You will see how much color you can have in your "white" flowers, and you'll learn how to make sure that your patterned background STAYS in the background.
Use these two photos as reference for your flowers . . .
For this painting, I used 7 pigments -- Aureolin Yellow, Quinacridone Rose, Cobalt Blue, Quinacridone Magenta, French Ultramarine, Sap Green, and Quinacridone Burnt Orange. (If you don't have these exact pigments, just use something similar.)
Begin your painting with a wet-in-wet mingling on stretched watercolor paper, using yellow, rose, and cobalt blue. Wet the paper with clear water. Then, leaving a little white off to one side, paint a ring of yellow, then the rose, then the blue. Drop in a little yellow, rose, and blue on the left side of the paper, too . . .
After this underpainting is completely dry, draw a large lily, right of center. Take the ends of 2 or 3 of the petals off the paper. (In other words, don't squeeze the petals, so they will "fit".) Then, draw two stems, a bud, and a few big leaves . . .
Paint the bud, the stem, the leaves, and the tops of the stamens with a yellow wash; and, let it dry . . .
Mix up a very light blue wash (using Cobalt Blue), and paint only the negative space with this blue. Don't paint anything that you've drawn (your positive shapes) -- only the background. Don't wet the paper first -- Just paint this light blue wash onto the dry paper, working your way around the positive shapes . . .
When that is totally dry, draw two more lilies with their stems and a few more leaves. Once again, take these flowers off the edges, so that you break up the negative space into interesting smaller shapes . .
Now, to the blue wash that is still on your palette, add some French Ultramarine, and a little of the Magenta, to make a blue-violet wash. Make sure there is plenty of water, and that it is more blue than purple. Paint only the negative shapes with this wash, onto dry paper . . .
After the background is dry, we will "lift" out a pattern in the background. We are lifting out, instead of "masking", the lines -- because we want the pattern to be subtle, so that it stays in the background. If we were to use masking, the patterned lines would be too definite, so that they would come forward in space, competing with the flowers.
Using a damp brush with a good point, draw a spiral with your brush. (it doesn't have to be a perfect spiral) . . .
Then, blot it with a paper towel . . .
Repeat this process until you can see the spiral . . .
Move around the background, lifting spirals, until the entire background is covered with this spiral pattern. No need to draw this first with a pencil, and don't worry if your spirals aren't perfect -- it's actually better if they're not. . .
Now, start painting the stems and the tops of the stamens, with a mixture of Burnt Orange (Burnt Sienna) and Magenta. Then, paint a green wash on the bud, the leaves, and the stamens and pistil -- using a mixture of Cobalt Blue and Aureolin Yellow. Keep the green transparent (use enough water), so some of the yellow glows through . . .
Continue painting the stems and the tops of the stamens, using a darker mixture of Burnt Orange & Magenta, with a little French Ultramarine added.
Paint a darker value on parts of the leaves and the bud, using Sap Green -- and adding a little Magenta to the bud, and a little Blue to the leaves . . .
Create some dimension and form to the petals, by painting a light Cobalt Blue to some areas, and by dropping in some light Magenta to the underside of the petals (paint the shape with clear water first). Darken some areas of the flowers, as necessary -- just don't go too dark on the petals, because these are still white flowers . . .
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