Watercolor flowers - let's paint crocuses! | Liisa Halttunen | Skillshare

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Watercolor flowers - let's paint crocuses!

teacher avatar Liisa Halttunen, Skillshare-taught watercolor artist

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Intro

      1:29

    • 2.

      Materials

      2:01

    • 3.

      Sketching

      5:14

    • 4.

      Painting the background

      11:49

    • 5.

      Painting the flowers - part 1

      7:59

    • 6.

      Painting the flowers - part 2

      7:17

    • 7.

      Adding grass and details

      11:38

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60

Students

3

Projects

About This Class

Spring and summer are the time of blooming and vivid colors, so what better subject for watercolor paintings than flowers!

In this class we'll learn how to paint crocuses, which are probably one of the first flowers that appear when spring arrives. We'll dive straight into the class project, which is a painting of two crocuses in a forest.

By the end of the class you'll be more familiar with the following techniques:

  • wet-on-wet
  • layering colors

Should we get started? Go grab your art supplies and let's meet in the first lesson!

Music in the videos by:

Spring Flowers by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Reference photo by:

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/photos/hB_xgEXucQs)

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Liisa Halttunen

Skillshare-taught watercolor artist

Teacher

Hello everyone and welcome to my page!

My name is Liisa Halttunen and I come from the world's (allegedly) happiest country, Finland. I'm a self-taught (or rather, Skillshare-taught) watercolor artist - or at least on the path to become one! I work full-time as a Software test automation developer, but my free time is devoted to watercolors. Well, I do spend a lot of time with my two kids and husband too! :)

With my classes I want to show that anyone can paint. All you need are the right tools and techniques, as well as some self-compassion. No one gets it right all the time and that's ok! With every painting and practice you do, you learn something!

See full profile

Level: All Levels

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Transcripts

1. Intro: Hello, hello and welcome to my watercolors flowers class number 2. First of all, I'm going to show you the beautiful reference photo that inspired this class. This is by Aaron burden and I found it on Unsplash. And in this class we are trying to recreate a version of this beautiful photo. We are turning this photo into this kind of painting. And in doing so, we will learn lots of wet on wet technique and painting in layers. My name is Lisa Hoffman and I am Skillshare taught watercolor artist as my day job. I work in IT, but in the evenings or turned into a watercolor artist. I have done a few Skillshare classes previously. On the screen you can see a list of them. You can also find me from Instagram. Here are some photos of the paintings that we are creating in my other Skillshare classes. So please do check them out as well, if anything looks interesting to you. Okay, but I think that's enough about me and let's start painting. 2. Materials: It all starts with good-quality watercolor paper. I'm using cold pressed to 100% cotton Arches paper. And I've caught 11 page into four pieces. So it's roughly about ten by 15 centimeters. So it's like a postcard size. Then you will need a mixing palette for mixing your colors than two jars of clean water. Masking tape from any hardware store, a pencil and an eraser. Then you will need a few brushes. I'm using these three by four inch flat brush for waking my background. And then I have different sizes of round brushes, for example, Sikhs and size two. But you can use whatever you have. Then let's take a look at the colors. I'm using. Yellow ocher will try marine blue, chromium, yellow hue deep, so that's basically an orange. Then I have Payne's gray and brilliant blue violet. I'm also using this little spray bottle for wetting my colors. When I almost forgot to mention that we are also using white gouache or white watercolor to add some splashes at the very end. Okay, You're still a list of all the materials. Go get your stuff and let's start painting. And hey, don't worry, if you don't have all the same colors, you can use whatever you have. 3. Sketching: Let's start by attaching our paper firmly to some kind of background, for example, table or if you have a piece of cardboard like I do, you can use that. Remember the press down, take a few times so that it is attached properly so that there won't be any flaking of colors underneath the tape. Although that quite often happens at least for me, but it doesn't really matter. Either way. That's art. Okay, let's then start sketching. We are drawing two flowers. So in a sense, this is a very simple sketch. But at least when I was drawing this a few times, I noticed that it's quite hard to get the PayPal in the right shape. At least it was hard for me. So try it a few times and I'm sure you're gonna make it. I am first drawing the flower that is bigger of the two of them. I'm starting with the outer shape of the flower. And after that, I will start adding the petals. I wasn't quite satisfied with the shape that the flower hat on the right side, so I decided to erase that. But now I've started adding the petals in the middle. There will be two pickups in the middle and they form almost like a heart shape. And then I'm adding two smaller petals on the side. Like this. Taking a few trials and errors for me, but I have my eraser nearby and I'm not afraid to use it. It looks like I'm finally happy with the first flower, so I will now start drawing the second flower. It's slightly smaller than the first one, and I will draw it here on the left side of the first flower. And now it's done. So let's start painting the background next. 4. Painting the background: Let's start painting the background. Next. I have already added some yellow ocher and also ultramarine blue on my mixing palette. And I've added a generous amount of water to them. Now I'm taking some orange and also ultramarine. And I'm mixing a green color with those two colors. I am actually mixing two green colors. I'm using orange and blue for both of them. But I'm adding more water to one of those mixins and less water to the other one. Now it's time to wet the paper. I'm using this flat brush for wetting it with everything except for the flowers. So everything else you can wet but don't touch the flowers yet. Okay, that's done. And now I'm taking a size, maybe a size ten round brush or size six. And I start painting the background. I'm using yellow ocher, the one that had quite a generous amount of water. And I'm creating a sky which has a white spot in the middle. So that is the sun where the lightest, strongest. I'm adding yellow ocher all around it, but nothing in the middle. I think I'll add a bit more pigment to the yellow ocher that I have diluted with water, water because it was a bit too light. So I'm adding a bit more pigment. And I added in the upper corner and try to blend it to the pink that I have already added to the paper. Next, take your ultramarine blue and start adding it on the left side of the paper. I try not to mix the blue and the yellow curve so that the color won't turn greenish. I tried to keep them a bit separated from each other. And next I will take more pigment from the pan, and I will add it to the corner. And then I will blend that color with the color that is already on the paper. So I tried to make the corners a bit more intense. Colors. Then the color gets glider. The more we go to the middle of the painting. Once the color is blended enough, I will start creating small sunrise. And I will do that by cleaning the brush and then dabbing it dry on a piece of paper. And then I will just make brushstrokes like this from the center towards the cheese. And remember to clean your brush in between so that you won't get your colors mixed. I will do the same here on the blue color. Next, we'll add some greenery on the background. Take the lighter, take the green where you have added more water and start dabbing, dabbing little dots on the paper. These are alike a bushes and grass and trees that are somewhere far in the background. So we want the color to be very light. Please note that your background should still be wet when you are painting the background because otherwise the color won't spread nicely. Now I'm adding a few tree trunks. On the background. I have a mixed a bit of ultramarine blue with the yellow ocher, and I'm just painting a couple of tree trunks on the back ground. Take next the more intense green color, and start creating a layer of background. Brush, bushes and trees that are slightly closer to us. So that's why they are darker. Your background should still be wet. So if it's not, then you should not be doing this step. But if your background has dried already, you can wait until the entire paper is dry and then you can very carefully re wet the whole background and then continue doing this background layers. Now I'm picking a bit of Payne's gray and I will want to create a more intense green color. I'm mixing Payne's gray with the green mixture that I created. In the beginning. I'm adding also more blue and orange because my green started to run out. I'm adding a few dots of orange still on the backprop course, I have added so much green that now the orange is barely visible from the back ground. So just a few dots here and there on the right side. And I will blend it with a clean dry brush like this. Now the background is ready. So let's wait for this to dry entirely, and then let's start painting the flowers. 5. Painting the flowers - part 1: Let's start painting the flowers. Next. I'm taking some violet and I added just a hint of ultramarine blue to that. And I have a quite intense color and I'm adding it to the edges of one petal like this pen. I'm cleaning my brush and I'm wetting it just slightly. And with that damp brush, I am, I am spreading the color like this. Then I will basically create rest of the petals in a similar way. But I will still add a bit of maybe some Payne's gray on the edge like this. I want to add a few more darker spot on the paper. But after this, I will work on a next petal and make sure that you pick some petal that is not next to the pedal that you were just painting because we don't want the colors to spread. So I'm here again adding violet on the edges and then I'm spreading the color with a clean, damp brush. Let's denote a bit of Payne's gray to some places like this. The first petal has already dried, so I will next start working on the pedal that is next to it. And again, I'm adding violet on the edge like this and now albedo on the bottom as well. And then I will start spreading the color once again with a clean, damp brush. I want the top of these petals to be very light because the sunlight shining onto it. So I tried to make it just so that there's just a hint of violet on the top of this petal. Next I will add again Payne's gray to the bottom, and I will blend it with the violet. It's create rest of the pathos in a same way. Okay, the first layer, of course, is now done on the flowers. And the next little bit of orange color to the flower stems like this. I just realized that I haven't added any color on the petals that are on the back, so I will just add a hint of color to those as well. They need to be very light, so I am wiping off the extra color. One more petal here on the left side of the bigger flower. And after that, the first, first layer is done. Let's wait for everything to try and then we can start painting the second layer of the flowers. 6. Painting the flowers - part 2: Okay, now the first layer should be dry. So let's start adding a second layer and more intense colors. I have taken now, violet and there's no water in it, so it's really intense color and I'm adding it to the base of the flower like this. And then I'm taking a clean brush that is slightly damp and I'm spreading and blending the color to the background. Then keep adding more intense colors to the other pathos as well. And wherever you see that, it would be nice to have more intense color. Next, I am taking Payne's gray straight from the pan. And I am adding it to the base of the flower and to the stem. So I'm getting these almost green, green, very dark green color. When I add Payne's gray on top of the orange that we added in the previous step. Then I'm taking a beat of beautiful water or actually I'm cleaning my brush and the brush is now damp, so I am blending the color to the background. And I'm leaving one part of the stem untouched so that the orange color is really visible. In that spot. Continue to add in more intense colors to the other flower SVM. Then you can add Payne's gray also to the stem of the other flower in a similar way that we did the first stem. After that, I think I want to add even more intense colors do the flowers. So I'm mixing violet with Payne's gray to get even more darker violet. And I'm adding that to the board on pause or to the base of the flower. And then I'm blending that again to the previous layers. Okay, The flowers are looking very nice now. So I think what's left is adding some details and then also adding some grass on the front, ground off the paint. 7. Adding grass and details: Okay, we are getting near to the end now. And now what's left to add some leaves and grass on the front ground, as well as some final details. I have now mixed again some green color with orange and blue. And I've added a bit of water to it so that it's quite transparent. And I've started adding some leaves on the floor of Kraut. So keep adding leaves and crash any way you want. Next, we are doing the same, but with darker color. I'm using Payne's gray. You could make a bit of blue and orange to the Payne's gray, but I'm using just Payne's gray. And I'm creating more more leaves and more grass. Next I'll add a bit of details to the flowers. I'm using Payne's gray again and I'm just trying to make the petals more visible. So I'm adding a bit of Payne's gray on the edges of the petals. Then maybe a couple of more dress. These are leaves over here because it looked a bit. Beer. I think after that. I am taking white gouache. You can also use white watercolor. And let's add a bit of white details. Next. Lot of bit of white here on the stems of the flowers. Only on the left edge where I left a bit of orange color to be visible. And then I will add a few strokes of white to the sum of the grasses like these. And then as a final step, I will add some splashes. Bought a piece of paper on top of your flowers so that the splashes want to go on top of your flower and flush away. Then let's move the paper and do some splashes on the other side as well. Beat marsh clashes on the other side. And then I think I am done to move the cape. And let's see how it turned out. Hey, thanks for everyone for joining in. I hope you upload your class project and leave me some comments about this class. I hope to make better classes. So look for that. I need your input and comments and critique. But hey, thanks for joining and I hope to see you again in my next class.