Transcripts
1. Introduction: Welcome to expressive florals. In this class, we'll be using thinned acrylic paint to
create an expressive, almost watercolor style floral
with expressive florals. We aren't trying to create
a photorealistic flower. Instead it's about creating
for those that are sketchy and fluid and full of your own
personal expression. You'll begin by gathering
inspiration and creating a color palette to
use as a reference. Then I'll show you how to use those references to
sketch out your flowers. And then how to
use that sketch as a guide to paint your
expressive florals. For this class, you'll need
acrylic paint of any kind. I'll show you how to
send your acrylic with water and also with the flow medium and how each
will react on the paper. To the style is the
use of brushstrokes. In this class, I
do recommend using long bristle brushes,
like liner brushes. These brushes offer
the best drugs for this style of
expressive fluoro. I can't wait to see
what you create. So jump on in and let's
get started on Friday.
2. Supplies: For this project,
we're only going to need a couple of
different supplies. First, let's talk paper. We're gonna be using
acrylic paint. So we need a paper
that's going to be substantial enough to be able to hold the weight of that paint. My suggestion would
be to start with just even a basic watercolor
paper or mixed media. That's another really
good paper to use. I'm actually going to
be using this paper. The other thing
that we're going to need is acrylic paint. Now, the type of acrylic paint that you use is
really up to you. This, I don't want you to
feel like you have to go out and buy some
expensive acrylic paint. You really don't. You can use anything and I'm
gonna be using a different, a couple of different
types so that you can see how they behave. So the next thing
that you're going to want is acrylic flow. I've got two different brands here that I'm gonna show you. The other thing that
you're going to want is paint brushes. For this particular project, we are going to be sticking with the long bristle brushes. I have them in 136. Whatever you have on hand, usually one or two will come
in a packet of brushes. You can also buy
long bristle brush, brushes that are considered
and called liners. So a lot of people
will use them in calligraphy and
fine line type art. The next thing you'll need
is some sort of pencil. I'm using a mechanical pencil. You want a harder lead because you don't want it to
blend in with your paint. Any sort of HB
pencil is the best. The other thing that you're
going to want to have on hand is plenty of paper towels. And then you're going to
want a dish of water, which I have a big
giant dish here, and that's the clean my brushes. Then you also want to have a jar or little cup
of clean water. And the clean water is
because we're gonna be sending some of our paint and one of the lessons with water, and we'll be using
the acrylic flow in another lesson
system, the paint. We want really clean water and this is just to be used to mix, so make sure that you
keep that jar separate. I also like to keep
a little eyedropper in there because that helps
me pick up the water, but you can always do it
with a brush as well.
3. Finding References: Let's talk for a minute about finding inspiration for
your expressive florals. And there's so many
different ways to find pictures of flowers
that can inspire you. And I brought out a few
different examples here. One of the things that you
can do is you can actually look in seed catalogs. Inside the seed catalogs
are gonna be lots of different pictures of flowers
that might inspire you. And then by seeing
the names Instagram, you can then do a further search for other images that are
closed and show more. But these are a really good way of seeing different flowers that might actually
be of interest. The other thing that you can
do is look on Pinterest. Pinterest is going to have
lots of different images of flowers that you can use to inspire you. Then there's books. This is a book for paper lovers and it is
all different florals. This, again, I'm not suggesting that you copy
the way that these look or even to copy the
shapes it just to find different images of
flowers that speak to you. And then begin your
search from there. There's that one. And then you can also, if you don't have any
flower books yourself, goes to the library and look online some of the different
books that they have. Maybe you can even look on. Your most libraries have
digital books that you can check out and you can also look at images
of flowers that way. Here are some
websites that you can use to download
free stock images. If you ever wanted to use some
of the expressive florals, your business, or you wanted
to sell your art in any way, it's better if you aren't
using somebody else's image as even reference unless you're
taking your own pictures, which I always recommend if
you've got any flowers in your yard or you're visiting
a botanical garden, or your mother grows an
amazing flower garden and take lots and lots of
pictures and use those pictures to inspire
your expressive florals. So some of the websites that
you can use to download free stock images or
Pixabay Unsplash Pexels, stock snout, the IO free
images even pick wizard.
4. Create Your Color Palette: In this class, I won't be
teaching color theory. There are some great
Skillshare teachers that have wonderful classes
that can teach you all that you want to
know about color theory. When looking for a color
palette inspiration, I usually go to Pinterest first. Just type in a color that
you want to start with. Let's say that you really like pink type in pink color palette, or even certain things
like sunset color palette. Once you find a color
palette that you like, just match your paints to it. Over the years, I've actually created this little journal. I handmade this journal and it's got different types
of papers in it. And what I do is I actually gather paint samples
and swatches. I even will save some of the color swatches that you can get from
the hardware store. I'll find images
that really inspire me and I'll include
them in here. I've just started gathering essentially a little
color palette book. They have color palette
books that you can buy. Do a search on Amazon and you'll see some really great
books out there. But this one I've
just created myself, and it's images and washi tape and all the different paint
palettes that I've used. And I just start
collecting them. There's pretty paper in here. Different things
that are going to inspire me when I'm actually
looking for a color palette, I can come back through
and go, Oh yeah, that's how these
paints reactive, That's how they looked. For this class. I'm gonna be using a
magenta, a deep red, and orange, the yellow ocher, maybe a little of
the bright yellow. I've also got the
rose pink leaves. I'll be using this hookers
green or a sap green. Then I've got a deep green, which is seaweed and a lighter
green which is leaf here, we're going to create a little color palette
reference that we can use it by our projects when we're working
on our paintings. I've got just a little bit
of a torn piece of paper. This is that pallet paper. Then I'm using a old book cover and we're going to
be attaching those. Now when we actually
go into the lessons, I'll show you how to thin out your paint with the water and then how to thin it out
with the flow medium. But for right now, I'm just going to swatch out the colors that I
have. The colors. Use those for reference. I don't need them send out
just for the color palette. The top of it. Down. Then we can always add a
very cute little clip. Now, we swapped
out Oliver colors. This can sit as a
reference guide as we move through into
the later lessons.
5. How to Thin Acrylic Paint: The technique of painting
expressive florals is reliant on thinning
out the acrylic paint. Thin acrylic paint, you
must add a liquid such as water or another medium that will slowly
dissolve the paint. Sending the acrylic creates a lighter consistency
and viscosity. Thinned acrylic looks
like watercolor, but the benefit is that
the previous layers don't reactivate when
touched with water. The way that watercolor does. How much to thin acrylic paint is really just a
personal thing and it will depend on the look
that you're going for. And it will also depend on how thick your pain
is to start with. Thinning acrylic seems easy, but thinned too much and it actually won't
achieve the effects that you're hoping for. There are three major
components to acrylic paint. There's the color
or the pigment. There's a binder. And the binder really has three functions, is essentially to assure
the waterproof minus, this is what separates the
acrylic from watercolor. Then how much gloves
there is and how fast or how even the
paint is going to dry. That's what the binder is due. There's also other agents
that's in the paint that is going to essentially
provide your ability. Now the difference between
oil and acrylics is that the acrylics
are water-soluble. Acrylic polymer emulsion is a binding and pigmented
agent that makes acrylic paint essentially
water-soluble. Basically, acrylic
paint is glue, just full of colored grit. The right ratio of
thinning is important. I typically work with a one-to-two ratio
of water to paint. Ultimately, it's anywhere
between 30 to 50% water to the amount of paint
that I've put out. If you want to create
more of a wash, you're going to want to go
more toward the 50% water. Now, with thinning with mediums, using a thick, thin medium is the best way to thin
the acrylic paint. Mostly because you don't have
to worry about the ratios. You don't have to worry about
any eventual appealing. How do you go about actually
thinning your paint? One, you always
want to start with a small amount of
paint on your palette. Acrylic paint dries quickly, like I said, you want to
work with smaller amounts. If you need a larger
amount for larger project, then you can make it upfront. Otherwise it's better to
start with a smaller amount. Then you're going to add water
or you're sending medium. Mix it together, and then you want to
rinse out your brush. Let's prepare our palette. I'm going to show you
how to sin it with both water and then
with the flow medium. Let's start by using the
yellow, yellow ocher. I'm just going to put
a little bit in here and I'm actually going to
put a little drop in this. Well, not coming off. Then I'll put another
little drop and this will taking our water. Again, I'm going for
a one-to-two ratio. But as I'm mixing my paint, I can always add more. So it's better to
go less first and then add more water
as you need to. Again, this is going to depend on how thick your paint is. If you start with a
very thick paint, you're going to need a
little bit more water. So you need to just look at how your paint comes out of
the tube, how thick it is. You would have gotten
a sense of how thick your paint is when you did
your color palette swatches. In knowing that make
a note to yourself of this is a thicker paint. I'm going to need to use a little bit more water or
it's a new medium for that. Let's now mix in some of the flow so you can
see the difference now again, I'm using the liquid X1, so it's real thin,
watery and clear. It's going to look
just like water. And essentially it really does create a very similar look. Whereas you'll see
in a later lesson when I use the creamy one, it actually doesn't look
quite as thinned out. Piece of paper here. Let me show you the difference. Here's the one that has
the slow medium in it. See it's very thin. It's easy to move. Now let me show you what it
looks like with the water. Pretty much look the
same, don't they? So you don't have to
use acrylic flow. You really don't. You're gonna get a
very similar effect, whether you're using a
water or a flow medium. But depending on what you're painting or what
you're painting on, or how prepared your surfaces, you might need to
consider using more of a slow medium in order
to send your paint. The water works
just fine as long as you're not thinning
it too much and losing too much of the glue by breaking it down
too much with the water. But working on the paper
is going to allow us to use a lot of water more than it would if we were doing it
on a different surface.
6. Practice Brush Strokes: Now that we have our
paints thinned out, let's practice some
brush strokes. I'll be using the long
bristle brushes in 136. Let me show you how I do
some of these brushstrokes. Since we've got the yellow
mixed with the flow. Let's start there.
Holding your brush the same way you would a pencil or just
regular paintbrush. It's all just about how much
you let those bristles drag. I could go real light just
at the tip of my brush. The harder I press down, the more that those
bristles can fan out. All of these
techniques and all of these textured
strokes are what's going to play into how you make those expressive
florals unique to you. We all hold our
brushes differently. We all have Different likes
of what looks good to us. I want you to just start playing with pushing and pulling
and dragging your brush. How hard you can press,
what it looks like. If we try pushing, we're gonna get a
different effect. You can keep your brush
very wet or you can let it start to dry out
as you pull away. Then has less paint and so you get a lot of
drag look to it. Another way I like to hold my my brushes between my
index finger and my thumb. This is held very gently. I don't have a lot of control
and that's the point. Again, I'm dragging. There's pushing. There's a lot of pressure or a little
bit of pressure to this. I'm just on the tip. Now if I press down and
up and down and pin down, one of the other things
I love to do is I spin my brush in my
fingers as I move it. If I'm coming up hard with it, I might spin and
pushed down and drag. Or push and spin and drag. When I'm creating my petals. It's a lot of what I do is I'll push and
I'll drag and I'll twist my brush around
so that I'm able to create shapes and looks to it. And then you can always
come back in and mix paint by doing the
same brush techniques. Just take a piece of
paper and just play. Again. Hold your brush. Don't hold it tight. Be gentle with it. Try different pressures. What does it look like when
you drag your bristles out? Again? Each brush going to have a slightly different
Here's the three. I was just using the one, so it's not quite as long. The three is going to
create a different set of looks because the
bristles are longer. The other thing you can
do is just drag it from the side and spin it in
your fingers, twirl it. Just spend a little
bit of time with your brush getting to know how each fields what it feels
like to turn it in your hand, hold it to spin it, to push it. Just let yourself play
because this is a free, free piece of paper. I'm using a watercolor here. I'm gonna switch to
the canvas paper when we're actually
doing the project. So you can even just do this
on a regular piece of paper. But I would suggest
using some sort of paper that would take the paint
a little bit better, just so that you can
see how it absorbs. And watercolor. Mixed media paper is a really
good one to start with. Just start playing
with your brush and see what you come up with.
7. Drawing Flowers: Now we'll explore what it
takes to draw a flower. It might seem a little
complex at first, but it's really simple. The first step is
really to break down the flower into shapes. The second you're going to
add details, refined things. Define the petal shapes, how they overlap each other. Then the third is
really refining everything and adding
smaller details. For the expressive florals. We don't necessarily need to go through all three
of those steps. I'll show you how
I do things now. It's really up to you about how defined you want each of
your flowers to look. So the first way
is getting some of your inspirational
images printed out is a really good way for you to be able to
play with the shape. Let me show you. Let's look at the different
parts of a flower. General structure of
a flower is the root, the petal, the leaf, the bud. When you look at your
reference photo, we're going to break each piece down into just a basic shape. There's a lot of little
shapes inside of, let's say just this center. But as a basic shape, it's just the circle. And then each of these
petals are not going to be identical because it
depends on perspective, how you're looking at it, how the petals are turned, how they're bumping
into each other. For instance, this one not
only is turned on its side, but it's also in front
of this petal here. We're looking at just
the basic shapes of each of the petals here. By tracing over them like I am, it helps you to see what
those basic shapes are. Now here because this petal
is slightly turned up, we can see both the inside
and the backside of it. Here is the inside, but then there's this little
shape on the side which shows us that that petal is tilted up and we can
see the backside. Then this one sticks
behind both of them. Then of course we've
got our stem here. The same can be done for here at this perspective is a
little bit differently. It's going to have a slightly
different shaped center. And then the flower has some very jagged edges that's going to create
a different shape also. Again, this petal is in
two pieces because it's got the facts I'm showing here, it's doing it also. Just take a few of your reference images
and just trace them out. You'll get a sense of how these shapes play
into each other. Here's this done. After you do this a few times, you'll start to see the shapes emerge versus looking
at the whole entire, instead of looking at the
whole entire flower and being overwhelmed with my
mechanical pencil, I'm going to show
you if you stick really close to your
reference, what it looks like. And then I'm going to show
you how I actually get real sketchy with mine
real loose lines. First looking at this
one here is our center. And I'm gonna start up
here on this petal. Again, we have 12345678. It's skinnier down here
as it meets the middle. And then it widens out of top. Then there's the one that's
underneath the second one. But let's actually come
over here because this is the next petal that shows up. And then this one is
connecting off the side here, meeting over here. Then this funnel. You want to look
where it starts to, starting in the middle, but it meets over here
and touches the pedal. They're looking in
how things connect, where those shapes meet. That's going to help you to get more accurate looking flower. I'm actually going
to come back up here and do this one now. All of these are
shaped very different. This one's very rounded
compared to some of these other ones that are
a little bit different. Now again, remember
this one is going to meet here on the
side of this petal, is going to loop down and
connect into the middle. But then there's
this little side piece that comes off of it. Then this one tucks
behind all of them. Actually. The stem is coming off of about this. That's a more drawn reference. I'm mimicking and
copying my reference. But I like to get
looser with it. So the way that I do that
is I keep my pen moving. I don't stick to one petal
too long and I'm just letting my eyes follow the shapes of these flowers and these petals. Again, I'm going to
start with my center. Then I'm going to
just start putting in the basic shapes
and I like to go over it a couple of
times with my pencil. The more that I work out the shape because
I'm moving quick. I like it because I
like it to be sketchy. And this allows me to do that. Then once I've got it down, I can come back in and I can reshape them by going over
the lines again and again. Until I essentially have
what I'm looking for, I use a lighter pencil so
that I can go over them. Now, let's try even doing
it a little bit different. Now I can hold my
pencil and my thumb and my index finger and
do the same thing. But I'm going to do it. Holding it different. It changes the way
that it looks. Again, that's what's so fun about these
expressive for roses. It gives you a chance to
really try different shapes. The other thing
that you can do is because this is
expressive florals. It's really just about implying that the flower
looks a certain way. You can always take
shapes that you like from other flowers and
kind of create your own. You don't have to
necessarily follow really strictly to what a
reference is showing. You. Just start
playing with shapes, petals, and see what
you come up with.
8. Paint with Water-Thinned Acrylic: Let's paint our first
expressive floral. We're going to take
our paper again. I'm using a canvas paper. You can be using a
watercolor and mixed media. We're going to
sketch out a flower. And then we'll use our water, send acrylic to paint. I've gathered some
of the sketches that we did in the
earlier lesson. And I can use these as inspiration
for, let's sketch out. Then I've got some leaves here. I want to add in. Now that I've got
my sketched flower, I'm going to start
applying paint. I like to keep a paper
towel will close by. I'm gonna start with the six. When I start my flowers, I actually like to start
with my mid tones. So I'm going to start
here with my magenta. If your water has thicker, if your paint is
sticking at all, you can always come back in and add more water to thin it out. What I like to do
when I first start is I just start pushing
and dragging. I like how my bristles spread out and it creates that texture. You can always go back over areas that you want
a more defined. I'll try not to move
my paper too much, but it's really good if
you can actually spin your paper around and get
the angle that you want. I don't want to make
you guys to six, so I'm going to try not to
turn it around too much. Just keep moving over
your paper until you've got the look
that you're going for. It's just practice it. Then the next color I'm going
to use is this rose pink. This is the lighter tone. And I just want to start establishing where color
is going to start to go. Highlights are gonna go. I like to leave
white areas also, so it's not about
filling in every piece, every part of your petal. You can go back over even the magenta and let some
of those colors mix. Want to go back over some
of the magenta areas and lead the pink and the
magenta mix together. I'm just spreading
out my bristles and letting the bristles grab the
paint and mix where it can. And again, it's light
pressure, It's hard pressure. But I'm looking to fill
in areas of my petals, but I don't want to
necessarily fill it in. I love the texture
because as I add layers, those textures are going to blend into each other
and create a really, really cool, expressive floral. I just drag and I lived and
I twist my brush around. Now, I can also switch
into a different brush. This is the three. I can add. The yellow ocher. You can also switch
into the thumb, index finger because that's
where I'd like to get these really thin lines
outside of my petal. And that brings in with paint, the sketchy field that we were getting with her pencil lines. It's really pretty to be able
to do it with your brush. As you come towards the
edge of your petal, you're just going to lift up and spin it around in your finger. And let the sketchy
lines kind of form. Each petal is, can be different. You don't have to
try to recreate the same stroke and every
petal like this one, I left a little bit
with less yellow. These are heavier
set with yellow. I'm just gently dragging
my brush around. That one dry for a little bit. And I'm going to move back into my six brush and grab some of this Hooker green
or sap green, which one? Whatever one you have is essentially the mid
tone of the green. I'm going to paint in. I'm going to do very
similar to the way that I do with the petals. I'm just gonna start
putting in color, dragging and moving it
around, spinning my brush. Not trying to fill in
the whole thing because I still have two other
colors I'm going to add. See how pushed onto its side
and then I drag to a point. And all of this kind of looks
weird is when it's wet, but as it starts to dry, you will see that the
way that the colors mix and those textures and those brushstrokes really
started to show through. It's just really,
really beautiful. I'm actually going to
switch into the number one. And I'm gonna grab
my darkest green. I like to do this one between my thumb and
my index finger. And I place I started to
figure out where I want the darks and the
lights because this is where those darks
in those highlights, the shadows and the highlights, we're actually going
to start to give the flower dimension and
you start to see it. So I'm gonna start
to put down where I think those shadows should
be with this darker color. I like to come in real gentle and areas and I just kind of push
those colors together. Then as a kid to the
very end of the leaf, I like to lift my brush real gently and just twist,
spin it around. I love how it just brings
out a lot of sketchy file's going to turn
my paper around, sorry to get dizzy there, but I want to get this
at the right angle. Sometimes you don't know. I think I might've overworked. That's why I should've left it. Because the way that it was
mixing there was really actually pretty cool
that it's okay. You can always come
back with more green and you're going to get different effects the
more layers you add two. Okay, I'm gonna switch
into the light green. See what I can do with this one. Again, I've saved this area a little bit for some
of the highlight area, but I'm going to drag the
other grains into it. Let's do the same
thing over here. Get that green in there
and not filling in the whole thing I like where
the white shows through. Some of these colors
mixed together. You can always clean your
brush and come into and see what happens if you just start
to drag out those colors. Now that those are done, I'm going to switch
back to my six and I'm gonna come
back into my petals. Actually, let's not
go to the six yet. Let's try the three. And the reason is because
this one has a really long bristles and I'm gonna come into this red magenta that we mixed. And this is obviously
my darkest color. So I'm going to use
this sparingly, but I'm going to add it
into parts of the petals where I want a lot of the
deeper shadows to show. Again, I'm holding it really
gently between my finger. And I'm going to
use this sparingly, but I also want to help create
some of the darkest parts. And so I'm going to. Do very much that
I've done before. It's pushing and lifting and
twisting my brush around. I'm not putting a lot of
paint on it just enough. Maybe a little bit right
there in the center. Do you want to define this
area just a little bit. It doesn't have to be a
really bright stroke. It just needs to be a little
bit of a pop of color which is going to help
define those edges. See how it mixes with some of the wet paint
that's underneath. Whereas some of the layers, some of that early magenta has dried but the yellow
was still wet. So as I moved my darker colors, It's blending a bit, which is just beautiful. Just keep adding where you
feel like you need to. If I make this area
a little bit darker. Now let's go back
to our six brush and I'm actually
going to grab some of the orange and see
what I can do with that. It's a little thick and
don't want a lot of Orange, it can overpower what I'm doing. So again, I'm gonna
come in with my finger, index finger, and my thumb. And I'm just going
to put some orange in a few different areas. Letting your brush be dry is it can really get
some cool effects. So don't be afraid of having a dry brush and
seeing what it looks like, the scratch that paint on there. I'm going to do the same thing, but just with a little
bit of the yellow going real light with
the don't want to lie. I'm using this dark
red and I'm actually going to put it in
the center here. I've used each of my colors
that I had laid out. At this point, I
can let the layers dry and then come
back and add more. Or I can keep adding layers
and letting them colors mix. But you got to be
careful not to overwork your paint either
because by doing that, you're going to start
getting things muddy. But I know that
I'm losing some of the colors that I had
originally put down. The orange and the red are
showing through a lot. And so I want to bring in
a little bit more of this yellow to calm down a couple of the areas that are a
little over strong. I'm gonna do the same thing
with the pink in the magenta. Just wanted to
bring back a little bit more of those first layers. Then this is also where
I can start to come in with my thin brushes and add in any
other sketchy lines that I feel like are needed to. Just keep adding
in sketchy lines. Agenda here. I'm being very careful with
this because again, it's very possible to overwork your paint and let
things get muddy. There's just a few wet areas
still in this painting here. But look at our, look
at how it starts to blend together these strokes, the way that the, the
sheer newness of some of the layers will show
through the others before. Now if there's any areas that feel like it needs
more color or, you know, lines need to
be added or whatever. This is the point where you
can come in and start adding. I want a little bit more. Sorry, I'm turning my paper. I want a little bit
more darker over here. And it's still a little bit wet, so it's going to
blend really nicely with the new layer I'm adding. I don't feel like
this one pushes back for enough because it
was underneath the others. I'm just going to add a
little bit more red to it. Over here we're at this
petal meets the leaf. I want to make sure that the, the edges is a little
bit more defined. Kind of like when you're
using pencils to sketch. Now you can use these
really thin paint lines to essentially create little
bit more of a sketchy feel.
9. Paint with Flow Medium-Thinned Acrylic : In this lesson, we're
going to now thin are acrylics with the flow medium. The previous lesson we were
able to send with just water, but this one, I'm
gonna show you how the flow mediums work. We've got this liquid x, which is a thinner,
watery liquid. And then we've got
this flow medium. And this one is a
little bit more creamy. So I'll show you the
difference in those. Let's prep our palette
by thinning our paints. So we're still going
to be sticking with the same color palette that
we had in the first lesson. We're just going to
be thinning them out. I'm going to show the difference between both of
these flow mediums. Some of them I'm going to do with the premier
and some I'm gonna do with the more watery version just so you can see
the difference. Let's just put some of this
in a few of these wells and show you what the differences
between this more sin, watery one of them creamy one. See, the consistency
is very different. You can tell that already. This one has a milky
or look and it also has a little bit thicker. So it's less watery than
the other flow medium, which you actually can tell when it's mixed with the acrylic paint when
you're painting with it, you can actually see the creamy. It kind of creates that
consistency with it. Here's the one that
has the liquid x, so it's more watery, similar to the water. And I had showed that to you in the previous video when I was thinning out the paint and we did it with
the yellow ocher. It's very similar. It's
just a very watery, very much like the
regular water is. Whereas this one is
the other flow medium. So it's milk IIR. See how it's got Jack creamy and there's a thickness to it. It's not quite as watery. It essentially is
thinning out the paint, but it's keeping it more milky, creamy type of texture. Unlike the other flow
medium or the water. Now with these, they actually
slow the drying time. So we have a little
bit longer to work with these paintings also, because it takes a little
bit longer to dry. I'm just going to get
these all mixed up. And then we'll get started
on swatching them out. For this next expressive floral. I'm actually going to
use a watercolor paper. You can see how the
watercolor paper plays in with some of the
thinned out acrylics. So we're using the flow
medium watercolor paper. I'm going to create a
sketchy flower first, just like we did in
the other lessons. And then we'll begin painting. Again. I'm gonna start with my six brush because I
have a lot to cover. I'm going to stick
with my mid tones like we did in the
previous lesson. So that means I'm going to
start with this magenta. And I'm gonna be using the
same brush strokes and the same technique that I
did with the other one. But the flow, the
Athenian agency reminder, we're using flow for this one. We've got a thinned
out watered version of flow with a liquid eggs and then we've got
more of a creamy. So this is the flow. That's the liquid x was water. You're definitely, it feels
that way on this paper. I'm allowing the because this paper actually
is a little bit more absorbent than the canvas paper that I was using in
the other lesson. I'm actually using that to my advantage with this one
because of the way that this moisture that appears in this particular flow medium. Is I'm allowing some of the
paper to really absorb that. And the watercolor
papers actually doing a really wonderful job
of absorbing that. So I'm gonna let
some areas stay wet, but I'm letting the paper take on as much of that of
the hand, like watercolor. I can also come back and drop in color in places
because again, it's wet and it's going to take a little bit longer to dry, even though it's acrylic, it's going to take a little bit longer because
of the flow medium. And so by dropping
some of this color in, it's going to continue to
mix as these layers dry. Okay, let's go into
our next color. I'm gonna be using this. This is the premier version
and this is that rose pink. It definitely is
an S transparent. It has a different consistency. It lays on the paper a
little bit differently. It feels just like a very
creamy acrylic paint. So it's not quite as
thinned out and watery as the other versions that we
use when we use just water. And it definitely doesn't
feel as thin as the liquid x. So it's got a thicker feel. There's some substance to it. It's not quite as
watercolor feeling. It's just milky feeling. I'm gonna see if
I can use some of that to my advantage by placing it in places
that will allow it to mix with other layers. For me personally, I liked the more sinned out watery feel. This particular thick, creamy version is not
necessarily my favorite. Going to put a little
bit of color on here and I'm gonna start with this pink. Then I'm going to go
back in and magenta, I actually want the
magenta is that I think on top of
it a little bit because it's watery
or it's going to mix in and fill in some of
those holes a little bit. Now let that sit for
just a little bit. It's going to take a
little bit longer to dry because of the flow
that's in there. I'm going to move to my leaf here and just put some
of those color down. Again, this is the,
the creamy flow. And so you can I'm not
sure if you can see it on camera exactly how the thickness of it and how
it kind of lays out onto the paper and just
a different way than the thin down
water version of paint. This also has the
creamy flow in it. I'm gonna be careful
with where I put this because it's a
thicker consistency. I definitely am gonna
have to use my brush to create more of the
brushstroke look than I want. Versus the thin DO water
version or the liquid x, which actually they flow a little bit more
like watercolor. This is actually allowing
me to use a lot of the brushstroke
texture that can come, which is really fun. Really spread out your bristles. If you're using this
thicker version, definitely let your
brushstrokes kind of gets scratchy and see if you can create some
texture with that. With these, I think I'm
definitely going to be using a lot of layers to help did this all blend in
the way that I would want to switch to
a thinner brush. Actually, let's go
with the three. I'm going to bring in just
a little bit of that color on top of some of those yellow. Just because it's
a thinner version. So it's going to flow and
mix a little bit better. The creamy version. And again, I'm just dragging
and mixing where I can with my long brush here. I'm still using the three. I'm gonna pick up
some of this deep red and magenta
that we've mixed. And I'm going to create
some shadow areas, but I also am going to use these long thin
bristles to create that sketchy lines that I use around the
edges of the petal. It actually will
really continue to add a lot of depth
and dimension to your painting by coming back in with additional layers and
laying down more color. Because of that
transparent nature, you're going to be
able to see some of the previous layers underneath it as
those layers dry. I really like some of
these sketchy lines and I'm just going to add a few here and there because they're going
to dry really pretty. Dropping a bit of color
there in the center. I'm switching to the number one. Now I'm going to use that
to put some of this red in my little down here. Let's add some of this yellow. Since the yellow over. Let's go work a little
bit on our leaves again, I'm going to pick
up the deep green. This is that seaweed. I'm going to add some of that. Here's a better angle. I'm going to switch to the
thumb and index finger. I'm going to let
that paint brush just drag real gently through, spinning it in my
fingers as I move down. Let's pick up a little bit of this light green,
this leaf color. I'm just dragging
my brush through the paint so that these colors
and tones mixed together. Over here this way. Me use a little bit
of this orange. Just an abuse places. It's a very different tone. Orange then the orange
that we swatch. I'm just being real
gentle with it. I don't need it in a
lot of places because it's changed the
tone a little bit. Let's let those layers dry and we'll see what they look
like when we come back. Now that a painting
is mostly dry, there's just a few tiny
little wet spots here. You can start to
look at it and say, okay, is there more
than I want to add? Is there areas that
are over dominating? Do I need to add any more color? I'm actually going to leave it. But one of the things I wanted to show you is that
you could actually come back over this with
pencil or charcoal. Or you could do soft pastels. You can even color in the background like I
have with this one. So here's an expressive
floral that I did. And then I came back
in with a charcoal, black charcoal and I did
some more sketchy lines. Then I actually used soft pastels to color
in the background. Then I added some
little marks and some little line with
some soft pastel as well. You can actually continue to add to your layers by
using other mediums.
10. Project: Private first-class
will include two parts. The first will be
your pencil sketch, and the second is going to be your acrylic paint over
your sketchy lines. I cannot wait to see
what you create.
Heidi Cogdill, Writer and Artist
