How to Paint: Spring Colors Watercolor Tulip Bouquet

Spring has officially arrived, and all I want is a tulip bouquet! Or let’s at least paint one in watercolor together.

If you love this post, you can take the mini course on how to paint these kinds of tulips. And then you’re going to want to take my loose floral courses – all available in The Watercolor Garden!

Supplies:

Paint: LUKAS Aquarell 1862 Watercolor
Brush(es): Creative Mark’s Mimik Synthetic, round size 6 and 3
Watercolor Journal (or non-journal is okay too!)
Jars of water
Paper towel or cotton rag
Pencil and eraser
All of my favorite supplies here

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Choose your color palette for your tulip bouquet

I wanted to choose a typical Spring palette with a bright blue, warm greens, and pinks and yellows. Reminds me a lot of Easter! I also wanted to use colors like the cobalt turquoise because I don’t typically use it in my paintings. I don’t typically swatch out colors for my paintings, but since they’re going in a journal, I wanted to keep track of them. When I paint on loose leaf watercolor paper, they’re usually meant to be framed or hung, so I swatch on a separate scrap of paper.

Curious what other colors I like? Check out this post.

Sketch and paint the flower pot

When I paint loose florals, I don’t usually sketch the entire painting. Sometimes I do sketch the pot so that I have an anchor point. Just make sure to sketch lightly or use a kneaded eraser to remove excess graphite from the pencil. I suggest sketching lightly because oftentimes we paint over the pencil lines and this makes it difficult to erase later.

When it comes to painting, always start with a lighter value. I’m using a light value of the cobalt turquoise for the pot. Start with a light wash and make sure that the paint is a watery consistency so that you can spread it out easily.

Then, while it’s still wet, drop some paint in a darker value of the same color to create some dimension in your shape.

Learn more about washes here.

Loosely paint tulips

I’m still using my size 6 brush and painting short and long strokes to create the tulips. I’m keeping a generally oval shape and leaving plenty of white space in between. Experiment with wet-on-wet technique and

Feel free to choose any tulip colors you’d like! I just felt like the yellow and purple would go well with the turquoise flower pot.

Stems, Leaves, and Soil

I’m using various values of the sap green to paint my leaves. Be careful not to let the green bleed into the flowers too much otherwise you’ll loose the vibrancy of the flowers’ colors. Use just the tip of your brush to create the stems.

Use a lighter value of the burnt umber for the soil. Remember to leave lots of white space!

Adding details

Details should always be added using the wet-on-dry method. So be patient before doing this step.

I’ve switched to the size 3 brush and adding a few lines here and there to make the flowers stand out a bit more. This is an optional step. I also wanted to add some details to the pot. You can do something different than me. Try stripes, or chevron, or polka dots. Finally, use a darker value of the burnt umber and add some squiggly lines in the soil.