Holiday Lantern, Poinsettias and Berries Painting using Watercolour

Hello everyone! Today I am going to share a painting process with the holiday theme. The subject is a lantern. It will be boring with just a lantern so I included some plants and special berries as well. By the way, I am feeling so good today because my dizziness has finally come to an end. I am so glad to have my health back after Covid 19 infection, though I do have some mild cough still, I am almost normal now.

Tools and Materials

• an art block
• watercolour
• a small round brush
• water
• paint mixing palette
• tissue paper
• HB pencil
• eraser
• white gel pen

The Process

This is my drawing that I did using a HB pencil. There was a lot of mess as I erased and redid many times as I got the proportions wrong so I made a ton of eraser shavings :D Nevertheless, I was satisfied with this final version of the basic outline.

I started painting with the lightest colour I will be using which is yellow. I have already painted in various level of dilutions here. The lightest being the paint with the highest amount of water while the darkest sections being the ones with the lowest amount of paint.

I needed a very specific shade of blue which is supposed to be dark but warm blue. So I mixed these two shades of brown and blue. That little puddle of colour in the palette well is the one I created. Let's see how it turns out.

The darkest colour in the candle is the one I 'whipped' earlier. It was not bad. Here I have painted the whole candle with some greens as well as yellow. I thought it is a fun way to create highlights by using contrasting colours with lower values.

I added more dark blue and and more colours as a whole including on the lantern to make it look realistic.

While waiting for the lantern section to dry, I moved onto the Poinsettias. I know that they look like flowers but they are actually a red plant that are used particularly during the holiday season.

These are Christmas berries. The festival is over but the vibes are still around :D I also added other colours to the plant because I wanted each leaf to look different from the other. I incorporated even orange and pinks into it instead of sticking to the usual red shades.

Next, I painted the green leaves around the plant. I used blue for some shadow effects.

Can you spot the difference between this image and the previous one? Here I have painted the lantern structure which is supposed to be brown but I used some purple as well. I feel it did not turn out as well as I wanted :(

Since I wasn't happy with the previous version, I added more darker shades to the lantern structure and I think it looks a whole lot better this way. I also painted some purples to the plant.

By the way, this is my work space. I know it is quite messy but I guess that is just the way it is when we create art. I usually only clear everything up when I am done with a piece or when it is the end of the day.

I started painting the background here in different shades of blue.

For contrast, I added some orange and yellow here and there. If you are going to use the same colour combinations, make sure not to mix the blue and yellow because that will create green and make green dominate the artwork. I tried to create the bokeh effect in the back ground with some watery yellow puddles. Thankfully my paper could take water well otherwise it would have had a hole for the amount of water I used for this effect.

Then, I used the lifting technique to create a little flame of the candle inside the lantern. I used a clean brush and painted over the yellow and quickly used a tissue to absorb the paint until the region became clear of paint. Be careful if you do this because we need to let the paper dry every now and then to avoid creating a hole-flame :D

I added a few more details here like the shadow of the plant and used just some water to smoothen some regions of the artwork.

Here's another image of my work space. I have added branches to the berries.

So this is my final artwork. Can you spot the final details that I added?

Here's a closer look of it. I used a white gel pen to add some details on the plant and the leaves. I think it makes a wonderful difference. This is the final outcome. I guess I will pin it to my wall near my desk.

I would like to convey my Happy Holidays wishes to everyone. Thank you for dropping by and have a wonderful day :)