Easy Watercolor Girl in Flower Garden for Beginners - Soft Field of Wild Flowers in Watercolor

Good morning. This field of flowers is definitely beautiful, but it may seem a little overwhelming to paint. In this tutorial, I'm going to walk you through painting a cute little girl in a field of flowers. The outline and reference photos can be found free on watsonwatercolor.com. Before I start, I want to save some of the white flowers. Having white around your flowers always makes the colors seem brighter and more beautiful. So I'm painting some white flowers with masking fluid that saves that white. Don't worry if you don't have masking fluid. You can also add white flowers at the end with any opaque white paint. Start with the far away background. Wet the background with clean water down to the horizon line. Paint some light blue on for the sky. You want it a little darker at the top and barely there as it nears the horizon. If you're not good with wet on wet, you could dry it before you add the trees. Or if you want a softer look on the trees, you can paint the trees while the sky is still wet. Mix a watery yellow green for the trees in the middle. I used my sky blue and some yellow. The tree masses on either side are going to be a little bit darker. And be sure and leave the gap between the trees. If your trees spread too far and close that up, just dab up some of the color with a paper towel. Now to keep the trees from looking flat, you can vary the color just slightly. Have some lighter and some darker areas. But you don't want too much detail. Be sure to keep them very watery looking and far away. These trees are just a supporting area for your flowers. And you don't want people to spend too much time looking at them. So just lay them in and dry them well. The bottom field gets painted with a very light green. And for the area where the flowers go, you can either paint it with some light yellow or just leave it unpainted. Once again, dry well. Now for the flowers. The field was planted with mostly yellow and purple flowers. But there were some white babies breath. It's a beautiful combination. On the outline, I simplified the flowers into three main types. The purple ones, some orangey yellow ones, and the black eyed Susans. You can follow along or just put your own flowers in. For the purple ones, my purple is looking awfully dark. I try mixing in some of my sky blue for variety. I think I'm going to have to lift up some of this color at the end. If you study the photo of the purple flowers, I bet you can do an even better job of painting yours. Underneath those are some flower shapes I'm going to paint with yellow and orange. You could put white centers in these or just leave the yellow and orange. It's a gorgeous combination and I don't know that it needs a lot of detail. As long as you get a little variety in the color. You can paint each color or you can paint each flower. Whichever way you like painting will probably give you the best results. I painted the middle flowers with more yellow and then added more orangey flowers on the other side. After drying the flowers, you can add the brown centers. Now that the main flower areas are established, we can fill in some color around the flowers. I'm adding more purple to the bottom and the other side and then I'm going to put some green around. Now my green may need to be darker to make those flowers pop, but a few stems and grasses can also add a lot of structure to your wild flowers. While I look at the flowers and decide what to do with them, let's finish painting the little girl. The trim around the hat and the sleeves can be any color you like. I'm going with orange. Her skin, what's showing of it, is brown and it needs to be dark enough to stand out from the background. To make a brown, I just mixed my orange with some of the purple, but any brown will do. Just assume the light is coming from the top right side, so it would definitely be darker right underneath the hat. You could just do a line of shadow there if you want. Dry the skin well and add a light bit of shading with a little bit of soft blue. That will also go on the left side of the hat and the dress. If you want soft edges on the shading, you could work wet on wet or you can just paint the shading on and soften it with a brush or dabbing with your finger. Now it's time to evaluate. Flower areas need darker values behind them to make the light flowers pop, so I'm darkening up a few areas and I may use a pencil to outline the petals on some of the black-eyed Susans. You can also dab in some lighter misty looking flowers at the top to give it more depth. If any areas look too dark, re-wet them with your brush and dab up some of the color with a paper towel. When finishing a painting, you need to keep evaluating. Darken up the areas that need it and lift up the areas that are too dark. I decide to darken up the shadows in the skin too. That's looking better. I've dry that well and I'm rubbing off that liquid masking to see what we have with the white. I think I should have used more white areas. Watercolor is easy to change. I'll add more white with an opaque paint. I may try this one again with different flower colors or a different dress color. Every day at the Flower Garden is unique and no two paintings need to look alike. I hope you enjoy the paintings and I hope your garden grows beautiful flowers this summer. Happy painting!