My neighbour's daisies (part 1)

8 May 2025

Video - Level ◆◆◆

We're going to try something new in this lesson. Something I haven't shown you before. We're going to wet both sides of the paper, so that we can work the soft background wet-in-wet for a very long time.

In this first part of painting my neighbour's daisies, I talk you through the idea behind abstracting the pot of flowers into something more free and full of light. Then we paint the background - all the glowing light behind and the daisies that are soft and out of focus.

In part 2, when our painting is thoroughly dry, we'll do all the details of the flowers that are in focus.

Ideally you should work on good quality, 100% cotton paper, of a heavy weight. If you've got some rough paper stashed somewhere, then you could experiment with that for this painting.

You'll also need a non-absorbent surface to work on - a piece of glass, perpex/plexiglass or plastic larger than your painting.

No masking fluid needed for this one! Just brush control ;-)

Happy painting!