Sunflowers in watercolor


Watercolors, I'm back!!! I spent the last months on creating coloring books and digital illustrations - and I was so happy to get this order: another Sunflower painting in watercolor.

The result looks really good and it was a little bit hard to say goodbye... So I decided to paint a similar painting once more to keep it for my own :)

So this is a little bit of the painting process:

Detailed sketch with a pencil - I started two paintings at once - and then, fix the paper on a table or a special pad with a painting tape. Then, wet the paper. I mean spread a lot of water with a big wide brush evenly over the whole paper.

Then take a big round aquarelle brush, take enough color on it and just tap it here and there. Yellow or orange on the places where the yellow flowers will go later on.

When this first layer is dry, I start with the detailed painting of the flower petals. I use various reference photos and start from the lightest colors on the first layer to the darker tones where needed.

Then I continued with the brown centers of the flowers - never use solely one solid color for the whole area - the central part of sunflowers is usually a bit lighter. Light green afterwards for the leaves and stems to define their shape.

Once this is done, we just continue putting on light layers of color, darkening where needed, and adding a little bit of a different color (in this case I used a little bit of yellow, orange and blue) to make the green leafs look more vivid.

Once I am happy with the result, I let it dry and prepare the image for color sprinkles. I like to cover the parts I want to keep without any splattering, with small pieces of paper. This time I covered all 3 flower heads.

This was fun - take a lot of color on your big brush, make sure there is a lot of pigment and enough water, and splatter the color over the painting. Use several colors.

And this is how the painting looks in a frame. Right now, it is carefully wrapped and packaged, on its way to the new owner :)