Flower Impressions in Watercolour
There are so many ways to interpret a subject. Take a look at any class of students working on the same theme to see that! Let us look at a few ways of painting flowers directly from nature in watercolour only. Although I could go further and describe the vibrancy that can be attained with pastel over watercolour and coloured inks ,acrylics and many other linked mediums. Firstly an example of the traditional delicate use of representational watercolour and methods. Then next to it, a much looser wet in wet affect of light and atmosphere, doing what only watercolour can?
When faced with a complicated scene of entwined and overlapping forms it can seem a nightmare. As I once said to a class, all you have to do is put the right colours in the right places in the right shapes and the scene will just appear! Let me demonstrate this to you, as you can see I am working directly in front of my scene and need to work quickly due to both the weather and the public. So I chose to work loosely outward from a tighter painting of the flowers. A basic drawing of the shapes and main composition to guide me and I started on the flowers. I was working on 140lb Waterford, stretched and on a sketching easel.
The flowers were worked up with carefully controlled wet into wet and then, when dry, delicately layered up glazes that were blended at the edges.
When all of the flowers were completed I could afford to be a bit looser and continue the wet in wet within leaf shapes, playing with lost and found edges, and working up my lighter colours and tones.
Do not just look at one place, keep your eye roving over all of the scene, constantly comparing colours warms and cools, different greens and deliberately try to keep the whole painting at one stage all over as much as possible. Be aware not only of the colours, but the different tones edges and shapes. Just keep placing the right ones next to each other rapidly building them up, Your scene will simply appear before you without you having to worry about detail. Working in this way enables you to be as loose as you wish and stop when you want, or continue to further detail. It gives you the choice.
