11 Oct A Beginner’s Guide to Brushwork, Lesson #10

Today I am excited to be doing the next lesson in our brushwork series. Lesson #10 is a lesson on the scylla. The scylla (also spelled scilla) is a beautiful blue flower from the hyacinth family. It blooms in the early spring, typically in Europe, Africa, and Asia, with intense blue star-shaped blossoms. The face of the flower is often faced downwards. We are working through the book, Brushwork Elementary Brush-Forms by Marion Hudson, and are thoroughly enjoying it. In brushwork, lesson #10 we continue to practice our brush forms, adding greenery in the form of long stems and leaves to our scylla.

Redrawing the Design on Our Grid Paper

As we’ve mentioned in previous lessons, your grid paper is probably going to be different than that in the book. I say this because I looked everywhere for grid paper that was similar to the book yet never found it. So, we settled for what we could find. I would estimate that the grid paper in the book is about 1/2″ squares. Our grid paper is twice that, with 1″ square grid paper. As well, our grid paper is probably a different size overall. Because of this, the pattern in the book does not translate well onto my 1″ grid paper, so with each lesson I am redrawing the design with a few adjustments, as you can see below.

Materials Needed

• The book, Brushwork, Elementary Brush-Forms by Marion Hudson (also available online HERE)
• 1″ absorbent grid paper
• Watercolor paints
• Watercolor Paintbrush, we used Princeton Velvetouch round size 6 or round size 8
• A glass of water (not used for drinking)
• A small plate for mixing paint and water
• A napkin to dry the brush

Happy Handicrafts Video: A Beginner’s Guide to Brushwork, Lesson #10

As in our previous lessons in our brushwork series, we are only using two colors – blue and green. We started with blue, making our double-pointed brushforms across the top of the page. Each scylla blossom is made with three overlapping brushforms – two of them making a right angle, and the third in between. We’ve had the opportunity to practice the double-pointed brushforms in previous lessons. This lesson gives us continued practice – the more, the better!

Using the grid, map out and paint each blue scylla flower and scylla bud.

Once you are finished painting all of the blue, it’s time to switch to the green paint. There is no need to wash the brush between these two paint colors. Simply load your brush with green paint and continue painting. I used the same sized-brush (an 8 round, in this case) for both the flowers, the leaves, and the stems. I think in the future, I may change my brush to a 6 round when doing the sheaths and stems.

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Be sure to follow along on our YouTube channel, Happy Handicrafts, where all of these descriptions are paired with video to make things so much easier for you! There you will also find other handicrafts that you may want to incorporate into your homeschool curriculum. We create these videos in our own homeschool to be able to help others who may struggle with the creative side. Come join us – we’re crafty so you don’t have to be!