You can also paint petals that look like they’re folding over the center of the sunflower. On the top middle and right of the petal worksheet I tried to show the two parts of a curved petal. It’s basically a C or U shape.
How to Paint a Sunflower in Watercolor | Easy Tutorial
Paint a beautiful sunflower in watercolor with this beginner-friendly step-by-step tutorial. Display in your home to brighten up your summer decor or give as a thoughtful, custom gift. Grab some paint and a brush and have fun!
I really like watercolor paintings. There’s something so magical about the soft color and light lines.
You can also use it many different ways. Lots of water creates soft, translucent color and minimal water makes for brighter, more opaque color. With the wet-on-wet technique, you can create well blended colors and lines and with the wet-on-dry method, you can add detail and create defined lines and layers.
I had a fantastic art teacher in junior high who taught me quite a bit. We used acrylic paints, oil pastel, a little bit of charcoal and of course, watercolor. (Didn’t do any oil paintings, unfortunately ) I haven’t had any training since then and that was, let’s see. 13+ years ago!
However, I continue to play around now and again, because painting is really fun and satisfying. And it’s nice to create custom art for my walls!
This summer I just felt like I wanted to make a quick and easy sunflower painting to display in my house. Yellow flowers are so bright and cheery and just SCREAM summer. Although watercolor sunflowers seemed like pretty easy flowers to paint, I sought some guidance and found this sunflower watercolor painting tutorial on YouTube.
I followed along and was very happy with the end result, so I thought I’d share the process with you.
Give it a try and tag me in a photo on Instagram @thehomeintent!
Tips for Painting a Watercolor Sunflower
- Wash your brush well when switching paint colors and dab your brush on a paper towel to remove excess water.
- To mix a large amount of color, start by adding a few “brushfuls” of water to your palette (I just use the inside of the lid on my paint set), then add in the paint and mix until you create the perfect color!
- Using watercolor paper will make a huge difference, and it doesn’t have to be expensive! But you’ll be highly disappointed if you try to paint on printer paper.
- Many smaller watercolor paint sets don’t come with brown paint, so you can mix one using the primary colors: red, yellow and blue. For a darker brown, you can slowly add in black paint to this mixture.
Watercolor paints (this set includes a small brush)
Watercolor brushes (a large, round paintbrush with a pointed tip is ideal for painting petals and a smaller detail brush is good for, you guessed it, small details like fine lines and dots!)
Preparation
Prepare your workspace by setting out a cup of clean water and a paper towel folded in half. Lay out your brush(es) and paint alongside your watercolor paper.
To prevent the paper from warping, you can tape the edges of the paper to your work surface, but note that you’ll need to leave it there until the paint completely dries. If you remove it while the paper is wet, you’ll still get some ripples in it. Masking tape or painter’s tape work best.
If you are aiming to display your painting in a specific size of frame, make sure you paint within that boundary. My paper was 9″x12″ and I wanted to frame in a 8″x10″ frame, so I made some rough measurements and light markings to ensure my painting would be the size I desired.
The sunflower painting
The finished sunflower painting coated with satin varnish and decorated with dimensional paint and glitter.
Supplies used for this sunflower painting tutorial
- Disposable plate (you can also use Donna Dewberry’s double loader carousel)
- Water
- Rags or paper towels
- Blank greeting cards, acid free, 5″ x 7″
- Brushes: #12 flat, #8 flat, 1/2″ or 3/4″ scruffy, old 1″ flat
- Plaid Folk Art acrylic paints: Wicker White, Pure Orange (for the background); Grass Green, Jamaican Sea (for the leaves and stem); Maple Syrup, Licorice (for the center); Lemon Custard, Yellow Ochre (for the petals)
- Plaid Folk Art floating medium
- Delta Ceramcoat satin varnish
- Optional: glitter (gold and aqua), Folk Art dimensional paint (Wicker White, Fresh Foliage), brush cleaner
A closer look at the brushes used for the sunflower painting
Most of One Stroke Painting is done with a flat chiseled brush, like the two brushes on the left side of the photo. The chiseled edge makes clean points on leaves and flower petals.
But for the sunflower painting, we also use a scruffy brush, third from the left. This is used for pouncing the center of the sunflower. It can also be used to paint clouds and fluffy animals like sheep, teddy bears and dogs.
The brush on the right is what happens to flat brushes after they’ve been used to death. They’re no good for precision painting any more, but still useful for painting backgrounds. That’s what I used to paint the orange wash on the greeting card.
