I recently celebrated World Watercolor Day in my classroom with a few of my students participating with me.

I arranged a large bouquet for the participants to paint. After studying the arrangement for a while, I decided that the Calla Lilies would be the subject for my demonstration painting.

When I am choosing a subject from a large group of flowers, I create a few sketches. It is the same way that I plan landscape paintings. With a soft pencil, I block in a rectangle in a middle value. I then, use a kneaded eraser to lift out the subject.

This sketch will show the value patterns of the whites and the darker values. If some of the shapes are not correct, I simply fill them in with the pencil and start erasing again.

As soon as everything is in the right place, I continue adjusting the shapes and adding further values. After looking at this value sketch, I decided to add a further lily in the dark negative space at the center bottom. I placed it behind the existing lilies.

To become more familiar with the form of the flower, I drew a single Calla with more added detail. In this drawing, I became more aware of the swirling feeling within the flower. Subtle shadings and fine lines add further to the form.

As yet, I have not decided if the negative space will be light or dark in this painting. I may not make this decision until after I have started painting the flowers and leaves. I will need to remember value dominance and temperature dominance. After drawing the composition on the watercolor paper, I will need to decide the colors that I will use. The Calla Lily is a white flower with a warm yellow stamen and green that climbs up the flower from the stem. I do not like flat gray for shadows on flowers and therefore, I need to decide the colors that I will use in the shaded areas. I try to use variations of the colors that are in the subject for the negative space. CALLA LILIES is the work that resulted from these studies.