Paint Pansies with Limzy

If there is one word to describe pansy, it would be 'odd'. The first time I saw this flower, I thought it looked like an alien's face. It is peculiar in its own way, and comes in all sorts of flowers and patterns. But I learn to adore its uniqueness and now it has become one of my favourite flowers, be it for painting for pressing. And with its rather 2 dimensional petals, I reckon it is one of the more suitable flowers for beginners to paint or draw with.

Materials

• Paper: Arto by Campap 300 gsm, 100% cotton, acid free cold pressed watercolor paper

• Brush: Princeton Heritage Synthetic Sable, size 2, 4, 8

• Paint: Holbein Artists' Watercolor

*Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are my own.

Difficulty

• ⭐⭐⭐⭐

• Beginner friendly

• Vibrant appearance

• Lesser concern of a three dimensional perspective

Step by step video tutorial at bottom of blog post.

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1. Start painting the pansy with three petals that look like a three leafed clover, connecting together in the center point. Press the belly of your brush to create this beautiful curve at the outer petal, and you can stroke out some white lines or space when you reach the middle part, so that we could have some space to blend in some bright yellow later on.

2. While your paint is still wet, dip in a more deep violet in the middle area, and gradually build the gradient. You could also stroke out some thin petal lines outwards like what I am doing here. Take your time to build up the gradient, and just enjoy when the color does the magic itself.

3. You could wait for the three petals to be dried up first, or move on to the second flower before going back to the last two petals for the first. From here I am gonna mix more Prussian Blue and Crimson Red to create this really dense and concentrated purple, and we are going to paint the last two petals of the 1st pansy. The petals at the back start off darker like this, as they overlap underneath the first petals. Like you are drawing a heart shape.

Create this dense and concentrated purple

Start off darker like this as they overlap underneath the first petals

4. Once it's done, it's time to add the yellow accent. So just grab a thick lemon yellow, and spread it out in the middle area. Your pansy is gonna pop in no time.

Grab a thick Lemon Yellow and spread it out in the middle area

5. Now repeat the same thing for the 2nd flower, only that it is more towards the indigo purple. I am also adding a little bit more darker tones in the middle before adding the yellow.

6. Now in real life, pansy comes in a variety of colors and patterns, even for the same pot of plant. Here I will be showing you the more common types that we usually see. For the 3rd flower, it's basically the opposite of the first two. I start off with yellow for the three petals in front. And then let's dip some purple in the middle while it's still wet.

Purple and yellow are the perfect complementary colors for each other

7. Now for the 4th flower, we are reaching the background so it's going to be lighter. Start off with this diluted purple to almost pinkish lavender tone, and paint the first three petals in this really soothing color, also adding a subtle gradient in the middle.

8. Now the last part, we are going to add many loose details for the remaining background of scarce flowers, stems and leaves. Here I am gonna add some side view flowers with the colors that we have left. Like this yellow flower with three visible petals. And another one at the back, with very diluted purple that it almost looks pink.

Add some sideview flowers with the colors that we have left

9. When it comes to the greens, add some Sap Green with yellow and Yellow Ochre to create Olive Green. I prefer Olive Green to green directly from tube as they look more muted and natural. For every flowerhead, paint out these thin, curved stems all the way down, and then paint out some of these leaves that have these curved and scalloped shapes and they look sort of lumpy together without a very definite shape.

10. And from here, just continue to build stems and leaves with diluted greens as we complete the rest of the composition.

Complete the rest of the composition with stems and leaves

Painting flowers require a lot of back and forth during the process. But again, isn't all art this way too? I hope you enjoy painting this as much as I do! I hope that you’ve enjoyed painting and learning these peculiar but also amazing pansies. If you post it on social media, remember to hashtag #LoveLimzy so that I could check out your work.

xo,

Limzy

Watch the entire process in the video: