Watercolour Challenge 42 (Patreon)

Hi everyone and welcome along to all our new Patrons. 

Today we are looking at foliage running borders. This is a border that sits on the page inside the edge so you can see all of the plants sprouting out on both sides. It's a similar approach to wreath painting. 

In this watercolour challenge we try two approaches: Stems all growing in the same direction, and then sprouting out in all directions creating a wilder, bushy border.

When painting these miniature stems, the key things to remember are:

the technique to paint these miniatures is the same as the full size version but you are just using a much smaller brush.

'Colour Shrinks':  when painting a miniature subject the colour is also in miniature: it is a slightly faded version of itself. You can always build colour up but it is harder to take it away so start dilute and work your way up.

If you don't have really small brushes just enlarge the scale on everything and paint it all a bit bigger rather than struggling to paint tiny things. A good pointed round synthetic brush up to size 4 with a fine tip should be able to do fine detail.

This is a private youtube link which only you sweet pea and cherry blossom patrons have access to.

You will need

some watercolour paper

A range of small paintbrushes, I used a 4/0.

Paint: I used sap green, green gold, lemon yellow, hookers green, cobalt turquoise 

Jar of water

Kitchen roll to blot the brush

pencil and ruler or set square

After watching the video...

If you need any help learning to paint some of these flowers, either search 'flower painting' on Patreon or visit my flowers and foliage playlist on Youtube

paint along with the watercolour challenge and see how you get on!

Share your pieces on Discord or you can use #dwpcchallenge on instagram and tag me @dewintonpaperco. And please do have a look at everyone else's interpretations of the brief (search the hashtag and you will see all the patreon insta posts from everyone in here) and celebrate each other's work. We learn from seeing how others interpret a single brief so a community encourages progres

Comment below with your findings!

Have a wonderful week.

Harriet