Painting pale veins on flowers

In nature, a lot of living things have visible veins when you look closely, including flower petals. When you’re aiming to create a realistic painting of a veiny subject in watercolour, it’s all very well if those veins are darker than the surrounding area. You can paint them on top after you’ve painted the paler surround. But when the veins are a lighter colour than the background they’re sitting on, things get a little tricker. Not to worry though, because in this mini class, I’m going to show you how to tackle the challenge of painting pale veins against a darker background.

Approaches to painting pale veins

What makes painting with watercolour different to working in opaque mediums is that the paper colour gives us the white. So using watered-down mixes of transparent paint is how we can achieve the palest colours, because they allow the paper colour to show through.

So, when it comes to painting pale veins against a dark background, we have two options: we could try to tackle them in the same way as we would with darker veins against a lighter background. This would involve using white gouache to paint the veins after we’d painted the petal background.

But gouache paint can never quite achieve the same brightness and subtlety that we get if we preserve the paper colour to retain highlights.

The second option we have is to use a technique called ‘negative painting’.

Painting pale veins with the negative painting technique

Negative painting involves creating the pattern or details we want by darkening the surrounding area, avoiding the part we want to keep pale.

As you’ll see in this mini class, by painting everywhere except the vein areas in the early stages of the process, we create the appearance of lighter veins, which we can then subtly darken and match to the desired colours.

It might sound fiddly, but once you’ve got the hang of the technique it’s actually pretty straightforward. Working on a little section of petal in your sketchbook is a great way to practice negative painting.

Watch the mini class:

In this mini class, I’ll be painting a small section from a Hollyhock flower, which is one of my most popular paintings. I’ll demonstrate the negative painting technique and match to the visual texture and colours in this patch of veiny, shiny, iridescent petal:

I hope this little video has inspired you to pick up your brush and practice painting pale veins. Mastering the techniques in the safety of your sketchbook can be seriously confidence boosting.

It can also feel empowering to practice painting a small section from a big composition, which in its entirety can feel unachievable. But painting one piece of the jigsaw puzzle can be enough to make you realise that the full project is within your reach.

If you’d like to practice small sections from more paintings, you can find more mini classes where I show you how to paint a section of metallic flower petal from an Iris, some three-dimensional stamens from the centre of an Anemone flower, or a section of red apple skin covered in sparkly raindrops.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below if you’ve enjoyed this mini class and if you’re going to have a go at this Hollyhock petal section, or even the full flower. Hearing from you always gives me a big boost.

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5 Comments

  1. Christine murray on January 21, 2025 at 5:31 pm

    Thankyou for the video, you explain the technique really well.

  2. Rima on January 21, 2025 at 5:50 pm

    Yes I would like to try it please!

  3. Kathy on January 21, 2025 at 5:54 pm

    If I didn’t have involuntary shakes I so would do this flower 😍

  4. Helen Moon on January 21, 2025 at 8:56 pm

    I’m 90 and have been doing watercolors for about a year now I so appreciate you sharing your wonderful talent. Thanks. ❤️

  5. Rachel on January 22, 2025 at 2:08 am

    Wanted to watch video and it won’t let me.

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