Blush Brush

← All paint guides

Canvas · Easiest · about 40 min

Abstract meadow

A hazy field of butter and lilac flowers under a soft sky. Every dab is a flower, so there is nothing to draw.

Step 1 of 6

Wash the background

Pale sky across the top two thirds, a warm butter yellow across the bottom third, and scrub the two together where they meet while both are still wet. Then, still wet, work a soft butter disc into the sky on one side — no edge to it, just a warm patch.

Work fast and stop while it is still messy. A blended horizon and an edgeless sun are the whole trick, and both only happen wet.

Colours you’ll need

  • Pale sky
  • Butter yellow
  • Olive
  • Leaf green
  • Lilac
  • White
All 6 steps as a list

  1. 1. Wash the background

    Pale sky across the top two thirds, a warm butter yellow across the bottom third, and scrub the two together where they meet while both are still wet. Then, still wet, work a soft butter disc into the sky on one side — no edge to it, just a warm patch.

    Work fast and stop while it is still messy. A blended horizon and an edgeless sun are the whole trick, and both only happen wet.

  2. 2. Set the field

    Once it is touch-dry, sweep olive along the bottom third with the flat brush held sideways, heavier towards the bottom edge.

  3. 3. Grasses

    Round brush, leaf green, flick upward strokes from the bottom edge — quick, uneven, some tall and some short. Don't fill the width evenly.

    Flick away from the canvas so the stroke thins out at the top. A stroke that ends fat looks like a stick.

  4. 4. Flowers

    Dab butter yellow at the tops of the grasses, thicker in one or two clusters and sparse elsewhere. Then lilac dabs in between.

    Clusters, not confetti. Evenly spread dots stop reading as a meadow.

  5. 5. Catch the light

    A few white dabs on the side the light comes from, and one or two well below the flower line so it feels deep rather than flat. Then three or four loose lilac dabs up in the sky — petals on the wind, and the thing that stops the top half looking empty.

  6. 6. Sign it

    Fine liner, bottom right, small. Then leave it flat overnight — canvas takes longer to dry than it feels.