Watercolour Tutorial | Coronation Botanicals, Daffodil

Hello and welcome to another demonstration. For this series of four floral paintings I've taken inspiration from the official coronation emblem designed by Sir Johnny Ive. In the emblem there are the four flowers for the four nations, so the red rose for England, the thistle for Scotland, the daffodil for Wales and the shamrock for Ireland. So let's paint a daffodil for Wales. For dominant yellow I've chosen a bright yellow and this is New Gamboge in the Windsor and Newton artist range. It just will give me the colours I want because I'm going to use the whiteness of the paper. Just give it a nice light wash with this cool yellow and wash over the petals. Put colour on and move it around and you can see how you can lighten and darken. Damp brush, you can also see how bright the colour is as well. Just using a tiny bit of watercolour here. I don't need to fill it all in because I want some of the whiteness of the paper to come through. Just putting colour on and the same colour will go into the trumpet of the daffodil. So I was looking at the history of the daffodil as the national symbol for Wales and there's no clear idea. If anyone knows let us know. But daffodils were thought to have been brought over by the Romans and they bloom in early spring which coincides with St David's Day on the 1st of March. So it's a great flower that's in bloom on that day. It could have also been miscommunication with the name. So daffodil means St Peter's leek in Welsh and leeks were before the daffodil the symbol for Wales and they still are. It's thought that it joined a battle in a leek field. The commanders made the soldiers wear leeks in their caps and from then on it was a symbol. The daffodil is possibly because of the time of year and David Lloyd George, Prime Minister for the United Kingdom in the early 20th century, was an advocate for wearing one. So that's why we have a daffodil as a Welsh flower. Beautiful flower to paint. I love seeing them in the summer and the spring. It's one of those flowers that just says spring's here, summer's on its way after a long winter. But that was the new gamboge. You can see much more orange colour. I'm going to just put a little bit in under the petals just to darken. Damp brush and blend the same under here to darken. It's quite difficult when a flower like this is one colour pretty much because you don't want to add too many colours to it, you don't want to add too few. So I found that these two colours, this cool yellow and this much warmer yellow work really nicely to bring out the colours I'm looking for. Okay and then this one is on behind here so push it back a little with the darker, bring it down and then blend with the damp brush to strengthen that yellow. I've gone in quite lightly because I want to be able to build up in gentle layers rather than going in very strongly with the colour like I often do. I want this to be a little bit more of a subtle botanical painting. And on the trumpet there are ridges, let's just use that warm gamboge to add some ridges and let that dry, see how that dries. You should be able to get some different shading with that darker. Let's just put some colour into, you can just see some of the inside of the flower, only a little bit as a suggestion, but let's just make them a little darker. By doing that it also will push back and make this lighter, back in with the yellow just to strengthen and define. I'm going to leave that and just put some darker areas under here. I'm leaving that because it will dry very differently to it is now, it will hopefully stop me from working on it when actually if I just let it dry it will work really well and I find that time after time just leave things and they will actually dry much closer to the colour you're looking for. Moving down I'm using green gold, so it's a pre-mix green but it's a really nice green, look at this colour. I've got that harder stem area there, bring that down, elongate the stem a little bit. Quite yellow where it meets this, I think this is where the flower was encased before it burst open, just a dry remnant. Cut more blue into that green to darken, and if you're finding your greens are a bit of a colour that really isn't too bright, I find by adding a little bit of the red sometimes makes it a little bit more of a realistic green for flowers. Go back in that green gold again, a bit of the red, you have to be careful because the red's quite strong. Oh I might have taken that too far, so start again, green with a touch of blue, do it at one edge, touch of red, see how that's dulled that down a little bit. Clip some of that up, let's work on my clean edge where it goes into the flower, colour on and then blend it in. Damp brush, just blend, take some of that green up, got a little residue on my brush, I can take it into the flower. A little bit dark, so add some more blue. It's quite a solid colour this green, whereas the petals, they're solid but I think you want them to look a little bit more fragile, so I'm making this a much more solid colour, take that down, put the colour on and then I can blend it, just brighten that up a little bit, Okay, need to let that dry, see how that finishes and a bit of red, a bit of the new gamboge to make an orange, then a little bit of the blue, just a touch to make that browny colour, too brown, it needs more yellow, that's the colour I'm looking for, exactly what I'm looking for, pick that up, again working lightly, it goes around the back very lightly, use some of that darker colours, just catching the edge, make it a bit more orangey, I'm going to need to let this dry, I'm just going to add a bit more colour on while it's wet, just so the watercolour can do its magic before I decide if it needs anything else. The yellows drop back, now this is something that's quite difficult because I like what I'm seeing, I just want to add a little bit more tonal value, I have to be really careful not to overdo it, going with the gamboge, a little strong, so gently blend that in, just so I had a little bit more form and structure, and again this darker under here because it curls over, I'm going to do a little bit of green, just a very little bit, I've got an odd gap there, let's fill that in, this petal is actually behind this one, drops down there, let's fix that gap, the orange and the yellow, a lot of yellow, touch, a little bit warmer, damp brush, right into the stem just to add a little bit more detail, I'm quite happy how that's gone, using the cobalt blue and the lemon yellow, touch of the magenta, because I've done some swatches on here I can just test, that's going to work, twist my brush to make a point, much closer to the colour, so it looks a bit odd at the moment but I'm going to blend that in, take away that harsh outline, I find with botanical pictures like this you do, you look at the detail and there's a risk of trying to outline everything, a bit of green, I think we're actually nearly there, maybe a little bit darker in here, very carefully because I think I've actually got it quite well, off to the tiny brush, that orange I still have on there, let's just pick out some of this fine detail, it's got little lines and I think that should be there, so let's just clean brush, lift that out and replace it with a little bit of the orange, I want it to touch on the edge there, it's to attach itself here and a little bit of green just underneath you can see the lines, just to darken the touch under here, I'm going to leave that touch of green in there and you touch literally, I think that looks okay, so there you go, a daffodil for Wales, I hope you enjoyed that and don't forget to check out the other three videos in the series.