My echinacea plant has just finished flowering. Before the petals withered, I managed to snap a few shots so I could create an artwork. I absolutely love the shape of the flower heads and the way the petals fall…they were practically begging to be painted.

SO here’s some snapshots of my process!

I started off by sketching the flowers with a 2B pencil on Arches Watercolour Paper ( 300gsm Rough)..oh and I added a butterfly because I love them and there are so many fluttering around our garden at the moment.

Working wet into wet, the first colours I laid down first were Alizarin Crimson (Daniel Smith) and Permanent Rose (Windsor & Newton) letting them blend and bleed. Next came the leaves ~ a mix of Green Gold (Daniel Smith) and Australian Leaf Dark Green (Art Spectrum). The flower heads were the most fun ~ wet into wet I dropped Green Gold, Burnt Sienna (Daniel Smith) & Indigo (Windsor & Newton) and let them blend. There could have also been a touch of Cadmium Yellow Deep Hue (Daniel Smith) in there too.

I’m gradually changing over my watercolour paint supplies to Daniel Smith as I absolutely love the richness of their colours. My favourite brush to use at the moment is a number 1 Round Squirrel Hair watercolour brush made by Dainayw ( I think I bought from Amazon during lockdown in a pack of 3 ~ sizes 1,3 & 5).

Below are some snapshots of my process painting the butterfly. Wet into wet again I blended Cad Yellow Deep and Scarlet Lake (Windsor & Newton). Once that layer was dry I decided to use my gouache paints.

Lamp Black (Windsor & Newton Designers Gouache) first then I intensified the orange with a blend of Primary Red & Naples Yellow Deep (both Windsor & Newton Designers Gouache).

Now to the question I often get asked…..how do you get a clean white (for the dots) painting over watercolour and gouache? After much experimentation, my first port of call is the trusty Posca Acrylic Pen. But alas, this time either my pen was old or I was too impatient and the black gouache wasn’t dry and the white pen ended up looking grey. I love a crisp white sooooo… I ended up using white acrylic paint with a very thin brush, working very carefully and cleaning the brush often.

Below are my two favourite parts of this particular painting. The bleeding of colour on the flower head. I’m loving layering my paintings at the moment. Translucent watercolours are fragile and beautiful but for now, they’re not quite saying enough for me…so more often than not, I add layers of gouache and sometimes ink or acrylic paint. This gives a depth of colour and texture that I absolutely love.

A close up of colour bleeding and detail on the flower head

My absolute joy at the moment is scanning my work into my computer and then detailing in Procreate

The details on the flowers, leaves & petals were done in this app.

Why not finish off the original hand painted work with pencil or acrylic, I hear you asking?

Well, Procreate is like Adobe Photoshop, in that you can work in layers and that is really helpful when comparing different effects. ie you can delete an entire layer without ruining your original artwork…..ooo its addictive but I highly recommend trying it. I have an Ipad Pro and Procreate works brilliantly on it. Oh & you need an Apple Pencil too. This is the one I use.