Watercolor & Ink Orchid step-by-step Tutorial
When I visited the Monte Palace Tropical Garden in Madeira, I took hundreds of photos of flowers and special plants - even though it was November and many flowers had already wilted. But there were still many orchids blooming and this is one of them.
Flowers are a great element to let your sketchbook pages shine! They help us to capture the essence of a place. Especially when the place is a park or garden!
Step 1
You can start directly with the ink sketch, but it’s easier to draw all the important lines with a pencil first. For the orchid, you need to make sure that the petals are quite symmetrical. When you are happy with your pencil sketch, draw all the lines in ink. To paint over it with watercolor, the ink needs to be waterproof.
Step 2
Now it’s time for watercolors. Start with a very light wash of yellow. Don’t paint the whole area of the flower, but leave some white spaces. They will be our highlights in the end. If you have white watercolor, you can mix it into your yellow to give it this creamy tone.
Step 3
When the yellow is dry, you can add orange and red details. Use some English Red or Burnt Sienna so the orange mix won’t be too saturated. Draw fine lines with the tip of your brush on the petals, just like you see in the picture.
For the details in the middle, we need a very bright, cool red tone. I recommend using Alizarin Crimson.
Step 4
Complete your illustration with more details and shadows. You can add more English Red or Burnt Sienna into your orange mix for the shadows on the petals. You can see that there are still white areas. They are highlights we want to keep until the end!
Would you like to paint a step-by-step watercolor project with more details? In this guide, I show you every color mix in detail, and you even get a drawing template you can print for every painting:
Free PDF Guide with 3 step-by-step Tutorials
When joining the “Watercolor Magazine” Newsletter, you get this PDF Guide as a Welcome Gift.
Enjoy these beautiful step-by-step paintings. From the best material to color mixing, everything you need is covered.
The best? In the Guide, you’ll find a drawing template for every project you can print and transfer to your watercolor paper.
You will join the free “Watercolor Magazine Newsetter”. You can unsubscribe anytime. Your Data is 100% safe.
Inside the Guide
List of the best Watercolor supplies
Colors Mixing recipes
Step-by-step tutorials with pictures & text
printable drawing templates