How to paint watercolor Hydrangea - watercolor flower tutorial - day 19

Hello, welcome back to my channel. Today we are going to paint hydrangea and this is such a fun flower. It might look complicated but it's actually really simple and today is day 19 of our 30 days of watercolor flowers. So to start we're using a really light wash of a purpley blue color and when I say light wash I mean we have more water on our brush than pigment and so we can mix together pigment and water on our palette to pick up the right amount of wash and what we're going to do with that wash is create these flower shapes. So hydrangea have like a four petal flower and they're all clumped together in a ball and so we're going to take some flower shapes that are really obvious that four petal flower and then we're going to start creating these petal shapes that are behind our main flowers to give that effect that there are flowers layering on top you can't see all of the flowers they're all bunched together and layered and some are not visible. You can see also with these more recent flowers I've picked up a little bit more color so to give a hydrangea variation and depth because it's just a bunch of random petals within a ball we're going to pick up some more pigment in some areas and we're going to leave some areas really light for a highlight. I also like when the petals touch a little bit because then the colors can blend together even more giving more dimension and then here before some of these flowers have dried I'm going in and adding just a little bit more pigment around the centers again just for more dimension and more clarity this is going to help establish the center when we're looking at this big ball of petals. So even though a hydrangea is a ball of flowers we don't want it to look like a perfect circle so we're going to have some edges that are uneven we're going to have maybe one side that is a little lumpier than the other side again this just helps it to look more natural and organic. Also I'm keeping in mind that I want the lightest part of my hydrangea to be up in the upper right corner so I'm imagining that the sun is kind of coming down on that upper right corner and so that's where we're getting a lot of the highlight so I'm going to be adding more color along the bottom of this hydrangea I'm also going to be adding a hydrangea underneath this one that's going to be darker in color as if this upper hydrangea ball is kind of shadowing the lower one. So I'm speeding through this a bit because it's pretty repetitive just making those flower shapes and creating petals around there that are hidden adding different colors and dimension especially because this is our shadowed ball. Also hydrangeas have a lot of variation they can be varied from pink to really light purple lavender blues so you can definitely have fun with color combinations and blending when you're painting hydrangeas. And I just continue to add these side flowers until it feels like the shape of this hydrangea is right so I don't want it to be super round but I don't want it to be an awkward shape underneath this upper hydrangea either. I'm going in with a darker pigment of blue for more details around the centers of this hydrangea and especially around the top hydrangea and even though the flowers on this top one have dried I'm going in with that paint and then I'm kind of tapping it with my finger to take the harshness away. To this upper hydrangea I have added just a little bit of pink above the petals and to some of the petals to emphasize even more of a highlight. And again I'm adding details to the centers and then tapping them with my finger to take away some of the harsh lines and I think one of the most fun things about painting in this loose watercolor style is you can really make it your own. You can go as detailed as you want, you can keep it as loose and abstract as you want. It really is all up to you and your comfort level and just have fun with it. That's my best advice. Don't think about it too much and just let loose. And now we get to start on the greenery and I have chosen a kind of brownish green color for the stems because their stems are more of a like a stick and so I'm curving this stem a little bit here because anytime you can curve a stem it looks a little bit more natural and then having a stem going up towards that upper hydrangea. And then I'm creating this really big leaf with my two stroke method but because my brush is not as big as how I want the leaf is there's a little bit more white space in the middle than I want and I'm going to fill that in in just a minute. But hydrangea leaves are kind of spiky on the end and so I'm just creating these little spikes after I've painted the leaf. And so I find that's the easiest way to get that spiky look in a leaf is to paint the whole leaf first in more of a rounded way and then go through and add all of the spikes in. So again hydrangea leaves are really up close next to the ball of flowers so I'm painting them up as close to the flowers as I can and I'll be painting a lot more and showing you more of that but this again is just that two stroke method where I'm kind of making a curved leaf and then adding the spikes to it afterward. Something that will help your compositions look more natural when you are creating the greenery is varying the size of your leaves, varying how many leaves are bunched so I'll like to do two leaves together or three leaves together, one leaf pointed down, one leaf pointed upward, one leaf that's next to a bigger leaf that's smaller. So just varying all of that will make it look more organic. So don't forget to add some greenery in that space between your hydrangea balls so that it looks like they're actually connected. I'm also going to be painting a leaf up on the top here so that it will balance out the composition a little bit. Again hydrangea leaves are kind of wild and they love to be up right next to the flowers and now I'm going to paint some of the greenery within the balls because all of those flowers are connected by little green stems and so I wanted to give a little illusion of that. And now that we have finished practicing our hydrangeas I am adding mine to my watercolor flower chart and I just absolutely love this flower, the color and the texture and the playfulness that it adds to our guide and to any composition. And we are finished! Thank you so much for being here today while we painted hydrangeas. I love this flower, I hope you love it too and I will see you tomorrow for day 20 of our watercolor flower guide. Bye!