Calla Lily in Watercolor

Inspiration Point: Georgia O’Keeffe’s Calla Lilies

The motif of calla lily with its sinuous lines and sculptural presence appears in a variety of shapes and forms in Georgia O’Keeffe’s art.

This lesson focuses on capturing the simple yet stunningly beautiful shape of the flower in transparent watercolor, by focusing on building the skill needed for defining positive shapes by painting the negative areas around it.

Color Variations & Structure of the Calla Lily

To start, we can make a few simple observational drawings based on your choice of images from this compilation on a Pinterest page.

You may also use these royalty-free image as a guide to practice a few line sketches at first.

It might be helpful to get to know the unusual structure of this exotic ornamental plant, native to South Africa. They also come in a wide variety of colors.

The Positive & The Negative Spaces in Wet-in-Wet Watercolor

Next, after getting to know the basic shape and structure of the flower, let’s approach this project by defining the main positive shape in wet-in-wet technique first and then painting the background or the negative space around it, also in wet-in-wet technique. Learning to define a shape by painting around it is an essential skill to develop for watercolorists. Following my live demo, you may develop this through a focused exercise painting the same form as a positive shape at first and then its background as a negative area. The completed practice piece looks something like this.

You may make multiple practice sheets in various sizes to develop your skills further.

Reference Images

Photographed below are two possible arrangements to work from during and after the live class.

Completed Paintings in Wet-in-Wet Technique

Lastly, we combine both the approaches painting the positive as well as the negative space/background to create a full-fledged composition utilizing the skill developed from the focused exercise earlier: