Tips for Painting WHITE Watercolor Flowers

In this video I’m sharing my favorite tips and tricks for painting white watercolor flowers. These beginner friendly watercolor techniques will help take the overwhelm out of painting and help you with your next white watercolor flower project.

The flowers that I'm painting are called Claire De Lune Peonies! So beautiful, unfortunately I don't have the reference image anymore.

https://youtu.be/ODrK-RHk8IM

Watercolor Echinacea Flowers : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y34C0IeAzfM&t=1642s
Realistic Watercolor Flowers Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR-WxtuP8dw&list=PLkt5ChMuYC9FUq6XhKIas84ES4YlMb6bW&index=3

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Tips for Painting White Watercolor Flowers:

Start with a Good Reference Image:

While you might not typically use a reference image for your paintings or drawings, if you find that you’re having trouble capturing white flowers well, you definitely need to consider using a reference image. This will help you as you problem solve during the white flower watercolor painting process.

As you hunt for your reference image, make sure that your image isn’t too blown out. You want to be able to see plenty of details and the delicate differences in value so that you are able to mimic it in your watercolor painting.

Paint from the Shadows

When you’re painting a white subject in watercolor, you‘re working directly from the shadows and focusing on that. Rather than allowing the color or saturation to dominate your attention, you’re going to break down the subject into a series of shadows and focus there. But even though we’re working from the shadows, you want to proceed VERY CAREFULLY.

You’ll want to find the undertone of your main shadow color and water the pigment down so that it’s very very light.

Work in many delicate layers

The key to painting a white watercolor flower is to work in several light layers of watercolor, called “passes”. Don’t try to finish the painting in one go. The shadows and details represented in a white flower are delicate and need careful attention to capture them well. It’s EASIEST to do this through many layers so that you can build up the depth of color without going too dark too fast and messing up the final result.

Surround Flowers with Contrast

I find it helpful to add something to the white subject that provides some contrast—whether it’s greenery or flowers of a different value or something brighter. The contrast between the darker or brighter element will give a little more clarity and definition to your white subject. You certainly CAN paint white watercolor flowers WITHOUT using a darker background, but it’s an easy trick if you want to or need to take advantage of it.

Keep your highlights as blank paper:

Even though we’re focusing on and working from the perspective of the shadows, it’s important to keep your highlights (as many or as few as there may be) nice and clear and bright. The easiest way to do this is to keep the highlighted area free of pigment all together and allow the paper to “show through” unhindered. You CAN apply a light wash over your highlights, but again, it’s easier to showcase the depth and shape of the white flowers themselves if you keep your highlights nice and white.0