Spring 2018 Watercolor Classes

Spring 2018 Watercolor Class Project: Magnolia Week 2

In both classes we are doing the same project so I will have photos from both classes here. Apparently, I should review what I did in Monday's class before class on Wednesday because I did branches in one and flower in the other so don't panic if your painting doesn't look like what I post here, we will go over what I covered in class no matter what.

This is from the Monday class. I started working on the stems adding shadows and detail. The shadows were blue, purple and a little sienna and water to make it lighter. I also added in the center of the flower using an orange yellow mix and the end of my angle brush to make the stamens. Here I did not save the green center. 

This is from the Wednesday class. We took off the masking and under painted the stems with a very light grey (ultramarine blue and sienna with lots of water). Then we started adding shadows to our flower petals using a mix or ultramarine blue and a tiny touch of purple to make a lavender color.

Monday: When I added the shadows and some of the texture of the stems I was making a slightly rounded stroke that followed the shape of the stem, same when I added the green or the sienna. I lightly blended the colors with just a damp brush so they didn't have any hard lines.

Have your reference photo in front of you so you can see where the shadows need to go. The first wash you did last week is now the highlight for the stems, do not lose all that light because it will be hard to get it back.

This is from the Wednesday class but it shows the under painting for the new growth and bud. Sienna with a touch of either napthol or alizarin and water to lighten for the new growth and yellow with sienna to under paint the whole bud then add sienna with blue into the wet paint on the shadowed side.


This is from Monday where I have used basically the same colors around the bud but just a bit stronger mix leaving some of the lighter under painting for the highlight side.

This is from the Wednesday class. We added shadows to the flower petals. The mix was blue,a touch of purple (you can use alizarin if you want) and water though most of the water was added on the paper to create a graded color. Start where is is the darkest with your color like the top petal with a turn back, add it part way down then rinse your brush and most the color down following the shape of the shadow you see in the photo. On some of the petals the shadow is very light so add water to an edge of your mix to make a lighter color then go to the paper. The photo is your best guide for your light and dark areas so have it in front of you, not in your tote.

This is a close up of the curled back petal on the bottom with another petal underneath. It was very confused in the photo so this is my best guess as to what is going on with it. Notice that this petal is in complete shadow so it is much darker than any of the other petals except for 3 little dots of light.




This is where I left off in both classes. What I didn't cover in you class I will cover next time so I may not have much of a post next time so you may need to reference this post if you need help.

One thing I think I need to do on both paintings is to add some darker areas to my background and make both of them a bit tamer, I will do that next time, until then, keep painting and I will see you in class.