Watercolor Tulips

Start with these reference images:

Wet paper with clean water, load brush with Winsor Yellow and indicate yellow tulips. Continue to add Winsor Red with the yellow to make orange and indicate the orange tulips. Clean brush and make red tulips with Winsor Red, alizarin crimson and cobalt blue will make your purple tulips. Cerulean blue and Winsor Yellow will be used to show the foliage areas around the tulips and for stem area. The background color is mixed with Winsor Yellow, Winsor Red and cobalt blue in equal amounts. With more water the value will get lighter. Let dry.

Using our middle values we will now start to define the tulip shapes, showing a shadow and light side. Indicate the stems in the vase with gamboge and cobalt blue, letting the first value show through in areas. Continue to use this green to add leaves between the tulips. Let dry.

Our last wash will consist of darker values - Winsor Green and alizarin crimson will be used to make our darkest value. See the value reference to see where those shapes should go on the stems and on the foliage. The vase is made by painting around the vase with a darker value, leaving space for the sides of the vase, to indicate a glass vase.

Roses Watercolor

Start with these reference images:

For this painting we will be doing a wet into wet technique. Wet the entire paper with clean water. If you are working on a board you will have to staple, tape, or bulldog clip your piece of paper to the board.

Start to drop on local color in the areas where your roses will be placed - let your colors mingle and mix on their own. Use a variety of shapes and sizes. Show a placement of where the vase will be placed. While the pigment is still wet use a piece of a credit card and start to carve out shapes, using your value study as a reference. Let dry.

Using middle values start to build up the roses and leaves, indicating their shapes by their values. Show stems in the glass vase, soften the edges while the pigments are still wet. Let dry.

The last wash will be using our darkest values. One of the roses should be larger than the other to be the center of interest. Place your darkest dark next to your lightest value to make that flower stand out. Add some interest by adding detail to the leaves.