Watercolor Poppy Field

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Hello friends! Welcome back my name is Kate and today we’re going to paint this beginner-friendly poppy field landscape on a watercolor bookmark. This is perfect for anyone beginning to learn watercolors.

Let’s get started!

Full Video Tutorial

Colors Used:

Alizarin Crimson

Sap Green

Black

Teal Blue

Supplies Used:

Watercolor Paint

Watercolor Cold-Press Paper

Rounded Tip Brush (size 12, 6, & 2)

Masking Tape

Two Cups of Water

Paper Towel

I’m working with watercolor paper that is a 140-pound cold-pressed. It’s important to have proper watercolor paper as well as a large round paintbrush and two smaller round brushes, then use whatever watercolor paints you have.

I am going to be taking these colors straight out of the tube so we can just jump right into painting.

Step One:

To begin this painting we are going to go straight in with some Alizarin Crimson paint and begin painting in our flower shapes. Each poppy flower is going to be in a shape similar to a fan shape. I varied the size and shape of my flowers to give the composition some interest and depth.

If you are enjoying this tutorial then you may also be interested in my watercolor rose tutorial.

Step Two:

For our next step, we are going to fill the entire bookmark with clean water avoiding the flowers. The best part about this step is the new layer of paint will only go where the clean water is. So we don’t have to worry about our flowers getting ruined by our paint.

Next, I am going to take a light wash of green paint and begin filling in the majority of the bookmark with this color (again avoiding my flowers). Then I went in with a dark wash of green paint (which means my paint mixture has more paint than water). around the bottom section of the bookmark. This is going to help our painting feel like there is some depth in our poppy field.

Then I switched over to a light wash of my teal paint and filled in the small section that was left at the top of the bookmark.

Step Three:

Once that layer completely dries we can go in with that same dark wash of green paint and paint in loose then stems on all the flowers. I ended up making my stems wavy instead of just straight just to give it a fun look. Then once my stems were in place a loosely painted some leaves along the stems.

Step Four:

I ended up adding some more blue paint to the sky section of the painting and then blended it down into the grass section.

I also added a few sections of grass blades with the same green paint by flicking in thin lines using my small round brush.

Next, I went back in with my red paint and gave the flowers a second layer, and splattered the red paint lightly around the grass and flower section of the bookmark.

I had some red paint get onto my wet blue sky, so I just used a dry paper towel to sop up the random red splatter marks.

Step Five:

Once the entire painting dried I took some black paint on the tip of my brush and I tapped in a loose black center on each of the flowers.

The flower on the very bottom wasn’t turning out the way I wanted it to so I ended up reactivating the paint on the flower by placing more water on the entire flower than sopping up the paint. Then I refilled the shape of my flower then after it dried I placed the same black center in the middle of it.

And there you have an easy poppy field watercolor bookmark.

This bookmark will be for sale over on my Etsy shop if you would like to check it out. I will have a link in the description box below. Thanks so much for following along! Here are a few more watercolor tutorials you may also like!

Watercolor Cloudy Night Sky Bookmark Tutorial

Watercolor Simple Bookmark Tutorial