Painting watercolour flowers

Learn how to paint flowers using watercolours. This step-by-step plan is full of tips, photos and a video: perfect for beginners!

Go to step 1

Create your own

Watercolouring is painting with large amounts of water. The more water, the lighter the colour. Wherever colours are mixed in the step-by-step plan plenty of water is always added. Begin by filling in the lighter colours and leave unpainted the areas you eventually wanted to be white. You then work with increasingly dark colours.

Allowing work to dry thoroughly between stages (if necessary with the aid of a hair-dryer) prevents colours running into each other. Have you used too much paint? Soak up as much as possible with a clean, dry brush or tissue. Hold the brush more or less vertically when applying details and flatter when washing large areas. Hold the brush clean while working to avoid unwanted colour mixtures.

What you need

Talens Art Creation watercolour set
Watercolour paper
Talens Art Creation set of brushes for watercolour
Pencil or charcoal
Kneadable eraser to fade any lines or rub them out completely
Mixing tray or white plate onto which to mix the paint
Water for thinning paint and cleaning brushes during and after painting
Tissues or sponges for absorbing excess paint

Start with a sketch.

Step 1

Pick a reference photo, or better yet, take one yourself! Lightly copy the flower in the picture using charcoal or pencil.

Let's add some colour!

Step 2

Paint the first layer using water colours thinned with a lot of water. Paint the leaves pink/red using alizarin crimson and ultramarine. For the background use ultramarine thinned with plenty of water.

Work on the flower and background.

Step 3

Make the heart of the flower light by using yellow and leaving some areas white. Paint the buds olive green using dark green mixed with yellow ochre.

Give the background a second layer using ultramarine that has been thinned less. The first layer must be dry. Add accents in the leaves by using the same colours but less thinned.

Finish off the flower with some details.

Step 4

Paint small dots/specks in the heart of the flower (burnt umber with a tiny amount of scarlet and ultramarine). Also use yellow ochre for the specks in the heart. Paint lines in the leaves (alizarin crimson mixed with a tiny amount of burnt umber and ultramarine). Create depth around the heart of the flower using dark pink (alizarin crimson mixed with a tiny amount of burnt umber and ultramarine). Paint shadows on stems,
buds and leaves (alizarin crimson and mixed with a tiny amount of green).