How to paint loose Daisies in watercolor - Day 2

Hello everyone, welcome back to my channel. Today is day two of our 30 days of watercolor flowers and we are doing the daisy. The daisy is super fun, so cute, you can do any color that you like. Pretty simple, let's get into it. And if you're not participating in the chart today, that's totally fine. I'm going to go through the tutorial of painting a daisy first and we'll do the chart at the end. Painting the petals is pretty straightforward. You can either use your entire brush by putting lots of pressure to make one single stroke for that petal, or you can use two strokes and leave a little bit of white space in between. The reason we like to leave lots of white space is for dimension, highlight, and contrast. So for this daisy, the center is pointing upward and the petals are almost falling down. And I'm adding a little bit of contrast, a darker orangey-yellow color, so that it bleeds in and adds interest. But we're only going to see those petals on that side of the flower because the center is more prominently pointing upward. So the biggest tip is to just make sure you leave enough white space in the middle for the center of your flower. One of the biggest mistakes people can make when they're painting daisies or a flower similar to this is that the petals are painted too close together. And so you want to leave a big enough gap that it almost feels awkward at first because there's nothing there. But when you add the center with watercolor after the petals have dried, it will look amazing. So the length of your petals and the angle in which you paint them at will determine where it feels like the flower is pointing. And so the way I painted these petals, it feels like the center is up maybe to the upper right. It's not straight on. Again, adding a little bit of that contrasting dark yellow-orange color to the ends of those petals and kind of in the center to start giving that area texture. So have fun with your petals, their shapes, which direction they're going in. Daisies can be really random as far as how the petals lay, but they are pretty uniform in that they lay next to each other really orderly. But you see how I make these petals shorter here, and it almost gives that illusion that they are popped up a little bit more, and so they appear shorter. Now that the petals are almost all the way dry, we are going to add the center. And I say almost all the way dry because I like a little bit of bleeding, but I just don't want to totally lose the center color into the petals. And so how we're going to do the center is I start with a really light yellow that's bright, where I imagine the sun is coming in from. So the sun is coming from the right, and because the center is a little bit popped out, that right side of the center of the flower is catching the light. And so we're doing a darker, more orangey color on the left to give the illusion of shadow. And so that again just continues to add more dimension. And once it dries, we'll add another color to the center for more contrast, but just make sure you're keeping enough white space to maintain the highlight. Once the petals are totally dry, you can go back and add even more details. So we can add shadowing to the petals, we can add more petals. The great thing about watercolor is if you use a darker wash on top, you can have a layered effect, and daisies have a lot of layered petals. So don't be afraid to add just more details and layers onto what you've already created. Daisies have really straight, smooth stems, so you just need to imagine where that stem would be meeting the flower based on where your center of your flower is, and then just draw straight down from there. Daisy leaves are really fun, but they're kind of wild on all over the place. I'm going to show you a really simple method that I use to remember how to paint them. So I just kind of do one squiggly line connecting to another one, and then this is the tip. Keeping the white space in mind for the middle, I do another long squiggly line, connect it with another one, and then meet together at the center. And that's pretty much it, and I just did that over and over again until I had enough leaves, because I imagine these daisies are in the wild, they're kind of more wildflower style, and so everything's just going to be kind of all over the place and spontaneous. Okay, so now that the centers have completely dried, and I want them to be completely dry so that this color is really got a lot of contrast that doesn't bleed out, I am adding a brownish yellow color, and I'm keeping it darker on the side where I wanted the shadows, and kind of coming around but leaving the highlight. So I want some on the highlighted side, but I don't want it to be powerful over there. So again, on the left side, I'm doing more of this darker brown for contrast, bringing it over to the right, but maintaining the highlight. You'll also want to do a couple of dark spots in the middle so that it looks like some of the popped out areas in the center are also casting a shadow. And then with a washy version of that darker color, I'm adding just a little bit more details to the petals because it gives that illusion that there's a shadow on the petals as well. And now that it's finished, I am adding the daisy to my watercolor flower guide, and you'll see in a second when I let the petals dry, I added some details to the rose. Because I decided I do want the leaves and maybe other aspects to interact with other boxes, I think that might be really fun. But I followed the same process of adding details to this daisy. Love how it turned out. I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial as well. Day two is finished, and I will see you guys tomorrow for day three. Bye!