Would you like to see some techniques that could help you paint birds of paradise in watercolor? Or do you simply enjoy watching artists paint?

***WATCH VIDEO Below***

I believe everyone is capable of learning watercolor. It’s a beautiful and fun medium.

My style incorporates vibrancy and many of my big watercolors have been compared to oils. My natural style is more realistic with deep colors…less washy…so if you like that in watercolors, please continue to watch my painting tutorials.

This bird of paradise will be loosely based off a reference photo that I took in Kauai. We grow these flowers in our yard here in California.

Bird of Paradise is associated with tropical flowers but actually, they are a hearty South African flower. They come in many varieties of color combinations. If you study them, you’ll begin to see just how different these beautiful flowers can be from plant to plant.

For a painting like this, I’ll pr-sketch the overall shape. When I paint in glass (nothing is drawn, it’s all freely painted)…so I could do both. But I thought for the purposes of showing you how I’d approach Birds of Paradise in my natural style, the sketch works best.

 

A lot of my paints are Windsor and Newton and I have LOTS of brushes. I just grabbed a few. And when I do paint in watercolor, I have done a LOT of big paintings in this medium so I like using big tubes of color. Even then, watercolors can last a while.

I want to capture sunlight going through the brightly colored orange and sienna part of the flower. I’m using a flat brush for this part…and I could have easily used a round brush, too. There is not a wrong way to do this. For many years, I painted with almost all round brushes and used flat brushes only in architectural elements.

As I told my young son the other day, learning to paint takes time. Watercolors do require a certain feeling for the medium. Some people adapt quicker than others…but I believe with enough time, everyone is capable of making interesting and expressive work. And from there, it just takes time, maybe a dedicated practice space.

I find that if I prepare a space to paint the day before, I’m more likely to sit down and paint. And this is what I do for a living. So I think being organized helps with consistency.

For the main structure of the flower…this part is so interesting to me because it can come in so many colors in nature. I am choosing to make a rainbow of green, purple and blue hues at the bottom, with some warm sunlit colors at the top and a magenta stalk. I want there to be lots of sunlight. I love painting flowers with sunlight…and when you get good at that, you realize you’re actually painting Light first (and the flower, second).

I am allowing myself to be very fluid with water. I’m not afraid of where paint my go…and you shouldn’t be either. Just let it be and see where it goes, trust me you’ll learn every time. Part of the beauty of watercolor are the marks that you may see at the end that are from the waterlines. Don’t feel like you have to dab those out, they are beautiful and will give your work character.

Pro Tip: avoid working any one area too much in the beginning. I like to go back for second passes once I have color on other ares of the paper. This will help you to avoid overworking an area that might only need minimal glazing of paint.

Pro Tip: notice that I saved the cobalt and violet accents until the end. I didn’t want them to bleed into the sunlight orange parts of the flower. I wanted this part to be crisp.

Last parts, are contrast… Be careful here. Less is more.

Did this flower turn out awesome or what??

I hope you enjoyed this painting tutorial.

What did you learn from this tutorial? Is there a flower you’d love for me to paint?
Any thoughts would be welcome…please contact me here.

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