Magnolia study
What makes your top five list of spring flowering trees? The Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) is right up there on mine, even though I don’t get to see it unless I’m traveling to the mid-Atlantic or Southeastern U.S. where it grows. But what a beauty! Its huge white flowers are set off by glossy dark leaves and, later, its bright red fleshy seeds are eaten by birds and other wildlife.
Tips and Techniques – I painted this study while preparing for the first session of my upcoming online class, Savoring Summer Sketchbook Series. We’ll focus on painting white blossoms, which are tricky on white paper because they rely on subtle color mixes and carefully observed shadows. For this version, I used cobalt blue, aureolin yellow, and permanent rose. Next, I plan to paint it again using cobalt blue and transparent pyrrol orange (PO71) to see how a more neutral gray changes the feel. My tip: reminder to experiment, both in your sketchbook and on various types of watercolor paper. It’s one of the best ways to learn.
Drawn In 
Painting white flowers is a counterintuitive exercise and one that you handle so well!
Thanks Maryclare!
Beautiful painting, and great suggestions! Would love to see how your next version turns out.
Thanks– I’m hoping to get to it today.
I love magnolias and they are relatively common here in the UK. Love this interpretation.
My understanding is that our North American native magnolias were brought to the UK and Europe as specimen trees, as were the Asian species. They’re all pretty great!
They’ve certainly spread well then😀 They are gorgeous though and lovely to draw and paint
Long ago I was admiring an Elephant Magnolia in full blossom at a small arboretum on Martha’s Vineyard. The arborist, an elderly woman at the time, saw me looking up at the tree and stopped to tell me why she planted it 50+ years earlier. She said, “My husband loved white flowers and those were as big as I could grow them.” It’s been my favorite tree ever since. The Southern and Elephant Magnolias may not be exactly the same, but your drawing definitely brings me back. Thanks for the treat.
What a sweet encounter. I can well imagine the arborist appreciating your interest in her tree. I’ve never seen the bigleaf/elephant magnolia– it looks like its native range is fairly small, so you were fortunate to see in on MV. Thanks for sharing — I’ll trade artwork for stories anytime.
This is beautiful Jean. I look forward to the variations youre trying out. I too love the big waxy flowers of the southern magnolia, but alas they don’t thrive in Ontario.
Absolutely gorgeous, Jean. Your ‘study’ is so deserving a frame! Your tips on experimenting in sketchbooks, on different types of watercolor paper, and varying shadow coloring are so interesting. Thank you!
I also love those big floppy magnolia flowers. My first introduction to magnolias came when we lived in NC. And those seeds! Such contrast to the flowers. I collected a bunch of seeds and was successful germinating 6, which grew into 18” tall trees before we moved to NM. Knowing they would not survive the desert dryness, all the little trees were planted in our NC yard, and seems to be all there, growing well! (Based on google Earth updates). But I also fell in love with redbud, and to this day they are my favorite flowering trees.