Welcome back to class, Creative Friend!

In continuing with the Birth Flower Series, today we are going to learn how to paint loose sweet peas to celebrate the April birthday.

Initially I struggled to find the best way to approach the sweet pea through a loose and gestural lens. Without an identifiable center to the flower, the petals can feel amorphous and without understanding. It was only in exploring that I came to recognize that the "loose" concept for which I strive when teaching needed to be the main character, so to speak. Unlike other flowers, the sweet pea can be easily cowed by too many details and is best served by allowing the beautiful hues to speak their nature. In this class, we'll cover a variety of approaches that all fall under the "loose" category.

Early Practice:

We'll begin our time together by observing a few reference images online. Together we'll discuss the shapes and structure of the flowers, and point out details that may feel significant and special. This time will be used to stir inspiration and help you collect information about the flowers.

As always I will emphasize capturing the flowers through a loose lens, keeping our objective simple rather than narrow focused. Main strokes and minor details should be thoughtful and intentional, without feeling the need to pin down every mark.

Exploring Shape:

Next we will take a few moments to sketch the sweet peas with our paint brush as an exercise to help us capture the general shape and structure of the flower. This time spent purely in exploration and in preparation for the lesson will be extremely beneficial later on when we go for it and begin painting the sweet peas.

Color Creation:

Perhaps one of the most exciting facets of this class will be the use of watercolor inks! Although we have used one or two in a previous class, today we will use five. These are ideal when using wet-into-wet technique and for creating "fireworks" or "bleeds" within the wet media. If you're not familiar with inks, not to worry. I'll cover the entire mixing process and I'm certain you will enjoy using them in other projects.

Bonus points - they're on sale for twenty-five cents for a 2 ml bottle! Link below.

Class Project:

Next up is our class project where, using the knowledge gained from our time in study and application, we'll assemble a beautiful bouquet of sweet peas featuring both the color palettes we studied in early lessons. I'll take you through the composition, flower by flower, explaining how to avoid the edges so as not work yourself off the page, how to achieve balance (which is not the same as symmetry) and how to create foundational lines from which to build.

Skill Level:

This is an intermediate class. Although I do my best to accommodate ambitious beginners, basic concepts such as how to mix water and paint to achieve proper water ratios and a year or more experience using wet-into-wet technique is recommended. Additionally I will be working a bit quicker through the material.

With that in mind, let's begin!

SUPPLIES

PAPER:

Canson 140 lb. cold press paper

BRUSHES:

Princeton Heritage Round Brush Size 6 (2)

Princeton Velvettouch Round Brush Size 6

Princeton Heritage Round Size 3

PAINTS: Dandelion Paint Co. Purchase Inks Here

Rose red

Orchid

Lemon Yellow

Burnt Orange

Tahoe Blue

Daniel Smith:

Undersea Green (PB 29), Jane's Black

Additional Supplies:

Paper towel, palette/plate, water cup, iPad for reference images

Intro:

Welcoming you to class and talking briefly about what you will learn today.

Supplies:

Discussing the supplies you will need to complete this class.

Studying Reference Images:

We'll begin our time together by observing a few reference images to stir inspiration and point out any details that may feel significant or special.

Swatching The Palette:

We will mix our first combination of colors and explore how to mix the inks and water for proper water to paint ratios. When we move into wet-into-wet, timing the bleeds will be the most important component to mastering this technique. By preloading brushes this will allow you to move seamlessly through the steps.

Sketching With The Paint Brush:

Next, we'll spend a few moments together sketching the outline of the sweet peas with a paint brush to help you better understand flower shape and petal posture. This step is crucial for ingraining muscle memory and building confidence; most importantly it will help you work out the "bugs" and allow you to work more efficiently and with more success when you begin to paint "for real."

Wet-into-Wet Technique - Purple

In this lesson we will begin creating the sweet peas using a new combination of colors. Our focus will be pre-loading our brushes for seamless movements and ensuring we've prepared the paper to achieve ideal bleeds within the petals. We'll observe further how the colors interact with each other and explore a variety of petal shapes and structure.

Wet-into-Wet Technique - Maroon:

Continuing forward, we will implement the same focus as we did in the previous video, creating the sweet pea heads, once more in a new shade. We'll also introduce a stem which will lend understanding to the flower as we move toward assembling our final bouquet.

Wet-into-Wet Technique - Maroon Part II

Having gained experience and hopefully a fair amount of confidence in the previous lessons, we will now put all the movements together in one seamless motion using all four pre-loaded brushes. We'll enhance the color to its highest concentration and create beautiful bleeds between the petals. We'll begin to add leaves through a gestural loose lens, not giving too much attention to whether they are pretty, but rather observing the reaction between colors.

Wet-into-Wet technique - Peach:

We continue moving ahead with a new color sweet pea, this time in a soft peach shade. We're strengthening the connection between brain, hand, and paper and building the skills needed to take with us into the class project.

Painting The Curlicues:

In our last video we will spend a few moments practicing how to create the curlicue before attaching them to the flowers we created in previous lessons. I highly suggest filling up a sheet of paper before heading into the class project to help instill muscle memory. The key will be a light but firm grip on the brush and practicing how to graze the paper while rotating the wrist with steady movements.

Cara Rosalie Olsen

Floral Designer + Watercolor Instructor

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