Wildflower Painting

Who doesn't love wildflowers?! This is a fun, whimsical painting to do with friends during the spring or summer months, they'll love it! 

Supplies: 

• Canvas/canvas board 
• Easel if desired
• Acrylic paints (yellow, gold, green, black, white, blue, brown, fuchsia.. all the colors, just get all the colors!)
• Sponges
• Q-tips
• Water cup
• Paper towels
• Paint brushes of various shapes (at least one pointy and one tiny one!)

1. Using a sponge, dab yellow and gold onto the canvas forming a marbled background. If preferred, let some of the white show. Accentuate gold at the edges for an authentic look. 

3. Using a pointed brush, add grass stems randomly throughout the sponged background using various shades of green.

5. If desired, add tiny/light dabs of green into the white so that it looks more realistic as if some of the stems/grass were showing through.

7. Add some highlights to the blue by going over the petals and center lightly with white. 

9. Next, create a variety of white daisy shapes throughout the foreground. Remember not all daisies are made the same! This may take a couple of coats to get a solid white layer.

11. For the last set of wildflowers, create “Red Clover” with fuchsia. Dab the paint into a rounded cluster with Q-tips. This may take a second coat to make it a nice solid layer. 

13. Make the grass more realistic by using a pointy brush and sporadically adding “wisps” of grass over some of the flowers, seen below. 

2. Rinse out sponge or use a new one for the grass background. Use 3 colors for grass: black, green, lighter green. Start with black, dabbing at the bottom for the deepest, shadowy parts. For each color you add, very lightly dab at the top to “fade”. Add green above the black, blending into the black as well. And lastly add the lighter green, blending into the previous colors. 

4. Using a clean brush, paint a handful of “Queen Anne’s Lace” by dabbing white in elongated “UFO” shapes. Make sure to add a “bud butt” of green underneath some of them as if you were seeing the stem of the flower.

6. Next, create various shapes and sizes to represent blue “Flax” flowers with a lighter blue paint. Be sure to make them different from one another. Keep in mind, ones in the foreground will usually be larger than the background.

8. If desired, go back over the white with a little bit of blue with a skinny brush so that the white isn’t so stark. This also gives the flowers some more dimension. 

10. I don’t particularly like how I did my daisies so feel free to do them however you wish!I added an orange center, rounding the top to make some look more realistic. I lightly brushed brown throughout giving the petals and added a tiny dusting of black in some areas as well. Again, as with the “Queen Anne’s Lace” add a “bud butt” to some of the daisies as if you could see underneath it. 

12. Next, add a bit of black and white very lightly to the flower for some dimension. You could also use the green from the grass before, anything to give it a dark depth in between the fuchsia. Can be done with the Q-tip as well. 

14. After adding some more grass in, it’s time for the really messy part! 

• If you don’t want bits of paint on you or possibly your clothes, you should probably avoid this step or work extremely slow and careful!​

Using white paint, mix in a few drops of water to make the paint more fluid. Dab your brush into this new mixture and hold it over the painting. LIGHTLY hit/flick the paintbrush with your opposite hand, moving throughout the painting until satisfied. All done!