Ready to Paint in 30 Minutes: Flowers in Watercolour

This complete beginner’s guide to painting flowers in watercolour is ideal if you want to learn to paint but are short on time. Each of the 35 quick and easy exercises takes no more than 30 minutes to complete, and will teach you how to paint flowers of different shapes, colours and families lilies, orchids and hellebores amongst others or learn a key technique such as masking out, working wet in wet and colour-mixing. The exercises are all worked at postcard size ideal for a 6 x 4in (A6) watercolour pad, and tracings are included for each study. The book is broken down into five chapters that focus, respectively, on working with watercolour, watercolour techniques, colour and tone, form and detail, and finally flowers in context. The final section of the book contains three complete paintings that demonstrate how to combine all the techniques and elements of painting flowers, as learned from the preceding chapters. These paintings, too, are accompanied by actual-size tracings.

Book Contents

Introduction 6
Basic painting equipment 8
Working with watercolour 10
Washes 12
Working wet in wet 14
Layering 16
Blending out 18
Using the white of the paper 20
Techniques 22
Masking 24
Cutting out 26
Negative painting 28
White flowers with shadows 30
Spattering & scribbling 32
Salt & wax resists 34
Colour & tone 36
Mixing greens 38
Mixing dark colours 40
Mixing shadow colours 42
Mixing yellows 44
Mixing autumn colours 46
Contrast & tone 48
Backlighting 50
Form & detail 52
Drawing & composing 54
Flower shapes: star 56
Flower shapes: bell 58
Flower shapes: cup 60
Flower shapes: cone 62
Complex flower shapes 64
Buds 66
Painting leaves 68
Leaf shapes 70
Seed heads 72
Seed heads: ‘Honesty’ 74
Flower markings: orchid 76
Flower markings: hellebore 78
Flowers in context 80
Flowers in a vase 82
Mixed border 84
Woodland with daffodils 86
Flowers in pots 88
Dog roses in a landscape 90
Pansies in a vase 92
Clematis on a trellis 94
Index 96
Templates 97