Mr. Clean Magnolia

13 07, 13 Filed in: Watercolor
My magnolia tree had some beautiful blossoms this year. I was inspired to use something different from the usual blues and greens that are used for backgrounds. I decided to paint this on Yupo paper, and to color the background with magenta and pinks so the whites of the flower would pop.
I washed my Yupo paper off first so that any grains of lint or dirt would not get stuck in the paint. I then made sure that the paper was covered in water, so it was shiny under light, and started pouring Dr Ph Martin's liquid watercolors in reds and purples. I tilted and rotated the paper to make the colors swirl and move across the whole surface. I even sprayed some water on the paint to give it some extra texture. Then I let the painting dry overnight.
The next day I went in with a small round brush and began drawing with water were I wanted the petals to go. I would draw with water and and then wipe off the color with a tissue. After the outline was done and I was happy with the results the body of the petals could be removed. The process is very much like relief carving in wood. I rarely draw on Yupo with pencil, because if you need to erase anything, the eraser causes paint to not adhere to that area, so almost all my drawing is done by removing the paint or by actually using paint to draw.
After removing the dark color from the petals, I was left with pink petals. Not what I wanted at all! So I cut off a corner of a Mr Clean Magic Eraser and used that to shade the petals back to white or to leave a little tint of the pink. The green leaves were done by lightly painting over the background, not by removing the background color. You can see the variations of the leaf color that resulted from the background showing through in places.