Contemporary Flowers in Watercolour - snippets from a Saturday workshop

July 1, 2017

Once a term I run a floral session with my weekly classes. Everyone brings in flowers, home grown and bought, and we fill the space with colour, shapes, scents and texture.

It always seems a shame that we only use the room for a few hours when it looks so amazing and is so inspiring. So, I now run Saturday workshops painting flowers, where we get to spend the whole day in a floral oasis!

Here are a few images from one Saturday workshop. Outside was wild, wet and grey, a dramatic contrast to what happened in the art room!

A stunning variety of flowers and foliage was brought in, and we started the day with introductions, then a talk on the various ways flowers in watercolour can be approached. Not too much of a talk though - we were there to paint!

I had several examples of work with me, depicting the different results of backgrounds versus no backgrounds, edge variety, compositional possibilities, the importance of tonal range, and colour selection.

I encouraged a loose approach, starting with masking the paper into small sections, and completing some playful, experimental pieces.

It can be quite nerve wracking to get started, so its a good idea to start off with some small studies, just trying out different techniques, colours, brush strokes, and surfaces. Diving straight into a more substantial painting can stop this initial experimental stage from happening at all, which is a real shame, as often this is when the magic happens!

By the end of the day the room was filled with a fabulous array of paintings. Some people had been well out of their comfort zones, trying out very different techniques and approaches. I got the sense that everyone was brimming with ideas and inspiration, and the end of the day came too soon for us all.

Thank you to everyone who came along.

For more information, here is a little article I wrote earlier, on painting contemporary floral watercolours. When you are choosing flowers to bring along, have a think about the colours you have and love, and I suggest bringing more than one type along, in case you end up wanting to try a wide range of colours, techniques and approaches. Don't forget a vase or jar to put them in!

Here are a few photos from other classes....

Flowers with painted flowers, several small studies, some loose, some careful and detailed...