How to easily create beautiful floral patterns in gouache
When I bought the Moleskine watercolor pocket sketchbook I didn’t have anything specific in mind for it. I have never worked in this small of a sketchbook before, each page only measures 3.5 x 5.5“! Despite its small size, I quickly grew to love working in this notebook. I felt freer to explore and experiment, and because there are so many pages in this sketchbook, it didn’t feel like the pages were precious and so I could play around.
It wasn’t until I had painted a handful of pages in the book that I decided to fill the whole sketchbook with floral patterns, mainly using gouache paint. Painting with gouache is still fairly new to me, and I wanted to learn more about using this type of paint and this book is perfect for experimenting with colors, textures, etc.. While making the patterns, I grew to love gouache’s ability to layer and easily cover mistakes, as well as the texture gouache can add to paintings.
Once I got into the groove of this project, I was able to get a system down and finish two to three pieces a week, and I was sad when I came to the end of the book because making all these patterns only gave me more ideas! A lot of my inspiration came from photos I’ve taken of flowers over the years, as well as my floral inspiration board on Pinterest.
I really enjoyed this process of filling up a whole sketchbook with one type of painting. It feels really rewarding to see the progress of the sketchbook filling up as you paint, and I always feel a strong sense of accomplishment when I finish a sketchbook. Setting projects or goals for yourself artistically is so important because it allows you to grow. It also takes away the work of deciding what to create when you sit down, which at the end of a long day, I love.
Materials Used:
Princeton watercolor round brushes (sizes 0-5)
Washi Tape for borders
How to create a simple floral pattern with gouache paint:
1. Start with a limited color palette. Choose a color palette with 4-6 colors.
2. Tape a border around your workpiece with washi tape, this will give the painting a nice clean line around the edge, giving your art a professional look.
3. Choose one color for the background and paint a nice even layer. I like to choose the background color by deciding which of the colors in my palette will provide the most contrast for the flower pattern. Allow the background to dry completely before adding floral pattern.
4. While waiting for the background to dry, choose a flower or flowers you want to paint for your pattern. Decide if you want to add other elements, like leaves or stems. Practice flowers on scratch paper and decide on your final pattern elements. When it doubt, keep it simple. One flower with leaves is enough to make a beautiful painting.
When it doubt, keep it simple. One flower with leaves is enough to make a beautiful painting.
5. Make up enough of each paint for each of the flowers for the whole pattern, my tip is to caution on the side of making up too much paint instead of too little. For gouache paint, it is best to go for a thicker consistency with little water. Load up your brush with paint and paint your flowers! After the base of the flower shape is painted, make sure to allow the paint to dry completely before painting the details, or you can pull up some of the base color.
The flowers and details are where you can let your creativity shine! There are so many factors to consider. Do you want to paint the flowers big or small? Do you want to lay out the flowers in an organized style or chaotic? Do you want to layer flowers and leaves or keep them separate? This is your chance to truly go wild!
Looking for:
Color palette inspiration? Check out my Color board on Pinterest!
Flower design inspiration? Check out my Floral Inspiration board on Pinterest!
One caveat…..
….I want to mention is that the Moleskine sketchbook did not hold up perfectly while I filled it up with patterns. The pages began to pull apart- which you can see in some of my pictures. Because of this, as I painted the backgrounds in later pages, it sometimes seeped through and got on previous pages. I think this is probably a problem specific for this kind of use, and lighter use of the sketchbook may not cause this to happen.
So, did you try it? What did you think?
Comment down below on how the pattern painting process went for you, or which of the patterns above is your favorite!