How to Paint Water Lily | Step by Step Tutorial | Oil Pastels Artwork

Hello dear Steemians! Today I am going to share a step by step tutorial on how I made this water lily painting using oil pastels.

Tools and Materials

• Buncho oil pastels
• A good quality artblock that is durable
• Tissue to clean your fingers after smudging
• A mechanical pencil with 2B lead (to draw only so choose based on personal preference)
  
  

Step by Step Tutorial

This is my drawing. Due to the excitement of painting, I forgot to snap a picture before beginning to add the colours. Luckily, I recorded my work. Hence I got this from an exported frame of my video.

I prefer to paint the background first. For the first layer of colours, I coloured it roughly and did not colour too much. This is because prior to painting this artwork, I did a mini experiment on another paper to see the best results for smudging. I noticed that when I add too much of colour, the smudging results in oil pastel 'dusts' which can mess my artwork. Hence, less is more. You can always add more colours if you like but it can be hard to remove colours once it messes the artwork. So, for the convenience of smudging in the best way, I applied only a light layer of colours.

After adding the first layer of colours, I smudged them using my fingers especially my ring finger like in the picture. I was careful not to mix them up and used tissue to clean my fingers before smudging a new colour. I prefer to smudge the first layer because I am not a fan of the white areas that we generally get when we use oil pastels. I would like to keep them at a minimal level. In case you choose the same colours that I did, please be careful not to mix up the blue and yellow while smudging. It is important not to do that because that will result in green. In order to avoid mixing them, a tip that works is to apply some white oil pastel between the two colours on the areas where they are close. It does help to a degree to prevent the mixing of the two colours during the smudging process.

I added another layer of colours to make them more vibrant. On the areas where I wanted certain parts to look cloudy or smokey like the water, I coloured in the middle area and left the smudged edges the way they were. That way, I can retain the texture that I like while at the same time adding more colours to make it more vibrant.

I was done with the background at this point, at least for the moment.

I painted the water lily halfway. I used various shades of pink and red, and also white for some highlight areas. To intensify the red, I added some brown.

I was done painting the flower. If you are going to add some precise amount of colours on the edges of the petals, turn the oil pastel around and use the bottom part. The top part will be usually blunt due to usage and will not be suitable for such precise drawings most of the time.

I painted the shadow of the flower which is on the surface of water. I used the same colours and painted it like a mirror image.

Then, I added some darks and lights. I used dark brown and an insignificant amount of black on certain parts on the water and near the flower shadow area. I also drew some horizontal lines to create little waves on the surface of water. I added a few more colours like a dark golden brown and light green. Another thing I did was, I added a whitish green on the surface of water on the areas I wanted to look a little cloudy. You can also use white for the same effect.

This is my completed painting of water lily. I rarely use oil pastels although it is one of my favourite medium to paint. This should be a good start for me to use it more often.

This is my video tutorial with my voiceover. You will be able to watch me paint while listening to my voiceover guide. I hope that you enjoyed reading my post and I will be happy to know if it is helpful. Thank you for reading and have a great day/evening ahead.

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I'm a chill, happy go lucky person. I am a feminist. I love food, art, books, numbers, psychology and occult science. I am in the process of healing and diving into spirituality. I think life is a gift and we should appreciate the little things of life more. Everything that I post is a little piece of my life. I believe that everyone is carrying their own cross, so don't judge anyone and be kind!

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