Paint Expressive Florals with Thinned Acrylic Paint

In this class, we’ll be using thinned acrylic paint to create an expressive, almost watercolor-styled, floral. With Expressive Florals we aren’t trying to create a photo-realistic flower, instead, it’s about creating florals that are sketchy and fluid…and full of your own personal expression.

You will begin by gathering inspiration and creating a color palette to use as a reference. Then I’ll show you how to use those references to sketch out the flowers and then how to use that sketch as a guide to paint your expressive florals.

For this class, you’ll need acrylic paint, of any kind. I’ll show you how to thin your acrylic with water and also with a flow medium and how each reacts on the paper. 

The key to this style is the use of brush strokes. In this class, I do recommend using long bristle brushes, like liner brushes. These brushes offer the best strokes for this style of expressive florals.

Your project for this class includes two parts:

1) Your sketchy floral

2) Your Painted Expressive Floral

You'll first create your floral using the sketchy line method and then select either water-thinned or flow medium-thinned acrylic to paint your Expressive Floral.