Watercolor Florals for Beginners: Easy and Expressive Loose Flower Painting

2. Painting The Flowers: Let's gather the materials required for this painting. Make sure you have your watercolor paper, a medium round rush, I'm using a round rush from ii, and a palette of bright colors. I'm using a pan palette from imma. For this painting, we'll be using a wet on wet technique. So I have two small glasses of water and a paper towel handy. To begin with the area where you want your bouquet to bloom. This is called as the wet on wet technique where you apply paint to a wet surface. It allows the colors to flow and blend naturally creating soft transitions without hard edges. This is the secret to achieving that loose organic look in our floral composition. Now, it's time to bring our flas to life with color. Tip your brush into a selection of vibrant hues, pink, pinks, purples, yellows, and even a hint of orange or red for added depth. Here, I'll be using pink and purples. With your brush loaded with color, begin to gently tap it onto the wet areas. As you touch the paper, watch how the colors immediately begin to spread and blend into each other, creating soft organic shapes. This is the beauty of wet on wet painting. Now, I'm loading the next color purple and gently tap the brush on the wet areas and watch how the colors beautifully blend and bleed into one another. The water does much of the work for you, forming stunning, unpredictable patterns that resemble natural flower petals. Don't worry about making perfect or detailed flower shapes at this stage. Remember, the technique is about enjoying the process and allowing the paint to flow naturally on paper. So relax and have fun with it. See you again in the next section. 3. Painting The Leaves And Stem: Next, let's introduce some greenery to add balance and contrast to our composition. Start by loading your brush with different shades of green. Think light and bright greens for fresh leaves and enrich deeper greens for more mature foliage. As you apply greens around your flowers, keep your focus on brush strokes that are light and gentle. You want to suggest the shape of leaves without making them too detailed or rigid. Let the greens blend slightly with the colors of the flowers, allowing the edges of the flowers to soften gently with the shades of green. This will create a harmonious flow between the florals and the leaves, like the way the light filters through rear leaves in nature. As we continue to build our composition, think about balancing the different elements. Notice where the colors are more intense and where they are more subdued. In some areas, you might want to darken it to draw more attention. In some areas, you might want to lighten it or leave more white space to give the composition an airy light feeling. This technique is all about embracing the imperfections and letting your creativity take the lead, so relax and have fun with it. To give your bouquet a sense of grounding, we'll add some stems. Choose a shade of green and with a few controlled strokes, pull lines downwards from the base of the flowers. These lines don't need to be perfect or precise. They are merely suggestions of where the stems might be. The key is to keep the lines light and fluid rather than standing out too boldly. See you again in the next section. 4. Painting The Vase: Our flowers beautifully blooming. It's time to ground the composition by adding a vase. Start by choosing a cool color like a gray or a soft blue and outline the general shape of the vase. Remember the vase does not have to be symmetrical or detailed or perfect. A simple loose shape will keep the focus on the vibrant flowers. Now, take a damp brush and gently pull the pigments from the outlines of the vase inwards. Keep these strokes gentle and light. I'm adding a few subtle lines on the vase for details. Let's add a touch of blue on the wet surface of the vase. This will give the appearance of water, I'm using a damp rush to soften some areas which are darker to keep the appearance of the vase soft and light. Now let's add some more details at the base of the vase to make it look more three dimensional. Let's add shadow where the vase meets the surface. Use a shade of dark, gray or black for this step. This will give the appearance of a more grounded and a three dimensional vase. See you again in the next section. 5. Let's Add The Final Touches : Now that we have our main bouquet in place, let's add a few extra touches to bring more life and story to our painting. To give the impression that some flowers and leaves have naturally fallen from the vase, we'll paint a few petals and leaves scattered around the vase. Start by loading your brush with vibrant colors that we use in R bouquet and dab small, light, loose shapes near the bottom of the vase. These shapes don't have to be perfectly formed. Just suggestive enough to represent petals or leaves. Keep the strokes light and free flowing. You can also add shades of dark greens to give the appearance of shadows under the petals. Now, to define the vase a bit more, let's add a stroke of black paint along the edge. Load your brush with black, but be careful to apply it sparingly. Don't worry about making everything too precise. This adds to the loose natural feel of the composition. Finally, step back and take a look at your painting. If you feel like it needs more texture or details, you can always go back and add a few more leaves or petals. But remember, the goal here is to maintain that loose free flowing style. So try not to overwork the piece. See you again in the next section. 6. Final Thoughts : Congratulations on completing your loose floral composition. You've made it to the end of the class. This painting is not only fun, but also a great way to lose enough and let go of perfection. The wet on wet technique that we use in the painting is a great way to explore color and form in a more natural, spontaneous way. I encourage you to experiment with painting with different color combinations and brush strokes. Please upload your completed artwork to the project gallery section. I'd love to see how your bouquet turned out. You can follow me on Instagram, my Instagram handler, Jesina Underscore art for more daily watercolor inspirations. Until next time, happy painting.