For most of us, flower art paintings and floral artwork have dominated art books and drawing sheets since childhood. This is the most serene creature on earth that has been creating diverse responses across people’s minds since time immemorial, let alone the artists. So, if you are an aspiring artist or trying to get your hands on painting the best flower scene or floral paintings on canvas, this blog has something to offer you, some ready tips, like ‘do’ s and ‘don’ts of the trade to get at the fabulously painted flowers you have ever tried to gift yourself!
- Study the Shape of the Flower Minutely to Choose the Proper Brush
It helps to study in detail the flower you are planning to draw or paint, like the number and alignment of petals, the curves, and shapes of them, i.e., conical, spherical, etc. and the number of layers, etc. It will help you to select the type of brushes you are going to paint with, round or thick bristled, thin, or flat mouthed, etc.
- Choose the Mediums for Drawing Flowers: Block In and Covering Techniques
To get the desired effect, you can mix and match different mediums, like oil paints and acrylics, to add more depth, detailing, tonality, and smoothness of the textures.
Use oil colors for the traditional looking and realistic flower portrayals. Put the base color and cover the canvas, leaving the portion you are going to fill for the flowers. Adding layers, highlight the flower details with matching color schemes, blurring the background blooms and other elements to give most of the focus to the prominent flower.
For acrylic colors, use the ‘block in’ method to create a more accurate representation of flowers, protecting the edges of the elements for adding more details. Use a thin brush with flat bristles and go on covering the canvas while creating minimal details of the picture, proceeding with minute add-ons as you move on to finish the flower portrait.
- Make the Picture or Source of the Flower Clearly Visible and Well-lit
If you are drawing from realistic sources like real flowers on a vase, or from a garden scene, make sure that you paint them in a well-lit space to capture all the light and details of the blooms. Even if you are using a photograph to paint flowers of your choice, take the ones which are the high-resolution images having the depth and proper shading in them. Often, photographs from phones or other electronic devices do not have all the necessary details and that is how you are going to lose some of the intricacies of floral painting.
- Gather all the Colors in the Palette
Even if you are painting a pastel-shaded flower with less vibrancy, you will need all the colors on your palette to paint in detail. You cannot leave it as flat-colored and monochrome, as to paint white petals you will have to highlight the whiteness in different shades and proportions. Even keep the brushes handy as you would be needing them for adding finer details and abrupt strokes for the landscape.
- Choose to Paint the Flowers Fresh while Keeping Prints of the Majestic Flowers
Wish your paintings of flowers to touch souls? Yes, you can do it while drawing inspiration from real flowers in full bloom. But the saddest part is that you cannot keep the freshness of the flowers for long during your flower study involving days and months. So, it is better you keep photograph prints of the flowers at their top shapes so that you can come up with the heavenly looking blooms as per your plan.
- Get Inspired by Famous Flower Paintings of All Times
Even if you know the tricks and trades of flower composition, you can draw inspiration from the masters. Study their work minutely and have a clear understanding of flower art paintings and color schemes. Go through masterpieces like Water Lilies by Claude Monet, Sunflowers or Irises by Vincent Van Gogh, Vase of Flowers by Jan Davidsz de Heem, Lilacs in a Window by Mary Cassatt, etc. There are loads of them to crowd the flower scene ranging from realistic to impressionist portrayals.
- Brushes Can Make or Break a Floral Composition: Take Care of Your Brushes
Choosing proper brushes for flower painting is one of the basic tricks of the trade. You will need to apply finer touches to raw, flat strokes with larger brush sizes having thick bristles. Use soft bristles to smooth out the edges and create an illusion of shadow merging with the backgrounds. Select brushes from thin, thick to filbert with softening edges to have more control over the areas you wish to highlight and add details. Do not overdo the edges, as natural flowers don’t have the outlined edges, so go soft and avoid hard strokes to achieve the best results.
Conclusion:
While painting, it is important to focus on the object and try to make it as perfect as you can manage. Play with grime, dirt, mud and get closer to the floral creations that nature has so generously painted for us. Even if you are creating abstract flower paintings, listen to your instincts and take up the brushes till you cover them full with paints and come up with something unique. If you are trying hard to showcase your floral pieces to the world, take part in the upcoming themed floral art competitions by the esteemed online gallery TERAVARNA and start spreading your floral messages to the aspiring viewers.
