Watercolor Botanicals- from Flower to Painting the Easy Way

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Ashley fish, a wash artist and surface pattern designer living in beautiful New Zealand. When I first started painting, I really struggled to get the shape of my flowers right. After years of practice, I have developed a foolproof way to get beautiful florals and I can't wait to share it with you by secret as to trace a photo of a flower onto watercolor paper using a watercolor pencil. That's why you can focus on the painting without having to worry about composition. Just get, I'll take you step-by-step from tracing through to a finished painting. We will learn wet on wet and wet on dry techniques, including watercolor bleeds, how to create soft and hard lines, adding texture and detail into your flowers, and also how to create beautiful transparent petals, which is actually much easier than it looks. I can't wait to share my signature heck with you. We can use this technique for anything from painting animals to landscapes. But today we're going to do florals. I can't wait for you to join me. 2. Supplies: There are too many supplies that you'll need to begin painting with watercolor. First app, you're going to need some paper. This is the paper that I like to use. It's a 300 GSM, 100% cotton paper. It's really nice and thick and has a bit of texture to it, which means that you get beautiful textures in your watercolor paintings and it holds the water really well. If you're just beginning, you won't need to use such a high-quality paper. Any watercolor paper will be fine, but do try to make sure that there's about 300 years or 140 pounds so that it's not going to walk them back or to match as you're painting. Brushes are another thing that you're going to need. I highly recommend getting a round watercolor brush. The beauty of a round watercolor brush is that you can use the side of that or to create nice wide shapes and cover a larger area. But you can also use the point of the brush to make really thin lines. It's a very versatile brush. And F2 are going to be buying one brush or using one brush for your painting. A round brush is a really great place to start. I like using the Princeton heritage range. I often use a number to four or six. And today I'm going to be using a number six for the paintings. For painting you will, of course, need paint. I have a few different kinds of watercolor paints that I use. When brands that I recommend when you're starting out are the Winsor and Newton Cotman watercolors. They are great quality in a really good, began to paint. I recently upgraded to the Winsor and Newton professional range. I also like using Daniel Smith watercolors and I have quite a few handmade watercolors that debate and New Zealand as well. Another thing that we're going to need as something to trace with. So for my Assignat to heck, I like to use a watercolor pencil. The beauty of a watercolor pencil is that you can trace around your flower and then use either water or paint to dissolve the line. Which means that even though you have started with an outline by the independent, no one knows if it was ever there. To take this class. You don't actually need a watercolor pencil. You can use an ordinary pencil. One thing with pencil. If you go over it with the watercolor paint, you won't be able to erase it. So you need to keep in mind, if you're using a normal pencil, that you will want to stay within the pencil lines. Another pin that you could use as a waterproof pen, similar to a micron pin. These are really good. You will be left with the line in your painting. So as you trace that, you will need to make sure that you're happy with that line before you start painting, that it is a really cool effect as well. You're going to need a jar of water I like to use for big petal jar, some people will use a mug or a glass, doesn't matter as long as you have some clean water for activating your paint endurance in your brushes. And I also like to keep a paper towel on hand for wiping up any mistakes in resting my brushes on. The only other thing that you might need for this class as an iPad and Apple pencil for tracing your flower. But if you don't have these, don't worry. I have photos as well as the outlines in the resources section. So if you don't have an iPad, you can print these off and use them that way. If you don't have a printer, that's fine as well. You can just draw the outline as best you can on a piece of paper with a marker and then use that for tracing. I'm going to go over some different tracing techniques for whether you have an iPad or using a window. 3. Tracing your photo: I have two tracing techniques to show you today. Firstly using an iPad and secondly with paper and a window. So this is the Procreate on my iPad and I have opened a photo of a flower I have taken while I was out on a walk, which is what we're going to trace. To make a trace, I will click the Layers panel and the top right and click the plus sign to add another layer on top of the flower photo, as we don't want to draw on the photo layer back on the main screen to exit layers and our tip the pencil up the top to make sure I have a solid pain selected. Circle on the top rack to select the color. I want black. So I'll double-tap and the black part of the circle. I'm also going to tap the top slider on the left to check my brush size is I want to make sure it's a good size. Now that we're all set up, up again, a rough sketch as a guideline for our painting. To do this, I will trace around the flower to get a clear outline. This trace does not need to be perfect. It's just to give you a guide to work from to get your flower shape. I'm looking right. You can find this flower photo and the outline in the Resources tab back out the top right and to the Layers panel and uncheck the box beside the flower. You can now see that we haven't outlined to work from. I'll now save this as a photo. To do this, you click the spinner on the top-left, then click Share, then click JPEG and save it onto your iPad. Then go and open this up from photos. This makes it a bit easier so that you don't accidentally draw in Procreate while you're trying to trace, zoom the photo to be the size that you want your painting to be. Another trick is to turn your iPad, brighten this up so that when your watercolor paper is on top, it's still easy to see the black line. I place my paper on top of my iPad like this. And I think you should be able to see, especially if I cast a shadow on it, I'll make that forget again. You should be able to see that you can see the line through the paper. We can now trace the line onto the paper using a watercolor pencil. I'm going to do quite hard line that you can see easily, that you don't need to do a hard line. It just needs to be a guide for you to see the petal shape and see where on the page your flower will be setting. This outline is just for composition, but you won't see it in the final piece. So follow the line, nice angel. Actually, if you are using a normal pencil, you'll want to go really lightly. If you're using a waterproof pin, this will show in the final painting. So you need to make sure you're careful with your lines. Aloof that iPad away and you'll be able to see that we have a lovely outline that we can use to paint our flower. This is the same process that I use for painting animals and landscapes. So it's a really versatile technique to learn. If you don't have an iPad, you can use a window. This is a really easy way to achieve the same result. Simply printed the outline I have given you or draw your own. Take the paper with the outline onto the window in the watercolor paper on top and trace it that way. You can use this technique to trace your own photos of flowers. And the thing that is really important to know is that if you want to sell your artwork, you can't trace photos that you have found on the internet. Please make sure they are photos that you've taken yourself. 4. Painting your flower - wet on wet technique: Now for the fun part, painting your flower. I'm using my number six round brush and have my outline ready to go so that I can focus on painting and not worry about the shape of my flower. I've wet my brush and a roll it in my dry watercolor paint to pick up the color. With paint on my brush. I will go around the age of one petal quickly so that it doesn't dry. As I paint around the edge, the watercolor pencil will blend into the paint so that we won't see it. If you have used a dark watercolor pencil, you may need to go over it a little bit more to help it blend in. You can do this by rubbing the width or painful to brush over the line gently until it disappears. I'll dip my brush in some clean water to paint the center of this petal. Or touch this water to the edges to ensure the whole petals wet. The next step is to enter the paint again and use this to paint around the outer edge of the width petal to create a darker edge. This is a wet on wet technique using wet paint on the wet paper, which creates a lovely soft bleed of color with no hard lines. It's really important to do the state where the petal is still wet to ensure that we get a nice soft effect. While the petal is still wet, I'm going to enter a darker color and dab my brush gently into the center of the petal. This creates another watercolor bleed, this time between two different colors. The paint will gradually spread within the petal, creating a lovely bleed. As we paint to the center, we can use the jagged pencil line to help guide us to leave the center unpainted. As you do this, you will notice that the paint only spreads into the area of the page that are already wet and won't bleed into the dry areas of the page. We're using the same technique for the next pixel, I will dip my brush into the paint and follow the outline around the edge of the petal into some water to fill the middle of this petal. Making sure that I take the water all the way to the edge to create a beautiful soft bleed. Just like last time, I'm going to dip into the paint again and use the wet on wet technique to Devis n around the edge of the petal, creating a dark edge of the petal and enlightened middle. And again, I would enter the dark paint, which I will dive into the middle edge of the petal to create another blade. It's important to do this one petal at a time to make sure your petal is still wet while painting them. If you paid all the petals together, they are likely to dry before you get each step down. I'm going to use the same technique for the next three petals. So I'll speed this up. Feel free to hit pause if you need to, or replay my painting of the first two petals. If you want to follow along. Once you have finished your final petal, it will wait until the flower is completely dry before we move on to the next step. 5. Erasing and lifting colour: One trick that I thought I could show you while our flowers are drying as how to remove or erase watercolor. This is really handy for when you exited the drip paint where it's not meant to be. For this, I like to use a paper towel or absorbent cloth. If we exit negate a drip on our page, we can debit with the paper towel to lift the color. I would debit with my paper towel. Then I'll get some clean water and pop that on top. Can you use the towel to lift us again? You can repeat this until the paper is clean. If you're using a textured paper, you may need to give the whip brush a little rattle on the page to help loosen the pigment from the paper. You can also use this technique. But if you have painted a petal and it ended up a bit flat with no interest. If you want to lighten the middle of the petal, you can drop some water and to move the color and then dab in the middle with your paper towel and it will lift the color up, creating a pretty ombre effect. You can experiment with how much water and how much Debbie can you do to achieve their fit? You are after. You see that if I soak up most of the water with my paper towel, it will almost erase the petal. 6. Wet on dry technique - finishing touches: This is looking a little bit drier. It's not perfectly dry, but that's okay. We're going to paint the center of the flower now. And I think I've gotten to do it a different color to the photo for a little bit more contrast. I have chosen a pretty yellow and I'm going to do a light wash over this whitespace here. Is the pink paint is dry. We can touch it to the edge without the risk of the pink paint bleeding into the yellow. The center of the flower is often a bit darker. So while my yellow is still wet, I'm going to dab some of the color into the center. To achieve this darker effect. I have more paint and less water on my brush. Now that it's dry, I'll add a few extra details using the tip of my round brush. I can use my round brush on the side to create wider strokes. But I can also use the point to create a very thin strokes. I'm going to paint a few stripes on each petal, with the stripes following the line of the petal pointing all the way towards the center. If you paint them sideways like this, it will look a bit funny. So make sure you're pointing them towards the middle of the flower. I will also paint a stamen with the side of my brush, making a thicker line on the pink part of the petal. I also want a bit more detail, so I'll use some of the darker pink paint. I've used this water and a bit more paint and I've made sure it's not dripping. And I'm going to add some pretty dots to each petal by dabbing the tip of my brush gently. This is a wet-on-dry technique. Using the wet paint on my brush. The dry paint on the paper. You can see there was a little white patch on the paper which is starting to bleed a little bit. You will notice that we get a very different effect using width on dry than we do using wet on wet. I love using both techniques on the one painting to add extra interest in detail. And now that's this flower done. I can't wait to see what you have painted along with me. Please make sure you upload your painting to the project section so we can all take a look at your beautiful work. 7. Transparent petals - Wet on dry: We are on to our second flower now, and I'm going to use the same technique to trace this daisy, the flower photo and outline and the resources. And I'm tracing it using my watercolor pencil. I'm going to use a slightly different technique for this one. And we will create some beautiful transparent petals where they overlap. You can use any color, but I'm using blue. We will use the same color for every petal. I've loaded my brush with paint, and first of all, I will paint the petals that are on the top. You can see that I'm using a blue paint and a peach pencil and they will blend together nicely. For this technique, I like to do an even wash of watery paint. I'll skip this petal here and paint the next one. And the same way, doing an outline and water to fill in the center. I'm making sure I'm painting petals that aren't touching. We need some patients with this technique is we need each petal to dry before painting over it to achieve the transparent effect. This technique can look quite fancy. Wagons it's done, but it's actually very easy to do. I'll paint this first layer of petals that aren't touching and then wait for them all to dry. Now they are dry and I'm going to use the same color. Again. I'm going to follow the line of the petal around the same as last time, but this time it's going to overlap over the top of the painted petals. Can you see the transparent effect? We have two petals next to each other, so just pick one petal to paint. Having the watercolor pencil outline really helps with this to make sure your petals are nicely spaced and all pointing in the right direction. Your petals don't need to be perfect. Imperfections are part of the character and can help the flower look more realistic. Once you've painted as many as you can around the flower without the pace was touching. Please let it dry again. We are now onto our last layer of petals. This is the same as the last two layers. We will follow the petal shape around painting and even wash of color working our way around the flower. And then we will wait for it to dry again. Now that all of the petals are dry, we can paint the center of the flower. I'm using yellow again, one of my favorites. Instead of painting a round circle in the middle, I'm going to dab my brush like this. Even though this isn't a realistic looking flower, I think let's add some texture and interest compared to doing an even wash of yellow in the center. I'll grab some more paint to dab some darker bits and you can even choose a different color, perhaps brown or orange. I'm going to use brown to dab some tiny dots to create a pretty color bleeds and texture. Now, this flower has done to us is such a fun technique and I can't wait to see the beautiful transparencies in your flower. I would love you to share these in the project section of this class is that we can all see of beautiful paintings that you have created. 8. Conclusion rode upload: Thank you so much for joining me and painting the beautiful flowers. I can't wait to see the wonderful florals that you have painted using my signature heck with a watercolor pencil to trace the outline. I really hope that you enjoyed today's class and picked up some wonderful tips and tricks and new techniques to use in your watercolor paintings. If you have some paintings that you would like to share, I would love for you to pop them into the project section so that we can all take a look. If you're wanting to share them on social media, please give me a tag at Ashley for studio and also gives Skillshare tag to add Skillshare, we would love to see your work. Please make sure you also give me a follow so that you can be notified when I have any future classes posted. I hope you have had a wonderful class with me today and thank you so much for joining me.