More May Flowers

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We went to see Schreineer’s Iris Garden on Mother’s Day. I did a sketch (the top picture) using a fountain pen with grey ink and discovered when I added watercolor that the ink was not waterproof. It bled into the yellow paint. Oops.

I did the second and third sketches the next day in our backyard. I painted the middle sketch directly with a brush. The trick to drawing with a brush is to make each shape with a single stroke of the brush. Put it down and leave it. Don’t scrub back into it while it is wet. You can make different shapes by using different parts of the brush (the tip or the side) and by controlling how hard you press the brush into the paper and by painting strokes in different directions – up, down, left, right. I painted the lightest colors first, waited for it to dry, and then added darker colors on top – again with single strokes.

Finally I used watercolor pencil to draw the rhododendron and then blended the colors with a waterbrush. You get slightly different effects using watercolors pencils compared to watercolor paint. You can get both line and wash and you can also add fine detail.

Strathmore 400 Series cold press watercolor paper 5.5×8.5 inches (14×21.6 cm), a variety of media including Kaweco Smokey Grey ink in a Nemosine fine nib fountain pen, Kuretake Gansai Watercolor Palette – 12 Color Set, Caran-D’Ache round waterbrush, and Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer watercolor pencils.

Jim