Rose I and how to paint a watercolor Rose

Stuck at 1. 9 more to go. Just got the news that the organiser is going to fund the framing. Phew, that’s a relief. Framing is about RM50-100 for A3, the cheapest frame.

Here’s my completed Rose I. I think I need to work more on the shading. OK, 90% complete. ;P

Watercolor on watercolor paper

This painting is based on my mother’s rose, so it is 100% original, no derivatives. Tomorrow I’m going to pick a stalk of rose, put it in a bottle and draw live. 😀

So how to draw a watercolor flower?

Subject. First thing you need, a flower. Abaden (the Marzie way) hehe. It is better if you have real flower in front of you or your own photo of a flower. I don’t encourage you taking pictures from the Internet. We need to be 100% original here.

Watercolor Paper. Second thing you need is watercolor paper. Last time I used to buy Campap Watercolor Paper from Campap shop near Tesco Pandan but since they moved to Penang, I had to buy them from Popular. But the last time I check (few weeks ago), Popular is not selling Campap’s anymore, so I just resort to Wenson’s. You can buy Wenson’s watercolor paper from art shop. I get my supply from Taman Melawati (near Malaysia Institute of Art). Wenson’s watercolor paper is quite good, it’s acid free and the weight is 300gsm. You can use it for watercolor, poster color, gouache and all wet techniques. The price of a pad is RM11 kot, saya tak berapa ingat. I’m so not good in remembering the price.

Watercolor. Thirdly, you need a watercolor. I use Artist’s Alpha Watercolors. I tried Winsor & Newton, they are good but I prefer Alpha better. Pak Yusof Gajah suggested Rembrandt, but it’s expensive. I cannot afford it. But if money is not an issue, I definitely use Rembrandt. The name tells all. Rembrandt.

Brushes. Fourthly, you need brushes lah. I use White Nylon round brushes – size 1 to 10. 1 being the smallest. You need to have various sizes, the small ones for narrow corner and the big ones for wider area. There’s Sable, Kolinsky, etc but for the time being, Nylon works just fine.

Palette. Fifthly, you need palette to mix your watercolor with water. If you are working with colorful painting, you need a palette with more wells.

How to. Study the flower. Take your pencil and draw out the shapes and later work on the shading part by making thin marking on the shades area. Take red and dilute with water, you’ll get very light red, they almost pink.  Take large brush (maybe size 10) and cover the shapes area with light washes Let it dry. Now you work on the darker shades, try smaller brush. You need to add a little bit of black for the shades. Let dry and later color the more darker shades. To graduate the colors, you just wash your brush and soften the strong edge of the shades. You color the background last.

This is how I do it, the Emila way. Maybe it’s not  the same as what your teacher or lecturer taught you but to me, the most comfortable way is to do it your own way. There’s no restrictions in art, really. Conteng-conteng pun dah jadi art.

There’s tons of techniques out there and you might want to observe Jan Kunz and John Lovett for watercolor paintings. I admire them both for their talents but of course their styles are magnificent!