Watercolor Ranunculus: Painting flowers in three styles

1. Introduction: Hi everyone. I'm Elena Rufcus, assistant illustrator. Also I teach watercolor here upskill share and offline. Thank you for all your support, beautiful projects and reviews. I'm so excited to be here and to create new interesting classes. In today's class we will be painting ranunculus flowers in three styles, just like we did in other flower classes. Ranunculus flowers are very beautiful, popular and suitable for many design project, such as waiting stationary and greeting cards, home and fancy decor. If you're new here, welcome. You can hit the Follow button on top so you won't miss anything. I have many classes to help you develop watercolor style, to use your creativity, and to grow a beautiful and successful portfolio. What are we waiting for? In next video I'll show you which brush we will be using in this class. Lets get started. 2. Supplies: In today's class, we'll be using the usual supplies we are using in most of my classes. It's watercolor paint, watercolor paper. It can be a cold press or hot press. I recently tried hard press and I like it pretty much, but still mostly I use cold press Canson paper. So we'll need a paint powered water, a paper towel, we'll need a fine liner, just make sure it's waterproof, a pencil, eraser. We'll need a large round watercolor brush with a good tip. So this is number 12 synthetic brush. We'll need a medium watercolor brush. This is Kolinsky Sable number four. We'll need a small watercolor brush for details. This is Kolinsky sable number two and for white ink I'll be using a really small brush, and this is number one. It can be number zero if you want to and white ink, and this is pretty much it. In the next video we'll be mixing colors for our flowers. 3. Mixing Colors: My plan is for ranunculus flowers I'll be painting today, to go to together with other flowers I painted recently. That's why I'm going to use similar colors I used in these two artworks for the ranunculus. Feel free to use any other colors if you want to or you just can paint with colors I do. It's totally up to you. We'll be using lemon yellow. The lemon yellow today is the color we can put a drop of in every color we'll be using to unify the palette especially if we feel which one of the colors doesn't match well. We don't have to do it but if you have such feeling, feel free to. Also, I'll be using lemon yellow mixed with the color green. This is the color of all greens. Again, will be a variety of portions of the yellow and of the green. For flowers will be mixing lemon yellow with a cadmium orange. For some of the flowers and some of the petals will be adding other colors too. The next color will be carmen red, which you'll be adding also to these mix when we'll need a darker part of the petals. If you want to make their own color scheme, you can watch my color mixing class where I explain how I mix the colors and why. Another color I want to use is peach. For that I mix carmen red with cadmium orange and a drop of lemon yellow again. Just one drop and we'll dilute it with a lot of water. I want it to be warmer, so I am using a little bit more yellow. In the same solution that can add more carmen and get a darker tone on the same color. Also, you can see for some elements I use dark blue which is called bright blue in white nights. Also I found it in a sapphire blue, which is very similar. It's so whatever, what are colors. It's a beautiful blue I may use in the composition, not necessarily flowers but let's add it here. Also I'll be mixing green with this blue to get a darker and cooler shade of green. It looks like this. And little bit more green. You guys see today we are using only five colors, which is lemon, yellow, cadmium orange, carmen red, green, and blue. I will be listing all the colors in the project description of the class. 4. Ranunculus in a Painterly style: To paint Ranunculus in the painterly style we'll need a very large watercolor brush with good tip. Painterly style is very easy and playful, so just relax and enjoy the process. I'm mixing lemon yellow, with carmine orange. Bleeds a lot, and then I'm loading the brush with this mix and with water. Starting from the middle of the flower, I'm drawing, I'm painting with brush this middle, and then I'm starting to go all around. With uneven moves, I'm creating the petals, and while still wet I'll take more paint, I'll drop it here and there, like this, and I'll keep moving. Yours can be more precise round if you want. There are different types of Ranunculus, some have totally perfectly round petals and some have this wavy petals. When I got to the size I like, then I would add few more petals here and there, and if I want, I would color everything inside, and if not, I will leave obvious wide spaces. At this point, we have to let it dry, so let's paint a different one for now, while this one is drying. I'll mix some lemon yellow with a little bit of green, this is too much. It's mostly yellow, and I'm drawing the middle, and next I want to mix carmine red with carmine orange and a lot of water. This one I want to be more round, so my moves are more precise, and I want to touch this green a little bit so it will bleed into our pink. I'm going, just the circles, one direction or if you're more comfortable in the different one, and you can see how green is bleeding too. That's how I want it, I'll add a few more petals on the edges. I think it's too much white, so I'll just color it here and there, and again, we need to let it dry. The number one I'll take a lot of carmine red, I'll add it to this mix, and I'll start with my middle by painting few petals first and then drawing a circle. I want this one to be with more wavy feel. Petals are still pretty tough so, just going with uneven moves. Looks like its too much white here. Just all the way around. Louder brush is needed, and of course you can mix more colors in while it's still wet. It's a fun painterly style. Very popular. You can see many greeting cards, wedding invitations with these; all kind of ranunculus, and roses and paintings, all in painterly style. I'm going to do with a bit more water. Some here and a red few bigger petals at the edges, because the flower opens more, so the petals are more visible at the edge. Again, we have to let all three of them dry first and then we can continue. Now when our first layer is totally dry, we can start adding the details and the shadows to our flowers. First of all, we'll add the green middle, with a small brush, and some yellow dots. It bleeded in, it's okay. Next I'll draw orange mix, we'll add a drop of carmine red. I said remember that's how we are darkening it like this, and we'll add some shadows here and there. Here I want to show this petal, this is enough. Next I'll do this flower in the middle. I'll put some blue dot. Blue is mixing with green, and it doesn't look totally blue, and that's how I want it. Next with even watery carmine red with some carmine orange, we'll show some more petals on the flower. Try not to control it too much, just a little bit. For this flower, in the middle, we'll mix some green with blue, and we get this even dark mix, and we'll darken all the middle, right here in between the petals. Then I'll take carmine red and I'll add a drop of our blue green solution to it. This is too much, kids are playing outside, and I'll show some petals. Those are neighbor's kids, so it's just some petals here and there. A flower has to get darker inside, like in the middle of the flower is darker and when we get to the edges of a flower, it's way lighter. Try not to add too much paint to the edges. Also I want to add some little bit of texture, while this red is still wet. Just like that. Now when I look at this flower I feel like we need one more line here, and also I need darker dots than this one. This is good. Next I'll mix more yellow with green. Let's add some stems. Just really free hand. This one looks like it needs to go somewhere behind this flower. Also, I can add some leaves. Just here and there, may be one here. These are our painterly ranunculus. 5. Ranunculus Flowers in Ink and Watercolor: Now let's draw and paint a raunuculus in ink and watercolor using a fine dimer. Before we start drawing, I want to show you the general shape of a raunuculus flower. It's usually round in the middle, and sometimes it's like a globe, and the petals are growing in this way, and around the same. They are like, almost like spiral scheme, like all who live in. I think you got the idea. You should not drawing with a pencil first but you totally can, and I took a smaller piece of paper, I'll make a smaller drawing. It won't take a very long time to paint and draw, and I decided that I'll have open flower here and sideways flower here and a small bud somewhere here. Let's start with the biggest flower and then starting from the middle, where the petals are the tightest, I'll start like this. I showed you the general shape of the petals, but in nature they're more irregular with more imperfections and that's what makes our pretty. We have the tight middle, and then we'll have other petals which are more open. This color is that it's better to use hot press paper for this style, because it's smoother and the fine liner is most easier, but I don't have any now, so I'm just using whichever I have. The middle is going to be a little dark, we can add tiny petals or we can add some little seeds, and we'll continue to add petals until we are happier with the size of our raunuculus flower. Look here. I'm on here, I think is enough. Next we can add the stem. Trying to make it the same thickness the entire length. Then I'm going to have here our side facing flower. It has few leaves here. The shape is like a half a circle. Let's make one petal coming out, and again the petals are hidden one behind another one just like this and then making the petals more wavy than on the previous flower. Think this is enough. Let's add couple leaves, and a little bud. We're here, this is a flower with the leaves, and we have the petals. After we draw everything with fine liner the way we want, we can start painting painting the color. Mixing some lemon yellow, we've got orange and a little green, and we can color the middle of this flower and few petals. You remember in this style of the incus, the most important part, and the color is just an additional way to show the character of our flowers. I like and even white spaces, you don't have to do it with the color foot, and then mixing color yellow with orange. We want our girl to be more orange. So I'm mixing more orange to a yellow. This is good, and then we'll make some beautiful pitch and mix some more orange a little bit of, this is staunch or carmen. This is good and diluted with lot of water, so I can paint this flower and be a little bit of yellow to it. Again, I like coloring white, but you don't have to, mixing a little more of carmine. Here I can darken it a little bit. Next let's mix some yellow with green. I'd like it to be more transparent, so I'll add in a little water. Then this style I'm never afraid of getting odd sidelines because it's just supposed not to be perfect. It looks better if it's not perfect. At least that's how I like it. I think we need a little bit of blue in here, and some darker green. I've done that using obviously aquino, a weird color, so I'm converting it to yellow and now I'll color to the stem until the leaves. This is better. Few brush strokes here, so in this flower is a little drier so we can add some darker lines, mixing colorant from less water. Again the yellow with orange and a little bit of carmine that, and we don't have to add a lot of this. Add just a little bit of it, and do the same here, just to show some depth, and a little bit of temperature here and there. Add color to this leaves, and add some darker spots here too, more here. A little bit of yellow on this petals, and that could be put in. This is a level as it tells who are [inaudible]. We don't need a lot here, just few lines and maybe few wide leaves. I think this is it, this is our Ranunculus flowers in fine liner and water color. 6. Ranunculus Flower in a Realistic Style: For realistic style as always, we have to draw first of our subject and then to paint in layers letting every layer to dry totally before we apply the next layer. We start with drawing the circle, which is going to be a size of our flower. Then we have to decide where we would like our middle to be, can be off-center, or closer to center, or exactly in the center, however you want. Some line is going to be here and we need a smaller circle to decide where is the center of a center. For this flower, I like it to have bigger seeds so I'm drawing some circles here, and I'm going to draw with pretty thick lines so you can see, but you should draw with thinner lines so you don't have to have any difficulties after with erasing the lines. After I draw these three scenes, I'm starting to rub them in patterns. I'm [inaudible] pretty intuitive base, so there is not right and wrong. Just important that it should be in general a bright shape with the right feel. Have more petals at middle here, and then I'll go have bigger petals so we can paint it faster. This class can take entire day. But you've got to keep it with tied petals all the way around if you want to. Pretty much it looks like a cabbage rose, very similar. Maybe here I want to just to move a petal. This is good. What we'll do next, we'll just mix a lot of color. I want this one to be, again, peach, and it'll have a darker shades of carmine red on the second layer. For now, I'm just mixing a lot of peach tone. It has to be very watery so that's why I moved it to another pan. I'll add some lemon yellow shade too. On shadow next, I'm just covering the entire lower, we'll add this color. I'm just avoiding the very middle just in case we'll want to make the seed as variety yellow or something. Try to work pretty fast so you won't have any hard edges and drawing. Your drawing has to be barely visible, technically invisible. Mine is really thick so you can see all the pencil lines under, but yours should look better. We take our brush and absorbing all the excess piles of paint and water. After that, we have to let it totally to dry. Now when our first layer is totally dry, we can start working on the shadows. You can remember from my previous flower classes that that is how we are painting realistic looking flowers. First we will add the color, then the shadows, and the third layer, we would have the details and textures. First, what I want to do is paint this beautiful seeds with yellowish green. I mix lemon yellow with a little bit of green. As I'm dealing with wide dot on these seeds, I'm not sure if I will leave it after, but for now I want it to be there. What we do next, we'll mix more carmine red into our previous mixture and I'm adding some carmine orange to it too. It has to be the same color just way thicker with less water and more color. I might send me a little bit tough color on the petal, but then I'm washing the brush and I'm drying it on a paper towel, and I am softening the edge of the color I just painted. I need more carmine in here. I'm drawing at the bottom of every tiny petal. Adding the color, and then softening the edge a little bit. On the small petals I'll be working with this small brush, and on the bigger petals I'll take medium brush. Next, if a petal is bending like here, right under the bending we'll have the darkest color. Then we'll soften it until it become lighter around there. I'm trying to be reserve with first layers too here and there. It's okay if it disappears somewhere but try not to do that. Since the layer, something to do so here this bottom of petal we have dark part and also under this bending. Have two darker spots, and it's a time of gates and glider to the middle. I will just work in one petal at a time adding more volume on top. Even if somewhere you're not softening the lines, it's okay too, especially in the angels We'll be having some hot edge lines too, one will get texture and details. You're going to see on the bigger petals how we're doing it. I just put the color and then I'm softening the edge. I think it needs to be a littler darker though. On the same petal we have this bending, so right under a bending I'll add some color, and then I'll soften the edge. I told you at the middle of the flower, the petals are darker. When we get to more open part of the flower, I will go with lighter Hues, or the shadows right here. I'm taking more water solution. In this flowers we have a lot of petals and it takes a while but it's relaxing, just enjoy the process, take one petal at a time. Don't stress out that you have a lot of petals and that's extra now, very fun way to spend the evening because you're just repeating the same process over and over and you're sharpening your skills. I've got switch to medium size and I'm deriving my mix by adding more carmine or more orange to it so it will stay interesting. You can see how our thought is scanning the depth and with other layer it will get even more interesting. I'm still trying not to darken it too much. All through we'll add all the shadows we have to let it dry again. The shadow under the bending and shadow at the beginning , at the base of the petal, that's what we're doing now. Few more left and then we can take a break and let them dry. Now when our second layer is dry we can start adding some texture, and for texture, I'm using the same mix of color and water. Just few lines here and there on the petals. For now rose petals are pretty smooth, so let's try not to overdo it. [inaudible] If dealing solution, should make [inaudible] Few lines here and there on the petals. Following the shape of the petal indeed, this is enough. On this third stage I'm working with a very small brush. Next, let's mix some green with a little bit of yellow and dark one will sit just on one side. Next, let's mix some carmine red with a little bit of blue and as a result we'll have this beautiful burgundy and we'll paint just this tiny area around the seeds with this beautiful color. Next we have a small branch we'll take this pretty thick paint of carmine red and orange and we'll start editing our lines under all these bendings of the petals. If you feel that you need to soften it a little bit then just feel free to do it. Basically I have to be really thin, that's why we're using a small brush. Still they're pretty dark with a lot of pigment and not a lot of water. I'm switching back and forth from carmine red to more orangey hues and feel free to get up and see where you need more accent. Few more lines and where it's okay. You can add more layers if you want to. I usually add three, four layers on a painting but some artists do a lot of layers. I want to just soften these better so I took my medium brush. Here we need more detail. [inaudible] thickness of your line. Press on the brush somewhere harder and somewhere just a little bit. Under this one definitely. Also we have one bending here so let's show it. I think this is enough. Maybe one more here. They have a little bit of whiting here just to add few highlights on this bending petals. Here we missed one, I did, one more petal. [inaudible] around here. Yes. Feel free to add some leaves around if you feel like it and this is our [inaudible]. 7. Last Thoughts: Thank you for watching my classes. I hope this class was useful and interesting. If you like this class, please leave a review. For the project, jump project section of the class. I can't wait to see your beautiful flowers. See you in my next class. [MUSIC]