Paint Realistic Watercolour and Botanicals - LOTUS

Now that were getting further into this work and my tutorials too, I wanted to start revisiting some important areas of the processes I cover with new depth, to build a deeper understanding of the significance and impact of each area in our work, and how we might be able to harness some of these things to improve our painting practices... Its a little food for thought, and perhaps some new perspectives to consider which will perhaps bring new opportunities in the challenges with face, to grow. 

This 'Drawing Up - Lotus Bud' lecture walks you through the drawing up process, taking you from reference image to a completed, clean, clear drawing on our watercolour paper/board, ready for us to start painting the Lotus Bud Exercises set out for you. 

This 'Drawing Up - Lotus Seed Capsule' lecture walks you through the drawing up process, taking you from reference image to a completed, clean, clear drawing on our watercolour paper/board, ready for us to start painting the Lotus Seed Capsule Exercises set out for you. 

This 'Drawing Up - Lotus Painting' lecture walks you through the drawing up process, taking you from reference image to a completed, clean, clear drawing on our watercolour paper/board, ready for us to start painting the Lotus Flower and Leaf' painting, the focus study of this tutorial.

This lecture gives you a simple rundown on how to prepare for the Lotus Bud Petals Exercises, including helpful tips on setting up your workspace, reference and palette, as well as looking very simply into our colours, materials and the exercise objectives... It snapshots and clarifies our game plan for our Lotus Petals Exercises, with particular focus on kicking off Layer 1.

Layer 1 looks at wash, creating our base for the lotus bud petals. More important than the final outcome in this bud painting as a whole, are the lessons learned along the way. So what were looking for in this exercise is to see an improvement in some way from petal to petal as you adjust your timing and balances with each practice. Repetition with thought will take you a very long way! 

This exercise our focus is on improving your line work, and on developing texture with timing using just 2 colours as a starting point.  Understanding and harnessing these balances and timing is the key to achieving all outcomes in the watercolour medium, so this Lotus Bud Exercise lecture is all about exploring those intricate balances and getting a better feel for the timing before we step into our finished Lotus Flower painting. 

Resolving upload issues of lecture 10, in progress... 

Continuing on with our glazing in the Lotus Bud petals, Part 2 takes you through to the end of painting our mid tone layer

The Lotus Stem Exercise looks at just that... painting our lotus stem, bringing a close to the Lotus Bud Exercise section of this tutorial. 

This lecture takes a quick look at our plan, materials and preparation to get started on our Lotus Flower Petals

Stepping out of our Lotus Bud Petals Exercise, we kick off Layer 1 of our Lotus Flower Petals fairly well prepared for the flower task ahead, and ease our way into the first wash of our petals. Part 1 covers our first steps into layer 1 and some of the smaller petal details as we find our feet. The repetition helps us to familiarise ourselves with process and techniques, and to improve our confidence and skill with every attempt. Our colour use shifts slightly from the bud, but the game plan simply picks up where we left off in the exercises and steps us forward into conquering a far more complex painting. This is the first layer, our road map, and yes you CAN do it! 

Part 2 of our Lotus Flower Petals picks up from the last lecture and takes you through to the end of painting the wash of each petal. As I look at each one individually, Ive broken it into two sections to make sure you have the information you need to create a sound foundation for each one. Once you feel like youre getting the feel of the process, you can work through them more independently as you choose.  

As we step into the glazing stage of the Lotus Flower Petals, I have simplified the palette for you to just ONE colour to minimise the complexity of the process as much as possible. With our 'road map' in, we continue building up our layers into the mid tones, bringing richness to our wash, form to our flower and life to our painting. There are many layers to work through in this tonal study stage, but dont be concerned as its simply a repetition of the same with each with a little fine tuning as we go. Once you get the concept and approach, you can start practicing this skill set with clear direction towards a better and better outcome with each attempt.  

Part 2 takes you through the layers to the end of the pinks and mid tones, increasing in speed through repetition and the cementing of the process.

Lotus Petals Layer 3 walks us through the last touches of darks and adds the warm glow and soft blue tinges to our petals. We also tackle the beautiful yellow glow to the heart of the lotus flower in this step to complete our petals - lights, mids, darks and the yellow glow in the centre. 

Lotus Flower Centre works in our yellow colour family, masking fluid and small brushes to complete the intricate detailing of this lotus element, and in fact, it completes the flower itself. This lecture will also begin to familiarise you with painting our Lotus Seed Capsule in the NutShell Extension section of this tutorial. 

Layer 1 of our Outer Leaf looks at applying our first layer to the outer areas of our lotus leaf. We are working in wash, our lightest colours and tones and laying out some simple direction for our form in this large element. We explore the use of extremely subtle colours shifts in our initial wash this time, working in very light, wet washes, creating new texture as our base, as well as more use of our masking fluid to create our base or road map for our delicate outer leaf.

Outer Leaf - Layer 2 focusses on creating the form and folds we see in the lotus leaf surface by developing the form with tone. This lecture takes you through the layers in our mid tones and prepares your painting for the darks.

Outer Leaf - Layer 3 walks you through the final layers of this area, developing the darks and a little detailing to complete. We are left with just the veins to refine, which we will finish with the inner leaf surface areas in the following lectures. 

The first layer of our Inner Lotus Leaf changes palettes into the exciting bright yellow and gingers of the leaf top surface to create not only a beautiful new element to our painting, but in order to explore a new colour combination, to consider colour relationships between elements better, and for technique practice. 

Layer 1 looks at our foundation layer, our lights and creating a basic yet beautiful 'road map' forwards for this section of our lotus leaf painting. Whilst the outer leaf explored pigment poor washes and glazing, the inner leaf looks at the far more fragile practice of glazing with pigment rich layers. Either way, this leaf was specifically chosen for its beauty, colours, textures, forgivingness and the technique practices it offers so have fun with it, play with the colours and push it only as far as you want to take it! 

Layer 2 of our Inner Lotus Leaf continues the process, shifting tone with our colour palette to develop our mids. 

Layer 3 of our Inner Lotus Leaf takes us through the darks to complete our layers, then onto the leaf veins to wrap up the lotus leaf element of our painting! We are ready for the final step now, moving on to the stems and the end of our study. 

With the stunning fading Lotus leaf in, we move on to the last component of our main Lotus Study and create our stems! Oh beautiful stems... Rich tone, colour, working in layers, small areas, texture and this time we play with creating some of the beautiful scarring so typical of the Lotus stems. Of course youll already be stem experts having completed the Lotus Bud Exercise set out for you in the start of this painting tutorial, but now we step it up in our main painting with two stems, one green, one brown. We look at colour families again and talk more about the 'relationships of colour' so important to me in my own work and teaching. Its fun with colour and a wonderful wrap up to our Lotus painting!

The NutShell Tutorials are extension tutorials based around a specific element, subject, technique or challenge within a larger subject. In this instance we take a closer look at the Lotus Seed Capsule, exploring everything from simple field drawing approaches to painting the seedpod as a complete study... sooo beautiful in itself! 

Many of us struggle with drawing, but no fear! The Lotus Seed Capsule Drawing Exercise looks at a very simple, fun, practical drawing approach to capturing subjects like the lotus seed capsule subject that anyone can try. Use this technique to quickly sketch a field study on the go, or take the time to render the basic drawing into a beautifully finished pencil study... its up to you how you interpret and apply this approach but its a fantastic and effective technique to help get you drawing easily and fast. 

This lecture takes a quick look at whats ahead in painting the Lotus Seed Capsule Top, the subject, variations in this subject as a painting, your materials and colours in order to step into the painting process  

The seed capsule top is a complex area to create with many components to juggle. This lecture walks you through the process, showing you how to separating these features into manageable steps before bringing them all back into one to complete the top surface of the seed capsule.

Moving into the body of the seed capsule we work with larger areas of wash, creating structure and interest with wet in wet techniques before finishing off with glazing and dry brushing, leaving only the stem to complete this study!  

The final NutShell lecture revisits the now familiar subject of the Lotus Stem, bringing our seed pod study to a beautiful end.