Easy Hydrangea Painting!

Happy first day of summer!!!

I stumbled upon a hydrangea painting tutorial the other day and decided to give it a try!!

Here’s my finished product!! I’m very happy about how it turned out, especially since this is the first time I’ve ever painted something like this!

Would you like to make one too?!

Supplies:

• Burlap Canvas (available at Michaels)
• Acrylic paint
• Paint brushes
• Pencil

These are the Martha Stewart Crafts paint colors that I chose to use.

• Greek Tile
• Blue Calico
• Wedding Cake
• Pesto
• Green Curry

No matter what colors you decide to use, I recommend two coordinating shades of green and then two coordinating shades of another color or colors.

These are the paint brushes I used.  I recommend a large and small flat, square brush, a small rounded, flat brush, and a tiny, pointed brush for making dots.

The actual brush sizes will vary depending on how large you want your hydrangeas to be.

Let’s get started!!

The first thing you want to do is lay out your canvas and draw large circles where you want your hydrangeas to be.

Next, use the lighter shade of green and paint leaves around the circles.

I used the small, flat square brush to paint the leave’s base coat.

This part doesn’t have to be perfect.  We will be going over the leaves with more paint in the next step.

Now, we’re going to double load our paintbrush to add depth to our leaves.

Dip one side of you paintbrush in the lighter green and one side in the dark.

After double loading the paintbrush, start on one side of the leaf and drag your paintbrush to a point.  The burlap creates some resistance, so this can be a little difficult!  Once you’ve painted one half of the leaf, do the same thing on the other half.

Here’s a video that explains how to make the leaves!  It looks a lot easier to do in the video! Just be patient and you’ll be able to make it work!

As you can see, not all my leaves are perfect! Oh well!!

Next, we’re going to start our flowers!!

Take both your light and dark blue and paint a base layer.

I painted the tops light blue, the bottoms dark blue, and the middle is a mixture of the two.

Now comes the fun part!!

You’re going to take your rounded, flat brush and paint little five petal flowers all over the place.

Think of the flower as a little man.  Paint a head, two arms, and two legs.  The first few might look rough but after you paint a few you’ll become a master!!

Alternate painting with the light and dark blue.  Don’t clean off your brush in between the colors, this allows them to mix and create a different shade of blue.

When you’re almost done, but still have a few empty spots, start painting three of four petal flowers to fill gaps.  You can also randomly add single petals to fill up any additional spaces.

All of our flowers have been painted! Now, it’s time to paint the flower centers!

Take your small, pointy brush and use white (or any other color you’d like) and paint little dots in the center of each flower.

This step was tricky for me, because I couldn’t tell where the center of some of the flowers were!  If you’re struggling like I was, just randomly place the dots!  No one has to know that you guessed!

Once your centers are painted, you’re done!!

Voilà!! You now have a bright and fun hydrangea painting!!

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial!