Birth of a Watercolour - how I painted Blueberry Fizz

Last week I treated myself to a bunch of blue anemones.  I think they're my new favourite flowers with their velvety petals and amazing blue colour.  I set about trying out colours in quick sketches and discovered that W&N Smalt combined with cobalt violet were perfect, and the granulation of both pigments was beautiful.  

Blueberry Fizz - watercolour, 15" x 11"Not for sale

Starting with a simple drawing to guide me, I added some tiny spots of masking to reserve a few highlights and, once that was dry, wet the paper before dropping in colour.  Remember the pencil lines were only there to guide me, the wet paper allowed the pigment to spread and soften edges.

Then it was simply a case of building colour and form, working on individual petals by wetting then adding more pigment.

 Purple/blue flowers can easily look flat and lifeless, but my choice of pigments helped to keep things lively. I used some ultramarine and quin. magenta for darker areas on the petals, always being careful to allow textures to show through the washes.

 Now the detail in the centre, bringing in one more colour.  Indanthrene blue was perfect for the dark centre, and texture was added by sprinkling a little salt in the wet wash.

I had one more decision to make...... what about the stem?  The flower needed some form of support, but the yellow-green stem would have looked incongruous among the blues and violets.  I decided  to suggest a gently curved stem with a purple wash, hard edged on one side and fading out so there is no edge on the other side.  Done!