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Step 3: Paint the veins using a brush with a good point and fairly thick paint. (As you can see in
the next step; you want the paint to bleed and blend when you run a brush with clear water over
these veins.) The direction and placement of these veins is critical. You may need to pencil them
in at first. After some practice you should be able to paint them freehand.
Similar to our own fingerprints, most flowers have
distinctive vein patterns. It's these unique characteristics
that add interest to our floral paintings, but even more
importantly, this detail and the direction of these veins will
help us to as contour to the petal shapes and keep them
from looking flat and lifeless.
Step 4: After the veins are somewhat dry brush over them with clear water. The amount of dryness
will depend on thickness of your paint. It might take some practice to know how to read what will
happen with each paint brand and color. If the paint is not thick enough, it won't bleed. If it doesn't
dry long enough or is too thin, it will blend too much.
Step 5: Add some additional color to the wet shape to give the petal contour and dimension. When
the adjacent petal is dry you can paint right up to it's edge and either make it lighter or darker than
it's neighbor to give them the appearance of overlapping each other.
Adding Veins to Flower Petals
Step 1: Draw or trace your flower's basic shape on a piece of tracing paper or clear transparency
film. Avoid adding too many details at this stage. Step 2: To transfer the drawing to your
watercolor paper, place it behind or under your wc paper, then using the light from a lightbox or a
window lightly trace the outline you see on your watercolor paper. (Save your drawing for future
|Hint: It's not necessary to paint the vein on each petal one at a time. But it is necessary to
skip a petal when blending the veins with the clear water. Allow the wet petal to dry completely
before painting the adjacent petal, otherwise it's possible to get one of those dreaded water
'blossoms" from uneven drying.
Another method for directly painting in the veins is to
paint them while your line drawing is still on your
lightbox. (As shown on the right.) In order to see them
clearly through the watercolor paper you may have to
darken the lighting in the room a little.
You can also use watercolor pencils to draw in the
flower's veins and outline the petal shapes. The lines
drawn with the wc pencil will soften and blend when
brushed over with clear or tinted water. Using a
watercolor pencil on dampened paper will give you still
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Adding Veins to Flower Petals Page 2