quite dark and the mix has to
be created instantly. So that's the spending
more time on the palette that I'm spending the
time on for itself. And if you have, if you're
getting a more ideas to getting more ideas to
have different color here. Like you can experiment with red and also like some sort of
design in your background. You're free to do that. But at this point of time, do try and maintain
a consistent color. You can experiment this
with this later on. If you have other
colors are other ideas, you can go lighter and
you can go darker. You can go with
multiple colors or all. Maintaining the
consistency of the value. I'm not maintaining the
consistency of the color. You might have seen that
this color is quite green. Here it is turning
more brownish. And this is coming nicely. And while your brushes, but make sure you cover a
little bit of more area. Just to get that feeling. Being extra careful
between the petals. And then you have to be
careful at that point of time. And I'm rotating the paper
to adjust to my orientation. Where I'm from, I'm painting. If you have a fixed paper, make sure you make sure you
move your hand towards it, not the paper itself. And that's why I usually
keep the paper unfixed. I don't like to pay, but I don't like to
stretch the paper. I usually wet the paper well ahead of the painting.
To begin with. Here, I'm going to
draw this leaf. And this leaf, remember, is also going to be green. So if you're painting
a darker green here, the green, make sure you make it a little bit
more darker than it is. We have got a little bit
of challenge in here, which is looking bumpy. This area. I'm just going to keep it a
little bit more darker under the under the leaf so that
it doesn't look like. Now, we have the same color and the background and
foreground looks same. That shouldn't be the case. This is enough. So I'm just managing this. And inside that this gap between the leaves
and the flower. I'm also wanting to take care of while
doing this diagram. Use the biggest round
brush you have. So this is like number 14. As you can see, use the biggest
round brush if you have. And if you want to do like
cover the whole area. Now, you can just do it
with lighter brush strokes. Now with a little
bit of more water. The more water you
have in your brush, the more area you can cover. As you can see, that this background still
look quite inconsistent. So what I'm doing is I'm just
adding another layer to it. And this time, I'm
not worried about how much color I have, but I'm I'm making sure
that I have enough water and enough color in my brush so that I can take
longer strokes. So the idea of the second layer is longer strokes if you're
doing this background. And also make sure that you are maintaining
that clear, crisp, crisp edge between
the petals and your painting and
your background. So I think now you can see
it's much more consistent now. We could have done that
in the first stroke, but we were more concerned
about maintaining the edge. We're still concerned about
maintaining the edge. But the same time we are
adding this additional layer. And we're concerned about having the flatness
in those strokes. So maintain that flatness. And the key is to do it fast. If you delayed and it will dry, you will be able to see
two distinct layers so that something like that by
maintaining a good speed. So now the background
looks much more consistent on the right side. And slowly we'll do that
on the left side as well. This is much more second-level
consistent background than the first layer we did. If you're not careful enough or you don't want
to take enough tension, you can use a masking fluid
over the whole flower and then do a wet on
wet wash as well. I personally prefer not
to use masking fluid because it brings
all complexities. And I like to have a good
flow while I'm painting. And I don't like to break
the flow by introducing any external factors
such as masking fluid. This time I have
a cleaner palette and more consistent brush. So I'm going to change
the water after this wash because make sure you have
clean water. Clean color. Doesn't matter how your
color boxes look like. It always matter what
your palate looks like. Where you are mixing the color. So whatever is in your palette, where you mix the color
will be on your paper. So remember that to keep on
with a consistent color.
4. The Center: So I gave a good 2020 5 min
for this background to dry. The other way you can do is
you can use a hairdryer. But the problem
with hairdryer is your paper will get wobbly
and it will get bent. So try and natural drying process if you
have enough time. So right now, what
I'm going to do is we're going to start from
the center of this flower. The reason is the y. The reason why I'm going
to do over the center of the flower is because
this is the area. If I make some mistake
here, it's okay. It will not be that of a bigger deal because
it's quite dark. But I want to do the best
work near the petal. Right now, I'm only
drawing the center. And then once we're
confident with the center, we'll come back and we
will do the whole flower. So to start with, the
color I'm going to use is this burnt sienna. So he burnt umber and
some ultramarine blue. So the mixture of
this burnt sienna and ultramarine blue
becomes quite dark. So as you can see on my palette, I'm using blue and
this point Sierra. So these two colors together create quite
blackish values. But in the process, what I have done is
my brushes too wet. So to control your watercolor, you just need to
control your brush and the amount of
water in your brush. It's quite dark. Quiet, dry now, my brush is quite dry. So keep a tissue nearby and use like the
thickest color or the thickest blue and thickest
of this burnt umber. And let's start
painting it together. So overall, if you see the
darkness is coming from top and then also
it's darker here. It's creating a triangular area. I'm just trying to
darken this part. I'm considering the center as a whole and not as
two separate objects. I'm just looking
into the values. And if I'm looking at, I'm right here, my brush is
right now extremely dry. I'm just going to add
a little bit of water and continue doing that. This is, for many, you can use black. I personally don't use black because it adds mixed
with another color. It's not a great feeling. You know, it's, it, it will leave a permanent damage to your painting
rather than use dark. Then using the black. So black and dark are
two different things. They might look similar, but they are not similar. So I go for dark, I don't go for black. Now, I'm going to use a
little bit of burnt umber itself, that same mixture. And feeling the lighter
parts of this painting. This is the lightest
part of the center. And we will come back to it right now it's a little bit wet. So we'll come back to
it and we will make sure that we have the
darkest values on the top, right here, wherever
it's darker. And you wait, see that there are some black spots coming inwards
so I can do it right now. While it is still
a little bit wet. Getting you very close to what
we were supposed to look. So right now it will not
make any sense to you. But as soon as it dries and the surrounding
is being done, you'll get a much better sense. So let's do this outer circle. So far, the outer circle, I'm just going to use a
little bit of burnt sienna. This is the reddish value, but it's still dark. Some burnt sienna can
give you that value. And I'm putting it in patches. In some areas, more, some areas less, putting
it in some patches. And then I might add a
little bit of orange. If you don't have orange, you can just use a mixture
of red and yellow. And filling it in in the little bit of
spaces around here. I'm going from dark to light. Usually you don't go
there from light, dark to light in watercolor. But in some cases, it helps to go from
dark to white. And the same color. As you can see that it's in
the outer of this circle. Here. I'm going to use a hint of it, just a pinch of this color. Somewhere outside, not
everywhere, some places. And then we go all the
way with a burnt umber, because this value
is pretty much dark, burnt umber with some
hint of brownish texture. So if you look at my strokes, brush strokes,
they are not flat. They are quite wavy and
they are quite distinct. And that is a choice
because I am trying to maintain there's
several multiple lines which are combining
together to create a value. So I'm just mimicking what's in there in terms of
in terms of values. And trying to match it
with the lines and not, yeah, like a flat giant stroke. And this side is
little bit lesser. This side is littered
with lighter. So I think we are pretty much done with the
center right now. And we can go on. And finally, being
those beautiful petals.
5. Petals Layer 1 and concept: So to begin with, the petals, I have chosen three colors. This is medium yellow, this is deep yellow, and this is yellow ocher. So that the PLO, the basic color of this petal. And then you might
see some lines within the petals that can
be done by the deep yellow. And then there are some
darker values which are even darker than the deep yellow that can be covered
by a yellow ocher. So we are going to use
these three colors to paint the petals.
Let's start. So one thing that I'm going
to do is I'm going to use to brush together
through this part up. One is number eight, and this one is just a smaller
brush. This is number two. You can also use
number one or even three, which will be fine. So what I will do is I will use this brush with the with the
base color of the petal, which is basically
the medium yellow. So this brush will
have medium yellow. This brush will
have deep yellow. And let's start. Or you can just say
light yellow and darker yellow for the remainder of this class because
you might be using a different brand of
watercolor, and it might have. So let's draw the first battle
and paint the first petal. And the way I'm doing it is leaving a little bit of
white over the edge. And even inside the petal, I'm leaving some sort of values, changing value, which is, it is, it looks very consistent, but you might see that
on the top it's lighter. On the bottom it's a
little bit darker. And once I'm done with that, I'm just taking
this smaller brush and drawing that line
while it is still wet and completely
darkening the bottom. So the overall look and
the feel is inside, darker, outside is lighter. So close to the center
it will be the darker. And towards outside the center, it will be much lighter. So we will maintain that mood and the field throughout
the painting. Or you can just, I'll just do one thing. This petal. I can also add some burnt sienna to this smaller section because it's quite dark in
many locations. Like for instance, here is a clear distinction
between the two petals. But it looks so dark. So what I'm going
to do is I'll take freshwater and dim it
down a little bit. Tone it down. Add
some deep yellow. Tone it down a bit. So we just blend slightly. So if we do this way, it will take a lot of time
to do all the petals. So what I'm going to do
is I'm just going to paint the whole
battle altogether at once and have enough
paint in my brush. I'll just do. I'm still
being careful outside the edges because I don't
want external color on that. Interference of the
background on that. So I'm just maintaining
some sort of distance and gap between the background and the
iPad individual petals. But at the same time,
I'm not very careful while painting the whole flower. I'm only careful towards
the outside of the petals. Maintain. So how do you get the best color is by mixing
it on the, on the palette. You know, because if you see
any dots in your palate, it means they are pigments which needs to be mixed
editor should be a very homogeneous mixture
to get the best color, to get the best effect with
a homogeneous mixture. So this is the layer, one of the petals. I showed you one parallel as an example with the two layers. But we will first
do the layer one. You might want to
leave a little bit of gap between two petals, like little bit of white. So that you, yourself understand
that what's in there. Then we will create the shapes. Right now it's just the shape. Then we will create the
form that will bring, it gives you a nice
three-dimensional or the value-based look of
each individual petal. We have already started getting a good feeling about
this painting. And it's, right now, it's having some dimensional
value in the center. As you can see, it has
dried off and it's, it has settled into a nice
center of this sunflower. Then we will come back, and then we will do
the second layer. So that third dimension in the petals will start
coming off nicely. As you can see right here.
6. Petals Further Layers: So I have mixed
some yellow ocher. And for the layer-2, or especially these
markings in each petal, which is very delicate. I'm going to use this tiny brush and this brush with
this small brush, I'm going to take
this yellow ocher. I will start from the bottom because it's quite
take right now. Since I'm starting
from the bottom. Just giving it a little bit
of lying and getting it down. And maintaining the
similar stroke pattern and keeping it
darker in the back. And there are some
petals which are basically in the backside. Like for instance, this
is in the backside. So this will go a
little bit darker. I'm using a bigger brush
for that because I know that I can cover a lot of value, lot of area with this
and I don't worry, if I had to, I can just make clear lines
between each petal. So you have to make sure
that each individual petal is seen separately and separate
each individual pattern. You need to create a division
between these petals. And this is right,
not just yellow ocher with a smaller brush. Nice, nicely do that all across. And also work on some
of the lines that you can see in each
individual petal. If you have lesser pillar left, then do those lines. I will also show you
a very cool trick. If you have a third
brush nearby, just take some blue
on this brush. Some cobalt blue, very little, very light cobalt blue. I'll just put up a hint
of cobalt blue here. Very light cobalt blue and
add it to this petal behind. What it is doing is
saying it's yellow, but it's in the
backside and it's also giving you a
little bit of cooler. So this is a warm, warm color and you're
getting a little bit of cooler value through this. And do that only on the petals
which are on the backside. A little bit. Just very tiny hint of blue. Let's continue
doing what we were doing and creating a
division between each petal, each individual petal
by yellow ocher. And don't get carried away
with painting it everywhere. Just manage and maintain. Only in the inside
of the flower. Not on the outer side. Outside should be yellowish. More the yellower, it's better. Lighter and better. The
lighter is the better. When you get, the color gets lesser in your brush
than do those lines, which goes towards the
each individual petal. You can see it has started
drawing a little bit off. And you can start looking at this beautiful lines in this, this tiny and very delicate
textures of sunflower. Since my color is
wet, it's watery. You might see some reflection. But that's just the water. When it dries, it will look
far nicer than you think. Some values, some
petals will have this two lines for some
petals will have one lines. And you can check it in
your reference image, in which is which, what is what. And then accordingly, you can
slowly create those values. So keep revisiting
your reference image just to make sure how
it looks and feels. And in-between, as you can see, this petal is in the backside. So in-between, choose
a battle and market, all with the yellow ocher. And it will start
looking nicely. I hope you have started
getting the sense of three-dimensional as of now and some sort of realism
in this painting already. The slower you go, the more detailed you go, the more realistic your
results will look. This class has a limited time. I'm not going to to
do it individually. Each battle with utmost realism. So I think if you are
practicing it on your own, you get a little bit of time and work more on those details. Like right now I'm doing
some flowers or some petals. I'm giving a little bit of time. In getting that detail. You might have seen that it
has been less than 20 min. And we were able to do
with all the battles. You spend this 20 min, you spent and are quiet. Accuracy and detail. On these petals, you can
go much more realistic. And the movement of
your brushstrokes, the movement of your
brushstrokes should mimic the orientation
of the value. By that, I mean, if something is slant, move your brush, slant. If it is horizontal, move your brush
horizontal or vertical. Move your brush vertical. This is the final
layer of the petals. And hopefully you have. You got a very good
idea by now that how to proceed with the second
layer in more detail. And we will check
for a few things. And then I can see right
now that the center of the flower has
some white spots, which is giving a
little bit of nuance, adding a little bit of
nuance to the scene. And it's looking much
more unrealistic. This white spots are literally
bigger than I thought. So what I'm going to do
is I'm going to take this darker value,
this dark colors. I'll just start
filling those wipes. Why I'm choosing this darker
value or the black value? Because you might see there are some dark spots in the center of this flower.
In this reference. I'm just filling in those darker spots. I think. Not just those darker spots. What on few occasions,
killing it all the way. On those few locations. There's a good idea to take pictures of your painting
while you are painting it. And that gives you an idea of where you are
lacking in the values. Then once it doesn't look
great in the picture, you can just work
on that area again. That's what I'm doing. I just saw this on the camera. These are looking
a little bit odd. What what else is there
that I can do to fix it? I think this is pretty
much why I wanted to do. In the next lesson,
we will do the stem, and then we'll come to the leaf.
7. The Stem and Leaf: You might be seeing that this stem is quite fresh and there's some
tenderness to this stem. So to denote that tenderness, and what I'm going to
do is this fresh color. I'm going to take a
little bit of sap green. And this little
bit of sap green, add it with the yellow curve and run it on the left
side of this stem. Throughout. Pretty lightly. Left side of the stem because
it's a cylindrical shape. So one side will be lighter, one side will be the darker. And that's very standard
value practice. I'm going to use the
similar color on this stem, this branch of
this term as well. Now, this side is
much more darker. So what I can do is I'm going to do remember the color we did the background, that
blackish green. I'm going to use it again, level right through this stem. So since it is a
cylindrical shape, it will be even
darker in the center. As you can see, it's
a little darker. I'm just taking little bit
of that dark color that I had for the center and I
will run it in the center. Now, you might look, it looks a little bit odd here. So I'm just taking freshwater and just merging that color. So we got this nice
value for this term. I will apply the
similar formula to this stem and get her some darker value just at
the bottom of the stem. Merging it. As you might
see that this leaf, this stem is actually
becoming a vein, which is also tender in later. So this yellow and mix of green, I'm just running it as a vein. These are the veins of the tree, nerves and veins of the leaf. You don't have to go. You can go all the way detail
if you wish to, or you can just simply
leave it like that. For the leaf. It's a very it has chlorophyll which is passing some
light from the center. It's a translucent object. So to maintain
that translucency, why I'm going to do is I'm going to take good amount of water with sap green and give it a very consistent wash
throughout the leaf. This nice wash
throughout the leaf, leaving the vein intact. I'm just running this and I
will add more color to it. And now what I will do is I will use this color on the sides of the leaf because it is passing
more light in the center. So that will be much lighter. But it's passing lesser
light around the corners. And now I'm going to
take some darker values. Some dark green with
a smaller brush. And you can see here in
the color is quite dark. Right now this is quite wet, so it will not capture
that are very easily. But I can just manage and
mimic what I can see. Maybe I should let
it dry a little bit and then try again. So the main objective was
just this flower, not belief. But you can, if you
want to do more detail, you can also do it with
this leaf as well. Then I add this color to have more effective
values that you can see. So this is pretty
much the painting. And you can correct it by looking at it where
it should be more dark, where it should be more light. And you can keep working
on it as much as you like. But this is the tutorial, this is the course that
I wanted to present. That how you can build some three-dimensional
values for a flower, how you can create
more realistic loop. And I hope you like this lesson.
8. The Conclusion: So let's summarize this
class from beginning to end. What we learned
from this course, and what we did is we took a very simple approach to
do the drawing by going, making it a circular thing. We didn't do a very detailed
drawing for the petals, which shows some petals which
are of utmost importance. And we draw, redraw
them accurately, but not the entire flower. We'd chose a background
which is much more darker so that we can
see these values. Much lighter values to its
full beauty and glory. And that's how we ended up with a darker background with the two washes in
the background. The first one was
to ensure that we are leaving these crisp values. In the second one was to bring consistency of the wash
in the background. Third thing we did was
we started with a center because if we make some
mistakes in the beginning, that's when you make, in the beginning of the
painting your tend to make mistakes because you're
not in that flow, not in that zone. So it's always good to start
with a place where which is easier and which is
fine to make mistakes. Here we started with
the center and then we, what we did for the petal, we chose a color, what will be the base color? And we started with the layer, one of that pedal. And then we slowly moved into the second layer and
darken the values. We looked into the
reference and we choose those values and started
painting accordingly. And we eventually created a three-dimensional image, a
three-dimensional painting. And that's the essence of this and this stem and
leaf or secondary. And you can do it
As your choice. If you want to go super
realistic with this, you can do that as well. If you just want to go. Lesser realistic. It's also fine because
the major hero of your painting has been
painted very, very well. So thank you so much
for taking this class. Do check out my Instagram for the more
paintings that I do. And I also have a podcast
called watercolor wash, where I talk mostly to the new self-taught artists
and share my thoughts. Thank you so much for
taking the class.
Vasu Sahu, Watercolor Instructor
