Step by step EASY Loose Watercolor Sunflower

Hey guys, this is Nia and I'm back with another video and today I will be painting sunflowers. There are a lot of different types and the center of the sunflower and the color of the petals vary depending on the types. I don't really know what type this one is but it's just an easy interpretation of mine and you can adjust the scale of the center and the petals according to your liking. Anyway, let's begin this by drawing it out. I'm going to draw the front view first because it's the easiest since it's straight on. The center is just a circular shape and the petals, I'm going to draw it as thin leaf shapes going all around the center of the flower and each of the petals are facing the center depending on the angle in which the petals are placed. Overall, the petals should form a circular shape but it's better to slightly vary the length so it doesn't look too stiff. This is also where you can try to adjust the scale and see which proportion you prefer. If you want a larger center and smaller petals that would also look really nice. So for the younger flower, the only difference is the center is slightly green so I like to place two circles instead of just one as the center and as I draw the petals, I like to paint them a bit spread out later on. Then I'm going to go back and fill in the space to get an even distribution so that's why I draw them this way, just to follow the motion when I'm going to paint it later on. As an option, I'm also going to show you quickly how to draw the flower slightly tilted to the side. So instead of a circular form as the basic shape, I'm going to do an oval instead and from that large oval, find the center and draw another oval. Then you can fill in the rest of the petals like we did for the other ones. Just make sure you follow the circular motion but this time you're creating a silhouette of an oval instead. The leaves of the sunflower is actually quite large and jagged around the edge and it's not that easy to paint so just to keep the simplicity of this tutorial, I'm going to paint normal leaf shapes instead because it will still work out and look nice but if you're up for the challenge, you may try to draw the actual leaves. The colors that I will be using for this painting is auralen yellow, cadmium orange, burnt umber, sepia, sap green, and cobalt blue. So for the colors of the petals, I'm going to be mixing auralen yellow and cadmium orange and you can play around with the ratio and see if you would like a brighter yellowish petal or warmer ones with a bit more cadmium orange in the mix. I personally like to start with a more yellowish color for the first layer and then adding a bit more cadmium orange as I build up the layers later on. For the center of the flower, I'm going to be doing two options and the first one is a base color with burnt umber and towards the center because the center is a bit concave, I'm going to add a bit of sepia for a darker tone. Another option is to paint a younger version of the sunflowers and because the flowers aren't mature enough, the colors are more green and orange instead of the deep brown color that we had before. So for this, I'm going to be using sap green, cadmium orange, and burnt umber. I want the center to be sap green, then moving on to the burnt umber to show a bit of shadow for the concave shape of the flower center, then moving on to the cadmium orange around the sides. I made the sap green a bit too large for this one, but I will show you how to paint it later on as we're painting the final. And last but not least, for the colors of the leaves, I'm going to be using sap green, cobalt blue, and aureolin yellow and you can just play around with the ratio of these colors. If you want a warmer green, you can add yellow and if you want a deeper green, you can add some cobalt blue to the sap green. Now I'm just going to paint a rough example of what we're going to be doing for the final painting and I'm just going to start with the burnt umber as the center. I'm doing this lightly because I'm only using the burnt umber at this point, just so I get an idea of where the center of the flower will be. And after that, I try to paint the petals and I paint them with a slight gap in between so the petals doesn't touch. This is so if the petals are still wet, it doesn't bleed into each other and in fact, as it dries, you can see that I'm layering on top of it in between the petals that we previously drew and it gives a bit more texture to the painting. I'm painting the petals with two strokes and I want to keep the tip of the petal quite nice and sharp. Don't worry if this first layer looks a bit light because we will be layering on top of this later and it gives a nice depth to the flower. As I wait for the petals to slightly dry, I'm going to paint on top more burnt umber for the center of the flower and I'm just going around the sides, giving a barrier to where the center will stop and I'm going to add sepia towards the center of the flower to show a little bit of the concave shape. Then with a thicker consistency and with an addition of cadmium orange in the mix, I'm just going to paint another layer of the petals on top of the previous layer that has already dry and I'm going to follow the same method by leaving out some space in between each petal and also painting it so the petal comes to a fine point. For this layer, because we've painted the lighter yellow underneath this, we don't need to paint in between the gaps. I actually really like the contrast between the previous layer of the light yellow with what we just painted. Here I keep going back and forth between the petals and the center of the flower. As you can see, when the paint dries it'll get lighter so I want to keep redefining the layers. For the center, I do a light dotting movement to get the texture that I want and in each layer I try to be a bit more accurate than the previous layers. I'd actually need to keep layering for the center as it still looks a bit faded but just to move along the tutorial, I'm going to show you the final step of the petals and thus use a medium consistency of the same yellow mix and this time I'm going to use the tip of my brush to paint lines in between the petals. An important tip is just to remember the circular silhouette of the flower so it doesn't look crooked. Anyways, once you get the basic idea you can start to paint. You can draw out a composition first but to save time I'm just going to wing it from here and I'm just going to follow the exact same method as we did before. When I start painting the petals, I like the center to be slightly wet so it creates a soft transition but be sure that the center is not puddling wet or else the brown will travel to the yellow petals making the petals brown. If your brown from the center travels too much, you can still save it by either using tissue or you can also clean your brush and pat it dry then pick up the unwanted brown color using your clean dry brush. The paint will look a bit faded after you do that but you can always repaint on top of it. After I have the base color for the petals and the center, I'm just going to keep layering it and as I layer I like to make a thicker consistency so you can paint in slightly more detail as I also build up the color vibrancy. So for the center I used a thicker consistency burnt sienna to create a slightly more defined border around the center. Then I'm also going to add sepia to the middle then I slightly blend it upwards using the same dotting motion with my brush. Once I'm done with the second layer of brown center I'm going to go back to the petals and as you can see the colors have slightly faded because it's now dry so I'm going to add a bit of cadmium orange into the mix and paint the petals the same way as the first layer by spacing them apart but because this is the second layer and the space is technically already filled with the first layer you can leave it blank to create the illusion of depth but if you would like to create something a bit more uniform you can go back and fill in the space after the paint have dried. For the second flower I'm going to create the green and orange center. For this I'm going to do it slightly different than how I applied it when I was showing you the colors. So here I start with the sap green and I'm using the same dotting motion and I'm just going to paint a small circle in the middle with the sap green then I clean my brush and switch to the burnt sienna to create a slight border around the sap green that I just painted. While the paint is still wet I'm going to use some cadmium orange and paint it outside of the burnt sienna and I'm also slightly blending it together. It's okay if this layer looks slightly messy or faded because this is only the first layer and we will keep layering on top for more detail and color vibrancy just like the first flower we painted. For the petals I'm just going to do the exact same thing as the first flower and I will get back to you again once I'm done orange with burnt sienna and I'm going to paint a border around the center of the flower and also the area of the sap green using the same dotting motion and after I'm done with that I'm going to slightly clean my brush and add some sap green in the center. Then I'm going to use a thicker consistency burnt sienna and redefine the border around the center of the flower again. If yours look a bit faded once it dries off you can keep adding layers until you get the right vibrancy that you want. After I painted the petals I feel like the border around the center has been pulled out a bit too much so I'm going to add a thick consistency burnt sienna again and redefine the border. Moving along to the third flower now I'm going to do the one with the brown center again but this time I'm going to paint this one facing the side. You don't have to do this if you're uncomfortable painting different angles. This will look nice if all of the flowers are facing forward. The only difference is the placement of the petals and the oval silhouette that we're trying to create from the overall flower but the rest is basically the same as we've previously painted in between paintings to let the paint settle you can use a hairdryer to make the drying process faster because I want to continue layering a small touch of detail for the petals which is to paint the lines for the center of the petals but because we're painting fine lines for this if any of the surface of the flower petals are still the slightest bit wet or caught to the touch the final detail won't be visible as the paint will just blend into the wet surface. I'm going to apply the fine line for all of the flowers and I'm placing them where the fold of the flower usually is which is the middle part of each petal but you can also add some lines in between the petals to add some slight dimension for the overall composition. After this step you are basically done with the flowers so take a step back and try to fix any part that you feel need a bit of fixing. If some of the details that you place blend too much and faded you can add more on top. Because I'm only painting basic leaves I'm going to focus more on the overall composition so basically I want the space in between the flowers to be filled and I'm also going to add a touch of filler leaves which are the smaller leaves around the flowers while varying the sizes to create a unified balanced painting. For the color of the leaves you can have quite a large range so if you want a basic green leaf color just stick with a sap green and if you want something to be slightly warmer add more auraline yellow into your green mix but if you want a richer bluish green add some cobalt blue into your green color. Feel free to paint the leaves according to your own composition. I'm using them as more of an additional element or accent for the painting. To finish this off I'm going to add smaller leaves to fill in some spaces. I'm also going to add thin stems and also the leaf grain for some of the leaves to add a bit of delicate touches to the painting. For the leaf grain I'm going to use a dark green to give a nice contrasting value. If you're feeling creative you may even add other filler flowers or different types of leaves but I'm just going to keep this one simple. So that's it for the painting. This is a very loose approach to painting sunflowers but I like the bright summery colors of the flowers in the end and I hope you guys enjoy it too. If you give this a go you can show me by tagging me on instagram at ig underscore nyanyany. I will link all the details in the description box below as usual. Thank you so much for watching till the end and I will see you in the next one. Bye!