I found a Deutsch copy of this book at a library in Cologne. This is the first book from which I seriously started to learn to paint. It shows how to paint 50 different common flowers in an easy to follow step by step approach. There are two pages devoted to each flower.It has a few pages at the beginning of the book describing different techniques and these are further highlighted whenever necessary for each flower with step by step mini photos. The paintings are well executed and it was a delight for me to turn the page and see a brand new lovely flower after every two or three days of painting a flower. It also had the added advantage of taking my German language skills to a higher level! Here are the first few that I had done:
After a gap during which I had my baby and shifted cities, I found this book again at a library in Basel. Even though I hadn’t picked up my brushes for many months, I had grown as a person and this reflected quite surprisingly in my painting. I painted quickly and confidently and where before I was gropingly copying each color and value from the book, this time I had the ‘artist’s vision’ and I understood about the placements of darks and values to build forms. If your passion is painting flowers, then I think you will love learning from this book. Here are the ones that I had painted after my break:
Watercolor Journal 
BEAUTIFUL paintings I can’t believe how vivid and accurate your watercolor pantings to look! Out of curiosity what type of paper do you generally use? Also what type of watercolor paints do you prefer ? I’ve been moving towards botanical art recently and have been trying to work with watercolors but am never able to get the colors as vivid or saturated and accurate as yours appear here! Excellent artwork !
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Thank you Katie. The paper that I had used at that time was 450gsm matt Hahnemühle watercolor fine art paper in blocks, the paints were from Schmincke Horadam, both German companies. Now I prefer to use Arches 300 gsm HP as it has a very smooth finish and I still use Schmincke, but have included others like Daniel Smith, Winsor and Newton, M Graham etc.
If you have problems with color saturation, it might be because you use pans, its difficult to keep scrubbing paint out of them and you usually end up working with less paint than is required. If not and you`re using tubes, then it must be because you are using more water than required. Mix up more paint than you think you will need and use juicy washes.
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I am just starting to try my hand at watercolors and stumbled on your blog… These are amazing! So beautiful. Any tips for a newbie? 🙂
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Thank you bacioluna, Practice a lot, if possible everyday, that´s the only way to get better…. Good luck!!
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Hi Neelima
I’m Anna from the Netherlands. We share the same hobby. I bought this Book a few years ago. In the Dutch language offcourse. I have made also some watercolor paintings out of this book. It’s a beatiful book. I never painted flowers only animals en some still lifes. It’s nice to know that someone from the otherside of the Ocean studied from the same Book,
sorry for my English writing. Keep on the good work
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Hi Anna, nice to know about you; why don´t you share some of your paintings from the book with us? Actually, we are not on different sides of the ocean, I live in Germany and have also visited your beautiful country once..good luck…
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Hi Neelima,
so we are actually neighbours. I visited Germany several times. It’s also a beautiful country….
How do I share the paintings from the book? I’m not such a star with the Internet ;p
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Ja Anna!
Its not so difficult, scan or photograph your images and upload them with the share button on my watercolor Journal face book page (you will get the share option after hitting the `like´ button)
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Thanx Neelima! I just shared a view of my Watercolors from the book and one ‘of my own’
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Hello Neelima,
I’m from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and just wanted to say your blog is incredible inspiring and thank you so much for sharing your step-by-step of watercolor paintings. For year, learning to paint watercolor flowers / botanicals has been on my ever growing list of “shoulda, woulda, coulda”. Last year I decided to clear bookbinding off the list, which lead to calligraphy, which lead to, ta da, watercolor:-)
Early in my calligraphy journey, my calligraphy club lead a session on using watercolor instead of ink, which I hated. Fast forward 6 months to a second session of watercolor as ink and I’m hooked on watercolor. Hooked! Incorporating other forms of art with calligraphy just naturally evolved despite having no prior art training. Learning to pain watercolor flowers just feels like the right next step. Now, I have to admit that to date everything I’ve painted screamed, “newbie with zero painting or watercolor knowledge”. Discourage led me to the internet to see what I was doing wrong. Through your site I’ve discovered the magical words” wash” and “bloom”. I realized what appeals to me in watercolor flowers is the transparency of a wash, the build up of a wash to intensify or change color, and how colors delicately mingle. Instructor lead training is a must this fall.
Oh, at the moment, my two favourite watercolor books are Botanical Sketchbook by Mary Ann Scott and The Complete Watercolorist’s Essential Notebook by Gordon Mackenzie.
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Good luck!!
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Hi Neelima, firstly thanks for your amazing and inspiring blog. I have been coming back here quite often. Your paintings are just beautiful and that you share so much with each post is so inspiring. So inspiring in fact, that I bought the book that you shared about on this blog page, I am so thrilled with it that I imagine that I will learn so much from it. Keep on posting your beautiful work and thoughts. Thank you again.
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Hello Tania, and thank you.. Its really nice to know firsthand, that what I write has been interesting and inspiring… I have been thinking of taking a break from blogging because I have so much to learn, but I have gotten so used to it, that I keep still keep thinking all the time, ‘ this is something I can share with the the others…’ ha ha…
Yes, You can learn a lot from Adelene Fletcher´s book, because there are so many to do, 50 of them, that if you finish all of them, you are sure to have learned as much as possible about all the basic watercolor techniques, mixing colors, values and distinguishing subtle gradations and building forms, specially flowers, by the end of it. Happy painting!
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i.am.trying.to,find.out.more.about,the.urn,by,adelene,fletcher,can.you,help thank,you,
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These are beautiful! I’m wondering if you can tell me what the flower is called to the left of the fuchsia…I am wanting to paint something similar and want to know what it is I’m painting 🙂 Thanks so much!
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The flower you are referring to goes by the common name of Freesia, good luck with painting it, Anna.
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Wow! I have took art for GCSE and I have found a passion for painting flowers and horses, these paintings are appsolutely beautiful, a truely good insparation. May i ask, what book did you look at?
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Greetings! I know this is kinda off topic however , I’d figured I’d ask.
Would you be interested in exchanging links or maybe guest authoring a blog article or vice-versa?
My website discusses a lot of the same subjects as yours and I believe we could greatly benefit from
each other. If you are interested feel free to shoot
me an e-mail. I look forward to hearing from you! Awesome blog by the
way!
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I used to be recommended this web site by way of my cousin.
I am now not sure whether or not this post is written
by him as no one else recognize such distinct approximately my difficulty.
You are wonderful! Thank you!
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One of the phrases I read in one of your blogs, “artistic vision” exactly describes what is missing from my painting. Can you talk about how to develop it?
Thanks for the encouragement and inspiration.
AE
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Hallo Aimee,
How are you doing?
Along their path, Artists start looking at things with different eyes or ‘vision’, at beauty independent of the actual object looked at, for e.g., if you are studying color relationships and harmony and you see a sunset, you are transported into the world of hues in a way you would not be if you hadn’t been seriously thinking about them before, the same applies to value patterns… A non-artist will not be looking at a view/scene in those terms…. pattern arrangement or composition, structure …..etc. It develops slowly as we do all those countless exercises we have in Art….
Hope this helps
Neelima
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