White on white: Painting a Japanese anemone

White on White: Painting a Japanese Anemone

Moving on from fruit, we are now going to spend some time together painting a different kind of plant specimen; flowers. They can be a little trickier to paint as they are so delicate, but there are a few tricks to capture their unique beauty.

Painting Flowers

In comparison to fruit and vegetables, flowers can be a little more difficult to paint. Not only are they more delicate, but they also have much more of a tendency to change and move as you are painting them; shedding their petals, as well as opening, closing or drooping.

In this lesson, I'll be showing you how to paint a white petaled flower, which poses an additional challenge as watercolourists don't tend to use white paint. Instead, we'll be painting the shadows and letting the white of the paper show through - similarly to how we did when creating shine. We'll be mixing tones of grey from the primary colours.

What You Will Need

• Paper
• Pencil
• A white flower
• I am using a Japanese anemone stem
• Vase to hold your flower
• Putty rubber
• Divider
• Acrylic brushes in size 3
• I use the Da Vinci Nova 5570
• Slightly old and worn out brushes for mixing paint colours
• Jar of water
• Watercolour paints
• I am using Indian Yellow, Burnt Sienna, Cobalt Violet, Lemon Yellow and Permanent Rose, all from the Winsor & Newton Professional watercolour range in the half-pan size.
• Ceramic palette
• Kitchen towel

Capturing a Japanese Anemone

Step 1

Position your stem in a vase; you may want to also use a plinth to bring it up closer to eye level.

Step 2

Begin to draw the outline with pencil, using your divider to measure each section to get the proportion right. My best advice would be to break it down into manageable chunks.

• Often the centre of a flower is a good place to start; it's normally somewhat circular and is what the rest of the flower radiates from.
• It may be that the stamen is too detailed to capture with paint, and you will need to use a combination of pencil and paint in the final piece.
• When approaching the petals, I sometimes find it helpful to think of a clock face and divide it into corresponding sections to create a sense of structure. It's a good idea to tackle the ones in front first, and fill in the ones at the back after.
• Consider the use of a central axis to help you draw the rounded shape of petals.

Step 3

As we have done before, rub out your pencil lines until they are very faint; this is particularly important when capturing flowers with white petals. Leave the stamen as is.

Step 4

Select the colours you are going to use. For the stamen, it creates a more realistic effect if you're able to introduce some colour variation. Mix the green for the centre using blue and yellow, and a grey for the petals with the primary colours. If your grey becomes too muddy and brown, it can be cooled down by adding more blue.

Step 5

Start by painting your stamen in your lightest colour. I would recommend keeping a really dry brush for capturing the intricate detail; the drier the brush, the more control you'll be able to have. After you're done with the light colour, you can add a slightly darker colour into your stamen to add depth and contrast.

Step 6

Now move onto the centre of the flower. Start with a pale green wash, and slowly build up the areas of shadow to create the domed form.

Step 7

It's time to tackle the petals. Each petal should be articulated as a separate component, so take the time to really look at the unique characteristics of each one; be it crinkles, folds, undulations or fine lines. Taking the grey paint on your brush, begin to carefully paint in these distinctive details to communicate the differences between each petal to the viewer.

• Make sure to replace your water so it's nice and clean - this is essential for painting white flowers!
• Don't overdo the grey; you want to leave quite a lot of the white paper showing through.
• Remember that the petals that sit behind will always be darker.
• Work systematically around your flower, gradually building up the shadowy areas with subtle layers of grey and even introducing very subtle light shades such as pink and green.
• Grant yourself some artistic licence; while you are trying to paint the flower as realistically as possible, you can also simplify or enhance certain aspects if it helps to tell the story of your specimen better.

Step 8

As you near the end of your painting, consider whether there's any additional accents you can include, or moments of drama. These could be darkening some areas of shadows, incorporating subtle hints of pale colour, or increasing the contrast to give certain elements more visibility.