Close-Up Flowers in Watercolor

Class Preview

Capture the beauty of flowers with fun, easy watercolor techniques!

Getting Started

Meet your instructor, watercolor artist Nan Carey, and kick off the lesson with a colorful overview of the paintings and techniques you’ll cover in class. Nan shares important considerations for choosing reference photographs and helps you transfer your photo of choice onto watercolor paper.

Mixing Colors

Explore your palette with Nan’s explanations of colors and color relationships. You’ll learn how to pair analogous and complementary colors for a pleasing effect before practicing various methods for mixing the exact hues that you want.

Beginning the Lily

Start painting along with Nan as she begins with the leaves of a beautiful lily. You’ll set up a comfortable and efficient workspace before diving into a wet-on-dry technique that allows you to quickly cover the parameters of your transfer image.

Glazing

Continue to develop your lily watercolor with Nan’s expert tips to guide you. You’ll learn how to add a glaze (a layer of thin, transparent paint) over dry areas to illuminate new hues, and explore methods for painting the background areas. Nan also shares helpful troubleshooting tips to fix mistakes and recreate colors that you’ve mixed before.

Finishing Touches on the Lily

Complete your lily painting with finishing touches such as spots on the petals and effects that soften hard edges to add a sense of dimension and form. Nan also demonstrates how to add a final glaze to dry paint to bring out even more subtle characteristics of color and shadow.

Starting the Rose

Nan walks you through the initial process for starting your second painting, a delicate pink rose. Improve your skills in paint application, including the process of laying in the initial colors, controlling the consistence of color and creating a sense of movement as Nan helps you mix the perfect ratio of paint and water.

Finishing the Rose

Finish your rose painting with the addition of a dark background, discovering ways to prevent your light and dark colors from mixing in the process, and adding bold focal points that pop on the page. Nan also shares tips for glazing and scrubbing the rose’s leaves, as well as adding texture with a fun and surprisingly easy method. You’ll finish the class with two frame-ready watercolors, and inspiration to start painting all the other flowers that you love!