Realistic Watercolor Pink Tulip: Step by Step

1. About the class: Are you struggling to identify light and shadow in a reference photo or having a hard time in making your watercolor paintings look truly three dimensional. Hi, I'm Bianca, a watercolor artist and teacher. And in this class, we're painting a beautiful, realistic pink tulip together step by step. This project is perfect if you want to take your watercolor skills to the next level, we're focusing on two powerful techniques. Painting light and shadow to create depth and realism and adding metallic paint for an elegant, luminous finish. Break the process down into manageable stages from underpainting and layering delicate washes to refining shadows, blending soft transitions, and finally, adding those eye catching metallic highlights that make your tulip bloom with a unique glow. Whether you are watercolor beginner with some experience or an intermediate artist looking to improve realism in your floals. You learn how to make your painting feel dimensional and full of life. This class is taught in real time with voice instructions, so you will be guided every step of the way. We'll dive straight into the watercolor techniques. You can find the reference photo, outline drawing and supply list in the projects and resources section. If you'd like to learn how to transfer your outline drawing neatly onto your watercolor paper, you can watch my first class here on Skillshare. Paint realistic apples and watercor confidently. This is my fourth class on Skillshare. All of my classes focus on painting nature and watercolor. So if you enjoy this one, be sure to check the others to support your watercolor journey. Grab her brushes and a touch of shimmer and let's bring this tulip to life. 2. Class Project Tulip: In this class, we'll paint a stunning, realistic pink tulip with leaves step by step. You learn how to bring this flower to life using watercolor techniques which I'll guide you through in real time. To help you get started, I've included a reference photo, a full list of art supplies, and a free outline drawing in the projects and resources section. Once you finish your painting, I'd love to see it. Remember to upload your class project here on Skillshare. Your work might inspire someone else to start their own. If you're sharing on social media, tag me too. I always love seeing how each artist brings their own style and beauty to the piece. Let's fill this space with blooming tulips. 3. What you will need: I will run through my art supplies that I will be using. So I have here my sketchbook. This is Bau home, Academy, hot press paper. The size of my paper is six by 9 ". I have here my outline drawing. I will be using a mixing palette. This is ceramic. I have here two small jars of water. I have here my watercolors with my pipet to preret my paints, I already preet the colors that I will be using. For this sketch, I use four each pencil and a kneaded eraser. For the brushes, I will be using three brushes. I have hair size four round a size seven synthetic brushes and an old Kolinsky brush for picking up color from my watercolor pans to mix my mixing padded, and I also have a towel with me. You can also use a paper towel or tissue paper, whatever you have. 4. Metallic paints (optional): In this class, I will also using a metallic paint, and the color that I will be using is core interference green blue shift. Okay, this is the green, blue shift when it is painted on light and dark color. So it's a shift, color green and blue, right? You don't have to have this one. You can use any metallic paint that you have. Another color that I have here is from Daniel Smith, iridescent Antique gold, and this is how it looks like when it is painted in light and dark color. So we could use any metallic paint that you have. But remember this is optional. You don't need to have any metallic paints. This is just an optional to add shimmer to your painting. 5. Let's prepare the colors: Now, I will mix my colors that I will use. I have here French ultramarine with me. I will mix only just T consistency. I will add a little. And this is what I'm going to use for underpainting or shadows. As you can see, it's very watery, it's just a tea consistency. Right, so I move my palette a little bit closer and I zoom in. Yeah. So this is very watery. I will rinse my brush. I will prepare my pink, and I will use enacodon rose. These pies are from Daniel Smith. I will water it down right there. Very light. Next that I will prepare would be green gold. Green gold that I have here, this is from core. There. Next, I will mix my green, and the green that I will be using is from Windsor and Newton Professional. This is sap green. Then I will add a little bit of French ultramarine for more bluish tone there and a tiny bit of calbazon violet. The water it down. You can add a little bit of sap green because I think I added a lot of violet or cobason violet there. These are the mix that I will be using. I only mix tea consistency for now, but later on, I will use thicker consistency of the colors. 6. Watercolor Techniques: Back to my class in this list that we are going to talk about the basic watercolor techniques. If you are new to watercolor, you need to master these watercolor techniques. I will be discussing four watercolor techniques that I will be using in this class. Okay, first is wet on wet. Okay, I'm using a hot press paper, and this is quicker to dry than the cold press. So if you are used to cold press, then it's okay. You could use cold press. However, the details in cold press is not very smooth on the hot press paper. Anyway, I'm going to wet this area. It wetting your paper, make sure that you wet the area that you are going to paint painting realistic subjects, you will need to paint area by area, not all area at once. Okay, and let the paper absorb the water first. I will zoom in so you can see closer. Okay, I zoom it a little bit. And this paper is wet. It's just this area. I did not draw anything on my paper. So it's quite hard to see, but I'll show you. Let the paper absorb the water. You can see there is shine. The water on your paper should not be potling. Let the paper absorb the water first before you apply color. Now, I will add paint. I have here a wet brush with paint, and you can see. When I added the watercolor, it's quick to move, and it creates smooth transition on your paper. So that is wet on wet. Remember, let the paper absorb your water first, but not too much. Okay? Not too much. Let the paper absorb the water first before adding your color or else, your paint will be just on top of the paper. You will need to let the paper absorb the water, so the paper will absorb the paint as well. So this is wet on wet. Now let's go to wet on dry. Wet on dry means that you have a paper that is dry and you will put a wet paint, okay? So you can see if you notice there are some harsh edges here on the sides. Unlike this what on what. But on the very first layers of the painting, especially on big areas, I do wet on wet, and I do wet on dry if I am painting closer to the details, if I'm about to finish the painting, nearly ending the painting. And also, I use what on dry on the areas that are small, narrow, tiny areas. Now let's do the next technique would be feathering out. Feathering out, it means that you are going to smoothen. So let's say we have this brushes. I did do it on dry. Okay, now I have a bigger brush. This is the reason I always paint with two brushes at the same time. So my brush is very wet. So what I need to do is to remove the excess water using a towel. You could use a paper towel if you need to. It will be just damp, damp, not too wet. Then I will just feather out or smoothen the area. Okay? Smoothing my brush strolls. I do this on most of my painting. Okay. It's getting dry, so I'll do it again on another side here. Okay? Then feather out, or smoothing. You can see my brushstroke here is harsh, but here it's smoothing. You feather out, you're smoothing it. I'll do it again here. Remember, just damp because if it's wet, this is what happens. If it's too wet, that will happen because you're adding more water to your paper, and that's what happens. So I will need to clean my brush, remove the excess water and then smoothen. There you go. And then I will smoothen it again there. So that is feathering out or smoothening. I do this on almost of my painting, right? I smoothen my brush stroke. If you have any brush stroke that it will tend to like harsh edge like this, you can smoothen them. Next would be negative painting. In negative painting, it means that you are painting on the negative space that you are going to paint on the areas to make the other areas stand out. Okay, so how we do that looking here on this side or the center of the tulip. I painted here. You will see how I do it later on that I painted this area. I avoided painting this area. This is the highlight. But then painting this area that makes this lighter area to stand out. Okay, same with this leaf. So if you can see that this leaf is darker, this is an inside folded leaf. To make this area lighter and stand out, I painted dark color here. I painted this area I avoided here. Negative painting, what I do is I focus on the shadow. I paint on the areas that can help this standout. That's a negative painting. Looking here in this hydrangaT make this area stand out, I painted the shadows here at the bottom. That also helped to stand out this area, the petals here and also on other parts also of the hydrangea. If you'd like to know more about negative painting, I have a focus class about negative painting using this hydrangea, you can check it out. 7. Light and shadows: When I was a beginner in watercolor painting, I used white gelpen and gouache to paint the highlights. But then as I improve my watercolor painting skills, I learned that painting the highlights is not painting at all. Instead, you will use the whiteness of the paper for the whites and just avoid painting the highlighted areas. What you will need to focus on is painting the shadows. How can we determine the light and shadow in the reference photo? You don't need any all you need is to change the color of the reference photo on your phone into black and white. The white areas are the highlights and the dark areas are the shadows. I highly recommend to use your phone in looking at the reference photo as you paint. In that way, you can see the details and you can zoom in and out. Are you ready to start painting? Let's dive into the first layer of painting. 8. Underpainting the tulip: When we look at the reference photo, as we can see, there are some areas that have shadows, and there are some areas that have highlights, especially on the left area. Okay. And there are shadows on those areas that are inside like this petal. As you can see, there are shadows in there and also on the leaves. Those dark areas, those are that we will put blue or underpainting with blue, so we can have a natural shadow on those areas. And for you to know where would be the shadows, where you go to put the shadows, you can edit the reference photo, make it black and white. There. So I did not use any app to change the color. I just use the filters on my phone. So we can see the light areas, those are we are going to avoid underpainting. We will add blue on those areas that have shadows, and we will just avoid adding shadows or paint or saturated paint on those areas that are light. So what I'm going to do now is I will paint the first layer. For the thin areas, I will just paint with just wet on dry. But for those areas that are big, I will paint it wet on wet. Okay, so I will start. All right. I will start painting on the shadow areas. I have my needed eraser here because later on, I will also erase some pencil lines that I don't need, especially on the light areas or we can lighten the pencil lines. That's what I mean. Okay, so I will start from the top. From the top, there are also shadows on the petals here. So I will get my bigger brush this size seven round. I will paint here, remove the excess water there. And add water on areas that I will add paint. If you are using a cold press paper, you can let the paper to dry or let the paper absorb the water for just a minute or two. But for hot press paper, 30 seconds will be fine because hot press papers can dry faster than cold press. So there I will add more water here. When we are painting watercolors, we will do light to dark, unlike other mediums that can be dark to light. But for watercolors, it's light to dark. There you go. And add more here. Then I will soften your brushes through here and here. Just a little bit here. Not very dark. Just avoid puddles on your paper. There and here. I like painting wet on wet because when you paint wet on wet, it is easy to remove. It is easy to lift the colors when you make mistakes like painting wet on dry. But there are areas that I paint wet on dry that I try to avoid not to and I try to avoid the paint not to move to the other areas of the painting. Okay? So this is where I paint my shadows on the on the left side of the petal, I will do the other parts, but I will zoom in. Okay, I zoom in a little bit, so I can show you where I will paint. Okay, now, I will paint this area very little amount of water. Very little amount because remember, this area is small and we don't want the paint to move or blend to the other side. So we'll add blue here. If you see there are too much water on your brush, it releases a lot of water. Remove it using the towel beside you. There, we'll soften this. There you go. Now I will add here also. This is a petal that is inside, so we need to add shadows here and here as well. Okay, there. Now I will move on to the right side. I will add I will paint water here. So the source of our light would be the top part and the left side. We have lights there. And a little bit here. Now I will move to the stem area. Now I will paint on the stem. I will paint this wet on wet. Just on the right side. I will be painting the stem first. What on what? If your paper is drying like that, all we need to do is just re wet the area before you add paint. And here's here, too. There now, I will wet this area, the leaf here. And with this area, so you can see, as I smoothen my brush stroke, I also use the same brush with water to re wet the next area that I will paint. O. Still, I'm using the consistency of the paint. Okay. And I will add a little bit more of shadows here. Okay, there. Now I will add shadows in this area. This is the part of the leaf that is dark. There and here. And here, too. As I paint, I look at the reference photo, and you can do the same. And that is the reason that I like painting with the reference photo beside me on my phone because when the reference photo is on my phone, I can zoom in and zoom out. It's very hard to see when you printed the reference photo on paper and cannot see the details very closely because you cannot zoom in and out. There. Now, I will move to the next area that I will paint, which is here because I will let this area dry first before I will paint the side of the leaf. So this area because this is the darkest. Okay. Now I will get more French ultramarine because this is the darkest leaf that I have. I will add more. Okay, I will re wet this area. This is the darkest, one of the darkest area of the leaf. So we'll add more paint here because of the shadows. I And here, I will add a little bit of blue in this side. Now, I will add more color here. I skip this area because I'm letting this area inside to dry. So we'll skip it and move to the leaf on the left and pre wet. I will add blue here. Okay, and soften. I'm not adding paint on the left side of this because it has highlight. So I'm focusing on the shadows area on the right side. Also here, so I'll soften this. And then I will pre wet this area here. Now I will add more. I will add water here on the right side. And I'm just going to paint this area wet on dry instead this area is very thin. And we don't want to move or paint. Okay, there in this area as well. Just they're very light. So that's our first layer of our tulip. Let it dry completely. And next, we're going to paint the second layer using the colors that we have here. 9. Blooming with pink petals: Now we are going to paint the second layer of the petal. But before that, for the reference photo, since we changed this to black and white, I'm going to put it back to the natural color there. And this is what we use for the reference. Now, I will zoom in a little so that you can see where I am going to paint. Also for the petal, I will use this kneaded eraser to lighten the pencil lines on the left side before we start to paint, especially this area that has very light color of of the color, very light color. Here are the top as well. And this area. All right. You can also roll your kneaded eraser. If you don't have a needed eraser, that's fine. But if you have a needed eraser, that would be very good because needed eraser doesn't ruin paper, and it's dust free, as well. I will just lighten the areas that I did not paint. There. So it's lighter than earlier. Now, we are going to paint and we are going to start painting with the Cnoonrose as you can see, I erase the pencil lines before we paint the lighter areas. I do not erase the pencil lines on all on the whole painting itself, because when you take a break and it will take you like a few days or hours after you erase the pencil lines, you may not see it anymore. So what I do is I erase the pencil lines before I paint on them. That's what I do to always have my eraser with me. Okay. Now, what I will do is I will wet this area with my big brush. This is why it's very helpful if you have two brushes at the same time simultaneously. So when you wet the area, make sure that you are not that you are not going out of the line. Make sure that you are not going out of the line. Be careful on painting with very watery. That's why I prefer using synthetic brush that do not absorb too much water. All right. Now I will pick up some cunaudon rose and I will paint this area. I will rewet it again because it dries quickly. And that happens if you are living in a humid country like the Philippines. And at the same time you are using a hot press paper. So we'll paint from here from the top with tea consistency of cunaonrose or whatever pink that you have. And I will paint up to here only because this area is light and white. So I avoid putting paint on this area. And this is also the reason that I erase pencil lines as well on that area. And if you have a pointed brush like this, it can help you to reach small areas or thin areas. No, we'll add paint here. Later on, as we layer our colors, you won't see the blue anymore. For now, you could still see the blue, and that's fine. I will just soften this area with a damp brush. This is damp, and I rinse it. I will remove the excess area using the towel beside me, and then I will soften this area. At the same time, I will wet the area here. Then I will add paint here. I there. Now, I will paint on the right side of the petal. I will wet this area. I won't wet this area anymore, but just this part. And slowly add paint. Just avoid adding watery paint when you paint realistic flowers or subjects. If you are painting landscapes or if you are painting loose flowers, then I think the watery brush will work, especially if you are doing the first two layers of your painting. But for realistic subjects, you need to control your water. So you need to get to know your brush very well. If it absorbs too much water or if it releases too much paint or whatever, you need to get to know your brush. So here I'm just painting wet on dry. And I will soften this area, and I will add paint here. As very light as possible there and soften there. So we'll just let it dry first before I paint the inside petals. This time, I'm going to paint the inner petals that we have here. I will start from the top. I will just wet this slightly. Very slight wet, not very wet, and we don't want the paint to go out of the lines. Still with T consistency, if that happens, it means that I have too much water on my brush. I I will move the excess water from my brush using the towel. We'll just put it here. And I will paint this area. Now, this area is very narrow. I will just use whatever left on my brush to paint this, but it somewhat on dry instead of what on what. I don't want the paint to go out of the line and spread to the other parts of the petal. There now, I will let it dry and I will move to the leaves. 10. Starting to paint green: I will start painting on the stem first before I will go to the leaves. First, I will paint the left side here using the consistency of green gold. So I will wet the stem using the bigger brush. There I will pick up the consistency of green gold and will start here on the top going down. I'm using the tip of my brush to reach the areas on the top, very near the bottom of the petal. I will rewet this area before I will paint this Remember, if you are going to wet the area that you are about to paint just enough water. Avoid puddles and let the paper absorb the water first. I'm just painting on the left side. So basically, this is the first layer of the stem on the left side only because I painted the right side earlier with blue. Remember to remove the excess water if you need to. Control the water on your brush. There, then I will let it dry. Then I will rinse my brush. I will move to this side on this left here. Before I will continue painting on the bottom leaves, I will just remove. I will just remove the pencil lines or lighten it. Okay, lighten it. You don't have to erase all of the pencil lines. Okay. Just on this part because this is the area that is very light green, so I just erase it. Now I will wet this area. With water, water, a little amount will do. Then I will pick up my green mix. Just see consistency. I'm removing the excess water from my brush. There, and I will just soften this area and here. Now, I will skip this part of the leaf or the folded area. I will go to the top area of the leaf. I will let this dry first. Now, before starting on the leaf here, I will start in this area using green gold, I will wet this area, the part here on the left. And here. So I'll still do underpainting on this area. So we'll just wet this area. I will pick a green gold, just the consistency. And I will just paint on this side. Now just brush it off and smoothen my brush stroke here. This is now I remove the excess water. And here, now I just I just drag the water, whatever left on my brush. Then I will just add more of green gold here. I will let it dry. I will paint this part of the leaf, this folded one. I will rinse this brush because I will pick up the green mix, but I will wet this area first. Now I will be doing wet on wet on this area or this part of the folded leaf. All right. I'll pick up green mix. And there. This time, I am releasing more paint by pressing the belly of my brush going down. Slowly paint, going down. I will remove the excess water. It's very watery. But then before I continue painting, I will just smoothen here and drag the water left on my brush here going down and wet this area to prepare for what wet and add green. By this time, we're still using the T consistency of our watercolor mix there. Seems like there is a green went out of the line there, so just smoothing it to clean it up. Now, I will leave it dry. I will move to this area next. I will wet this area. And here also. So I pick up more water to wet this area. This is a big area of leaf. If you are using hot press paper, your paper will dry faster than the cold crust. So I'll pick up green, and I will feed here. If you pick up more green than you did here, that's okay because this is a dark green area, so that will be fine. I will smooth and my brush stroke here and here also. And I rewet this area because it's drying. Let's add more green. If you have a pointed brush like this, it will be helpful for you to reach the areas that are small and thin. If you don't, that's okay. You could use a smaller brush. Very thin consistency, right? It's okay if you add more green on this area because if you look at the reference photo, this is the area that has a darker green color on our leaf. I will remove the S water it's too watery. So if that happens to you, you can always have your towel ready beside you. And I will just smoothen my brush throuk here. There, I will let it dry. Now, while it's drying, I will move on to this part of the leaf. That is very thin and smaller. So I'll wet this area. Remember to control the amount of water you put in to consistency of green. And I will just smooth in the brush droop there. Okay. This time, I will paint this leaf. Before I will start, I will remove the excess pencilines here or dark pencil ines because it will be a dark because this is an area that has light green, so I remove the pencil lines. Now, it's okay. But I will start here inside, so I will get my big brush to wet this area. If you notice we paint area by area, we paint slowly, we paint carefully. I'll pick up my brush. There. And I will smoothen here and re wet the area. So when I smoothen this, I drag also the water going down, and that's fine. So we have smooth brush stroke there. Here, smoothen smoothen and re wet. Okay. So every time I left my looks like it is dry. If you see that, it means that your paper is dry, so we have to run your wet brush again because our paper is hot press and it's easy to it's easy to dry. There. I will smooth in this area and wet the lower part and up to here, this st would just run whatever left on my brush. I did not pick up more green because this area is a light green leaf touched by the light. So I made sure that there won't be a dark green on that area. Now, let this dry first before continuing to pin the leaves, I will move on to the stem. This is the second layer of the stem. So we this area before I will add green. So just to this part, you absorb the water first before you add pin. Very thin consistency. By this time, I'm still using T consistency of the green mix I have. And I will just smooth in my brush stroke here. I had water went out of the line, so I brush it off. Then I will wet this area. So you can see, once I added the green, the color change from the left to the right because we have an underpainting of green gold and also French ultramarine on the right. I will clean it up. There, I will let it dry. I will continue painting this leaf here on this side. I will wet my brush. I'm still going to do wet on wet on this leaf. Okay, I will pick up my green mix. Okay, I went out of the line. I will just clean it up right away there and wet this area. This part of the leaf is somehow narrow, a bit narrower than the preview than the other parts of the leaf. So be careful on wetting the area and going out of the line. There. Now, this part of the leaf is very thin. So instead of painting wet on wet, I will just paint it wet on dry instead. To avoid messing up and going out of the line also, I will start here using the tip of my brush going up. Remember we are still using T consistency of our paint. You don't need to paint with milk consistency yet, but we will go there later. Just wait. Okay, I will just clean my brush stroke there. This time, I will paint this area we on wet. Just this area. This time, I will continue painting, but this time what on try. And we're done with the stem and the leaves. Let your painting dry before moving on to the next step. 11. Enhancing the tulip head shadows: We are going to move to the third layer of this tulip, but before that, I mix coffee consistency of ginecodon rose. So you can see, coffee consistency is a bit thicker and darker consistency than the previous one. And this is what we're going to use for the third layer of the tulip. For painting the third layer of this tulip, I will be doing what on what technique, and this time, I will be focusing on the shadow areas. So here in the tulip, I will be starting on the left side. I will be painting wet on wet. I will wet this side of the tulip, the one with the blue. As we continue painting and layering this, you won't see the blue anymore. You will just see like shadows on this area. So make sure that this is wet enough, and the paper absorb the water before putting on our paint. We'll start here. It looks like this brush has a lot of water, so I remove the excess water using the towel beside me. The brush this. This part has highlights. I will just soften and brush strokes like that. And I will paint up to here on the left side before I will move onto the right. So as much as possible, I did not put a lot of a wooden rows on this area because that is part that is very light. But here, I can still add more kinahoden rose and soften this part while wetting the right side. So whatever paint left on my brush, I drag it off going down here. Make sure not to put a lot of Kina Hoden rose or paint on this area and always look at the reference photo as you paint. There I will soften this area and track the paint there. Now I will wet this area. That happens because I had a lot of water in my brush. So I'll just add more Gagoonrose here just to correct that and add more of Gagoden rose here. This time, as you can see, my brush moves like from left, going from right, going to left or from outside, going in. We want to see or we want to show the form of the petal. As we paint. It looks like there is water here, so I will soften it just to avoid that it will dry with harsh edges. So remove those. This time, I am still adding more pink on this part. Working an rose. The Is bit dry, so I will add a little bit of water here. If you see that, there are like patches. It means that this area is dry, so soften it before it will dry. I think that's for the third layer, I will let this part dry, then I will move on to the petals here on the right. I will wet this area first. And it's see my brush is going it's like see stroke motion, following the shape of our tulip. And so I think this it looks so dry so I will wet this brush a little bit and pick up more and an rose. If you feel that your brush is too dry, you can just dip your brush to your water one time to re wet it. There, and I will soften this part, so you can have smooth brush strokes there. And here I will just wet this area. I I will soften this and drag the paint, whatever left on my brush going down there. I will leave this part to dry, and then I will move later to the inner petals. This time, I will move to this upper petal, the inside petal, so I will wet this area. Just be careful not to touch on the petals on the left and on the right. So still wet on wet. But remember to control the water on your brush. This is very helpful that I have a pointed tip brush. If you don't have a pointed tip brush, you could use a smaller brush. Now, I will smoothen my brush through here and then moving on here instead of painting this wet on, but I will paint this wet on dry. It seems like I think this would be lighter. I look at the reference photo, it should be yellow, but it's okay. Okay, lift the paint slowly there. Now, I will let the petal to dry, and then I will move on to the stem. 12. Building up the stem shadows: Before I will continue painting the stem, I prepared milk consistency of the green mix that we have here. So, again, this is sap green with a little bit of French autumarne and calvo zone violet. So this time, I will paint only the shadows. I will be painting just the shadow part. So that will be the right side of this stem. So I will be painting this wet on wet. And I am going to paint just this right side. That's too much water, so I remove the excess water from my brush. So again, this is the third layer ready of the stem. If you can see this, I will just soften that. I did not wet the left side, just the right side. And as we go continue painting the stem and all of the full tulip, we will be building the colors. So just painting just this left side. If you can see the paint going out of the line, I just remove it with a damp brush. Remember if you're softening your brush strokes or the paint, your brush it should be damp. That's why it's better if you paint with two brushes at the same time. So I paint this area. The end so in this and here as well. There are shadows on the left side a little bit shadow, but we will just run through a bit of those shadows later on. For now, let's just continue painting this with green color and then smoothen this and here as well. I add a bit shadow here and smoothen my brush stroke. And that's it. I think if it's ready for the stem, I will let this dry and then move on to the leaves. 13. Intensifying the leaves' shadows: This time, I will be painting this part of the leaf. This is a small area, so I will just paint this wet on dry. So here I will just paint the shadow areas or the darker areas of this leaf, especially on this vein here, here. And then I will soften the brush throak using a damp brush here and also in this part. Then here also. And here. So as you could see, as I paint, I just use the tip of my brush. There, and then I will just soften my brush here. Smudging it. I will just leave it to dry and avoid touching this part of the leaf. I will move on to this part. Now as we paint this part of the leaf, there are some shadows here. So it's a big part of the leaf, so I will paint this wet on wet. I was starting from the top. And as we paint this leaf, remember that we are not going to paint the whole leaf. There are some part of the leaf that we are going to leave it as it is because there are, like, the highlights. So pick up some green. Start here. I will soften a brush of throbs here and wet the other parts of the leave, especially on the right side. Now, I'll wet this area and here also. As you notice, if you notice I drop a pigment here, so I just brush it off while it's wet. If it happened to you, do not leave it like that. Brush it right away as long as it's wet or else it will look like there's a drop of glean there and soften here. This is part of the leaf that is folded and there you can see that it's actually inside. So what you need to do is to add more pigment on this area. As of now, I'm just using the tip of my brush because I don't want to spread my paint outside of the lines. The soften this area and wet. And here I will add I will just brush this with a small amount of green. So whatever left on my brush, I just use it to heat this part. The I leave this to try and then I will move on to this big leaf here. This time, we'll be painting this part of the leaf. So this is inside the folded leaf. I will start here from the top, and I will be carefully, carefully painting this area, especially this part that has very thin and narrow area. So here I would just paint this with using the tip of my brush and wet on dry technique here. I will zoom it in so you can see. Okay, I will continue painting this. Again, I'm painting this wet on dry because this is an area that has very narrow and thin they don't want our paint to move to the other parts of the paper. But here, I can start here painting wet on wet. I will paint this area. I will wet this area and also softening the brush stroke that I have here and also wetting this part. Now, I will pick up my green This is the part that has shadow, so I added more glean here. I will soften this part. Add a bit here. There here. I'll wet this area. And here. Then soften and I will continue painting this lower part of the leaf here and here, I will just soften this while it's still wet, I'm just going to soften this area. I still add a little bit of green because I lifted some part of the green, there. And here, I will just add more of green here and paint this wet on dry because that's too narrow there. I will leave it to dry, then I will move to the right side of the leaf. This time, I will paint the right side here. I will still do wet on wet on this part of the leaf. And the right part of this leaf is darker, and that is where we put the green. We'll also add green here on the left. But what I'm going to do to paint that is I will dip my brush to my water a little bit to have a lighter color and then continue painting there. Now, we'll wet this area a little bit, and I will pick up more green and I will add more of green here on the right. There I will soften this part. There I go. And if you look through the reference photo, it is lighter green. So I will add lighter value here. I will just wet this brush a little bit to lighter the value of my green that I have on my brush there and continue painting. Then here I will soften. There. I will continue painting this part of the leaf. I will start here. I will wet this area. Okay. And soften and soften here before it will dry. Okay. I will zoom this part. So now it's zoom in. I will continue painting here and here. This part has light a value of green, it has highlights. So what I'm going to do is I would just going to paint this aside of the leaf. And here looks more smooth than that. I'm still adding more green here, and here as well. There. See this. I will moth in this part. And then I will add a lighter value of green there. As you can see, I did not add green to all of the areas. There are some areas that I left I painted. Okay. I will leave this to dry, I will move on to the next leaf here. 14. Painting shadows on the back leaf: For this leaf, what I will do is I will paint this wet on wet because this is a huge part of the leaf. This is a big area. And I will pick up green here and there. So just wet on wet. There, I will just smoothen here and wet the lower part and here. And also the part, I remove the excess water. This should be damp to soften my brush so there. And I will add more green here. I will wet this area and pick up more green. I'm trying to avoid not to touch the leaf that is on the left. I went in there and soften this part. Now I will move to this area. Okay. This time, I will just wet this area and I will add beat here. If that happens, it means my paper is dry on this area. So what will do is I will soften this brush through. And here. If you can avoid not to let it wet and soften your brush through right away, do it. Okay. And here I will add more green. This part, I will just leave it dry. I will just leave it unpainted, but I will paint a little bit here on the left. Okay. And there. Okay. There you go. I think I will add a little bit more of green here just a little bit and soft in here. There you go. Okay, this is to finish third layer of this tulip, so I will just leave it totally dry, and then I will come back to paint the next layers with more saturated color. 15. Increasing the shadow of the tulip head : This time, I will be adding more shadows and will be focusing on the shadows on the petals first. So we'll be starting on the left side of this tulip and I will zoom in so you can see close. I will be using what on what technique on painting this part. I will be starting to use coffee consistency. And then later on, I will be adding more colors and darker colors of inacaron rose. All right, so wetting this area where I am going to add paint. Just prepare these parts. Remember, let the paper absorb the water first before adding paint. There I'll add more color here a little bit here. And this time, if you can see, I just let the water flow into the paper. This time here and here. Now I will be using the bigger brush to soften this brush slopes there and also to wet again these areas. Make sure to control the amount of water you have in your brush, not to have too much water. There, I will soften this part and wet this area. I will soften this part. I will add a little bit more of pink there. I think I will need to add a little bit more of pink here. Do not want this to be just white. We need to have at least, like, a hint of pink or coal red on these areas. And I will soften my brush strokes there. And I will do the same here. Okay. Okay, that's it. Then I will just soften this part, last few. Okay. There I need to add a little bit more here. Okay. Now, I will just let this dry, and then I will move on to the other petal here on the right. So while this part is drying, I will move on to the petal here at the right. And then if you could see that my brush stroke has changed. It's going upwards like this. I'm just following the shape of I'm just following the shape of the petal here. And then here we'll just soften this part before it will dry completely and here also. All right. And soften this same time, I'm utting this part. Going up whatever stroke that you are comfortable with either you're going up or going down, that's totally fine as long as you follow the shape of your petal. Because if you do not follow the shape of your petal, it will look flat. So be sure to follow your brushes. Follow the shape. Now, I will paint the upper part here. Well this is wet on dry. This is a small area, and we do not want to flow the water to the other areas that we don't want to add paint. I will wet this area, and then I will add more of pink here. All right, there. Now I will move on to this area, the upper middle. I'll still paint this wet on wet. Then there, I will add a thin stroke here the middle there and this time, I will be painting. You can see I'm painting this wet on dry and up to here, I will be painting this wet on dry. But I will still add more colors on this area. 16. Emphasizing the shape of the tulip head: This time, I will be still using the same coffee consistency of the inacon rose that I have here. But this time, I will be adding more colors and intensify the colors on some areas. I will start here. So this is another layer of kinagodon rose. And I will soften this brush stroke the same. Okay, and here I will add a little bit more there this time, soften this. Now here, I will be painting this wet on dry. I will just intensify the colors here. I will be starting here, the upper part. But this time, I will be doing this stroke, so that will be from up, going down, right, going left. If you are comfortable by going up, that's okay. As long as you follow the shape of your petal. I will just soften this brush stroke here and here as well. Then I will add more color here. And here, so there will be more intensity, color here. Then I would just soften my brush strokes here the bottom. Now, just using the tip of my brush to paint there you can see, it's still wet, so I'm still adding more color and intensity on this area that's still wet. If it's dry, that's okay. You can just rewet your paper like that. Okay, I'm adding more intensity on those areas that needs more color or shadows. Here, I will soften my brush throats. There. I will just leave it to dry, and then I will move onto the other side. Okay. Now I'm going to paint this area. I will just add more shadows on just some of the petal, some areas of the petal, but I won't paint the entire petal there and I will just soften this part. Okay. Soften this area. I will be focusing just on the sides because this is the part of the petal that has shadows. So we'll be focusing on just the sides here, going to the center. Then here and soften this there. Now I will go back to the center or the inner parts of the petal. I will paint this time wet on dry. And if you could see I'm not painting everything. I'm leaving some spaces. I'm just painting just the shadows. Then here, I will add more color. And I will paint this part, using the tip of my brush just wet on dry, intensifying the color here. And this is to show that there is a division of the petals. They're just painting the sides, adding more color to intensify. You can see now the shape of the tulip that this is inside, and this is curve. Now you can see the shape. I hope you can see that on your painting as well as you paint with me. This time, I will be adding more consistency on my pink hair. I will be getting more color of renagn rose, and this time it would be milk consistency. So this time, I will be using a thicker consistency. So I have my old brush to pick up color. Make sure that to progett your color first there. I'll be adding a little bit more. Just make sure that your consistency is not very thin. Sure the consistency is thicker this time. If you can see that your paint is moving slow, it means that you have a good milk consistency. So be just having that on my side. Then I will continue painting on the petals. Now I will be painting wet on dry instead of wet on wet. I will pick up more pink here or milk consistency, but make sure to have your bigger brush ready to soften the brush strokes. So this time, we'll be transitioning to the details. We are very close to ping the details. We're almost done with just the tulip. And then here, I will just paint on this side. My brush stroke. I want to here only. I won't paint everything. There are still part of the petal of this area or this area that is lighter. So just focus on the shadows itself and also use the tip of your brush as much as possible. Okay, and soften. All right. So always have your other brush ready to soften your brush strokes. There and soften here. And here as well. If your brush stroke is too dry like that, you can just dip your brush to water and remove the excess so you can have smooth brush strokes. It's too dry, it means. Your paint on your brush is also drying. So we need to wet your brush. And I have this always ready with me. If you notice I just soften. I just pre wet this because I will want to have smooth brush stroke. I prewt this also because it feels so dry. We are not going to paint the details yet, but we are very close in painting the details. We're almost done with painting this flower. Okay, and adding more color. Now, I will be adding more color intensify the color here. This is wet on dry. You notice that I did not bring the paper and adding more contrast can add shape and form. I'll be still doing what on dry, but I will be painting here. Still wet dry because this is a small area. I will be adding a little bit of lines here on the side there. I won't paint the right side this time, I will just leave it to dry. But later on, I will be adding a little bit more of color and more details. For now, we just move on to the stem and the leaves 17. Increasing the leaves' shadows: In painting the leaves, I will be starting here. I will be painting the darker areas. This time I'll be doing wet on dry, but always remember to have the other brush ready. So we're still using the same green that I used earlier. I will painting this area here. Now, I will just soften this area. I will be zooming in so you could see a little bit closer there. Now I will be adding more paint here in this area. Just on the left side. Here, I will just soften the brush a rope, but then I will still add more color on this side, there and soften. Now I will be painting on this side. Still wet on dry. And there I'm adding more color intensifying the color green. This time, I am pressing my brush a little bit to release the paint and now soften my brush strokes here. Now, while it's wet, I'm going to soften your brush stroll, make sure that have your bigger brush ready with you. Then soften this. Now I will be adding more color here on this side. It feels so dry, so I wet my brush. Then soften my brush ropes here. Then more color green. Just remember I am painting just the shadows. Here. If you are in this area, just be careful not to touch the other areas, just the inside part of the leaf. Okay. And here, slowly and carefully paint just the side here. That's why it's very important to have a pointed brush or you could use a smaller brush if you need to There it is. Now, it looks like this area is somehow has hard edge. I will just soften this. I will just wet this area to soften my brushtrokes there. And then I will still add a little bit, a little bit of color. Just a hint of a color there to have a smooth transition of the color of light and dark color here. There, and then still smoothing a little bit more. I'm good with that. Now I am going to paint the left side. Okay, now, I would like this to have a smooth and soft blend. So I will be painting this wet on wet. Okay. And adding more color intensifying the color of the part that has shadows only. Now soften the brushes for care and pit there. And here, adding more color on this area because it is the dark area of leaf. And adding more color on the sides. This time it's wet on dry. I'm just adding more color on the sides. So now you can see our stem stand out because we added shadows on the darkest area of this leaf. So now we can see that it is more up, and you can see that this leaf pushed backwards as we add more dark colors. I will add a little bit more of green this time on the left side of this leaf. This is wet on dry. But make sure that your brush is wet enough there. So now I will soften the Bthrok here there. So you have a lighter value of green here than on the left side. Now I will just use the same technique. Now I will add more green here. On the division of that and a bit here as well. And here. I will just soften my brush through on there. And this time here Okay. There go and soften a brush stroke. Okay. To smoothen. Okay. Now I will just leave it to dry. I will move on to the other leaf here. But before moving here, I will be mixing more green because I'm running out of green. Now, this is my thicker consistency of green. If you can see it flows. Slower. Okay. So this is milk consistency. This time, I will be focusing on the shadows. I will be starting here, since this is a big leaf, I will paint this what on what? I will be starting here. And I will add more of the green on the darkest area. Make sure to soften or to avoid the areas that should not be adding dark green. This time, I will just soften my brush through here. And also here I will add more We'll soften this area. Okay? Now I will be focusing on the dark green here. I'm softening my brush roofs there, but I will pre wet this area where I can add more shadows and I will soften this. When you paint this, make sure to look at your reference photo on your side. Now, this time, I will add more green here. And soften and soften there, and I will soften this area. I will add a little bit, run my brush there. I will soften this brush rose. This time, I will be painting wet on dry. But I will be adding just paint on the side of this leaf. Again, this is wet on dry, so we do not want our paint to flow on the other areas because a very thin folded area of the leaf. Okay there and also on this part. I will wet this brush a little bit. I will just dip it under water, remove the excess water, and then continue painting. So I have lighter value of the green. And you see I continued painting still wet on dry. Now I will be painting wet on dry on this side of the leaf. I will get my bigger brush and soften my brush rogues here. And there will soften my brushes rogue here. Then I will add more color on this part. If you could see I'm just using the tip of my brush and soften my brush rocks. There. Now I will be painting this area still wet on dry and soften my brush there and remove brush soap there. So here, we'll be adding more color I soften more color here. And then I will soften your brush roots here and here as well. I will add a little bit more of color here. And I will soften your brush roots there. 18. Adding saturation on the leaves: This time, I will be adding more and more color on the darkest areas of the leaves. I will be starting here. I will be painting this wet on dry. Okay. Now while it's wet, I will just soften my brush rocks there. Now here, I will add a little bit more of green just to outline. Then I will add more green here. All right. More green on the right side. There we go. I will just leave it to dry. And then I will there, and then I will paint the other side of the leaf. Now I'll be adding more green on this side. And won dry, this we're almost done. As you can see, we did not add more paint on the stem anymore. We just left it right that. And that's okay. There and painting more of dark colors on this side, wet on dry. There. I will just add a little bit tiny line here. Okay, there to outline the stem and here. I will add a little bit more of here just a little bit more Okay. There, I will leave the leaf like that. Now we're done with the leaf here. We are going to the stemp. This time, I will be painting this what on what? I will be focusing on the right side of the stem. That is dark, so I will just dip my brush into my water a little bit to lighten the value of the green there, and I will just continue painting. You can also mix the same green to the other wells that you have available, then add a little bit water to lighten your green. But if you can, you could just pick up color from your palette and then dip it to your water a little bit so that you can have a lighter value, and that's okay, too. There, I added shadows here and a little bit here on the left. I'm painting wet on dry this time. No, I will be painting this on wet. Okay. Now we'll add a little bit of water here to prepare and pick up more of green and add a little bit of green here. Again, if you can see, I just painting it just the shadows. I do not paint the entire stem with green. I just left the other parts of the stem unpainted. And this time here, I will have a shadow in this part. And I will just soften my brushes here to lighten. There I go. A little bit more of shadows there, and that is the stem. Now I will be moving on to the other leaf here that I have. I will be adding more green here, but I will be painting this what on What This is this is big area, and I want it to be I want it to be to have a lighter or to have a soft transition blend of colors. There I will soften my brush rose here. I will add more and more of green here, darken the shadows and also to help this part of the leaf on the left to stand out. Then I will soften the brush roofs here and re wet this area as well. And soften this area, wet in this area. And then soften this. Okay, there. I would like to add more green on this area. I need to add more shadows here. As you can see, I did not add more color on the other areas. I just added more green on some areas that needs more shadows. This time, I will add a little bit here, more green here. We are done with the step and the leaves, it looks like there is already shadows, it looks like under the sun and you can see the division of the leaves, how many leaves are there, you can see also the folds, and also you can see the stem that is popping up. Unlike earlier, that is, it's flat. Now, when we added the green or the darker green, it created more depth on our painting. This time we're going back to our tulip and I will be painting the details. 19. Painting the details: Well, this time, we'll be painting the details and we will be using milk consistency of conocidon rose, and I will start here at the middle. This is wet on dry. And she's using just the tip of my brush. There, and then I will soften our strokes. Now I will just paint here. This time, I will be painting this with following the petal or the lines of the tulip. So slowly painting the lines or the shape of our tulip will be softening this area. And there you go. And here, I loved this area because it has a lighter value of pink. So I loved it. And I continued painting here soften this area and soften and soften there. I will add more here. It's too dry, so will just soften my brush throw. It's too dry and I will wet my brush also. It has too much water. So I remove the excess water, using the towel here beside me. Okay. Always remember to always have a towel beside you when you paint or at least a paper towel and soften a brush throw. This time, I will be adding more color. Tiny amount. I will just went back to this area, adding a little bit more of color. And also, I will add I will start to paint a little bit of details. I will just dip my brush to my water to remove the excess paint to lighten the value. And then this time, I will paint with tiny lines here on the left, going to the right. And soften this part. If your brush feels dry, you could dip your brush to your water as long as you also remove the excess water from your brush. Soften I will add more color. So it's very important that you get to know your brushes because your brushes will help you in painting, and you will need to get to know your brushes, if your brush holds too much water, if your brush dries quickly or releases a lot of paint on the belly. When you press on it, you need to get to know your brushes. So while it's still damp, I added tiny lines of pink. Then I soften my brushes there. I will wet this area because it feels like this part is too light, and it's dry. I dip my brush into water. Okay, there we go. Now, I will be adding thin lines on this side of the petal. I will start start here. I will dip my brush to my water a little bit. There, remember to follow the shape of your tulip as you paint the lines here. You don't have to paint every line that you see on your reference photo, but as much as possible, add more lines. But you don't have to copy as it is. Okay. More color here. Little bit more overshadows here on this part, and here. It's could add more pink and here as well. And also this area. Adding more color here. And here as well. If you have a tiny brush, a size zero or two by zero, you could use that or like brushes for miniature painting, you could also use them. But if you have a pointed brush like this, well, it's also best so that you don't have to switch to a smaller brush. I just I dip my brush to my water a little bit because it feels dry. And then I continued painting. I add more color here and intensify. So here are just the details. This time, I will add here more color in this part. There go. Now I will add more paint and color to the shadows here. I will start here. Thicker consistency of our pinacdon rows. So you can see I'm painting now wet on dry instead of wet on wet. And I will be adding more shadows on the side of the petals. Okay. Now I will paint this area. Wet on dry. And adding more color and shadows here and here. Just adding outline of the color here. Then we'll dip my brush into water a little bit to lighten the value of the pink. Then I will add more color pink in this area. I still have painted my brush, so I'll just use whatever left on my brush to paint. Then we'll soften this area this brush roofs there. Then So I just lighten the value by dipping my brush into water one time and then use it to paint. Whatever paint left on my brush, that is what I use to paint that area. Okay. Now, this area is somehow like yellowish. So I will use the other color that we have here, the green gold. I still have the green gold here, so I'll just wet it and use a tiny amount to paint just here. That's it and a little bit ring gold here. And a little bit of green gold here. You think I added too much, just a tiny amount. I will try to live this time. Okay. There just to add a little bit of green gold on this area. This are finished tulip. If you are happy with this, that's okay. And if not, if you still want to add metallic inks, that's also good. 20. Adding metallic paint (Optional): This time, I would like to add metallic paint, and I will be using the core interference green blue shift. I will just pre wet. This is it. It looks translucent or white on my pen, but when you add it on your painting, it is very nice. I zip it a little bit so you can see the color. So I will just use directly from the pan. We just use directly from the pen. This is how it looks like. If you do not have this color, that's okay. You could use whatever metallic paint that you have. But here, I will just use this to paint and add on the areas of the leaves. I just use the old brush that I have here. So it will have a little bit of shine. And I will dt here also. And a little bit here. Again, this step is optional. If you do not have any metallic paints, that's okay. Then I will add a little bit here on the left. So you can see it's translucent on my pen, but once I add it here on my painting, it looks beautiful. And we'll add a little bit here on the stem as well. And this is how it looks like. Okay, you could see there is shine, right? And this is our finished tulip. I hope you enjoyed this class. 21. Wrap Up: You made it to the end. I'm so glad you're here and I'm truly proud of you. Congratulations on completing this class. Take a moment to pat yourself on the back. You did an amazing job. Painting a realistic flower like a tulip isn't easy. It takes patience, focus, and the willingness to follow each step with care. And you did just that. With every brush stroke, you brought more life and confidence to your watercolor journey. Remember to upload your class project here on Skillshare. I would love to see what you created. And if you share it on social media, tag me as well, so I can celebrate your beautiful masterpiece with you. Thank you so much for joining this class. I hope it brought you joy and growth, and I can't wait to paint with you soon.