Tip #105

Painting Flowers


Obviously, there are almost as many ways to paint flowers as there are artists wanting to do so – and much depends on the day’s particular inspiration or mood! There’s no right or wrong – loose, juicy semi-abstracts can be wonderful, as can quick gesture sketches or tight, clean botanicals that follow a set of traditional rules. Given their subject, they’re all beautiful.

Many people enjoy botanicals; they’re a delight to the eye, beautiful framed, and they’re a real challenge to do. You might like to investigate artist and teacher Cynthia Padilla’s Yahoogroup – lots of inspiration and instruction there!

Art 105-1, Flower Studies

My own work is more casual than a classical botanical illustration, but I do enjoy working on the spot from direct observation. The one on the left was done by quickly sketching the little bouquet in ink and adding simple watercolor washes. The geranium was painted quickly as I sat on my porch swing, swatting at mosquitoes! There’s no preliminary pencil sketching on this one, just wading in with marks and colors.

Art 105-2, Bloodroot, step 1 and 2

The bloodroot was all over the little park near here, and I wanted to capture them during their brief blooming period. At (1.), you can see I’ve sketched in the shapes, paying careful attention to the way the leaf hugs the stem. You may be able to see that I made a pale, rough oval where the daisy-like flower head will be, and then painted the pistils and stamens and the vari-colored stems. At (2.), I’ve started adding the palest washes and describing the shapes of the white petals and their shadows.

Art 105-3,
Bloodroot, step 3


I continued to develop the leaf and shadows; in this photo I included the flower itself, along with a bit of my palette and one of my favorite waterbrushes, by Niji. These brushes are very handy for small, on-the-spot sketches like this–no need for a separate water supply, since the water’s right in the handle.

Art 105-4,
Bloodroot, step 4


What really made these delicate spring flowers stand out like stars in the night sky was the rich background of damp leaf litter. I mixed up a wash of burnt sienna and ultramarine, varying the amounts of each back and forth, and carefully painted around the flower. I used several different Niji brushes for this, from the flat one for large areas to the smallest one for details.

Art 105-5, Finished



Since this was in my journal, I added a border, a header text, and some notes...


Please drop by my artists blog, my fine arts gallery blog where I often offer mini-demos, my CafePress store where you can find instructional CDs for artists, or drop by for a visit on Facebook!

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Tip #105.pdf



Organizing a Sketchcrawl


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Punching Sky Holes
Look Sharp!
• Watercolor Pencil Tip
• Studio Space
• Spatter!
• Fan Brushes
• Masking Tricks
• There are no mistakes!
• Texturing Your Painting Surface
• Drawing for Fun and Practice
• Utilizing Negative Spaces
• Working with Your Wildlife Sketches
Painting Fur with Watercolor Pencils
Capturing the Effect of Distance and Depth
Feature Focus - Painting Eyes
Painting Wood Textures in Watercolor
Capturing Excitement and Drama
Techniques for Painting Foliage in Watercolor
Simple Buildings in Landscape
Finding Beauty Wherever You Are
Painting Rocks in Watercolor
Tricks and Techniques
The Why of Self Portraits
Bravura, Brushwork, Round Brushes
Putting People in your Paintings!
Focus on Animals
Paying Attention to Details
Painting Horses in Acrylic
Utilizing Negative Shapes
Catching the Sense of the Surf
Step by step painting of the ocean
Animals in Landscape
Making Time for Art
Feature Focus - Lips
Sky Effects
Some helpful books -- an artist's bibliography
Using Personal Symbols in Art
Keeping a Sketch Journal
Working on Toned Paper
The Healing Value of Art
Painting for a Cause
Found Art Supplies
The Value of Thumbnails
Working in Weather
Keeping a Journal of a Special Trip
Watercolor Painting -- with a palatte knife!
Shadows -- where and how to use them
MORE Making Time For Art
Fantasy and Myth
Field Sketching and keeping a nature journal
Color and Value
Sketching with Colored Pencil
Zeroing in on Details to Appreciate Nature
Creating a Sense of Scale in Your Art
Wildflowers & Weeds
Drawing and Painting our Canine Friends
A Few Tips on Linear Perspective
Differences in Perspective -- Aerial and Linear
More on Painting Man's Best Friend -- and Woman's!
Watercolor Pencil Revisited -- What's New!
Feature Focus -- The Nose Knows...
On The Nose - Again!
Exploring your watercolor pigments
More exploring your pigments
Painting with Gouache
Accentuate the Negative??
Found Art Supplies
Finding Beauty Wherever You Are
The Humble Sponge
Capturing Light in Landscape
Using Liquid Mask
Graphite Techniques
Feature Focus - Hands
Painting Cats
Cats II
Working with Colored Pencils on Toned Paper
Painting with Acrylics
More Found Art Supplies
Travel Sketching
More On Travel Sketching
Ink & Wash Techniques
Pigment, Paint and Color
Online artist groups
Sketching on the spot in cold weather
MORE found art supplies
Keeping an Art Blog
Keeping an Art Blog - An Interview with Katherine Tyrrell
Keeping an Art Blog - Gabi Campanario on Starting a Successful Group Blog
Keeping an Art Blog - Alyson Stanfield on Blogging for Artists
Make your own tiny travel watercolor kit
Painting on the Spot!
Learning from Nature
Who says you can't fix a watercolor?
Three of my favorite watercolor books!
Artist Trade Cards and ACEOs
Exploring the basics -- round brushes
More Brush Basics - Flats
Putting People in your Paintings -- again!
Still MORE Found Art Supplies!
Focus on Food
Restoring a favorite old paintbox
Use String with Watercolors
Quick Sketching Techniques
MORE on quick sketching

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