King Penguin Watercolor - Keeping it Simple

1. Introduction: Hi and welcome. My name is Nadine. I'm an Australian watercolor artist based in Melbourne. And today I'm going to take you through painting a King Penguin. Now, there are three things that I really want you to take away from the lesson today. The first is to keep it simple. I'm a believer that less is more with watercolor and you need to let the paint, do the work for you, and you need to not overthink it, which can be difficult. The second thing is about getting your tonal contrast, right So getting your darks dark enough without leaving streakiness on the page and keeping the lights light enough so that the painting really pops when you're finished. And the third thing is about getting soft blends wet in wet. So dropping pigment into a wet page and letting the paint do its own thing and not fiddling, which is really difficult to do, to not touch. So the way this will work, I'll go through the materials, I'll go through the sketch, and then we'll do the painting step-by-step. And I've broken it up into lots of small parts so you can paint a bit, take a breath, have a coffee, paint the next bit. You don't have to go start to finish all the way through. And really while you're painting, what I want you to keep in mind is that it's just a piece of paper. So I really want you to relax into it and enjoy it. 2. Materials: And we'll go through all the materials that you're going to need for this lesson before we get painting. So to start with the paper, I paint pretty much exclusively on Arches, cold pressed paper. This one's 300 grams. If you have a favorite paper, that's completely fine, use what you like. The only thing I would say about the paper, make sure you use a good quality paper. If you use a cheaper brand, chances are you'll get a pretty unsatisfactory results and you'll just end up getting frustrated. So buy a good brand of paper, now I actually don't tape my paper to the board or pre-stretch it because I'm lazy and I hate the preparation involved in that. If the wobbling, so I've got some buckling here. If that bothers you, then spray or paint the front and the back of the paper and tape it down to the board and let it dry completely so you get a nice flat surface to paint on. What I tend to do is I wait to see if I actually like the painting. If I do, then I would spray the back of the painting and weigh it down under books for a couple of days to stretch it out once I know that I'm happy with the work. You'll need a HB pencil and just a regular eraser. I don't tend to go in for the kneadable eraser, so I've just stolen this from my kids pencil case. You'll need some tissue or toilet paper and palette. So now this is probably something about my personality, I'm not very tidy in my palette. I tend to squeeze out paint as I need it, largely because if I want really strong color, you're better off having paint straight from the tube rather than sitting in the palette and letting it dry up and you've got to add a lot of water, to get it moving, so I do tend to squeeze out fresh. I do know people that have got beautiful palettes that are all set out with the colors in order. That's completely fine if you want to do that, I can't maintain that. So I've just accepted that I'm going to have a messy, messy palette. I've got a couple of pots of water and then my brushes. So I've got a couple here. I've got two little synthetics for the detail, doesn't matter what brand of those. Now I've got two Neef brushes. I quite like that brand, you probably have a favorite brand. I've got one for doing most of the work. This is a size 8 series 4750 LP, squirrel taklon mix, and I like it because it comes to a nice point and it holds a lot of water so you can get get a fair distance with that brush. And then I've also got for lifting out some highlights so I've got a Neef bright stiff synthetic brush. So this is nice and hard. Now the paint. So most of the dark here that you see is actually Daniel Smith indigo now, the brand of indigo actually does matter, so they're all quite different. I find that the Daniel Smith is a really nice strong black, basically whereas some of the others have got a lot more blue in them. So I do tend to buy Daniel Smith for that. I've got yellow and red from Daniel Smith. You could use cad red and cad yellow or really whatever you've got floating around in your palette, I happen to have some Daniel Smith pyrol red and some hansa yellow medium. And that's just for the orange in the beak. The chest I'm using some Winsor Newton burnt sienna and some Winsor Newton quinacridone gold. So the burnt sienna is just a little orange that you see in the top there. And the Quincaridone gold is the yellow of the chest Yeah. The only other paint that I'm using is just a touch of white gouache. I use Art spectrum white gouache. The brand doesn't really matter. It just so happens that this is a good price and a reasonably sized, reasonably sized tube . A lot of the tubes are really big and I never get through enough to use it. So I try and buy a smaller tube. Now that's it for paint, now the reference photo. So you'll be able to download this from the site. This is a King penguin from my local aquarium. And there is also a template of the sketch. If you get stuck with that. I think we're ready to start with a sketch. 3. Sketching Up: So we'll start off with the sketch. I'm using a regular HB pencil and I've just got a normal eraser here. Really the main thing to note about the sketch, and if you want to paint loosely, you need to keep the sketch simple. The more detail you put in at this point, the tighter and the fussier you'll get with the actual painting. So put as little as possible in I'm not painting the feet here, I'm not grounding the bird. I'm just painting from the bottom of the tummy up. And I'm giving myself the outline of the bird. I'm not worrying about these details of the darks under the wings or any of this feathering, anything like that. Just really keep it simple. I do want to take note and give myself where this orange part is in the beak and this yellow at the back of the head because I need to be careful that I don't paint that in when we're going to do it. So the other thing to say is to keep the pencil quite light. I've done this a little bit darker than I would normally, just so that you can see, but it can be quite hard to get the pencil off underneath light colors. So obviously it will be fine underneath the darks, but along the tummy where it's a little bit lighter. If the pencil is very heavy, it can be hard to get that to get that out. So keep the pencil sketch fairly light. Now, I do, I do encourage you to sketch it yourself just because I think the more you sketch, the more practice, the better you get. But if you're really struggling, I've also put up a template for you that you can download and you can use on a light box or you can trace. So we're really ready to start painting now. 4. Wings: Now we're going to start off the painting using some indigo. And we're going to start in the wings. I've got my size 8 neef brush here it comes to a really nice point and it holds quite a lot of paint and water. I'm going to squeeze out because I want this dark, I'm going to squeeze out fresh paint from the tube into my palette. So I've got a lump of paint in here. And I've got a couple of pots, of clean water here because I'm using indigo. I've got a couple of pots because the water will get mucky very quickly. And I've also got some toilet paper, towel, whatever you've got around. Now, what I'm going do to start with is I'm going to paint a line of indigo along this wing. Then I'm going to wash my brush and I'm going to drag water underneath and let the paint bleed. A clean brush. I'm going to pick up a lump of indigo. Now I want this to be probably creamy, creamy to toothpaste consistency. So I've got a whole lot of paint on my brush. I'm going to start probably in the tip of the wing here and I'm going to push down as I come up and lift off as I come up to the top of the shoulder there so that I've got a finer line up the top and wash my brush. I'm going to get clean water. And I'm going to start underneath the wing here. And I'm just going to paint the page with water. So I'm coming along that pencil line, just painting the page. I haven't touched my indigo yet. Bit more water. So I'm not flooding the page, it's just damp. Then what I'm going do is I'm going to touch to that indigo. And I'm just going to let the paint do its own thing. Clean my brush again, I'm going to bring some water down, do the same thing in the tip here, of the wing. So I've just touched with my brush and I'm dragging that pigment around the page is all wet there. Now I will come back and add more to this later, but this is just to get the shape of the wing and to start to get a few of these bleeds that are more interesting than if I just painted straight onto the page. Now here I'm going to wash my brush, take off the excess, and just tease this up into that shape. On the shoulder there into the neck. Now I'm going to worry about what's happening in there later, not going to worry about that yet. And I'm going to do a similar thing on the other side. So here I'm going to take, again, I'm dry at the moment. Take a creamy toothpaste, mix of indigo. I might start this time on the top of the wing. Come on, push down with my brush. Then I'm lifting up and coming around the corner. Wash my brush, clean water now. Check my brush is clean. So again, I don't want I don't want the brush soaking. I want a bit of water, but I don't want to absolutely flood it, painting the page. So getting all of this underneath the wing, wet first, then coming along and touching to that indigo. Bit more ran out of water there. So I just want a little bit of movement and want the paint to do its own thing. I came a little bit out of my pencil lines there, so just tidy that up. And I'm going to put my brush. I just got bit more water. So I missed up there. So I'm just going to let that run. Now here what I want to do is really avoid the temptation to fiddle. I just want to get out there and let it do whatever it wants. I'll keep an eye on this little bleed here, so it's gone a little bit further. So I'm going to take some water and just push that back a bit so I'm wicking off, I've got a clean brush, putting it onto that edge and wicking off the water. I don't tend to dab with a tissue usually so I'm just keeping an eye on where that was bleeding and now I'm going to sit back and see what happens with that. So no touchy here. Let it let it bleed. 5. Head: Then while that's all drying, knowing that I've got more to add, more to do in there, I'm going to leave it alone and I'm going to come up onto the head. Now here, I want this color on the head to be really strong. Now I won't get it in the first hit, I won't get enough pigment on it. It will dry a little bit lighter. So it's going to take a couple of coats I do want to be careful not to see, be able to see dry brush marks. So I need enough water in my pigment to be able to move through that shape without leaving dry strokes. So to do that, I'm going to make up a milky to creamy mix of my indigo. And I'm going to start on the tip of the beak here. And I'm not going to paint into this orange part. I'm going to paint over this little spot I've got for the eye and I'm going to stay out of this little yellow bit at the end there. So I'm going to come on. I've got my milky to creamy mix of paint, tip down, one stroke, and then push down on my brush as I come around. Get some more pigment. Push down. Now I'm giving myself a little bit of space around that orange bit in the beak that I'll back fill later. Pushing down. I'm dry here now so it doesn't matter if I touch that bit of the neck. What you don't want to have happen is that, you want to move quickly enough that this doesn't dry on you before you've got the first wash on. So you need to move reasonably quickly, grab some more paint over the top of the head. And I don't I tend to start trying I'm trying to start in the middle of the shape and push out to avoid me making the shape bigger than it actually is, rather than starting on the pencil line and coming in. So I'm pushing out to that pencil edge. Now I want to keep a little bit of light on the top of this beak. So what I'm going to do is wash my brush not completely. I've still got pigment on it take off the excess water, so I'm touching it to my tissue and I'm just going to drag my brush along that, wash my brush take off the excess water. And I'm going to fill in that shape all the way to where the orange starts. Okay. Now I need to come out of that and not fiddle in there. It is going to dry lighter. And I will have to touch up these little spaces around where I've left the white between the pencil line and the dark, but I don't want to fiddle in there now and I certainly don't want to introduce a whole lot more water. So being careful when I added this top of the beak, I had less water on my brush. Than in the page because if I added a whole lot of water there, it would form a cauliflower and push all this pigment out and I'd get a bloom which I don't want. So less water on the brush than the page when you put the top of that beak in. Now I need to get out of that and let that dry. 6. Wings Second Layer: Now I'm fully dry down here on the wing, so I'm, I'm happy with the shape, so I can come back in here now and do, do some more work in here. And what I'm going to do is think about this dark along the edge of the chest here. Now to help me out. I'm going to go with some water first. I'm going to take a clean brush and I'm going to paint. I'm going to paint with some water. Underneath his armpit effectively touching up to that. Indigo on the wing, and I'm going to paint a little bit of water down the side there. Now that because this indigo indigo will keep bleeding for a long time. So even though that's dry, I'm still getting a little bit of bleeding there. So I'm just going to wash my brush and just drag that water down. So all I've done, I've painted with water in the area where I think I'm going to go now I'm bringing the water up a little bit up to the top of the neck here, I don't want to get really dark in this part of the neck. So I'm just letting the water move up a little bit there. And again, I'm not soaking I'm just damp I'm going to take now some same sort of consistency actually as for the head. So milky to cream, creamy paint. I've got here and I'm going to paint a line along the tummy along the chest, push down, come up. I'm going to just tidy up my shape here. Painting in to that top of the shoulder. I think I might let that dark walk in there as well. So now I'm going to wash my brush. I'm going to let this move a bit more. So wash my brush, clean water, and I'm just going to let that tease down a bit. So I'm just adding a little bit more water. And I'll see what that paint does. Now I can see here I'm getting a bit of a line where I wet the page to, so I'm going to soften that back, get some clean water while it's still a bit damp and just paint over that join and drag that water down. Okay. Now I reckon I'm quite damp in here. So I'm going to put in this dark its a little bit wider he're. So I'm going to grab while the page is wet, grab bit more indigo. I'm just going to drop that in. And really the reason I'm wetting I'm wetting the page first is I want these soft bleeds. I don't want really hard lines wash my brush, clean water. And I'm just going to I've taken the excess off my brush. I'm just going to drag that down. So I'm just worrying that edge. Now, if I add a whole lot of water in here, all this pigment, it, I'll just get a great big mess. So I have to again, be careful that at this point I've got less water on my brush. Than in my page. And I can feel now I'm starting to fiddle. So I need to come out of there and just let it do its own thing because I'm starting to puddle and I'll getting into strife. So I'm just going to stop, stop that bit. I'm going to have a look down here. And I want a little bit more dark on the tip of the wing. So I'm going to take some water. I'm going to drop that in. Again. I'm damp, not saturated all the way to the tip. Then I'm going to pick up that same creamy mix of paint. And I'm going to drop that in. And I'm going to let it do its own thing. Now, if you if you put that on and the paint doesn't move at all, just drop a bit more water. That's all it means is that you don't have enough water in there. So I'm going to see how that how that behaves. Now on this side, I'm going to put on a little bit more color underneath his armpit there so I'm going to wash my brush. I'm just going to paint with water. That whole shape I think. Down and to the tip of the wing here. Because I want to add some more dark like we did here. And the tip. Then I pick up my indigo, I'm going to start in the tip first. because I've got a lot of pigment on the brush there. And then I'm just going to put a bit more paint in there. I'm going to wash my brush and I'm going to soften I've got a clean, damp brush. And I'm just going to run my brush along the age. Tidy up where it meets the chest. 7. Beak and Neck: Now, while I'm drying through there, I'm going to come up and think about the orange and yellow that I have in the head now for this you have to have clean water. So I've just changed my pots of water because it's very easy to get mucky with oranges and yellows. So clean pot, clean brush. Now I think I might use slightly smaller brush for the yellow here. So I've gone to a little synthetic brush. This is a size 0, I think. So any any small synthetic is fine. And I'm going to come in and just paint the back of the head here. with I've got some Hansa yellow here. So I'm making sure my brush is clean and I'm going to pick up I'm going onto dry paper. I'm not going to touch that indigo edge because that will still bleed. Pick up some yellow and just pop that pop that in. And this is one of those areas where the pencil will be hard to get off under yellow. So you can back that pencil off first before you paint it, if you remember. So I've got the yellow and then just down where that yellow is coming in to meet the neck line there, I'm just going to drop just a touch of some burnt sienna here. Tiny bit of burnt sienna. Just to make it a little bit darker, the bottom, I'm going to take the excess off my brush and just the gap between the yellow and the indigo there, I will close up once it's all dry. I'm just avoiding touching those two now you could of course, you could paint the yellow and the orange first before you paint anything else. I tend to do, I tend to do the head and the beak first because I want to make sure I've got the beak shape, right, but depends how comfortable you are not mixing your darks and your lights. Now I'm going to come into this part of the beak. Here I'm going to use it's much more orange, so I'm going to use a little bit of my Hansa yellow and a little bit of, I've got some pyroll red in here. So I'm going to pick up, bit of my red bit of my yellow. And I'm just going to come straight on the page, again, being careful not to touch well trying not to touch that indigo. Coming as close to it as I can. And I might actually drag a bit more yellow along the top. So I've just washed my brush. I'm going to pick up some more Hansa yellow. I'm just going to run that on the top. And then I'm going to let it bleed now if it if it needs to be darkened and I can do that later, I've got the shape right, I'm happy that I haven't touched my indigo, so I'm going to just come out of that and let that dry and I'll come back and touch that up if I need to. Okay. I'm going to come back in here and look at these two areas. So I want a little bit more strength of my indigo in the shoulder there. And I want a little bit of dark along that edge. So I might try and take my small brush. I'm going to grab some indigo, thick paint. And I'm going to drag a line of paint along that edge so that paper's dry there. Then I'm going to wash my brush, and I'm going to take take off the excess moisture and I'm going to paint with water and just touch that indigo on the head there, and on that little line that I drew, clean my brush that I painted rather and soften that off. Now, the reason I'm doing this is that I want soft transitions. I want this line to bleed a little bit. And this is a good exercise in seeing how much water, how far your pigment goes depending on how wet your page is. So I've just, it's softened this line a little bit and I've got a bit more strength of color in my shoulder here, my neck. And I'll just let that dry and see what it does. I think I'll probably have to put a little bit more indigo on there to because I'm lifting paint at the moment. So I need to, this is telling me get out, let it dry, come back fix it once it's dry. Similar thing we're going to do on the other side. I'm going to clean my brush, take up a little bit, I've not got much water on my brush, fairly thick paint, I'm going to paint that line down and under my yellow is dry now, so I can paint that line under. Wash my brush. So now I'm painting with water. Well, dirty brush, dirty brush and water, but I didn't mean to that to be dirty. Preferably clean. Painting the dry page and coming up and touching that indigo. And just letting that pigment move around, come out and let that dry. 8. Lifting Highlights in the Wings: Now I have to stay out of that, for a bit . while that's drying, what I'm going to do I'm just going to show you with a stiff brush to lift a highlight. So I've got this bright stiff synthetic brush. All I'm going to do is I'm going to put that in some clean water. And I'm going to lift a little bit of paint along the top of this wing. So I'm pushing pretty hard, coming off, washing my brush again. So I'm trying to lift some pigment, but if you don't keep washing your brush, nothing will happen. It won't, it won't move. So you've got to keep push, wash your brush, take off the excess. So you have to keep doing it but you've got to keep washing that brush. Now this is not all papers will lift as easily. So I find that arches is really good for lifting. So test it out on a scrap before you commit to doing this. So I'm just trying to give myself just a touch of a highlight along that wing, maybe one more. But if you don't keep cleaning your brush, all you do is keep pushing pigment around. All right, so I'll come out come out of that now and do the same thing on the other side clean my brush. Just a touch on top of this wing. clean my brush again. So the brush needs to be clean and damp. Maybe one more. Okay. So don't need much just a little bit of a highlight. 9. Chest: Okay, so where we're going go next is we're going to come into the chest. Now. I'm going to use a little bit of burnt sienna and quinacridone gold on the chest. Down the bottom, we're going to use a little bit of indigo just to round him up a little bit, give him a bit of shadowing. So I'm going start up the top with my bigger brush still, but I need to make sure this is clean. And what I want to do is paint with clean water in this chest area because I want this all to be soft bleeds. I don't want to brushstrokes here. So coming onto the page, I'm going to paint with water further down than I need, the color to go. And I'm not going to touch the indigo wing. Try and keep out of all that Indigo. I'll hold it up and show you how damp it is in a second out to that pencil line. And again, if this pencil line is heavy, that will be a problem. So back it off with your eraser first. If it's still, if it's quite dark, I'm not going to touch that indigo on the head because that will run. So I'm staying out of that. I have can see there i'm I'm damp but I'm not absolutely. I don't have puddles, puddles and puddles of water. Now I'm going to take some quinacridone gold sorry, I'm going to take some burnt sienna, I've got my burnt Sienna and dropping it into the top. And then I'm going to switch to quinacridone gold. And I'm going to drop that in. Now I need to add my burnt sienna is too weak at the top. So I'm going to clean my brush, pick up paint with less water in it now. And just now that that page is wet, drop that in. And then down the bottom here. And now I need to wash my brush because I'm flat, the paint is just sitting on. I'm not running it, it's just sitting and pooling. I'm going to clean my brush and I'm just going to tease that yellow quinacridone gold down. But I want less water in my brush than on the page. And I'm going to drag that out just gently to meet my pencil edge as close to that indigo edge as I can. And the trick here is you now have to not touch it. Which is a difficult thing to do now I can see my brush wasn't completely clean, so I've got a little bit of a can see the line my joint down here. So I'm just going to get a bit more water and just soften that off. So I'm just painting with clean water, dragging that line down so the page is wet to dry coming down. I can also see I've got a little white spot there, so I'll just drag that out. Now we can always add more to this if we need to, hard to take off. So try and try and resist the urge to fiddle. 10. Second Layer on Head and Neck: Okay, now while that's all settling in and drying. I'm going to come back up to the head now I did say that I thought I would probably have to go darker, do a second coat to get this dark enough. But actually it is, I've had a fair bit of pigment on I probably need to be a little bit darker underneath the beak. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to close up this gap and I'm going to strengthen the dark just underneath the beak here. So I'm going on to dry fully dry here and take my size 8 neef, I'm going to get a little bit of water on my brush. I want this paint, quite thick. Little bit of water on my brush and I've got a nice tip so I can get underneath here, restate that dark, and bring close the gap up inbetween the orange and the indigo. Now I don't have quite enough water. So my paints not really moving, so I don't have enough water in my pigment, so I just need a bit more. I'm going to actually get somewhere. Okay. Now you can do this with a really small brush if you prefer. This brush comes to quite a nice sharp point. So I'm comfortable that I can get the detail without having to switch to a tiny brush. The advantage being is that I can get further without having to reload pigment. And then on the top here close up that gap. I'm going to wash my brush, take off the excess, and drag my clean. I don't have any pigment on there, but I'm just dragging my brush over the area that I just was in underneath here too because I don't want to see the dry strokes. So I'm just going to paint pretty much with water just so that you don't see the patchiness. When you've got such a strong color. Well, such a large amount of pigment. And then I'm going to close up the gap here as well. So again, if your bigger brush doesn't come to a nice tip, you can switch to a smaller brush. And I think I'm dry here. So I can close up the gap for my burnt sienna to my indigo here. So I just don't want any whites. Okay, and now I want, while I'm in here with this indigo, I want a little bit darker on this side. I'm just going to paint with water and paint that area down. And because I've just been in there with that indigo, I should be able to get that to bleed. So I'm touching where I've just filled in that gap. And that pigment will run down to that shoulder. If the pigment doesn't run, you can just pick up some more indigo and drop that in. And that's just about dark enough. And that's that nice soft grey. 11. Shadows: So I want to come and put a shadow. A little bit of indigo on the chest, I've got little bits of dust everywhere. So what I'm going to do again with my size 8, clean brush, clean water, hopefully cleanish. Yep. I'm just going to So I'm dry here. Now. I'm just going to drag some water through his tummy. I'm not saturated. Damp. Then I'm going to pick up some milky consistency indigo. And I'm not going to start up here. I want it lighter up. here than down here, so I'm going to start in the middle and just drop some pigment on so that I don't, if I put the pigment on, it's really dark. It's a pain to have to lift off. So I'm just testing out to see the strength of my pigment, moving that around, washing my brush and take the excess off my brush and just tidy up where I want these edges. And I want to be stronger with the shadow in the tummy here and then have it disappear because I'm not painting the feet and the land. I just want to disappear off the bottom there. Now I said I don't normally dab, but down this very bottom bit, I'm just going to back that off. I'm just conscious that I want it lighter. Dragging into my pencil edge. Now with this, you are much better off putting it on, letting it dry and strengthening it if you need to, than going too strong initially and not being able to get it off. So I'm just walking that water up onto my dry page and I've got a nice soft, I've got some granulation. It's nice and soft. It's not quite dark enough I don't think , but I don't if I add a whole lot more pigment there now. I'm going to have to flood the page and lift it off and I'll get myself into a mess. So I'm going to let that dry and then I'll come back and strengthen that if I need to strengthen it. Now when I look at these, I also need to, while I'm working with these shadows, I need to put a little bit more dark underneath this wing too, because it's the underside of the wing now it's fully dry on each. So all I'm going to do is go on with the milky wash of indigo. Maybe test out before I do it, just test out the strength. Yeah. Maybe that's a bit too dark. So I want to know how much water I've got in there. Probably that kind of intensity. It's going to come straight on. With that milky wash onto the dry page and just paint that whole wing. And I'm going to do the same on the other side, so milky and just strengthen that. So although it's white underneath the wing, there is actually a fair bit of tone, dark tone, I should say, underneath the wing. Okay. Maybe a bit more here. 12. Finishing the Head: Okay, I'm going to come back up to the head. Now I've got a little bit of patchiness a little bit of streakiness here that I'm going to tidy up. So I'm going to fully dry here. I'm gonna get some creamy paint. And I'm just going to paint over that head and smooth out. I could see a couple of brush strokes which I don't want. I want this to be nice and flat. Just going to paint the whole area. And then I have to think about how I'm reconciling what I'm doing with that beak there. So I'll wash my brush, take off the excess water, and just blend from the top of that beak down into the actual beak. So I don't want a really solid join in there. Okay. Now, if you don't have a highlight on the top of the beak there, you can do a similar thing to what we did on the wing. So I can sort of a bit hard I've got pencil lines there still see pulls the eye, a little, I've washed my brush, take off the excess. So I've got the bright flat white brush again. I can come in here and lift a highlight. Now the only thing you have to be careful of when you're doing that is that this will push the pigment to the edge. So you can very easily make that shape bigger, which you don't want to do. So you've got to watch that you're not going outside the lines. So I can get if you didn't have a highlight, you can get it in by doing that and it's. I've got pencil lines still here that I can't rub out yet because this is still very wet. So I have to wait until that dries. Now I also think I want to pull a little bit of highlight into that yellow. Now I have just been, I've just had this brush in indigo, so I've got to really make sure it's clean. I'm going to wash the brush, take the excess off. And just in here, just going to see if I can just drag a bit more light in. So I'm just running it along that top bit of the orange. Wash my brush again. And now I'm just going to soften that. So I'm just going to then pull that down into the base just to give myself a little bit of a highlight. Now when I'm doing that. And this, this is just to get a little bit more interest in there, but I've got to be careful not to touch the indigo or that will drag all that indigo into the orange and I'll lose that nice color. Now I also think while I'm in this head on, I actually think I probably want that a little bit darker. So this time, I'm going to take my little synthetic I'm going onto dry paper with a little bit of indigo. Wash my brush. And I'm just going to move that around. Just want that to be one shade darker. Okay. Now for the eye, I'm not going to. All I'm going do is give myself a little line of gouache, a little semicircle with gouache and add little white spot. Gouache is, a little bit goes a long way and you can get into strife pretty quickly. So you only want to use a tiny bit. And I'm not actually being true to the reference. I'm not painting in the iris and all of that. I just want the suggestion of the eye sticking with the less is more thing. So I paint, obviously I painted over where I thought my eye was going to be. So now I've got to guess. So I'm looking at my reference. And I am going to take, this is a really little synthetic one is a triple o round that has got terrible bristles on it now, but I'm going to wet the brush and drop it into my tube paint a little bit on my tissue. Then I'm going to guess where I think the eye might be. So I think probably, it's probably around here. Beauty of this being that if you get it wrong, you can color it back in with the indigo right there. I've popped a little line. Then I'm going to wash my brush, take off the excess, and I'm just going to drag my damp brush along it because I don't want it really, really bright. I just want the suggestion there, so I'm softening it off by dragging that brush through it. Then I'm going to take one more spot. And I'm just going to pop a little highlight, but not quite enough paint back three quarters of the eye I guess, just in there. And that's all I'm gonna do for the suggestion of the eye. 13. Finishing the Tummy: Okay, so the last thing I really want to do is I just need to strengthen off underneath the tummy. I've got a nice soft shadow. I just want him a little bit darker through the middle here. And now that it's dry, I can do that without getting into trouble. So I'm going to take my size 8, neef my, slightly bigger brush. I'm going to do the same thing of I'm going to wet down with clean water. Was meant to be clean. So damp it down. Coming up a little bit further than I want to go. Then picking up my milky Indigo and just dropping that in, taking off the excess off my brush and just pushing it around. Wash my brush let it soften down the bottom. And you can do this as many times as you like until you get the intensity. Until you get the tone right And I would rather add it dry, have a look add it, let it dry. and have look rather than going too dark and not being able to lift it because it's really difficult, particularly with indigo because it's such a staining color. You really can't you can't get it off once you've got it on. So I'm going for that really soft feel and just tucking him under. I've got a line here. So I'm going to drag that up a bit and come up to meet my yellow. I'm just keeping an eye on that edge down the bottom. And so I don't want to get because that that water and the pigment is sitting on the wet edge, it's going to form a line. So I don't I don't want to hard line down the bottom, so I need to keep taking the excess off my brush and just soften that back so just running the damp clean brush along it to help wick up the water and not form a really hard edge. So then I need to be patient and let that dry to see if it's strong enough. The only other thing I'm just looking and thinking I probably can strengthen up my color here. So what I'm actually going to do, I'm going to use my small synthetic nearly finished. I'm going to dampen. I'm, I'm going to use the quinacridone gold for this over the top of the burnt sienna. So I will get some clean water, just check that my brush is clean. I'm going to paint that further than I want to go. So I'm painting over the quinacridone gold. There bringing that up. When I get to the burnt sienna. Now I'm going to switch and get some of my quinacridone gold. And I'm going to paint over that burnt sienna. I just want the intensity of that color to be a little bit stronger. But I also want that to blend into the quinacridone gold. underneath I don't want to hard line, which is why I painted the page first. Because if I painted with the quinacridone gold fist and then tried to drag it down. I'd be chasing the line of the quinacridone gold down where as if, I wet the page first and let it bleed. I'll get that soft transition. But definitely now starting to fiddle, I need to let this dry a 100 percent. Then I need to come back, rub off those pencil lines and make sure I haven't left any gaps anywhere or when. For example, If I rub out this pencil line, whether these two join, I might have to tidy up in there, but it needs to be a 100 percent dry, particularly when it's indigo because we don't have a background it's really easy to drag paint through and ruin it. So I'm going to be good have a coffee and let that dry and we'll come back and have a look. So I've just gone ahead and rubbed out all my pencil lines and the only thing that I can see that I probably need to fix. is I've got a little bit of a gap here. So I'm just going to take my small synthetic, everything's completely dry take up a little bit of indigo. And I'm just going to actually, I'm going to take off the excess. I don't want much paint on my brush. And I'm just going to drag a line down and just join that onto the chest. Just wash my brush. Just going to soften that in, dragging and clean brush along there 14. A Final Word: Thanks for joining me for the lesson. I hope that when you come to the end, you've got something that you're happy with. I'd really love it if you would post your paintings, you're finished paintings on the site. It's really fun for me to see how students have gone. And of course, if you have any questions at all, just send me a message, always happy to answer. And I did say at the beginning that, if you haven't taped the painting down and it's got a little bit of wobble in it. But you really happy with the painting I would take a water bottle spray the back, put the painting face down on a clean piece of watercolor paper. Then pop a board on the top of that and weight it down with some, with some weights or some books and leave it for a day or two until it stretches out. And that's it from me. Thank you for joining me.