The centers can be yellow, green, blue green or a mixture of these depending on placement within an arrangement.  You would want your brightest and predominantly yellow centers in your focal area.

Colors Used:  Scarlet Lake, Permanent Rose, Cobalt Blue, Sap Green, Cad Yellow Pale, Perylene Green, and Raw Sienna (all Winsor & Newton Artist grade pigments)

Brush Used:  3/8" or 1/2" Angular Flat (Synthetic) or #5 to larger Round and #1 or #2 Liner

Techniques Used:  Wet in wet, wet on dry, and bruising.

First Steps:

1)  The first thing I do is lightly sketch out my flowers in an arrangement either as grown on a limb or cut and placed in a vase. 

2)  Prepare a watery to thicker than water mix of each Permanent Rose and Cobalt Blue (I use small round individual ceramic dishes for each mix.

*NOTE:  Yellows and greens mixed when needed and in a creamy consistency.

Pink Petals:

1)  Working one petal at a time, begin by pre-wetting the entire petal down to the center of the flower where the berries are located.  Using an Angular brush, pick up pink and drop the color in around the edges........slightly brushing down in places towards the center and/or brushing up from the bottom center up. 

2)  Immediately pick up a stylus or tooth pick and bruise in a few very fine lines to denote veins within the petals.  The further away from the focal area, the less prominent the veining.

3)  Allow to completely dry.

4)  Repeat glazing layers until tone values desired are achieved.  This is a matter of personal preference as some may wish to maintain a very pale look throughout.

5)  For focal flower, add Scarlet Red in the last glaze to help make that particular flower pop out.

6)  Add the crescent shape (as seen on example below - top right petal) on random petals using Permanent Rose.  To do this, apply brush stroke wet on dry in the shape of a crescent.  When dry, repeat with a darker value.

*NOTES: 

While one petal is drying, you can move on to painting another petal.  Just make sure no two wet petals sit next to one another or bleeding between the two will occur.

Unless you are working on petals far from the focal point, you want to maintain some white or light areas.  The further away, the less white or light necessary in the centers.

From left to right:  One layer, 2 layers, 3 layers, and 4 layers of glazes
You can apply as many layers as you need to achieve the tones you want;
just make sure you allow each layer to completely dry.

Example of brush marks used in layers

Example of Crescents placed on selected petals

Blue and Pink Petals:

1)  Decide which petals you want to have a violet cast which helps recede petals/flowers you do not want to dominate or conflict with your focal point flower.

2)  Pre-wet petal and apply Cobalt Blue as you did with the pink.  This is often referred to as an undercoating.

3)  Take stylus or toothpick and immediately bruise in vein lines.

4)  Allow to dry.

5)  Pre-wet petal and apply Permanent Rose.

6)  Allow to dry.

7)  Repeat glazes as many times as necessary to achieve the tone values desired keeping in mind the more layers, the darker the petals will become causing them to recede further back.

8)  Add crescent marks on selected petals.

NOTE:  Unless you are working on petals far from the focal point, you want to maintain some white or light areas.  The further away, the less white or light necessary in the centers.

From left to right - 1 layer blue, 2nd layer pink, 3rd layer either more blue or pink,
4th layer either color depending on what you are after (more blue or more pink)

Flower Centers - Yellow:

For the focal area flower, paint a center with yellows.  For other centers either use Raw Sienna as your yellow or blues (which follows).

1)  Using the very tip corner of the Angular brush, draw circles with Perylene Green.

2)  Allow to dry.

3)  Go over the circles once again darkening these berry outlines using Perylene Green.

4)  Allow to dry.

5)  Pick up Cad Yellow Pale and fill in those berries leaving a small white dot representing light reflection.

6)  Allow to dry.

7)  Using tip of Angular, paint partial circles around the outlines deepening the value of the in-between spaces of the berries.  The darker this area is, the more the berries pop out.  (See Flower Centers - Blue for example of the partial circles.)

From left to right - Perylene Green "drawn" in with tip of Angular brush

Flower Centers - Blue:

1)  Repeat steps 1-4 under Flower Centers-Yellow

2)  Instead of yellows, pick up Cobalt Blue and fill in berries leaving a white area to depict light reflection.

3)  Allow to dry.

4)  Repeat step 7 under Flower Centers-Yellow

Example of centers with blue and the partial circle
strokes to darken the areas between berries

Example of dogwood branch

Example of completed Painting
by Susan Bronsak