"Paint a Dandelion Clock Seed Head"
I first tried to paint one of these wonderful, fluffy seed heads 2 years ago, and at the time I was fairly happy with the result, but knew there had to be a better way. There is! Here I'll show you how I painted one of a series of dandelion seed heads - they've become something of an obsession!
|
Materials
A board and tape to stretch the paper.
Masquepen, or a ruling pen and bottle of masking fluid/frisket.
¼ sheet (15" x 11") good quality watercolour paper, 140lb or more - I used Arches cold pressed.
Water spray bottle or natural sponge for wetting the paper.
Selection of brushes - large wash brush for the background and size 4 or 6 round for the details.
Watercolour paints - I used quinacridone rose, pthalo blue green shade, ultramarine blue and winsor violet for the background, and azo yellow, a touch of quinacridone rose and ultramarine for the centres of the seed heads. You could also use greens or earth tones for the background.
Rock salt or sea salt
Tissue or kitchen towel for blotting
|  |
If this is your first time using a masquepen, it's a good idea to practice on some scrap paper first. Don't squeeze the bottle, and hold it only by the lid, as the fluid can come out too quickly and leave puddles.
The first step is to tape your paper to the board. You can stretch it if you wish to but I don't usually find it necessary when working at this size.
Then decide on a composition. I chose to have one full seed head and one partial for this painting. Use your masquepen (or ruling pen) to mask lines coming from the centre of each circle, but very roughly, short choppy lines. If the fluid leaves small puddles, don't worry, they'll add to the effect, in fact I usually add some deliberate blotches.
Mask out any stems using normal masking fluid on an old brush = you'll see on this picture that I changed my mind about where to have the stem after masking it, once the masking fluid was dry I peeled off the one I didn't want.
NEXT >>>
