| What colours are used in this painting ? |
Ultramarine Blue
Alizarin Crimson
Cadmium Red
Cadmium Yellow
Raw Umber
Yellow Ochre
Burnt Sienna
Cadmium Orange
Viridian
White
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Medium Used : Oil on Canvas
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General
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These pretty flowers are easier to paint than most people think, but they are very popular due to all the bright colours used in them. They aren't any particular flower, but they do seem to resemble poppies, I'll leave that up to your imagination.
Another feature of this painting is the thick, impasto technique that make the flowers stand out from the painting enhancing the 3D effect.
Before we start you need to ensure that you have enough paint to complete the painting as it is done in one sitting. Half a tube of each colour is more than enough to complete a 16" x 20" or 18" x 24" painting, but a bigger canvas may require more, also ensure that you have enough time as the flowers need to be painted wet-in-wet.
Great let's get going!
The tutorial painting was painted on a 16" x 20" canvas so if you are going to use a different canvas, you will have to adjust the brush sizes to suit the canvas.
There isn't much drawing to be done here. Simply draw a line across the canvas around a third of the way up to represent the table, then indicate the position of the bowl on the table. Ensure that the bowl is on the table i.e. do not draw it so that the bottom of the bowl is on the line. If you do this the bowl is actually not be on the table, but floating next to the table.
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Background
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Mix up enough paint to cover the background as shown plus some extra as we will be using this colour in other places too. The colours for the background are French Ultramarine plus Alizarin Crimson. Ensure that you have more French Ultramarine than Alizarin Crimson otherwise the background will compete instead of harmonise with the flowers. Add just enough medium to enable you to paint without having to paste the paint on, but don't over thin the paint otherwise the canvas will show through.
Block in the background as shown with a 1" (25mm) hardware brush leaving some canvas exposed above the bowl. Don't make the bowl too high as only a small section of the bowl will be visible in the completed painting. Use a smaller brush to paint around the edges of the bowl.
To add some interest to the wall we are going to give it a marble-like effect. Using your painting knife scrape out the excess paint in the brush, see the hints section to see how to do it correctly, (otherwise you will pull the hairs out of your brush). Wipe any remaining paint off the brush with a rag. Pick up a little white, don't bother to thin it, and work in a few diagonal squiggles across the background. Vary the angles and distances between the squiggles, also have some of the squiggles branch out like a river would. You can also vary the amount of paint you use to make some of the squiggles brighter than others.
Once this is done wipe off the white paint left over on the brush onto the rag. We now need to blur these lines to create the marble effect. Starting from the top left-hand corner of the canvas, gently brush over the background at an angle of about 45 degrees. Brush over the whole background so that the brush marks in the background paint are all in the same direction. You will notice that when you brush over the white it blends (blurs) with the violet creating our marbled effect. You may have to do this more than once to ensure that the white isn't too solid. If the squiggles disappear from overworking them, then simply go over them with some more white and smooth the background again.
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Bowl
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We can now start with the bowl. For the bowl we use Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow, White and some of the background mix. Thin the paints to the same consistency as the background. Mix extra for the table. Block in the colours as shown below with the 1" hardware brush.
Blend them so that the colours next to each other gently fade into each other. To complete the bowl work in a little white into the highlight area to emphasize it and work in a little of the background mix around the edges of the bowl. This will darken the edges and bring out the highlight even more giving us a beautiful round bowl. Use a smaller brush around the edges if necessary.
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Table
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The colours used for the table are the same as for the bowl except that we use more Burnt Sienna to redden the wood. Block in the colours as shown, (using the 1" brush).
Blend them as you did with the bowl except you will be using horizontal strokes. Use a smaller brush to paint the area around the bowl if necessary.
We now need to add the bowls reflection on the table, this creates the impression of a polished table. Use some Cadmium Yellow and work a patch into the table that is roughly a mirror image of the highlight area on the bowl using your no. 10 flat brush. Don't try to blur the reflection yet, just get the shape right. Once you are happy with the shape of the reflection, use the 1" hardware brush again to smooth over the whole table using horizontal strokes only. The yellow will now blur to create the effect of a reflection.
Only ghosts don't have shadows so we need to give the bowl a shadow on the table. Use some of the background mixture and work it into the paint around the bottom of the bowl. As the light is shining from the left-hand side in this painting, only extend the shadow from under the bowl to the right of the bowl as shown below.
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Background Leaves
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The painting isn't looking too shabby already except for that ugly white patch above the bowl, let's do something about it.
If this was a real bouquet of flowers we would have put the foliage and flowers into the bowl so that we could walk around the bowl and always have flowers facing you. We need to create this full, walk around effect in our painting. Let's think about how we are going to achieve this for a moment.
The centre of the bouquet of flowers would be dense with foliage and the outsides would have leaves protruding outward. The outside leaves and flowers would throw a shadow onto the inside leaves making them darker. We would also not be able to see much of the wall when looking through the middle of the bouquet as we are looking through the leaves and flowers that are pointing towards us, to the left, right, away from us and every angle in between. On the outsides and top we can only see the leaves and flowers on the edge so quite a bit of the background will be seen. Let's put this into practice.
Mix up a dark green using Viridian and Raw Umber and thin a little more than the background colour. Using a no. 10 flat brush block in the white canvas area and the area around it, including a part of the bowl this gives us the middle area of the bouquet that we cannot see through. Now using outward dabbing motions with the brush scrub in the outer foliage as shown below.
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Flowers General
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Now we can start to paint our flowers. This will by far take the longest as we have lots of colours to mix, so if you can't paint this painting in one sitting now is a good time to stop.
The most important aspect about painting a bouquet like this is to constantly think about the angles of the flowers. Below there are a few examples for you to work from taken from the cosmos demonstration.
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A good way of working out which petals "shorten" at the different angles is to cup your hand and hold it at the angle of the flower you want to paint. You will then see which petals need to be shortened and which side flattens eg. If a flower looking straight at you is tilted to the right 45 degrees (do this with your left hand). The back petals stay long and the front ones shorten to almost a line. The height of the flower stays the same, but the width flattens. Easy isn't it!
The next thing to remember is that the flowers on the outside of the painting are actually the flowers on the sides of the bouquet and point outward so that if you "walked around the table" they face you. The inside flowers all face you to some degree.
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Maroon Flowers
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To save ourselves some mixing time we start with the darkest flowers and work our way lighter. The colours are all harmonious to ensure the painting is easy on the eye.
For each flower we need three colours : a shadow, middle and highlight colour. The shadow colour is mixed by adding a little French Ultramarine to Alizarin Crimson. The middle colour is Alizarin Crimson with a little white and the highlight colour is Alizarin Crimson plus Cadmium Red plus White. Ensure that you have a good contrast between the colours otherwise your flowers will appear flat. To give you an idea of how much paint to mix - shadow = two teaspoonfuls, middle and highlight = one tablespoon each (heaped). Add medium to each until they are the consistency of soft margarine.
For a 16" x 20" canvas we will use a no. 10 plus no. 12 flat brush. Use the hard bristle brushes and not the soft bristle type. We will paint three of each colour flower except the yellow which we paint five or six of.
Block in three patches with the shadow colour where the centre of each flower will go. Remember the angle the flower is facing will affect the shape of these patches. See below.
The reason we block these patches in is to ensure that the petals on the inside of the flower don't pick up the background foliage colour and make the flower appear green.
Scoop up paint onto your no. 12 brush so that the paint forms a ridge on the end of the brush as shown below.
The amount of paint you scoop up will determine how high they protrude off the canvas so play around first. We can now start to paint our flowers.
Our flowers have six petals, two facing you and the other four at an angle to either side. Start with the back petals. First the middle petal then the two on either side. The technique is the same no matter which petal you are busy with!
Bring the brush up to the canvas, with the paint facing the canvas, but about 2-3 cm away. Hold the brush parallel with the canvas, now tilt your hand forward until the ridge of the paint just touches the canvas. From here in one stroke only you must paint in the petal from the outside edge to the inside of the flower. As you stroke apply more and more pressure so that the layer of the paint going onto the canvas becomes thinner and thinner until you get to the middle of the flower. At this point there will be no more paint on the brush and only the shadow colour will show.
Give your brush a quick wipe to ensure that it doesn't have any of the background or shadow colour on it before starting the next petal.
The petals on either side of the middle petal are painted using exactly the same technique except that they curl inward instead of in a straight line to the centre of the flower. Remember the starting angle of the stroke is not the same as the middle petal.
Complete all three flowers back petals.
I suggests that you practice this on your palette first until you are comfortable with the technique of the three petals as you will be doing this at all angles.
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Flower Centres
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The centre of the flower has a little rule we need to adhere to - if the flower is facing you paint the centre in last otherwise paint it in before the front petals. The reason for this is if the flower is facing you, you will see the whole centre so painting it in last covers the area where all the petals join. If the flower is at an angle you may not see the centre or only a portion of it, so if you paint it in before the front petals, the front petals will cover the part that we can't see.
Add some of the mixture we mixed for the back foliage to some Cadmium Yellow until you get a lovely grass green colour, use this to dab in the centre. Don't try and paint it in, dab it on in blobs, it adds to the character of the flowers.
Next thin some Cadmium Yellow down to almost the consistency of water and add a highlight onto the centre. See below.
Complete all three centres.
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Front Petals
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We can now clean our no. 12 brush on the rag and use exactly the same technique as the back petals to complete the flower.
Always remembering that the front petals fore-shorten when they are at an angle. Complete all three flowers.
You will now use the same technique for the different colour flowers to complete the flowers. Vary the size of the flowers by changing between the no.12 and no. 10 brush (one brush per flower).
The mixes used for each flower are:
Red
Shadow - Middle mix for Crimson flowers
Middle - Cadmium Red
Highlight - Cadmium Red plus Cadmium Orange plus White
Orange
Shadow - Cadmium Red
Middle - Cadmium Orange
Highlight - Cadmium Orange plus Cadmium Yellow plus White
Yellow
Shadow - Yellow Ochre
Middle - Cadmium Yellow
Highlight - Cadmium Yellow plus White
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Completing the Foliage
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Use the mix for the centre of the flowers and add more of the Viridian plus Raw Umber mix to darken it. Carefully scumble in some of this colour between the flowers and around the outside to form the front and side leaves. Highlight some of these leaves with a lighter mix of yellow green to complete the leaves. Be very careful to get in right next to the flowers without touching them.
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Finishing Touches
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To finish off the painting add a few buds here and there, using the painting knife dab a leaf and petal or two onto the table to indicate the ones that have fallen off, then don't forget to sign it.
Well done you have completed another stunning painting. Just remember though to keep this painting safely stored out of harm and dusts' way for at least a month before you frame it. This will give the paint time to form a skin hard enough to withstand a very gentle touching, still warn your framer not to touch the painting though. The painting will only be completely dry in a few months, or years, depending on the medium you used and the thickness of the paint.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, please don't forget to email us a picture of your completed painting. We like to see how you are progressing.
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If you enjoyed this tutorial, please don't forget to sign our 
