Techniques and Brushes Used to Paint a Floral Digital Watercolour

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 It's been awhile since I painted a floral subject

You can obtain my custom brushes by request

This is a Work in Progress

You can use this sketch if you want, or do your own.

  
Anemone Tutorial Sketch - Illustration 1

 

 

•  Open a 10  x 10 inch 100 dpi document
•  On a new layer do your sketch in pencil and lock the Sketch Layer. 

 

 

 

•  Pick New Colour Set from Image, then custom size the palette.

• On a new Gel Layer, paint the darkest value areas on the flower with a Pure Water Digital Watercolour (Or other small DWC variant)

 Anemone Tutorial Illustration 3

• Using a small DWC variant (Pure Water or Pointed Simple Water) with 0% wet fringe, paint the pink petal with some slightly varied pink hues. Blend slightly with the Squeezed DWC Blender.

• The image on the left is what this area will look like when it is lifted to a watercolour layer and wet slightly. You can see that the colours blend in a little bit and soften, so don't worry too much about blending the pinks. I did this as an illustration and haven't done  it to the painting in progress as yet.

• You can also find the Wet Watercolour Layer Technique in the bottom left sidebar under Favourite Posts To paint the red stripes in the petals I used a custom Flat Grainy Stump Blender to pull the colour out in tiny lines. You can do something similar in traditional watercolour with the sharpened end of a brush or a teensy stick. The brush is easy to alter, change the Method to Digital Watercolour from Drip Method. This is a very useful brush to have on have on hand. Works best in small areas and can be jittered and diffused.

• Painted a very pale pink glaze with Wet WC layer brush on this petal to darken the colour and add a watercolour

Using a Channel  

• Select the stamens with the Lasso Tool and paint inside Selection(s) with a fine tip DWC with a gold colour

• Use a DWC Wash brush in pale pink to cover the rest of the petals. Keep this all on the same layer and label it.
• Use the Squeezed DWC Blender to blend in the dark red to soften the edge

  Anemone Tutorial Illustration 7

•  With a DWC Fine Tip Brush (deep pink) and a little bit of a redder pink in places as shown. paint the first part of the shadow of the petal. You will be blending it, so don't try to make it too smooth.
• the light is coming from the top left

Anemone Tutorial Illustration 8

• The DWC Pure Water brush was used to blend the shadows at the petal edges and to add and blend in more colour around the stamen area. The stamens are still protected by the Lasso Selection . You should still be painting outside the Selection as shown below on the bottom left of your document. 

   

 Anemone Tutorial Illustration 9 

 

•  Continue using the DWC Pure Water Brush Resaturated to apply colour and unsaturated to blend the colour in. Use the two colours shown in the black rectangle. Make sure the edge is diffused between these two colours and make the outer bottom right edge a little darker still.

 

• I used a fairly dry Watercolour Bristle Spray brush with the Grain reduced to 0%  for the striations on the petals.
• It's important to change the direction of your stroke and the wind force arrow, so that it follows the direction of the marks to be made on the petal. 
• When using Wet Watercolour variants you will find that you have to use a very pale colour or it will be too dark. Changing the opacity of the stroke isn't enough to make sure it will be as pale as you want.
• If you want this layer darker later, it is easy to increase the dye concentration of the marks already there, than make more.

 

• Shadows deepened a little with pink Pointed Simple Water. Some of the other layers have  been closed so you can see where I painted the shadow areas.
• The shadows should maybe be a little darker. This can be adjusted with the  Brightness/Contrast Effect.
• Dry the digital watercolour layer first and turn on the other layers so you can  see how much to darken
• Move the Contrast slider to the left very slightly. Make sure you are darkening the correct layer as well.

• Dry the digital watercolour layer first and turn on the other layers so you can  see how much to darken
• Move the Contrast slider to the left very slightly. Make sure you are darkening the correct layer as well.

 

 

• Paint the background in different hues of green and pinkish gold. I used John Derry's Wet Blender and Wet Rough brush because I like the jaged edges of the dab. You could use a variety of brushes here if you don't have John's Watercolour Brushes.
• Then drop the layers carefully one by one, changing the order and the opacity as needed.
• Dry all the layers
• Lift Canvas to Watercolour Layer and wet very slightly by choosing Wet Entire WC layer in the Layers menu.
• Adjust the Brightness/Contrast
• Apply a light WC texture if you so desire
• Soften some of the edges of the flower with a Distortion Brush called Confusion set to Multi

Hope you have enjoyed this tutorial! Don't forget you can email me for some of the Brushes used and/or if you have any questions or comments.

Posted in Demonstration of Painting Digital Watercolours Technique. Updated October 5th, 2011. 5 comments so far. Share on StumbleUpon, Delicious or Digg.

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