Color in Bloom: Painting Flowers With Oil

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Create beautiful, lifelike flowers that bloom from your canvas! Build oil painting skills for composition, color, form, detail and more.

Creating a Compelling Composition

Meet artist Jay Senetchko, your guide to painting beautiful flowers with oil. No matter the materials, every good painting needs an equally good base. Watch as Jay shows you how to create a perfect underpainting after going over the basics of composition and framing.

Initial Block-In

You’ve worked with one color, now add two more to your palette and watch as Jay shows you how to mix the three and begin blocking in the painting’s major shapes. You’ll be amazed at how a limited palette can yield an impressive foundation thanks to your new ability to create value and color contrast.

Establishing Form

Now that larger objects have been blocked in, it’s time to develop your forms, get more exact and add the elements that will make your flowers pop. The best part of this step: Your colors don’t even need to be that accurate! Just add in select spots and let Jay help you take care of the rest.

Working Into a Glaze

Glazing isn’t necessary for every painting. But when you see what Jay can do to create extra volume, depth and luster, you’ll never want to skip this mid-stage step again. Watch as he highlights the advantages of the glaze by demonstrating the technique on multiple flowers.

Developing Depth With Color

Now’s your chance to finally start filling in some details. Watch as Jay shows you how to add pop with saturated color. See as he introduces highlights and shadows to develop and diffuse focal points, along with accentuating the painting’s depth and darkness.

Adding Details

Sometimes painting means taking advantage of the natural pattern-seeking behavior in our brains. Jay shows you how to do just that by playing with contrast in your silhouette, turning the painting into an ideal version of what we all see in our heads when we think “vase full of flowers.”

Glazing for Emphasis

You’re almost done with your painting! Now add a few finishing details as Jay shows you how to glaze with primaries, both to enhance and neutralize. In the process, you’ll learn more about Jay’s finishing philosophy: No painting is done until you say it is!