Kyehyun Park - Drawing and Painting Beautiful Flowers: Discover Techniques for Creating Realistic Florals and Plants in Pencil and Watercolor

Generally, people only learn to color with watercolors when theyre studying watercolor painting. But I recommend you also learn how to sketch as much as possible. I receive a lot of messages from my Instagram followers, and a hefty portion are from those who are at an intermediate level. They say that even though using watercolor was easy because they practiced using a coloring book, they could not color anything else but the designs in the books. Thus, they ended up losing interest in painting. These intermediate-level artists say their interest in painting returned after following my three-step sketching method because they could choose any flowers to work on and create their own sketches. If you study watercolor after learning how to sketch, painting becomes more interesting, and it also helps improve your skills.

The process of drawing and painting gives you as much joy as the artwork itself. Learning and improving your skills one by one with the help of this book will hopefully give you a sense of self-satisfaction and joy. My wish is that this book will aid you in your drawing and painting journey and widen your path.

Purchasing materials for a new creative pursuit is definitely fun. The process isnt always easy, however, because so many types of materials are available. Testing all the materials first before purchasing them would be ideal, but thats not easy for beginners, especially if theyre not familiar with the supplies and may have trouble judging quality. In this chapter, youll learn about basic materials for drawing and painting, such as pencils, watercolor paints, and brushes, and how to work with them. You can also refer to the Resources () for more information on the materials I use.

Art supply stores are filled with materials, but you only need a few to draw and paint flowers. Basic materials for watercolor painting include watercolors, a palette, paper, a brush, water, paper towels, scrap watercolor paper for testing, and a pencil and an eraser for sketching. Every flower painting in this book was painted using the materials in this photo, which are also my go-to supplies. Lets take a closer look at these basics, focusing on the tools in the photo.

WATERCOLORS

I recommend using reasonably priced professional-grade watercolors for painting flowers, even for beginners. These paints use better-quality pigments compared to student-grade watercolors and offer strong, clear, and vivid colors with longer-lasting lightfastness and higher transparency. However, it doesnt mean all student-grade watercolors are bad. If youre not ready to make such an investment, purchase the best watercolor set you can afford and upgrade when you can.

If youre left-handed, place the water, scrap watercolor paper, paper towel, and brushes on your left.

COLORS

Throughout the projects, exercises, and lessons, I use specific paint colors (written in uppercase; generic equivalents are provided where possible). But dont be held down by my choices. Feel free to use whatever colors you have or experiment with mixing colors together to find the shade I used.

Starting with a set that has a range of colors is a good idea. Beginners especially may not be confident yet with mixing colors, and blending colors using just a few shades can be difficult. On the other hand, having too many color choices can cause confusion. Watercolor sets typically include twelve to ninety colors, so a set of about thirty-six is a good place to start. For the lessons and projects in this book, I mainly used professional-grade Mijello Mission Gold 36-color tube watercolors.

Tube and Pan Watercolors

Two primary forms of watercolors are available on the market: pan and tube paints. The former comes as a hardened paint cake in a small, individual pan. This ready-to-use paint doesnt need to be squeezed from a tube, and you can easily change the setup and layout of your palette by moving pans around and exchanging colors. Tube watercolor paints are liquid and can be squeezed directly onto a palette. These offer vibrant colors, and you can blend shades without the contamination you can get by dipping the same brush into multiple pans.