Calico Art - Carol Vaage

Many of the images used can be found on Pinterest - Carol Vaage - Flowers in Watercolor

1. Introduction Comments: Looking to see what a flower is: its parts, colors, shapes, leaves. Determine whether you will create a realistic painting (which will take more time than our class) or a loose painting, which we will practice today.
    
2. Section 1: Stems and leaves
   
   
   Practice long smooth strokes with the tip of the brush that has been loaded with pigment. Next, use pressure on your brush to create twisted stems and leaves.
   For multiple leaves, paint the stem first. Add leaves by using the side of the brush adding a twist. Alternatively paint the shape of the leaf with clear water and drop in leaf colors. To add veins, use a palette knife or a sharp pencil to draw in the veins while the paint is still wet. The pigment will settle into the marked areas.
    
3. Section 2: Flower petals
    
   
   Left example uses water with added pigments. Middle example uses water again, with wet petals and two or more colors. Right examples: using a dry brush for the blue, with added water dropped with pipette. The pink has tiny water drops from the pipette close together for smaller flowers. Pigment added into the drops. The yellow flower is dry brush with added layers of color after initial wash (graded washes).
    
4. Section 3: Wash and Ink - Black line marker magic
   
   The abstract flowers shown in this example are random possible flower shapes. Black line marker is used to freely draw florals shapes with attention to or without attention to the paint shapes.
    
5. Section 4 Final Exercise: Choose from the following:

Summary of Techniques:

1. Droplets
2. Pull from center
3. Outline with paint (wet on wet)
4. Brush pressure
5. Sepal/calyx drop in while flower is still wet
6. Study leaf type and add minimally
7. Stems can be added last unless doing a tree blossom
8. Add faint hints of more flowers in the background with very faint colors