Hi everyone! I am Mariam Gewaily, I am an Egyptian artist, and today I will teach you some watercolor basics that will help you both in watercolor painting and especially in floral paintings

Supplies

Let’s start with the supplies I used in this

painting:

1- paper:

I used Strathmore watercolor papers, cold pressed, 300gm

300gm is a good weight for watercolor papers

There are three types of watercolor papers :

a- hot-pressed (very smooth)

B- cold-pressed (which I recommend generally, its texture is perfect)

c- rough (it is good in nature paintings)

Note: good papers is the most important element in watercolor painting choose it better as you can

2- Tubes watercolor:

I needed it especially for the background, because it is hard to mix a huge quantity of the color with pans watercolor

· I’m using Winsor & Newton

3- pans watercolor:

I used it in all flowers and leaves, from Art Philosophy it’s amazing and has very bright colors

4- round brushes:

You can use any type you want but I love round ones because I can use their tips for the details and when I pressed them I can get thicker lines and filling big areas

5- big size round & flat brushes:

You need the larger ones for the background

6- palette:

You can find metal, plastic, and ceramic palette, I use plastic and metal but ceramic ones are better in mixing you can use any ceramic dish

7- 2 jars of clean water:

We will use one of them to clean the brush from any color, it will get dirty quickly. So, we will use the other one to clean the brush for the second time before taking another color and this jar will still clean

8- water spray:

I used it here to wet my pans watercolor

9- tissues:

It’s so important in watercolor color, to take off the extra water from brush, clean brushes, remove mistakes and so on.

10- washi tape :

To stabilize the painting when you are painting

Step 1: Layout My Work

here is the original photo, to start your layout by pencil just choose a starting point and go on!

Step 2: General Techniques

I’ll explain here some techniques will help

you, read them then watch my videos I applied those techniques there:

1- wet on wet technique:

Here we wet our area with water then we will add our watery color

Note:

· more water = less control

· The color will just spread in the wet area

· This technique is perfect in the background or to make the basement color for any object

2- wet in dry technique:

Here we applying our watery color on a blank paper, or waiting for the first layer to dry completely, this technique is suitable to add details and there is more control here

3- dry on dry :

Here we take almost dry paint in our brush and applying it on a dry paper surface

This technique can be used to add texture to objects like wood, buildings, trees, fabrics …etc.

4- in the background I mixed all the color I need because I don’t want paint dry while I’m painting, it will cause unlovely blotches on my layer

Step 3: Flower 1

I used here layering, and I started with the lighter color, then I go over details and shadows.

Step 4: Flower 2

here I painted every petal individually.

Step 5: Flower 3

Step 6: Flower Tutorial1

here I used both wet on wet, and wet on dry techniques

Step 7: Flower Tutorial 2

Step 8: Leaves Tutorial 1

Step 9: Leaves Tutorial 2

Step 10: Applying Wet on Wet Technique to Make Shadow and Light

Step 11: Final Result + General Tips in Watercolor

General tips:

· In watercolor, the color is 20% darker when it is wet, so it will be lighter after drying

· Start with lighter colors because it’s hard to light the dark areas

· There is no white color in watercolor you will depend on the paper’s white color to keep light areas, you can also use (Masking fluid) to block the color of reaching the area you want keep clean and white, it will make it easier

· You can remove mistakes with dry tissue or brush if the paint was watery before drying, or you can wait for it dry completely then take a clean wet brush and wet only the area you want to erase

· There is a layers system, starting from lighter to darker ones , you must be sure that the first layer is completely dry before applying the next layer