Game Changer Tips to Paint Watercolor Flowers Like a Pro 🎨

I'm using Ultramarine, Permanent Rose and Permanent Yellow. A full list of all the materials I'm using along with colour alternatives can be found in the description below. So I've sketched out an outline for my peony here, keeping it nice and simple. I'm painting this in my sketchbook but I've started off with a very pale colour, painting wet on dry here using my size 8 brush and it's a very dilute Permanent Rose. If you don't have that you could use any pink really but just have it really nice and dilute and these are all of the very light colours and light tonal values that you have in the peony here. So I'm just covering it all with this flat wash here. Always really load your brush when you're painting. So what I'm doing now is I'm actually mixing up a slightly thicker Permanent Rose here and just painting it damp into wet with my size 8 brush just where I can see some darker tonal values and it just gets you started really building up that tone and what's really nice using just three colours it really gives you a good understanding about colour but it just takes away all that worry about colour mixing. What I'm doing here is I'm mixing up a little bit of yellow and pink to make an orangey colour. It's quite creamy and I'm painting this damp into damp and this is the centre of the flower and I'm just sort of blending with the tip of my size 8 brush there. What I'm doing now is I'm just using that colour and painting this damp into damp here and there on the petals and now I'm going to allow my painting to dry. Once your painting is dry you can start building up your tonal values just using these three colours and to make things really easy I'm going to try and use as much as I can my size 8 brush. So I'm painting wet on dry and what I'm going to do now is I'm going to rinse my brush and it sort of gets rid of all the pink there, took the excess off on the paper towel and I'm just diluting some of that paint now and I would advise you to do this quite quickly in some instances because sometimes you'll get a hard edge if you don't sort of soften the edge quickly. Again I'm rinsing my brush taking the excess off and then I'm working at the top of that petal there pushing down into the pink paint there to create a soft edge and what you want to do when you're painting this peony is to try and keep the outside edge of the petal light and as the petal goes towards the centre or towards another petal it gets slightly darker. So I'm starting out by painting the dark is what I'm doing now, wet on dry, adding a little bit more pink, taking the excess off there and pushing and diluting a little bit in the middle of that petal and diluting again and really sort of painting it towards the top of the petal where it's lightest and I'm just going to go through that sort of method dropping in a little bit more damp into wet permanent rose here to create a darker sort of shadow or darker tonal value just at the bottom of this petal here and if you look at the photograph it is quite dark there as well but the top part of that petal is lighter and I've added a little bit now of ultramarine, not much, just to make it a slightly darker pink and drop that in damp into damp. So I'm going to repeat this again, I'm painting on the sort of darker pink colour, there is I think a tiny smidge of ultramarine in there but it's mostly permanent rose, I'm painting that on wet on dry, rinse my brush and just diluting that colour now into the middle of the petal, diluted my brush again and just using the water really and gliding it up to the top part of that petal where it's lightest so you've got the sort of dark, medium and light tonal values, really the top part of each petal is actually the underpainting, you want to actually go back to that colour and what you want to do is glide your paint as well really smoothly onto this, well if you're using like I am cartridge paper but also you can do this on watercolour paper as well, it doesn't have to be the sketchbook challenge at all but as you can see I'm adding a bit of ultramarine to that pink just to make it slightly darker, painting it damp into wet there, if it's wet into wet it runs too much and you'll lose your lighter areas in the middle and top part of the petal. So what I'm doing here is something slightly different and you might find this easier is I'm actually painting a light tone just next to the pencil edge so I'm actually making sure I leave that light edge there and so as you can see it's reserved now and I'm just diluting now below that and what I'll do is I'll start getting darker as I get more to the bottom part of that petal so you may find that easier rather than sort of diluting up towards the edge you may find you'll lose your light so if you actually sort of reserve it by not even painting the top part and just go below it you may find that more successful so maybe try them both out and see what happens so as you can see here I'm using a slightly creamier permanent rose and painting this a little bit wet on dry towards the bottom part but pushing it damp into damp towards the middle part of the petal again getting that sort of dark medium and light tonal values and if you look at the photograph some petals are slightly darker towards the bottom part which is what this one is here so I'm just again using my size 8 brush and adding a slightly creamier permanent rose there painting damp into damp there just to create stronger tonal values and it's a really effective way of painting this peony you just have to be patient because there's a lot of petals but it's a really good exercise in painting wet on dry wet into wet damp into wet and then damp into damp and then damp into damp makes the paint stay there it doesn't travel so quickly so as you can see here I'm just softening and if you do lose your light around the outside edge don't worry just wet it with some clean water and lift off either with your brush or a paper towel and just keep going and because you're just using these three colors you've got all of that control one of the things you may find is that you get more confident with this technique so as you can see there I sort of get into a rhythm painting this way painting wet on dry that lovely pink color diluting and blending with the clean damp brush and then making sure the outside edge is lighter and then maybe adding a little bit of ultramarine to the pink to make it slightly darker some petals are slightly darker than others and again sort of blending them in damp into damp there pretty much on the petals I'm using the pink either on its own or with a touch of ultramarine and where it's very dark maybe a little bit more ultramarine but it's a really you'll probably feel so much more confident when you're working in this style here because you can adapt this to lots of other flower paintings but also landscapes and seascapes portraits you name it it's just some good basic watercolor techniques here you can practice and hopefully this will build your confidence in watercolor painting what I'm doing now is I'm actually mixing the three primary colors together that's the blue the yellow and the red to make a really dark sort of brown color so you might want to mix an orange that's the pink and the yellow first and then add the blue to make it a dark brown and paint this damp into damp around that yellow area in the center of the flower it starts to bring the peony to life and I'm just blending again a little bit of the pink there sort of just to really bring that center to life to make it look more 3D. I want to give you a sneak peek at some of the tutorials available on my Patreon membership let's take a look so here I have over 180 exclusive tutorials just scrolling here you can see a variety of subject different styles and also different techniques I specialize in landscapes seascapes and flower painting and I'm also known to paint abstracts and cityscapes so there's lots for you to choose from on many of the videos you can get access to a downloadable outline sketch for you to keep and it will help you with your drawing you will also get access to over 150 watercolor beginner tutorials and if you want to progress further I have another tier available on my Patreon membership where you can get access to over 500 tutorials many of the tutorials have downloadable PDF documents with progress photographs and step-by-step instructions to help you with your learning here is an example of one of my PDFs you've got the finished paintings a list of materials and colors etc and then the step-by-step photographs with instructions to take you through the process of painting the picture along with the step-by-step video as well so you can download this print it and keep it for future use so I really hope that tempts you to join my membership let's get back to the painting and sort of dividing up that sort of petal there with a mixture of the permanent rose with a touch of ultramarine and again blending from the outside edge into that there so I don't lose my light and I'm dropping in a little bit more just almost creamy pink as you saw there I picked it off the pan there actually I've squeezed freshly tubed paint into those pans there because I like to have access to really sort of creamy paint so I can dilute it I can also get thicker paint so it's a good idea to allow your painting to dry again to just build up the darks and the details which is what I'm doing now with my size eight brush this is ultramarine with the permanent rose and there's a real dark sort of shadows here right in the sort of middle of that peony there so don't be afraid of the dark and this is probably the darkest you're going to get besides the center so I'm painting it wet on dry trying to be really careful and you know so I don't want to get any darks on the light area rinsing my brush taking that excess off on the paper towel and again blending up diluting up so you don't lose your light there so not only am I painting the darks I'm also painting the details I'm painting some of the marks on the petals here just with some very pale permanent rose I'm not going to paint every mark I just want to paint just a few details to describe the petals there and it sort of brings it to life as well and I'm mixing up now a little bit of yellow I thought I'd just warm up this center here painting wet on dry and I'm painting the leaves now I would have preferred maybe a cold blue more of a sort of a phthalo turquoise but I'm stuck with my ultramarine here it gives more of a sludgy green so but I'm just sort of painting these just to kind of frame the peony here and just painting these very simply wet on dry here again with my size 8 brush with a mixture of the ultramarine and the permanent yellow I forgot to paint these pale petals here I was almost going to paint them green actually I thought they were leaves but just painting this again wet on dry with a really pale permanent rose there with a touch of ultramarine it's not pinky it's more of a bluey violet color so just dropping in those colors wet into wet and continuing on painting a sort of a dark green leaf here and painting a few darks and details on the leaves as well just finishing off with a few marks in the center and I've mixed up some ultramarine and permanent rose painting it in the center here next to the yellow part where it's nice and dark and then adding some dilute permanent rose just above that dark I'm also going to paint in some of the surrounding central petals really to kind of bring the center of the peony out rinse my brush off again and then dilute there so I don't lose any light at the top of my petals there so I'm going to allow my painting to dry again and I've decided once it was dry thoroughly dry I'm going to rub off the pencil lines and I've been able to do this because I've left the light at the top of the petal so I'm able to rub off the pencil lines because there's no paint on top there it can be very tricky otherwise but it really does bring this peony to life so I really hope you found this tutorial helpful if you have any questions please put them in the comments section below and if you want any more details about my upcoming retreat to Scotland please see the description below if you that would like to learn more about watercolor and get access to exclusive tutorials with downloadable outline sketches why not think about joining my Patreon membership details about that can be found in the description below thank you so much for watching happy painting bye for now