How to Paint a Water Lily Flower in Watercolor
Painting Flowers with Watercolor is a fun exercise to practice with watercolors. In this tutorial, we will learn how to make a water lily. When painting a flower in watercolor we will find that it is possible to freely explore different watercolor techniques. This practice breaks down the process into a few simple steps. Let’s discover how to create a colorful water lily.
Necessary Materials
Baohong Watercolor paper cold press 300gsm
Pigments: Martini box set 24 colors
Your Guide to Painting a Water Lily Flower in Watercolor
Step 01. The first step is to start with a pencil sketch. Determine the position and composition of the lotus in the picture, using a 2B or HB hard pencil draw each petal. Notice the relationship between the front and back petals, as well as the reflection of the flower in the water. Keep your drawing clean to works well with watercolors.
Step02: Let’s start with the petals: Apply a layer of clean water to the petal area, then paint a light pink layer, continue adding purple while the paper is still wet and add a bit of blue to some of the petals. Then paint the pistil: First, you use orange as the background color, and dot a little lemon yellow between the stamens, now the water on the pen is not too much and the water on the paper is not too wet, to ensure that the color spread is not too strong.
Step 03: Once the paper is completely dry, continue using the wet-on-wet technique to paint over the details of the petals. The stamens are painted with a little Vermilion in the dark part, and the color below of the flower: Burnt sienna + green + a little orange.
Step 04: Continue to paint the background and water surface after the paper is completely dry, use clean water to wash all the background except the flower one to two times, paint in large color strokes, paying extra attention to the blurred effect of the lotus leaf edge. Use color: green + green cadmium + violet + cobalt blue.
Step 05: At this stage, we start to color the background to highlight the flower, and at the same time sprinkle water drops while the paper is still wet to create an atmosphere. The edges of the petals should be clean and clear. If the color flows on the petals and the edges are not neat, you can use a paper towel to wipe them off. The colors used are: Indigo + Burnt sienna, Cobalt Blue + Violet.
Step 06: Create depth to the background to make the flower stand out more. The center of the flower fades to the periphery and the background color is similarly filled. Paint dark background, the flower stands out even more, now continue to add details of the stamens and petals with the color: Opera+ Purple + blue. Stamens Color: Orange + Vermilion + Cadmium Red, a little ocher and purple in the dark part of the stamen.
Finish. Use Titanium White color to splash the whole painting to make the work more attractive.