Paint with Me! – Purple Tulips
Hey friends in this video we are painting tulips. One of my favorite flowers of Spring. This is a great little painting to practice your wet on dry technique for watercolor and the blending that goes with that technique. Here is what you need to get started:
Supply List
Watercolor Paper. I am using Bee Watercolor Paper from Bee Watercolor Paper Company.
Watercolor paints. I am using Grumbacher Academy Watercolors from the tubes.
Jar of Water
Round brush size 6
Paper towel
Grumbacher Colors
Hooker’s green
Sap green
Mauve
Chinese White
To begin you will start with a light wash of Mauve, painting the shape of the tulip. To keep this wash nice and light use lots of water on your brush, or you could mix up a lighter purple with Mauve and Chinese White. The tulip shape is wider at the top than at the bottom and the bottom is very rounded. Leaving the top ragged helps create the illusion of the petal sections. Tulip usually have 4-5 petals that form a cup. When your wash is mostly dry begin step two.
Step Two. Now, for the Tulips to begin to look 3 dimensional, put another layer of Mauve on top painting the petals in front. Begin just below the top of your first wash and paint downward creating the petal shapes. These petals should be slightly darker and the gap left at the top becomes the center, or inside of your tulip.
Next, while the tulips are drying, you can paint the stems using the very tip of your brush. I used Hooker’s green for the stems. Then I painted some leaves using Sap green. The tulip leaves are long and pointed in shape. I used the side of my brush to paint the leaves. I also at first marked some very faint leaves with just water on my brush (refer to video below). Leaves in the foreground of your painting should be darker than ones in the background.
When the leaves are dry, I then added some more using Hooker’s green. If you make a mistake use your paper towel for blotting (like I did in video below).
So now the tulips should be completely dry and what you are going to want to do is go over them again with more mauve paint. This time your brush should have more paint then water as you paint over the petals again adding darker areas to the edge and then blending into the lighter areas with a clean (no paint) damp brush. This may take some time and you may want to let your tulips dry and repeat this several times. Think about leaving some space in between to show where the petals are separate.
Wet on dry technique 
Then to finish I did some splattering with the brush. You could use all the colors in the painting one at a time to do this, or choose just one. I chose to do the splattering in Hooker’s green and in Mauve. I hope you give this project a try. Happy painting!
