Hi, thanks for stopping by today to see how to paint hydrangea. I’m demonstrating the wet-blending method – using two or more paint colors together.
In addition to the video from the Hangout on Air, I wanted to also give you some step-by-steps for this technique.
When I first started painting, I’d look at the photo and do my best to copy every detail, exactly how I saw it.
It took me a long, long time to paint a simple flower. Longer, if I was painting a commission for a client. Eventually I learned to paint faster and still get the result I wanted. This hydrangea is a good example, I think, and works well on either paper, canvas or a wall.
Step 1 – Load your brush with both light blue and violet. Without mixing the two colors together, dab the paint onto the canvas.
Step 2 – With light blue, form random petal shapes. Make some clusters into four petal clusters as illustrated here.
I added some detailing here for you to see how the petals aren’t perfectly shaped into clusters. More of a ‘suggestion’ of a petal.
It’s very similar to painting grapes where you start with a large blotch of color and then add the circular shapes with highlighting.
Step 3 – Dot various areas with white (or light green, blue or violet) to give the eye areas to focus upon.
Step 4 – Highlight some petals with white.
Step 5 – Add shading in violet next to the highlighted areas.
Optional: Add clusters of unopened buds by dipdotting blue, violet, and green.
Wet-blending is a fun way to play with paint colors without worry. You can continue adding highlights and shading for as much dimension as you want.
Check out three other ways to paint hydrangea here. If you’d like to learn more about layering color, join me for a live class on Wednesday, May 22, at 11 am PST. We’ll paint hydrangea leaves too in class.
Colleen
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