Bubble-wrap Texture

01 07, 14 Filed in: Watercolor

I started my painting of tulips with a drawing of the 3 flowers and the leaves. I decided to work on the background first, and so I wet a section of my paper (areas that would stand alone because the leaves would touch the edge of the paper and a line would not be visible where I stopped painting the background) and brushed in several medium tones of green, trying to vary the color throughout the section.
While it was wet I put bubble wrap down to give some texture to the paint. I decided that this was not enough and that I would have to add something more interesting to the background.
I put in undulating lines of greens, ochres and yellow to form a woven net pattern. Areas closer to the flowers were made more distinct and other areas were dabbed away with tissue. I added some of the leaves in each section after the background was painted, and then moved on to the next section.
When all the background areas were painted and most of the leaves, I started work on the flowers. There were 3 different reds, 1 maroon, 2 yellows and 1 orange used in painting the flowers. I wet the area of a petal and brushed in 1 or 2 colors. After that dried I would glaze over it with addition colors. After the flowers were painted, I went back and adjusted leaves and background as necessary.