Different vignettes of Bougainvillea using different layered techniques

A Loose Approach to Painting Bougainvillea

Over the years, bougainvillea has been my nemesis. I love it. It’s so vibrant and in your face, and I think because I’d never seen it growing up (not enough sun where I lived!) – I still think of it as a bit of a special occasion flower. It just makes me happy.

Lucky for us in Portugal, there is bougainvillea all over the place, and the same was true when we lived in Turkey. But I’ve been on a continual mission of mastering the art of painting it in watercolour, or sketching it in ink and then adding watercolour.

I was messing about today with two colours – Opera Pink for the flowers and Manganese Blue Hue for the shadow areas, to help to create a bougainvillea bush with depth and interest.

Bougainvillea- first vignette

My first attempt looked very controlled. I used individual layers of a watery pink, then a more saturated pink. The mixed some purple in my palette to add in some shadow areas.

This version looks how I’ve historically painted bougainvillea. There’s nothing wrong with it as a representation of the plant, but it lacks depth and interest, and it’s “just there” – and doesn’t have many redeeming factors. Painting in this style wouldn’t ruin a painting, but if the bougainvillea was meant to be the start of the sketch, this controlled style would fail to attract attention.

Bougainvillea- second vignette

My second attempt was more stylised. For this version I added a watery layer of pink on the top area, and a watery layer of blue on the bottom, and let them merge to create some purple areas. Then I added two individual layers of a more saturated pink and a more saturated purple. The bougainvillea looked too dense, so I dropped in some water to blur the paint, and then just to experiment, I blew on the paint to create spider-leg tendrils.

I like the effect of dropping water in to diffuse large areas of the paint at the end, but I think this oversized highlighted look, only works because I blew the puddles to create the tendrils, and this has created a very stylised sketch. So in my next version I decided to use the dropped water technique in two different layers to create a less dramatic look.

Bougainvillea- third vignette

My third attempt is more dynamic and has a lot more interest and diversity. I created a pale pink area at the top, and a pale purple area at the bottom using watery mixes. Then I dropped in some water to disperse that pale layer to create more light. Then I added two individual layers of a more saturated pink to create depth, and a more saturated purple for the shadow areas. I splashed on a bit of pink by loading up my brush and tapping it to create an erratic pattern of splashes. And finally I added some water drops to disperse the paint and diffuse the look of the some of the areas of pink.

Dropping in water at two different stages of the painting process helps to give this bougainvillea a lot of interest and vibrancy. It softens some of the brush marks, but it also creates some highlighted areas that give the impression light is hitting the plant in a dense areas. This really helps to increase the feeling of depth without relying of detailed brush strokes. Even though this final attempt is the least realistic, it has the most movement and I really like this multilayered and loose approach to painting bougainvillea.

Is bougainvillea a nemesis no more? Only time, and many more sketches will tell…

I had another go at this dynamic technique, and it turned out ok, but not as good at my first attempt. So I guess it’s still my nemesis, but at least I have a tried and tested approach to loose watercolour that has the potential of creating interesting and vibrant bougainvillea.