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How to paint a flower still life with watercolor on canvas

Paint flowers with watercolor on canvas on ARTiful painting demos by Sandrine Pelissier
Inspiration / Mixed media / Painting / Painting technique / Step by step demonstrations / Watercolor / Watercolor painting basics

How to paint a flower still life with watercolor on canvas

flower still life with watercolor on canvas

English Garden
Watercolor and mixed media on canvas
12 x 12 inches

buy prints by North Vancouver artist Sandrine Pelissier
Original is sold, prints available here

When you want to paint from imagination, starting with an abstract background gives you a good starting point to try to see shapes. There are many ways to start an abstract background, here it is with watercolor on canvas.

Here are the steps you can take to paint a flower still life with watercolor on canvas

mixing watercolors wet into wet on canvas

Start by mixing watercolors wet into wet on the canvas using a dropper.

I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.

Yarka St. Petersburg Professional Watercolor Pans

Same palette of traditional colors the great masters used a century ago. Liquid-poured means semi-moist pans respond instantly to a wet brush. 24 pans in plastic case. Also individual pans. – Master Set

spray alcohol on watercolor for visual texture

If you want to, you can spray alcohol to help with the formation of abstract patterns.

alcohol on watercolor visual texture

Let the canvas dry. As this are watercolor and they could be very easily lifted up form the canvas,, you will need to spray the painting with fixative once it is dry before the next steps.

painting acrylic on top of watercolor

If you want more complexity, you can paint additional layers, here a layer of turquoise blue acrylic.

outlining shapes before negative painting technique
drawing the shapes of the flowers and the vase

Now this is where the real fun starts. On the same idea as the  Rohrbach test, try to guess shapes in the design. Here I see little flowers. 

Outline the main contours of the shapes you see.

outlining flower shapes from an abstract background
painting the negative space with white acrylic on canvas

Block those shapes by painting all the negative space with white acrylic.

flower still life with negative space painted in white
glazing acrylic on the vase

You can introduce more colors as you go, like here on the vase.

drawing roses on top of the watercolor on canvas

You can draw on top of shapes to add definition.

detail of the watercolor roses on canvas
outlining flower shapes with a Sakura pigma micron marker

and add designs with markers, here I used Sakura pigma micron markers.

I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.

Sakura Pigma Micron Pen

Pigma Micron pens are acid-free and archival, making them ideal for any application requiring precision and permanance. Pigma ink is derived from a single pigment to ensure color consistency, and is fadeproof against sunlight or UV light. – Set of 6, Black

drawing flower shapes with a red Sakura marker on canvas
adding patterns to the flowers with a marker on canvas
polka dots on flower with sharpie white marker

A white oil marker will work well on a darker background.

mixed media flower still life with acrylic on canvas

The finish painting: English Garden

4.7/5 - (7 votes)

Comments (2)

  1. Andrea

    Hi Sandrine,
    Love your art work! I’m wondering, I use watercolor but haven’t tried it on plain canvas.
    Do you do anything to fix it before painting on it and when finished, how do you preserve it?

    Thanks

  2. The layers and the colors with all that white just looks like so much fun. I wish I had all these supplies to give this a try. I can see where you find the fun in finding the designs. So beautiful
    peace n abundance,
    CheyAnne

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