Lemons and Plums Still Life Watercolor Painting

Learn three important watercolor painting skills in this lesson.

The lesson covers how to paint folds in cloth and how to darken light colors.

We’ll also work hard to stick to a value sketch when painting in color. It’s an easy to draw composition and an easy watercolor painting project.

lemons and plums in a watercolor still life painting

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

  • Painting Folds In Cloth
  • How to darken light colors
  • Valuable practice on holding Value when working in Color

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

  • a small sheet of watercolor paper, approx. 5″ x 7″ – as always, Arches 140lb Cold Press is recommended
  • Paint – Lemon Yellow Medium, Raw Sienna, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Cobalt Blue
  • Brushes – Medium and Small Round

DOWNLOAD : DRAWING LAYOUT, VALUE SKETCH

VALUE SKETCH

In this lesson, we go through the process of creating a value sketch for a new painting working with an old observational sketch.

Preparing a value composition sketch for your painting is always a good idea. The process is really quick and easy. Even better, it will help strengthen your paintings through simplification of shapes and values.  Follow along to see how it’s done.

PAINT IT!

This is an easy subject and an easy composition that will allow us to practice three important things – painting folds in cloth, learning to darken light-colored objects, and following a value-sketch.

The actual painting is small. But, with our focus on three important skills, it is an involved painting exercise. We’ll also finish with a nice little painting!

We’re using a value sketch with this painting and going to try to work hard make sure we stick to the value pattern we designed in our sketch. 

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