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How to paint watercolour oxeye daisies

Introducing Negative Painting

Daisy flower close up.jpg
Aim of the session


To explore some techniques to paint daisies using negative painting, soft layers, loose mark making  


Materials

  • Watercolour paper, 300gsm cold pressed 

  • Tube watercolours

  • Brushes (large flat or round wash, medium round + small detail brush)

  • Tissue / kitchen roll

  • Palette

  • Water pot

  • Pencil

  • Cocktail stick

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Colours:

 

Cobalt blue, cerulean blue or ultra marine blue

Pink or alizarin crimson

Yellow

Indigo

Pthalo Green (optional)

Sap Green (optional convenience colour)

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My watercolour daisy examples.jpg

Focus: Negative painting, soft layers, loose mark making


Outcome: A fresh, expressive daisy painting with soft background shapes and glowing white petals

 

Instead of painting the object, we paint the space around it.  Look at the example below, see how:

 

  • the white petals are left mostly unpainted

  • the darker background helps the flowers “pop”

  • leaves can be picked out by painting around them

  • notice this is a loose, layered feel — not lots of detail

  • background highlights are made by lifting out dry paint

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This is about suggestion, not perfection, wobbly edges and blooms are very welcome

daisy simple traceable.jpg

Step 1: Simple sketch  - or trace

 

Step 2: Painting the background - you can do this in one layer or two

  • Paint a light wash of yellow, where your two brightest leaves will be and your stem.  Use a cocktail stick to draw a few veins (optional).
     

  • Now move to the top of the paper.  You are going to paint the whole background, using a loose wet into wet technique,  moving from blues at the top to greens as you move down.  It’s important to move methodically around the painting,  working on small areas at a time.  If the area is too big, some edges will dry as hard edges. 

    Begin with the sky area, wet loosely with clean water
     

  • Drop in cerulean blue 
     

  • Paint around the petals, leaving them white
     

  • Add green as you move further down the page - painting around your leaf and stem shapes
     

  • Let colours blend softly and include some darker areas and lighter ones
     

  • Tip:

    • Don’t chase edges — let the paint settle naturally

    • place darker colours around the stem, and the petals at the bottom of flowers

    • throw water splashes into the wet paint to get some added texture

 

 

Step 3: Daisy centres 
 

  • While the background dries slightly:

    • Stipple centres with lemon yellow + orange.  Using the opposite end of your brush really makes the easy.  Darker at the base of the centre.  When dry, add some dark green dots where the flower petals meet the centre - bottom side only.

 

Step 4: Building depth with darker negatives 
 

  • Mix deeper greens 

  • Add darker shapes behind some petals

  • This is where the flowers really emerge

 

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Step 5: Final details & texture Optional:

 

  • Mix some very light washes of desaturated blue and green
     

  • Where petals overlap each other add a very light wash of the desaturated colours to the shaded petal.  Add subtle veins to petals with the cocktail stick while the paint is wet.
     

  • At the far edges of some of the flowers you can use a damp brush to wash a little of the surrounding paint over the petals, to take those areas out of focus and make the daisies fade and become one with the background
     

  • Add some bokeh highlights in the background.  This works best in the darker areas.  place a dot of water where you’d like the highlight.  Work it into the paint, until the paint starts to lift - then use a clean piece of tissue to pick up the wet paint
     

  • Add some deep yellow pencil shavings (sandpaper) to the flower centres and elsewhere if you like
     

  • Have a look at what else your painting needs - maybe you need to reinforce a couple of dark area.  BUT - less is more, stop before overworking,  white space is powerful and loose edges feel fresh and lively

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