Watercolor botanicals

There's a beautiful hydrangea bush in my back yard, and I've been trying to paint it with watercolors. At first, I tried to use the same kind of wet on wet and layering techniques I learned in the landscape painting class last month. It just looked blurry and ugly, though part of that might have been the foggy afternoon. As I experimented, it became clear that I'd need to try some different techniques. For one, I might need to sketch a bit to get the shapes of plants and leaves, both for practice and perhaps as a guide for painting. Additionally, I'd need to try other watercolor techniques. Using layers of washes and letting them dry between applying layers seems to be particularly common for botanical painting.

Rather than just sharing the final versions that I'm satisfied with, I'm posting my attempts along the way.

Wet on wet hydrangeas #

This was the first attempt. I included too much stuff, and everything got messy. I don't like it at all, however trying it taught me that I had to change my approach.

I simplified the subject, but the exaggerated individual florets don't feel right.

The third attempt hardly looks like the hydrangeas, but I actually like it a lot more than the first two. I managed to abstract the subject more and it feels more like the bushes even if it looks less like them. The wet on wet got very muddy, though.

Purely abstract hydrangea florets #

I found a YouTube tutorial about painting hydrangea flowers and tried the technique it taught. It produces nice florets but I think it feels artificial. It might work if you made a very large painting and layered these within the big globes.

Pencil sketch base hydrangeas #

I sketched the shape of the bushes and some flowers, simplifying the subject in the sketch but keeping the actual organic shape of the orgs of the flowers. Then, I painted it using layers of color, drying in between layers for the most part. I did use some wet on wet to get the texture of the globes. This is my favorite so far, but because I painted it from a sketch and some photos, it isn't quite as a alive as I'd like.

Sage #

I brought a sprig of "Hot Lips" sage into the house and sketched it and then painted it. I definitely need more practice sketching to get contours right. Having the plant with me both while sketching and painting helped to make the painting feel more alive.

This is my favorite botanical I've painted so far. I kind of cheated by holding the branch up to the light and tracing the shadow to get the outline. That helped to get a more graceful curve to the sprig. I'm also very happy with the way I managed to abstract the blossoms yet kind of keep the feeling of their fuzzy texture.

Abstract botanicals #

One important lesson from the landscape class was to paint more than one thing at a time. The impulse to keep futzing with a painting while you wait for a layer to dry is a sure way to ruin it. So, at the same time as I was painting the purple sage, I practiced gently layering colors and trying to create a sense of dimension with different values of the same color. It's almost a watercolor doodle, but I quite like it. It's interesting how you can get a jewel-like feeling from almost any color if you play with value.

More field sketching in my future #

I also recently painted some landscapes that started with sketches, and have been sketching a bunch in the garden. I hoped I could magically get better at watercolor painting without putting in the work of learning how to sketch. Sometimes you can go quickly especially with abstract landscapes. However, when I want to get the grace and flow of real mountains and trees, I will need to get better at seeing and drawing their shapes. And when it comes to plants, I think there's just no avoiding it. I don't like fake-feeling paintings of plants. To me, plants are like people's faces. Once I know a plant, I can always identify it. The shapes of leaves and flowers and stems feel completely distinctive to me. Abstracting a real subject is one thing, but there's no such thing as a generic leaf or flower. And sketching from observation seems like the best way to get good at seeing and drawing the shapes of things as they really appear.