Painting Basics: Watercolor Demo, a pink rose

By Hsuan Chi Chen

Painting flowers is sometimes tricky. But all you need is some patience and practice, then you will master the art of painting flowers. This article is going to show you step by step of painting a pink rose in watercolor. This demo requires both wet-in-wet and wet-on-dry techniques.

Also few things to keep in mind when you paint:

a. Keep in mind that where is the light source, and where the dark side of the flower is.

b. Treat all petals as a group. Sometimes we focus on detail too much, we forget the whole picture of the painting. As a result, the painting would lose its harmony, and each petal would look like not belong to the same flower. 

Drawing Basics: Breaking Down the Components of Light and Shadow

In a previous post, I have mentioned a little about how an object might appear when under a single light source and the particular elements that will consistently appear. This is something I teach my beginning students and I have found that sometimes it is helpful to separate each component for easier identification and explanation. Looking at each component or element individually helps in understanding the role of light on form and helps in identifying how everything then ties together.

Today, we are going to look at the elements of light and shadow on a simple cylinder to identify each component individually.