ACRYLIC CLASS PROJECT: Water Lily Week 5

The last class we finally got to add the actual water lily to our painting. While there wasn’t much instruction, it did take time and, for most of you, practice. While I really don’t want to say that something is “hard” because I do not want you to set up barriers before you even begin, getting the feel for creating the flower petals does take a certain skill, as many of you found out it isn’t as easy as I make it look but you must remember I’ve been doing this for a few years and, yes, I do practice it if I feel I need to refresh those skills.

The first thing I did was to add a bit of the sheen back on to the water that disappeared when I darkened the corners last week, again, this is a dry brush technique but this time I used the 2” haki/blending brush. I tried to keep most of the “sheen” near the center so I didn’t lighten my corners too much, however, notice I didn’t paint a visible ring around the center, it should just fade to the corners. I used the same color as before white/gesso with a touch of the gray color I still had from the water, I thinned it down with water, removed the excess water from my brush with a paper towel and lightly streaked it across my canvas. I had a damp paper towel handy to wipe the color off of areas where I didn’t want it, then let it dry for a few minutes.

For the flower, you do not need to draw on a detailed flower, if it makes you more comfortable then, yes, go ahead and do the detailed drawing with your charcoal but don’t be married to the drawing. With my photo in hand, I just did a simple shape where I needed my flower to be, keeping in mind that the flower is a slightly tilted cup shape, it faces back into the painting and that is important, you don’t want the flower looking out of the painting.

If you don’t have any of the gray from the water left you will need to mix up some more (gesso, blue and sienna keeping it to the blue side), if you still have some gray you will need to add more gesso/white and a touch more blue and enough water to make it a very creamy mixture but not runny. It should be a couple shades lighter than the water but not white, remember you need to have contrast so that white will look white and even though this is a white flower, if you look at it closely only the highlights are actually white all the rest of it is shades of gray.

For best results, you will need to have your sable brush. I was working on a large canvas so used my #10 (wished I had a #12 but made do). The first thing I did was to load my brush by running it back and forth across my paint to not only load paint on both sides but also to bring the end to a fine chisel edge. You do not want globs of paint but the brush needs to be well loaded. Start the stroke on that chisel edge and as you start to pull it is a combination twist and push motion. Many of you got the twist part down but didn’t get the push down part and your strokes looked like snakes so remember to push. Twist back up to the edge and lift to complete the petal. Remember that all the petals go to a central point in the flower so whichever side you are working on be sure that the petal ends in the same place.

I painted in the very outside petals first then to do the next row of petals I added a bit more white/gesso to my color to make the paint a bit lighter before adding the next layer. I only did the back and the sides of the flower, I will do the front after I add the yellow center.

I did do some shading to my flower and if you feel confident you can do it also, I just wanted to get some busy work done so the painting could progress, I will show this in class next time. The shading was the base gray color and I added a touch more blue and a tiny amount of purple. Starting between the petals near the base, I separated the petals by painting the petal BEHIND the other. This is called negative painting and while it is the bread and butter of watercolorists, it is also very useful in other mediums. The darkest part of any flower is going to be near the center and will fade as it comes into the light, just keep this in mind and PLEASE have you reference photo right in front of you as you are painting this, all the information you need is in the photo.

Do not worry about the shadow, I have not started it yet, we may get to it next class. Try to get your painting to this point and I will see you all soon.