Hello, I'm Moonlychee, an illustrator.

Today, I'll show you how to draw watercolor impasto flowers using Clip Studio Paint to add color to your illustrations. Learning how to draw flowers will allow you to incorporate them into various works, making your illustrations even more captivating.

It's easy enough for beginners, so please watch until the end and let's draw flower illustrations together.

Brushes to Use

I'll be using three brushes, all of which are default Clip Studio Paint brushes.

1. Pencil R

One of the pencil sub tools. Used for sketching and drawing line art. You can substitute with other brushes for line art if you prefer, but for impasto painting, the line art becomes part of the paint, so brushes that retain an analog texture blend well.

 

2. Dense Watercolor brush

One of the watercolor sub tools, used for painting and detailing petals.

 

3. Blend Color

One of the impasto sub tools. A tool for blending paint applied with the Dense Watercolor brush. Allows you to achieve an impasto feel.

 

Tips: The types of default brushes differ depending on the version. If you cannot find 'Dense Watercolor' or similar, please download them from Clip Studio Assets.

Basic Steps

Now, let's explain the basic steps for drawing watercolor impasto style flowers. First, draw the sketch and line art. Once the line art is complete, apply an undercoat, then add the colors and patterns of the petals. Next, use the Blend Color tool for detailing. Finally, add highlights, shadows, and other details to complete the illustration, according to the overall image and atmosphere of the illustration.

Step 1 Sketching and Line Art

This time, I drew an illustration with the theme of 'Summer Memories.' I want to place morning glories around the character as decoration, so I'll draw them.

 

Unless it's a very familiar motif, avoid starting to draw immediately. First, look for reference materials. Search for morning glories on Google or Pinterest, pick out a few photos you like, check the flower's shape and colors, and then draw a rough sketch.

 

Tips: Researching references can be a hassle, but drawing while looking at references significantly improves the quality of your artwork.

When sketching, it's easier to draw flowers by substituting them with simple shapes. For morning glories, draw them by substituting them with ovals. Use these simple shapes as a framework to draw in the petals. Similarly, for leaves, substitute them with simple shapes before drawing them in.

Tips: If you want to place many flowers as decoration in your illustration, it's convenient to register the drawn line art as a material. The method for registering materials is very simple. Select the line art layer you want to register, then go to the [Edit] menu → [Register Material] → [Image] to register it. It's also recommended to add tags so you can easily find it later.

Step 2 Coloring

First, flat-fill the base color with the Fill tool (Bucket tool). Since the pencil used for line art has a strong texture, fill in any areas that cannot be cleanly filled using the selection tool or a round pen.

Next, add another layer above the base and clip it. Choose colors that match the overall color scheme of the illustration and apply them with the Dense Watercolor brush. Since natural flower petals have uneven coloring, apply the colors roughly rather than uniformly.

Blend with the Blend Color brush. If you blur too much, the paint will become uniform, so keep the blur brush size small and gradually blur while observing the overall balance. Finally, add more color with the Dense Watercolor brush. Paint the leaves using the same method.

Step 3 Adding Details and Finishing Touches

This step depends on the overall atmosphere and situation of the illustration you are drawing, so please adapt your detailing flexibly. Using this illustration as an example, I will show you the process of adding morning glories to the illustration. First, consider the composition and decide where to place the morning glories. Since the morning glory line art was registered as a material in advance, this can be done quickly.

Color according to the procedure in Step 2. To unify the illustration's color to blue, add a blue-filled layer above the morning glory layer, set the layer mode to Color Burn, reduce the opacity, and adjust the color. Furthermore, add an Add (Glow) layer and add highlights with a strong Airbrush. These morning glories are supporting roles decorating the frame, so I haven't added any more details; too much information would dilute the impression of the main character girl. When drawing flowers as decoration in an illustration, it's important to be mindful of the overall balance.

Conclusion

This time, I introduced how to draw watercolor impasto style flowers that can be very useful for backgrounds and decorations in illustrations. I hope it helps your illustrations. Thank you very much for reading until the end. If you enjoyed it, please like, save, and follow me on social media.