Hello, in today's tutorial I'm going to show you how to draw a Poppy Flower using my Effortless Flower Brush Set. We're going to use Petal 14 brush, Petal Light Brush, Petal Shadow Brush, Pollen 5 brush, Pollen 7 brush, Pollen 9 brush and the Tamar Brush. Please make sure that you're on your iPad when you download the tutorial files. I've included the brushes and swatch palettes for this tutorial. Before you begin, please turn on Dynamic Brush Scaling in Actions > Prefs.
Step 1: First I want you to visualize how you want the flower to look, where it's going to face and generally where the pollens are going to sit. You can sketch this out first to serve as guide and then turn it off later. We'll start at the backmost petal. Choose Petal 14 brush and set the primary and secondary colors I've provided in the tutorial's swatch palette. Using heavy-handed pressure, draw a curved shape. Use the selection tool and draw inner shape as shown and fill it with the bright orange color.
Step 2: Create a new layer for the next petal. This time create a closed curve shape, fill the inner part using the selection tool, and color drop the orange color. This time we're going to exaggerate the outline using the Adjustments > Liquify tool > Push. Just push inward until you get a good variation in the petal shape. Continue adding layers for new petals, following similar steps.
Overlap the layers, making the petals smaller as you reach the front as in Layer 6 and Layer 5. Reshape the petals using the Liquify tool. Remember though that the brush is pressure-sensitive, and depends largely on your stroke. So it'll be impossible to get the same exact shape. It's okay for it to not be exact as my example. Heavy pressure = thicker stroke, light pressure = thinner lines.
Step 3: By layer 7, we'll draw the final leaf in front. Moving from left to right, slight pressure then heavy pressure as you curve down, then light pressure as you curve up and heavy pressure as you curve down.
Step 4: If you're happy with how your petals look, you can merge the layers now. Then use the Petal Shadow Brush set top the dark maroon color to darken the middle part where our pollen will sit. Highlight the outer petals using a light orange color and Petal Light Brush. Try to get a smooth transition of colors so that it looks more realistic.
Step 5: And now to add the pollens. We'll use 3 brushes: Pollen 9 brush, Pollen 5 brush, and Pollen 7 brush. Use one layer for each pollen element, name them Pollen 1 layer, Pollen 2 layer, and Pollen 3 layer. Rotate Pollen 1 layer to align with your flower's orientation. You can use the Petal Shadow Brush and Petal Light Brush to add shading and highlight. You can set Pollen 1 layer to Alpha Lock so that you can add a bit of reflective orange color.
Step 6: For the final touches, add a shadow layer and set it as a clipping mas on top of your Petals layer. Rename it as Shadow. Then you can add texture to the petals using the Tamar Brush (found in the default Painting Brush Group) or the Freya Tamar Cloud brush from the Masterclass. You can also set this brush as your eraser to lighten some parts and create more definition.
I hope you enjoyed this Poppy Flower Tutorial using the Effortless Flower Brushes. Please tag me on Instagram @freya.arts if you try this tutorial out. I'd love to see your unique version of this exercise.
