Painting Flowers

Create Beautiful Watercolour Artworks With This Step-by-Step Guide

Jill Winch

• Publisher: Arcturus
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781398800236
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

What could be more satisfying than producing a beautiful painting of a flower? Jill Winch is an award-winning botanical artist and has been teaching people to paint and draw flowers for many years. In this delightful book, she teaches the key skills for making successful paintings of flowers in watercolor, the medium of choice for botanical artists. She breaks the process down into manageable steps, taking examples from a wide range of flowers. Throughout the book, Jill's own beautiful paintings provide inspiration and guidance.

Chapter 1

GETTING STARTED WITH DRAWING

In this chapter we shall start by drawing basic flower shapes in pencil, observing where light falls and applying shadow – in other words, creating form in preparation for translating this information into colour. We shall look in detail at flower centres and how dissecting a flower head can be useful in helping you to understand the structure of your flower.

A sketchbook is invaluable, as this is where you can record information on your subject in the form of notes, illustrations, colour matching and dissections, before going on to paint your final piece. This initial stage should not be underestimated in its importance, for the practice you will gain here will make all the difference to your results later.

Practice exercises

To start with, I have created some simple geometric shapes based on the different forms you find in flowers: cone-shaped (for example bluebells), bowl-shaped (peonies), cup-shaped (tulips), round (pansies) and tubular shapes for stems. Try drawing these shapes using either an H or HB pencil, then apply shading (tone) to create three-dimensional structures, working from the darkest areas through to light. Notice particularly where the lightest and darkest areas are, as these will later be translated into watercolour, again working from dark through to light.

Basic shapes in flower drawing

Using tone to create three-dimensional structures

Taking some flower heads, now practise the same technique, using darker tones where one petal overlaps another and referring back to your basic flower shapes to observe where the lightest areas will occur. You can pick your own flowers or copy the examples I have drawn here of a bluebell, a peony and the front and back view of a pansy. If you are drawing a real flower head it is important to observe what is in front of you but you may find it harder to identify the highlights and dark areas. This is why the exercises in tonal modelling above are so important, as they give you an understanding of how to use light and dark to create the convincing form of a flower head.

Using tone on flower heads

Flower head detail

Here I have drawn the flower head of the marguerite, with its many overlapping petals. I drew it from different angles and also removed some petals so that I could observe the centre. The many small anthers in the centre were depicted by drawing tiny circles and surrounding each one with shadow. Try this exercise yourself and practise applying shadow where one petal overlaps another, leaving lighter areas on the open area of the petals.

Centre

Back of the flower head

Overlapping petals

Creating depth in the centre of the flower with tone

Next, I drew the centres of three very different flowers: amaryllis, with its impressive curving filaments and stamens, a rose and a hellebore. Observe the centres of flowers very closely before you try to draw them. You will find a magnifying lens helpful as some of the detail is quite minute.

Amaryllis

Hellebore

Rose

Flower heads: three tonal studies

I drew these flower heads on tracing paper before transferring them to the HP watercolour paper, using a light box – you can lay your paper against a window if you don’t have one of those (see p. 96). I like to use watercolour paper for drawing, as it has a smooth surface and is of a better quality than cartridge paper.

After drawing the outlines in pencil, I rolled over the image with my putty rubber to remove excess graphite, leaving me with a pale grey line. I then proceeded to add tone, using an HB pencil to make small circular ellipses, working from the darkest areas through to the lightest. This enables you to achieve ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Materials and Equipment
• Chapter 1 Getting Started with Drawing
• Chapter 2 Introducing Watercolour
• Chapter 3 Painting Leaves
• Chapter 4 Plant Studies
• Chapter 5 Different Painting Techniques
• Chapter 6 Composition
• Copyright