Experimental Snowdrops in Watercolour

How to paint a snowdrop scene using watercolour techniques including wet in wet washes, negative painting, blending colours, scraping away, salt effects, side of brush techniques and splattering snow.

I have just finished teaching a block of lessons where we had fun trying out different watercolour techniques to create a snowdrop scene. These pretty little white flowers are covering the ground at the moment. They are so pure and dainty so it was great to teach how to paint them. This is a guide on what was covered in the lessons. Some wonderful experimental results were achieved - well done everyone!

A materials list is at the bottom of this blog.

Wet in wet washes

Firstly we talked about composition when drawing the snowdrops, their positioning and how to leave space around the flowers in the direction they are facing. A staggered arrangement of flower heads looks best.

The surface of the paper was painted over with plenty of water using a large flat brush, avoiding the petals so the paper there was dry.

Coloured washes were painted on to the damp paper so each colour blended into one another with soft transitions, again, avoiding the petals. This is called negative painting as you aren’t painting the object (flowers), you are painting the background around the shape of the object to make it appear. We didn’t avoid the leaves or stems at this stage as these were mostly going to be darker in tone so easily to paint on top of the background later.

It was important at this stage to mix dark enough washes, 50% water to 50% paint is a good indication (tubes are best). Deepening any colour with a dark such as Payne’s Grey, or a touch of black helped achieve the deep strong tones, otherwise the petals would look lost against too pale a background.

 

Scraping away and salt effects - Timing is key to success!

While creating the wet in wet wash background, we kept an eye on how quickly it was drying. When the very wet high shine had dulled to a damp sheen on the paper, it was the ideal time to spontaneously scrap away paint to suggest leaves at the base of the flower clumps by using the corner of a plastic credit card. These marks were painted in to at a later date. A small pinch of table salt was then sparingly sprinkled on to the wet in wet background to create patterned interest as it dried. 

Blending in tones for the petals

While the background wash was drying, some pale greyed tones were painted on to define the petals to make them look more 3D. A pointed round brush was ideal for this. Blending with a clean damp brush softened any harsh lines.

Leaves and stems were lifted out using the round brush to bring some paler areas of leaves and any corrections to the shapes of the flower heads were made by using a damp (not dripping wet) brush to remove some paint from the surface. You need to keep washing your brush when lifting paint off the paper surface.

Finishing touches - side of brush & splattering

Painting different tones of green added interest to the leaves and stems, while a very dark green tone at the base of the leaves and on the underside of the stems indicated shadows. We used a rigger brush for any fine lines. The yellow stamens of the flowers were dotted in by dipping the end of a small brush handle in to undiluted yellow paint and creating small dots on the paper.

By using the side of a round brush laid almost flat, we used greyed off diluted paint to create the rough snowy shadows in the foreground and then blended some of these marks with a clean damp brush to soften the edges in some areas. To finish, we created a creamy white gouache mix and splattered all over to look like falling snow. Dabbing off any unwanted overly large splatters with kitchen roll.

Everyone had so much fun experimenting. I hope this recaps some of the techniques we used or if you didn’t attend and want to try it yourself, you can follow these stages and tips. Happy painting!

Materials list

Pencil / rubber

Watercolour paints (tubes are best if possible, I used Windsor & Newton Cotman range)

Brushes (I used a wide flat, medium round and a rigger size 0)

Watercolour paper cold-pressed or textured is best (taped to a board if you like)

Water jar

Kitchen roll or rag

Palette (a white plate is ideal)

Plastic credit/store card

salt (I use plain table salt)