1. Prepare and prime the paper with a layer of Golden white gesso, to create some lovely and different effects.  
2. Use an aquarelle pencil to lightly indicate the composition.

1. Apply Golden High Flow Acrylic Ink in sepia over the tree trunks and allow the washes to run freely over the primed surface of the paper.
2. Then add diluted manganese blue Fluid Acrylic in between the tree trunks and, once again, allow the colour to run over the surface.
3. Notice the way these colours mix randomly over the paper, creating interesting and random shapes.

READ SORAYA'S REPORT ON GOLDEN HIGH FLOW ACRYLIC INKS

1. Strengthen the colour on the main tree trunks by adding more sepia ink, then apply a wash of ultramarine ink over the surface, starting from the top left-hand corner and once again letting it run down the paper – you will see a lovely deep, dark colour in some of the areas where the ultramarine and sepia inks have mixed together.
2. Keep small areas of the white paper for some of the snowdrops but the majority of them will be painted using white acrylic paint or fluid acrylic colours.
3. Add another wash of manganese blue.

Using the same colours of sepia, ultramarine and manganese blue apply washes in the negative areas of the white spaces to provisionally shape a few snowdrops, then splatter over some of the distant dark areas with titanium white ink to suggest the distant snowdrops.

1. Apply yet another wash of sepia ink over the tree trunks. Strengthen the colour layer by layer to avoid the trees becoming too heavy and contrived.
2. Splatter some more white, both titanium and zinc, on the righthand side, so the more translucent (zinc white) snowdrops recede further into the background.
3. Use the same three colours to give more shape to the foreground snowdrops and add some branches to the winter trees with the same sepia mixture.
4. Washes of ultramarine blue and manganese blue in the background help bring the atmospheric ambience of the woodland.
5. Make sure that the edges of the trees have some areas of lost and found and they are not all hard and sharp edges.

1. To help create depth divide the white and light grey shapes into smaller snowdrops, allowing the smaller shapes to recede into the distance.
2. Keep the larger shapes in the foreground using the same washes as before and a slightly smaller sable brush.
3. Using a mixture of ultramarine blue, white and a touch of burnt sienna apply some shadow colour to the side of the flower heads in shadow, then paint the lighter side of the foreground snowdrops using heavy body titanium white.
4. Mix a green with ultramarine blue and benzimidazolone yellow light for some of the foreground foliage and between some of the flowers.
5. With a light ochre soft pastel add some light to the tree trunks to give them some form. Make the larger tree trunk on the right-hand third, the focal point.
6. Use thin light washes of ultramarine blue to send some of the shapes into shadow to help create the sunlit effect.
7. Add a few light green touches of soft pastels to finish the painting.

The finished painting

Carpet of Snowdrops, mixed media, (40.5x51cm)

TRY PAINTING SNOWDROPS IN WATERCOLOUR

This demonstration was part of a year-long 2020 series by Soraya in The Artist.

Studio members can access the complete series and much more with a digital archive of Leisure Painter and The Artist magazines going back over more than six years.

Discover Studio here.

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