Brent's Custom Watercolor Bouquet Painting

In early June, I had another commission come in through this Etsy listing for a custom watercolor bouquet, purchased by a husband for his wife on their anniversary.

Brent requested that I include their wedding date somewhere on the painting, and supplied me with photographs to work from of his wife's wedding bouquet, which was a tightly bound bouquet of calla lilies.

I started, as always, by lightly tracing the outline of the bouquet onto watercolor paper. Then I taped it to the table. (If I'd been thinking, I also would have traced the wedding date onto the bouquet at that point, but I forgot to do so until later - which is why I ended up having to transfer the digits onto the paper instead of tracing them.)

Then I did a light wash to get the general colors down.

And started building up layers of darker, brighter colors.

I decided to put the date on top, in the same color purple/pink as the insides of the calla lilies. I transferred the date onto the watercolor paper by printing the date out onto computer paper, coloring the back of the computer paper with graphite pencil, lining it up where I wanted it to go, and then tracing over the printed ink with a pen, pushing the graphite down onto the watercolor paper with pressure.

If you squint, you can see the faint graphite outline of the numbers on the watercolor paper.

Then I painted in the date:

I used some white acrylic paint to lighten up certain parts of the calla lilies so that it better matched the photograph, and then decided there was too much white acrylic in the upper left corner, and so added another layer of green/brown watercolor, and then a final bit of thinned white acrylic on top of that.

I also used some white/yellow acrylic to add in the only visible stamen in the center of one of the flowers.

Here's the final painting (above and below): 

Once it was dry, I peeled the masking tape off, flattened the painting for a few days under a pile of books, and then packaged it up to ship it out to Brent in Alabama.

Brandon's Custom Watercolor Bouquet Painting

As I mentioned in my last post, I had three commissions come in during May and June for custom 8"x10" watercolor bouquet paintings - all from husbands looking for anniversary presents for their wives. (You can find the listing on Etsy here if you'd like to purchase your own!)

This commission was different than other bouquet paintings I'd done. Instead of a watercolor of the entire bouquet on a white paper background, Brandon wanted me to paint a close-up view of a photograph taken at their wedding of their rings sitting on his wife's bouquet. This meant that I ended up using a lot more paint than I typically do for these paintings, since the image was to fill the entire paper, filling the 8"x10" size from edge to edge.

Brandon also requested this to be done as a rush job, so instead of the usual 2-3 weeks to complete the painting, I finished it in five days - from tracing the bouquet in pencil, building up layers of watercolor, adding some final details in acrylic (and iridescent acrylic mat medium for the sparkles on the rings), flattening the painting, and shipping it priority 1-day shipping to Alabama. I didn't actually like how the painting was turning out at first (I thought the colors looked too muddy, and there were a lot of wet-on-dry water marks that didn't look right to me), so about two days in, I restarted it on another piece of paper. Despite the struggles, the end result turned out great - and was finished on time!

Here is beginnings of the first version of the watercolor painting:

And here's where I started over. You can see how far I got on the first one (on the left), and the new blank page taped onto the table next to it. (I use masking tape to keep the paper in place against the table while I work - otherwise watercolors tend to curl up from the moisture if they aren't kept flat.)

For the new one, I started with a lighter, brighter first wash, incorporating more yellow.

You can see how much lighter/brighter/less muddy the one on the right looks compared to the one I abandoned on the left.

Then, I started darkening the shadows in the new painting, adding contrast.

I used iridescent acrylic medium - on top of layers of watercolor paint - to make the rings sparkle.

I also added some layers of acrylic on top. I used white acrylic for the highlights, and some thinned blue and pink acrylic paint to make sure the blues and pinks were vibrant and bright.

Here's the finished piece (photograph I was working from on the left, painting on the right):

Check back in a few days to see my third recent watercolor commission - a calla lily bouquet!

Michael's Custom Watercolor Bouquet Painting

I have a listing on Etsy (my most popular listing, actually), that offers a custom 8"x10" watercolor bouquet painting. You can order it there through the shop, send me a photograph of the bouquet you'd like a painting of, and in 2-3 weeks, your competed watercolor will be on the way to your doorstep. In the past, I've had mothers buy them for their recently married daughters and bridesmaids purchase them as gifts for their recent married friends - but the three I've done so far this summer were all ordered by husbands looking for a unique anniversary gift for their wives.

This custom bouquet was commissioned in May by Michael in the U.K. He requested that I make sure to include the single orange gerbera daisy in the final painting, since that flower had a special significance to his wife.

I started by tracing the outline of the bouquet lightly with pencil, and then adding some light washes to get down the general colors needed for the flowers and other parts of the painting.

Once that first layer was complete, I started to go in with more saturated color, adding in details.

Because there were a lot of white flowers in this bouquet, I stopped with the watercolor at this point. I didn't want to end up overworking it and muddying it up too much (which I often tend to do), so I switched to acrylic and lightened up some parts with white acrylic paint.

Watercolor is transparent (unless you have special opaque watercolors, which I don't - but I hear even those are not always 100% opaque), but acrylic is more opaque naturally, so it's easier to go in and add white on top with acrylic.

Here's the finished piece:

In a couple days I'll also be posting the final photos and "in progress" shots of the other two custom bouquet watercolors I did in May and June - so be sure to check back for more!