Happy May to you, Creative Friend!

In continuing with the Birth Flower Series, today we are going to learn how to paint loose lily-of-the-valley and hawthorn to celebrate the May birthday.

If you've followed me for any length of time on Instagram, you'll perhaps already know of my deep fondness for lily-of-the-valley, having spent the better part of a year exploring this statuesque bloom and sharing these pursuits; however in exploring how to approach this flower through the lens of loose watercolor, once again i found myself filled with inspiration.

As with all my classes, my hope is to offer you a comprehensive study of our subject matter, providing the instruction and education necessary to achieving success and leaving you with a sense of anticipation to keep exploring. I'll be providing numerous options on how to approach the lily-of-the-valley and inviting you to find the style that best suits your artistic voice.

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 emphasize capturing the flowers through a loose lens. Main strokes and key details should be thoughtful and intentional, without feeling the need to pin down every mark.

Exploring Shape:

After assembling our "white" mixture, we will take a few moments to sketch 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 lily-of-the-valley.

Color Creation:

We'll be using a limited palette today, consisting of brown, black, gold and green, with a pinch of pink for our hawthorn flowers. I'll show you how to decrease the color value of our mixtures to create different versions of the same color, using this method to invite light, depth and dimension into your work.

Class Project:

After we've explored both lily-of-the-valley and hawthorn, we will move into the class project where we will go into greater detail by creating a painting featuring our May birth flowers. A special emphasis on creating clean yet playful lines and building up density within the clustered flowers.

Skill Level:

Because I do break down the material into actionable bite-size steps, I consider this to be a beginning class - with a note that basic concepts such as how to mix water and paint to achieve proper water ratios and using wet-into-wet technique should be understood. Although we will spend a good deal of time exploring lily-of-the-valley, when we move into hawthorn study I will be calling upon skillsets covered in previous classes, such as the "pinwheel" structure.

With that in mind, let's begin!

SUPPLIES

PAPER:

Canson 140 lb. cold press paper

BRUSHES:

Princeton Umbria Round Brush Size 10

Princeton Aqua Elite Round Brush Size 8

Princeton Velvetouch Filbert Size 4

Princeton Heritage Round Size 3

Princeton Mini-Detailer Size 2 (2)

PAINTS:

Daniel Smith:

Undersea Green (PB 29), Burnt Umber, Rich Green Gold, Jane's Black

Maimeri Blu:

Verzino Violet

Additional Supplies:

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

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 images online, noting the structure of the flowers and making a point to notice details that feel significant and special. All the images can be found and referred to by visiting my Pinterest board and clicking on the Skillshare board.

Sketching With The Paint Brush:

Next, we'll spend a few moments sketching the outline of the lily-of-the-valley 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."

Painting The Bells:

In this lesson we will use the knowledge gained from the previous video and apply it to the creation of the flowers. Our focus will be fine-tuning the proper water-to-paint ratio and using the filbert brush to shape the bells. I'll offer a variety of perspectives from which to paint and how to use gestural lines provide more structure.

Painting The Leaves:

Next we will recall our time observing the reference images to create the leaves using sweeping motions with our brush. The goal will be to work quickly, applying an even coat of paint to the paper to avoid hard lines and offering an optimal surface for using wet-into-wet technique.

Adding Details To The Leaves:

Moving forward I will show you how to add a few key details that offer further interest to the leaves and compliment the details in the flowers. I'll have you spend a few moments working on a scratch piece of paper using your brush to lightly graze the paper to get comfortable creating thin, even lines.

Painting Over The Leaves:

Using white watercolor can be a challenge on its own; however when the goal is to have the design resting on top of a dark surface, things get much tricker. In this video I'll show you how to first create the flowers, allow them to fully dry, and then use the brush to carve around the flowers to create the leaves in the background.

Painting the Hawthorn:

Moving on to the second May birth flower, I will show you how to use different water ratios to create two different versions of the same color. I'll also explain the ideal composition as we assemble a cluster of flowers, taking care to implement variety into our strokes for ultimate interest and authenticity.

Adding Leaves & Details To The Hawthorn:

In our final video I will take you through the last few steps as we add key details to the hawthorn, once more invoking variety into our marks. I'll also demonstrate how to create the leaves using simple strokes and wet-into-wet technique.

Larissa Krassmann

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