Expressive Watercolor illustration: A Flower shop !

1. Introduction : Hi everyone. I'm sure it's not a sustainable watercolor artist based in Austria. My creative process focuses on capturing my surroundings, my travels, sketches all using a natural materials. And I love painting outdoors where, which is where I draw my inspiration from, because nature really provides me with a lot of fresh ideas, various colors, canes. And this is what I love doing. But since we are, since all of us cannot be in major or have half next access to nature. But we still can find inspiration to paint and keep, continue with a daily art practice. In an urban setting. Like for instance, I was running through the city to run into the woods. And I came across a flower shop. And I ended up doing this sort of urban sketch of this little flower shop, which had all sorts of spring flowers out on display. And it was a very beautiful sight to see. So in this class, I'll share with you my process of painting this compensation of a flower shop. I'll also share tips and ideas as to how to draw intuitively. Whereas pots and floors, and also reflections on those and Windows using all natural pains. So let's dive right into the class. 2. Inspiration : So I'm a kind of person who loves painting outdoors. My studio is never at home. It's a whole width outdoors, somewhere on the pavement of the city or on the top of a mountain. But in this class I'm sharing a few inspirations from my own city. I have visited a few flourish shops in recent times to look for inspiration. Because it's interestingly, inspiration for painting can come from several places and things we would have never noticed while passing by suddenly captures our retention with the everyday matching. So this is a flourish shop I came across while running recently. And you could use the same videos and photos from these videos for your own painting. Or you could simply just go exploring your own city, your own neighborhood, and look for inspiration and paint a flower shop from your own city. 3. Class Project: Your project for this class is to sketch and paint of blankness tree or a flower shop. Now you can either go exploring your neighborhood and find inspiration to paint a flower shop from your own city. Or you could just simply use the videos and photos that I have shared in the inspiration board. I will really appreciate if you would share your work in the project gallery. If you share your work on social media platform, then please use the hashtag JJ, people under schools Skillshare. And please tag me at my Instagram handle, which is Joseph people, so that I can show it some love. I can't wait to see what you create. 4. Supplies : Thank you so much for joining me in this class to begin that may go through all the supplies that are required. So we're going to be working on watercolor paper, preferably to a 100 to 200 GSM or a much heavier weight paper. Paper that is taken off to hold a bit of water. So you could either use pre-cut sheets of paper, a watercolor block, or sketchbook. I prefer using sketchbook for all my experiments and drills. This is a place where I let all my ideas percolate and you know, it's like a visual diary of my daily thoughts, imaginings and renderings. Ben and work in a sketchbook. I don't feel pressure about making it look beautiful or cohesive. This is a place where you can make a mess, do all sorts of experiments. You know, it's, it's, for me, it's, it's an essential thing to have a sketchbook. So, so yeah, you have three different choices to pick from. Okay, so those above the paper. And let's talk about brushes. So in this class, I'll be working with these three brushes. Let me just put a white background on this. So I have number 6, number 4, and number two brush. So I'll also be using pencil. Is not in particular. You could use any pencil that you like. You could even use a mechanical pencil. And I keep kneaded eraser just in case, but I usually don't use an eraser, but feel free to do so if you're not comfortable drawing or sketching, and you aim for perfection. But really this class is not about perfection. It's about letting ourselves lose and having fun painting. Okay, so now let's talk about paints. So I have this little paint palette, which is all that I use. And these are my own handmade watercolor paints are made using pigments which have been barraged or sustainability source, source, store-bought pigments. And this is where the focus of my creative process lies because I like to use natural materials, sustainably source materials. So, but you don't have to feel compelled about using everything that I'm using the same thing, make the best of whatever you have, all your art supplies. So, but yes, this is the limited palette that I'll be using primarily on earth pigments, with the exception of two plant-based, big tree plant-based pigments here. And I also have two extra pans, paint pens, which are again lake pigments, which are recently made. So this is from marigold flowers and this is a matter of root, but it is mixed with two or three foraged pigments. Pigments. So you're also going to need a jar of water. I'm mixing plate, if you like, and a rag or paper towel, whatever you prefer using. So that's it with the materials. Let's proceed to the next lesson. 5. Lesson 1: Warm up drill 1: So we'll begin doing some watercolor warm-up drills. These drills are a great way to get your creative side ready. I like doing these drills to kinda lose in myself and to quieten my rational mind. But no, really, it really helps you loosen up. And these drills are not meant for attaining perfection. It's about letting yourself lose and expressing yourself. Hey, you want to. So I've just made Foursquare's and a half labeled them down as red, yellow, blue, and green. Now you don't have to adhere to the four colors that I have chosen. You can play around with any other colors that you may like or you may want to. So I've worked with natural paints, which are derived from Earth and plants. So I have a very limited palette that I've worked with. But you don't have to stick to the colors that I'm using. So I've just laid down very medium wash of Venetian red. And I'm going to add, so I've got this hematite, which is a little bit more intense hue compared to Venetian red. And I'm going to add in a very watery wash of air, colonial red. Now, remember to always vary your brushstrokes and leave a few whitespaces here in there that kind of really pop up, pops up your sketches or your painting, you know, it adds that beautiful sparkle to your paintings. So I'm going to repeat the same technique with the remaining colors. If you are new to watercolors, then I would suggest that tomb go through some of the classes that covers the basics of this beautiful medium. There are some really nice classes on Skillshare that you can have a look at and then acute acquaint yourself and familiarize yourself, make this medium your friend. And then you will really enjoy working with watercolors. Okay? 6. Lesson 2: Warm up drill 2: So in this lesson, we will continue with more warm-up drills, but this time we're going to be doing some pots and plans. Now, pots and plants, they come in various shapes and sizes. So this is where you should let your imagination go wild. Let your creativity guide you through the process and keep away playful approach. Do not be too fixated about having your final piece looking like a real depiction. So I just drew a very simple shape of a flower pot. And just like in the previous drill, only, I'm just kind of varying the color and I just soften the edges, but just clean water. So remember to always vary your brushstrokes and to leave some white spaces. Now if he imagine that the light sources from the right-hand side, I'm putting some darks on the left and I'm not missing mixing the colors as you observe, I'm just dropping in the color and I'm letting the color do its own thing. So that's how, you know, you let the watercolor do its own magic on the paper. And I've just put down some ultramarine blue and the shadow color. And now we'll just make some plant shape. So considering now I have a pili or plant. It's right in front of me. And I'm just looking at it and I'm not so worried about having it the exam just looking at the shape. And I'm trying to just capture the essence of this plant. So, and as I do, as I'm making these branches, I'm constantly adding colors here and there to keep, to give that variation in the color. So keep it very loose and expressive. So I'm just putting in some leaves. They don't even look like the leaves that I have. But who cares? This is all about capturing the essence and just having fun. So these warm-up drills are also a great way to kind of learn about your tools, about the colors that are in your palate. You know, you learn a lot about how your pigment behaves and all sorts of watercolor nerdy stuff. I don't want to get into the details of that. So I often also use pencil, so it like a mixed media and I'm just randomly drawing some branches and putting in some leaves. And maybe I'll just take some more color and put some darks to give it a bit of depth where the plant is rising from. And maybe kind of, you know, I don't know, maybe I'll just splatter to give sort of a visual interest. Now with this blubbering, I never get that right. But I think I need to have a little bit more water to have it. But it's really it doesn't really matter that much. So I'm just taking some more color and I'm just going to kind of like put it here and there and just kind of play around with my brush, let it down on the paper. And I think, I think it's almost there. So there you go. It's really easy when you let yourself not be bogged down by the, by the, by all the rules. So having a playful approach is really necessary if you want to attain that expressive look into your final piece. 7. Lesson 3: Warm up drill 3: In this class I will demonstrate how to paint upon kid's skin. It's called posterior low in English. It's also a symbol of Easter. When you see palm kids can blooming, you know that the spring has arrived and these plants are the blooms of the procedure, a law, a very valuable food source for wildlife, especially for the bees and smaller. So for this, I'm going to, let's draw some. Let's draw these in a wider basket because let's draw it. I'm drawing inspiration from the florist I came across when I was running couple of days ago. And they have these sitting in a bamboo or a cane basket. So once again, a rough shape of the basket. And for the basket, I'm going to take, I'll take my number six brush and I'm going to take a very watery wash of yellow ocher. And I'm just gonna put it down on the paper. So once again, varying my brushstroke, I'll put some time yellow as well, just to vary the color here a bit. And leaving some white spaces, putting some color on the rim here and too much water. So just dab my brush to remove some water and I'm also going to add some orange ochre here, maybe on this side. And similarly on the top. And we're going to just put this. So for making the pound CAT scan, I will mostly be using my fine number two brush. And as we had done some practice of drawing lines before. So this is why it will come handy. I'm going to make a very watery wash of raw umber and yellow ocher. And I'm just going to start painting the branches of the palm CAT scan into the basket. And I'm going to vary the color. I'm going to drop in some color whilst it's still wet. And that's your let your creativity died. You let your, let allow your creativity to flow here because VIA, we're not achieving, as I said, perfection may just having fun painting and bring a smile on your face. Enjoy the process. It's like meditation's. It's great. So once again, I'm going to scan to put some color here and there, just vary the color. It keeps it more interesting and it's really some darks which indicates that they are in the front. And so now I'm going to clean my brush and take a very light gray tone, actually grayish, greenish tone. I just added a bit of French green earth to the gray that I make with the blue, ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. And I'm just going to lightly draw these, paint. These branches here in this blue color as well. Just makes it look more interesting. And kind of give it a distance. Evokes that they are a bit a distended and they are like behind the stack of the ones agenda front. Okay. So I think that's enough. And while I still have this gray in my brush, I'm just going to start putting the buds. Now for the buds, you just have to put tiny dots around. Don't worry about it. Just take the tip of your brush and start putting some dots here and there. These buds of the palm kids can the floor. Actually it's not about, it's a flyer in itself. So every time when you go hiking, especially during the spring, early spring time, if you walk under the trees which are pumped kid's skin. And I can really hear the beat is going crazy. Like it's really, really so loud. But it's great. It's great that the bees are getting the food. So I'm now going to the borough. I'm going to put this color down here. Maybe some burnt sienna, too much water, the brush, and just repeat the process like so. So now that the basket has dried well, just go back into it. I'll switch to my thinner brush, the number 2, and I'm taking a bit of raw umber and this time lake pigment paint. If you don't have that, you could, I think, even use quinacridone, gold or any Burgundy ocher will do. For that matter, adding Burgundy ocher mixed with the yellow ocher, yellow ocher with bunt sienna. So I'm just going to put some rim around the basket. So let's see how this goes. Just like so like it does woven. So to finish off this part, I'm just going to add some depth using a raw umber and on the rim. And I'm also adding some shadow on the right-hand side. The colors a little bit wet, but anyway, it doesn't matter, it's just drilled. Mistakes are allowed to happen and I don't call them this mistake is just part of learning. Just going to use algebra in blue once again and put the shadow down. And then we're done with this part. 8. Lesson 4: Warm up drill 4: In this lesson, we'll paint a pot containing two. Using a pencil. I just roughly sketched out a tall vase. So I'm going to mix a very watery wash of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. Put a very tiny bit of pigment here. And this is the kind of a toddler I want very pale gray. So I'm just going to put the, once again vary. You just vary your brush stroke and leave white spaces around so that it brings out the sparkle in your paintings. And I'm just going to let this like this. And I'm just going to soften the edges here a bit with the damp brush. And we'll just let it dry. In the meantime, while it's drying, what I'm gonna do is draw some leaf shapes because I want this class to have a mix of both pencil and paint, both of them. So just drawing some leaves, some tall, some short, some bend. Maybe make this a bit. Some stocks where the flowers are going to becoming out. Maybe something like this as well. Okay, so I'm going to take a number 4 brush now and we'll put some greens. So the green set, I'm going to use the mix of ultramarine blue and yellow ocher, and ultra marine, and j and indigo and yellow ocher. So that gives me two different variations of the color. And also maybe some French green earth as well. So this is ultramarine blue and yellow ocher. And I'm just going to very gently put the color here and there. Maybe I'll varied by adding some yellow ocher in middle Sunday. This just living here, I'll add some blue just to give a different variation. K, there's this leaf here, and this is a bit light on the top, and I'll just put some dark under here. So now once this dries, we'll put some darker leaves as well. But in the meantime the port is dried, so I'm going to go back with the second layer. Once again, enhancing this part. Putting the color down very gently. Moving my brush stroke as well as I go. Leaving those white spaces. Maybe I'm going to put some numbers and indigo and ultramarine blue just to give some dark shadow side of the part. Under the leaves as well. It's quite dark. So will dampen my brush, move the pigment experience out there and just soften these edges. And just let it sit. So I'll go back now to the leaves, the left a bit of color here. So I'm going to make a bit of a darker shade of the leaves to add some ultramarine blue, yellow ocher. And I'm also taking genuine indigo, the whole tree mics. And I'm going to put a leaf here. This dog here maybe. So when the valves the color is still wet. What I do is I take my pencil and I'll just draw with the pencil the shape of the leaf. So it gives a very organic look. And now I'm going to put some flowers here. I'm taking some Venetian red and just drawing some tulip shaped as tiny like a teardrop, top of a teardrop shape here. Ibm also use some yellow ocher just to give a variation and some interest. So let's just put one here. And I'm going to draw the star for the pencil. Just go down here, pull that color back here. So like this. And maybe I'll just splatter some color. And for the pot, I'm going to take some darker mix of these color, the indigo, ultramarine blue and raw amber. And I'll just put some shadow down here, like so. And put some warm colors. So this is how I painted tulips in a while. 9. Lesson 5: Warm up drill 5: Windows and doors add a great deal of character to a city's neighborhoods. And in this lesson we will look at ways to capture reflections on glass doors and windows. So I'm using a pencil and drawing some window shapes. There's nothing fancy about it. You can draw any shape that you like. It's just random shapes I have. I'm drawing out of my memory. Whatever I see around in the city that I live, the have a lot of old architecture and there are lots of different kinds of windows that you come across. So just make a few windows shapes and then we'll add color and explore ways of capturing the reflection on the glass. Now add some color to the window frames. I'm starting with number 1, and I'm taking a red ocher and I'm mixing with the burnt sienna, just like how we have done previous warm-up exercises. Always remembering to vary color as you go. I'll let that dry. Moving on the second window and choosing yellow ocher and the golden yellow color of the time paint. I'm going to add that in as well, just to pop it up a bit. And once again, the idea is to make it look organic and not very flat, to have a little bit of interests in a visual interest to your painting. We'll now add color to the glass with our glass of the window. So I'm using azurite blue, it's pure mineral pigment. I've left the whitespace, which depicts the presence of a cloud in the sky. And I just use clear water to soften the edges a bit. Once again, I'm using as red, blue up the left corner and adding some greens to depict reflection of the foliage. In the second window, I'm using radar value of indigo. And I'm also varying the amount of pigment to water ratio as I'm painting along and leaving white spaces here and there. Then on the glass panel of the door, I am once again adding some paint and using clear water to sort of soften the edges with the whitespace was. And in the second panel, I've just vary the color and repeating the same method of softening the edges and leaving a few white spaces. In the third window, I'm using a very pale wash of ultramarine blue. And I'm leaning barrel whitespaces toward the bottom edge. Then I'm using some green re-framed clean, depicting the reflection from the outside environment onto this, onto the glass window. So in this exercise, you don't really have to follow as I'm doing. You can play around with the colors as you please. Okay, so in the fourth window, I am using wireless of the long would a lake pigment paint. And I added a bit of red into it. I added a little bit too much of pigment there, but this is just a practice skipped so it doesn't really matter. But this kind of depicts the, there is some kind of light that is switched on inside the room or the apartment or a shop. So this is how you could play around capturing reflections on glass doors and windows. 10. Lesson 6: Flower shop Part 1: So in this class we can finally paint our florist shop. So to begin with, I'm just roughly sketching out the Purusha from reference photo. I just took a screenshot of the video that I made of a flower shop in my city. And I'm just blocking in the big shapes. I'm not really very particular, very concerned about having the lines to be straight and perfect. Wonky lines are also good. And just putting in some pops and shelves here and there. And I'll add further details when I start adding color to the sketch. Now that the sketch is done, I will start adding color to the, to this. And I'm making a very dilute wash. of ultramarine blue with one of my foraged paint. It's actually very much more or less like burnt sienna. So I guess you have burnt sienna you or a neutral paint in your palette. Just make a very dilute wash. to get a grayish color. And I'm just going to lay it down on the background. I've just tilted the paper a little bit so that the water flows down and I can just pull it, pull the paint with the peak of the pigment and the water further all the way to the bottom. And if you have a flat brush, go ahead and use that because it makes it much more easier. I'm really used to working outdoors with round or a dagger brush. So I generally always tend to forget that I could simply use a flat brush to simplify the process a little bit, make it more easier. But anyway, it's all about having, having fun anyway. So, so what I've had it, I've also added yellow ocher, just a tiny dash of a very diluted yellow ocher. We are basically doing a wet in wet technique at the moment. So I'm also adding some dirty pool of color I had in my palette. Just to add some interests. We're going to let it dry before we start adding more color to the sketch. Now that the paper has dried, I'm going to start adding color to the pots and the technique is the same. Whatever you did. Or I demonstrated in the warm-up lessons. Just apply the same technique when you are painting pots, you can add extra parts without a pencil schedule. So if you're like, this is where you should be going crazy with the imagination. Imagine this to be flourish shop that you own. And if you are a plant lover, put the plants that you really love to have in a flower shop. So I'm not going to be. I'm not really fixated about capturing exactly as I saw in the flower shop or as you saw in the reference photo. This is just a very simplified and expressive rendition of the subject that I've chosen to paint. So as you can observe, I'm just varying the colors of the pots. And in this sketch JAM, I am kind of imagining the light to be falling from the left-hand side. So you can see that I've put the shadow colors towards the right, on the right side of the pots. I'll continue painting the pots and I'll meet you after that. To add color to this stool. A wooden stove, Sam, using a raw umber here. And I'm adding a bit of burnt sienna and a few spots here and there to give a color variation to this object. Yes. In this case. 11. Lesson 7: Flower shop Part 2: We'll now begin adding plants to our pots. Once again, I'm using different shades of greens to add plant shapes. There is no specific plant I'm painting here just out of imagination. So here you can go really crazy with the imagination. The kind of plants that you would like in a flower shop to be seen. Because remember this is a very simplified and expressive rendition of capturing. I'm a flower shop. It's, it's not about, you know, I've said this n number of times. But this is not about capturing the real subject that we have or we are seeing in front of us. So since I love using mixed media, especially loved working with pencils, I'm going to make a pot with pencil as well. And if you like, you could just use any other medium, such as a fountain pen or a ballpoint pen, whatever you feel like, or you could just leave it like that. So I'm just going to start adding different kinds of plants that I had observed in the flower shop that I visited RAM a little while ago. And I'll meet you after that. No. Yes. So we now start adding color to the frame of the glass door. And I'm using burnt sienna. And I'm as I'm adding color into those frames and varying the color, just like we did for the pots. So towards the bottom I'm adding a little bit of a darker shade of the, of the Earth's pigment. And I'm just going to keep doing it till the entire frame is completed. I'm now going to add color to the window. So I'm going to use integral to add color towards the edge of that thrill of the awning. And using clean water, I'm just softening the edges and pulling the color a little bit down. And as I'm doing this while the window is still wet, I'm also adding in some greens and yellows to kind of depict the reflections of the plans. Please pardon me? Because as I was recording how to paint the windows, my phone did not record it and I had to repaint my redo my sketch. So it doesn't look identical to this one, but focuses here on how to pay in the reflection on the windows are so speak the glass. So I'm going to redo this, and hopefully it works this time. Okay, so I'm adding a very dark value of indigo. And I'm also adding a bit of log would lake a purple color just to vary the color bed and leaving some white spaces. And I'm going to do the same thing on the glass door as well. Starting with the very kind of a mid value of the integral than taking just clean water. I've just soften the edges. Kind of giving it a hint of sort of reflection on the glass door and pulling the color all the way down just with water. And I'm going to add very dark value on towards the corner. Then in the next glass door, I have started. I used ultramarine blue that I've just popped in some indigo and similar technique of just use water to soften the edges and then again add some darker values in the world towards the, towards the bottom edge of the glass door. And moving on to the glass window. Once again, I use, I'm using indigo to put them darker value or target the top edge. And I'm putting in some little bit of hint of yellows and greens to evoke sort of reflection from the plants data in front of the glass window. And adding darker value underneath that stool with lemon tree is sitting. I will now add a shadow to the pots and also on the wall. So I'm using just a mix of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. And I'm also adding some shadows underneath that tool, making a little bit darker, where there is shadow from the pots falling onto the wall side, and a very dark edge towards the bottom of the glass door as well. Now begin adding color to the awning. So I've taken a very watery wash of initial read and I've just laid it down, I will let this color dry. And in the meanwhile, I'm just writing the name of the shop. It was actually quite long. I just shortened it. And I'm going with another layer of colors to add onto the pots to give it a little bit of depth to them as a loop pretty flat at the moment. And also adding a little bit more shadow, adapt to the shadows as well. Now using a darker value of Venetian red, I'm just going to paint the stripes of the awning over a roughly. Not too worried about them being imperfect, having a perfect straight line. Just quickly going to add those color to it. Then using my pencil, I'm just drawing the lines to define it, the stripes and a little bit then made a mistake there. I just didn't realize that anyway, I'm using a kneaded eraser. Digits, removed that graphite line and just adding a bit of shadow color, very, very pale wash of it. The sum sale or awning as you call. And a few more splatters here and there. And we are almost there, I think. Just last bit left to put some greens in that flower box. Using some indigo as well. It's a very aggressive color, just spreads out like empathy. So I think and also add a bit of depth to those tulips and some flowers and that little part on the shelf. And so with that, we finish painting a flower shop. And I'm going to sign it. Remember to always sign your paintings. I hope you had fun painting along with me. 12. Thank you + Perks: Thank you so much for joining me in this course. I hope that you really enjoyed painting along with me. I would love to see what you create, so please do share your projects in the project gallery. And I'll see you again very soon in another class. Thank you so much. Since this was my first Skillshare class, I'm also offering some Skillshare perks. If you have been launching to add another arsenal to your already existing creative skills and would like to learn to make your own handmade watercolors. Then I'm offering a discount of 20 percent on my online course, the watercolor paint making workshop. You can find this course in the link below. Please make sure that you apply the coupon code, which is Skillshare 20. The full course includes comprehensive information and covers topics such as different classes of pigments, types of pigments, toxic versus non toxic pigment tools required for making the paints. Safe and responsible ways to carry out the paint making, process and disposal of the waste in an environmentally responsible manner. There is also a bonus lesson included on making paints using Webflow goods of life. And you can also download an e-book lead for reference. You also receive lifetime access to the entire course and any lessons that are added as an update to the course, you will have free access to those as well. After taking this course, you will feel qualified, confident, and inspired to begin your own journey as an eco conscious, sustainable artist. Thank you so much once again for checking out this course. Take care and remember to keep nurturing your creative side because it's a very beautiful gift. Nella, stay.