WHITE FLOWERS IN watercolour

PETULA STONE shows how the luminous quality of magnolias can be captured with the help of masking fluid and dark backgrounds

- PETULA STONE

Petula’s materials

•Paints

Lemon Yellow (Nickel Titanate), Alizarin Crimson, French Ultramarine, Cobalt Turquoise, Naples Yellow, Burnt Sienna and Neutral Tint, all Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolour; Undersea Green, Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor; Permanent White, Winsor & Newton Designer’s Gouache

•Brushes Winsor & Newton Pure Squirrel pointed wash brush, size 1; Raphaël Series 8404 Kolinsky sable brushes, sizes 0, 2 and 6; Raphaël Series 8711 synthetic chisel brush, size 12

•Paper Saunders Waterford 300gsm HP watercolour paper, 41x30cm •

Masking fluid

•Tracing paper

•Graphite transfer paper

•Putty rubber

•4H pencil

•White pencil crayon

Flowers have always been a great source of inspiration for me, offering such wonderful shapes and colours to play with. The large waxy blooms of magnolias are quite spectacular and make a beautiful subject for painting.

By depicting them against a dark-coloured background as I have done in the demonstration below, I was better able to capture the shapes of the flowers and their almost luminous colour.

I decided to work from photos as the flowering season was practically over. Experience tells me that even if you are working from live material, it is always a good idea to take a few photos for reference. Flowers can wilt or stems move, so a reference image is useful.