Wednesday

New Step by Step Watercolour Demo

This is a new demo that I did for my Tuesday night class.
Step 1:
I began this by drawing the 3 central poppies only. Then I puddled azo yellow, gamboge hue, napthol red lt, and quinacridone rose for the petals and added some ultramarine blue and rose for the centers. When this was dry, I painted in the background colours working very wetly on dry paper so that the colours would flow and mingle and still be strong colours -if you prewet the paper, the colour gets diluted. I made sure to put some flower colour into the background so that I could 'find' some flowers there later.
After the background was dry, I went back into the main flowers and added a bunch of pure, strong colour, to bring them forward from the background. In doing this I could give them a 3D look.
Then it was back into the background again. I found flowers there, working both positively (painting the flower shapes) and negatively (painting around the flower/leaf/bud shapes). I used darker versions of the colours that were already on the paper for this.
"Poppies Return", watercolour, 10 x 7"
This is the final painting. I went back into the main flowers once more, mostly concentrating on the detail in the centers. Then I went back into the background negatively a couple more times to find more leaves and stems and give the painting more depth. I also painted some positive forms of leaves and grasses, and did some more painting to bring out the found flowers in the background, as well as lifting some shapes from the dried washes. I really like the way this turned out. It is colourful and fresh, which is what I was aiming for.
Enjoy!

5 comments:

  1. love it... I'm missed a fun class but I was somewhat mollified by the fact that it was snowing there and it SO is not snowing here.
    Fun tomorrow will be a drive around and finding some more photo ops and art stores.

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  2. I love seeing the progression and the different stages of a piece. This is absolutely lovely. Thanks for sharing this with the world.

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  3. Your work is positively amazing! THanks so much for the instructions also.

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  4. Could you explain what "puddle" means here-- I think I know, but want to be sure.

    Your colors are so beautiful! Judy

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  5. Hi Judy: To 'puddle' means to lay down a wet wash of colour and then to place other juicy colours directly into the wet wash without manipulating the mix too much, so the colours mix and mingle on their own. Hope this helps!
    Sharon

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