No gardening in the winter, so why not start painting daylilies.
Summertime is such a wonderful time to be outside in the garden. Tending and enjoying the beautiful flowers and the joys of gardening.
It's January now with no gardening, so why not paint watercolor flowers. Daylilies are a staple in my flower garden. They are so dependable and don't seem to mind a bit of abuse. They keep on flourishing even with improper care. If they get run over with the lawn mower, Yikes! They come right back.
There are no pink daylilies in my garden, but here are some pretty pink "January Daylilies".
What a joy! Enjoy painting your daylilies.
First you need something to paint. Either some live flowers or a good photo. This excellent photo is like a ready-made composition.
Second you need brushes and something to paint on. My favorite watercolor support is Aquabord. This is a 9"x12", but you can make it any size you wish. I used a couple of round watercolor brushes, plus a script liner.
This daylily painting is done with tube watercolor paints, pan watercolors will work just fine.
The color scheme is compliment plus 1/2 left using; Permanent Rose, primary yellow and Viridian Green. Quinacridone Violet was added for the shadows.
Please note, the painting was done intermittently over several days.
You may notice color variation between some of the photos. That is not
the paint, it's the light.
When painting daylilies on a
cloudy day, the colors look different from a sunny day. The
final photo was taken on a sunny day to show the true colors.
Just beware that erasing on the watercolor surface, especially on paper may damage the surface. The damaged surface will take the paint differently.
Start painting on the end of the petal you want darker. Pull the paint toward the lighter area of the petal.
Use your artistic sense. Do whatever is pleasing to you. In painting daylilies or any other subject, there is no absolute right or wrong way to do things.
Every artist has their own methods and you will develop your skills according to your own taste.
Let the pink dry before you paint the yellow centers.
Prewet the centers and a little way over the pink.
Let the yellow dry. You can use a hair dryer to speed up the dry time.
Mix a dark from your complimentary colors, Permanent Rose and Viridian Green.
More about mixing paint colors
Identify the other shadow areas. I used Quinacridone Violet for the shadows. Sometimes it was mixed with yellow to warm the color. Or sometimes mixed with the rose, so it's not so dark.
Glaze over the pink areas you want to intensify.
While making the dark area of pink across the top petal, it turned out to be a straight line. It cut off the center part of the yellow.
So how was it fixed? After the paint was dry, some of the paint was stroked off on the sides of the petal with a flat, damp brush.
That left the yellow going higher up on the center of the petal.
Continue painting all of the petals.
The dark purple shadows attracted too much attention away from the rest of the flowers. So I lifted some of the shadow areas with a damp brush.
After all the petals were painted, it looked too confusing.
If it was confusing to me, it certainly would be to the viewers. The viewers don't have access to the reference photo.
So, I combined several petals into one. It looked simpler and less confusing.
It's time to paint the stamens. When you are painting daylilies, the stamens are an important part of daylily identity. You may do the stamens in one or two ways.
How to retain the white of watercolor paper.
Paint the anthers with a bit of Permanent Rose dulled with Viridian.
A light grey background would work. Mix a light grey from the pink and green. Using more or less pink or green gave some variation of colors in the background.
The complimentary color of pink/red and green is a good choice to show off the flowers.
Use the Permanent Rose to dull the greens. Yellow adds some nice warm variations.
Daylilies have a lot of leaves. So when you are painting daylilies you can put in as many leaves as you want.
Put the leaves wherever you want. Nature is full of variety.