How To Create Beautiful Flower Art Paintings

Creating flower art paintings is one of the earliest types of art most of us attempt. As children, these flowers are more animated in our sketchbooks, but they continue to become more realistic floral art paintings with consistent efforts and practice. However, fine-tuning your skills always requires a conscious willingness to improve and understand the nuances of art. 

As a beginner artist, here are some tips you can utilize to improve your paintings of flowers and become a pro in your art. 

• Observe Real Flowers

Observation is the best teacher anyone can have. What you can learn from observation is not something others can teach you. Whenever you get a chance, observe the flowers that you wish to paint. Observe their color, the way they darken at certain places, their pollen, leaves, and other minor details. 

Once you start noticing such details, you will be able to add them to your floral paintings on canvas as well. Moreover, it is always the small details that make a big difference in your paintings. A close observation of these flowers will also give you a better understanding of the colors and you will be able to create more accurate color tones for better results. 

• Take Photographs of the Flower Arrangements

If you wish to paint floral arrangements or flower still life paintings of real flowers, make sure you click multiple photographs of the arrangement as soon as you can. Do not wait for the flowers to start decaying. Also, check if you have clicked photographs in good lighting and from multiple angles. Once you are satisfied with the photographs, print them out for more efficient references. Having printed photographs is much easier to work with as compared to digital ones, but of course it eventually all depends on your comfort zone. 

A major advantage of clicking pictures for your floral artwork is that you can then take time to create your artwork without having to worry about the decay of flowers. Some flowers decay really fast and completely change appearance, which can cause hindrance in your painting. Having photographs for reference saves you from that worry and prevents you from rushing the painting. 

• Use Brown For Darker Petals

Let me in you on a little secret — there is no black color in nature. Yes, you read that right! When you see a petal decaying, it turns to the darkest shades of brown which appears as black to us. However, it doesn’t change the fact that it is brown and not black. 

So next time when you are trying to achieve a decaying effect in your flower art painting, use darker tones of brown instead of black. This will also help you achieve multiple effects in the same floral painting. Mix different quantities of black in your brown to achieve that darkened effect. With a variety in that browning effect, your painting will have a more realistic appearance because it is very rare to find the same color tones in different elements of nature. 

• Place your Focus Point Away from the Center

Your focus point in any painting is what first catches the eyes of the viewer. To add more depth to your flower art painting, it is best to place the focus point slightly away from the exact center of your frame. This also allows the subject of the painting, which in this case would probably be a flower, to get some breathing space in the frame. 

Moreover, it lets viewers explore the overall painting and let the composition guide their eyes to the focal point. In short, a well-placed focus point in your painting will give your viewers more time to explore and engage with the artwork. This also allows them to engage better with your paintings.

• Study the Famous Flower Paintings by Masters

As already discussed, others can seldom teach what you can learn by yourself from observation. Take this a step further to study the famous flower paintings created by famous artists. Study their brushstrokes, floral arrangements, choice of subject, colors, and the overall effect that they aimed to create with their painting. 

Study how their color choices have affected the composition and how the placement of the subject and play with light has changed the mood of the painting. These studies will give you a generic idea of what you may or may not want to do in your painting. Even if you want to create abstract flower paintings, it is best to study the works of the masters first. Remember, you don’t always need to follow or like the works of masters and are always free to create your own style and art. However, studying their works expands your horizons and increases the possibilities of exploration that you may have not thought of otherwise. 

Master Flower Art Paintings with Practice

Creating flower art paintings is not only an art style but also a very therapeutic process. It brings you closer to nature, improves your botanical knowledge, and also helps you calm your mind. If you are a beginner, take the creation process as easy or as fast as you are comfortable. Once you start getting comfortable, challenge yourself with more complex compositions. You can even take part in different flower painting competitions to test your skills and learn from other contemporary artists.