Watercolor Plumeria Video 2

…to watch, click on video below…

To pick-up where I left off, join me while I show you how I painted a beautiful pink plumeria cluster from Kauai in watercolor while spending a week in Depoe Bay, Oregon with my family!

This watercolor was painted in layers over the course of two sessions with a day off in between.

Art Supplies Used

Arches Watercolor Cold Pressed 140lb in a tablet
Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolours
Brushes that I’ve had for a while

To talk first about brushes, I vary what I use depending on how I feel. I’m no longer loyal to any one brush brand or type. After painting for 40+ years, I can adapt to just about anything, no matter the quality including papers and paints.

And you can, too! This goes for all the art supplies mentioned in this video. If you have another brand of watercolor paper or another brand of paints, just use those. Though I stick to professional caliber paints and surfaces, I know for a fact that cheaper watercolor paints work just fine for most. Paper tends to make the bigger difference but honestly, I’ve been somewhat surprised by the (non-Arches) papers I buy for my son.

From my own teaching experience, I’ve seen student quality paint stay the same in terms of colors and richness. Watercolors today are extremely lightfast, which means the paints won’t fade.

For those of you who are more concerned about true archival quality, you can research the grades of the different paint brands and their colors. I’ll go over that in detail in a future video.

Watercolor Colors in this Plumeria Painting

To name the basic colors used, they are: Sap Green, New Gamboge, Permanent Rose, Cobalt Blue plus the greys that are already mixed on my painting palate and a few other minor colors.

Here’s my thoughts on these colors for this piece and why I used them.

New Gamboge is a very versatile golden color that has a bit of orange in it. I love it’s brightness…it’s a happier color than raw sienna or yellow ochre, which was my original ‘golden’ color favorite. I use all three of these warm golden colors but I love new gamboge for tropical flowers and leaf accents.

Permanent Rose is what I’m using most for the base pink in my plumerias. Cobalt blue or various violet hues from my color palate serve as the shadow colors. Permanent rose is also a more modern addition to my watercolor palate, it’s not part of the original colors that I stuck to for the first half of my career, which were overall more earthy.

There are two greens that I love, one is Sap Green and the other is Hooker’s Green and I also mix greens with various other colors. Mixing greens is honestly a bit of an art form itself but for now, I’ll tell you that I’m trying to make my leaves bright and cheery.

While I paint, I do clean my water supply out here and there. Refreshing my clean water supply is now more about the ritual of renewing and breaking up the session that it serving the purpose to keep colors bright for such a small painting.

In the shadow areas, I’m using mixes of colors…and sometimes that will include Payne’s Grey but I try to limit that until I feel like I need it. Shadows can be warm or cool so depending on what you need, changes the colors that you choose to make ‘darks’.

These days, I’m more about expression in watercolor. I’m more and more about painting freely and that includes colors that could be surprising…like a bit of Cobalt blue in the background of a leaf—it breaks up the greens a bit. Plus I know these colors occur in the leaves anyway.

When you start looking at nature, it’s surprising.

(…in the video…Newport, Oregon has a surprisingly good aquarium! We enjoy aquariums, especially my son).

At the end here, I was able to create a good little plumeria watercolor study that I’ll incorporate into something in my art business. Maybe this painting will appear on a small make-up clutch or on a hardbound journal.

What do you think??? I’ll share what I decide to do in a studio vlog soon.

Next painting video: I’ll be showing either an underpainting for a small oil painting of Kauai or the creation of a larger Kauai painting with a Canoe…so stay tuned!

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Thank YOU for watching!!! Warmest Aloha, Jenny Floravita

For more painting and studio vlog Videos, please visit my channel, Jenny Floravita Island Art here.