Painting lavender with a background

Just LOOK at those colours!

I show you how to how to plan your painting with this step-by-step Lavender With A Background Tutorial.

This tutorial uses a combination of skills and techniques, and is especially helpful to those who would like to learn a structure in their loose watercolour painting.

Planning your painting.

1. To begin, it’s important to plan your painting and how you would like it to look. I’d like to use a variety of lavender types and shapes in my composition, and lots of colour to create a colourful composition. I’ve selected a variety of purple, blue and pink hues, along with some vibrant yellow and green. This combination gives me a variety of shades too when mixed together. You can make initial sketches of how you would like your composition to look first on some sketch paper before you begin applying it to your main watercolour paper. Once I am happy in my sketch stage, I begin to map the lavender shapes out by drawing them with masking fluid – you can do this with light pencil first if you prefer.) These areas will be kept free of paint whilst we go into the second stage of applying the background washes. Spending time in this first initial planning process can really make the difference to a successful end result.

 

What I’ve used:

• Paper: 300gsm Arches (140lb) cold pressed watercolour paper.
• A reference image of some lavender in its natural surroundings.
• Brushes: Jennifer Rose sizes, 2/0 and 3/0 Mop brush. Link here: https://www.rosemaryandco.com/jennifer-rose-mop.
• Masking fluid – I used Winsor & Newton)
• Masking Tape to mask out the edges to your painting for a beautiful finish (Optional).
• Table salt for a light sprinkle
• Kitchen towel (to dab off any excess water)
• Water in a container and a little bowl. A palette to mix your paints on.
• A scrap of paper to practice and mix your colours with by your side.

Paint colours I used:

• Winsor Lemon
• Cobalt Blue
• Purple
• Quinacridone violet
• Sap Green

• Here’s how I went about it:

2. With a pencil or go straight in with the masking fluid, (like I have done) create the outline shapes to your lavender strands making a composition. If you’ve used pencil first, you can then apply the masking fluid once you are happy. I’ve included a variety of shapes and extra flower heads floating above for extra interest.

3. Once your masking fluid has dried, it’s time to apply the light washes to the background. Using my largest 2/0 brush, I began by applying a light wash of clear water all over the paper first so I would be working wet-in-wet when I next dropped in the light pink/purple shades to the top of the ‘sky’ area and then working my way down the paper and applying a light yellow to the top right and lower section. In my planning process, I had decided I wanted to create the illusion of sunlight coming from that direction. Apply the paint in sections and you will see the colours join in areas. A little bit of paint and water control is needed, so that the colours remain fresh and vibrant. Lastly I drop in some of my green colour to create the illusion of grass around my masked out lavender.

4. With the first background colours applied and still wet, I then deepen the shades in some areas allowing the lighter colors to come through. Again taking it slowly not to ruin my first applied colors.

5. With the placement of these colours now settling, I sprinkle some salt onto the wet paint and let it work its magic in the drying process. This will create some lovely light textures once dried. Let your painting dry naturally.

6. Now the painting has dried, it’s time to remove the masking fluid to the lavender shapes. Once removed, I began to build up the lightest purple and pink shades to the lavender heads using a watery mix. I’ve used the 3/0 (smallest brush ) to do this more intricate part. I leave areas of the white which were masked out to give the impression of sunlight falling on the strands. It’s important to note where you would like the light to fall and repeat the same side for each. Once this first layer is applied, it’s time to do the same with the stems, by applying a light green wash to them. Again leaving some areas of white to the sides.

7. Returning to the dried lavender heads, I begin to depend the tone to each one, and apply additional shapes to create their pretty flower heads. Repeat this process to the stems once dried and deepen the shade in areas.

8. Lastly, I went in and painted some extra leafy shapes around my lavender within the grass area to create more depth and interest to my lavender painting.

9. Now my painting is dried, I then remove the masking tape to the edges of my paper top reveal a nice tidy white border edge. I love what happened to the salt too! It’s given my lavender painting so much extra magical texture!

Below is a little video outline which supports parts of the process I went through: 

I really hope this mini tutorial has given you structure when it comes to creating a painting, from where to start, to applying a variety of techniques which you can take with you when creating more complex watercolours.

If you have any questions please do leave me a comment in the comment section below. I always love hearing your thoughts.

Love Jennifer Rose xx