Mixed Media Flower Doodles

Are you trying to learn watercolor painting but finding it a bit overwhelming? One of my favourite ways to help new artists feel comfortable is to mix medias. Mixed media just means combining various art supplies- in this case, we've started with watercolor and painted basic floral shapes. But then we've added brush pen to the flowers to add detail and contrast. If you often feel unhappy with your paintings- adding detail with a pen or coloured pencil can be very empowering!

We start by painting some simple floral shapes, mostly lumpy circles, with watercolor.

For this painting, we'll also add stems and leaves using our watercolor paint. Leaves are a great way to practice your brushwork!

Once the paint has dried completely it's time to add some detail! Here we'll use brush pens to add dots and lines at the centre of each flower. We'll also add a messy outline to the small blue flowers.

The red starburst is a good example of how adding even simple details can make your flowers really pop! It's also worth noting that you do not need to use the same color marker on top of the paint. Here I've used red pen on my pink flowers and I've chosen a honey brown brush pen to add thin lines to the yellow petals.

Mixed media floral doodles! A great way to add depth, detail and contrast to watercolor paintings that you feel look flat or too simple.