"Tulip" abstract using color wheel

 

This is a beginner project, but a lot of fun. You will need:

Watercolor paper: Either a quarter sheet or larger; OR, make it in 3 pieces of 9 x 12 paper. (I prefer doing it in 3 pieces)

Your color wheel

Your 6 colors on the split wheel

A cut credit card

The purpose of the project is to make a harmonious painting, using every color in the SPLIT PRIMARY color wheel in order, starting with one color (mine is yellow) and working your way around the color wheel until you return to the same color. It doesn't matter which color you start with or which direction you go around the wheel (clockwise or counterclockwise), as long as you use each color.

A second purpose is to practice a little wet into wet technique. 

If using one sheet of paper, divide the paper into thirds, either with a pencil or a piece of masking tape. This will assure that there will be a balanced number of shapes in each area. IF using 3 separate sheets, you don't need to do that step.

Start at one point in the color wheel (I started with yellow). Make a yellow shape at the far left top. Make a blue  (my green biased blue) shape at the far right top of this third of sheet. (Or the first of 3 pieces of paper.) The middle shape will be green. Then in between you will make a yellow green next to the yellow and a blue green next to the blue. I am going clockwise on the colorwheel. (The reason I did them in this order was to be sure I had enough room for each of the 5 colors needed for that section)

Following my color wheel, in the 2nd, middle, part of my paper,I put a purple biased blue next, a purple in the middle, and magenta (purple biased red) on the far right. I will put a blue violet between the blue and purple, and a red violet between the purple and magenta.

On the final third of my paper, continuing clockwise on my color wheel, I put an orange biased red shape, orange in the middle, and an orange bias yellow on the far right. In between the red and orange I make a red-orange; in between the orange and yellow I make a yellow orange. 

I do this row first to establish generally where colors in the following rows should go.

I try to vary the size and direction of my shapes.

I also try to put them in wet into wet: meaning I wet the paper, add the paint, then drop in a bit of the next color. This is to try to make them visually "connect", as one shape acts as an introduction to the following shape.

You will also notice that, since I want these to look like flowers at the end, I wet the bottoms of some of the shapes to create the beginning of stems.

Continue to make rows of shapes underneath the first, keeping the colors in order, but continuing to vary the size and placement of the shapes. Do this down to about 2/3 or the length of your paper, leaving 1/3 at the bottom.

When you have finished with these shapes you are ready to make "stems." For these you just need a credit card cut up with one end about 1 inch wide. This allows you to make a flexible line.

Mix dark paint of your choosing ( I tried to make my stems a contrasting color to the flowers). Make a thick mixture...not straight out of the tube, but not puddly. The test would be if you tip your palette, the paint should not run. 

Drag the credit card through the thick mixture. Hold it perpendicular to the paper (not at an angle) and draw it down to make a stem. You might want to practice on scrap paper first. But it makes very effect, slightly broken lines.

Make your lines go right over any shapes below it, and go all the way to the bottom of the paper. This will help create depth and connection in your painting.

Below you will see this as three paintings meant to be framed together.

On these I still started with yellow, but went the other way (counterclockwise) on the color wheel. Doing it in three was more playful. As a bonus, I can move these around -- put the red/purple/blue, then blue/green/yellow, then yellow/orange/red-- if I want to change it up. 

You can also see some spattering at the end here.

Here is the split color wheel I followed on each of these.

I only used these 6 paints, creating the secondary and tertiary colors with

only my primaries.

You can start this painting anywhere on the color wheel. If you wanted to start with blue, and go clockwise on the color wheel, you could do French Ultramarine, then blue violet (with more FUM and a little magenta), then violet, then red violet, then magenta; That would be your first third of the paper. Then you would go to Pyrrol Red (or your orange bias red), then red orange, then orange, then yellow orange, then your orange bias yellow (new gamboge on this wheel). You would continue through the yellows and green and end with green biased blue. As long as you use the color wheel to guide you, you shouldn't get lost.