How To Paint Lavender Flowers With Cotton Buds

Painting with cotton buds is quick and easy, and anyone can do it no matter how much painting experience you have. In this blog post, I’ll show you how to paint lavender flowers with cotton buds. Click through for the step-by-step tutorial.

I’m back with another cotton bud painting tutorial. In the past I’ve showed you how to paint wisteria flowers with cotton buds, and I’ve really grown to love this way of painting.

It’s possible to achieve really beautiful, expressive paintings without much effort. I’m leaning towards more abstract, less detail-oriented techniques just recently, and I’m really enjoying experimenting!

A note on supplies

In the supplies list, I’ve not been specific with the exact colours of paint I used. I always tell you to use what you have, so the general colours I’ve listed are fine.

But if you really really want to know my exact colours, I used titanium white, dioxazine purple (the exact one I used is no longer available but this is another similar option), cadmium yellow and in the original version of this post, both ultramarine and phthalo blue. (Ultramarine for the sky and phthalo blue in the green stalks.)

(When I recorded the video, I used ultramarine for both sky and stalks as I put too much paint out. There’s no way I’m letting it go to waste! 😅)

You’ll probably find that the cotton buds go a little flat and clumpy when you’ve tapped them onto the page multiple times. If that happens, you can start using the other end of the bundle or just grab some fresh ones.

The cotton buds can also start unravelling slightly, leaving tiny streaks on your painting. This can happen quite often, so rather than switching to fresh cotton buds each time you can fix this by twirling the cotton bud in the paint. The paint will stick any loose fibres back onto the head of the cotton bud.

How To Paint Lavender Flowers With Cotton Buds Step-By-Step

Supplies needed

• Watercolour or acrylic paper (In the video above I used my Handbook Journal Co sketchbook)
• A large, flat brush
• A small, flat brush
• Acrylic paints in white, purple, yellow and dark blue (see above for the exact paints I used)
• Cotton buds (ideally the eco-friendly version)

Step one

Start by mixing a little blue with some white to make a sky blue colour.

Paint the background with the large brush, not worrying about the direction of the brush strokes or if the paint colour is a little streaky or uneven. I think it’s this kind of thing that makes a painting more realistic.

Let this dry.

Step two

When the background is dry, put out some yellow and begin to mix a few different shades of green.

Start darker, painting in the stalks of grass and lavender with long, flicky strokes of the smaller brush. Add a little more yellow every so often, making brighter greens for variety.

Leave to dry.

Step three

Squeeze out a little of the purple and white acrylic paints. Grab a bundle of cotton buds and dab them into the paint, making sure you pick up a little of both colours, but more purple than white at first.

If you have any blue left, you can add this into the mix too. Don’t worry if the colours are mixed together or streaky, either way is fine.

Paint the lavender flowers by tapping the cotton buds onto the page at the top of the stalks, making sure they are slightly pointy at the top. Pick up more paint when you need to.

Step four

Pick up more white to make a paler purple, and go over the lavender flowers again.

Don’t paint as many dots as you did on the first layer, and don’t worry if they are exactly lined up or neat. Nature isn’t neat and perfect, don’t forget!

Do this until you’re happy with the colour of your flowers. If you feel like you added too much white, let it dry and go back again with the darker purpler colour to even it out.

And there you have it — you’ve just painted lavender flowers with cotton buds!

About Stacey

I’m Stacey and I’m a blogger, abstract artist and freelance writer. My aim is to help busy people feel inspired and get more creative with tutorials, hints and tips.

I live in Cardiff with my partner and dog, and in my free time you’ll find me hiking, reading, painting or sampling a craft beer or two.

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