Watercolor Florals: Learn to Capture and Paint the Essence of a Flower

1. Introduction: When you're painting flowers in a loose style, you don't really need to care much if they will look realistic or not. All you need to do is capture the essence of the flower, and you're good to go. My name is Jenny Flores. I'm a creative coach, and artist from the Philippines. I love art, and I teach painting, calligraphy, and creative entrepreneurship in person, and online. My work as an artist revolves around the subject of botanicals, bouquets, reads, and different floral arrangements. In today's class, I'm going to teach you how to capture the essence of a flower, by looking at it in a less complicated, and more approachable way. We're going to start by analyzing, and dissecting different types of flowers, such as peonies, roses, cosmos, and wax flowers. Then we will learn how to identify the shape of each petal, so we can pick the perfect brush dive for each flower. I will also teach you how to add depth, and highlights, and finally, how to add details, and embellishments to finish up your painting beautifully. This class is a great place to start if you want to learn how to translate the overall image of a certain flower, without the pressure of creating heavily realistic art. It really doesn't matter if you never pick up a brush before. Our class is going to be beginner-friendly, so everyone is very much welcome. I'm so excited to paint with you. Now pick up your brush and let's get started. 2. Class Project Overview: Today we will be painting this floral composition consisting of peony, rose, cosmos, and some wax flowers. We will be basically working on this project all throughout the class. The painting process will be divided into sections where I'll discuss the steps on how to easily capture the essence of a flower and translate it into a painting in a loose style. Aside from that, I will also share some tips and insights that you can use in your next painting session. By the end of this class, you'll not only be able to create a beautiful piece of art, but more importantly, you will also learn how to look at each floral reference image in a less complicated and more approachable way. When you're done with your project, you can upload a photo of your work at the project section. That way, we can give feedback on each other's work and support each other on our creative journeys. I'm looking forward to seeing your work so let's begin. 3. Supplies: In this section, I will walk you through the different supplies that I will be using in this class. Let's begin with colors. We only have one project for this class, even so, we will still use a couple of paints to achieve a harmonious flow of color for our artwork. Before I forget, if you want to add, there are some color combinations for the painting that we will do, feel free to do so. For this class, I'll specifically use the following colors: Hematite tint, Petersburg ocher, titanium white, yellow ocher, raw umber, mocha, undersea green, green earth, Van **** brown and sepia. I'll be using a couple of brushes from Silver Brush Limited in various shapes and sizes for our project. Well, I'll be using different brushes in this class, you are not required to have all of them to complete our project. For the brushes, I'll use silver black velvet round in size 4, 6, 8, silver black velvet liner brush in size 1. Silver crystal pointed oval brush in size 3, 4. Silver silk 88 oval crescent brush in size 3/8, and silver silk 88 monogram liner brush in size 20/0. For the paper, I'll use the arches hot press watercolor paper in size 10 by 7 inches. You can also use cold press paper or mixed media paper, but the flow of water may be different. So I will still encourage you to get a hot press paper for our project. In painting any medium, it is so important to have some tissue paper nearby and a couple of water so you can clean your brush easily when changing colors. Last is a mixing palette. I use a ceramic palette because it's easier to clean, but the plastic palette will do. Now that you know the supplies that I'll use, let's go to our next topic. 4. Process Overview: 5 Steps: When I was a beginner, I always used other artists' painting as my reference photo. I thought that was the best way to learn because I always felt overwhelmed when I used actual object or even a photograph as my reference. As my creative journey progressed, I learned that it's still best to use actual image because, number 1, you will develop more creativity as you learn how to combine different flowers in one artwork. Number 2, you can claim your artwork as your own, and more importantly, you can always tweak each detail and insert your own style on each stroke that you make. I know it's daunting to look at an actual reference photo and translate it into a painting. But that's the reason why I'm here. In this topic, I will share with you the actual process of how to dissect a flower, so you can paint it in a loose style. This is probably the most essential part of the class and the lessons you will learn here can be applied, not only to the selected flowers that we will paint later on, but to all botanical elements that you want to try to paint next time. To make this lecture more organized, I divided my process into five steps. First, analyzing the overall shape of the flower. Second, identifying the shape of the petals. Third, adding shadows. Fourth, adding highlights, and fifth, adding textures and details. Let's start with the first step, analyzing the overall shape of the flower. Whether it's a rose, a peony, or just a daisy, you'll get easily overwhelmed if you look at the flower as is. Why? Because of layers. Layers make the flower difficult to paint because it's what makes angles, shadows, and many more. The best way is to look at it in a flat view. Let's take this rose, for example. What we have to do is just get its overall shape. Forgetting all the folds, the curves, what can you see? This. An imperfect shape, somehow circular, but with a bit of edge. Is that hard to paint? I think not, especially when you're painting loose, which means you don't really have to copy exactly what you're seeing. You just need to get the general idea of it, which again is a bit circular with edges. On our next topic, I'll demo and explain this process further. For now, let's go to our second process, which is identifying the shape of the petals. This part is very important because it will be our main guide in identifying the best brush to use for a specific flower. As you notice here, the edges of the petals are pointy and all the details involving this specific flower have edges. This area here and also here. With that given situation, the best brush to use is a round brush, since round brushes have pointed tip that can create sharp lines, and at the same time, it also has big belly that can create soft body for the petals. What about peonies, let's say? Based on this reference image, since it has round tip petals, the best brush to use is a filbert brush, because as you can see here, it can really create a stroke similar to that of a peony. If you're unfamiliar with the different brush shapes and you want to learn more about brushes, I have a specific class here on Skillshare that will help you with this topic. You can find it on the About page of this class or in my profile. Now off to the next topic, the shadows. Once we have officially painted the base of the flower, then we have painted the petals as well, it is now time to identify where to place those dark areas and add depth to our painting. We cannot skip this part unless we wanted our painting to look flat, which of course we do not. In adding shadows, we do not need to place them in all the areas just as the same as our reference image. Just focus on the vital parts. On this rose, we have the middle part. This particular area, as you can see here, the shadows are darker and smaller compared to the rest of the petals. You can also see here that the shadows are getting wider and lighter as we move toward the outer part of the flower. When we look at it that way, you realize that adding shadows become less overwhelming. I'll give you more examples later on when we paint the actual flowers. After shadows, we have to identify the highlights. For the highlights, the best thing to practice is to place them in areas that needed to be emphasized. Most of the time I added between shadows or beside a shadow, so that the portion of a petal will be highlighted even more. This painting of my rose is an example of a painting with a subtle highlight. Since we are painting using watercolor, adding highlights can be done in two ways. First is to leave a whitespace for that area, and second is to add the concentrated mixture of white paint. I personally prefer using the second method, because adding layers of paint can really take the space intended for a highlight, and that happens most of the time, especially when painting using the loose style. The last part of the process is identifying and adding details. Does the flower have a core? Does it have texture? Or is my painting in need of extra details so my audience can understand it even more? We need to answer these questions before we put our brushes down. Remember, we are going to paint in loose style, so there will be times when the flower that we paint won't look similar to our reference image. In that case, we need to help our audience identify our subject even more by adding these supporting details. Now, these are the five steps in capturing the essence of a flower and translating it into a painting. I'm sure you're very much excited to try it yourself. Now, let's proceed to our next lesson and start painting. 5. Analyze & Paint a Peony: Hello and welcome back. I know you've been itching to pick up your paint brushes and start painting. Thank you for your patience. Yes, we're finally going to paint now and for this section, we will focus on analyzing and learning how to paint one of the most complicated flowers. Well, complicated for me, a peony. Alright, let's get those brushes swirling. Before we begin painting our subject, Let's start painting the background layer first. For the background, what we need to do is wet paper first with clean water so that the flow of color later on will be easily distributed. You may use any brush for this part of our project, but a big flat or filbert brush will make your process faster. I also left a bit of space on all the sides of my paper as my border. All the parts of my paper is wet already and now I'll be adding the background layer. I'm using hematite dent in a very less concentrated mixture for this layer. You can use different color for your background if you want to, but make sure that the color of your choice will still match the rest of your palette so your artwork will look balanced and pleasing. I also encourage you to create multiple sets of background, so you can easily switch to another one once you created a mistake or you want to start over again. Drying time for the background layer is a bit long, so it's best to have an extra. I'm done with my background layer and I will let this layer completely dry up. While waiting, let's start analyzing our peony first. We have here a photo of a peony, and I actually picked this one as my reference because it perfectly captures the beauty and complication of this flower. When we analyze it, we can see that this flower can be divided into three parts. The main flower, the background petals, and the fallen petals. Generally, the shape of this flower can be described as a bit messy. As you can see, it has a lot of things going on here, and at the same time, the main flower is a bit circular. Then for the background and the fallen petals, you can see that they're all curvy. Aside from being curvy, you can also say that the petals have round tip, especially the big ones. With that given situation, I believe that the best brush to use is a filbert or pointed oval brush. Alright, now that we already analyzed our peony and our background layer is also dry, it's time to actually paint our flower. I'll use Petersburg ocher for this one since I wanted to create a soft and creamy white peony for our project. For different strokes, we will first create the background petals using a size three port oval brush and a watery mixture of our color. We will make flat strokes and mimic the shape of our peony petals. By the way guys, you can check our reference image from the project and resource section to have a guide where to exactly place the strokes. Once you're done with the background layer, you may use sides of your brush to create smaller strokes for the body of the peony. As you can see here, I'm using the side of my brush to create the body. Continue adding strokes until you have completed the base layer of our peony. If you find your base layer too light, that's completely normal. We will add more layers later on as we proceed through the rest of the process, make it as light as possible. Because later on we will add more layers. Also guys don't forget to leave a bit of whitespaces like what I'm doing here, because we are preserving some areas because we don't want to create a big blob of paint on our paper. Just leave some whitespaces. I'm done with my base layer and I hope you're also doing great there. Let us lay a draft first before we proceed to the next one. Now that my base layer is already dry, we are now going to add our second layer. This time we will use a more concentrated mixture of color so we can separate the two layers. For the strokes, we will actually do the same as our base layer. However, this time we will be focusing more on the main body of our peony. You may also change into a smaller filbert brush to create smaller petals for the body of your peony. If you check our reference image, a lot of petals and the inner part of the body are relatively smaller, so it is really best to use a smaller brush here. Another reminder guys, do not be afraid to add layers of strokes as long as the layer behind is completely dry, your stroke will not create a blob, so just keep on adding. Now let's work on the pollen petals. For this layer will use the same mixture that we used on the body awhile ago. As you notice, our base layer is too light, so we will establish it and still use the same stroke from the same big brush. Even though we already establishing this layer, it is still best not to just redo the layer rather. Then you set the petals on top of it to create an effect that the petals are overlapping. Just like on the reference photo. Alright, it's time to add the shadows. As you notice on the reference image, there's a bunch of shadows visible between the main body and the pollen petals. Let's just split that into painting by using sepia mixed with our original color, which is Petersburg ocher. I'm dabbing a bit of the mixture here. As you can see, I'm using a round brush in size four, and that is because, I wanted to place the shadows in different shapes and sizes. Using a round brush, I can have more control of my strokes, so I prefer using this one. The shadows I made are very subtle, and the reason behind that is, when we add highlights to our petals, all the rest of the petals will look dark, so we don't really need to overdo the shadow. Plus you can always add more later on. It's time to add some highlights. Using a very concentrated mixture of titanium white, I'll make big strokes for the body and the pollen petals to create highlights. If you think that your mixture is too strong, you can lift it with a clean tissue to soften it. Again, check your reference image as you paint, but you don't really need to copy everything as is. Add your own creative touch and be confident in creating your own strokes. Remember, we do not aim to paint realistic or unrealistic style here. Just get the essence of the flower and you're good. I'll be lifting some whites here to soften it using a dry tissue paper, drag it and lift the color. As I've mentioned earlier, if you think that your highlights are too strong, you can lift it. Our peony is almost complete. We will let this layer dry first, then proceed to another layer later on. Remember our five steps, we are done with step one to four. It's time to add the details which is actually step five. As you see on the reference image, it contains more small petals than what's seen on my painting. But since I already added the highlights, I need to use a lighter and more concentrated mixture of Petersburg ocher for this layer to be visible. I'll also be adding some of these here, in between the body and pollen petals, I also decided to add another layer of pollen petals to help my audience understand that this peony has layers of pollen petals underneath. Again, we are painting in loose style, so there will be times that we really need to help the viewers understand the plot over painting without doing it in an overly detailed fashion. I'll be adding some here. Very light and subtle and I'm just mixing the flat strokes and the side strokes. Another detail to add for our peony is the core or the center. Although on the reference image there's only one brown detail in the middle of the body. I decided to use another reference photo for this part of the painting and that's another tip that I want to give you. You don't have to stick to just one reference image. You can combine two or even three references that will help you create a certain flower, especially a complicated one. For the core, I'll use a liner brush for the base layer and a watery mixture of yellow ocher. Using the brush creates soft lines in the middle of the flower and leave a bit of whitespaces to avoid creating a blob. I'll be adding a bit more here. When your first layer for the core is completely dry already, we will add another layer. This time, we will use raw umber, which is a darker tone for yellow ocher. This part of the core will be more detailed. I'll use a detail brush, which is a monogram liner brush in size 20/0. For this part, I'll just create small lines with a bit of pressure on top. Take it as if you're creating some commas. Let's add more, but don't cover the base layer. Just add a lot, but not too much. For the last part of the core, we will add the darkest detail using sepia. Same thing, just create as if you're creating commas. But this time I'll leave more spaces because I don't want to cover it that much. For the second to the last detail, we will add some freehand lines. This is something that they add to just give a little extra interest on our painting. This is part of my style personally, you can actually skip this part, but I still suggest that you add it. I mix sepia with Petersburg ocher, and I'm just creating random lines on some areas just to add interest on my painting. This is also part of my extra shadow and as you notice, it really added a lot of interest on my art. For the last detail, I would like to establish some small petals. You can skip this part if your peony looks complete already. I would add a bit of highlight on the background as well, so it would stand out a bit, and we are done with our peony. 6. Analyze & Paint a Rose: We are generally done with our peony. If you think something is still missing with your painting, just wait and leave it. Later on when we finally finish everything, we can go back to it and add extra details to complete it. For now, let's proceed in painting our second flower, which is a rose. We will place our second flower, which is a rose in this area. For the rose, I decided to use the color Mocha from Netscape pallete. This is a soft pink with a hint of peach shade and I really love it. For the base layer we need to get a milk mixture of a color. Milk mixture means that the color we will use is watery, yet still pigmented like milk. Let's analyze the shape of our flower. Looking at the reference image, we can see that our flower is very detailed with lots of dark petals. But when we put those layers aside, we can get this shape which is an imperfect circle with a bit of edge on some areas. Let's just leave those information into painting. Let's create a base imperfect circle with a bit of edge. I'm using a size three four filbert brush or pointed oval brush here and a very light mixture of my color Mocha. As you can see, I'm not really creating a very similar base with a reference image. I'm just dabbing my color and creating the general idea of a bit circular with some edges. I'm done with my base and we have to make sure that this layer is 100% dry already before we proceed to the next layer. While waiting, let's start analyzing the shape of the petals. As I've mentioned on one of our videos where I discussed this source, this particular flower has a lot of edges and a lot of dark petals. So it's really important to use a round brush for this. You can also see that the petals are getting bigger and wider as they reach the edge of the flower. Again, round brush is the perfect choice for this one. Also, since we already painted the base layer, how we're painting the petals will be inverted. We will use shadows, reduce the petals out of the base layer. I know that sounds weird, but let me show it to you. I'm going to use a small round brush, which is a monogram liner brush in size 20/0. I'll create small C strokes alternately to mimic the shadow of the rose. For the color, I mix Mocha with a bit of sepia to darken my mixture as the inner shadow of the rose is also darker in our reference image. Do it slowly and also makes a bit of random thin lines to add more shadows and dark petal effect. Now, I'll switch to a size 4 round brush to create bigger C strokes for our shadows. This time, I'll also use a bit of a lighter shade of Mocha, since based on our reference image, the shadows are getting lighter as we move away from the center of the rose. I'm also adding the edge of the shadow with clean water to create some ombre effect, which is actually similar to the look of the shadow on the reference photo. Let's continue adding C strokes till we complete all the shadows. To make the shadows more visible, I'll add another layer with a more concentrated mixture of color. I'm just adding here. I hope your work is looking good there, guys. If not, just continue. We can resolve all the issues that you guys are facing later on when we add details. On this part, I want you to step back and look at your rose. Ask yourself, does it need more shadow, then add. Did I lose the edges on my base layer? Then reestablish the edges. On my part, I'm adding more edges because I can see that I lost some of it when I added the shadow earlier. For the last step, we will be adding highlights. On my rose, I decided to add highlights on one side of my rows to give more dimension on my painting. Using a very concentrated mixture of titanium white, I'll add some C strokes on one side of my rose. As you notice here in the highlights, I made are very subtle, and I'll dilute it even more with clean water to soften its look. We are done with our rose. I hope yours is looking good, and don't worry if you think something is missing, you can add more details to it later on. For now, and let's proceed to our next flower. 7. Analyze & Paint a Cosmos Flower: Congratulations on completing two of our subjects, these two flowers are quite difficult to paint. So if you had a hard time, that's completely normal. Now we can start to relax because our next flower, which is a cosmos, is a bit simple compared to the first two that we have painted. Before we begin painting our third flower, let's start analyzing it first. Looking at the reference image, you will notice that this flower is very simple. It's actually one of those flowers that don't have much layers on it. When it comes to petals, you can see that they have around tips, which can be easily achieved, of course, by none other than filbert brushes. So for our cosmos, I'll use the same color as arrows, which is mocha, using a filbert brush or a pointed oval brush, I'll paint the base layer of our petals. I'm just using the side of my brush and doing flat strokes inside strokes here. Make sure that you're using a light mixture of colors so you can build more layers later on. While waiting for our base layer to dry, I'll get a mixture of green earth and connect this flower to my other subjects. Since the base of our cosmos is still wet, there's a chance that the color will bleed a little and that's totally fine. Actually, it's even better because it adds a lot of interests on our painting. Now that my base is dry already, it's time to add shadows so fast. That's because cosmos is such a simple flower. Anyway, I'll get a darker mixture from mocha and use a size 3/8 of our cosine brush for the shadows. Based on the reference photo, the shadow and the two petals on the right are more visible compared to the shadows on the left. I'll just be adding thinner and Marsh subtle shadows here. Now it's time to add some highlights. For cosmos, I'll be using a technique called dry brush. So what is dry brush? Using my pointed oval brush, I remove all the water from the bristles and get a concentrated mixture of white titanium. As you notice, there are textures visible in the strokes that I've created, and that's the beauty of this technique. So I'll add more highlights on the left side compared to the right side. Time to add the details, as you can see on the reference, cosmos has this thin textured lines. And using monogram liner brush, I'm adding the same texture on my painting. Be cautious on this part and make sure not to overdo it. For the last details, I decided to add darker tones on my stem to create dimension. Just get a more concentrated mixture of green earth and add broken lines on the part connecting the flower, the stem and on the left side of your stem. Finally, we're done with our cosmos, actually, we are done with all our main flowers. The next elements that we will paint are fillers. So make sure to prepare your browns and greens because they will surely be used on our next lesson. 8. Adding Fillers: A composition will never look complete without fillers around it. In this part of our class, we will start adding leaves to our painting. Leaves may be simple, but they surely add a huge effect on our art, you'll see it later. Let's begin this lesson. For our leaves, I'll mix different shades of neutrals and greens. I have green Earth, and the sea green, sepia, and Vandyke brown. I'll just mix them every now and then, and use different water and color ratio on every stroke. I want you to do the same. I want you to insert your own creativity on this area. But of course, you can still use my project as your guide. I'll first add my big leaves to cover a huge amount of area. When doing leaves, I just play with my brush. I use different sides of it to create different brushstrokes. Remember, leaves are just fillers, and they don't need to look realistic to be acknowledged as leaves. Most of the time they just need to be green. For the next layer, I'll add some darker shade of green just to create dimension on their leaves. It's time to add smaller leaves. Using Size 6 round brush, I'll use the tip of my brush to create thin lines and then press and lift my brush to create small leaves. Feel free to add these leaves on areas that you want to be filled. It can be in between the big leaves or between two flowers. Also, don't overdo it. We have more fillers to come, so you're not required to just use small leaves as your fillers. I'll add some more leaves in this area. We are done with the first part of our fillers. 9. Analyze & Paint Wax Flowers: Our painting is almost complete. But as you can see, there's still spaces needed to be filled. This is where we put our wax flowers. Now let's start painting. If you're not familiar with wax flowers, this is what they look like. They're little flowers with dark brown cores. In real-life bouquets, they always serve as fillers, and today, they'll do the same for our artwork. Since wax flowers have rounded petals, the best brush to use are small filbert brushes like my oval crescent brush in Size 3/4. In creating their petals, just do flat strokes for about 3-5 per flower. Yes, you don't need to complete all the petals in every flower. You can create an illusion that they are petals overlapping by removing a petal or two in some of the flowers. Place a bunch of wax flowers in areas that needs color. It's time to add the details. Using a concentrated mixture of Van **** brown, add small lines in the middle of your wax flowers. Notice that I don't place the small lines uniformly. I'm creating random patterns just to make everything look loose. Now, for the next wax flower detail, I will be adding some outlines. Again, I encourage you not to do these outlines uniformly. Be carefree and let your hand do the strokes freely. Time to load your brush with titanium white to add some highlights. Since this is just a filler, I will just add dots of white on some areas of my wax flower to add interest. No need to add a lot. Just dots of white on some of your petals. You can actually stop on this part already, but if you want to add more fillers, more leaves, and extra details, this is your time to do it. As for my work, I'll be adding a few more leaves and some more fillers to fill some areas that I wanted to be filled. You can still refer to the finished painting as your reference, but I want to encourage you to insert your own creative strokes and listen to your instinct as you add more details on your painting. This is actually the part where you will learn the most. 10. Final Thoughts: Finally, we are done with the class. Thank you so much for joining me and well done for finishing the lessons. I hope you learned and enjoyed as much as I did and I hope you discover how to capture the essence of a flower and how to paint it in a less daunting and more approachable way. Just a reminder. If you think your work doesn't look the same as mine or you feel like you still need to redo your project, that's totally fine. It took me years of practice and many mistakes to be where I'm today. You're so much ahead of me when I started, so don't give up. Keep on trying and keep on painting. No matter what, I'm very excited to see the project that you have created. Please take some photo of it and upload it on the project section of our class. I would love to give my personal feedback on your work. If you found this class helpful, I hope you can leave a review in the review section. Let me know if this class met your expectation, what you enjoy the most and what can be improved. This is so valuable and helpful to me as your instructor so please don't skip this part. Also, don't forget to follow me here on Skillshare so you'll get notified about my upcoming classes and giveaways. You can also follow me on Instagram to get instant updates about my latest works and events. Lastly, feel free to share your project on Instagram and Instagram stories and tag me @jennyfloresart and Skillshare Instagram @skillshare. I will surely share your work with my community. I hope you love this class and learn something new. Thank you so much for joining, and I'm excited to see you in the next one. Bye.