Recreating Vintage Florals with Loose Watercolour​
Dates: 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th Sep & 3 Oct 2024.
(Thursdays for 5 weeks)
6.30pm - 9pm EST.
Investment: US$250
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I'm so excited to be teaming up with Penn Art Studio this August to bring to you a 5 week online zoom course focusing on the magic of loose floral watercolour art. For 2.5hr each week x 5, we will dive deep Recreating my favourite Vintage Florals in my Loose Watercolour style.
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At a glance here's what we will cover in the course:
1. Vintage Floral Inspiration, Supplies, brush strokes, watercolour techniques
2. Uncovering the essence of painting flowers with lots of play and exploration with watercolour.
3. Learning basic colour mixing and tricks to getting some of the frequently used colours for flowers.
4. Learn to paint roses, irises, lilies, tulips and peonies loosely with watercolour. As well as creating larger mixed floral compositions.
5. Dive into composition, layering, detail work.
6. Learn how to tune into our intuition to paint with relaxation and flow.
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12.5hr of LIVE contact with yours truly. Then engagement and feedback given after each week of class.
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Who wants to come on this ride with me? Read on or play the video below to learn more.
This course is for you if...
You are wanting to immerse yourself in the world of Loose Florals for 5 weeks, whether you are new to watercolour, or a veteran. This course is for you.
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You’re a painter in acrylic or oil or in some other medium and you’re wanting to expand your horizons.
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You paint realistic style already and you want to get more loose!
You’ve seen my art and you love it. (Thanks! I love it too. haha)
You’ve seen me teach tutorials on youtube, and you kinda like my vibe. (Thank you again! It's so important to find a teacher you resonate with.)
You’ve been doing a bunch of youtube tutorials online by yourself with a variety of teachers, but you kind of want just one teacher, one mentor, one coach to show you the ropes in a step-by-step, linear way, that builds on one after another, so you know you’re not missing anything.
You are craving some kind of LIVE class where it’s in real time with real people. (The class is also recorded if you can't attend any LIVE classes)
You secretly long for and your art be seen and be heard (not just by me but by others too)
You want to paint and share your art in a safe, accepting, nourishing space with a group of other like-minded artists and with me, holding the space and gently guiding you along.
You want to not only gain skills and experience with the 12.5hrs of LIVE workshop time together in the course, but also a deepened sense of your own intuition, realise your preference for what you find beautiful and an idea of what your own style could be.
You just know deep inside that art comes from a primal place. And you’re curious to see how deep you can go.
FAQ
Q: I have never painted anything before. Is this suitable for me?
A: Yes. This course is perfectly pegged for complete beginners. So don't worry.
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Q: I have painted in other mediums before but not watercolour. Is this course suitable for me?
A: Again, yes. It's a great course for watercolour beginners. Even if you've done other kinds of painting before.
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Q: I don't think I am a beginner anymore. But I am interested in the way you paint. Is this class still suitable for me?
A: We will be covering lots of the basics in this course. Especially the first 2 weeks. So if you are happy to cover the basics again, yes this will be a great course for you to see how I paint in my style and technique! Every teacher has their own way to teach the foundations. So you're welcome to join in!
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Q: If I can't attend the LIVE classes, is there a recording that I can access to?
A: Yes recordings will be available for 3 months after the LIVE class.
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Q: How many people will be in this course?
A: There is a maximum of 30 students in this course. So there will be enough attention for each individual's work and painting submitted.
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Q: Will you be critiquing our work?
A: Yes, you are welcome to submit your projects after each class onto the server for me to critique. You will be taught how to use this by Penn Art Studio prior to the course.
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Q: What materials do I need?
A: All the suggested materials for the course is listed in the detailed course outline below, or also on the Penn Art Studio page.
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Q: Where do I sign up?
A: Sign up & pay here at the Penn Art Studio course page.
Detailed Overview of the 5 weeks
Course Description
When we think of botanical art, we all think about these beautiful vintage floral paintings by some of the most wonderful artists like Pierre Joseph Redoute and Elizabeth Twinning. In the vintage botanical style, the style tends to be more realistic as it was a time before photographs and the point of the painting was to be as detailed and specific as possible to the actual real life object.
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In this course, we will be using some wonderful vintage floral paintings as inspiration and references to recreate them in a Loose watercolour style. This has been an obsession of mine and I am so excited to share this process with you.
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We will cover the basics from going over all our tools and supplies. Watercolour techniques, brushstrokes, colour theory and mixing as well as how to look at a vintage floral painting to create our own composition and turn into a piece of watercolour magic.
We will learn to use our intuition, feeling and I will guide you through ways to just release control and let go of expectations, to allow the magic of watercolour do its thing. By the end of the course, we will be creating plenty of beautiful, satisfying paintings that is uniquely you, and proud to call your own.
Course Outline
Week 1 - Vintage Floral Inspo, Connecting to Our Supplies & Covering Basic Techniques
First I will share with you all my wonderful vintage floral inspiration, books and internet resources. We will get to know our paint by swatching, our brushes by finding out all the different marks it can make, and creating depth and values with the most important element - water. Connecting to our tools and supplies is the first step in embracing what they can do for us, and how to make them an extension of our own artistic touch.
This first week is also a crash course for all the wonderful magical techniques watercolour can achieve. I will provide exercises for us to explore, discover and experiment.
We will end with painting our first vintage rose painting.
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Week 2 - Play & Floral Exploration
This week is all about studying the different flowers found in vintage floral art and their personalities, their uniqueness, and how we can embody each different flowers personas into our painting. There will be sketching, lots of painting flowers to get us really excited and confident about putting down paint to paper. We will begin painting some more vintage roses and focus on practicing leaves.
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Week 3 - Dive into Composition
We will study typical vintage floral composition, discuss ways of staying true to the essence and how to veer away into something different. We will be painting more Vintage flowers like Iris, Peonies and Tulips.
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Week 4 - Adding Layers and Details
This week is all about enhancing our base layer of flower painting with details. We will experiment with splatters, dreamy backgrounds, shadows and other fun highlights. We will paint a larger vintage bouquet.
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Week 5 - Intuitive Painting and the Flow
We pull all the skills we learnt together, and get into The Flow and Intuition.
We will start with some abstract painting to warm up! Abstract painting watercolour is a great way to not focus so much on getting the flowers to look ‘right’ but to use your intuition to come up with a great composition using all the techniques we have learnt.
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Then as a final project, we will paint a more complex vintage bouquet together.
At the end of 5 weeks, not only would you learn how to recreate vintage flowers with watercolour, I hope you will have found a wonderful new way to destress, let go, get into flow and enjoy the magic of watercolour.
Course Materials List
Paper:
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Watercolour paper at least 300gsm (140lbs), and at least A4 size or bigger. Have some cheaper cellulose paper for practice and some 100% cotton one when we create our actual paintings.
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For the final 2 weeks, it would be great to have some bigger 100% cotton paper on hand - at least 9x12 or even better 10x14 or bigger.
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Loose sheets or pads or blocks are fine.
Brushes: Synthetic pointed rounds:
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Medium Size 6 - 8 round
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Large size 12 - 16 round
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Small size 1 - 4 round (or liner brush) *optional
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A 1/2 or 3/4 inch flat brush
My fav brand of brushes are from Princeton, their Heritage, AquaElite, Velvettouch or Snap lines are good.My fav smaller round brush for details is a size 4 or 6 round from Silver Black Velvet.
Paint:Watercolour paints in any brand. Pans or tubes. Preferably professional level. But student level works fine too. Basic colours to listed below. If you don’t have the exact hue I have, just use something similar:
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Yellow (Lemon yellow or Cadmium yellow)
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Pink (Perm rose or/and Opera rose or Coral)
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Red (Scarlet lake)
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Orange (Cadmium orange or you can mix this yourself using yellow and red)
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Purple (Mauve or Dioxizine Purple)
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Green (Sap green, Hookers green and/or Green gold or Olive green)
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Blue (Cobalt or French ultramarine or anything similar)
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Dark Blue (Indigo or Prussian)
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Brown (Burnt umber or Sepia)
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Black (or Paynes Gray)
Other items:2 cups of clean water. A paper towel or cloth. Spray bottle of water. Vintage Floral Images (if you like to source your own fav paintings) - My fav painters are Pierre Joseph Redoute and Elizabeth Twinning
