Sunflower Watercolor Painting Class (Loose Sunflower)

1. Introduction and Background: At dawn, whole fields of sunflowers stand at attention all facing East, and begin their omens with the rising sun. As that special star appears to move across the sky, young flowers follow its light, looking up then over and Westward, catching one final glance as the sun disappear over the horizon. At night, in its absence, the sunflowers face East again, anticipating the sun's return. But the mystery doesn't stop there. Once sunflowers reach maturity, the number one question arise, why did they stop tracking the sun and only face the East? I don't know the answer, but I'd like to think that God placed this beautiful and one of a kind flower on earth to teach us life's beautiful lessons. Hello, my name is Ginny, a watercolor and calligraphy artist from the Philippines. Welcome to my sunflower watercolor painting class. On this class, we will learn how to paint and capture the beauty of sunflowers. Choosing the right colors, studying strokes, and learning different watercolor techniques are few of the most important lessons that you will learn on this class. At the end of this workshop, we will paint a beautiful sunflower floral arrangement that you can surely hang on the walls of your home. I know you guys are excited, so let's get started. 2. Materials: Hello. First, before we proceed with the painting and everything that we have to learn today, I'm going to share with you the materials that we have to use for this class. First is brushes. Today I'm going to use these three brushes, the silver black velvet, Size 8, silver black velvet, Size 6, and the golden natural blend from Silver Brush Limited as well. It is in Size 10 and it's ultra-round silver. If you don't have these brushes, you can use any round brush in Size 8, 6, or 4. It depends on how big your artwork would be, but any round brush from Size 4-10 is okay. Then you would need a smaller brush that could be size 2, 1, 0, or double zero. Again, it's up to you and it depends on how big your artwork would be. But if you're going to do an art work in size A4, I would suggest that you use these sizes. Now, for the paper, I'm going to use a watercolor paper which is 100% cotton acid free from Arto by Campap. You can use any watercolor paper as long as it's cold pressed. I would suggest that for the final artwork you would use 100% cotton paper, but if you don't have one, you can use Canson Montval or Fabriano 25% cotton or anything that has similar texture to those papers. Another thing that we need for the class is a glass of water, and we also need some tissue paper or rug, so whatever is available with you. For the colors, these are the colors that we need. First is yellow ocher, so any yellow ocher is okay, whether it's number 2 or number 1. So yellow ocher and then we also need Vandyke brown and a shade of sepia for our core. Then for the leaves, we got undersea green or olive green that would be okay and rare green Earth or any shade of green plus a shade of gray. This is a grayish shade of green that's why I want you to have a shade of green if you don't have this color. That's all the materials that we need and let's start painting. 3. Watercolor Techniques: For the watercolor techniques, we have two kinds of techniques today. First is the wet-on-wet technique. Wet-on-wet technique is when you create a stroke, let's say this is the first stroke and I'm going to create another one here. Let's say this stroke is still wet and then I added another stroke on top. What happened? The brown did not create a very visible stroke on top of the yellow because the yellow is still wet, and that's what you call wet-on-wet technique. For the wet-on-wet technique, we can use that on the sunflowers score, so like this. There's a wet Van **** brown and then they I added another wet, which is a sepia. here created a visible wet-on-wet effect on my artwork. Another technique is the wet-on-dry technique. For the wet-on-dry technique, let's say I created a stroke earlier and now it's already dry, and I will be adding another stroke on top. As you can see, the brown stroke that they did is not mixing with the yellow stroke. That is because the brown stroke, which is wet, is placed on top of a dry stroke, which is the yellow one. We can use the wet-on-dry technique when creating details on our sunflower like this. That's how you use the wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry technique. 4. Painting Leaves: Let's now proceed with the leaves. Leaves are very easy, yet they add a lot of beauty on your editorial. The easiest way to do a leaf is to do this slow. First is thick and then left. You can spread your color. Again. let's say you have a stem already thick and then left. That's it. That's your leaf. For sunflowers, it's a bit complicated but not super hard. Let's say you created this leaf. You just need to add some extra strokes around it just to add details and just to copy the illusion of sunflower leaves. That's the first option to do that. Another option is to do the two-stroke leaf. First, you need to create thick and then thin and then create another partner for that. Again, thick then left, thick and then close. When you're done with that, again, you're going to do this, add details, imperfection and stuff. That's it. That's your first leaf. The second leaf is somehow the same as this one, but smaller. You can use smaller brush or you can just control the stress that you're giving to your brush so that you can create smaller leaf. Here. What I want you to do with this is first create a thin stroke that there if not straight and then create small leaves around it. It is advisable to create smaller stems that they're not beside each other. Don't make it look like there's a pattern. Don't do this. It's not very attractive to look at. As much as possible create imperfections in variance between your leaves and your strokes. Let's say you're already done with this. You can add darker shade of green on one side just to add depth on your leaves. But this one is optional. It's up to you if you want to do that. Another leaf is eucalyptus leaf. Now for the eucalyptus leaf, it is nice if you will use a gray shade of green. For me, I love using rare green earth, but you can also use oxide chromium if you don't have rare green earth. Oxide chromium is more common on watercolor palettes than the Daniel Smith rare green earth. How do you do the eucalyptus leaf? First, create a thin stroke and then press your brush. It should be imperfect again. There should be small leaves like partners and sometimes there could be flower. It's up to you, but this is the general idea of the eucalyptus leaf. Again, Let's do it. Thin and then press your brush. Press. The shape of the leaf is oval. That's it. That's your eucalyptus leaf and this is your leaves. Let's now proceed with the filters. 5. Painting Fillers: Fillers are very easy and they are not so important but they add a lot of glam to your arrangements. For now, we're going to use a shade of blue. I'm going to use Payne's blue-gray, but you can use any shade of blue. Just add a bit of gray if it's too bright. Payne's blue-gray, it's a bit dark and a good shade of blue that's why I love using it. For our fillers, we'll just use a thin brush and then create random strokes like this. You can also use different shades, different tones of your color while doing the filler. Just like that, random thin strokes using the mixture. You can also use butter mixture, it's up to you. Then using a small brush. For now I'm going to use the number 2 brush of silver-black velvet. I'm going to get a shade of green and connect these strokes that I did earlier. Just like that. You don't have to connect everything. Just create a line, I mean, in the middle and then you can add small leaves outside. You can also add extra strokes. That's it. That's our fillers. So easy, right? 6. Painting Sunflowers: Now that we're done with the leaves and the filler and other watercolor techniques that you have to learn, we will now study how to paint our main event, which is the sunflowers. For sunflowers, some of my students before are telling me that sunflowers are hard because no matter how hard they try, it doesn't look like a sunflower. There are reasons why their sunflower doesn't look like a sunflower. Sometimes their petal is too long compared to their core. Example, this is their core and this is their petal. At first glance, you would think, oh, she's doing great. The strokes are nice. It's clean and perfect and all, but when you're done, you would notice that it doesn't look like a sunflower. Why? Because the petals are too long compared to the size of the core. Always remember that sunflower has big cores and shorter petals compared to the seas and cone flowers. Sunflowers have shorter petals. That is one thing that you should always remember. Now, let's try painting a sunflower. First thing that you need to do is the core, of course, because this will determine how long will be your petal. I'm using Van **** brown and this is a size 6, black velvet brush. I'm just dabbing my brush and trying to leave a bit of whitespace just to create highlights on my core. Not so much whitespace, just a bit. Always leave strokes like this. The imperfection will make your art repeat here. When you're done with your first wash, which is Van **** brown, you can now add a bit of sepia on the outer part of your sunflower, and not just on the outer part. This is a bit of sepia outside. You will also create a small circle in the middle. There is another core inside your core. I love using wet on wet technique for the core but actually you can also use wet on dry, but it is more complicated sometimes because every stroke is already visible. Unlike with wet on wet, your colors will mix softly. We're okay with the core and we'll just let it dry before we add the petals. While waiting for it to dry, I'm going to show you how we do the petals. It's like doing a leaf. I'm using a size 8 black velvet here, thick, and then leaf, and then give it a part. This stroke is done if your brush is too small compared to the artwork that you're doing,. But actually you can also do petal using just one stroke. With this size of core, my size 8, black velvet is enough to create a petal using one stroke. Let's try it. Thick and then leaf. Now, another thing that you also have to remember is that you should not put the next petal beside the petal that you did because it's still wet and it might ruin its shape. Sometimes it's okay to have a ruined petal because it adds art on your artwork, but try to avoid it as much as you can. You can do this. A petal with a different shape. Let's say you're okay with this batch. You can now clear your brush and just use the mixture for the second batch of your petals. You can also start with the mixture and then add milk or water mixture on the second or third batch. I'm going to go back to milk mixture. Fill all the spaces. It's okay to overlap. Let's say I'm done already. Now, there are still whitespaces on some parts. I'm just going to cover this area. There are still whitespaces here. You see my Van **** brown and a small brush. I'm going to create some small lines. Cover some of the white area that's left. That's it. That's how you do the sunflower. Let's wait for it to dry and then later on, I'm going to share with you another detail that you can add on your sunflower. For the next sunflower, I'm going to paint a side view sunflower. We have the stem here. Just get some yellow ocher and create upstrokes. Again, use variety of shades when doing the petals. For this one, you really have to cover all the whitespaces here. That's it. You can now add a stem. I think our first sunflower is already dry. A detail that you can add is like this. You can add a thin, thick, thin stroke on some of the petals. Sometimes it won't be very visible because, again, we use different mixture and some of the mixture are already dark. It's okay. That's it. You just have to wait for it to dry. This one could be done on wet on wet or wet on cold. Again, cold is not too wet but not too dry like this. Sometimes it could lead and it's okay. Because again, imperfection will make your artwork prettier, unless you're aiming for the neat kind of artwork. That's it. Let's proceed with our final project, which is painting a sunflower arrangement. 7. Sunflower Floral Arrangement Part 1: Now let's proceed with painting our final output, which is a floral arrangement of sunflowers. For the colors, I'm going to use yellow ocher from a jello and Van **** brown from a jello as well, and sepia brown from Schmincke, paints blue-gray from Daniel Smith. For the greens, I am going to use undersea green from Daniel Smith, rare green earth from Daniel Smith, and shadow green from the jello. Now let us start painting. First I'm going to paint the core, and for the core, I'm going to use golden natural blend. Since I'm going to paint a little bit side view sunflower, I'm not going to create a perfect circle core, instead it's a bit oval. Then I'm going to fill it with dots. But at the same time, I'm still leaving white spaces. Dot, dot, dot, leave a bit of white spaces. Now for the outer part, I'm going to use sepia brown or sepia, whichever is available for you, and I'm going to fill some of the parts with sepia, still using the same brush. We're done with the core and we'll just going to let it dry before we move on to the next part, which is the petals. Since our core is a bit dry already, not too dry, but not too wet also, it's just cold, I can now put my petals. Remember for the petals, you don't have to put the next petal beside the last petal that you created because sometimes it's still wet and it might damage your artwork. Also, another reminder is the size of your petal should not be too long. It could be big, but not too long because it should balance the size of the core and the size of your petals. I'm making my sunflower to this direction. That's why my petal is not too straight. Let's wait for it to dry. Then around the petal, I'm going to put Van **** brown, just small lines. Let's wait for this one to dry. Then while we're waiting, we could add some of the leaves. I'm going to use the black velvet again and add big leaves around my sunflower. For difference leaf, I am going to mix undersea green and Van **** brown. Then I'm going to add some depth using shadow green. You can also use Van **** brown for this one. Then using a smaller brush, which is size 6 of silver black velvet, I'm going to add smaller kinds of leaves. I'm going to add a bit of the eucalyptus here, and I'm using rear green dirt for that. I'm going to mix a bit of the undersea green just to add details on our eucalyptus leave. We'll add one here also. I'm just going to wait for this part to dry and then we'll proceed to the other side of our floral arrangement. Now that our first part is already dry, I'm going to add another sunflower on this side. Same process, I'm going to start with the core. For this one, I'm going to make it a full face sunflower. It's going to be a circle core. Then again on the side part and on the center. I'm going to let this dry and then I'm going to proceed with the other details. Now let's add petals. Then I'm going to go back to the core and add some details just like what we did earlier. Now I'm going to proceed again to the leaves. Bigger leaves, again, of course. If you do not have undersea green on your palette, you can use olive green. Don't feel pressure, if you have different colors in mind, it's okay. Also you can mix colors to arrive on the palette that you wanted. 8. Sunflower Floral Arrangement Part 2: So now we are done with this part. I'm going to add some more leaves around my second sunflower. So this is what it looks like now. I'm going to add small sunflower here before I add the filler. For this one, I'm going to use a smaller brush, which is size 6. Same procedure. Then I'm going to go back to the core. To add more details on our artwork, I'm going to add a bit of fillers. So I'm going to use Payne's blue gray from Daniel Smith for our fillers. So this is a muted shade of blue. I'm going to connect that using a shade of green, which is undersea green. So just create thin lines so you can add small leaves. I'm just going to add some leaves here. So I'm just going to add some more details here just to make this area full. That's it, that's our sunflower arrangement. 9. BONUS: Sunflower Composition with Background: Hello everyone. Welcome to the bonus topic of our sunflower watercolor class and I'm so excited because for this part we're going to paint this beautiful sunflower with background composition that I am sure you guys will love. Before we begin, here are the materials that we're going to use for this bonus topic and later on I am going to discuss with you how we're going to use these materials. Let's begin. First we're going to use the spray bottle to spray water all over our paper and we are doing this so that the water will spread evenly and it will be easier for us to distribute the color later on when we place some color on our brush. Now, once done, you will spread the water using your flat brush and for the flat brush I am using the silver black velvet flat brush. Just keep on spreading until you think that the whole area is covered. But I want you guys to leave a little bit of margin on some sides because we're not going to create a full background. Now using my shade of green, which is undersea green, I'm going to fill my brush with the team mixture of my color and I will spread it as my background. On this part I want you guys to be carefree. It doesn't have to be equally distributed. Actually, it is better if some parts are a little bit darker compared to the other. As long as it doesn't look awkward, just read the color as you want it. As you can see here, there are some areas that are a little bit dark and I'm distributing it but still I'm leaving some darker shade on some areas. While our background is still wet we're going to add some leaves to create a wet on wet effect on our painting. This will give an illusion that there are some leaves at the back part of our painting. Once done, get your paints, blue-gray or indigo, and we will add some blue dots on our painting. This will give an illusion that there are some fillers at the back part of our composition. Make sure that your background is still wet while doing this. Now it's time to get your yellow ocher or yellow ocher number 2, and this time we are going to add sunflowers. This will give an illusion, again, that there are some flowers at the back part of our painting and because our background is still wet, it will be dissolved and won't be very visible later on. Of course, we need core for our sunflowers so I'm using Van **** brown for the core but I'm not going to make it detailed because it's just for the background. We'll let for this layer to dry first and then once it's dry we're going to add the main layer. Since my background layer is already dry, I got my Van **** brown here and I'm now going to create the core of my sunflower. Now I want you to remember that for this bonus class I would like you guys to be carefree and not to make your painting look clean, just make it raw and express yourself through your art. This is my core and I'm going to add a little bit of sepia on some parts. This is the base layer of my core and now I am adding some sepia on the center of my core to add a little bit more of detail. Now it's time to add the petals. For the petals I will be mixing my raw umber and my yellow ocher number 2 so you may mix raw amber and yellow ocher if you don't have yellow ocher number 2. If you want your petals to be bright, you can just use yellow ocher. I want mine to be a little bit darker, that is why I'm mixing it with raw amber. For the petals, I am using the black velvet in size 4 and for the strokes it's the usual strokes for sunflower petals. Again, as I have said earlier, I want you guys to be carefree. Don't overthink about the petals or the strokes that you are creating. Just make it look like a petal and then leave it that way. Later on, we're going to fix everything and make it more detailed. For now, just create petals and I want you guys to use different water and color ratio for each of your petals to create variation and also to give highlights and depth to your painting. Now I am done with the base layer of my sunflower. Now, as you can see, it's very raw and that is okay. Let's move on to the next part. For this part, we are going to add some details on the core, just a little bit dots of Van **** brown. Then after that, I am now going to add the leaves. For the leaves I switch to a bigger brush and this one is called the golden natural ultra round in size 16 and for my leaves I am using mainly the undersea green by Daniel Smith and to make it a little bit darker I am mixing it with my paints, blue-gray, which is the same color that I used earlier for my fillers. Now for the leaves itself I am just, again, being carefree and making it look very raw. Just express your feelings through your leaves and add it on the areas that you think needs a little bit more leaves. Don't feel like you have to copy everything that I am doing. I want you guys to express your creativity, especially on this part, and feel free to apply everything that you have learned on the past lessons that we have studied. It is better if you will mix different water and color ratio for your leaves and also mix different size oftenly used for your composition. Add big leaves and add a little bit of small leaves as well and also add those thin lines that I always create on my composition. I want you guys to apply that as well. I'm almost done with my leaves and I hope you are done as well. Now I am switching my brush to my silver black velvet liner brush and size 1, and I will use this brush to create random thin and thick lines using the same shade of green that I used earlier. This is somehow a filler for my composition and this gives an effect that there are some tiny branches on my painting. Now, this is where I will put our next subject, which is another sunflower. Now as usual, I'm using Van **** brown for the core of the sunflower. Again, be carefree, you don't have to make it 100% correct on your first try because later on you can correct it once we add the details. Just create your sunflower as you know how it is created and then later on we'll just add some details around it. Now I am adding some dots on the border of my core for the first sunflower that I have created. This is one of the details that I would want to add on my sunflower. Now, on the petals of my sunflower, I am just using the same brush, which is the size number 4 silver black velvet. Again, I am doing it in a carefree manner. As you can see, it's not perfect and it actually just looks like a blob, but later on you will see how I will give details and give life to this sunflower. Now we'll add the leaves for our second sunflower. You can follow what I'm doing, but you can also create your own way of creating leaves. I want you guys again to express your creativity on this part. I am just adding random leaves on the area. If you feel like your composition is imbalanced, I want you guys to step back or get your phone and take a photo of your painting. You will notice where you should add the leaves to make your composition more balanced. I always do that technique, especially if I am using the same color all throughout the composition. That technique really help me balance everything. I'm now adding a raw umber on my second sunflower because this thing will help me have depth to my petals, which is earlier a blob. As you can see, it really improved. Now, I am going back to my first sunflower and I'll add more details on the edge of my core. I want you guys to do the same. To add more details on my sunflower, I am using a detail brush and a milk mixture of my yellow ocher and adding some random thin lines on my petals. As you can see, it really gives a nice effect and separation between my petals. Again, you don't have to add the tiny lines on every petal. Using my filbert brush, I am adding my fillers. This is a concentrated version of my paints, blue-gray or this is the butter mixture of my paints, blue-gray and I'm just pressing my brush creating a stamp effect on my painting. As you can see, it's so nice and the shape of my brush is really cute and adds a lot of details on my painting. I am getting my undersea green and I will connect these fillers using my detail brush. I switch back to my liner brush and loading it with Van **** brown mixed with undersea green and I am just creating this random thin and thick lines, the same thing that I used earlier, and I'm creating this effect on my composition. Again, this is a filler, if you don't have a liner brush, you can use any detail brush as substitute. Since the core of my second sunflower was consumed by the petals, I am adding another layer of my Van **** brown for the core and re-establishing my core. Same procedure. Just add Van **** brown and a little bit of sepia on the core of your sunflower. Now I'm getting my raw umber and my detail brush and adding the tiny lines to separate some of my petals from each other. This is a nice detail that I also did earlier actually. For the final detail, I'm getting the bottom mixture of sepia and adding dots on the edge of my second sunflower core. We are done. Congratulations for completing this project and thank you so much for watching the bonus topic of this class. I am so excited to see your project, so I hope you can upload it on the project section of this class. Again, thank you so much and I'll see you on our next class. Bye. 10. Final Thoughts: Thank you so much for attending my class. I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. I'm excited to see all the artworks that you have created. Please do submit them on the class project section of this class. If you have questions, you can send it on the discussion section of this class. Lastly, I would really appreciate if you guys would leave a review for this class. You can do it by typing your review on the review section of this class. Thank you so much and see you on my next classes.