All About Tropical Flowers!

Summertime brings bright and vibrant colors and these tropical flower recreations are no different! Here are some of our favorites and a guide on how to make them for your summer inspired projects!

Peace Lily (White) & Anthurium (Red)

OYL Flower: Peace Lily

Painting Technique: Hand Painting

• Left Flower - Using a paintbrush, hand paint the center stamen in yellow.
• Right Flower - Mix red paint with water and glycerin. Using a flat paintbrush, apply the paint mixture to the large petal area. While the flower is still damp, gently pull the stamen forward and away from the petal to create an anthurium shape. When the flower is dry, hand paint the center stamen in yellow.

Lilies

OYL Flower: Star Lily (pictured), Firecracker Lily

Painting Technique:

• Top Left - Star Lily in raw, undyed form
• Top Right - Hand paint the center of the flowers. Use a small spritz of water/glycerin to fully cover the centers.
• Bottom Left (Tiger Lily) - For the orange color on this one, we used a straightforward dip dye method. When the lily is dry, use the rounded end of a paint brush to dip in brown or black paint and add the spots to the petals and center.
• Bottom Right (Stargazer Lily) - Using a thin paintbrush, paint the petals pink almost up to the edges, leaving a thin edge of white around each petal. Hand paint the center of the flowers in yellow. Use a small spritz of water/glycerin to fully cover the centers. When the center is dry, spritz the full flower with a water/glycerin mix to soften it up.

Hibiscus

OYL Flower: Hibiscus

Painting Technique:

• Top - Use the dip dye method for your base yellow coloring. While the flower is damp but not soaked (give them around 30-45 minutes of drying time), hand paint the center stamen with berry colored dots at the tip and in the creases at the base. Spritz with water so the darker color blends.
• Bottom Left - Wet the hibiscus and paint the edges of each petal with paint. Spritz with your water/glycerin mix to let the paint spread toward the center. Once the flower is nearly dry, paint the center yellow.
• Bottom Right - A combination of the other two painting techniques above! Dip dye the hibiscus in light pink. Using a paintbrush, apply darker pink to the creases around the center stamen and a light coral to the petal edges. Spritz with your water/glycerin mix to let the paint spread and mix. Once the flower is nearly dry, paint the center yellow.

Orchids

OYL Flower: Orchid

Painting Technique: Hand Painting

• Hand paint the center of the flowers yellow. If you want to add some extra flair, add pink dots to the tip of the stamen or around the stamen once the yellow has dried.

Galaxy Orchids

OYL Flower: Orchid

Painting Technique: Hand Painting

• Start by hand painting a bright teal/mint color in the center. Next, use a purple-ish blue and add it to the center creases and edges with a paintbrush. Wet the paintbrush and pull the paint out towards the edges. Finally, spritz the entire flower with your water/glycerin spray and add a plum purple to the edges. The paint will spread towards the blue.

Shimmer Orchids!

OYL Flower: Orchid

Painting Technique: Dip Dye x2

• Dip dye your orchid in a solid color (in this case, light plum). Once dry, dip in Dragonfly glaze mixed with water (about 75% glaze, 25% water). 

Multi-Layered, Multi-Colored Flowers

OYL Flower: Diego

Painting Technique: Hand painted using the Painting Delicate or Curled Flowers from our Hand Painting 101 blog!

• Add paint directly to the petal creases, wet brush, pull paint toward edges.
• Start with darkest color for the outer petals. Next move to the middle layer with a lighter paint color. Finish in the center petals with your lightest color.

Same Technique With Cool Tones!

Experimenting with color combinations is super fun and very rewarding! You can easily incorporate flowers that may not technically have a realistic tropical fresh flower counterpart with your color palette. Keeping the vibe either warm colors (reds, corals, dark yellows, corals) or cool colors (blues, teals, light yellows, pinks) really helps to tie all the flowers into your project!

The Warm Collection!

The Cool Collection!