Hello Creative Friend, I'm so glad you are joining me for another class!

In continuing with the birth flower series, today we are going to learn how to paint watercolor snowdrops to celebrate the January birthday. Personally this is one of my most favorite flowers, from the nodding heads all the way down to the sweeping candy-cane-like stems.

We'll begin our time together with a quick look at supplies before taking a few moments to look at reference images and sketch a few flowers. This investment of time spent noting flower posture and shape will strengthen your skill and help you to intuitively paint (which leads to enjoying the process!) when we apply this theory with watercolor. While it's not mandatory, this portion of the class is strongly recommended.

With basic structure understood, I'll show you how adding a few key details quickly and efficiently brings the flowers to life. The top takeaway from this class will be "less is more," as you'll see when I share preliminary paintings with you. By using gestural approach to capture the general shape of the snowdrop, you'll avoid overworking the flowers and loading them down with too many details.

Next up is our class project in which you're in for a BIG treat! Using the knowledge gained from our time in study and application, we'll put together a snowdrop bouquet using white gouache on a painted background. This education has been requested again and again, and I'm so excited to take you through my process!

This class is suitable for beginners who have experience using white watercolors and understand proper water ratios. These concepts are the foundation upon which we will build. It's recommended you've taken at least one of my beginner classes explaining these processes in depth.

With that in mind, let's begin!

SUPPLIES

PAPER:

Canson 140 lb. cold press paper/ Legion 140 lb. cold press paper

BRUSHES:

Princeton Heritage Filbert Brush Size 6

Princeton Heritage Round Brush Size 6

Princeton Heritage Wash Brush Size 1

PAINTS: acceptable brands are Winsor and Newton (Cotman or Professional), Van Gough, Maimeri Blu, Sennelier, Daniel Smith, Holbein.

Daniel Smith:

Burnt Umber (PBr7) Undersea Green ( PB 29) Rich Green Gold (PY129)

Maimeri Blu: Carbon Black

Winsor and Newton: Permanent White Gouache

Additional Supplies:

Reference flower, pencil and eraser, paper towel, palette/plate, water cup.

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.

Sketching From A Reference Flower

Before diving into the material, we'll take a few moments to look an image of snowdrops, noting shape, structure, and posture. We'll spend some time sketching what we see, which will aid us when we move on to using watercolor.

Painting Practice and White Mix:

Briefly I will take you back in time when I was just beginning to experiment with loose snowdrops and show at what point I feel the flowers began to look overwhelmed, talking through the decisions I made and why I decided to go another route.

Snowdrop Structure:

Using our filbert brush and white watercolor-mixture we will begin painting the snowdrops. I'll show you my technique of painting upside down that allows me to get the best possible angle while painting.

Wet-into-Wet Snowdrops:

Expanding on the education gained from the creation of the snowdrop, I'll show you how switching from wet-on-dry to wet-into-wet creates a different and powerful result.

Adding Key Details:

Our snowdrops, while simple and elegant, could benefit from a few details to help bring interest to the painting. We'll accomplish this by adding a center, leaves, and structural lines. This completes our study of the snowdrop. Join me for the class project where we'll learn a new process using gouache!

Eliana Mancini

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