Glowing Watercolor Florals
Dec 06, 2025
Here are some of the steps I used to paint this glowing watercolor peony.
First I started with damp paper. Instead of using tape, the paper is wet front and back and adheres to a plexiglass surface. This allows me to add paint without any hard edges for a soft atmospheric background.I use larger brushes a mix of flats and quill with natural hair or synthetic natural (basically something that hold more paint).
Rather than sketching my florals, I have a rough idea of my composition (lights and darks) so I just make sure to reserve the highlights at this stage. In some areas I apply very saturated paint ( very little to no water mixed in). The paint will still have a soft edge when applied. I can always 'lift out highlights' even in this stage as long as the paint is non-staining.
While the paper is still damp, I can begin 'lifting highlights' petals, and edges using a smaller stiffer brush. I like synthetic brushes at this stage because they are more firm and come to a sharper edge. They can lift without adding extra water to the paper. However, if I want to lift a larger area, I will use a natural brush or something that can soak up more paint/water. I'm using a variety of brushes including several Blick angled watercolor brushes and Princeton angled and flat brushes. If the edges of the painting begin to dry, I just lightly mist with a fine mist spray bottle.
The supplies I use for this style of painting include 100% cotton cold press paper, either Arches or Saunders Waterford St. Cuthbert's work very well. I use a variety of watercolor brand paint (use artist grade rather than student grade for best results). I use Holbein, M. Graham, Winsor & Newton, Sennelier, Maimeri Blu, (all can be found at Blick :-) For brushes, I have a collection of brushes including several from Princeton (Neptune series is great for synthetic brushes that act like natural brushes- they hold a lot of water and are very soft and fluid- less snap) . I use the Princeton Velvet touch synthetic brushes for lifting and applying detailed glazes of color. They are firm and have a nice sharp flat edge. The narrow pointed round is great too for those tiny shadows within the petals.
For colors, I try to use non-staining colors if I plan to lift out very light highlights, but otherwise I use what I like. For this piece I used cobalt blue, ultramarine blue, hansa yellow, quin rose, quin magenta. In the future, I plan to add more non-staining colors to my palette. At then end I very sparingly used a touch of light cad red mixed with yellow and glazed it over the center. It really helped to create a nice glowing center of the flower.
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