Dare to be Bold

Tutorial

Step 1 — Line Drawing

Here you find the line drawing that was used for this tutorial.  You can right click on it and choose ‘save image as’ …

Once you have saved the image to your own computer you should be able to print it out, and draw it using tracing paper OR practice your drawing skills.  This isn’t a hard one to draw and it doesn’t need to be exact.

the pigments will just flow into  each other so not to have hard edges.  You want to control the flow, so allow the water to soak into your paper but no puddles.  Using a large brush—load it with pigment.  Touch the tip of the brush to the background area and let the pigment “drop” into the wet paper.  Work fast so the paper doesn’t dry. And once you’ve dropped in the color, let it dry—don’t rework your work!!  This will keep it fresh and the color pure.  I used several shades of yellow in the center of the flower. 

Step 2 — Dropping in Color

You need to choose the colors you’d like to see in your background.  I wanted to keep mine cheery, so I choose pastel colors (permanent rose, cerulean blue, yellow, and a greenish yellow) and I wanted a high saturation of color, so wasn’t shy about the amount of pigment I dropped in.  You will need to wet the background around the flowers first.  It should be moist enough that

Step 3 — Shade the Flowers

It’s time to concentrate on the flowers.  The creases in the petals need to be shaded.

I used indigo mainly for the shading.  Using a small brush, you should practice on a scrap piece of paper “pulling the color”.  Load your brush with pigment and draw a line on your paper.  Wet a second brush and bring the brush up  against the line you drew.  If the line is still damp, color will be drawn into the

dampened area.   Don’t over do it.  I also used a very light purple color in some areas for shading, and even some pink.  Remembering that  these are white flowers, I would emphasize “very light”. 

Quinacridone gold is what I used to finish the middle of the flowers with.  You could use raw sienna also but I really like the quinacridone pigments from Daniel Smith.  They are great to work with, are very transparent, and not at all streaky.  After the center of your flowers has dried, you can add some darker color to the shadowed areas.  I added darker shadows to the line where one flower is in front of the other also.

Step 4 — Negative Painting

Using a pencil, draw shapes into the background where you would like to suggest leaves and even a couple of stems if you want.  Don’t get complicated as the painting isn’t about complicated, nor do you need precise.  Draw your shapes so they layer over top of each other.  Use the shapes to draw the viewers eyes into area where your focal point is.

No 2 shapes should be the same—this creates interest so the viewer doesn't’ get bored and wander away from the painting.  Using indigo, paint along the lines you’ve drawn and pull the color out.  This is what we refer to as negative painting.  We are creating these shapes by painting around them, rather than painting the shape itself. 

Step 5 — Finish Your Painting

Now its time to make those final touches to your painting.  At this point, I intensified the colors in my background.  If you are going to do this, be careful that you don’t end up with any hard lines.  I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial.  I’d love to see your finished product if you email it to me and time permitting I will comment back.

‘Dare to be Bold’ is a tutorial designed to demonstrate 2 techniques that I use often in my painting.  We will practice “Pulling Color” as well as “Negative Painting”. 

I got the idea while I was reading a watercolor book written by “Jan Kunz” (She has written 4 or 5 books, all of which are excellent!! )  “Painting white” is often an intimidating exercise while using watercolors, as it is easy to over do the color, so I thought this would be a good subject to practice and these flowers will work well with the techniques I want to focus on in this tutorial.  The white flowers will also provide a great contrast to the colorful background we’re going to paint.  

I have noticed in the workshops that I teach, students are often afraid to be bold in their use of pigment, often scared to use dark tones in case the color is too much and destroys what they have so far achieved in their painting.  If this sounds like you, can you ‘Dare to be Bold’?