Tutorial: How to paint craspedia flowers in watercolour

Supplies you’ll need

• Watercolour paper
• Watercolour paints
• Round brush (preferably with fine point)
• Water jars
• Paper towels

Colours to use

• Lemon Yellow Deep
• Cadmium Orange
• Burnt Umber
• Sap Green

All the watercolour paints I use are from Winsor and Newton’s Professional range, but you don’t need these exact colours.

Painting watercolour craspedia flowers – step by step

1. Using a small brush and just the tip, load up with yellow paint and start creating dots, tapping the paper gently. You’ll need a lot of patience for this tutorial!
2. Build out the shape into a circle, leaving plenty of white space between the dots.
3. While still wet, add a crescent of orange dots around the bottom left side to create a shadow.
4. Then add a smaller crescent of brown dots even closer to the egde for the darkest point. This will create the illustion of a rounded shape and make the craspedia look three-dimensional on your paper.
5. Using a light wash of green, add a thick stem and curve it for a natural look.
6. Add more craspedia flowers, making them either bigger or smaller so they don’t all look the same.

Now you have an unusual flower in your repertoire for painting texture and shape into a bouquet! 

More floral watercolour tutorials

• Vintage watercolour rose
• Hibiscus flowers
• Stargazer lilies
• Snowdrops tutorial