In this lesson, Catherine guides you through painting flowers and plants, focusing on advanced watercolor techniques. You’ll begin with color experiments, glazing over flat swatches and using color charging to explore how paint interacts on damp surfaces. Next, you’ll paint a rose directly with your brush, defining shapes through negative space and experimenting with wet-into-wet, charging, and glazing techniques. Finally, you’ll create a study of lilies, experimenting with overlapping forms, textures, and highlights with white gouache.

This lesson belongs to the course Sketchbooking From Life. In this 6-week course, artist Catherine Bobkoski guides you through the essential practice of sketchbooking from life, using watercolor, pencil, and pen. Each week, you’ll engage in practical sketching exercises and techniques, exploring line work, value scales, color mixing, and composition through still-lifes, flowers, landscapes, and portraits. Catherine’s lessons emphasize observation, experimentation, and simplification, helping you refine fundamental drawing and painting skills while confidently capturing the essence of your subject. The course also includes an archive of student assignment critiques, offering valuable insights into applied sketchbooking. By the end of the course, you’ll have the tools and confidence to transform your sketchbook into a space for artistic growth and personal expression.

Throughout this course, you’ll have access to the NMA community for feedback and critiques to improve your work as you progress.