Amaryllis Flower

Sharing another flower study. The inspiration for this is the cover of Billy Showell’s Watercolor Flower Portraits.

Remember the post where I shared my husband’s challenge before he says yes to an online class? Just to refresh you, a few months ago my husband challenged me to copy/duplicate the flowers from Ms. Showell’s book (my beloved watercolor book) and from there we would both assess if I still need a watercolor class. Well, if you will ask me, I would really love to enroll in an online class specifically of Anna Mason’s. It will hasten the learning process and answer some of my questions through demo return demo. Have I share with you that my learning skills is at its best if it is demonstrated and returned demonstrated? I discovered that during my first year of nursing school. But not to digress, enrolling in an online class is out of the budget as of now thus the challenge.

I worked and made changes on my version of the amaryllis flowers for days since I do not want to waste paper and do not want to mess up coloring. One flower at a time I told myself and this was what I came up with.

Amaryllis Flowers  in watercolor in a  Daler Rowney Aquafine 140lb 11.7 x 8.3 inches

Here were my curve balls:

• color mixing
• when to put dark colors
• to lift colors for high lights or put lift on the second wash and show the color underneath to act as high lights
• sketching limitations

I think I have the same curve balls since I started studying flowers and coloring them with watercolors. I am limited by my palette but I tremendously enjoyed mixing colors on the fly. The trial and error did not seem to be intimidating anymore. Putting the darkest shades will always be a problem because I am still not used to seeing things in 3D. Its a long process and it will really take long since I study on my own. Deciding how to do high lights is another long learning process because mostly I do not see them or ignore seeing them. And of course, my insecurity with sketching perfectly. Being a perfectionist is difficult to let go but slowly and surely I have been winning the battle.

In conclusion, I am very pleased with how my version turned out. It may lack the oomph in color (but that’s just between you and me, right? 🙂 ) and a few other small details but it is still a thing of beauty. Also, I’m happy to be learning and discovering my own proper plan of attack on a reference photo.

For my next flower subject, I decided not to select from Ms. Showell’s book anymore. Looking at and studying watercolored subjects will not help me progress as I will only aim to copy everything precisely and feel frustrated if I won’t be able to do so. Thus, going back to using real photos as reference was the best way as far as I’m concerned.

Happy Friday dear friends! Enjoy the weekend!