Watercolor Florals for the Soul

1. Introduction: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the class Watercolor Florals for the soul. Here, we take a fun, loose and intuitive approach to painting florals. Watercolors can be a medium that is calm and meditative to play with once the stress of mastering techniques and learning skills is put to the side. That is what I to help you with in the lessons that follow. First, we decode the principles of painting that help create stunning artworks and I present these to you in a way that is sun and digestible so that anyone can easily follow along. Only very basic watercolor supplies, such as a few paint brushes and a beginner set of paints is necessary for this class. After learning the concepts of floral artworks, I will walk you through three demonstrations. By the end of this class, you will be able to come up with your very own watercolor compositions and styles. I hope you'll join me in this class, and I can't wait to see what you'll create. 2. Materials: Let's talk about the materials that we need for our artworks today. The first one is watercolor paint. So paints come primarily in two formats for watercolors. The first is pan set like this one, and the second is tube format. So if you have watercolor tubes instead of pants, that's fine, as well. You just need to squeeze out a bit of paints onto your color palette. And use those paints with a bit of water on the brush. If you have pants with dried colors like here, you can activate the color with a bit of water on a paintbrush. The second thing we need is mixing palettes. So these tiny wells on this side, as well as the bigger wells here, help me mix colors. You could also use a ceramic palette if you don't have an in built palette or watercolor paint set, or you could even use a dining plate as a substitute for mixing palettes. The next supply we need it is a clot towel, and you can substitute this with paper towel. This helps to absorb excess water off the paintbrush when you just dab the paintbrush lightly onto the cloth like this. The third supply we need are watercolor paint brushes like these ones, and a jar of clear water. And of course, we need paper, and the paper should ideally be 300 GSM. That's the weight of the paper that I will use, or anything above that is fine. The reason we need a heavyweight paper is so that it doesn't buckle when we put too much water. Usually, the watercolor papers we prefer are 100% cotton, but that's not necessary. These paintings, we don't do too many layers, so it's fine if you have a cellulose paper. When you CM walk you through the demonstrations, you will notice that I sometimes use these marker pens for my demonstrations. But these are an optional supply that you do not need to have. I also use a water brush just for ease and recording my process, but you could also just use a traditional set of paintbrushes. It's not necessary to have a water brush. Those are all the materials and I will see you in the lessons. 3. Concept: Loose Flowers: Hi, everyone. In this lesson, we are going to see how we can create shapes for the flowers. I will be using a single pigment as well as my water brush. So first, I mix some color, and I get started by blocking in the center of my flower shape. There are a few things that we can vary when making a flower, and this will give us a wide variety of flowers to choose from. For now, I just make a circle. This is going to be the center of my flower. Next, I draw out some petals from the center. So this is my first petal, and I have given it a rounded edge. A second petal And before I continue, I would like to block in the opposite petals to this one because this gives me an idea for where and how much spacing there should be between the petals. So these two are opposite to the first two that I made. And let me make one more here. So this is going to be an eight petal flower. The number of petals is something that you can vary. What you practice when you follow along with this demonstration can be different. You do not need to do things the exact way that I'm doing it. So for this first flower, I'm going to color the inner parts of this flood with just a solid gray color. You could choose to keep it empty like it was before or you can fill it in with color like I just did. It's up to you. Now, one of the things that you can vary, which I will vary now is the size of the center. So I make a very small center right now for the next flower that I'm going to draw. And the other thing you can vary is whether the edge is pointed or circular. So for the first flower, I had rounded edges, but as you can see, this one is going to have thin elongated petals with pointed edges. I use the edge of my brush to get this pointy shape. And that's quite a handy way to make this. So once again, just blocking in the opposite petals and adding more and more petals so that the spacing looks good. There goes another petal with a pointed edge. And as you can see, just because these petals are quite thin and long, I have a lot of them. This is probably more than ten petals. So that's it for the second flower shape. So I'll just show you in the third shape, how you can vary the size of the center as well as the thickness of the petal to get a different flower with different number of petals. So this is a variation of the previous two. Now, this is a bigger center than the last one. And I'll make the petals just slightly thicker so that I'll have fewer petals on this one, and I won't make them as elongated as the last one. So these are shorter and thicker petals. The last one on this side goes here and perhaps two more petals on the opposite side. And there we go, just like that. For the next flower, let me once again make a very big center. And this is going to be much bigger than the first two. So a very big circle. And these dots in the center give the impression of polens at the center of the flower. Let's just enlarge the shape a bit more before we add our petals. Next for the petals, we'll make them very small this time, so you can see how small they are. So this will be a flower with a very big center and very small petals with a relatively thick base and a small rounded edge. To make the edges either pointed or round or however you prefer it, you can always take advantage of the shape of your brush. So if you use the belly to press down near the edge of the flower, you'll get a more rounded shape, whereas if you have a pointed brush and you lift it up, as you go towards the edge, you'll have a more pointy shape. There goes two more petals, and we'll just finish this off. Perfecting the shapes a bit and adding this last petal. For the next flower, I'm going to imitate our second flower kind of so that I can show a variation once again. And this variation has to do with layering the petals. So this is exactly like the second floor. Adding more and more petals. And really, this is an exercise you should try to not just watch but do by yourself because it'll give you a lot of practice and that can't hurt. So these two flowers are quite similar. And the first one is dry. So I'm going to pick up some pigment and add a second layer of petals on this first one, just to show you the variety in flowers that you can come up with. So these are shorter and thinner petals and they are darker just so that they stand out from the outer petals. So this second layer of inner petals is the variation that I'm showing you here. And really, you can have many layers, but the upper layers need to be darker than the lower layers so that they are visible. It's also important to bear in mind that when you're adding the upper layer of petals, the lower layer should already be dry, and it should be bone dry just to prevent any mixing of colors or blending of colors with the lower layer because you want these edges to really stand out. You can opt to darken the colors where you want to give it a shade. This always helps to add interest in the painting. Another petal, yeah. So that's the fifth variety of flower that we have got. And really, you can come up with a lot of different things. It's all down to what you can imagine. So let's make a rose, and this process is going to be slightly different than what I have demonstrated earlier. So I start by deciding where I want the center to be, and I make these tiny C shapes around that center. So it should look like a C, and there should be gaps between the subsequent Cs that sit outside the inner petals. So this is one petal, and you can see that white gap that is important. This is the second petal, and you just built on top just like this. There's another petal, one more. And it's important to keep these white gaps, and it's always better to leave a larger gap than necessary than to not have sufficient gaps between the petals because if they all blend together, you won't be able to see the shape of the flour. I'm also giving a kind of squiggly pattern here so that it looks more natural and organic. Just like that. And you can make this flower as small or as big as you like. I think this rose looks quite good at this point, as it is, so I'm going to leave it be for now. And let's move on to the next flower. And this one will really just have petals without a very distinct center. So I'll just make a five petal flower. So the center is really just one small point. It's not a big circle. And I've pulled out five lines just to give you a rough idea of where I would like to place the petals, and I draw the petals around it, just like so. And you can vary the number of petals. So this one will have eight petals, but make sure that the petals are sufficiently small to accommodate a lot of them if you're going to go for that. So you can see how I do it to you. And that's the last petal. So just by working around this one principle that we need to have a large circle and few petals around it, we can see how many different petals and flower designs we have come up with. And you can have a few different ones like this rose here was different than the rest of them. And also, I'm going to try now to make a dandelion just for fun. So it needs to have a lot of dots or spots just like the center of any other flower. So you'll make this similar to the center. But rather than drawing out petals after you've drawn the center, we just want to draw a few streaks pointing towards the center, so they are representative of the stem of the polen of this dandelion flower. So these are the Okay. Sort of dandelion polens if those are what it's called. But yeah. That's my dandelion and just a few lines drawn out from the center to give the impression that these polens have stems from which they emerge. Yeah, I'm not sure if I have got all the terminology correct when it comes to flowers, but that's okay. We are doing art. It's kind of just this. Okay. Pattern of lines that points towards the center that makes it looks like one core and flower. So that's it for all the flower shapes. And what I would like to do next is to just demonstrate how you can add some contrast. So the idea of contrast is that you make certain parts darker and the other parts lighter. So the parts that are in shadow should have more dark pigments to indicate that they are in shadow. And I'll try to block in some of these shades here. So near the center, I'm making one part of the center prominent and darker than the other part. Maybe add a little bit of pigment to this one here near the center to our interest and make the petals pop by just giving it that contrast. So I also fill up the centers that I had left empty earlier. We can also add a few lines on the petals to add interest, and these should be very subtle. We don't need something to overpower the look of the petals we already have, but just something that adds a little bit more. Just like that. Just adding some of those lines here. And so there are a lot of things you can really do to make the painting more interesting. A details and such. And there's this one last flower shape that I just decided to add to this list. And it kind of looks like a lot of petals coming out from one stem, like so. This could also be leaves, but if you give them the color of flowers like red or orange, they would look more like a flower. But if you give them a green color, that would be leaf with just the same pattern. So that's it for the flower shapes. And I will see you in the next lesson where we will explore shapes for our leaves. 4. Concept: Leaves: Welcome back. In this lesson, we will look at how we can create leaf shapes using watercolors. Just like the lesson on flowers, I will use a single pigment here to draw many leaf shapes to give an idea of the different options we have for our composition. So the first leaf shape here is just the curve line, and near the center of the line, I have pressed down my brush to give it a fatter belly and pointed edges. And here goes the second leaf shape. So this is wider at the bottom and pointed at the top. Just starting some more color to make sure that the leaf is visible. And there we are. The third shape will be wider at the top and pointed at the bottom, just like this. And I will now fill in the shape that I've made with watercolor. So that's our third leaf. And really, you can come up with many variants this zigzag leaf that I just came up with. Your imagination is the limit for paintings of this kind because there's no set rule for what you're allowed to do or not. And you can come up with your own innovative shapes or leaves or take inspiration from nature. Let's move on to practicing some branches. So for this first branch, I draw a curve line and I add the leaf of first kind to it, just like that. I encourage you to practice along with me as you watch these lessons to make sure that you have warmed up for the compositions when you come to the project. So this is the first branch with several leaves coming out of it. Just intensifying the colors a bit. And there we are. For the next branch, I'll make a more zig zagi pattern rather than just a curve line. I think this makes it look more natural and more organic. So I like to use these kinds of shapes in my composition. Those are several branches coming out of it. And let's add some leaves to it. Maybe I'll keep these leaves tiny just because of how the branch is structured, I don't have much space to accommodate too many large leaves. So I'll just keep them small, like so. Can see the motion of my wrist and my hand as I make these leaves. So I press down near the start to give it a wide tip. The leaf has a white tip because I press down the brush at the starting, and I gradually lift off the brush as I near the edge of the leaf. To give it a pointed end. So that is my branch. And maybe what I can do here is add some berries. Those are always an interesting element that you can add. And you can give these berries a very sharp contrast compared to the whites and the light greens around. So you could strategically place these berries at certain places where you want to draw attention or where you want the contrast to be high. It's important to be not too uniform with this. You want to vary the size and shape of the berries so that it looks natural and organic and not too controlled, you know. And you can see how these berries pop from the page and really draw the attention of the viewer. So let me add some more. A small one there. And I'll keep adding more berries until I'm satisfied with this branch. Just making this a bit fast because I'm sure you get the idea of what I'm doing here. Now, moving back to the leaves that I've dried from earlier, I add these veins to the center and I keep it subtle at certain places. So adding the mid vein to all of these leaves and some secondary veins as well. Just like that. So let's make a branch that has the fourth kind of leaf on it. This is just very experimental and I'm trying to see what I can get from here. You don't have to do exactly what I'm doing. You could vary the shape of the leaves, you know, depending on what you can come up with. And really, you should experiment and play around in this part. This part is all about practice. This is not our actual composition. So we don't have to worry about ruining our painting or anything of that sort, really. Also experiment with tonal values. So make the leaves lighter at some places and darker at other. This will help add contrast and make the painting interesting. I always like to make my branches a bit darker than my leaves just so that my leaves look like they melt into the background, whereas the branches really stand out in contrast to the leaves. So just like that, I have another branch. Maybe experimenting with a few more leaves on this one. Yep, and that's it. So next, I would like to make these kind of circular leaves, I guess. So many of these tiny leaves on one branch. That's another option for what I could include in my composition. This is similar to the first branch that we drew except that our leaves are circular now as opposed to the elongated leaves that we earlier drew. Okay, so I think that's pretty much it for the leaf shapes. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and learned the various options you have when you make your own flower compositions. I also hope you were able to come up with some original leaf shapes or take inspiration from nature. And I will see you in the next lesson where we will discuss color palettes. 5. Concept: Color Palettes: Welcome. In this lesson, we will come up with various combinations of colors that we can use for flowers and the rest of our composition. We are not going to go into a very detailed understanding of color theory, which can be useful for certain situations. But for these projects that we are going to do, it suffices to just place any three colors next to each other that are either inspired by nature and flowers that we see in real life, or even come up with something that's totally imaginary. You don't have to place the same three colors as I am placing on my sheet. Really, you should play around and experiment with your own colors and see what looks good when placed in combination with other colors. So what I have on my chart is a series of circles, and each of these circles will be filled with three different colors. This gives me an idea of what these three colors, if I were to use them in my composition would look like. Where two colors meet each other, I let them blend and mix, so I can see what other colors I can get from the combination of the two that I have. So my goal here is just to fill every circle with colors. So this one I'm filling with yellow ochre, peacock blue and red brown. And I quite like this color palette, so maybe I'll use it in one of my projects. So for this third circle, let me try some pink and some darker color, maybe this purple. So I'm only putting two colors perhaps in the circle. And I'm letting it blend and mix near the edges to see what other colors I get out of this. Just cleaning up the edges a bit, and maybe I'll lift off some color and transfer it to the next circle where also I will use this purple color. And maybe I can combine it with some yellow more of a gamboge yellow. In fact, I think intaRd might look good in there, but I'll leave it for now. Next, let's try green. And this orange yellow and what could be a third color? Green could be my leaf, orange, yellow could be my flower and maybe this brown for where I need shadow. So as a general rule, what I like to do is pick up one color that can be very dark, and that is the brown here. This I can use for the shadows. One color that would be very light for the flowers, and that was the yellow in the previous one in the previous circle. And one for the leaf like green. I got a bit bold on this next circle and I think I'm using this viridian color, seeing how it mixes with yellow ochre. Okay, this became very identical to the last one when I the brown, except that the green is a varidiant hue rather than a sap green. For the next one, let's go with this bright pink that I can use for the flowers. Place it next to this yellow orange, and I have such a beautiful and vibrant mix. And just for some deeper colours where I would like the shadows to be, I include this brown color. The paper I'm working with right now is not watercolor paper. Instead, it's ivory paper, and that is okay because I'm just trying to see how these colors look next to each other. It's also not necessary for you to use watercolor paper for this exercise. You could also use any scrap piece of paper just to see how the colors look. And given that watercolor papers can be quite pricey, maybe this is a better option anyway to practice on scraped pieces of paper and only do your actual painting on the watercolor sheet. I like this pink color so much. I think I'll use a lot of it in these circles. And I just like this pink color so much. I think I'll use it in the circle as well. And when it mixs us with this blue, which is a totally imagery colour on a flower composition, it gives a beautiful purple. When you go through those exercise, I do suggest that you draw a series of circles like I have, or you could even print out the circles that I have provided in the class resources under color palettes. And and really, you can come up with endless combinations of colors, see how they mix and blend, and come up with your own signature palettes this way. See, we are not trying to limit ourselves to rules of color theory. We are really moving beyond that and trying to see what colors best suit our taste by just placing them next to each other. So this is very experimental, as opposed to learning the theory of colors and then approaching this project from that perspective. We are being very experimental here. For this next one, I once again use that beautiful pink color and the yellow. And the third color, how about this brown? Okay, this ended up looking very similar to another circle right above it. But that's okay. Sometimes there will be repetitions of this kind. So once I have completed this last circle, I will have a lot of different options to select from for the color of my composition. And I'll choose just three out of these for three different projects. But really, I could save this sheet for later and just reuse it for any other color combinations that I might like to do. So that is pretty much it for color palettes, and I will see you in the next lesson where we will discuss how to come up with compositions for our floral arrangements. See you in the next lesson. 6. Concept: Composition: So now it's time to talk about composition, which is one of the most important things to keep in mind while creating our artwork. We can construct a good composition in four steps. The first is adding a center of interest. The second is repetition and variation. The third step is adding contrast, and the fourth is adding details. Let's go over each of them one by one. First, let's talk about the center of interest. So the idea is that you want to leave unequal spacing from each of the edges of the paper and place your main element there. The main element is going to be your center of interest. And in my case, this large circle that I'm placing at the intersection of these lines is the center of interest. The center of interest is kind of like the protagonist of your story if you liken your artwork to a story. It is the main character, and everything around the main character is the cast that supports the main character without drawing attention away from them. So what is a good place to place the main character? Turns out there's something called the rule of thirds by which if you place your main character on the top or bottom one third or on the left or right, one thirds, those are good positions to place your painting. If your painting is placing the main character at the center of the paper, right here, where I'm marking it with orange, that turns out not to be a good place to place the main character. Also don't want to place the main character equidistant from both the sides, such as the top edge here at the middle of it, or the bottom edge, the middle of it, the left and the right sides and the middle of those sites are not places where you want to place your main character. And once we have added the center of interest, which is the main character, We want to add supporting elements, and these supporting elements have to follow the principle of repetition and variation. So the idea is that the main character is surrounded by supporting characters. So the protagonist, which is the biggest flower in your composition, is going to be surrounded by supporting flowers which are smaller. And most of them have more or less the same shape, but you can vary the sizes. You can also slightly vary the shapes. This adds variety. Repetition just means that we have one specific shape that we repeat many times. This makes it look good. Composition is finally what looks good to the eye. So I add a lot of circles here. So this is the idea of repetition and variation. You don't have to repeat the same shape. You can vary based on different shapes. So for instance, I can add leaves that are kind of pointed, so it offers a variety that is different from what the protagonist has to offer. You can also add leaves and supporting elements that are kind of curved. So that they are interest to the painting. The third element is contrast. The idea of contrast is that there are two ways you can create contrast. One is through color, and the other is through tonal value. So what is the idea behind color and tonal value? So I draw the main character and place the supporting elements. When I repeat my elements, to give a sense of depth, the elements that are farther away, I keep them lighter compared to the protagonist. The protagonist is what I make the darkest, so this draws attention to the center of interest of the story. The idea of contrast and you want maximum contrast where your main character is located? And the idea is that we want to place the darkest color differences. So, for instance, this is the darkest color, the green, and right next to it, the white and the orange are the lightest color. Those are the kind of differences that make the painting pop, and this is what we call contrast. We want to place the darkest and lightest elements beside each other because it draws the attention of the viewer to that center. And we do not want to draw attention through contrast to supporting elements because that will lead the viewer's eye astray, and they will be confused as to where to look at the painting. We as artists, always need to be in charge of where we lead the viewer's vision, as opposed to the viewer being distracted by elements that did not go according to plan. I place some more leaves at some other places. These are smaller and lighter leaves. The final part of composition is to add details. And the idea of details is that our main element, which is a flower like this orange one here that we have drawn, which is also surrounded by leaves that contrast the color and the tonal value of the flower. So some more leaves and stems is what I add here. Just making another composition like we did using the previous three rules. And once I have this rough draft, what I want to do is see where I should add details to draw the attention of the viewer over there. Also, following the principle of repetition, adding some circles and adding the same shape of leaves over and over again. Using the color. So this is color repetition. I'm using the same color that I used first once again. So this keeps the painting harmonious. Right now, it's not really a painting. I'm just demonstrating this with my marker pens. So once we come to the point where we have to add details, which is the very final stage of any painting, we want to add the most details where our protagonist is located. So for instance, in the case of this flower, I add a lot of pollens to the center of the flower because these constitute the finer details that once we have attracted the eye of the viewer to the center of interest, we want to keep their attention there and really, you know, cherish the details. And that's what we are aiming at with these details that are concentrated near the protagonist. You could add more details too, such as the shadows that I've added on the petals, as well as these fine lines on the petal that indicate folds, and all the details add interest to the painting and help our composition. Notice that the lines that I'm adding on the flower point towards the center of the flower, and this helps draw attention even further towards the center. Which is good for us. This is exactly what we want in a painting. So let's cover up any obvious white spaces using more flowers and leaves. Once again, going back to the principle of repetition, I add more color and more weight to some of these lines to make it pop. That's another fine detail that you could make certain small dark areas or small bright areas to lead the attention of the viewer there. And we can add a little bit of detail while being careful not to overdo it to some of the surrounding elements too. And we keep the surrounding emblements subtle compared to the protagonist in any case. That's it for composition, and I will see you in the project. We have learned everything we need the center of interest, repetition and variation, contrast and details. These are all the elements of composition we need to be mindful of when creating these paintings. I will see you in the project where we'll get started using some paints and our watercolor paper. 7. Roses Demo (Part 1): So for my very first demo of how we can apply the principle discussed so far, I will use a water brush, as well as the color palette I would like to choose is the green, yellow, and pink that we came up with earlier. The flower shape that I would like to use is the rose, and that's approximately where I'll have the center of interest. I start with a deep pink color for the center of the rose. I mark out that center with a small C shape, just like that. And then I take a dilute mix of this pink and expand the flour around this center that I just marked. So I have these petals that I'm marking down right now, and each subsequent petal is going to be lighter than the one inside. In fact, let's just introduce some yellow to give it a good contrast. So I'll mark out these yellow petals at the outside and maybe add a little bit of pink later on. I like to see how they mix on the watercolor sheet. I already have an idea of how it would look from my exercise on the other sheet where I explode color palettes, and it gives a nice orange color, which is something I would like in my rose. So that's a very dilute yellow petal, and there is another one. It's a very repetitive process. And once I have a sufficient number of these petals down, I would like to go in with some pink. To just give a little more color to these flowers. Remember that if this rose shape is too difficult for you to form directly on your watercolor sheet, it's a good idea to practice on a spare sheet of paper, the shape so that you're more confident when you're making it on your watercolor sheet. But the ultimate goal is to get that confidence that you can directly go into your watercolor sheet and mark these shapes. Specifically, in the case of this row shape, remember that my tip to you was that the white spaces between the petals should be very distinct and clear. In fact, it's always good to have more white space than necessary than to have less. If you have lesser than necessary white space between these petals, then they would just merge into each other and they would not give the shape that we are looking for. So now I have two of these roses down. When we create these compositions, there is something in art called the rule of odds. The idea of the rule of odds is that it looks pleasant to our eyes when we have an odd number of repeated elements on our paper. So for instance, the repeated element here is the rose shape. So I don't want to have four or six roses on my sheet. Rather five roses or maybe three roses are a good number to stick. I know this can seem like a very odd rule. However, you could experiment to see how a four rows composition looks as opposed to a five rows composition. And almost certainly you'll like the five rows composition better. So for my specific composition here, I'm going to go with five of these shapes. I have the fourth rows down, and here's the final one, marking out at center. Then with a dilute pink colour, marking out the petals and pulling these petals out, expanding them around the center, adding more color where I would like to have contrast. And just like that, I have five roses here. I'm going to intensify the colors at certain places selectively and to decide where exactly I need more of these colors. I will just eyeball my painting. I'm adding these small buds here and there that give the impression of tiny roses that haven't bloomed yet. Or another interpretation for these small round shapes could be that they are berries that are decoration to my floral composition. I will have a few clusters of these berries on my page, and they will vary in size, as well as I will vary the intensity of the colors. So some of the berries will be lighter than the other berries. For these clusters of berries, too, it is a good idea to follow the rule of odds. So I'll have an odd number of cluster. The first cluster, which is at the bottom of my main element or my center of interest. And by the way, notice that my center of interest is the largest rose on the page. The other roses that add support to the central element are all smaller than the biggest one, which is itself obeying the rule of thirds and is located at the bottom one third of the page. So that's the fourth cluster at the top, and this is the fifth cluster. Once I'm done with the berries, I'll mix some green to add leaves to my composition. See you in the next part. 8. Roses Demo (Part 2): So welcome back to the rose composition and let us add some leaves here. I always like to start with the area that surrounds my main character. And I work from there to the other characters. I have tried to mimic this shape of rose leaves, but it's not necessary to be too precise. After all, we are not using a pencil sketch or anything here, rather we are just working very instinctively to plan our painting Aslas to get this composition down. What is a good number of leaves to place is entirely up to you. You could follow the rule of hoards. You could introduce leaves that are darker near your center of interest so that you have more contrast there and you draw attention over there. You can also add branches. It's all up to you. There's a lot of freedom in this kind of painting, and it's also quite repetitive, which is why I find it a good kind of meditation. I'm using a water brush for this just because it is convenient to use while recording these videos, but it's not necessary to use a water brush. Even a regular brush would give you very good results. I continue to add these leaves. In fact, I would like to have few of these leaves far away from my main composition over there, just so that my page feels more full and my composition complete. Notice once again that I'm varying the shapes, sizes, as well as the intensity of colors on these leaves. This helps add interest to the painting. So I decided that let's innovate and just add a third kind of leaf over there. And these are just straight leaves that you can see me draw here. Once you have achieved reputation in your painting, it's time to vary and add something new. Not too much of it, but just a little bit and just enough to make your composition look nice. There's no specific rule on how to decide where you place these repetitive elements or where you place the variations. It's all up to the artist. There are few rules that are general in nature and give you good results most of the time, but of course, you don't have to follow everything down to how it's stated. You can always experiment and see how things look if you do them differently. Like I said, there's a lot of freedom with this painting. Once your leaves are a bit dry, you can also go in with a second layer. In fact, you can do this for both the flowers as well as the leaves. Right now, I'm pixing a bit more pink to make the centers more intense and more dramatic. Just like that. Yes. You can see that it became a bit like a brown color, and that's because my brush had a bit of green in it and I picked up the red and red and green give brown. But I don't worry too much about this because it's a good variation to have. It's always good to have a bit of colors mix on your paper. Intensifying some of those greens now, like I mentioned. Not all of them, not everywhere, but just selectively at certain places strategically. And with that, this painting is nearly complete. It's important also not to overdo it and step back every now and then to try and decide if your painting looks finished and if you'd like to stop at that point. So I'll see you in the next project where we'll choose a different color palette, as well as a different flower shape. To conclude this rose composition, I'm just fluttering a bit of green, which is entirely optional. You could see if this is something that you're interested in and decide for yourself. And I will see you for the next part. 9. Sunflowers Demo (Part 1): Welcome to the second demo of this class, and for this one, I will choose the yellow green and brown palette. So I have only replaced the pink from earlier with a brown color. I begin by mixing some yellow color, and I think for this part for this specific demo, I would like to go with the sunflower. The palette that I've chosen is well suited for sunflowers. I think that's where I'll place my center of interest. And once again, I begin by blocking in the center. As for a sunflower, I've made the center quite big, like you can see. And I intensify the colors and fill it in all the way to the center. Now it's time to add the petals. So I pull out the first petal. Notice that these petals are thin and they are pointed at the tip. I make many of these petals. Once again, marking the diametrically opposite petals gives me a good idea for their placement. I take advantage of the shape of my brush to get these thin, long and pointed petals. What I do is that as I'm nearing the end of the petal, I slightly reduce the pressure on my brush so that I lift it up and it leaves it with a pointed tip. So let's block in the second sunflower now, and this will be smaller than my center of interest because it's the center of interest that has to capture the most attention and therefore, is the biggest. It's a good idea to practice with your brush how to create these thin and long petals with pointed tips. If you find this challenging or if it's the first time you're working with watercolors, that practice can always help you. So after roughly blocking in my second sunflower, I go back to the first one and I pull out some more petals that will be longer than my first set of petals. Like you can see here. Most of these decisions that I make during the painting process are impromptu. And that is kind of the goal here. We are trying to be spontaneous. So I think I'll have a total of three sunflowers in this composition because these flowers are relatively big compared to the roses I had in the previous demo. And finally, moving to the third and last sunflower. And you can notice how the center of these flowers kind of do not align into a line, but rather they have a curve that they fit into. And that just starts interest to the composition. My shapes are not perfect, and this is not something that bothers me too much because really, like I like to say, with this kind of painting, there is a lot of freedom, and that's the best part of it. We are not trying to be too precise. I block in shadows once again at one side of the sunflower center, and I do it for each of them. I'm also selectively pulling out petals where I see the need for it or alternatively darkening some of the petals that I already have on my page. After I have three of these sunflowers on my page, and because there are three of these, they obey the rule of thirds. Sorry, the rule of odds. Thing I like to do is add a bit of these tiny flowers which are just small dots. These clusters of dots would also adhere to the rule of odds in this case. I'm going to make it that way. I'll have five of these clusters, I think. Remember that the rule of odds applies to the larger cluster and not to each of the tiny points within it. You don't want to be counting each of those tiny dots. That's not possible for any of us. I have three of these clusters now, and this is the fourth one You really want to step back from your painting every now and then to see where the composition could use a bit of weight and add your cluster over there. And once I have the fifth cluster of dots down, I will see you on the next part where we'll begin adding leaves. 10. Sunflowers Demo (Part 2): Welcome to the second part where we will start adding a few leaves to our composition. Since I already had these pointed tips for the petals of my sunflowers, I decided to go with a round shape for the leaves. I scattered them once again in clusters all around my composition wherever I feel like it could use some weight. This is not probably how sunflower leaves look in real life, but that's okay. I mix a dark green for my initial set of leaves. And it's important to be careful here not to overdo it and keep it to just the minimum amount necessary. I will add a few lighter leaves as well. So I dilute my green, and once again, I start blocking in a few leaves. And these lighter leaves, I make them bigger because they don't easily overwhelm the composition. The darker your colors are, the more overwhelmed your composition will look if you use too much of it. And when they are lighter, I can go with bigger sizes. So just adding these leaves wherever I feel like the white space could be covered and become a part of the composition. It helps to step back every now and then to make a judgment call on whether you have enough in your composition, and if you don't could add more. But if you do it doesn't help to overdo the composition. At this time, I would like to darken the centers because I would like them to capture most of the attention of the viewer. So that's what I'm doing with my brown here. I'm adding these brown dots to the center of my sunflowers. I decided that some of my petals could use a bit more weight, and I decided to make them darker as a consequence. But I later on felt like this was probably too dark. And if I could go back, I would probably make them lighter. But I only dark on one side of the sunflower because I would like to imagine the other side being in light and the shadows being cast on the side where I'm making it darker. Now I'm just going back and forth between the petals, the center of the flower, as well as the leaves to see where my composition could use a bit more interest. I add these stems that seem to connect the leaves I think my composition is almost complete now. I too much more would really overdo this one. But maybe it could still use a bit of those dark leaves at some of the gaps between the sunflower petals. I think this just helps them to stand out more as individual units as opposed to three flowers that are just clubbed together by the paint. Adding darks to the white spaces between your composition is a good way to fill them up and make the composition look fuller. And with that, this flower composition is ready now, I think. So I'll stop working on it now, and this is the final look of the piece. I hope you enjoyed this demo, and do join me for the next one where we will paint fantasy flowers. 11. Fantasy Flower (Part 1): So welcome to the third demo. And in this part, I will use the yellow ochre blue and brown color palette from our earlier color palettes discussion. So with my water brush, I mix some of that blue pigment. I believe this is a cerulean blue or peacock blue or some such color. And as you might have noticed, this specific palette is not a very realistic palette in the sense that you don't see many flowers that are blue in color, I guess. This is just a playful approach that we are using now, not to be very accurate, but just to have fun and sort of explore what we can create with these kinds of techniques. And really, the sky is the limit. There is just so much you can do. Your leaves do not have to be real colors, your flowers do not have to be real colors. As long as there's some semblance to the shape or something that stays preserved and conveys the idea that what we are painting is a flower or a leaf. It's a very repetitive process this time too, just like we had earlier. So I add one petal at a time, and I use this sort of approach where I first blogged in two petals and they are kind of elliptical in shape, like you can see, and then I just build the petals around them. I use a darker color for the center of these petals as I move out, I vary the shape and size of the petals, but I'll also vary the intensity. Some of these petals are going to be lighter and some darker, so these are the darkest ones. And now I'm going to try and dilute my pigment. And use this diluted color for more petals. Just like that. It's up to you how big you want to make the flower, but this is going to be a center of interest for this painting, this first flower that I'm painting. I chose the top right corner this time. But really, you can decide how you would like your own composition to look. And I think when I paint the leaves for this one, the yellow occur when it contrasts with the blue will look like a golden. And so this should look quite exotic, I believe. But we'll see how it turns out. So making it more concentrated at the center, the pigment is darker now. And this adds to the contrast. And blending that edge of the outer petal and adding more colors even to the outer petal to give them a more stark color just like that. A When you create your own projects, it's definitely not necessary to do exactly what I did in my demos, which is you don't need to paint a rose or sunflowers or this specific fantasy flower. Really, you can take inspiration from all the flower shapes that we came up with and the color palettes and all of those good things and come up with something of your own. I really encourage you to do this because there's nothing as wonderful and as satisfying as making an artwork that is just truly your own. And I hope that this class really teaches you to do that because it introduces the concepts that one needs to know in order to be able to paint these, and then it's really up to your imagination where you want to go from there. So I've moved on to my second flower now, and this is going to be smaller than my first flower, just because my first flower is the center of interest. And now to the third flower, So let's add some more dilute petals and more I move out from the center, the more dilute I make it. Just like that. A there are, I think, two ways that you can go about this. Either you can be very experimental and just go ahead with your colors and see what you can add or take away from the composition as you go along. But there's also a second approach which is more planned. It's really up to you what brings more joy to you. But when I painted these, I wasn't very planned initially. But for this specific fantasy flower, I did need to plan a little. It wasn't at the first attempt that I managed to successfully get this recorded. This is because my first few attempts quite frankly did not look all that good. But you get there with time and really all of us make mistakes, all of us make progress, we all learn, and that's all good, which is why you should always feel free to post in the discussions below if there's anything that is challenging to you or anything that you feel I can help you with. I'm always there to provide that support and you should definitely also post your projects. So we can all take inspiration from each other. I think this is about how many flowers I would have on this composition and now I have started to add some berries. I'll meet you in the next part where I will add more berries to this composition as well as blocking the leaves. See you there. 12. Fantasy Flower (Part 2): Welcome to the second part of our fantasy flowers composition. So I just continue after adding the flowers with adding these small berries. So I make these small circles. Sometimes I leave a little bit of white in the center to give the idea of a shine, and I make them different sizes, shapes, and I vary the color intensity as well. This gives it a more natural look. Just to obey the rule of odds, maybe I'll add a third cluster of these berries. I think the third flower would do a good place to add this because the other two flowers already have some of these berries close to them. So that's also how you vary your composition. Now, let's move on to our next color, which is the yellow ochre and create leaves with this color. So I'll be very varied in the kind of leaves I have over here. I would like to add a lot of variations just so that this one has a lot of drama to it. To start, let's just have some long pointy leaves. Then some of these broader leaves. And once again, you can make them more intense near the center of the composition. But as you move out, it generally helps to reduce the strength of the color just so that your center of interest does not lose the attention. So I really like how this first set of leaves turned out to the right. And now I move onto this one and try to do the exact same thing. Now let's add some broader leaves more circular like this one here. So they look like a repetition of the shape of the flowers and are harmonious in that sense with the rest of the composition. Adding a bit of burnt sienna now. So that is the brown color. A few broader leaves that are very, very dilute. A bit more repetition to the side. So it's a very intuitive process, I believe. Adding some brown, and you really just eyeball the painting at this stage to see what more addition it could use or if your painting is complete, it's a good idea to stop if you feel it's complete. But to me, it seems like I can do more. I I see a bit of gap over here, so decide to add some branches and to this one too. A few abstract branches there just to make it look more full over there because I noticed that there was a bit of white space after the berries. Adding the mid veins using burnt Siena. Also adding a few berries with the yellow ochre. So this is a very concentrated mix of the yellow ochre. And I try to give more weight to the composition where I feel like it's taking too much attention to one direction or one part of the painting. So I would also like to pull the viewer to the other side a bit, so I added a little bit of berries and yellow ochre. So more leaves. And with that, my painting is nearly ready, but how about let's give it some shadows. So those are the shadows, and this is how the painting looks once it's completely dry. I hope you enjoyed this, and I'll see you in the next spot. Take care. 13. Conclusion: Thank you, everyone for sticking with me until the end of this class and I hope you really enjoyed the concepts that I got the opportunity to teach you in the lessons. I also hope that the demonstrations that followed the lessons helped you understand how to arrange your flowers in a way that is stunning and eye catching. If you have created something through these lessons that you're really proud of, or even if that's not the case, maybe you have created something that you feel could use improvement or you know, whatever the case might be, just feel free to share it in the project gallery below because we are all here to learn and enjoy the process and support each other as we go along. So feel free to comment and like on other people's projects as well. And if you enjoyed this class, or even if you didn't, please leave an honest review because really this helps me improve my content and put more things out there that might be beneficial to all of you. Thank you very much and see you in the next one.