How to Draw 3 Flowers with Watercolor Backgrounds

Flowers are everywhere here, so let’s draw three cute flower drawings with easy watercolor backgrounds. 

Spring begs me to draw flowers and dive into color. Inspiration lies everywhere I look. I find myself driving down the road filled with a desire to stop to take a picture (sometimes I do stop). Creation astounds me, and I remind myself to take time to slow down, even for a moment, to enjoy it … to walk out to the apple trees when they’re blooming while I sip my afternoon coffee … to just be in the newness and color of spring. Because, I know it will turn into summer so quickly. 

Go ahead … whatever season you’re in … take a moment to be present in it before the next one comes. It will do your heart good.

The other day, I took a short walk through my yard to see what was blooming. Daffodils, yes, but I wanted to see things I don’t normally see. 

Do you know what I found? Weeds. Blooming. And they were pretty. So I picked a few to draw. I filled a page or two with flowers that day, some were traditional flowers and some were weeds.

“Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.” ~A. A. Milne (Whinnie the Pooh)

In honor of that, we’ll draw three flower drawings, two of which pop up as weeds sometimes too. See if you know which ones I mean.

Gather your supplies

• Basic calligraphy supplies with Ziller ink
• Basic Watercolor supplies 
• Winsor & Newton Cotman Sketcher’s Pocket Box 
• Permanent rose pink and Payne’s gray for mixing, optional

Keep reading for extra tips and tricks or jump to the video.

Warm-up your muscles

It never hurts to do a few practice strokes to get your muscles warmed up. If strokes get boring, try a few words or a quote.

Draw Flowers – 3 different varieties

Think about flowers that you see around you. These make great inspiration. Maybe you have daffodils or tulips growing in your flowerbed or maybe you live near the woods and take walks by a lot of wildflowers. 

You can choose three of your own flowers or follow along as we draw three that I like to see: daisies, queen anne’s lace, and poppies.

Draw a Daisy

Here are some steps to follow as you draw a daisy. 

On the left side of your watercolor paper, draw a small circle inside a larger outside circle. Work in pencil because the outside circle is just a guide. You’ll want to erase it later. 

Draw several whole petals. The rest of the petals are only partially showing. Go ahead and fill in the spaces between the whole petals with partials. 

Last, draw a stem and a leaf or two.

Draw Queen Anne’s Lace

In the center of your paper, draw a Queen Anne’s Lace flower. Follow the steps in this picture. 

Draw the Queen Anne’s Lace a little shorter than the daisy to vary the heights a little. Start by drawing several stems for the blooms and one long stem for the whole flower.

Use the lazy stippling technique, a mixture of dots and squiggles, with your pen to create the look and feel of the lacy bloom.  

Finally, add a leaf. These leaves look a little like parsley with a few stems and branches full of ruffled leaves. 

Draw a Poppy

On the right side of the paper, draw a poppy. Draw this flower taller than the daisy. Here are some steps to help.

Poppy petals are loose and flowy. Draw one full petal to start. Then, draw a petal on each side of the first right over top. Remember, you’ll erase later. You only see about half of these two petals. Add one more tiny top of a petal behind the first. 

Draw a stem and a leaf. Poppy leaves have lots of edges but are less branchy than Queen Anne’s Lace.

Let your drawings dry completely before you erase the pencil lines. 

Watercolor Backgrounds

Take a moment to think about the colors and shapes that you want to use for your backgrounds. I find it helpful to choose a color palette and test the paints ahead of time on a scrap piece of watercolor paper. It might be helpful to test shapes ahead of time too. 

Here are some shape ideas and the colors I’ll be working with.

• 

• 

Hint: A touch of gray mixed with the intense blue in my watercolor pocket set created the blue. I mixed sap green, lemon yellow, and viridian green until I came up with the green that I wanted. And a blend of permanent rose (pink) and orange made the coral. 

I tend to get certain colors in my head. Then, I try to mix until I match them, but you could just as easily use pure colors from your set. 

Today, I like the feel of the shapes with straight edges. I’ll paint one of each color, one over each flower drawing. 

Paint a blue watercolor background over the daisy drawing. Leave the top and bottom edges rough rather than straight. 

Green can go over the Queen Anne’s Lace. This time, paint the bottom against the tape so it will be straight, and leave the top rough. 

Paint coral over the poppy, leaving the top and bottom edges loose like you did with the blue. 

• 

• 

Let it dry completely, carefully remove your tape, and you’re finished!

Watch How to Draw 3 Flower Drawings with Watercolor Backgrounds

What a lovely pop of color for your room. Now, you can try other colors, drawings or watercolor shapes. 

And remember … enjoy the process.