Rustic Jug of Flowers: Watercolor Tutorial

Hi everyone, this is Nia and I didn't know what to paint today so a brainless thing to pick was flowers and a whole jug of them. I want to play with a lot of colors and I wanted to keep practicing a loose style painting so let's start by sketching out the jug or the vase. At first I wanted to paint it in a jar but then I found this picture and I love the texture and the simplicity as well as the rustic feel to it. I'm not going to sketch this out accurately, I just wanted to include the main features like the handles, lines, and later the color and the texture. But in terms of the exact shape of the jug, I just wanted to fit in the center of my page since I want to paint a lot of flowers and I want to make some of them stick out with long wavy stems so I've left out a good enough space at the top. I'm really not good at drawing these types of objects so I want to make sure I sketch very lightly so I can keep erasing and I'm always holding my pencil far back so I don't accidentally apply too much pressure on the paper which might damage it and make it harder to erase. Once I'm fairly happy with the sketch, I'm going to tap my eraser to lighten the outline or you can also use a kneadable eraser. Now for the colors, I'm going to first use Sepia by Holbein, Permanent Yellow Deep by Holbein, Vermilion by Holbein, Quin Red by Daniel Smith, Ultramarine Finest by Schmincke, Grey of Grey by Holbein, and Aquarius Green by Roman Schmal. Let's start to paint. I'm going to begin with the larger flowers in the middle and as I progress outwards, I'm going to add smaller dainty ones with long stems and I'm going to paint them in a looser manner as well. For this first one, I want my flowers to be pink so I'm using a mix of Vermilion, Quin Red, and some Grey of Grey. I want the center to look like it's still budding but the outside has frilly bloomed petals so I started with a really light consistency with a lot of water. Then at the center, I'm going to add a bit more definition while the surface is still a touch damp and not puddling with the same mix in a thicker consistency and without the Grey of Grey. I'm going to leave it to dry and paint another flower. I'm going to paint some white daisies so here I created a grey from Vermilion, Ultramarine Finest, and Sepia and I'm going to use a very very very thin consistency so the grey can look very nice and light. I'm painting the petals first while leaving the center empty then while the surface of the petals are touch damp still and cold to the touch, I'm going to use a thick consistency of Permanent Yellow Deep with a Vermilion at the center. I'm going to paint another one under this one but since the flower is very light, I decided to erase the edge of the vase so the line from the pencil won't show through. Next, I'm going to paint tiny little flowers using the same pink mixture but I think this color has been slightly contaminated with the Permanent Yellow Deep so you can see the color is a bit peachy. Here I am painting tiny five petal flowers with rounded petals and for the center I'm going to use the same color as the daisies which is from a mix of Vermilion and Permanent Yellow Deep. Here I'm thinking of daffodil flowers and the color symbol is just Permanent Yellow Deep. I'm painting lines directed to the bottom of the sepal but to change the angle I can direct these lines to the center with some petals foreshortened at the bottom where it's facing towards us and this will just slowly shift depending on the angle it's facing. I left a bit of space in between and after painting the base color with the yellow, I like to add a bit of orange from a mix of Permanent Yellow Deep and Vermilion. Let's add another color to this bouquet. I wanted a pair of Winkle Blue so I've used a mix of Ultramarine Finest with some Gray of Gray. In the beginning you can see that the color has been contaminated a little bit too much and it was turning to a purple so I decided to clean my palette first before I change this color. I was thinking of Grape Hyacinth so I made little tiny dots until it created a cluster to look like Grape Hyacinth. Then I added more Ultramarine Finest at the bottom for some color variation. For this next one I'm using more or less the same color mixture but I just grouped them slightly differently and for the second darker color I decided to add a little bit of Wind Red to change the tone ever so slightly. Here I'm painting the same type of flower as the first pink one so I'm just going to use the same method as before. This one is slightly smaller and it's also facing the right. I'm going to paint more daffodil flowers as well on the right hand side so it's not heavy on one side with any specific color but this time because the paint was kind of puddling I'm not going to add the orange instead I'm just going to wait for the paint to settle and dry first. Now going back to the daisy I'm using the same mixture as before and still in a very light consistency. This time I'm just going to paint lines directed from the center to add a bit of texture and detail to these petals. While I'm still working on the daisies I'm going to redefine the center a bit more. This is from a mix of Permanent Yellow Deep, Vermilion and a little bit of Sepia. I'm just dotting the outside of the center and I'm going to do the same for these tiny flowers. With the same color I'm also going to add details to the daffodil flowers. Going back to the pink flowers now I'm using a thick consistency mix of Quin Red, Vermilion and a tiny bit of Gray of Cray. Since the color is quite dark and I'm painting on the dry surface I want to use water to kind of smudge the edges and use the remaining paint as well to add some texture to the blooming petals on the outside. I'm also going to do the same for these tiny little flowers. I'm going to add more daisies. At the back you can see my gray for the base is a bit tainted so it has a bit of a pinkish tone but it's okay as long as it's light and neutral enough. I'm also going to add more blue flowers after this in different clusters to suggest different types of flowers but I wasn't really thinking of anything specific. There's a good amount of flowers for now so I'm going to start introducing some greens into this composition. I've added Aquarius Green to the yellow and orange mix on my palette and I'm using this yellow green to paint some leaves sticking out but I'm also going to start painting green behind some of these flowers especially for the light ones like the daisies. I'm using the same green with added Ultramarine Finest for a deeper and darker green but I've lightly dampened the surface behind some of these flowers to help the dark green flow. When dampening the surface you want to make sure that it's not puddling and I like to work section by section and also to not get too close to the edges of these flower petals in case you apply too much water because this water is supposed to create a barrier where the paint can flow so if you accidentally go over the flower petal the dark green will also travel there and if that happens then you have to take it off with tissue, dry it off completely and start the process again. So just be very careful when you're painting around these flowers. I like to use a slightly thicker consistency getting really close to the petals and then I let the water flow where there's a larger space in between. This way there's more contrast between the light flower petals and the dark green and this will make those light flowers pop out a bit more. I also like to create a slightly different variation of these greens. You can add sepia as well as ultramarine fineness or either one to give a bit more interest to this painting. I've stopped the green here for now and I want to extend the placement of the flowers as well as the details. Here I went back to the blue flowers since it's now completely dry and I can start adding the details using the same mix of ultramarine fineness and gray of gray. You'll see me switching brushes. The brush before had soft bristles whereas this is much more springy and whenever I feel like I need more control and I need to play with darker values I prefer to use the springy one but it's just a heads up since I'll be switching from time to time. Here I'm going back to my soft bristle brush because I want to dampen the outside area of these flowers so I can create blurry flowers and greeneries. On the damp surface I use some of the green that I've already mixed on my palette and I'm just painting the green slightly, dotting it close to the greeneries that I've already painted. Then towards the outside I'm going to dot in other colors. I'm going to add some random pink dots as well as lavenders from a mix of ultramarine fineness, a bit of quinred and gray of gray. So from here I'm just going to add some filler flowers as well as greeneries thinking of different textures I can add to this composition. I really want to extend the sides of this composition to make the flowers look more lush and dense and after painting the blurry flowers I want to completely dry so I can paint on top of it but this time the flowers are much more defined since I am painting on a dry surface so the blurry ones look like it's overlapped in the background. Now that I've added the sides I feel like I need to extend the composition upwards ever so slightly to balance it out. I just added a couple of blurry dots then I also noticed that I want to also bring the composition downwards so the flowers can cover a little bit of the jug. I'm just going to paint some of the flowers that I've already painted and I feel like this would make the composition look a bit more balanced since the height of the jug won't look too tall compared to the bunch of flowers. Once I've painted the flowers I want to add some leaves as well. I want to make sure I paint everything which is overlapping the jug now so when I paint the jug I don't have to do any guesswork and just avoid the areas that I've already painted. I'm also going to darken this area right under the daisy to make it clear where the flowers end and next I'm going to start painting on the jug starting by dampening the surface very lightly. It's okay if I miss certain spots. Then for the color I'm going to create a neutral tone from all of the colors. This has a sepia, ultramarine finest, a bit of vermilion and a touch of permanent yellow deep which comes to this gray but you can see if some of the colors are unevenly mixed into my brush there's some variation which I like. I'm going to be very careful as I'm painting the neck. I want to avoid painting on the light flowers and I also want to leave the rim blank. I want to follow the shadows of the reference here so I'm making the right side a bit darker. I tried using a lighter consistency on the left but I still feel like it was a bit too dark so I'm just going to take off the excess by dabbing it off with tissue. Then I'm going to use my brush to soften the edges just smudging the colors on the right hand side to the left ever so slightly. For the handle I'm using the same color starting with the shadow areas then I just used a clean damp brush to help drag the paint to the rest of the areas. I want the top to be a bit lighter but I'm just going to leave it to dry for now and move on to the bottom of the rim. I was trying to recreate the same color but you can see it has way more vermilion in the ratio. It doesn't really matter too much since the surface was still damp the color will just somewhat mingle with each other and I quite like that there's a slight difference or a slight variation in the color. With this color I'm also going to add shadows at the bottom of the pot as well as the detail for the lines and also a light wash for the cast shadow. Next I'm going to start adding on the textures which kind of look like rust and for this I use a mix of Permanent Yellow Deep, Vermilion, and Sepia in a very thick consistency. I tried to splatter some but I ended up getting some on the white of the paper as well so I decided to just paint it on manually. Sometimes I do dots, ovals, or just random blobs that sometimes I like to also smudge into the white of the vase and because the surface is still a touch damp and the paint will spread naturally and slightly lighten which is fine because I'm going to go over them again in a different layer with a darker brown. I feel like I have a pretty good amount here so next I'm going to add Sepia to the previous mixture and I'm going to paint on some of the larger blobs to give the rust a bit more dimension but I'm also going to add this darker color in random places as well so it doesn't always have to interact with the previous layer. I didn't also wait for the previous surface to dry so some of the darker browns may also spread whereas others might have sharper edges. Now going back to the handle I've added some Ultramarine Finest into some Sepia. Here I've darkened the bottom on both sides then I just use a clean damp brush to smudge the edges and spread it to the rest of the handle leaving a little bit of white for the highlights. With the same color I'm going to do a light wash or a partial glaze over the right hand side to enhance the darker value of the shadow. While the surface is still damp on the right hand side I've decided to enhance some of the darker spots and I'm also going to darken this area for the cast shadow where it's touching the vase. And that's it for the jug. Now I'm going to move back to the flowers. I can see it start to come along. Next I'm going to add some leafy sepals under some of the smaller flowers. I switch to my synthetic brush here so it's easier to control and pick up a thicker consistency. Then I'm also going to start adding some of the wavy stems. Once everything is connected I feel like I have a better visualization of the overall shape for this flower arrangement. I feel like I need to extend it further on the sides so I start adding some small leaves as well as smaller flowers. Once I'm done I'm also going to add shadows for some of the leaves and flowers which are flopped over the front of the jug. I quite like how this arrangement is evolving but I still feel like I need to extend the composition outwards but I don't want too much attention to be drawn on the sides and the top. Instead I want to keep the larger flowers in the middle as the focal point and I feel like if I paint more flowers on the sides it's going to lose this attention or the center focal point. So instead I'm going to add more blurry flowers and leaves by dampening the surface and just dotting in some colors to extend things outwards without too much detail which will capture too much attention. I also extend the composition by adding some light splatters which I feel adds to the looseness and from here I'm just going to make some adjustments to balance things like saturation, details, values and such until I'm happy with it. Lastly I've decided to break up a little bit of the green on the sides here. Since the value is quite dark I need quite a strong color so I'm using this really vibrant red but since I've only used this red once on the composition I decided to also bring it across to the left side. And that's it for this painting. I'm quite happy with how this looks. I feel like for once I didn't overwork a painting and I'm also happy with the color combination. Let me know what you think in the comments and if you're interested I might also create an outline for this in my Ko-fi shop. If you're new here and enjoyed this please consider subscribing for more content every Friday. Like usual, the list of tools as well as my social media links will be in the description box. Thank you so much for watching till the end and I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye!