I'm passionate about painting flowers in watercolor. People are often surprised at how vibrant, 3D and realistic watercolor painting flowers can be, and I'm often asked what my secret is.

The 'secret' is my unique wet-on-dry painting method.

Working in many layers, it's possible to create a world of textures, bright colours and depth in any subject, including floral watercolour painting.

This approach was what led me to win awards for my paintings, and it's the painting method I've taught to over 15,000 students in Nature Studio.

My method works really well for painting flowers in watercolor.

It's a good idea to begin with easy watercolor flowers until you've learned the painting technique. Then, you'll be able to paint realistic flowers with even more complexity.

Here are 5 of my favourite watercolor flower painting mini-classes to get you started. They'll give you an overview of the process I followed for painting each of the watercolor flowers.

(If you're looking for more in-depth guidance, all of these are available as Step-by-Step video tutorials with Nature Studio membership).

1) Sunflower

Few things can brighten your day as much as painting a sunflower watercolor! Working with the glorious bright yellow hues is such a joy, and it's incredibly satisfying capturing all that hairy texture in their fuzzy centre.

If you'd like to paint your own watercolour sunflower, watch this quick video where I give you an overview of my process for a sunflower watercolor painting:

2) Rose

Roses have so much depth to them and are a really joyful subject to paint. With all those delicate petals, it's important to spend time getting your drawing right before you begin painting your watercolor rose.

I show you an overview of my rose watercolor painting process in this video:

3) Bluebell

There's something SO calming about painting blue watercolour flowers. The serene colours are soothing to the soul. Bluebells have a beautiful form too, with their hanging bell-shaped flowers.

It's really fun capturing the iridescent sheen and 3D form to watercolour bluebells, and in this short video I'll show you the process I followed:

 

4) African Daisy

Also known by its scientific name, the Osteospermum, or African Daisy, is a firm favourite subject when painting watercolour flowers.

The dark, detailed centre provides loads of tonal contrast with the stripy, pinky-purple petals. We can use the full tonal range to create a really 3D result here.

In this video I show you how I did that:

5) Hydrangea

As your watercolor flower painting skills develop, you'll be able to take on more and more complex flowers.  Hydrangeas are a great example of a complex flower that's super enjoyable to paint.

These fancy blooms have the wow factor, but they're not as challenging to paint as you might expect.

That's because their flower heads are made up of lots of individual flowers. And if you look at each individual flower, you'll see that it's form is relatively simple. I teach Nature Studio members how to paint just a couple of the individual flowers, and they achieve great results applying those techniques to the whole flower on their own.

In this mini class, I share with you my process for painting a watercolour hydrangea flower:

Want more free watercolor flower classes?

If you enjoyed these free mini classes, there are plenty more where they came from!

You can find loads more free mini classes for watercolor flower paintings on my blog.

Amongst heaps of other subjects, you'll find mini classes for painting several different types of watercolour tulips, how to paint the pale yellow petals in a watercolor daffodil, techniques for painting white flowers in the watercolour cherry blossom mini class, and how to paint a patterned watercolour orchid flower.

If you're interested in learning to paint watercolor flowers (and other subjects) with more in-depth guidance, find out some more about Nature Studio membership, where you'll find a huge range of tutorials for all levels of experience, from beginner painters to Pro level.

If you'd love to paint watercolor flowers with realistic results, it all starts with learning wet-on-dry watercolor painting.

And for that, there's a selection of FREE full-length video classes where I teach you the method on simple beginner subjects. Come and take the free classes and let's get painting!

Want to learn my step-by-step watercolour method?