Watercolor Icelandic Poppies: Paint Dreamy Floral Silhouettes

1. About the Class: I love Icelandic puppies for their delicate and ethereal petals. They come in a range of colors, from vibrant red and oranges to soft pinks and yellows. These unique creates offer a great way to experiment with loose and expressive brush strokes. And here's a fascinating tit bit. Icelandic poppies are often referred to as focal flowers and a bouquet. So what does that mean for us as artists? It means that they command attention, becoming the visual anchor that captivates the viewer. We can paint them as single stems, a cluster of flowers, or be part of a larger floral arrangement. Join me today as I guide you through capturing the dreamy floral silhouettes of Icelandic poppies in watercolor. Hi, my name is Jolly. And I'm a watercolor artist on line art educator and a skillshare, top teacher with a decade of painting experience. The art revolves around painting. Watercolor, flowers, capturing nature on paper in a loose and expressive style. In my classes, I simplify challenging techniques into pginlar friendly steps. In this class, we will observe reference photos and do a quick sketch to better visualize the shape of this flower. Get ready to explore various angles. Brush strokes, and different techniques that will transform your ability to paint any flower that catches your eye. But that's not all. You're also diving into shadows and layers, adding depth to those delicate petals. I'll share a secret technique to make the center of the poppy stand out, elevating your watercolor game to new heights. For our project, we will start off with a vibrant small cluster of Icelandic poppies. We'll also begin by doing a thumbnail sketch to help you plan your painting and boost your confidence in painting on a larger scale. After that, we'll step it up a notch and we will transition to painting on a larger canvas that will enable us to place flowers more freely. This flexibility allows us to have a more dynamic composition. This last is ideal for beginners who are eager to enhance skills in painting loose watercolor flowers. The methods and techniques that you will learn in this class are not strictly for Icelandic poppies. You can definitely apply it to painting other flowers as well. I hope that you're excited to paint a new flower, so grab your brushes and let's get started. 2. Class Overview: Hi, welcome to the class overview. I'm really excited for this class. As we will learn new things, I will be guiding you and showing you my painting process from the refer to painting the actual flowers itself on the paper. What I'm also excited about is that this class offers a tool kit for you to be able to paint flowers in your own style. I will just quickly go through the lessons in this class. We'll first start by observing reference photos and look at the features of flowers that speak to us. Then we will do a quick sketch to just simplify the details of the flower. Our main focus is painting the silhouette of the Icelandic poppy. Because it's really perfect for brush work, it's going to be fun because you learn how to use your brush. We will mostly use the side of the brush to create some broad strokes for the petals of the poppy. Next, we will be practicing how to paint this flower in different angles. This is a good lesson also for you to paint other flowers that are facing in different directions. And then we'll also be practicing how to add the details in the shadows. Again, don't worry, because we will start with some warm up painting exercises before we dive into our projects. Icelandic poppies are focal flowers that can be used on its own or be part of A, B, K. In this last, I decided to focus on painting Icelandic poppies in a cluster so that you can focus on this flower alone. Later on, you can add this focal flower in a floral composition. We will paint a small project first to get your feet to wet, and when you're ready, we will move on to a larger painting by using a thumbnail sketch first to plan out our composition. All right, so that's it. I think you are ready to start. Let's now move on to the materials that you need for the class. 3. Materials : All right, so let's talk about the materials that you need for the paper. I'll be using the Ball Hong artist grade paper. This is a cold press paper and it's in a block form. All the sites are glued except for this part right here, where you can slide off a sheet after you are done painting. Also, I'll be showing you the texture of this paper. It's a cold press, so you can see a little bit of rough texture there. But that is really perfect for loose florals. It's the style that we will be painting in this class. This paper on my painting era is also made of bao hong paper, but it's a large sheet that I just cut up into a custom size. You can do that and I'll cut up into smaller sheets so that you can save money. Now this one is also boom, but it's the student grade version. It's called Bajo Academy. The texture of the paper is just slightly smoother. But I really recommend this paper for beginners because it's not that expensive and yet the quality is really good. It's almost the same as an artist grade paper, which is really amazing. But of course, you can use any cold press paper that you have, even if it's just student grade paper. Next, I'll be using different round brushes in this class. So I have sizes 46.8 but if I only had two choices here, I will use size six and size eight. These are my go to round brushes. What I love about this brush is that it can hold a lot of water and yet it can keep a pointy tip. And also it's quite soft so it follows my flow. I really love relying on brush strokes when it comes to painting loose florals. Next I am using the silver ultra mini designer round brush. So this one is used for those tiny details. But if you don't have this brush, just use a smaller round brush Again, you can use any brush that you have that you're comfortable with. Next for the paint, I'm using the machine hand, PWC. It's a Korean artist grade paint and it comes in tubes like this, but I just pour them into smaller half pants so that it's easier to use and just more convenient. I love the selection of colors in this artist grade paint, and also I love that it's quite vibrant. Next, we need a mixing palette. This is my ceramic palette, but you can definitely use a plastic palette or even just a regular plate. This class we're also going to use a white. Gosh, this is the whole in gah, in permanent white. And you're going to use that for the center of the Icelandic poppy, which I'm going to teach you how to mix this with water color later on. Next, we need a pencil. Just use any regular pencil. We're just going to use this as a guide. In some of the projects, I'm going to be drawing the center of the flower or the outline. Next, we also need water jar. I usually use just one water jar, but you can use two. Then of course, we need tissue paper to blot out the excess paint in our brush. All right, so that's it for the materials. Now let's move on to the next video. 4. Observe and Sketch: In this lesson, we are just going to observe different photos of Icelandic poppies. And we're going to quickly sketch them to better visualize how we can paint them and just translate them on the paper. So we're going to look for prominent features, we're going to look at different angles. Okay, so let's start. So here are some photos of the Icelandic poppies. And I really, really love them because they're just so pretty and dainty and elegant. And I also love the vibrant colors. You can see that they have huge, huge petals that are freely and just have that ruffled edge. So these are also called focal flowers because they're quite huge and they are attention grabbing flowers in a bouquet setting. They will be like the star of the bouquet. And I think that learning how to paint this is useful if you love painting flowers and if you love composing different floral compositions. And we can just try to play around with the shapes and the colors. He also like the long and slender stems that are a little bit curved and they look like they are dancing. So these are some of the prominent features that I have observed and would love to translate it on the paper and just share some tips with you. Okay, so I think we can try to start sketching. We're not going to go into the detailed sketches, we just want to form the basic shapes. This is a front facing flower. I'm just drawing the outline. You can see I'm doing some jagged edge. I'm just trying to follow what I see on the paper. And then once I'm done, I'm just going to put the center, just draw a circle and put some small sticks all around it. Next you will see all the shadows there. Um, so what we're going to do is we're just going to draw some lines. Some will be thicker, some will be thin. Sometimes I also draw these lines just to separate the petals. Again, is just an exercise for us to better visualize what this flower will look like on paper. This is really just a very chill drawing. It doesn't have to be perfect. We're also just using this as a time for us to observe this flower. This is a method that you can also use to apply when you're painting a different flower. Right here, I just drew an oval shape for the center. I'm also going to draw the petals. We're going to do a flower that is at an angle, You can see the left side has longer petals and then on the right side, the petals are shorter. I'm just using this photo as my reference. Then we're going to separate the petals. We can add some lines for the folds within the petal later on. You can use these drawings as a guide when you're painting the actual flower. Okay, You can also draw that stem. And then next you have this small flower right here that's about to bloom. And it's also on its side. I'm just painting the bottom petals that's a little bit folded. You can see I drew that cup or that U shape, and now we're doing the top part. For the center, I'm just going to draw an oval just to let our eyes know that this is at an angle. Again, we can just draw these veins. Next you have flowers that are facing at the back. These are flowers just like this. You won't see the center of the flower anymore. These are just petals. I am just going to paint the petals one by one. Then draw the letter U shape below. Then you can just separate the petals. Some petals are in front are further back. When you're looking at the reference photo, you can easily spot these tiny details. Also, of course, it takes practice to do this. Don't worry about it if it's your first time. Definitely, you will get better with drawing as time passes by. The more you paint, the more you draw. I will be providing these reference photos in the project gallery section of the class. You can download it. All right, I think you are ready for the next lesson now let's move on to the next video. 5. Explore Floral Silhouettes: Icelandic poppies have beautiful floral silhouettes. That's why in this lesson, we're going to practice some brush stroke techniques that you can apply to painting different flowers. You're going to learn how to paint the silhouette of different angles of this flower. You also learn how to paint the details in the petals right here. I'm just going to teach you how to paint some simple strokes to hold the muscle memory in your hand. Just use any color and simply press your brush onto the paper and start to paint broad strokes. We are going to use the side of the brush, mostly for the petals of the Icelandic puppies. We are going to use just the side of the brush to create some petals. Now, it's easier to move on the paper if your brush is a little bit wet. Also, the paper I'm using here is just student grade paper, so you don't really need to use expensive paper for this practice piece. All right, so let's do a silhouette of that flower that is on its side. So I'm doing the top first, and then we're going to do the left side. I'm following that yellow flower over there, try to observe how the petals move or where it faces. Since this is at an angle, the petals on the right side are going to be shorter. So this is a really nice practice for you just to get the feel of painting the petals of an Icelandic poppy. Now let's do a front facing one. So I'm going to start with the top. I can also try to push by brush. You can see the tip is creating that jagged edge. Since this is front facing the shape of the flower, it's going to be circle. But you can try to change the size of the petals, make some a bit longer, some are slightly shorter. Okay. Let's try another shape. This is another Icelandic poppy at an angle, you can see that the shape is a little bit weird, but it's always best to really look for different reference photos. I'm going to start with the left side and you can see you have a longer top. So I'm just going to press my brush and extend my stroke. And as I'm doing this, you can see I'm leaving the center quite open with a white space. Okay, so just simply move your brush up and down to create that beautiful, organic stroke right here. I just decided to add a second color, just to add some contrast or just to add some shadows. Now, it doesn't have to look exactly the same, so you can really put in your artistic interpretation when it comes to painting the base layer. Okay, so let's try another one. This one is also at an angle, but it looks like a smaller flower, so I'm just going to start at the bottom part. So this looks like a folded petal. And then next we're going to just fill in the top petals. So you can see that I'm also leaving a space in the center. And then for the petals, you can add some tiny strokes around it to make it look more loose. This is just a practice for us, so don't worry about small patches or blooms in the petals. That's okay. So what we want here is to really practice our brush strokes for this flower. You can see that there's a big front petal and that's what we're going to paint first. I'm going to paint two petals, even though in the photo you can see it's just one huge petal. But I think I want to separate it so that it doesn't look chunky. Next, I'm going to put about two petals at the top. And you don't need to let them touch each other first. All I usually start like this. And then I'm going to slowly add some smaller petals on the side just to fill in that gap. You do want to slowly add these tiny details or else you might accidentally overwork painting aside flower for site angled flowers, it usually looks like a cup, so you can see the bottom part has like a letter U shape. So that's another guide for you when you're painting these types of flowers. So after learning how to paint the silhouettes, we are now going to practice how to paint the shadows. Or just the simple strokes that we can add to give the flower more depth, to make it easier for us to practice. I'm going to simply draw a flower. I just want the outline and also the center. You can also try to do this using a scratch paper, so it doesn't have to be a nice watercolor paper. In fact, I'm using just a student red paper here for practice. Okay, now let's grab indigo. You can use a different color as well. I just prefer to use indigo because it's a nice dark color. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to follow the strokes that I see on this white poppy. Okay? So what we're going to use is just the tip of the brush and I am going to do some curvy lines and also broken lines. So we want to vary the pressure in each stroke. So you can see that some parts are a bit thicker, some are thinner. We're also going to practice painting these strokes coming from the center, going out, or from the tip of the petal going into the center. So this is just a good way for you to practice, to release that pressure when you're painting the actual flower that we will use for our project. I really want you to be more confident in painting these strokes. Usually, this technique is also used to separate the petals, because when you're painting poppy like this, sometimes you cannot see the separation of the petals. So we're going to use some dark strokes to put in between the petals. All right? Just simply look at the reference photo and try to copy some of the veins or folds in the petals. Just like in this area going to start at the tip and just slowly make my way down to the center. But I don't need to paint one single stroke. I can do broken lines. This is also a good exercise for tonal values. You can see some shadows are a little bit darker, some are lighter. So it depends on where the light is hitting. Sometimes if you have strokes that are too bold, you can just grab a clean brush and blur it, or fade it away. Another tip, you can grab a reference photo and convert it into black and white so that you can see the shadows better. All right, here I'm just adding a really light colored indigo mixture just to add some shadows. Okay, I'm going to add a dark center as well. This is just for practice purposes, but when we're painting the actual flower, we're going to use green and yellow. Right here, I'm using a darker indigo just to add some more contrast. Usually I add a darker color towards the end of a painting. These are going to be like finishing touches already. These small strokes will make the painting look more alive. All right, You can go ahead and also practice this with petals or flowers that is facing on the side. I know it's probably difficult to know when to stop. For me, this practice piece is a way to know when to stop. So usually you'd probably overdo it. So when you overdo it, then you would know, oh, this has too many strokes or too many veins. Next time I'm going to put just less strokes instead. And don't worry, the more you do this, the more it will be easier for you to add some details on the flowers that you will be painting Right here, I'm just showing you some different strokes using the tip of the brush. I love practicing with this because it helps me gain more control of my, it holds the muscle memory in my hand and you can see it's really just a tip that's moving on the paper and not the entire belly of the brush. All right, I hope that this lesson was very insightful for you and that you can apply it to painting even other flowers. Now let's move on to the next video. 6. Warm Up Exercise: Painting Base: Okay, let's practice painting some poppies. And I'm going to split it into two parts. For the first part, we're going to start by painting the base layer. First, I have here some reference photos. We are going to explore painting different angles. Let's start with this front facing flower over here. Just grab any color that you have in your palette. I'm going to use yellow, orange, and just going to dilute it in a lot of water. You can actually just use water for the base of the flower and just add some colors later on using the wet, un, wet technique. But I'm going to put some color in my brush so that you can see what I am painting. The reason why we're doing wet un wet technique is because we want a looser effect. I'm just going to show you that in a while. I'm going to use the side of the brush, move up and down to create that nice frily petal. You can use the tip of your brush, create some wily strokes. I'm going to add some more water in my brush. When your brush is really wet, you can definitely move a lot better on the paper. Again, just use the side of your brush and move it up and down. And then you can leave some spaces in between your strokes. Okay, I'm going to grab some more color and just paint it on top of some of the petals, all right? Because this is front facing, the shape of the flower will be a circle, but it doesn't have to be a perfect circle. Petals can be a little bit longer. You can also do this by pushing your brush and creating that nice jagged edge. I left the center open, or without any paint, because we're going to add some details there later on. Right. You can see that there is a lot of movement in this flower and I wanted it to look very ethereal, just like how an Icelandic poppy would be. Now I'm grabbing some orange. This is more pigmented. We want to add some colors in between the petals and also near the center where the shadow will be. That's why we did the wet on wet technique because we want the colors to blend seamlessly. Now this is optional. I'm going to grab a very light, permanent violet color and mix it. With that orange, you can get a nice shadow color that is going to look really beautiful. I usually add this in between the petals or just towards the tips, like hints of that shadow. You have to be just careful because you don't want this flower to look muddy. Okay, So you can also go ahead and add an even more intense color. This is a vermilion or you can use red. To sum it up, we use a light base color, and then we added a medium orange. Next we added a vermilion or a red color. And then we also added some shadow. All right, we can move on to a flower that is side facing. For this one, I wanted it to be a little bit more dainty. We're going to use pink is brilliant pink with a permanent rose, but you can also use just permanent rose. Again, I'm going to start with a very light mixture. It means that it has more water in it. The shape of the overall flower is going to be close to an oval shape. I also put a small.in the center using a pencil. It's just a guide for me. You can also try to do this from the center. I'm going to move my brush up and down and follow the petals that I see on the reference photo, You can see it's a very watery mixture. Next we're going to do the petal On the side, you can see it's a little bit longer. Feel free to adjust the shape of the petals and add some jagged edge using the tip of the brush, You can definitely play around. Let's move on to the bottom petals again, using the side of my brush, moving it up and down. And also leaving some spaces in between my strokes so that it will look more interesting. The petals on the right side are shorter, and that's because this is a flower at an angle. It takes a little bit of practice to paint flowers at an angle, but you can definitely do it right now. I'm just going to add a more pigmented mixture. It's the same brilliant pink and permanent rose color. I'm adding it in between the petals and also near the center. These are where the shadows will be. If you want to add some highlights, just simply lift the color using a damp brush. Also using a tissue paper here. Okay, I think it looks good. I'm using a cold press paper, which is really good for this technique. You can see I'm using a lot of water and yet the paper is still holding really well and I'm not getting a lot of puddles or blooms. It's really nice to use 100% cotton paper that's also cold pressed. Okay, let's move on to a different angled flower. I'm going to try and show you guys how to paint this flower that's about to bloom and it has fewer petals. We want to start at the bottom part or the part that's facing you. I'm just going to paint some letter C strokes like this. It's going to form a letter U shape. Next, we're going to add the petals above it. I'm going to use a really light color. Just make sure that you have some white spaces in between so that it doesn't look like a blob of paint. And then you can try to wiggle your brush to create those jagged edges. Let's add more depth to this flower by adding some shadows. I am using a darker pink. This is just permanent rose, and we're adding it in between the petals. Also in front and near the center to make it look more interesting. Can also add a little bit of permanent violet. This is something that I love to add to my flowers because it gives this shadow effect or like that floating effect. I'm just going to add that in between some of the petals and also outside the petal. Just like what I'm doing here, it's just a subtle color. Make sure that you dilute it in a lot of water. Next we also have flowers that are facing at the back. Just like this flower here, you cannot see the center anymore because it's facing at the back. This is just going to be a bunch of petals. I'm going to mix old tra, marine blue and burnt umber. But you can also use just indigo for that white color. I now have my gray mixture, and I want to make sure that it's really diluted in a lot of water. Now, I'm going to paint the first petal. Make sure that you have some white spaces in between your petal. Next, you can press your brush onto the paper, and the tip is going to create some nice jagged edge. Then just pull it down to complete the petal. You're going to move to the right and create more petals. It almost looks like a fan shape. You'll see in the reference photo that there are some shadows in the petals. So I'm going to add some darker areas. All right, so to better visualize this flower that it's facing at the back, we're just going to add a stem right here using sap green. Next, you can rinse your brush and dab it in a tissue paper. Make sure that it's not too wet. We're going to try and blur this part just to make it look more seamless. Just use the tip of the brush and move it near the base of this flower. Now it looks really good. Okay, so that was fast. Now we're done with a paste. It's time to let it dry, and I'm going to add some more details, which you can see in the next video. 7. Warm Up Exercise: Adding Details: All right, so this is quite dry already. Now I'm going to add the center. Let's just look at the reference photo again. You can see in the center, it's a little bit green. We have some yellow details as well. Now what we're going to do is we're going to grab green. And I'm going to paint some round shapes for the stamen. You can use a smaller brush for this to have more control. We're going to use the color sap green, but you can also use other greens in your palette. You can tap your brush just like this because this is front facing. The center is going to be circle. If you want a bleeding effect, you can add the center while the petals are all still wet. Right here, the petals are already dry. So you can see that the green color is not moving into the petals because the petals are dry, I still want you to have that option to explore. If you feel like adding the center right away. Definitely you can do that. You'll have more bleed in the center. Okay, Right here. I just picked up some of the green because it's too dark. Next, you can grab your yellow color. Any yellow paint in your palette. I have here permanent yellow light. And I just added a little bit of that. Permanent yellow, deep. I'm going to paint some thin lights all around the center. Again, if you do this while the petals are still wet, it's going to bleed into the petals. I think it's also a great effect. You can also experiment on that next. Just to add some more depth, I'm going to grab indigo. And I'm going to make sure that my brush is a little bit dry. You can dab it on a tissue paper. Just create a ring of dots all around the green center. As I'm adding this, the green center is actually a little bit damp, so you can see the colors bleeding into each other. If the indigo suddenly blends too much with the green, whole center becomes blue. And that's okay, because you can definitely blot it out. Sometimes that happens to me as well. I'm really excited to add some details because it just makes the flower look alive. I'm going to grab vermillion. This is a red orange color. Just using the tip of the brush, we're going to add some veins. I usually start in between the petals and also towards the tips of the petals. If your brush is too wet, don't be scared to dab your brush in a tissue paper because at this point, you do want more control over your brush. For these details, I'm also using a size four round brush to create some thinner lines. You can see that I'm trying to add some wiggly lines towards the tips of the petals. This is a way to separate the petals by adding some lines, and I'm also adding some broken lines. You can also mix a very light mixture of permanent violet and add some veins using that color, it's going to give a very interesting effect on the flower. It's a beautiful shadow effect at this point. I think it's also important to look at your reference photo and observe the shadows or the creases in the petals. Okay, let's just look at this flower. This is a white flower, you can see those darker lines. Even if I'm painting an orange flower, I can still use this as a reference. Just paint the details that catches your attention. I don't want you to feel the pressure of really copying everything from the reference photo. It's just a guide for you so that you have a direction for painting from time to time. Try to look at your painting from afar so that you can see whether the lines are enough. Because it's so easy to accidentally overdo the details. I think I just have so much fun adding all of these lines. Right here. At the bottom part of this flower, there's a little bit of shadow. And we're going to try and mimic that. Actually, I'm going to do some wavy lines towards the tips of the petal, so it looks like it's slightly folded. Okay, let's move on to this pink flower at an angle. I'm going to use this again as my reference. We're just going to mix the same brilliant pink and permanent rose color if you're using a different color, just about two shades darker, the base color. Okay, So you can see that there are some shadows towards the right side of this flower. It means that the light source is probably on the left side. Again, we start painting the veins in between the petals and towards the tips. It's almost like I'm doing an outline first. Before filling in the petal with more details, let's paint a thicker line right here, so that we'll give an impression that this part is a little bit folded. Okay, We have this permanent violet mixture and I also mix it with a little bit of pink. And I'm going to add that for the shadows, you can see the difference that it makes. I feel like it looks more three D by adding that permanent violet color. Some people also like using the color blue for the shadows. I feel like it's also a preference to give this flower more contrast. We need a darker pink color. I'm going to use that to add some really tiny strokes. Sometimes they're just thoughts and it's going to make a huge difference for the overall look of this flower. So we're adding that darker pink towards the right side where the shorter petals are, because that's where the shadows will be. Okay, as I look at this from afar, it needs more contrast. We can grab a little bit of that permanent violet and just mix it with the pink and add it in between the petals. As you can see, there are so many layers on this flower. We're not using just one or two colors. We're using about three to four layers to make it stand out. Just have to be a little bit more patient with this style of painting. All right, we're done with two flowers. Now let's move on to the small flower. I'm going to use permanent rose, and we want it to be a more pigmented mixture. Going to paint some strokes at the bottom part then don't worry about it. We can start fading it away if it looks too bold. Next, let's paint some really thin veins on the petals. So I'm using really just the tip of the brush to do this. That's why it's important to use a small round brush to create these details. So because this is a small flower, we're not going to add a lot of details because it will look too cluttered. Next, I'm going to grab my permanent violet. This one was already mixed with the base color of this white flower. We're just going to paint some thin brush strokes just to create an illusion of the folds and creases of the petals. We can also do this to separate some of the petals. Just look at this reference photo, you can see some dark lines. That's what we are trying to translate on the paper, even if it's not a white flower like this orange one that's also facing. At the back. You can also use that as a reference photo. You can see the shadows in the petals. Okay, Again, just use the tip of your brush and lightly glide on the paper to create these beautiful strokes. Try to vary the pressure in each stroke so that some are thinner, some are thicker. Okay. So this is looking really good. Now, I'm going to teach you how to paint the center or the stamen of the Icelandic poppy. We need some gas. Next, I'm going to grab some yellow watercolor paint and this is going to create a nice opaque yellow mixture. You need about 1212, maybe 2.5 water color paint. Just mix it like this until you create a nice yellow color that you like. Another option is actually to just get a yellow gosh. If you have a yellow gosh, just use that straight from the tube. But right now, I just prefer using a white gosh and adding some yellow so that I don't need to get a new color of gosh tube. Okay, so just put some small dots all around and just the tip of the brush, make sure that you vary the shape or the size of the dots, it will make it look more interesting. You can also paint some thin lines and you'll see this detail in an Icelandic poppy. Okay. Now, let's add this on this flower. I'm going to add this on just the upper part of the flower since it is at an angle. Another round brush that I like to use for these details is this ultra round designer brush. It's a really nice pointy brush, Sometimes it still looks a little bit flat. And what I do is I just grab a different colors. We have here some orange or burnt sienna color. I'm just going to mix that. We're going to add some more dots using that color. It's going to give a three D effect, but of course it is optional. If you want just yellow, you can definitely use just yellow. You can see in the center, there is a star shape. I am going to add that to the center of these flowers using the yellow guash. Just paint some small petals in the center. Now let's do some of the finishing touches. I usually like going back with indigo to add more depth to the flower. Because sometimes as we add some details, the dark center gets covered up. So I usually like going back and adding more color because it's just going to give it more contrast and just makes it look prettier. All right, so we are done. I hope that you enjoyed doing these practice flowers. Now I think you are ready to paint your projects. Let's move on to the next video. 8. Project 1: Vibrant Icelandic Poppies: Now that we are familiar with painting Icelandic poppies, let's now paint a floral composition that forms a triangle just like this. So these are the three points of the triangle. Of course, we want to vary the angles of the flower so that it looks more interesting. You have a side angle flower front facing 1.1 that's about to bloom. We also added some small buds that will fill in the small white spaces. This project will be painted on a seven by ten inch paper. Later on, we're actually going to paint a bigger piece. But I wanted to have the option for you guys to paint small and also to paint big. For a reference photo, I'm using this book called the Flower Color Guide, and I saw this beautiful composition that we can use as inspiration. All right, On the bottom right, let's do a side angle Icelandic poppy. I just drew the center using a pencil. And you can also draw the outline of the flower if it's easier for you. Usually when I draw using a pencil, I try to draw lightly because once you paint on top of it, it's not going to erase anymore. So make sure that you draw lightly. Okay. Now I'm going to add a few petals for the flower at the top. For the first flower, I want it to be a dainty pink color. I'm going to use brilliant pink with permanent rose. But of course, you can start with other colors as well. If you have only permanent roast, then you can use that as well. Just to add some variety, I'm using yellow ochre, and mixing it into the pink mixture to create a peachy pink color. Using a very diluted mixture, it means it has more water. I'm going to start at the center and then slowly work my way up using the side of the brush to create that petal stroke. Just make sure that you have some white spaces in between your strokes. You can see that these petals that we're doing now, it's not a really dark pink color, it's very light. That's because we're going to add some color later on. You can also push, you use the tip of the brush, create that jagged edge like what I'm doing here. You can also use the tip of the brush to create some tiny strokes that will make it look more organic. I also like to wiggle my strokes just to create that beautiful petal. Because this is at an angle, the petals on the left side are longer. On the right side, it's going to be shorter. Just like in the reference photo, that is going to suggest that this flower is at an angle. You'll notice that I also left the center open. It means I'm not painting anything on it yet. Now let's grab a more pigmented mixture of brilliant pink and permanent rose. I'm just adding some more color in between the petals. We're adding this color while this base flower is still wet. You can see that the colors are blending seamlessly with each other. This is called a wet on wet technique. Let's also add a bit more color near the center. I'm usually adding a darker color near where the shadows are doing. This technique also gives this flower a little bit more depth. Because we're changing the values, you can see that some areas are lighter, some are darker. All right, let's move on to the second flower. I'm going to use yellow, orange because I just like this pop of color. And we're going to use this for the front facing flower. Okay? So I'm just going to erase the center of the second flower. And that's because I painted the first flower too big. So we have to adjust. Sometimes you really have to troubleshoot as you paint along. I need to move the orange flower a little bit higher. Okay. Again, I'm using the side of the brush to create some broad strokes. You can actually use just water to paint the petals and then just drop in some color. That's something that I would personally do. But for this video, I decided to add some color in my brush so that you can see what I am painting. All right, so now I'm trying to create some really wispy strokes and I'm holding my brush towards the end of the handle. You really want your brush to move up and down and you want it to be quite wet so that it's easier to move on a cold pressed paper. All right? I'm pretty happy with the shape. We have some nice jagged edges and also some full petals. Now I'm going to add some darker orange. You can use vermilion or use the same yellow orange color, but a little bit more concentrated than the previous base that you used. This is also going to be pretty if you don't touch all the petals. So you can see some of the petals are still a little bit light in color. I'm just adding in pops of orange and the tips of the petals. You can use the tip of your brush just to create some nice small strokes. Then this is optional. But you can add some shadows using permanent violet. Just make sure that you use a very diluted mixture to add more water. Sometimes I add the color of the flower to the violet color, and that's going to give us a nice shadow. So try to add this in between the petals or towards the tips. All right, so I think we need more contrast. I'm going to grab Vermilion and just add some darker red, orange areas. Again, you can look at the reference photos and look where the darker areas of the flower is. Don't worry, it really takes practice for you to be able to develop this instinct of knowing where to put the darker or lighter areas. All right, so to better visualize what we're painting, I'm going to add some stems. And this is just sap green with a little bit of burnt umber. So the stems of the Icelandic poppies are quite stiff but they're also curved so they look like they're dancing. And it's really nice to include in a floral composition because there's movement. So now I'm just painting another stem, where I will be attaching a small flower that's about to bloom. So try to follow your instinct, because sometimes it's easier to paint the flower first and then attach to the stem later on, or vice versa. Okay, let's start painting. That's about to bloom. I'm just painting some sea strokes that will form a cup. So this is going to be the base next. Let's grab a lighter color and just create some fluffy petals above it. All right? The petals in front are petals that are folded because it's at an angle. I know that painting flowers like this, it's a little bit challenging because we don't know how to paint the front petals, but sometimes just paint some C strokes and it will look like petals that's folded. So you don't really have to copy the exact details of a reference photo, you can definitely translate it into your own artistic interpretation. All right, so now I'm just adding some small buds. This is just to fill in some odd spaces where I can't really paint a flower anymore because it's going to look too full. Instead, we're painting some small buds. Okay, These big flowers are already dry, except for the small one at the top. I think we can start painting the center. I'm just using for this one, I'm going to paint an oval shaped because it's a flower that is at an angle. For the front facing one, we're going to paint a circle. For this flower. We're just going to paint a small oval shape. All right, now let's add some contrast. I'm going to grab indigo and you can dab it in a tissue paper to make sure that the paint is quite thick and dry. That's because you don't want this color to spread all over the place. You want it to be more controlled on a wet surface. Okay, I think we did a good job. It's not spreading too much. Now, let's grab some yellow paint. Any yellow paint is okay. And I'm just going to paint some thin lines all around the center because the base petals are already dry. You can see that my strokes are quite sharp and clear, but if you paint this detail on wet petals, it will mix with the wet petals, so you will see some bleeding. This small flower has some damp petals. You can see the yellow is spreading a little bit on the wet petals. That also creates a beautiful effect. All right, I think it's time to add some details. We'll start with this pink flower. I'm using the same mixture of permanent rose and brilliant pink. You might want to just mix about two shades darker than the base color. I'm just using the tip of the brush and creating some really wispy strokes, thin veins. You can start in between the petals and also near the tips of the petals. I think I needed to be a little bit darker. I'm just grabbing some crimson lake and mixing it with the pink mixture on my palette. And you can see now we have a darker color. Just use the tip of the brush and lightly glide it on the paper, changing the pressure. You can see we have some nice wispy strokes there. Also, you can use some really diluted permanent violet. We're going to use that to add some shadow effect on the petals. You'll see what I mean in a while. All right? You see that very subtle effect, but it really makes a huge difference. I'm adding it right here at the bottom part because I want to give the illusion that this petal is slightly folded because it's at an angle. I also like painting some broken lines starting from the tip going to the center. So you can see it's not one straight line. So sometimes I'm just painting small dots. Okay, so I think this is good for now. We can come back to it later on. Let's move on to this orange flower. I'm using Vermilion. It's just a nice red orange color. And again, I'm starting in between the petals and also towards the tips. You can definitely use other colors. Icelandic poppies are really beautiful. They come in different colors. They are usually very vibrant. You can also choose different colors right here at the bottom, just adding more strokes or darker areas to suggest that some petals are slightly folded. It's nice to look at your reference photo from time to time to be able to copy some of the shadows increases in the petals. Now let me just get a little bit of that permanent violet and mix it with my orange. Let's add some darker veins. Okay, So I really love to experiment with the second layer. And I make sure that I have roughly about two to three colors to add to the second layer so that it looks more interesting. All right, as I'm painting the orange, I suddenly noticed this pink flower again, and it just feels like it needs more contrast. I'm just grabbing this pink mixture with a little bit of that permanent violet in my palette, and I'm adding these darker spots. I'm trying to focus on this part right here, making sure I add some dark strokes. That's going to give it a little bit more depth. We want this flower to look like it's a loose flower, but it also has more details. Now let's grab some permanent rose. I'm just going to paint some strokes at the bottom part just to suggest that the petals are folded. Now we can add some veins at the top just to make it look more interesting. Make sure that your strokes are broken lines, it's not one straight line. Next, let's mix yellow with white gah. This is a really beautiful effect on Icelandic poppies and this is one of the things that I'm really excited for you to try. The mixture is roughly about 50, 50, 50% and 50% water color. We're just going to put some small right there in the center. If you want it to be more intense, you can also use a regular yellow. But I currently don't have a yellow go wash with me. I decided to improvise by using my white gosh and just adding water color. Now if you use just yellow water color, it's not going to pop up in the same way that this one does. Because water color, it's a little bit translucent. Even if you get a really opaque mixture, at least with white gosh, you are sure that it's going to turn out opaque, it's going to pop up. You can even play around with a second color. Sometimes I add burnt sienna or a deeper yellow. Just like what I'm doing here, you can see that beautiful two toned effect. This is a technique that you can also apply to painting other flowers with like a similar center, such as anemones. Okay, now I'm describing some indigo. I usually add a dlarker contrast towards the end of the painting. These are small finishing touches that will make a huge impact on your painting. Sometimes we lose some of the details, we have to go in and add those details back. All right, so if you look at the center, there's this detail that looks like a small flower from the top. So we're just going to paint some small petals in the center. All right, so we're almost done. I'm just going to go back into some of the flowers and grab this very diluted, permanent violet color. Sometimes I like adding this just beyond the petals that we painted. It's nice because it's going to look like a really light shadow. Just try to observe the difference that it makes. You can see this from afar. What I'm doing now is I'm just trying to add more contrast, create some deeper colors that's going to make it look prettier. Okay, so I'm just going to put some small strokes right here, just to separate the two flowers from each other and make it look like the orange flower is behind the pink flower. Congratulations for finishing your project. I know you're going to be so proud of your work. And now let's move on to a bigger piece in the next video. 9. Creating a Thumbnail Sketch: For this project, we are going to explore painting on a larger sheet of paper. But I know that it can be scary and overwhelming. Don't worry, I will share with you a way to overcome that. We will talk about that in a little while. Now, I'm just showing you some of the reference. I don't really have an exact floral composition that I will follow. I'm just going to put together different flowers from different photos that speaks to me. All right, let's go back to the thumbnail sketch. So I have here my ordinary sketch book. A thumbnail sketch is a small quick drawing that can help you plan a larger painting. It gives you a visual representation of the main elements of the composition. It's also usually done with minimal details. Right here, I just drew a rectangle that represents the paper. And then now I'm going to draw this side facing flower. So what I want for this painting is to put together different Icelandic poppies that are facing in different directions. Some are going to be front facing, some are side facing. I'm also going to put some small buds. I realize that creating a thumbnail sketch reduces the pressure of creating that final piece. I think it's because we can see the output right away on this small sketch. Of course, it doesn't mean that we're going to follow all the details here. This is just like a guide for us when we're painting for this composition. I want the flowers to be diagonally across each other. They are of different heights, as you can see in my drawing. That will give it more movement. Especially with Icelandic poppies, they really look like they are dancing. For the smaller spaces, I'm going to put some small buds or small flowers that are about to bloom. Some people also try to color their thumbnail sketches, but for this one, I decided not to color it anymore. Since I already have a certain color palette in mind. I just wanted to make some soft colors and bold colors. And you'll see that later on in our painting. You can definitely create your own thumbnes sketch for this project. Now let's move on to the next video as we paint the base of the flowers. 10. Project 2: Painting Floral Silhouettes: As mentioned in the previous video, this project is going to be painted on a large sheet of paper. What I love about painting on this large sheet of paper is that it has more space for creativity. Also, you have more space for painting expressive strokes. Don't forget your thumbnail sketch before you start painting this project. To start, we need a pencil, and we're just going to put some small thoughts in our paper just as a guide to know where the flowers are going to be. You can also draw a cup like what I'm doing here, or a letter U. Just so that you also have an idea of how big the flower is going to be. O. I'm going to start with the bottom most flower. This is a flower that is at an angle, and you can see my reference photo on the top left. Let's mix brilliant pink and yellow ochre. I want a peachy pink color for the color palette. I do want to mix some bold colors and then add in some really dainty and pale colored flower. I think it's going to create a beautiful contrast. I usually start by painting from the bottom, going up, or from the center radiating outward. This also helps me visualize the composition better. Okay, we have a really light mixture here, and I'm just painting the top petal. And then moving my brush up and down. I'm also adding more water in my brush while I'm painting. I'm also trying to look at the reference photo and just trying to mimic some of the petals that I see. We really want to create beautiful, frily and jagged edge petals and we want to make it look really full. I use the entire belly of the brush and press it against the paper to create broad strokes. And at the same time, I try to leave the center open. So I'm not going to paint anything on it for now. Okay, on the right side, we're just painting a small, cute petal. Just to add more contrast, we can drop in the darker mixture in between the petals and on the tips of the petals, you can also add it near the center. I have some lavender color here and you can add this to give some more shadow on the flower. This is just a nice subtle color as you can see right here. It makes the flower look even softer. This is one of my secret mixtures because it instantly lifts the entire look of the flower. If you don't have lavender, you can still use permanent violet is make sure that you dilute it in more water. Okay, I think we're good with this. And now we can move on to another flower. This is a front facing flower and I'm going to use the color permanent red. We want to start with just a light mixture here. Later on I'm going to add more red. What we want is just to really press our brush onto the paper and move up and down, create that beautiful full petal. You can also use the tip of the brush to create some thin strokes. Let's just get some more. If you want to use just water, that's also fine. But again, right here, I'm adding just a little bit of color in my brush so that you can see what I'm painting. Okay, I'm just going to use the side of a brush and just press it against the paper and also try to wiggle it to create a more expressive stroke. All right? You can definitely go back in and fix the shape of the petals. You can add some thin lines and add some more color. We can quickly look at the reference photo and you can see some darker areas in the petals. What I'm going to do is I'm going to just grab a darker red or a more pigmented red. Just drop it in this flower while it's still wet. The thing with red colors is that for some reason, they fade a little bit lighter compared to other colors. You definitely need to add more pigment in your brush. And also we need to add a second layer. Okay, right here, I'm just adding some darker red color towards the tips of the petals and also in between petals. But also make sure that you leave some highlights or some lighter areas in the petals. Now if you want a more maroon color, you can mix permanent red and Hooker screen, and you can immediately see that darker red. And I also love adding different shades of red in a flower because it just makes it look more interesting and gives it more dimension just in case you put too much red. Don't worry. You can grab a damp brush and just lift the paint and dab it in a tissue paper, Just like what I'm doing here, you can definitely troubleshoot while the flower is still wet. Okay. So we are done with two flowers. Let's move on to the third one. And I have here permanent yellow light with a little bit of that yellow ochre, so that it's not a really bright yellow flower. So you can see that the flowers are diagonally across each other, so it's almost like a zig zag pattern. I'm going to do this yellow flower right here and paint the top petals first. I want to mimic this flower right here. It's a flower that is a little bit at an angle as well. Okay, so let's start again with the top part. I'm just going to wiggle my brush to create some nice jagged edges. You can just grab a little bit more yellow if you need some, and then add some water to dilute it. Okay, let's change that angle so you can see it better. I'm making sure I have some spaces in between my petals so that it doesn't look too chunky. As I'm painting this, you can see that the petals have different values. So you can see some have a bit more color, some are slightly lighter. Just feel free to move around your brush. Create these beautiful strokes. The petals doesn't have to be in a uniform shape. They can be a bit longer or shorter. Now I'm grabbing some permanent violet and I'm mixing it a little bit with this yellow to create some nice shadow. You can add this in between the petals or add it towards the tips, or even near the center. I really like doing this technique because it just creates, um, more dimension for the flower. I think it looks interesting compared to painting just a single color flower. All right, we can grab a little bit more yellow from our palette and also drop that in on this flower while it's still wet. Okay, I think we're done with that yellow flower. I'm going to move on to another big flower. This is going to be the last one we need, a yellow, orange color. Okay. We are going to paint a flower that is a little bit folded so there's a petal right here in front. Let's start with that front petal first. I'm just going to use the side of my brush, create one petal here. Instead of painting one long petal, we're going to separate it into two or three petals that are bunched up together. I'm also going to try and wiggle my brush so that we have an irregular shape here that will look nicer. Now let me rinse my brush, grab some more water, and just paint the top petals. You can see that it's a really light color. That's because when you're painting this flower, the front tends to be a bit and the petals at the back. Okay, again, I'm trying to split the petals. Instead of one long stroke, we're creating different petals just to make it look more interesting. Now I'm going to close up the sides. Just paint some strokes there. We can also grab some more paint just to add some color to this flower. Now let's grab some Vermilion and add some contrast. I'm adding this in between the petals and it's going to look even better with adding different colors. Also, it's nice to leave some spaces a little bit whiter compared to the others. You can definitely try and blot out some areas. Okay, it's looking really good. Now we can add a more muted flower. I'm going to mix up my white. And I love doing this by mixing ultramarine blue and burnt umber. As you can see, it takes a while to get the right color. I go back and forth to adding more blue, more brown, and adding more water until I get the right gray color that I want. This is going to be a flower that is facing at the back. There is no center for this flower. I'm painting just a couple of petals bunched up together and they form a cup. I'm also leaving some white spaces in between my strokes. You can see I'm delicately painting the strokes by holding the brush roughly in the middle or towards the end of the brush. If you want a pop of color, you can grab a little bit of greenish yellow like what I added here. So you can add it in different parts of the flower, or you can add a darker gray color for more contrast. Let's now move on to the last flower. Sometimes as you paint a flower composition, you feel a little bit lost. That's what I felt here. What I did was I just grab my pencil and I tried to draw a stem first and just paint a little guide right there as to where the flower will be, just so I can easily visualize how big or how small the flower will be. Okay, so I'm just using my brush here to push out the edges and create the jagged edge for the petals. I'm using this red orange color called vermilion. You'll notice in this entire composition, it's like a play between bold colors and really lighter ones. Right here, I want a bolder color since I already have that white flower on the left side. Here's the top view. Right now I'm just mixing up the green. It's sap green with burnt umbers or adding a little bit of brown to give that earthy green color. And we are just going to add some stems. So I'm just going to start with these flowers because they are still a little bit wet. And I want the green to blend in with the wet petals so you can do some dancing stems. Right here you can see I'm painting like an S curve and it's just really so pretty when they're all in one floral compositions. Right here, I have a really dark or pigmented mixture in my brush. I just wash my brush in the water jar to get that lighter green color towards the bottom part of the stem. That's an effect that I usually do just to make it look more interesting or so that the stem won't look that flat. Now we're adding a stem that goes behind this yellow and pink flower. Now when adding stems for a larger composition like this, I find it easier to start at the bottom flower first, and then I work my way up or from one side to another side. All right, so now we have our base flowers. And now let's move on to the next video where we will add more details and give it more depth. 11. Project 2: Adding More Depth: Welcome to part two of this video. Right here. We're just going to add the center. I'm missing sap green. For the pink flower, we need an oval shape since it is at an angle. For the red flower, it's going to be a circle because it's a facing front. Now for the yellow, it's also an oval. And then for this orange flow, it's going to be like a semicircle. Now let's just grab some yellow and add some thin stems all around the center. You can use a permanent yellow light or permanent yellow, deep, or any yellow color is okay. The flowers here are already dry. You can see as I'm adding these yellow thin strokes, it's not blending with the petals. But if you wish to add these details while the petals are still wet, that's also fine. All right, so now let's add some indigo. And I'm going to add this towards the outline of the circle that we painted. And I add this because I want more contrast in the center of the Icelandic poppy. Just make sure that the brush isn't too wet so that it doesn't spread too much on the paper. That's why I did blot my brush in a tissue paper a while ago. But if you overdid that indigo, you can definitely blot it out, just like what I'm doing here. All right, so now let's just rinse our brush and move on to the next step. This flower is already dry and it's time to add some details. I'm using the same mixture of brilliant pink with yellow ochre, and we can add a little bit of brown as well like burnt sienna. We're going to add the veins and you can add it first in between the petals and also towards the tips. You can see that I'm using a smaller brush. This is a size four round brush. It makes it easier to add these tiny details. Okay, let's add a little bit of permanent rose just to make it slightly darker. I'm going to add more shadow here by painting some wobbly strokes. And that's because I want this to have an effect that it's slightly folded. We're just going to paint a few thin lines attaching to that bottom part. And then we're going to add a little bit more over here in this petal. And when you look at the reference photo, you will notice that there's a shadow in that area. All right, so here is a more close up shot so that you can really observe how I paint these veins. I do like adding it from the tip of the petal going in to the center, but it's always like a broken line. Okay, you can see the strokes here are a little bit darker and that's because I added some permanent violet to my mixture. This is going to add that extra character to the Icelandic poppy. I love adding about two or three colors for the second layer of this flower. The mixture you see here is lavender. Now again, this is just a beautiful color that you can paint as a second layer, or some people call it glazing. And I love adding it towards the outer part of the petal. Here it is from afar. And you can see that it's just a subtle color from afar, but it really makes a huge difference. You can also apply this technique to other flowers. Just make sure that the mixture is really diluted in a lot of water because you don't want like chunks of violet or purple in your flower. All right, so this looks good. Let's move on to the red flower. For the red flower, you can see it lightened up quite a bit. I don't want to add in the red color again. I'm using a size eight round brush. So we're going to paint bigger or bolder strokes. The color here is permanent red. Okay, let's try to paint on that darker petal, but as I paint this, it looks just too light. I'm going to add a little bit of Hooker screen to make it more maroon. Just a darker red that looks better. And you can see that beautiful contrast. Just leave some white spaces in between your strokes. And don't paint straight or one single line. You want it to be broken lines and try to vary the pressure in your stroke so that you can get thin and thick stroke. Okay? You can also look at the reference photo where it's darker so you can follow that. Okay, let me show you a reference photo. You can see some of the parts of this flower a little bit darker. And that's the shadows that we want to mimic or just interpret on the paper. Okay. That's a really bold stroke right there. You can see it's quite dark, but that's okay. That's where the shadow is. Now I'm going to move on to a different petal and add some more veins. All right? So I feel like we need a darker color. I'm gonna grab Hooker's screen and mix it with red. So that's a really dark red color. It's almost like maroon. And you can use this to add some more contrast. And just to separate some petals. Since this flower has a bold red color, I also want to add just bolder strokes as well. You can try to extend some areas by slightly wiggling your brush, like what I'm doing here, to create a nice jagged edge, you can definitely come back and just fix the shape of the flower. I decided to have a little bit of fun for this Icelandic poppy. I'm going to grab some paint and just create some outline and it's going to look very pretty and unique. I really suggest that you try to experiment and just have fun and paint what feels right at the moment. Next, I have my yellow paint here. I'm going to add some details on this pale yellow flower. I want to add a little bit of that violet just to create a shadow color. I'm going to use that to add the veins. I'm going to use this to separate some of the petals. Just make sure that you add just little bits of this color so that it's not overpowering the yellow base. Okay, we're losing a little bit of detail at the bottom part of this flower, I'm going to grab some darker yellow and just paint some stroke from the tip of the petal going in to the center. Okay, that's going to give it more form for the petals. Now I just grab a little bit more of that permanent violet and I'm just going to add some darker areas again. We have my magical lavender color and I'm going to just add a few strokes in different areas of this flower. Okay, so for this orange flower, let's grab 1 million. So this is a more pigmented mixture because I want some nice dark lines. I'm just going to separate some of the petals and add some small veins. Right? Because this petal is facing us, it's going to be darker. I'm going to just add more color in front just to separate it from the back petal because this is at an angle. All right. You can also see a little bit of shadow near the center of this flow. We can add some more orange color near that area. Okay, so the lines here a little bit harsh. And I'm going to rinse my brush and fade them away to make them look softer. Not to give it an extra punch of color, I will grab permanent red just to add in between the creases. So this is a nice way to give more contrast to the flower. Just grab an even darker color. This flower is already dry. Now let's add a second layer and I'm going to grab the same mixture of ultramarine blue and Brent number. But another color that you can use is indigo. We want this to be just about two shades darker, but this is a bit dark. I'm going to ase my brush and just try to fade that color. I'm just going to separate the petals, glide onto the paper to create some nice strokes that will look like they are layers of petals. So you'll notice that I'm painting a broken line. And we can also try to fade it away if it looks too dark. Another color I love to add is green. So you can use greenish yellow just to give it a pop of color. And you can definitely adjust the shape of this flower as well. All right, so we're onto the last flower. I'm going to use Vermilion. When you actually looked at this from afar, it looks very pretty already. I love that some parts base are darker, some has just white in it and it looks really nice. But I think we can make it look prettier with a second layer. I'm just going to add some small veins just to separate some petals. And here is a more close up view, so you can see what I'm painting. You can observe that it's really just the tip of my brush here that's moving to create those nice wispy strokes. That is something that you can practice beforehand so that you can understand how your brush works. It's almost like you're dancing with your brush. You're using just the tip of the brush, creating these wiggly lines. Now you can grab a darker color. You can add some violet to your orange mixture. And you can see the huge difference it makes when you add about two shades of oranges in your second layer. Okay, this is what it looks like from the top right. Now, I'm just going to add some small buds that will fill in some of the spaces here. And I'm going to start with the stem first, create some S curves. When you're doing a big composition like this, you do want to vary the sizes of the elements. Some flowers are smaller, some are bigger. You can see that it's also facing in different directions that will make it look more interesting. The buds are quite easy to paint because you're just going to paint an oval shape while it's still wet. You can just put some darker green color towards the base part just to give it more contrast. Leaving some white spaces is also important. I'm not going to add too many buds in all the white spaces left because we still want the flowers to pop up. We don't want too many details here. Let's now move on to the yellow dots. I'm going to use and add a little bit of that watercolor. You can do a 50, 50 mixture if you wish, or a 60, 40 proportion. It depends on how thick you want the mixture to be. Just in general. I do want the mixture to be creamy and I want it to be opaque. The reason is that I want the center to stand out, aside from the petals of the Icelandic poppy. I think the stamen really stands out as well. So we want to highlight that. The reason why I also wanted to add a dark petal near the center is because we're going to add these yellow details. And they will pop up if the background is quite dark. You can use water color as well, but if you use color, it's not going to that much. It might just blend in with the petals. But if you don't have go wash, you can just poster pain that can work out as well. Try to also vary the dots are bigger, are smaller. That will make it look more interesting. With a smaller brush, I'm going to go back in and just add those tiny strokes right there. This is completely optional, but I feel like it faded a little bit as I painted the petals. So I'm just adding it back now. I'm going to grab a little bit of brown, or you can use orange and just add some. Do. This will give the center more depth. Because you have two colors, we can go back in with some more indigo or just a dark color. You can also use black. I'm adding it back in the center just to make it look more intense and just make it up even more. It's just all about the small details and just going back into some areas of the flowers to make it look prettier. With that yellow colored gage, we are going to paint a few strokes in the center, just like what we see in the reference photo. It's time for the finishing touches. You can try to take a photo of your painting just to know whether you can add some more details or if you need to stop taking a look at your painting from your phone, gives you a different perspective. Okay, so I'm just going to add a little bit more contrast on some of the flowers. This is just red with some hookers, green. I want a really dark red color and you can see that nice dark strokes will make a huge difference. But of course, we have to be mindful. We don't want to overdo this because it will look very crowded and quite messy. Try to add these details little by little so you can control it. I'm going to add some darker areas towards the tips of some of the petals just to suggest that it is a little bit folded. I'm using a little bit of this permanent violet mixture to add some contrast. Of course, you can always go back in and fade away some of the strokes that you don't like. All right, so now we are done. Congratulations for finishing this project. I know it can be overwhelming to paint on a large sheet of paper, but you've done really great. I hope that this project gave you confidence to continue painting on larger sheets of paper so that you can practice your creativity even more. All right, now let's move on to the next video as I share my final thoughts. 12. Let's Wrap Up: As you wrap up the class, I just want to thank you for watching this class. To sum up what we have learned, we covered sketching the flower outlines from reference photos, mastered brush work for Icelandic puppies, and practiced adding depth with shadows and details. Also, you gain insights into composition for larger paintings. For the class project, you will be creating your own floral composition. Using Icelandic poppies can be just a cluster of poppies. Or you can paint a beautiful floral arrangement using Icelandic poppies as the focal flower of the bouquet. I look forward to seeing your projects in the project gallery section of the class. Simply take a photo and upload it there under their Projects and resources tab. Hit Create Project to share your work. I'm excited to offer feedback and words of encouragement. Feel free to tag me on Instagram using this hashtag so I can see your work. Leaving a class review would really mean a lot to me and it will also help others discover how this class help you in your watercolor journey. You may check out my other floral classes on Skillshare for more inspiration. Don't forget to hit the follow button to be notified whenever there's a new update, a new class, or a new giveaway. So that's it and I will see you in my next class. Bye.