 HOW TO PAINT A TULIP -
highlights and all
With spring bulbs bursting out and shops
full of tulips and daffodils, there is no better time to start capturing the beauty of
flowers - in watercolour!
TV
artist Hazel Soan shows the special technique to capture bright highlights in a tulip.
These easy-to-follow steps have been taken
from her video Watercolour Flower Painting Workshop, produced
by Teaching Art.
Materials
needed:
All of the materials stated can be
purchased from any good art and craft shop.
Saunders Waterford 638grm white paper
No. 6 paint brush
Ultramarine watercolour paint
Permanent Rose watercolour paint
Alizarin Crimson watercolour paint
Green watercolour paint
Scalpel
B pencil
Photograph of a tulip
 Stage
1
Take a photograph of a tulip, variegated
pink and white just like the one shown.
Stage 2
 Draw a quick outline sketch of a tulip
– keep this sketch very basic. Mix Ultramarine coloured paint with water, adding
enough water to make the paint quite watery. Use a No. 6 brush to paint the Ultramarine
colour you have just mixed, around the tulip to make the background. Don’t worry
about your paint being even.
 Stage
3
Wash your No. 6 brush in water to remove
all traces of the Ultramarine paint. Add a little dash of water to your Permanent Rose
paint. Look at the colour of your tulip – see how the colour of the flower is
variegated, it is pink in the centre and white around the edges. Forget about the
different colours and paint the whole of the tulip in the Permanent Rose colour that you
have just mixed, with your No.6 brush.
 Stage
4
Wash out your brush to remove all traces
of your Permanent Rose paint, and using Green, mixed with a little water, add the green
paint to the stem of the tulip.
 Stage
5
Before your paint dries, wash out your
No.6 brush to remove all traces of your green paint. Pick up some neat Alizarin Crimson
with your brush, and add it to the base of your tulip petals to capture the dark
undertones of the flower. Use the same colour to add shadows in-between your petals. Now
let this dry.
 Stage
6
Once your tulip is dry, it is time to
bring white highlights back to your tulip. Using a scalpel, scratch into the tulip in the
direction that your highlights follow. By scratching into the paint, you are actually
removing it to reveal the white paper
underneath.
 Stage 7
Congratulations, you will how have a
beautiful tulip with precise highlights. This ‘scratching out’ technique is not
only effective for flowers, it can be used for a vase, waves, fence posts and any other
object where you may need bright highlights.
So have a go for yourself, practice and
above all have lots of fun.
These
steps are just one of the many great tips demonstrated in Flower Painting
Workshop by Hazel Soan. This 70 minute video is priced at £17.99 and can be purchased
from any good art and craft shop, or by calling FREEphone 0800 980 1123.0 |
