The Making of a Rose

While I've been off "fishing" I've been spending a lot of time painting. 

I think I have painted more this past week than all of last year combined. It's been fun and I thought I would share with you the process involved in creating a watercolor painting. 

 

First I take my "block" or pad of paper and lightly sketch what I want to paint.

Second I use a kneaded eraser and blot it over the drawing to make the pencil lines lighter.  This is a matter of personal preference, not all artists do this step.

For this painting of a pink rose, I first laid down a wash of a light pink.  I use tube paint (watercolor is also available in "pan" form like the watercolor sets you were used to using as a child.)

Next I start working on alternating petals (you can't work next to a section that is still wet as the paint will bleed into a wet area.)  To speed up the process, I sometimes will use a blowdryer to dry the wet areas.

Now you can see the flower developing.  I have yet to do the center here.

A little trick I learned from my SIL is to work in standard sizes (5x7, 8x10 etc.) so that you can get readymade frames and mats to cut the cost of framing your work.  

And here is the completed rose.  I did this a little backwards of how I'm used to working.  I usually do the background first and then the main focus of the painting.   When I started this rose, I wasn't sure what kind of background I wanted.

note: the finished painting is 8x10 without frame and matting.

I hope you learned something and enjoyed seeing a painting come to life.

I'm off to do more painting.  TTFN