The Joy of Botanical Painting

Creating botanical paintings is a joyful and rewarding process. It celebrates the beauty of something simple and abundant in nature while capturing the essence and individuality of flowers. Botanical paintings can be scientific and accurate or expressive explorations of plant forms.

As someone who likes to garden, I often source flowers to paint from my own backyard. These miniature “watercolor dahlias” are grown from seed. They are a dwarf heirloom variety and bloom in many colors. The small plants are lovely tucked into containers for a pop of summer color and are easy to gather and cut for bud vases to use in the studio.

Since I am interested in capturing color and expressive beauty in this painting, I began by looking at sample cards of different paint color mixes. After deciding on a color scheme that complements the hues of the dahlias, I then analyzed the shapes and patterns in the flowers and began to paint the blooms in a loose gestural way using watercolor. Details were then added with colored pencil for emphasis and visual texture.

The final painting reflects the flowing forms of these small dahlias, their rich saturated colors, and the patterns found in the petals.