Spring Tulips in Watercolour

Welcome to this class. This has been one of Bev’s favourite spring watercolour classes and decided that this would be a great painting for beginners and/or intermediate painters. You will be provided with demonstrations with step-by-step instructions to a finished painting!

Have FUN, RELAX and ENJOY the experience!

Let’s begin by printing out the Instruction guide, photo reference, masking area and transfer sheets.

Supply list:

Paper:

140lb cold press paper (Winsor & Newton, Cotman, Arches, Canson, Stonehenge) 16 in x 12in or larger

Brushes:

Round brushes size 6, 8, 12,

Flat brushes: 1 ½ or 2 inches

Rigger or Writer brush

Paints:  (New) Gamboge or hue or Lemon Yellow, Alizarin crimson, Ultramarine blue, Burnt sienna, Burnt umber, Cerulean blue, Viridian hue or Hooker’s green, (Cotman or Winsor Newton paints preferred, or other good quality paints)

Misc. Items:

Painter’s tape, masking fluid, toothpicks, plastic spoon, water dropper bottle, water containers, paper towels, palette, blow dryer, table salt, pen, pencil, Kneaded eraser/rubber (optional graphite paper)

Depending on your comfort level, sketch this beautiful bouquet of tulips. Unsure of sketching? There are different approaches to transfer any reference onto your watercolour paper. 

TWO METHODS to CHOOSE

1. Tape a photo reference to a window and cover with a thin sheet of paper. Go over the outline of the image with a pen. Remove from window, flip over the thin sheet of paper and tape again to window. Use a graphite pencil and repeat marking all the lines on the backside. Remove from window and now tape the graphite side facing watercolour paper. Go over the lines with a pen again. Check occasionally if the picture is transferred avoiding pressing to hard to indent the paper.

2. Place a graphite paper between the photo reference and watercolour paper. Trace lightly all lines with a pen and should transfer onto paper.

Draw in extra details if you wish with a mechanical pencil. When you are finished, dab all pencil marks with a kneaded eraser to remove any loose graphite. If left on, smudge marks happen when water is added.

What is masking fluid? Masking fluid is latex-rubber fluid that is applied to your watercolor paper. It will work as a resist, preserving the white paper or wash underneath. It is often referred to as "frisket".

Refer to the photo provided for suggestions where to apply the masking fluid, especially the white areas of the edges, tops of tulips and baby breathe flowers.

Save your brushes! Pour masking fluid in a plastic spoon. Dip your toothpick in the masking fluid or Frisket and apply to the white areas This will protect these areas from future washes that are painted over. AIR DRY

Make 3 light washes of Cerulean blue, Alizarin crimson, and a green (Hooker’s green or Viridian hue).

With a large flat brush, wet the background, avoid getting the flowers and leaves wet.  Wait for a few minutes, allowing to wet the paper fibers.

Paint the background randomly with these colours. Paint Cerulean blue mostly on top, Alizarin crimson, near flowers and green near the leaves. Before the paper dries, sprinkle salt. AIR DRY

Experiment with your paints to

see which pigments are Transparent/Opaque

Staining/Liftable?

a) With a light wash of Alizarin crimson paint 4 tulips.

b) With a light wash of Gamboge or Lemon yellow paint 3 tulips and the leaves.

A flat wash has the same uniform color and tone all over. A graded wash has a gradual smooth change in tone from dark to light. In this course will be using a graded wash when painting our tulips.

a) With the wash of Alizarin crimson, add more red pigment and touch of Burnt umber and paint the red tulips.

b) With the wash of Gamboge or Lemon yellow add more yellow and Burnt umber. Paint the darker value of the yellow tulips.

c) With the wash of Hookers green or Viridian Hue, add more pigment with a touch of Burnt umber. Paint all leaves, leaving the veins.

At this point, peel off all the masking fluid and remove salt.

a) With the wash of Alizarin crimson, add more Alizarin crimson, Burnt umber and Ultramarine blue. Paint this dark value inside of red tulips.

b) With Burnt sienna paint the tulip and baby breath flowers stems.

c) For the yellow tulips, make a darker wash with Gamboge or Lemon yellow, and Burnt umber. Use this wash to put in the shadow of the yellow tulips. BLOW DRY. Add the darker wash inside of the yellow tulips. BLOW DRY

d) CREATING A BLACK  (primary colour: red & secondary colour: green)

Make a very dark reddish black with a pure pigment of Alizarin crimson, adding green and paint in the darkest value in the red tulips. To create a greenish black add more of the green to this wash.

Make a medium wash of a violet by mixing Ultramarine blue and Alizarin crimson.

a) Baby breath flowers: Paint only the flowers in the background. The baby breath flowers in front of the tulips should be left white (maybe add shadow underneath) as if light is coming from above. 

b) Use this shadow mixture to any tulip petals.

a) Before going on, paint a medium wash of Burnt umber to all the stems.

b) For the leaves, make a darker wash of Hooker’s green and Burnt umber, and put in dark areas of leaves.

c) Using the Greenish black created back in Lecture 8 (Hooker’s green plus Alizarin crimson, paint the darkest areas of the leaves and stem.

Now get up stand 6 feet away, ask yourself if you need to add more dark values so that the painting looks 3 dimensional.

a) For final touches, add any shadows or dark areas needed in the tulips, leaves or stems.

b) If needed, paint a wash of Gamboge or Lemon yellow to a few leaves, so that they will appear in front exposed to sunlight.

We all have ORIGINALS! I always enjoy creating new versions either by changing the value, background or adding a few more leaves! Try the painting again, experiment and using different colours, each one UNIQUE!

  Smile, you did a great painting!

What did you learn?

o How to create your own Transfer paper for future paintings

o How to use Masking Fluid or Frisket to save the whites of the paper?

o How to create unusual backgrounds letting the paint create ‘magical’ colours, experimenting with salt

o Learn more about watercolour pigments such as transparent or liftable pigments.

o How to create a graded wash and shadow mixture

o Learn the steps ‘how’ to approach another flower reference by adding light, medium and ending with dark washes for the final touches.  Instead of using a tube of black pigment, you will create dark washes  by using a primary pigment with a secondary pigment.

Learn all about:

Plastic Wrap  - Add scrunched plastic wrap cling film directly to the wet paint. Before the paint is dry pull off a piece of cling film and crumple it up. Air dry

Indenting the Paper  - While the paper is still wet with washes, indent the paper with a sharp tool and allow the paint to flow inside. Air dry

Wax Resist Sticks  - Wax resist sticks or  crayons are used based on the fact that wax repels water. Strokes are made with clear wax then overpainted with watercolour. The wash only adheres to the paper where there is no wax.

Splattering - Spattering is a painting technique in which paint is flung or tapped, onto the painting surface. Most often associated with watercolour, this technique is used to create interesting textural effects, depending if wet or dry paper is used.