Spider Chrysanthemums come in shades of white, yellow, pink and bronze, although occassionally you see them dyed odd colors. To prepare the paper for your spider chrysanthemums, set up a palette with three or four complimentary colors.
Test your paper by dampening it with water to see which direction it curls. You want to paint stripes of color for your petals, across the grain of the paper so that when the cut strips are curled they curls in the same direction as the paper curls when dampened. You will need to paint roughly 2 x 8 inch strips of paper to give you enough to make several chrysanthemums of the same color. I painted all my strips together before I cut them to size, as you can see in the step on the next page.
To make even washes of watercolor I used a soft haired flat paint brush designed for watercolor.
