Beginning Watercolor: Tulips, A Step-by-Step Approach

This is your May 2026 newsletter, out a few days early , since I will be away next week for my workshop in Santa Fe.
I just taught the spring session in a series of “Beginning Watercolor” workshops I teach at Cosentino Farms in San Jose. I’m sharing the steps outlined in my handout, along with an image you can work from.

(This is a beginner-friendly approach to watercolor using red, yellow and blue pigments. Skip a little further down to see other interpretations and a reference)

Step 1: Draw a line drawing of the tulips, carefully observing shapes.
Step 2: A base layer of yellow to unifies the piece.
Tip: Create variation even within a single wash with areas of more saturated color areas(using using less water and more pigment) and less saturated areas (by adding more water to the mix).

Step 3: Once the yellow base is dry, mix red and yellow and paint the flowers in oranges and warm reds, saving some yellows.
Tip: If you soften the edge of a color, you get a soft-edged shape or gradient. If you don’t soften it, you get a crisp edge. Harder edges suggest cast shadows and changes of plane. Softer edges suggest form and volume.

Step 4: Mix yellow and blue to create greens, varying the colors in the mix for different greens.
Tip: If your green is too bright, add a tiny bit of red to it

Here is a reference image you can work from:

There are so many ways you could approach this same subject. Here are a few different takes to inspire you to try something new!

Direct Watercolor
In this no-underdrawing approach, I paint the whole piece wet-in-wet in a single pass of watercolor, and then bring in a few touches of pencil and crayon.

Other Media
The piece below is done from life with a loose base in colored ink and drawing in crayon and charcoal pencil over it.

Even with one single subject, you can experiment with different media for different results.
I’d love to see what you create!

4-session workshop with feedback. Join live OR via a recording each week
May 21st to June 11th, 2026, 9am to 11am California time.
I run only one session of this workshop each year. Sign up now and you’ll be confidently sketching people by summer!
* you DO NOT need to attend live. Recording of session will reach you by end of each day, so you can watch it and do the the exercises and send them in for review.

This 4-week online workshop will get you feeling confident and excited about sketching people-centric stories. A big part of the workshop is a deep review of the homework you submit each week, so more important than joining live is setting aside 1 to 2 hours for the practice assignments each week.
More detail here:
https://sketchaway.wordpress.com/2026/03/23/online-workshop-people-alive-sketches-full-of-life-2026-edition/
Read the details already? Go directly to Sign up here: https://buy.stripe.com/aFa8wPgIf3YK5rz88M4ko03

This link has all the details you need. Don’t wait too long to sign up!
Gateway to India Workshop(s), 2027

Our next online sketching session for the group is on Friday May 22nd, and we’re taking our inspiration from a recent sketch I did of the view from an office building.

We’re tackling the challenge of sketching very urban scenes: the sort of industrial and ultra modern cityscapes that feel impossible to render loosely. I’m really looking forward to all the different solutions we will come up with!

If you think you will enjoy sketching challenges like this one, join us by upgrading your membership at the link below. (You can join live and/or will receive a recorded video of the session.)