Paint Beautiful Watercolor Flowers in 15 Minutes

Easy & beautiful watercolor flowers colorful bouquet in 15 minutes: how to paint simple loose floral in watercolour, a detailed step by step tutorial for beginners!

Have you always wanted to paint watercolor flowers? Today I want to share with you how to make a watercolor flower painting in just 15 minutes! We keep adding watercolor and art tutorials, click to see them all here!

Easy & beautiful watercolor flowers colorful bouquet in 15 minutes: how to paint simple loose floral in watercolour, step by step tutorial for beginners!

UPDATE: I made a new watercolor tutorial to show how to paint a simple rose in 3 ways using 3 essential beginners techniques including wet on wet, and wet on dry! Check it out here: Paint a watercolor rose in 3 ways!

Once you go through a few simple steps and tips on painting watercolor flowers and leaves, you will be able to improvise on your own, and paint all kinds of loose watercolor floral in no time!

Materials and tools to paint watercolor flowers

*Some resources in article are affiliate links. Full disclosure here.

( Some of the helpful resources are affiliate links. Full disclosure here. )

If you need to learn a few essential beginners watercolor techniques including wet on wet, and wet on dry, check out this tutorial first: Paint a watercolor rose in 3 ways!

Paint a watercolor rose in 3 ways!

Step 1: Start with flowers in the bouquet.

When I paint watercolor flowers in a bouquet, I like to start with flowers, and paint the watercolor leaves later.

Start with a lighter wash, because it’s easier to go deeper in color later. In watercolor there isn’t really a pink color, it’s basically red diluted with lots of water.

step by step watercolor flower painting tutorial for beginners

Next we will add the flower center. Dip one of the clean brushes in water, and moisten the paper a bit, then dip another brush in yellow to paint the center. This way the center has a softer edge.

simple watercolor flower painting for beginners

Keep adding more watercolor flowers with different shapes. Oranges and yellows look nice with pinks and reds, and a blue flower for some contrast!

painting watercolor flowers colorful bouquet

Related Article: How to paint watercolor spring trees with a simple secret! ( Video tutorial!)

Easy and fun tutorial on how to paint a beautiful spring tree watercolor painting using crumpled paper! Follow the video tutorial. No art experience needed! A Piece of Rainbow Blog
How to paint watercolor spring trees with a simple secret!

Step 2: add details & accents to the watercolor flowers

As you can see the deeper red tips of the petals, the deeper orange at the base of another flower, some color dots, all these add depth and richer details to the flowers.

easy watercolor flowers

We can always come back and add more details later. Next we paint the stems of these flowers with a pale green, as well as a couple of leaves. I like making the leaves different sizes here.

Step 3: paint watercolor leaves and stems

Then with a deep olive green ( for tips on how to mix a nice olive green, check out the watercolor tree tutorial! ) paint the base of the side view flowers, and a few more leaves in this deep green.

painting flowers leaves and stems

In nature we see all shades of foliage, such as yellow green, blue green, and even browns.

Here we will be adding some watercolor leaves in blue-green, blue and brown, and making some of the stems darker as we paint the darker leaves. 

paint watercolor leaves and stems

You can omit some of the colors if you prefer the leaves being all green. Just have fun!

At the end, look at the whole painting and add a few final touches, such as adding some dots at the center of the flowers.

watercolor-flowers-apieceofrainbowblog 1b

Finished! Not too hard right? After about 30 minutes when the painting is dry, put it under a stack of large books, the weight will help the paper look nice and flat by tomorrow!

flower painting in watercolor, loose florals

Now a little gift / craft project- make your own sets flower greeting cards with these free printable cards!

free-printable-greeting-cards-apieceofrainbow 15
Make your own sets flower greeting cards with free printable cards!

You may also love: Bubble paint Hydrangea flowers tutorial and a tutorial on how to paint a fall watercolor tree in 10 minutes, with a tooth brush! 

Learn watercolor painting easily | A Piece Of Rainbow

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Happy painting! See you next week!

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63 Comments

  2. Your watercolor flowers turned out amazing! I did struggle with the watercolor paper you suggested b/c it warped and buckled really badly. I’ve learned it’s best to used a paper that is made from 100% cotton. When buying a better brand of watercolor paper, the pad should state it’s made from 100% cotton and the weight will state it’s 140 lbs (300gsm). Arches is a decent brand and will help alleviate the frustration of buckled paper when it gets wet. Save the Canson & Strathmore paper pads for practicing the watercolor flowers. Thank you so much for this awesome tutorial, you make painting look so easy, Uwe!

    • hi Mary! thank you so much for the feedback! i have had good luck with Strathmore 140 lbs, but i understand that if more water is used, it could cause some buckling. taping that paper also helps! 🙂

  3. Am very new to watercolors (or art of any kind!). Was wondering the brushstrokes you use to create the petals? Mine are just not turning out right :S

  4. Hey Ananda, super nice tutorial here, thanks for that! I was wondering what is the GSM of your paper? It look like it bubble a little. I’ve recently switched to 300GSM cotton paper (Arches) and the difference is incredible :).

    • hi Lesly! yes you are right: 300gsm is so much better! this is an older tutorial that i really should update ASAP! thank you so much for the great observation! 🙂

  5. As an art lover I really appreciate this floral painting tutorial with such vibrant colours! Tried it and it came out great. Thank you!

  6. I would like to join your following as I love what I’ve seen already. Please include me too…….Thank you!!

  10. You could use acrylic paints that are in the craft stores & the variety of colors are unbelievable. They come in a bottle like container, about two ounces but last a very long time. You can find them for under $2.00, some for 99 cents. By adding a bit of water to a couple of drops of these paints onto a paper plate or whatever you use for mixing, they become water paints. Once dried you can use a fine tipped marker & outline the flowers or vase to add definition. If you want.
    RE:the tree pic. If you use a stipple brush which is inexpensive & acrylic paints you can get a more lighter look for the leaves. By adding different colored acrylic paint, you’ll get a more texture look with contrast & different shades. Stippling is very easy. You dip the tip of the brush into a small amount of acrylic paint & just tap it onto paper, canvas, even rocks, or whatever. Practice using a bit of water on the brush or added to the paint for different effects. This technique is commonly used for painting a Santa’s beard
    The flowers you painted are very pretty & did a great job. When you wrote about lack of pink, thought I’d pass along some hints. The tree you painted came out really nice & like your use of colors very much. Both will look super framed.

  18. Getting the paints out today. . . Love the flowers and after I try the watercolor version, I may try to replicate a few of the blooms with acrylic on a small bookcase I just painted. Thanks for the tutorial!

  19. Incredible. I love drawing and – sadly – am pretty bad at it most of the time. I have had among my favorite books a drawing and painting tutorial for flowers for quite some time now, but I find it daunting only flipping at the pages. Your post comes with the promise of a possible tomorrow with me, painting 😉

  23. I know almost everyone said this. But you make it look so easy! It’s true that we are all born with a gift, yours is clearly the arts! My sister in law would love this going to share with her!

  25. Ananda, your flowers on paper look so beautiful. I always wish for a 50 hour day when I read your posts- only if I could find the time, I would love to try out all your tutorials. Happy Holidays my dear Ananda and hope that 2015 brings you peace and health and lots and lots of creative projects. Love. xx

    • oh thank you arti!! happy holidays to you too! always a special treat to visit you as well! wish you lots of beautiful travels and creative adventures in 2015! xoxo

  26. Though you have made it look so easy I could not paint anything to save my life. I love how colourful the painting is and just how simple/easy you’ve made it

  28. Oooooo Ananda, this is one of my favorite posts! Yes, I’ve always wanted to be able to paint – and if I were to do it, I’d want to paint flowers! I really love this! You should do a giveaway with some of your pretty artwork. I know I’d love to win something like this!

  40. Hi Ananda – I love your tutorial! I watercolor paint, but I really need to take the time to do that because I get so busy. Thank you for sharing the cardstock link. Love it!
    Will be sharing your tutorial on my Twitter.
    Thanks,
    Cara

    • hi uwe! i tried to comment on your blog – a cool tree you made – but it won’t let me!! wish you a wonderful holiday and lots of great diy fun in 2015!!! =)

      • Thanks Ananda,
        which the comment is not a problem.
        I also am always on your answers to my comments with you.
        Maybe you try it still another time.
        In other commenting to me from the US works for you.
        Try it again sometime, if you have time.
        Would be happy.
        Have a nice time.

        Uwe

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