Fresh and Fabulous Florals
Join me in my online class, FRESH AND FABULOUS FLORALS where your confidence and skills will blossom and enable you to seemingly “grow” breathtaking statement pieces in front of your own eyes. I will share the step by step processes used to capture beautiful blooms, through a series of confidence building sessions covering concepts and principles, techniques and tips, all the way from bouquet composition to final painting. Learn how to simplify brush strokes so your piece stays loose with movement and energy. Understand why and how to use colour temperature and saturation to capture the light. Follow along with multiple paintings from start to finish, where you will also learn to embrace “happy accidents” by not correcting too quickly and understand the joy in letting colour and value do the work. Leave this course with a repeatable process that can be followed in all of your artwork, big or small. Suitable for Oil and Acrylic Artists - see details for more information.
I hope you'll join me on this fabulous journey!
Testimonials
Christina
"This is one of the best oil painting classes I have ever taken, and I’ve taken quite a few. You know it’s good, when everyone’s paintings came out so beautifully! I highly recommend this one."
Heather
"I really loved this class, with great content right from fundamental colour theory and mixing, to simplifying and rendering a very large complex subject, using expressive loose brushwork. I think it would suit absolute beginners right through to more advanced artists who want to explore floral art further. Thanks Natasha!"
Sharon
"Having recently done this course I enjoyed it and learnt alot ,it helped me to revise the basic principles of painting flowers especially colour and value. I found it very easy to follow and very informative and really enjoyed Natasha’s gentle and calm approach. Would highlybrecommend this course . Thankyou so much Natasha"
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of this course students will have an understanding of the following concepts:
- Arrange flowers to create a successful composition for a painting
- Mix a wide range of values to create the illusion of depth and light
- Understand color saturation and temperature to create clean, bright and harmonious color
- Learn to simplify what you see so it can be easily broken down into values, colours and brushstrokes for the canvas
- Play with mark making and learn the importance of energy in brushstrokes to impart vitality into your paintings
- Use painting studies to build confidence and creativity
- Follow a simple alla-prima oil painting process that is repeatable across a variety of sizes
- Understand how to break up a large painting into logical steps across multiple painting sessions
IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING COURSE
*Due to having immediate access to this course upon purchase, all purchases are final and nonrefundable. Please consider this before checking out.
Example Curriculum
LESSON 1 -
Getting Started
This class starts at the very beginning before you’ve even picked up a brush. We look at arranging flowers for a successful painting composition and how to capture photographs we can paint long after the flowers have died. I showcase a gorgeous bouquet of flowers that we will reference and use throughout the course and discuss why I chose the particular flowers for this series of paintings.
LESSONS 2 to 4 -
Value and Colour in Flowers
We cover fundamentals here, such as value, colour and brushwork but in the context needed to paint florals. I show how to mix subtle value shifts across a value scale and why they are essential in a painting.
I walk you through mixing the colour wheel as well as my personal split primary palette of warm and cool colours for florals. You will discover the tricks of each pigment on my palette and both how and why I use it.
We embrace mark making and different ways to use a brush, infusing energy into brushstrokes, as well as simplifying what you see into a limited palette consisting of a few colours, values and brushstrokes.
These are important exercises that build the foundations of my more complex floral paintings.
Colour
Value
Mark Making
LESSONS 5 and 6 - Flower and Foliage
Studies are a great place to practice all the fundamentals from the previous lessons. We use these small paintings as a safe place to practice and hone your skills, before attempting to paint the whole bouquet. I select some flowers and foliage reference photos from the original bouquet and step you through our practice and play sessions.
We will follow my contemporary take on the Masters alla-prima oil painting methods, that is simple, repeatable and scalable, from a small study to a larger painting.
These studies are quick and easy to do regularly and form part of my painting practice. Even though they are a learning and confidence tool, they often form a beautiful collection.
LESSON 7 -
Painting the Bouquet
Everything has been building up to painting this beautiful bouquet.
You have already practiced painting the flowers, mixing the colours and values and making the marks and expressive brushstrokes. Now you can put it all together as the final bouquet.
I have filmed the entire 3 hour painting sessions so you can follow along with me, or speed it up step by step at your pace.
You have the option of using the reference photos from my bouquet, or if you’re feeling more confident, painting flowers you source and arrange yourself.
Either way, you will see how all the previous exercises come together in a logical, repeatable manner, to support a final composition.
LESSON 8 -
Scaling Up
I’ve added in a special bonus for those of you who like to paint BIG!! I demonstrate the painting process from a large statement piece perspective. Watch as I follow all the principles that we went through earlier related to colour, value and brushwork but from a grand scale perspective. Seeing the process “blown up” lets you see how to manage any scale within the same painting process.
Materials
Oil Paints:
Reds:
- Transparent Red Oxide
- Cadmium Red
- Permanent Rose
Yellows:
- Cadmium Yellow (or Cadmium Yellow Light)
- Indian Yellow (or some other transparent yellow)
Blues:
- Phthalo Blue
- Ultramarine Blue
Whites:
- Titanium White
- Naples Yellow (used as a warm white)
Blacks:
- Black Paint (optional – you can use a tube of black you already have or otherwise learn to create Neutral Black in the Value lesson)
Brushes:
If you have already been painting for a while, use what you are used to. Make sure you have a variety of small, medium and large.
Here is what I will be using:
- 1.5 inch flat for toning canvas and blocking in on larger paintings
- No. 12 Synthetic Bright
- No. 10 Synthetic Flat
- No. 8 Synthetic Flat
- No. 4 Synthetic Flat
- No. 4 Bristle flat for edges
Substrates:
-
Exercises: For the exercises, I recommend painting on inexpensive panels or oil canvas paper size 8 x 10 inches
If you use canvas paper, it will be easier to paint on if you give it a coat or two of acrylic gesso first.
- Small Studies: You may like to paint on a canvas or panel for the flower and foliage studies. A quality substrate prepared with gesso will make it easier for your brush to glide and won’t suck up as much paint.
- Painting the Bouquet – Stretched Canvas. 10x12, 20x24, or 25x30 inches will all work with the ratio of the photo reference I am using. Pick the size you are comfortable with. I painted on a 20 x 24 inch gallery-wrapped stretched cotton canvas.
- Bonus - Scaling Up – 36 x 36 inch gallery-wrapped cotton canvas is what I used. Any square canvas will be suitable but you may want to choose a size larger than your previous if you want to "scale up"
Acrylic Gesso Primer
- Large 2-inch paintbrush (just a basic one from the hardware store is fine) for painting Gesso on substrates
Palette
- A palette for mixing oil paint – I’m using a paper palette pad
- Metal Palette Knife for mixing paint.
Solvent
- Solvent for Cleaning brushes – I recommend you use an odourless mineral spirit like Gamsol.
- You will also need a glass jar or container for putting solvent into clean brushes (like a recycled pasta sauce jar)
Medium
- You can use a separate container of solvent as a medium. You only need to dip the corner of your brush in. On the larger paintings, I used a mix of half solvent and half linseed oil.
- I also recommend Gamsol Galkyd Lite as a fast-drying medium or Gamblin’s solvent-free gel for portability.
A small bowl or jar lid to put your medium in so you can dip while you paint
Rags or Paper Towel
Absorbent rags like old towels are great for absorbing any extra solvent left on your brush after cleaning.
Paper towels and rags are also useful for wiping brushes between colours.
Resources:
An excellent website for applying a grid to your photographs to assist with drawing is:
http://www.griddrawingtool.com/