Learning About Colour

watercolour anemones — Watercolour anemones

Hi there, how are you?

This week I have been learning about colour. I found a small a week long course about using colour in flower painting by Natasha Gulliford. It was a taster for a masterclass she will be teaching in the coming weeks about licencing flower artwork. I’m not doing that one but I thought as it’s only for a week I’d give the taster a go.

Natasha painted an anemone and I tried to follow along but she didn’t show the reference she used which made it difficult so I found a photo on pinterest and applied the lesson to that flower.

I painted eight or ten anemones most of which weren’t very good, these two above were my favourites.

The blue flower was intended to have a hint of pink, then the paint wooshed across the petal eeek! I put pink all around the flower to even it out.

I like the magnolia, and the scruffy little roses were fun to paint; I had intended the bigger leaves would be much bluer though. Natasha advised me to paint a blue wash over the top, it may work I’ll see how it goes.

magnolia and roses watercolour — Magnolia and roses watercolour

The next two paintings used more of the brighter colours in the palette I’d chosen, yikes!

I was running out of time to finish before the end of the course so the flowers are sort of stylised, plus I know nothing of composition, seriously it’s like building a puzzle. I found a few images and tried to fill my flowers into the spaces, it was supposed to be class about colour not composition thankfully.

colour class chrysanthemum — Chrysanthemum painted with watercolour

Peony's painted with watercolour — Peony’s painted with watercolour

This was the mood board I used, I made several. The colours in the centre were picked by me in the computer, the colours across the bottom were generated from a website that picks the most used colours. It was interesting to see what the difference would be.

I don’t usually use colours this bright, I would normally pick something a little more muted. That was the reason I chose this one. To get a little feedback on how to use these colours together.

It’s a little bright for me, I’ll have another look at the palette and see if I can paint something a little less vibrant.