Painting flowers in acrylic is one of the most rewarding challenges for artists...but it can also be one of the trickiest. Soft petals, subtle transitions, blurred edges, bold color shifts...it’s easy to get overwhelmed! One of the biggest breakthroughs in my own floral paintings came when I stopped obsessing over petal details and started focusing on temperature. Learning how to balance warm and cool tones is the secret to creating petals that feel airy, luminous, and sculpted.
In this post, I’ll walk you through how I approach floral painting using acrylics and a carefully chosen split primary palette, and how you can use temperature shifts to bring your flowers to life.
If you'd prefer, I also have several YouTube tutorials on flower painting that you can find here on this playlist.
My Acrylic Palette for Flower Painting
I work almost exclusively with a limited palette, which helps keep my colors clean and harmonious. My go-to colors are:
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Quinacridone magenta (cool)
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Cadmium red medium (warm)
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Cadmium yellow light (neutral/cool)
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Cadmium yellow medium (warm)
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Ultramarine blue (warm)
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Phthalo Blue (cool)
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Burnt umber (neutral/warm)
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Titanium white
This split primary palette gives me the flexibility to mix both warm and cool versions of every color family. I can shift reds to lean either magenta or orange, mix warm peaches and cool violets, or create atmospheric neutral tones using a balance of burnt umber, ultramarine blue, and white.
You don’t need 30 tubes of paint to create vibrant florals, just a strong understanding of temperature and layering.
Using Layers in Acrylic Painting
One of the most important things to understand when painting flowers in acrylic is that everything happens in layers. Even the more opaque professional-grade paints can have varying levels of transparency, especially in your darker mixes and richer reds. If you want your colors to feel saturated and rich (especially in shadow areas), expect to go over them multiple times.
For example, when I paint a peony, I begin with a block-in stage: laying down basic shapes and values so I can start to understand the composition. I don’t worry about sharp edges or intricate veining at this stage. My goal is to give myself enough information to read the shadows, midtones, and highlights. I often say that this part is like building the foundation of a house. The walls aren’t up yet, but the floorplan is in.
Even in this early stage, I’m sculpting form using warm and cool tones. Take a look at the example below: he centre of the coral charm peony contains warm yellow-orange tones, while the outer petals transition into cooler magentas and purples. That temperature shift is incredibly important...it’s what gives the bloom a sense of depth and light.
Warm vs. Cool: Using Temperature to Build Form
Too often, we think of contrast as just light vs. dark. But in floral painting, temperature contrast is just as powerful.
When I painted two coral charm peonies for above, I was especially drawn to the top flower because of its dramatic color shifts. The centre of the bloom was fiery orange and yellow, while the outer edges cooled off into soft purples. I started in the centre and worked outward, using warm and cool mixes to suggest where each petal turned toward or away from the light.
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For the warm petals, I leaned on cadmium red medium and cadmium yellow light or medium, mixed with white.
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For cool areas, I used quinacridone magenta and ultramarine blue, adjusting with white and neutral tones.
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To neutralize or tone down areas, I mixed burnt umber and ultramarine blue with white to create soft, adjustable grays.
These subtle temperature shifts are what sculpt each petal. Warm tones feel like they’re catching light, while cool tones push back into shadow. That’s what gives the flower its dimensionality without having to render every fold in sharp detail.
Creating Softness with Brushwork
Acrylics dry quickly, which means you often end up with hard edges unless you’re deliberate. I use old, splayed brushes during the second layer to gently blend and feather paint, creating that soft, atmospheric transition I want in my petals. A splayed brush can’t make a hard edge even if it tried, making it perfect for subtle layering and scumbling. However, I do need to make sure that I fix my lines later on if necessary!
I don’t sharpen every petal. Just like with portrait painting, you need a balance between focus and softness. I keep the edges of highlighted petals more defined, while the shadowed mids are often left soft or even slightly rough. This keeps the painting from becoming too “cut-out” or cartoon-like, and enhances the realism.
Layering for Saturation
Some of the most beautiful magentas and hot pinks in my palette require very little white, which means they tend to be semi-transparent. That’s why I often apply two or even three layers to get those rich, punchy colors to shine. This also goes for shadows: darker colors are often more transparent, and need multiple passes to reach full depth.
My process is slow, but deliberate. I don’t rush to details too soon, because colour is contextual. It’s hard to judge a petal’s hue when you’re still surrounded by blank canvas. I let the whole painting build up together, checking constantly how one color is affecting the next.
Final Thoughts
If you want to learn how to paint flowers in acrylic, I strongly recommend starting with a limited palette and spending time studying warm vs. cool color shifts. These subtle differences are what make petals feel soft, sculpted, and lifelike—without the need for excessive detail or dozens of pigments.
In my full “Painting Flowers in Acrylic” course, I break down the entire process over 7.5 hours of guided lessons, including how to mix your colors, create soft transitions, and understand how light affects form. This blog post barely scratches the surface, but if you're ready to take your floral paintings further, I'd love to have you join me.
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