Painting from fresh botanical references can be daunting at first but it’s an excellent way to spark inspiration and creativity. With this class you’ll learn how to capture the beauty of nature by using live botanical samples as references for your watercolor paintings while also exploring three interesting beginner friendly art styles. Studying a botanical sample and drawing/painting it from different angles helps you build a good understanding of the subject’s organic shape, color, texture and noticeable details that will even enable you to paint it from memory.
learn how to capture the beauty of nature by using live botanical samples as references for your watercolor paintings while also exploring three interesting beginner friendly art styles.
Studying a botanical sample and drawing/painting it from different angles helps you build a good understanding of the subject’s organic shape, color, texture and noticeable details that will even enable you to paint it from memory.
Key lessons of this class include:
- Art supplies: an overview of the simple art supplies used in the class
- What is style? The importance of drawing in visual arts
- Drawing from a live sample
- Drawing from a photograph
- Step by step exploration of three art styles with daffodil flowers and eucalyptus leaves
- Minimal line drawing style
- Line and wash style
- Loose watercolor style
This class is ideally suitable for beginner-intermediate level artists who have painted a bit with watercolors already and want to explore different art styles using a live reference.
The goal of this class is to get you drawing and painting using live botanical samples that you can pick from your garden (or they can even be as simple as flowers from the supermarket). The three art styles demonstrated in the class also provide an excellent opportunity to practice basic drawing and watercolor skills.
By the end of this class you will hopefully feel excited and confident enough to try exploring painting from live botanical references and will have developed a liking for one of the three demonstrated styles that you can explore further.
As their project for this class students are invited to share the photograph and sketches of their source of inspiration and an attempt at at least one of the three styles demonstrated in this class. They can use a botanical reference of their choice or use the reference photographs provided in the class resources.
