Part four in a four-part series, water lilies can complete a scene at the edge of a pond or along a slow-moving creek. Although they are work intensive, making your own water lilies puts you in control of their final appearance and can be quite satisfying to model.
I split making water lilies into two parts: first, the lily pads, and then the flowers. Start with punching out discs of green construction paper with a punch-and-die set.
With a hobby knife, cut a narrow wedge from the center to the outer circumference of each disc to make the radial notch many of us recognize as a feature of water lilies.
Using reference photos as a guide, bend and curl the edges of the lily pad with finely pointed tweezers. This creates a more realistic appearance and hides the fact that it’s a punched disk.
Again, with references at hand, paint your lily pads bright green. You can see the difference between the plain construction paper lily pad (left) and the painted one (right). Be creative.
Now, to make the lily flowers, use the small leaves punched in Part 2 (or similar), scenery lichen (yellow in this case), and leftover leaves from making ferns in Part 3 (or similar). For tools, you’ll need tweezers, a toothpick, and gel superglue.
Gather a small amount of superglue on the toothpick, dip a small section of the lichen into it, and then place the lichen in the center of the lily pad. Then carefully superglue individual leaves around the lichen tuft.
Yes, this method is tedious, but you end up with a convincing lily flower.
For these water lilies, I painted the flower leaves and placed them in glossy acrylic gel medium that I used to create ripples over cured epoxy water. The gel medium holds them in place as it dries. Note, a couple of the lily pads show yellow spots or are browning at the edges — touches like this add to the plant’s believability.
You can use plants to bring any scene to life. Here, I’ve used all four types — reeds, vines, ferns, and water lilies — to frame a small diorama and provide a pop of color to add visual interest. With a little work, you can achieve good representations of real plants by using tools and materials that you may already have in your stash or aren’t too difficult to find if you don’t. Next time you need to add some plants to your diorama or vignette try making them yourself.