Adventures in Art, Product Design, Home Decor, Cooking, and Gardening
During our Columbus Day family paint fest my daughter painted these gorgeous stargazer lilies. I love the combination of yellow, pink, purple, and touches of blue she used on the petals and the fine details she added with acrylic ink. This painting was based on a tutorial by Wendy Jelbert in the book, “Flowers,” by Wendy Jelbert, Michael Lakin, Fiona Peart, and Wendy Tait.
Here’s a close-up view of her painting:
This is my mom’s third painting. The improvement over her first two paintings is remarkable. She now has her own watercolor supplies and has begun painting on her own. Can we get a collective, “go mommy, go mommy?” This painting was based on a tutorial from Sherry C. Nelson’s book, “Painting Butterflies and Blooms.”
I just completed this painting a few minutes ago and was so pleased with the results that I had to post it right away. I darkened the background a bit behind the leaves on the right-hand side to increase the contrast, I added veins to the leaves using a negative painting technique, and added veining to the rose petals using a very diluted brilliant red violet, though next time I would dilute it even further because I think the lines should be even paler than what’s shown here.
As I mentioned previously, this painting was based on a tutorial from Janet Whittle’s book, “Roses in Watercolour.” Since Ms. Whittle stressed that using the right type of paper was very important to achieving this type of background wash and I didn’t have the paper she recommended on hand (Arches 140 lb. Not paper), I practiced her wash technique on the four types of paper I had on hand–Fabriano Artistico Hot Pressed, Fabriano Artistico Cold Pressed, Canson Aquarelle/Acuarela Cold Pressed, and Aquarelle Arches Cold Pressed. It was a worthwhile experiment because the results varied widely with each type of paper, and the Aquarelle Arches Cold Pressed 140-lb. paper was the hands-down winner.
My palette consisted of Winsor Newton opera rose, aureolin, quinacridone gold, Winsor red, indanthrene blue, Winsor violet, and perylene maroon as well as Schmincke brilliant blue violet, May green, helio green, and brilliant red violet.
I will definitely be using this wash technique in the future as well as some of the other techniques I learned from this book. I highly recommend it.
This painting is based on a tutorial from the book, “Tulips in Watercolor,” by Fiona Peart. I’m really loving the intensity of the colors in this painting. I only have two more paintings to go, and then I’ll have worked my way through the entire book. Watercolors on cold pressed Acquarello Artistico paper by Fabriano.
Since she liked the Poppies my daughter painted a few weeks ago, I chose this scaled-down version of the same painting from Fiona Peart’s “Vibrant Flowers in Watercolor” tutorial for my sister. She really rocked it.
My niece, Karen, chose a Tulip tutorial from Michael Lakin’s book, “Botanical Flowers in Watercolor.” My mother chose to paint an Agapanthus from the same book.
My daughter painted these Daffodils using a tutorial from the book, “Watercolor Flowers” by Wendy Tait as a guide. The addition of blue on the white petals really made this painting come alive.
And I’m working on this lesson featuring Tulips, Posies, and Hellebores from the book, “Tulips in Watercolor” by Fiona Peart. I’ll be posting photos of the completed paintings next.
My daughter, Greta, painted these gorgeous poppies during our Mother’s Day watercolor fest. The improvement between this painting and her earlier watercolor paintings is remarkable. And her timing is perfect–I can’t wait to show you how I plan to feature her painting in my upcoming Tangerine Tango home makeover. Watercolors on hot pressed Acquarello Artistico paper by Fabriano.