One for the Flower Fans

In this tutorial I will introduce to the work of American botanical artist Elisabeth Hallowell as we study her style and use of colour to create a beautifully delicate flower painting.

The botanical illustrations we are studying are from her book 'California Wild Flowers' which was a collaboration with her husband. The book, published in 1905 contains information and illustrations of 12 flowers ~two of which we will be recreating as we study her work. If you would like to view an archived copy of this book click on the following link: https://archive.org/details/californiawildf00hall

I have selected the Mariposa Tulip and the Brodiaea to study as the two paintings work well as pair. If you are short on time you might like to paint your favourite of the two or both. These can be placed together on the same page or you might like to paint them individually to create a framed pair instead.

The flower paintings I have selected use very delicate, layered colour. This is a fantastic opportunity to develop your colour mixing skills ~ especially if you struggle to achieve pale values.

To begin we will look closely at her use of colour, thinking about the hue and colour bias as we recreate the Mariposa Tulip (the flower actually belongs to the lily family ~ not the tulip!). As with most botanical painting I will show you how to layer colour working from light to dark as we start to create a sense of form.

We will look closely at the individual stems looking at how the colour transitions and allow the colours to mix and merge on the surface of the paper.

To complete the painting we will use a fine line pen to add the delicate edges and create her illustration style.

We will work in a similar way to complete the Brodiaea. These pretty flowers have clusters of star-shaped flowers and are commonly known as 'Cluster Lilies'. looking closely at the layered colours from the palest pinks through to blues and violets.

This is an excellent opportunity to improve your colour mixing skills and in particular your use of values (light ~ dark) as we will assess and adjust them to create a good likeness to the original paintings.

To find out more about this project and what you will learn, take a look at the short video below.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/d79f8e_8eb08ce013964c7994bc7e1229f4026c/720p/mp4/file.mp4

This project is a lovely introduction to the world of Botanical painting and some of the techniques form the basic principles of this genre of painting.

Once you access the tutorial you will also have the opportunity to develop your skills further as you may wish to try your hand at other versions of Hallowell's flower paintings ~ which I have included within the accompanying materials.

Happy Painting!