Watercolor Flowers In Pattern Can Be Lovely Art!

I have been using watercolors as my painting material lately, and finally got around to checking out a floral watercolor class by Yao Chung that I've been wanting to try for years on the instructional website creative bug, which I quite recommend. So I dove in and created this all-over floral pattern which is basically hers, just not done as well. That said I actually quite like it, and the two paintings I did after this one were not nearly a successful as I got carried away filling in the white space which made the result less airy and lovely. So friends, start experimenting with watercolor florals, I know you've been wanting to, and do make sure to get some very large brushes in order to stay loose and create large flowers easily! I just bought a set that has a brush that is a #22, though on this painting I used a #20 and a #8. Okay, need a bit more info, keep on reading......

You'll Need:

• watercolors
• watercolor paper
• round watercolor brushes
• masking tape

How To:

1. Tape your paper down, and start your composition by painting the large blooms first. Give each bloom a stem and add leaves to the stem. Make your stems come from different directions.
2. Now paint some small red rose or tulip shaped blooms and give those stems and leaves
3. Paint tiny branches and add yellow flowers to them.
4. Add tiny leaves and dots of color where needed, but don't go overboard!
5. Once dry add black centers and stamen to flowers.
6. Once dry remove the tape and hopefully a lovely piece of art is born. If not, try again on the other side of the paper, and if need be, cut the best flowers out to use for crafting.
7. Like anything, getting a nice balanced composition with the right combo of lights and darks and small and large takes practice, so just keep on painting, which is what I need to do right now, so bye bye!

Above: The painting before adding the black centers, which makes such a difference.

Above: My painting isn't perfect and that is how it goes! So yours doesn't have to be either, the idea is to try something new and create joy on the page. And maybe it will be the perfect decoration for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, coming up, or maybe you'll cut it up to use for collage, either way, you did it, so good for you!