Flower Painting in the Wild

Artist and illustrator James Gurney shows why there’s much more to painting petals than meets the eye, in his latest instructional video

James Gurney explores techniques for capturing the delicate details of flowers, and how to apply these methods elsewhere.

Flowers? Really? Yet if you’re not convinced of the relevance in depicting stems and petals to your fantasy genre of choice, the few seconds at the start of James Gurney’s latest video will set you straight. The montage of camera pans over bizarre structures and dazzling colours reminds you how beautiful – and, yes, alien – flowers can be.

Spend some time with the plants in your area and you’re sure to find unexpected inspiration – like the cleomes James paints in his first project, with tendrils exploding from the flower heads like fireworks; or daylilies, so named because each bloom typically last no more than 24 hours, meaning the plant takes on an entirely new form each day.

Creative stimulus aside, the six short projects in this video will help anyone developing their painting skills, especially if you’re addressing the challenge of portraying complicated visual information.

James has plenty to say about reducing complexity so that the viewer can ‘read’ the composition and shapes. Even though the final pictures can look rich with detail, closer observation reveals how James has rendered some areas more simply than others, efficiently directing the eye. In areas where there are lots of flowers, thinking of them as one mass as you start can also help make your painting feel cohesive, as can linking similar areas together across the painting.

He’ll also help you explore techniques such as underpainting, where you lay down a wash of one colour then cut into it with another, essentially painting with negative space; or loading a gradation of colour onto your brush to evoke the subtle shifts of hue in leaves.

Far from getting you to paint pretty but predictable arrangements, James’ aim here is to show you how to present the true nature of the flower. That’s a concept worth applying to any subject you work on.

Despite its simple overall form, the peony presents a challenge because of its dense, overlapping petals. The most ambitious project in this video sees James use a sighting grid to accurately depict wild roses by the water.