Watercolor: Florals & Botanicals

Developing Form

with Joan Hansen

IMAGINE OPENING A DOOR from a completely dark room and walking into the brilliant sunlight. The light is so bright that at first you can’t see anything. Then, as your eyes adjust to the light, you begin to see your surroundings. In a way, when I paint in watercolor, I start from brilliant light—the paper—and develop my subject by “painting away” some of the light. And it’s exciting to see a lifelike, three-dimensional form emerge on a flat, two-dimensional piece of paper. The way I do that is by developing the forms of flowers using a range of different values of color.

ASSEMBLING REFERENCES I chose white calla ...