Colours: Cadmium/Permanent Red, Lemon yellow, Paynes grey, Viridian.

A word about Viridian

  • Be careful it's a very strong pigment
  • Removes from paper easily to give great effects
  • Mix with red to give interesting brown and grey

Note how the sketch is arranged so that the shapes overlap this makes painting large areas easier.

dark back tulips1   dark back tulips2   dark back tulips3
Start on right with mixture of red + viridian, paint area 1. Continue with Grey paint area 2. Continue with mixture of red + grey paint area 3. Don't try to paint the whole outline and then fill in you will get streaks   Whilst the paint is still damp soften some of the edges at the sides of the paper and some of the flowers. Without adding more paint pull out the existing paint to fill in a leaf. Sprinkle sea salt whilst paint is still wet   Paint in the flowers with a wet-in-wet mixture of red + yellow. Leave small areas of white at the tops of the petals.
dark back tulips4   dark back tulips5   dark back tulips6
Pull out the yellow at the bottom of the flowers and add a little (very little!!) viridian to make the stems   Paint in some of the leaves using either viridian + red or lemon yellow + paynes grey. Leave a large area in the middle   Paint in the large area in one go. Start with a mixture of grey + viridian at the top and add red + viridian at the bottom, paint quickly horizontally is easier if you wish to avoid vertical lines
dark back tulips final   Now we will remove the stalks with clean water dabbing with kitchen paper. You may need to refind the stalks with a white crayon before you start. Wash the brush frequently to avoid just moving the pigment around. You may not get back to the white paper, but your stalks should be visible if your background is dark enough. Viridian removes easily. Spray on clean water and dab out. The pattern in top left has been made with a paper doilly and a sponge