Have  you ever tried to paint Dahlia’s? If so you know that they can be tricky flowers to capture in paint.

I’m going to show you how to quickly capture the essence of an Orange Dahlia in watercolor in 3 Easy Steps…and then we’ll continue on to practice loose wildflowers and leaves.

These techniques will come in handy if you plan to paint outside in your garden…or if you have a complex reference photo, you can see how I’d simplify it for a practice sketch painting in watercolor.

 

Step 1

Background gold and orange hues are painted with expression. I’m already trying to capture the lightest color values and contour the petals. I’m brining in more saturated paint into the still wet petals and this helps to begin to build detail. You will learn how wet or dry our paper needs to be for this.

I also alternated petals with wet/dry…

Today was a very rainy day so this was relaxing for me…and I hope it’s relaxing for You to watch.

I could have stopped soon as you can see I’ve already captured the essence of the dahlia. I’m not trying to be photo realistic, I’m just showing you how you can break down a complex idea into simple shapes and values. This part took half an hour.

I’m letting the fluid nature of water do half the magic!!

Step 2

If you wanted to push a painting like this further, you can add more contrast with the same two colors plus WVD

Be selective. Less is more and I’m brave (and not afraid to ruin a painting) so I am pushing further and I’m going to experiment on this piece. It’s practice and I’m also testing what works and what doesn’t in case I wanted to paint a similar piece, larger, with finer detail.

Step 3

Free and loose background flowers and leaves are also practice for gesture and experimentation. SUPER EASY, just keep your brush moving and don’t over think it. Give yourself permission to make mistakes. Sometimes those perceived mistakes become the most interesting part of a painting.

I wish I had allowed myself to do more painting for purely practice in the first half of my art business. It’s a freeing feeling to not have pressure to make a piece that you need to sell.

And…I do a LOT of this type of brush work with both small and big brushes in my largest watercolor landscapes. which you can see on my website…my more serious work is very detailed and accomplished.