Botanical Watercolor Illustrations

1. Class Trailer : welcome and thank you for checking out my class. My name is Jennifer and on my social media account at Rochdale Isco. My page is loaded with pictures of flowers and I like to paint in many different art media , from acrylics to gua sh things and watercolors. But this class will star botanicals. Nature makes us feel at peace most of the time. And sometimes we have this creative energy that we would like to channel through art and these activities were designed to cater to this. One of my closest friends, who struggles with anxiety, decided to turn to painting as a form of tension release. I had given her a private lesson on painting illustrations like these, and I decided, why not share with the rest of the world as well? I designed this class with the intention off these exercises being a form of our therapy In this class, I will be teaching you three botanical illustrations that you can paint along with. We will be covering the following illustrations A botanical silhouette with a harmonious theme, a negative space botanical and a piece I've called seamless watercolor botanica where the leaves and strands are merging into each other. This class is designed to use the minimal supplies. Please feel free to use what you have at home, and I've kept the pace of the videos, mostly riel time with the fluff cut out, of course. And if I'm going too fast for you, there's a button at the bottom to slow down the video and vice versa. In my project section, you will find a pdf that I've put together with botanical drawings and outlines that you are most welcome to use as a reference or even trace. I hope I have covered everything thus far and please head over to the next video to get started. 2. Botanical Silhouette - PART 1: Okay, so let's dive into exercise number one. So, this one, you're gonna need a big brush, and I'm gonna put some water into my mixing palette from my mixing plate. Sorry. Okay, I'm just using a straight brush, but around Bush will do a swell. A mop brush would be fantastic for this part. Whatever you have at home, just use whatever you have. And if you have, you know, if you don't have any big brushes, I suggest you just cut the paper in half. And I'm just a smaller illustration because, um, a bigger brushwood honestly speed things up a bit more. So I'm just gonna actually just start running the paper a little bit here. And there doesn't have to be evenly because we don't want perfectly even background. I think I want to go with, like, a light beige cally color, something almost like neutral. So use whatever color you will find the most calming for this one. I just find it appropriate that just because of the silhouette that have chosen Teoh paint on, I find that something like very neutral color like yellow Oakar and Bish would be suitable . But I do want to tone it down a little, so I'm gonna make a little bit of this. Earthy, brown, dark, earthy, brown. Okay, this is still a little bit to register for my taste. I don't find read a common color that makes a little bit of this flesh color that our house . Now I'm starting to get I think what I want is like this Really like moody peach. Let's come out like what I'm feeling. And I have to work quick here because this paper is building the water pretty quickly. If you're using high quality paper like copy paper, then you will have to add more color if you're using cheaper quality or artists. Great. We're basically not cotton paper. You should not later on too much clear. It's just not gonna look good. Definitely needs more color, but your breast probably would have been even more even better. So you have the option of taping down your paper if you like. Or, um, if you like that messy kind of look that I like the expressive artist you look, I'm trying to legitimise you kind of Look, I'd like to go for you like something a little bit more messy looking. You don't have to put down. Of course, you'll miss out on the satisfying moment at the end where you get to pull off the tape and then it's beautiful. It is a very beautiful border, clean white border. I actually don't have any artist tape on me at the moment, so I'm just making do with what I have. And it doesn't have to be one color you could use to tones thing we're gonna do is I'm gonna be a bit of an hombre. So I decided to quickly pop over to the voice over to explain, um, that whenever I want to saturate a color, I add Payne's gray to give it a bit more of a moody A effect t to have more color. I'm speaking very very around them. I'm just splashing in water because what happens is kind of like blooms out the paint and creates a bit of a cloudy effect, which I'm trying to go for. But still, I'm not getting that greedy int that I want, so I'm gonna just It's the bitch more do a little bit more pain. It's great. So I was playing with us today. So just a bit more. As you can see, I continue to work on the background. I'm just being this part up because, honestly, I just kept layering and layering until I got that desired effect. Although the overall illustration looks very simple, the background actually requires quite a bit of work. And and though it seems like a lot of work, it is actually quite a bit of fun to do. Um, it's not. I don't find this to be a very messy illustration per se, meaning you can do this on your kitchen table. You can even do it outside on the porch if you have great weather. I was honestly, just soaking up the sunlight and painting, and it was amazing the adding off the colors, Um, during this part is a bit more of an intuitive process. You just kind of work with what you feel like adding at the moment for me. At that moment, I felt like it was missing a little bit of a pop of a color, so though I wanted to keep it a two tone painting, I did at a little bit of that. Clay Brown, which is a bit more reddish than the other brown that I was using, and I kind of liked it. Um, of course, I always have the option off blending out with water if they find the color too strong. A little fun. Fact. I was inspired to do this class by my cousin in law, who wanted to learn how to paint paintings like Thes, and she found that she had a bit of a harder time with the background and create that cloudy effect. And she didn't have 100% cotton watercolor paper at hand. So that's one of the reasons why I chose to, for the most part, to slow down the video and explain exactly what I'm doing. She was looking for that cloudy effect, and as you can see right now, I am wiping off some of the pains in certain areas, which also kind of helps out with achieving that cloudy effect. I keep on adding water. And I keep adding color, and I'm just literally moving the paint around with the water, trying to get that effect that I'm looking for that dreamy, um, kind of smoky effect, if you will. I am trying my best to blend out the colors really well using controlled amount of water and you kind of have to figure out how much it's too much or how much is too little. So I'm just being very mindful about the water and paint ratio. And to be honest, there isn't really a equation for that. But with time, you'll learn Well, that is drink. I'm gonna show you. That is so I lined up on composition, so I wanted to do these. I believe they're called Spike. Let's see, Seen the grass? You should look like this on easy. When the wind is blowing, the cub born with looks very peaceful. So what I'm trying to do is trying to follow the rule of tree threes. So usually in the compositions your eye goes to, like, three places for the three Big Three major points kind of puts together the composition in the visually pleasing way. So I'm gonna use these. I was like, as my point of three. So I start starting from the bottom. I'm just gonna kind of start in the middle of the papers, spend your really big ones. Seems over the big one. Someone should start over here, so we kind of have, like, our three big points. So just to have a cleaner versions myself to look at and then afterwards, after we've done these, what we can do is we can see if we want to add leaves or not. No, ideally, kind up like I'm going a little random here, but the majority of them should be going this way. Wherever the wind is blowing this picture, it's kind of confusing, So it would make sense that the biggest one is going in the right direction. So then that means they should be winds coming in this way. 3. Botanical Silhouette - PART 2 : it's still pretty much drying. Um, what's cool is that you can kind of like that. Something with your fingers. I'm just kind of doing just like, carving us on with my nails here. Uh, that's supposed to be the grass. I'm just being very random year. I think that's kind of the whole point of this illustration is not like we don't want a plan off every single time detail. So for the next part, I was gonna use acrylic ink to do this so wet, but because I realized that not everyone has a quitting, I'm basically just gonna be using Payne's gray. I have a very bluish paints. Great. And then I have a very, very dark green pains. Great. And if I use it very, very, very concentrated amount of paint on my brush with very little water, I can actually get something very, very opaque, Almost like black looking like incivility. Okay. Yeah. One thing you have be careful of your brush is not wet enough. It's gonna lead the streaks which are very annoying. It is never abstract painting, so I wouldn't worry, but details. Okay, so for this step, it is very important Mr Paper is a job. Otherwise, it's just gonna, like spread. And the silhouette should look very clean and very precise. That's why we're using a smaller brush you like. And I'm gonna do it for this one just because I don't wanna mess it up. It really is a pencil and kind of map out work. What is gonna be so looks so you want to do is is cannot go, like right then. I didn't go great to have you here, but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna fix it up with a leaf doctorates. Do you consider the area? So with so But it's a little on my radio, you know, for my hand. I'm gonna check out some reference photos to see how I can put leave in there. But for now, let's just focus on me other new pieces of this, like here. I'm just doing these like little like white strokes. Kind of like these lines, like, be a little random, too. But if you're not comfortable with being very random, don't worry about it. Is your painting end? Do whatever you're most comfortable with. I think that's a bigger That's disproportionate. Yeah, It tends to be a little fuller. The golden I'm not looking at our listens right now. So apologist of the season work this inaccurate. But I'm like, I like the way it looks on. This is my interpretation of it. Just like, let's so no go with whatever feels right. Whatever you want to paint, you have the freedom to trump it. How you like one of the important things to make sure when painting this. So what is the he brushed is wet enough for the pain to move around more easily, but for its don't be okay. The stems are thicker, so it means they're closer. Um, just what could be further away on this one could be closer. - Okay , baby, you like more cookies? Okay, So I know what you're thinking. Something is missing, and I agree with something, but I am gonna walk away from this Perbet and then, Okay, baby, something is just not working. But you know what? That's the beauty of this type of painting. You come back to it with fresh eyes, okay? And that's what I'm gonna do. So welcome back. I'm gonna be, um it's not in love with more come back to it. Anything. I wouldn't have a couple of strands of grass in this picture in order to fill in some of the empty spaces in this painting, I am adding strands of grass. I know I called them leaves in the video, but I was honestly, just very focused on where to add what. So as I am painting the strands of grass, I am doing them in one quick movement, as you can see, and it's basically a flick of the wrist, and I am mostly relying on the tip of my around paintbrush. I am not applying too much pressure and my hands actually not touching the paper either. So we wanted the wind to come ago this way, a few more that way. Okay, I'm just gonna dark enough your areas here. So based on some of the pictures that I've seen up thes spike, let's they had little. I guess you could call them leaves. And that's what I'm just adding over here, and I'm trying to make it look like the wind is blowing them in another direction. The picture still feels a little incomplete, so I'm adding another strand of a spike lit. But this one smaller, therefore further way, or just maybe a smaller spike with I don't know whatever, Um, And again, I'm just being very, very gentle, painting them with point of my paintbrush, making sure not to apply too much pressure so that the lions can really come out very thin . So this is the part where you can add the final details. I am just adding wherever I feel like I can enhance my illustration a little bit more. There's no actual technique to this. I am just assessing overall and where I feel like I want to add something. That's what I do. Um, sometimes it's safe to walk away when you feel like it's done, so you don't overwork it. And that's my one of my biggest like challenges. But I managed to keep it minimal as much as possible because this is a silhouette. I I recommend that you go back to wherever you find areas that are turned dark enough or a pig enough and just go over with the paint. Um, try to make sure you keep it nice and, oh, Paige. And here is the completed piece. I hope you guys enjoyed watching or painting along 4. Negative Space Botanical : selects were working on our negative space piece. You will need watercolor paper, water, paintbrush, a pencil paint and masking fluid. So before you get started, it's important to know what you're going to draw. And my ideal place to search for inspiration is Pinterest. Of course, I put together a board of botanical images that inspire me and make me feel at peace. If you are searching here for inspiration, please do not copy any of these images. Some of them actually belonged to artists that are selling them US prints. I like to look at a couple of images firsthand and then turn off my devices and start sketching from memory. Due to the abstract nature of this illustration, we don't have to be 100% accurate. You can try out different versions, and really, you're doing stems on the Leafs that the botanical piece you've chosen. Unfortunately, at the time of filming this, I didn't realize that this pencil wouldn't show up on camera, and I really have to apologize for that. Please refer to the PdF in the my project section, where I have drawn out a couple of designs that you guys can copy off or trace. I wouldn't worry too much if the pencil lines are gonna show through the painting because you can actually kind of hide them under more concentrated paint. Two simplifies things I'm gonna be using some must in food. Okay. Just for this. Them So I can focus more on the textures and what not running painting. You can also go around the leaves if you want to. I think that's a waste of masking fluid. Good. Okay, let's get started. Um, for this illustration of using Payne's gray start from the top, he's gonna with the paper a little bit musk in food should be dry by now. So I'm just waiting around my pencil lines. I apologize if you can see them. Okay, so he started using them. Or bluish greats pay grants, pains. I hope you can see that. Just dropping in some color. It's kind of like already doing his own thing. It's just spreading out. And basically what we're doing is we're just directing the water. Which direction to go. All right, we're directing the water. Okay. So you can see that properly. Just find some more water and making a border and We're also being mindful of where the little stems are each leave. So, around the leagues, I'm dropping more color to emphasize their shape. A little more looks. It was not the best brush for me. The typist Khama worn out. You can see that I'm really, like, darkening. And you were close toe the address. Just a It emphasises their shape, has some nice contrast and just brings not mark interest to the peace. Okay, I want just to be, like, really late, so I'm just gonna drop water in. Very messy, not worried about precision here from your okay. That's kind of like outlining leaks, so I kind of know where they are. I know exactly where to color in. Um, don't worry too much about a drying up because you can always real re wet it on. Then out our more concentrated watercolors. I know I mentioned only one kind of paintbrush at the beginning, and and I didn't specify which one exactly to use. I would say, use whatever you're most comfortable with for the areas around the leaves. I chose a more finer brush to get around the edges and the smaller spaces. And for the background and the bigger areas that you want to cover with pain, I would use a bigger brush. Okay, so I took a break. But that's OK. You can still come back to it and just what the area. They want to add a little bit more color, too, the surrounding area as well, so that the color could spread nicely. So to avoid hard edges that get created when you add more concentrated paint, I'm adding more water is really helpful to just kind of blend that out or blended in. You can see me demonstrating that a bit more clearly here. And as you can see, I'm wriggling my brush around in order to help spread the color in a more organic way, if you will. And I know you can't really see me reaching for the jar of water all the time throughout this class, but I am adding a lot of water, Um, to many parts of the painting continuously, this is a great point to decide how you want your border to look how far in or far out you would like to your border to be. I wanted my border to be really really light and cloudy. Looking at the time of filming this video, I unfortunately wasn't feeling very well and how to take multiple breaks in between that mend re wetting the paper several times and just continuously adding paint. Originally, my plan had been Teoh record myself, speaking as I paint. Unfortunately, that didn't go as planned because I wasn't feeling well and also because I was mumbling through a almost entire video, so that was very frustrating to kind of edit out. So I want the bottom part of the painting to be a lot darker than top or just certain sections to be darker than the rest. I think I'm gonna let these really dark areas represent like the rule of trees. So the other area that I would make a really, really dark would be right here. So just to give you a little background, the rule of threes, as I called it here, it's actually a rule of third, and it's just a mix Berg, peace and composition. It just kind of draws your eye towards different parts of the painting. You understand what I mean? It kind of pulls the whole piece together when you have three dominant parts kind of standing out, and they're scattered in a in a way onto the page that makes it look pleasing. I believe this is more of a photography term, but you will hear this term being mentioned a lot in the fine arts world as well, since it is a visual concept. So three things that I love about these type of paintings is that there is room to make mistakes. There are ways to fix the mistakes in these type of paintings and really, are there any mistakes? What I mean is that this isn't an abstract piece of art, and you don't have such tight rules to play with. Which leads me to my next point. It's a bit of a almost mindless painting, if you will, in the sense that you can focused less on the composition. The colors are picking up, color mixing and all that stuff you can. You don't have to do that In this type of painting. You can listen to a podcast in the background and even focus on the podcast. And lastly, I love the fact that we have the ability to implement some techniques that we want to try without the danger of ruining a piece like wet on wet even went on dry. I added some water droplets under the page using my paintbrush, and I'm letting them sit there to be absorbed and to do their own thing. Waiting for the final result of it all after the painting has dried is also a really fun element of this painting. You can actually come back again after dried at some more finishing touches to it. Spare in mind. The way it looks right now is not exactly how it's gonna dry. It might look a little different e a little bit of like running this, and if I don't end up liking it, I can always use more water in the area and dab it with a piece of tissue paper. And here we have it. Guys, the final piece I didn't end up fussing around too much with it, are making too many changes, and I was happy with the result 5. Seamless Watercolor Botanicals - PART 1: I have a little bit of a different set up going on because I have my ring light and I'm sold that sitting by the window. But the lighting is not very good today because of whether. Okay, so I have my watercolor paper by rt za £140. Pretty much the same as any other artist. Great water collected for. Okay, So here is my sample piece that I put together, and I'm calling this piece the seamless watercolor of botanicals. They are basically strengths. With leaks coming out. I am going to show you how I'm gonna be dropping different colors. Secondly, and also continue to make these really transparent one. So watercolor paper run fresh this month. A size 12. I got my water, my one of my mixing talents. I already pretty wet it. And my watercolor paints I'm gonna is using different colors throughout the painting. So I apologize. If I can't let you know about all the colors, I'm gonna try to list them either in this video or below. But as you can see, I'm probably gonna be using this fatal blue. I believe that's what it's called. My ultra Marine do is pretty much gone. Pains. Great. I cannot paint blessings. Greats. My most favorite color. This one's hooker's green deep, I believe. And I also got some brown I'm gonna use to mute green. I have all my greens right here. I'm merely gonna be using sap Green and I have this other green. I don't know what it's called. I got it from holding whole lines, and it is, honestly, one of my most favorite greens by running low on it. And then I also have another hooker's green. I believe so. This is mainly gonna be dominantly greens and blues, and then I'm gonna put in my third color. My element of surprise is here is gonna be this play Brown. It's a bit of a reddish tone, and I'm gonna be dropping that in throughout. Okay, so let's get started first. Please. I'm gonna be drawing in the steps, but I want to use a very pale green because we're gonna be as you can see, we're gonna be painting over those steps. Yes, there. And I'm using about artists. Great paints. A couple of them are processional. Great. If you are in the hobbyist stage I recommend artists great pain a little bit more doing there. Okay, so one big stuff, this is more of a spontaneous piece. So I even though I did like three versions of this painting e don't want to plan out everything in here. That is supposed be a part of the process to enjoy painting this. It's This is not just for results. It's also exercised, designed to be therapeutic in a sex, not in the center center. I'm gonna go a little bit to the right. That's one stuff. Second stun. And don't worry about any of these bumping into each other. That's something that still some pin from right here. There we have it. Here is my base Does want a little too strong. I've been actually steal from pull away from it. You basically just that side cleaning your brush? I actually just pinched off the paint. Ideally, you want to use a piece of tissue paper and just draft the brush a little bit, but basically you dry clean brush. Teoh, absorb any excess paint. Ideally, the top leaks are there gonna be a little bit smaller. But in this painting, I don't really care I just kind of went for it. Maybe you know what? This one, we should just go for this one. So start up with a green half of okay, And you want to make sure you have put in your hand onto the paper, try to lift it up a little bit, and we're gonna do the bottom of the league using the tip on impress very lightly. Then we're gonna put the whole brush down. I'm gonna try to fill nothing close. Here's a closer look us to how I paint each leave. So the tip of my brush hits the paper first, then kind of dragged from the tip. Okay, so the tip makes contact with the paper of the beginning. Then the whole body of off the brush makes contact with the paper. And then again, we lived up our bush ray gently to make that find tip. It's not gonna look perfect. And I realized that this is a very flawed looking leave, but we're not looking for perfection over here. Okay, That looks like a helping you. But if I do this a little bit faster, the pain spree again. Not perfect leaks, but this exercise is not meant to be perfection ups To show this little more close up. And I always picks up the tip. If I'm not happy with it, there's no rule that once your brush has hit the paper, you can't make changes through these. It's called a two stroke leaf. But do whatever works best for you. I'm gonna try to do another one here, and you don't even have to put the second part this compete elite from the side. And I would just trump colors on the edge in the edge to indicate that the color is probably gonna spread a little. But that's fine. I love, uh, having different colors into the leave as like what? It's still which, because leaves are not perfectly green. Okay, I hope that a short demonstration was okay, So then we're going to direction to leave is going outward. So first half next, I am gonna mix a little of pace Great with my green, because I don't want him to be the same color. Okay, That's a little bit of life for me, Trump some color manipulating the shape of the leaf a little bit to my liking. Okay, I just want to have some yellow green. I don't know That's gonna turn out. You want to make it to colorful, either Gonna just then those in a little bit. And I actually do want the leaves to touch and for the colors to kind of urge. I'm gonna trying to get this this yellow green a little bit by adding some ground, okay? And I wouldn't sweat about the shape like leaves too much. Do whatever is easiest for you and your comfort most comfortable with. I have to work fast here because I don't want my pain too dry. 6. Seamless Watercolor Botanicals - PART 2: so it was always saying, I gotta work fast in here. I want to quickly fix this up. It is greenest way too strong. Even this blue is a bit strong paint spraying here. Okay, So, like, now what? I'm doing this kind of overlapping a bit, Okay. And the reason why I'm doing these overlapping leaves us because I want the colors to blend one of seam seamless. - Okay . Somehow gonna have a bunch of leaves on the page. I'm gonna drop my surprise color before these leaves dry. I'm just randomly adding them into the areas where e c that leader still wet. - And remember, if you want your green brown is really great or read and remember, the colors are gonna be drawing a lot later than what you're seeing here. The paper's gonna the water and the paint is just gonna The colors are just gonna be a little bit more saturated than what you're seeing right now. Okay? And now I'm doing I'm gonna add stems and leaves where it feels like they need it strong. Okay, so this is basically the second part. The second set of police I'm gonna at I don't know you can tell, but I'm very hasty. Wants working on this piece that I have enough time to drop the color in running a little bit more pains. Great heiress. Okay, so now it's time for the last set of Leafs. I want to add to the painting and this this part here, it's very important. Move your pain away and you're just using your job. Water, Okay? And we're literally Onley painting with water. And we're pulling out whatever paint we can from from the painting. Okay, so that's one leak. You can see that paint from the other least is rushing to our transparent leaves. Okay, this is actually my most favorite part of this painting. I'm just stepping back here for a moment and trying to assess where something you need it. Like the sleep shipping bigger. - I don't know how well you can see my transparent lease. There gonna be a little more evident after the painting Asteroid. I'm just going to make a couple of stems here and there to suggest background stems on background leaves. And what's happening? It's so like I love this part. The water is pulling out page from other parts of the painting and later on as a try. Some of these are just gonna become evident And currently they're not. I feel like, not sure if I should add more. Just leave it. My brain is telling me that more at war but another part of me thing Don't stop it. Oh, yes. So final touch gonna just drop in a little bit more I'm so tempted to put like water splitters on but I might stop. 7. Lastly...: I hope you guys all enjoy this class. And I hope you were able to find some healing whilst painting if you didn't paint these exact exercises. But we're still inspired to paint something. Please Sharing the projects column if you like. If you have any questions or if you need me to clarify anything, please let me know Down below in the discussion to tap. Thank you so much for watching. And I hope to see you in my next class. Stay healthy, stay happy and stay creative.