Posted: 17 January 2006 at 11:17pm | IP Logged

Dew drops are a wonderful things to add to flower paintings.

They not only add interest to the piece of floral art, they add mood.

But learning the simple technique of how to paint dew drops adds

even more to your compositions than just dew drops on flowers.

They can also be put on leaves,

on windows as rain drops,

on faces as tears,

or on people as sweat.

Your creativity find the right uses at the right time.

So, without further a-dew, let’s get started.

Several pictures below have been developed

to share how I have learned to do the Dew Drop.

This is likely not the only way to do them.

If you already have other ways,

please add a new post in this forum and share them.

For the purpose of this demo, all images are larger than I would normally use.

Materials I used to develop this demo are:

          Arches 10”x14” 140lb watercolor paper

          Winsor & Newton Cadmium Red Hue

                (no special paint required needed,

                 but I highly suggest transparent watercolor only)

          #4 round brush

               (I mostly use a  #0 or #1 round for the size I normally paint)

Each instruction will appear above it's picture.

Step 1.

Draw an oval the size of the dew drop you desire.

Make the pencil as light as you can so it less visible than I did.

My pencil line was darker only to make it more visible for the demo.

Step 2. 

Wet the inside of the oval until it is totally wet

    but not so much that it is a big puddle.

You will just have to play with this until you get it right.

In the next step, we will want the paint we add

    to be able to flow downward just a bit.

Step 3.

While the dew drop is still moist,

    dip your brush into raw paint(not watered down).

Paint inside the top of your dew drop oval

    covering just the top ¼ or 1/3 of the oval.

Pull your brush a little further down on both sides(inside) of the oval.

Then tilt the top of your paper upward a little

    until the paint starts to flow down just a little,

    then lay it flat again.

Step 4.

After step 3 is bone dry,

load just a little more paint in your brush

and paint a little shadow at the bottom of the oval.

When making a shadow be sure to paint outside the oval you drew.

Step 5.

After step 4 is bone dry,

take an Exacto blade(or something like it)

    and gently scrape out a reflection.

Step 6.

Your turn. 

You didn’t think I ‘d let you jus sit there and do nothing did you.

                              Your Tear Drop goes here.

I won’t say Have Some More Fun here because there is no Horizon.

                                 Your Tear Drop goes here.

When you’ve got a good one, DEW DROP in and show us your work

Please feel free to copy this demo to your computer and print it out so that

you can get off the computer to practice some Dew Drops.

I like to think of this as a thank you for all the marvelous comments and suggestions you have all contributed on this site.

Many thanks to Brent for helping to check this tutorial out before posting.

It appears it is more trouble than it is worth to tweak this so you can print it directly from this page. If you highlight the entire tutorial you can save it to your own computer and then print it out on your own computer. probably better that way anyway because later on you can reprint it if needed without having to try to find it here again.

Enjoy.

Posted: 18 January 2006 at 8:43am | IP Logged

Wow! tkank You for very good tip!!

Posted: 18 January 2006 at 9:23am | IP Logged

Thanks Bill, great tip, new to water colour but I have printed this off for future reference. We could do with more tips like this.

Thomsi

Posted: 18 January 2006 at 11:32am | IP Logged

Cool tip Bill , thanks for letting us in on it.

Posted: 18 January 2006 at 3:23pm | IP Logged

A first attempt:

Another two:

Thanks, Bill!

Posted: 18 January 2006 at 5:36pm | IP Logged

Brent,

You're a quick learner. They look great. Now all you have to do is put them on a watercolor flower. You might try copying my Prairie Rose Tear Painting, then draw it on watercolor, paint each petal one at a time using any color you want, and then putting da dew drops on da petal. If you do, it is a good idea to paint each petal, one at a time, that is not touching any other wet petal. Let each petal dry completely(bone dry) before touching it again.

Good luck!

Delighted for taking the plunge. Looking forward to seeing your work.

Thanks again for the help in checking this out before posting.

Posted: 03 February 2006 at 10:51pm | IP Logged

Thanks Bill. Great demo.

Posted: 14 March 2006 at 10:31am | IP Logged

Hi

I am new to this forum - really like the dew drop but could someone explain how to "scrape out a reflection".

Thanks

Posted: 14 March 2006 at 1:17pm | IP Logged

Hi Lois,

Welcome to the site.

I usually scrape out the light spot in a tear drop with the point of an Exacto knife. The trick is to wait until the dewdrop is bone dry and then scrape very slowly and patiently. What you don't want to do is scrape out more than you intended. Scrapes don't need to be the same size but they should be on the spot closest to where the light is supposed to be coming from.

Good luck. Hope to see you post some flowers with dew drops soon.