How to Paint Peach Blossoms in Watercolour

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b Class Description

Apart from autumn, Spring is one of the most beautiful times of the year. After the long dreary winter months the earth starts to warm up, and with it the trees start sprouting new leaves and producing colourful blossoms. This is an ideal subject for the beginner in watercolour painting.

In this lesson you will learn:

1.  How to do a mottled out of focus background
2.  How to paint light coloured flowers
3.  How to do the shadows
4.  How to show up the stamens

You Will Need

  • Watercolor Paper
  • Set of pan or tube paints
  • Set of watercolor brushes
  • Rigger brush
  • HB Pencil & soft eraser
  • Masking fluid
  • Soft lint free cloth
  • Paper towel

Class Tutorial

Template

This is a lovely diagonal composition. Don’t forget to show all the stamens as they are very important in this painting

Masking fluid

Mask out all the edges of the petals in order to keep them sharp and clean.

Painting the background

The sky mix has some crimson with the blue to tone it down. Don’t go too light as we want to show up the light value of the petals. The lighter the contrast between the two the better is the visual impact.  While still damp drop in some crimson to represent out of focus flowers in the distance.

Remove the masking fluid

Remove the masking fluid by using a piece of masking tape and pulling sideways and not upwards. See how nice and sharp the petal edges are.

The stamens

Mask in the complete stamens with masking fluid. Remember to keep on washing the brush in between applications.

The petal shadows

Keep the reference photograph nearby when painting in the shadows. Also, don’t overdo the shadows.

Paint in the deepest shadows to give volume and shape to the petals and flowers. With a damp brush soften the edges as shown in the picture.

Twig and leaves

Paint the twig and leaves a nice yellow green (springtime) and then drop in some brown into the top section of the twig. A much lighter mix is added to the centre section and let the colours merge slightly.

Paint the petals

Fill in the white areas of the petals with a very light pink mix of Alizarin Crimson or Magenta.

The leaf shadows

Add a tiny touch of red to the previous green mix and paint in the shadows. Just strengthen the mix for the darkest shadows. Add a light red glaze to the twig.

Paint the stamens

The pistols are painted bright yellow and the stamen tip with yellow Ochre.

Add shadows to the bottom of each tip in the sunlit area, and fully cover the ones in the deep shade.

Add the dark shadows on the underside of the twig.

Final painting

Click the button below to view the real time follow along version of this class:

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