How To Paint Lovely Watercolor Flowers

Make flowers come to life on paper! Follow our detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to paint beautiful watercolor flowers.

This lesson guides you through the basic techniques of creating a lovely painting of the Japanese art of flower arrangement, Ikebana.

Play around with your brushwork, and don’t forget to enjoy and have fun!

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The art of Flower Arrangement

The art of flower arranging is a fun activity to do with your kids. Not only is it simple and inexpensive, but it also helps your kids develop their creativity, fine motor skills, and concentration.

In Japan, the art of beautifully arranging cut stems, leaves, and flowers in vases and other containers is called Ikebana.

Let’s try to draw and paint a unique flower arrangement with watercolors!

How To Paint Watercolor Flowers

We’re going to make an Ikebana painting using watercolors.

This activity is quite challenging for younger kids. Still, it lets them discover the basics of making colors and introducing color shading. As for older kids, they can explore light and shade and flower tones and textures.

You can also follow the instructions in our YouTube video below.

Materials

1 White sheet of paper
1 watercolor set
1 paint brush set
A bowl of clean water

Instructions

Step 1. First, let’s draw the tiny flowers.

Dip a small, pointed paintbrush into the water, get some of the red watercolor paint, and start painting dots and small circles randomly around the paper.

Step 2. Let’s paint purple flowers.

Before you continue, clean your paintbrush by dipping it in clear water. Get some purple watercolor paint, then paint flowers with three petals anywhere you want in your paper.

Step 3. Now, let’s add butterflies.

Clean your paintbrush again, then get some of the blue watercolor paint. Paint 2-3 butterflies anywhere near your flowers. You can add broken lines to show the movement of your butterflies.

Step 4. Next, paint the leaves.

Using a small paintbrush, get some green paint. Lightly sweep the paint into 4-5 curved lines for the midrib. Add leaf patterns opposite each other by pressing down and then back up with your paintbrush connecting to the midrib.

Step 5. Paint a hummingbird.

Now, let’s go extra and paint a hummingbird. Clean your small paintbrush, then get some of the maroon watercolor paint.

Here’s a short and easy guide to painting a hummingbird:

For the body, paint two small blobs on top of each other.
Paint a narrow, pointed rectangle for the tail.
Add small triangle-ish shapes for the wings.
Draw a thin line for the beak.

Step 6. Paint a tiger.

Now let’s make it more fun by adding a cool tiger. Here’s an easy guide to painting the tiger:

Let’s start by outlining the face. Lightly sketch two straight lines for the muzzle, then draw a small inverted triangle at the bottom. Then, draw two small ovals for the eyes.
Using a small, rounded brush, get some orange watercolor paint, then make a circle around the outline. Add two small triangles for the ears.
Draw and paint rectangles for the body and the legs.
Use a curved oval for the tail.
Draw small, straight lines for the tiger marks.

Step 7. Fill the spaces with yellow.

We’re a step away from completing our painting! Clean your small, rounded paintbrush, then get some yellow watercolor paint. Deliberately paint some of the white spaces in your painting.

Step 8. Add details to your painting.

You can add other details such as petal details, butterfly wing patterns, and many more. These will make your masterpiece more vibrant and beautiful. Try on!

Tips for art-amazing success:

You can turn this flower painting into note cards, birthday cards, thank you cards, or wall art!
Try painting different kinds of flowers.
You can always choose the colors you want to use.
It’s okay to be messy; as long as you enjoy what you are doing.

Look at some of the colorful lovely flower Ikebana paintings of our young artists at Creativity School.

Cool watercolor flowers at Creativity School by Drew (top-left),
Ishanvi (top-right), Jade (bottom-left), and R (bottom-right)

We love to see your amazing flower paintings, share it with us in the comment sections below.

Want more awesome watercolor paintings? Check out our other painting tutorials in the links below.

Beautiful Tulip Painting
Space Painting
Beautiful Sunset Painting
Cute Unicorn Painting
How to Make a Color Wheel

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