Nature can be a wonderful source of inspiration. Try looking around your garden for interesting shapes, leaves and flowers. Sketch a silhouette of your chosen plant as the feature of your artwork, or use the template provided. You can create a mock-up of your design by sketching it on paper first and colouring it in with coloured pencils. When you need to change colour, make sure you rinse your brush completely clean. Use a rag to blot your brushes before you dip them in the paint again. This stops the paint from running down the ferrule and dripping onto your canvas. Made your design stand out by using rough strokes to fill in colour- the silhouette doesn’t have to be precise.
Step 1: Create your design
Lie the canvases next to each other on a table so that they are joined at the edges. Lightly draw or trace the outline of your design onto the canvas using a soft pencil.
Step 2: Start drawing
Treat the canvases as one big one, so that the design stretches over both of them. This means that when they are displayed together they will complement each other nicely.
Step 3: Colour
Squeeze some colour from the tube onto your palette. Try blending colours directly on canvas, not on the palette- this will help create colour variations in the background.
Step 4: Paint your background
Paint in layers. Start with the colours that form your background. Using a dry brush, paint with short, sharp strokes to fill in colour.
Step 5: Your design
Let your background dry before you paint in the rest of your design so that the colours don’t run into each other. Use a contrasting colour to paint your foliage in the foreground.
