Japanese Lucky Cat In Watercolor

1. Intro: Hi, I'm me LA and welcome to my Skillshare class. I was born in the US race in Japan since I was four until 26 and ever since I've been living in Hong Kong, China, and now in Singapore. As you can imagine, I've been much immersed in Asian culture and recently I went to the Asian civilization museum to see the exhibition of Oak Hill. It was an, all of the Japanese patterns was amazed at how many cats were depicted in the paintings than any other animals. And I love cats. Gotten us Seljuk of the calligraphy Shushi classes I took back in secondary school. After this visit, I thought I'll go home to create an art combining all these elements. In this class, you will learn how to draw a few Japanese traditional patterns called the walkout up, like these. This is one of them called a CMO hub. They're very beautiful. And this one is pulsatile. And we'll also be looking at these tips on how to drug Japanese characters using watercolor brushes. And finally, we will paint the money chemical, also called the beckoning cap in watercolor. If you've never heard of money chemical. Like these beckoning cats are lucky cat's. Then there are Basically when you pop into a store in Japan or any Japanese stores, then you will see them typically near the cashier or just on some shelf at the shop. And basically means if it's a cat beckon ink, like they're aligned like this. If you see those kind of cats, then if it's the right pole and it means that they're trying to bring in money. And if it's left pod, they're trying to bring in customers. Usually the one for the right hand is I'm at home and left one would be for a shops because you don't want to be like, Oh, I want the money and then put a cat who's beckoning on the right at shops. And that's not the Japanese way. But anyhow, if you want to know more details about them, this is the description and the Wiki or you can also check the link and Wiki for our money clinical or beckoning tax, and you'll see the description of it if you've never seen my previous watercolor classes, I've also covered Japanese ornamental stones, which explains in depth of a lot of the things that I explained in this class. But I go in depth with watercolor theory, watercolor control. You will learn quite a lot. So if you want to create something like this, I highly recommend to go over into that class. We will be covering quite a variety of things. But if you want to find specifically certain areas you want to learn about, I have a detailed explanation in the description section. This class will help those that would like to add some new elements and to stir things up for your creative art pool. Let's get started. 2. Materials: Okay, so first we will look into the materials that you would definitely need, followed by the ones that you might want for your convenience. So first of all, I'll be using watercolor paints. You could use any brand that you have. Next you'll need an eraser. I'll be using a kneaded eraser because this way it would damage the watercolor paper. You'll need a pencil, a ruler. You could also use just your hand, like freehand it, but I would be using a ruler for precision and some kitchen paper that he could wipe your paint brush with. Paint brushes. I'll be using relatively small sizes here, but you'll want maybe a mop if you're covering a very large surface and a round brush. Next, watercolor paper. Now this, for this project I would be using a bigger size. But if you want to send some postcards to somebody with the mannequin Nicole, then this would be a great option. It's Holbein postcard pack and it was pretty nice I used this, but I really like it. This, I'll be using for the final project, the arches. It's better to use 100% pure cotton, which I highly recommend. And then pretty thick. This is a 300 GSM watercolor paper, so it's pretty thick for the sketches. I will be using this for quick sketches to check the color combinations because I don't want to use a nice watercolor paper for that. Too. Jars or a glass of water to clean. One would be the one that I would directly put my paintbrush first and then the other one to clean it up. And then from here on I'll talk about the materials that you might want. For convenience. It looks a bit weird dish, but it's actually my brush holders. I made it myself by Clay. It's really nice because it keeps things. It's not messy. If you have gouache, it'll be nice. I'll be using this zinc white wash because it's more opaque. It'll be great to use at the end. If you have a waterproof pen, that would be great as well. I'll be using these masking tapes to mask around the edges. You have a clean finish off an edge. And these would come in handy to check precise angles because we'll need a 60 degrees and angle, but you don't have to. You can just go by your intuition. And it'll be great if you have some kind of gold watercolor paints to basically paint the coin of the money clinical. And if you have a tracing paper, that would be great too. I have one and I'll definitely be using these. Finally, it's great if you have swatches of all the watercolor paints study have, you can look at them and select the color combinations that you would prefer for the final project. Okay, let's hop into the first warm-up. 3. Warm Up: For the first warm-up, I have already got into a lot of more detail with the watercolor warm-ups in my previous class. So please check out the watercolor course that I did for Japanese style ornamental stones. You would really be learning more of this in depth. But I would do a quick warm-up just so I can get things started. Here. First of all, we'll be looking at the pigment to water ratio. So watercolor Is a lot about the ratio between the pigment and the water. The more water you have, like lighter color and the more you get the pigment, the more darker it's gonna be. So I am going to choose this red color for an exercise. First, I would like to start really light. I'm putting a lot of water there. Then I would add some more pigment and I'm only having this eight circles to work on, so I would have to keep that in mind. As I go. I'm adding more and more pigment to this water mixture. Could've put up a bit pigment. And when the watercolor paper is not pure cotton, you can't really lift up the pigment once you lay it down. So that's a bit of a tricky part using paper that's not 100% cotton. As you use more pigment. Applying the brush on the paper should be not as smooth. Obviously, it's really thick and peak. This is what you'll be going after. I think I'm done with the warm up first, warm up next we're going to be doing flat washes. I'm going to use a bit bigger. First we're going to go really light and gradually work on making it thicker. Split. More thing out. That's a flat wash will be using this for maybe the background of the money clinical. So it's good if you get used to doing flat washes. Next, we're looking at wet-on-wet. For my final project I'll be using, I'll get into the details later on. But for the money kinetic goal. It's going to be it's going to have spots that are going to have this Naples yellow and also the English Venetian red. First of all, I want it to blend out so I'm going to lay down a wash of Naples yellow. Then I'm going to add this English Venetian red. It's also going to be what? I'm going to add it in the middle. That's a wet-on-wet technique. It does look like cats spot. That's the whole idea of doing this. You could also try just using different colors. Let's see. What colors would I use? Some colors, that would be a cool combination. I'll use this turquoise color just for fun. And then I'll use this cerulean blue to add a bit more. Explaining basically, if there's more or less water for this second pigment, then what happens is that the brush is going to soak up the water that's already laid out on the first layer. You have to keep in mind that it has to be the same wetness as your first layer of pigment that you pigment and water that you laid out first. Okay, so next we're going to whitespace know this is the I don't know how you call it, but let me show you like a monoclinic or would have on his color. So, you know where the cat is near neighborhood. I drew this and the color, and this is the bit of the color that's underneath the neck color, but we're going to create whitespace in-between all of these. And I want to actually use the colors that I think I would be using. First of all, always remember to use the brush size that actually fits into this space. This one would fit. I'm going to use this red color. First, just lay down the red. But I drew the line of the color for so I could create a whitespace. So here I've created a bit of distance between the color. And this is the bill. Basically. Later on, there's like a whitespace in-between. You don't have to create this, but it's actually a quite a nice effect. Later on to see you've created that whitespace there, so it's your choice, but it's good to kind of have this as an exercise. Then here I laid down the whitespace and then work my way down. Add this green because word only warming up here doesn't really matter too much. I barely made a whitespace here, so I don't touch that bill. The space between the color. Could have used a bigger brush for this I suppose, but adding some color. Then finally, I'll be using some goal. For the middle. I'm done with the whitespace. Next we're going to look at strokes. Now. These strokes would be used for mainly the purpose of these warm-up of the strokes is for the calligraphy side of the Japanese characters that you'll be drawing. Just going to practice with the few characters. When you do Japanese characters, you really need to not really painting, but rather just try to make it in with each stroke. If in your water mean so that's one stroke. Then the next word would be one stroke. One stroke. Then again, next drug. Again a stroke. I'll try to upload some resources where he can look at how to do each of these strokes, but try not to overthink because these are going to be quite small. I believe it's inside the bill. So that's one stroke and then one another stroke. And try to move your brush. Like there has to be strength when you push it down, lift it up softly. It's hard to explain but pushed down. That's one stroke. Pushed down, one stroke to stroke. Pushed down, one stroke, pushed down, one stroke, push down, one stroke. That's one character that will be inside the belt. It'll be great if you really want to learn more on these calligraphy in Japanese, then please leave me a review. It'll be great to know if there are other people who want to really learn this. Okay, so now we're going to the next one. The next character OP 123. Next we're gonna be doing shadows. So it's really more like practicing strokes, like just try out different strokes. Even these dry brush strokes are quite nice at times. But I would concentrate on pushing it in and then letting it go, pushing it in, letting it go, even twisting a bit, pushing in, letting go, pushing it, sliding, even to the other side. Then we do the clause, we put shadows in the clause. It could be like down, go down, go down, go down, go, slide it, slide it. This try practicing. These kind of powerful yet light smooth strokes. Pushed down and then of course slightly pushed down and let go slightly. I think we're done with this section. I would like to go to the next lesson where we learn about Japanese traditional patterns and how to draw them by hand. 4. Japanese Patterns: We'll be looking into how to draw these drip nice traditional patterns. Now, you can use rulers or whatever comes in handy. But at the end of the day, I quite like how organic things can look when you draw them by just your hand. For this practice warm-up sake, we're going to just draw them by hand. Let's try. I'll be explaining how to do each pattern, but I'll also explain what these are in different patterns mean. First of all, let's try it. Three of them. Let's make a flat wash of any color that you like. So I would choose this blue. This blue right now. Just create a flat wash. This could be a great exercise. It doesn't have to be perfect. Gradient or anything. We're going to be drawing on top of these just to give it a bit of color rather than just working on them on with just lines because that's no fun. It has to dry while we're working on the other ones. Thanks. So cadmium, I think this one has dried salt. Like to work on this. We're first going to make a line. I would use to civilian blue. Hopefully it's dry. Make it a bit thicker. And then just draw a vertical line. Having a bit of space in-between. And try to work on your precision here as much as possible. It'll be a good warm up. Maybe even trying to, rather than painting it like this way, try to work your hand so it's vertical, like that. Like that, rather than this way sideways. Okay, so I drew vertical lines. Now next, choose a different color. I'll use this red. Make it thinner, and try to make the vertical line in-between those, these thick lines. Don't worry if it's not perfectly in between. But just make sure that it's thinner. Dairy habit. This is one Japanese traditional pattern. You'll be like What? That's super easy. It is, this is called either Comaneci Jima or I'll just write let me write it in pen so it's easier for you to see where I'll write it here. Basically, it's literally means parent, the child, the child in-between in the parent on the slide, it means protection and so forth. So, see this quite a lot on tomatoes. Let me try to like so you can have a visual sense of what needs to be done. Just imagine there's like vertical lines again, but I'm just going to draw it a bit lighter so you can't really see, but try to draw a vertical line just like you did over here, but without the small vertical line. Then once you draw it, we would have like horizontal lines. I think it's a bit difficult for you to see, so let me draw it over here. So you know what I'm doing. There are lines. You basically draw a horizontal line and make sure that you draw another horizontal line in between these horizontal lines. Like that. To give you a clearer picture. What you do next is you basically create a wave that goes around those lines you've created. So they don't, they don't touch these if you know what I mean. So this basically these wavy lines is what you want and you don't want to show much of those vertical nor horizontal lines that you drew. I'm trying not to show much of it. It's just a guideline for you to be able to draw it better than just free hand drawing it. I think this brush would be good. Or maybe I should go for a thinner brush. I think this should be okay. I am going to use this purple free handing. Do you call it free handing in Japanese, we do, but not using anything like rulers or any measurements, those gave you that organic feel to it? I do quite like it. This in itself is called today. What? Good? I'm gonna write that work good. Basically, it's just symbolizing steam, steam rising. And basically in Japan, steam raising is it means good luck. So they have this on a lot of clothes as well. If you add one thing to this which I am going to maybe in a different color. Maybe not. I'm just going to use the same red I used to do the background. So if you add to this, basically this flowers that in itself is one traditional Japanese pattern. You can just keep on, you get the idea. Just keep on going with this. I do believe it was 34567888. Petals normally put 1234567812345678. And you just keep on going. 12345678. You get the idea, you can go on and on this. I forgot to put you on it. Once you've added the flowers would be key could walk. So basically just adding a type of Florida called to it. Okay, so the next one we would be making something that I quite like next, for this one, we're gonna be, I'm gonna draw it next to it so you can see what I'll be doing. The idea would be creating lines, horizontal lines, and basically creating bricks. Bricks should be like that. Like that. Wherever the bricks vertical line hits the horizontal line would be would have a circle in the middle. Wherever the horizontal line, the vertical line, and the in the middle of the vertical line. We're going to have dots. Once you've created these thoughts. Next we're going to create like a semicircle that connects from the first dot to the top, to the bottom dot. First thought, top, bottom dot. And then you just connect all of them. I'm just going to draw vertical, the horizontal line. Lightly. Bricks, image of bricks. Image of bricks, but try to make them spaced out evenly. Bricks, bricks, bricks. Then in the middle of the vertical lines. Dots. Then connect these dots. Connect these dots, connect these dots, then connect these dots, connect these dots. Then it can kind of imagine how it will be connecting them to the side as well. Connect these dots, connect these dots. Now I can get the idea of how to connect them. So I will go over them with gouache, white color. Once you connect them. It's better if you do have a compass. If he really wanted to make it crisp and perfect. But again, sometimes just this organic look. Doing it by hand is quite nice. Working on this quite fast. Then once you've created that first-line, then you go for the second line, third line, second, third, second, third. Third. So keeping in mind, tried to distribute them similar sizes, but again, I'm not doing it perfectly. Either, but you get the idea. 121212. That's one style of Japanese pattern which is called liked the characters save, I see a guy. It means let me write it. They say, it literally means blue sea wave. So this has a meaning of infinite ways with the meaning of basically infinite hope, enjoy, and peaceful living. It's like one of the beautiful patterns that I really love. Would like to paint. These two. We can do the next one. I'll paint one of them purple. For the next two of these. Basically you want to create like a 60 degree slanted lines that go both ways. So how I would do that is first draw slanted line this way, this way. And then horizontal line. And then connect the horizontal and the slanted with another slanted from the other side. I think I'll just directly draw these lines. Thank all. Use the same purple but just darker slanted lines. Then next, what I'll be doing, basically coloring from here on it's more kind of additional week got the base of it. Does coloring them. Making triangles. You could use different colors. I'm just using these for an example. You could even create bigger triangle. Because this is what those actually happen here and there with the patterns stages like create bigger triangles within one, trying small triangles. Not there online here. Then you can use white. Even tried to create different try and laws within. There. Different rows. It's pretty much endless. You can just go on and on and on. This. I think you get the idea. Now, so forth. So I think I'll just stop here because it's pretty much endless. So this one is called UDL, got me right. It means fish scales. But actually it's not related to fish, but butterflies and moths. And it has the meaning of shedding the skin. So it's supposed to be like rebirth of something, transformation and so forth. Okay, so next last one, before we enter the flowers, this is my favorite one. And I'll be definitely using this for the final project. First, it's kind of the same stages of doing things, but think all draw this. What we're trying to draw here, let me draw it over here. It's the same thing we did with the utricle. So 60 degrees, then vertical lines, horizontal lines, and then another 60 degrees connecting. What do you do next is literally for each of these triangles, say this is the triangle. What we're doing is we're putting the dot in the middle. From the top, we put a vertical line and then a slanted line from the middle to the corners at the bottom, like this. And literally we're gonna be doing this for each triangle. I think. For this one actually I'm thinking I'll just draw with a pencil first. Horizontal line, horizontal line. I think I'll be using the gouache later. Then slant it. Then I'm going to put another slanted line. This trying to go through. So there it's not perfect, but let's see how it goes. And then I put small dots in the middle of these triangles. First, when I learned how to do these, somehow, it didn't look right. What helped me? Well, I'll show you how to oh, it didn't help me, but what helped me was to basically draw like a thicker middle dots. It looks like a flower. Now that I had drawn everything, I'm going to use the white wash Again. Literally, I'm just going to connect them for the ones that are looking down, the triangles that are looking down basically like, how would I say down like that? You have to draw the line from the middle down and then up. And try to connect the pencil lines as well. That middle. Like that. It's beginning to look like a geometrical. Flower, more like triangles first, but I'm literally just connecting all of them with this white ink wash. If you do this and you're like, oh, it doesn't look right. I think the triangle being upside down. Like this one is upside down. You have to make sure the middle goes, the vertical line goes down, then the sides come down as well to the middle. Just takes practice. If you don't get it too thick, it's going to not show as much, but I quite like that effect of not being too perfect. I'm definitely going to use that effect of some parts being very white and some parts being kind of faded out. When it doesn't quite like you can't really visualize it. And you're like, it doesn't look right. Then here's the trick. You just use more white and basically just be like, okay, this is the middle of the flower. Now I'm going to work around it. So here I'm going to try using lot of paint for this one. Only kind of work around this middle petal. Use a lot of paint. You kinda get the idea, like it's when the middle bit pedal is more kind of like strong and opaque. You can kind of visualize it more. So right there, you see it more. Now. I'm not gonna do the whole thing, but I think you get the idea. Next. I would like to go to the flowers. The flowers are pretty straightforward, but I'm going to use this red right here. Literally. You just create five circles. Does give you the abstract idea that it's a flower. Actually a lot of japanese patterns that have like flowers actually do just look like this. They just be like, Okay, that's a flower. But to go into more different patterns of flowers, Let's just color all these in. Think they've dried. So let's start using white wash paint over them. So the first one, just going to come over. You could basically create white-space without doing this for this bit, but For explanation purposes, I've just colored them all in so you could get a sense of what I'll be doing and how much variation. So you could try out. Here. I'm just, I just created this kind of almost like a V-shape and pulling out some of these paints. Then I think a bit of a small dot there. So that's one kind. The next one would be painting almost like a compass. Then putting a dot around like that. The next one is basically like putting opposite see in the middle, you can turn your let me wash my brush before it goes bad. You can basically turn your paper around so it's easier. But we're basically creating opposite C, C. And it's better if you can connect them inside C. C. That's one style of flower. The next style, it would be very small and intricate. Basically it's like drawing diagonal. You might need a smaller brush and this is extremely small. So I might have some hard time basically drawing diagonal. Diagonal. Then placing a dot in the triangles. One style. The last one is the same thing as this first. Please sing like that. Then you additionally like white columns across, like a bit of circled columns across of a circle here that goes in a bit of both circle, that goes in a bit of a circle. It goes in. That is, the four different styles of drawing the flowers. Forgot to write this down. So this is for, this. This one is, I did forget to mention what this meant. This is a character for cannabis and it's the leaf of candidates. It used to be worn by babies. And because the clothing didn't get repelled the bugs, this patterns were known to have the power of getting rid of the evil spirits. It was often worn by babies and children back in the days. Also in a Kabuki, it often symbolizes woman and worn by the ladies in a couple of key which are acted out by men traditionally. I hope you enjoyed this bit of the class and please share what you've created. You could also add so many bunch of stuff to this. I mean, these triangles don't have to be like this. It could be different colors. You could also add a bit of flowers on the side here. There's tons of things, variations you can do. So just play around, see what works and what looks beautiful. And please upload even this warm up to the project section of the class. Okay, so see you in the next class. 5. Sketching: Now in this class we'll be drawing this money clinical and sketching it so you can then trace it and then trace it onto your watercolor paper. To be honest with you, I've done this many times before. I actually kind of organized this class. I'm not going to be using this because I've already selected what I'll be using because clearly I've done it anytime. I know which one looks the best. But who knows? This might look better than the one I have on it in case you don't like drawing, I do have the version that I'll be using in the resources section, which you can then just trace it directly from there. But I'll just be explaining all go loosely. First. Then kind of loosely sketch the cat. I'll show you later on home much sketches I already done. Knowing where each P, I really quite like this money clinical because it's got pretty curvy. Somehow it looks really soft. The cobalt coin would be here. This would be here. The hands. It doesn't have to exactly be the same because sometimes having it a bit different does create a unique unique style to it. But for this one, I quite like it to be quite close because I just love exactly how this cat looks. I think I got fairly close to what it looks like. Now I'm going to go in a bit darker. Almost looks a bit like a rabbit with big ears. Gonna make this bit. The actual pattern that has the face. The color. Pause. Try to also draw the nails and the Neil's. If you look closely, they're almost like a triangle. And I quite like them to look like triangles. The shadows of the in-between the claws are very important later on, so make sure to draw that too. You don't have to draw the inside of the pattern the cat has, but it kind of makes it easier if basically the costs would be for here in the shadows would be three. And then this would be the cobalt. Somehow I quite liked how I had a shadow for the cobalt. I'll draw that later. Should be seen, but let me extend this a bit. This should be around the same place. Then again, the claws on the foot. Then the shadows to shadows more around her like that. Draw this again. Green to draw close first clause. Clause and the shadows, shadows. The bill goes up a bit, touches the coin. Let's make it. A banker. I actually liked them to not touch each other, Considering they're going to be the same color. Just a bit of space. Let me try to get the bottom. First. I think that should do it. Be a pattern here and a slight pattern here which I like to include. Here. I don't like to include it, so I'm just gonna leave it as it is. Then. It's really not too difficult, but I mean, it's kind of difficult to draw. Like shade for the characters that would go into here. It's basically four boxes and another box here like that. But you don't have to get it to closest Just, I think the characters, you should just basically deal with it with a brush later on, but it's a good start. I'm redrawing this bit. Again. Finally, I'm going to go inside the eyes. Gonna be roundish. Let me just draw a line to make them equal as possible. They're kind of roundish and then have a curve. In this original one, they have it a bit yellow, but I don't quite like that. I'm not going to use yellow necessarily for the eyes. I think the eyes are okay. And then nose. The nose has a bit of opposite slanted triangle. Then also like a moon, crescent, almost. These don't have to be perfect Really Because at the end will be kind of just going with the very organic like strokes. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Then we got a bit of dots for the whiskers. And then finally the characters. I think the eyes look a bit like they're going down. I think I'll change that a bit. I don't quite like how they look right now. Kind of going down. That's better. Then. Then the characters will be something like that. This makes it a bit harder to imitate because it's done with calligraphy brushes. So don't mind it too much, but basically just follow what I write. Big rectangle with one square and then draw another square with four squares inside. And that's, it means luck. Now we'll be drawing the characters right here, which rescind mondo. It means 600 billion will be going over the strokes later on. But just try to imitate how it's drawn. How it looks like. Because drawing itself is more like calligraphy work, which will, we will, which we will be practicing later on. This will be more like a guideline for you. Later on. That's pretty much it. I think this is okay. It's a bit slanted, but I hope you get the idea. It could be always shifted a bit, I guess. Maybe all extend extend the arms up more, so it's more around it. You could make a bit of tweaks here and there even after you're finished. I think this they think it looks less slanted. Now. Also, I still don't like the eyes. I think I'll draw them again. I think it's a bit curved. On a downside. The highest point is right here with the lowest point there. Indent it down. Finally, I forgot about the clause here. Again, going to create four for clause with some shadows, three shadows. I'm done. I think I'm done with this. I am not going over what I do with the tracings, but I'll basically, once you're done with this and you're happy with the sketch, then you can trace over it. And you can then use the tracing paper to trace onto your final project paper, which I'll be doing onto mine here. I'm not going into details about how to trace because I think that's fairly simple or you can always look it up online. I have done a Mandela class where I explained how I do it. So you can go ahead and check how to do it on there. Just to let you know about which sketch I have done. I've already sketched out my few different money clinical. First, I did this. I made a few sketches sexually. This was one of them. My husband said it looks too scary. So then I created another one. And this relatively looks quite nice. The one thing I would add is I added a bit of a shadow layer right here. I kind of forgot about that, which created a better effect to it overall. So you can create that as well if you want. But this is the final mechanical that I'll be using. I'll post a copy of this so you can just print it off from the resources section. And then I finally trace it onto here on the tracing paper. The reason why I cut this out is because I'm gonna be using this as the actual size of my final project. And by cutting it out, it's going to be easier for you later on because what's going to happen is that I think I'll work on it more vertically like this. I can draw the outline of the cat and then I could draw the patterns in the back that would help me as a guideline for whichever pattern that I'll be using. As you can see here, this is a card that I've created. And you could see that I masked it and I made it a bit slanted on the sites. I've put a shadow at the end, near the pole, which kind of makes a bit of a 3D effect but inhale. So I made the outline of the cat and then I've drew the background. So this is exactly what I'll be doing for this. Then it makes it easier. You don't have to draw inside of the cat because I'll be using white. When I say white in watercolor, it means like blank whitespace. So I don't want any kind of geometrical lines in the back where I have to basically go over it with a kneaded eraser to erase it. I don't want to do that. So this is how I'm gonna do it. I'm going to outline it on my paper and then I'm going to draw the outside. And then finally I'm going to draw the inside of the money chemical. And then I'm going to go over with a wash at the end for the background. So that's the steps that we're gonna be doing just to give you an idea. In the next lesson, we'll go over these Japanese kanji characters in calligraphy to just give you a bit of an idea of how to paint them with watercolor brushes. 6. Calligraphy: First we'll be looking at Foucault, which would be the one that's written inside the bill of the color of the cap. This Fukuda means blessing, fortune, luck and wealth. There's a specific way of drawing the strokes. When you write this character solo, be practicing with it with just a regular pen. And the next one will be the same mondo. Now this mondo, as I mentioned, means 600 billion in money basically. But this could change with different money chemicals, but this is the typical one that I see now will be practicing how to draw these. And then finally at the end, we'll be using watercolor brushes to actually draw it in calligraphy style. So first I'll just be using these thicker pen so you could see we'll just practice the first stroke. I'll also leave a site that would be helpful for you to look at. It's called judicial. It's basically tells you how the stroke order happens. So for Foucault, it'll be one. And then 12. Then one, then one, then 1112. Then close it. Then one, then one again. Then 123, and closing it. I'm sorry, this should have been a bit smaller, so let's do it again. 123456789101112. I don't know if it's actually 12 strokes, but anyhow, that's the order. I guess it's 13 strokes. So 12345678989101112. That's 12 I'm getting confused. 12345678910111213. That's right. That's 13 strokes. Just practice this. It means a lot to make sure which strokes come first to make it look beautiful. It's actually really quite true. Make sure the top box is smaller than the one on the bottom. You've got a bit smaller but okay, so next one, SIM MON guilt. The strokes would be 12 from the left, then three. The next one would be 123. The next one will be 123456. That would be 123456. Oops, make sure this doesn't stick out like I did. Then the next 112. Oh, no, I made a mistake there. Oops. 12. And then three. That was complete disaster. It takes to practice even for me, One, 23 and then 456789101112, and then 13. That's it. I'm going upwards but practice this one more time, maybe over here. 1234567891011. That's basically total of 11 strokes. Let's do it again. 12, three, for a bit shorter. Then long. Then 12345. Okay, so let's get into some calligraphy style watercolor. So I love these colors. It's called the Japanese desk colors that I bought on Amazon. Actually it's called Japanese color is the meat. I'm gonna be using this. Let's go with the Fukuda. So just placing it, then 123, adding a bit of paint. Then 123. Then the next one would be bigger. Didn't 123? That would be Fugu. It's better to not kind of makes sure the spaces right here. So let's try that again. 123 for adding smaller here, 123456. Try to make sure that it fits inside a box. So let me just draw an imaginary box here. This could help you if you keep on doing it and it doesn't work. A lot of Japanese calligraphy books, like when I went to school would show you how to draw it inside the box first. 1234512345345. That's how it works. Then you can add more styles with certain brushstrokes. So when he get a bit used to it, like even a dry brush effect could be quite cool. Actually. Connecting them could look cool. And that's exactly what the original looks like. It's being connected, being a smooth transition. Okay, let's try the same module. Next. I'm going to use a different color. 123. It already looks quite cool than the one we drew with the pen. One. Shorter. Then connect. And then just add up more. Next. 12. That's sim Monday. Let's try that again. One 234 month bit of dry brush there. Monday till it already looks quite nice. I'm going to just practice it another time. Making it a bit smaller. It still makes mistakes sometimes sim, with the brush strokes. That's it. But for the actual final version, somehow like using the same, we're going to go into the color combinations, but I quite like using the same color as the background. First layering it with a lighter color of it, and then adding a black watercolor paint. So it has a bit of vibrancy in the back, but still like black color that kind of covers it. Will be practicing this. I'm going to get this, maybe this cerulean blue first. And try to work with the first 12345. Same thing. One, then smaller square, and then bigger square. Then this is not quite a good watercolor papers, so they might not do the job too well. But I'm going to add a bit of this is not bleeding inside. Make sure to add quite a lot of watercolor. I mean water to the pigment. Make sure it's still wet. When you apply the black layer. Adding a bit of black hair. A bit of luck here. They're black inside. Just like that. Quite looks nice and cool with a bit of vibrancy, but a bit of block inside. I'm going to try sim Mundell and making sure it's quite watered down. I'm just gonna stop here and add a bit of black. This was too slow. Let's just add. It depends on really the paper that you're using and the environment you are in. I'm in Singapore. So it gets it is more about the paper in my case though, because it's humid here. I'm just using the back of watercolor paper because I don't feel like this really needs to be a nice quality paper to do. But we're going to add, this didn't really do its job, but you get the idea. Let's try a different blue. Again, just practice. It's great to just practice these as many times because you'll literally see how better you get every time you practice. We are going to get inside the color theory, color combinations of which combinations it would be great for you to use, and I'll give you the idea that I use in the next, the next class. A bit more water here. Oops, I made a mistake with the brushstrokes tear, but so just try out different colors just to see what kind of works better with the black. You have to use something by Brent. Maybe I'll use the red here. If it doesn't bleed as much, it really doesn't look that nice. Make sure use quite a lot of water for this one. Keep on not using enough. This even looks a bit eerie now. Kanji, then with red and black, almost looks like it's hunted. Think I'll try some green mixed little green, which is always quite vibrant as well. I'm going to use black for this one. Just to kind of see. It does a nice job compared to the phthalo green that I was using. Wasn't dry enough. I mean, that was too dry. Was in wet enough. I think I'm done with practicing the calligraphy bit. I think we're ready, So I definitely like the blue somehow, so I'll be using that for my background and the Kanji's that I'll be using. Next, go to the next lesson. 7. Color Theory: In this class we'll be looking at how I approach color combinations because at the end of the day you do want to create something that you like most but with tons of pigments, colors study happy. You might be wondering, well, what would be the best color to use? I go in depth about color theory in the Japanese ornamental stones class that I have linked to this class as well. You could go check that out before you do this, but I would give a general idea of what I do. Here are some swatches that I've made. These are all the colors that is in this palette. Now you really need the primary colors. And when I say primary, it's red, yellow, and blue. With these colors, you can create the secondary colors like purple, orange, and green. So you really want to stick to these primary colors and create the other colors like the secondary colors because you don't want to go to off from the pigments that he used to have more sense of like it's not all over the place basically, if you know what I mean. Here. I chose these colors to try out here. I might change this color to this Fred that I have. It's not perylene read. I'm not really sure because I just got that as a gift. But let's just say I'm using, Let's just say this is this, but anyhow I'm using these colors. I just lay out my swatches and see like, okay, that is pretty I would go with this one. Or you can lay out like other swatches and just choose first choose the blue and the yellow and the red that you'll be using. This is actually pigment green. It's PG is pigment green. But I think it somehow really wanted to use this as a blue. I'm just going to forget about that green that it actually is. But you get the general idea when mixing if you know that this is green, I'll explain about it in detail later on what happens. But anyhow, like you have to keep in mind that this is actually green and not blue. But anyway, so I have to get a read, so I'll use that a yellow. I'm going to use yellow ocher for the brown. I'm going to use English, Venetian red. This is for the patterns of the cat that I'm going to be putting into these round bits. But I just put brown at the bottom, yellow because these two have to kind of go together. You have to pick a yellow and a brown that actually looks pretty together. Then blue, which I'm actually using green, but try not to look at that but blue. Then for black, I'm gonna be using ivory, black and then green. So this is a secondary color. I'll be using this one, green, but it doesn't really look green. I think I'm gonna be mixing it with the yellow to make it a bit more greener. And for the gray, how you create a gray is by mixing the opposites in the color wheel. For red, it would be a green. Then this works because I just have to use this green rather than using a blue and a yellow mixed together and mix with red to create neutral color, the gray color. I'll just be mixing these tubes so it's gonna be easier for me for that. The reason for the red will be using it for the ears. I'm going to use it for the color. You can always try different combinations. It doesn't have to be necessarily this, but I'm going for the traditional look. Then the blue we're gonna be using it. I'm gonna be using it for the background and also the for the Kanji's here. And the black would be for the countries, for the eyes. I think I'll stick with that for the characters in the countries and the eyes. And for the gold, it'll be the bill and the coin. For green. It's more to kind of, I use it for the cloth, a bit of the color. And then the gray would be the shadows including a bit of the nose area, the baseline, the shadows of the coin and so forth. Let's just get on with the color combinations. This is really, I use, actually already practiced doing these color combinations beforehand. So I kind of have a general idea of what I want to do. But you can create more to see what works out the best, because I surely did create more to see what I like. So I'm going with this red. Looking at. All a bit all look together. That would be Naples yellow. And when you put down the Naples yellow try to mix it or I put yellow try to mix it with the brown that you think you'll be using just to see how they match. I quite like how they mix together. They're then put the blue black depth, you'll be using the gold. Now there are really different types of gold. It closely like this looks more redder than this one which looks more like a beige brown site. And for this combination, I thought it should have a bit of a warm tint to it, but I liked the champagne goals, so I'll be using that. Then the green. I'll be using this mixed with a bit of Naples. Yellow invention because this is actually not blue but a green pigment. I'm just gonna directly mix it with a bit of branding which I went to strong there. So it looks a bit purplish. I'm just going to add a bit of Naples yellow. That's a bit stole yellow, but actually I did have to add a bit of yellow to get neutral. And I still quite like it. Okay, so now that I got all these colors, I would like to color in the mechanical to see how it all combines together. I'll be coloring in the money, Kimiko, the colors of my choice just to see how it looks like. I'll be starting. It wouldn't be perfect. But I just want to get the idea of how the colors Well look like. Since this book is not a watercolor paper, It's not gonna react as a watercolor paper wood. Having that in mind. Still kinda see what it might look like for the final. All, use the same red. The color. As I mentioned, I'm going to create like a whitespace around certain areas. Just to give it an interesting look. A bit more red for different places, for some depth book. And then I will be using green for this area. Naples, yellow, blue. Also minding some whitespace here. More. So that's done. And then next, cool, all the patterns that this cat has. One here, This English niche and read. Next, I'm going to add some blocked. I assign me using ivory black. And then next be going over the nose bit. The same red, very light. Then the same black. The holes of the whiskers. Where did they grow up? Next? I want to go over the gold first because coals tend to be really light in color and if they smudge with the black later on with the characters that we'll be working on, it's going to look a bit not as nice in terms of order. I would like to go with this one and then kinda cover around the characters. The Kanji's kind of outlining. Try applying it and then working the outside of it. Some golds tend to not be as thick. Most likely it's more kind of very light in color, so you may want to darken them, but adding a few layers. That's why it's good to just outline the characters. Before. Actually the strokes that we used. As a guideline. This doesn't need to be perfectly covered. You're just getting like the idea of how the color combinations look overall. So don't be too fussy about making it perfect at this point. I pretty much covered most of the areas. So I think I'm done. Next we'll be going over all the nails of the cap because they aren't gold. Normally. Next we would be, I would add a bit of black, more book in the middle just to give it a bit of depth. Then next we're going to, I'm going to create a darker color of green for that. Cannot go over it to outline it a bit more. I'm going forward, the co-morbidity, the pattern that we've learnt. Make the bigger, thicker stroke. The first one. For the next one, again, select a different color. Very light dinner. Then I think for this color, I'm going to add very simple flowers. Really, it's just like five dots. Flower. Then next we'll be creating the neutral color, mixing green and then green and red. Here I'm creating some green. I'm just going to mix this red to it. There you have it spit on the purple slide, but I think it should do its job. Now, I'm going over the bit that there's shadows. So that'll be between the claws. Give it a thicker stroke at the top and let it go down. It's a good practice. Then there's like a shadow here. Then normally a shadow right here. The nerve first and then darker. Dinner here and a bit thicker. Then the mouth, usually something like that. That's a mark. There's usually a shadow here. Shadow under the chin area. And then contour of the face area. Thicker contour here. And then a bit of shadow. This area. And then for the coin, I'm gonna go pretty thick at the bottom. Lighter at the top. I think I like how it looks. I think I'm pretty happy with that. Then for the final touch-up, it's, it'll be the two characters here. So as I mentioned, I'll be using the same blue I'll be using for the background. It's good if you get ready with the first layer and also the black. That we'll be using. You can quickly add the colors into it. Again, this is not gonna be perfect because of the paper. It's a normal sketchbook I'm using 123123. Let the water paint, watercolor paint do its job a bit. But yeah, come out and looks nice. Then going 123. Probably need a thicker brush for that button. Add some black to it. Going to the next bit. 123. Again, adding black to it. The final characters. It's very important to use the perfect slaves brush for it, but sketch purposes, it's fine for now. Okay. Then finally, I like to a bit of a shine to the eyes using wash white. Then we're going to use the same red. And put in the clause. It usually happens to the money clinical. They usually have like red bit the shadows. That kind of makes sure to press it really hard first and then lightly, gently go down with a stroke that kind of lifts up, making sure they're the right direction. Wherever there's like the shadows between the claws, you put the red and it should be a bit less than the shadows itself, which I should have been careful here, but anyhow, then next, before you do the final whiskers, I will be using the background color. It wouldn't be much. But to get the idea, you're gonna be doing much more to the background later. But just for now, we're just looking at the color combinations to see if they work or not. It's totally up to you to choose which japanese patterns you'll be using. For the back. I'm going to be using the mono, which is the one that looks like stars bunch of stores or flowers. I totally forgot. There was another place that you need. The final red here, the side of the nose and then also the mouth. Finally, we are going into the whiskers. I would normally use a bit of gray mixed with white gouache. It could be blocked. It's totally up to you, but I just think like the gray looks better. That's pretty much it. I think I totally like this color choice that I've used, so I'm probably going to go for that. But just for war purposes, I'll like to try another one. So next I'm going to be using this red right here, which is cadmium. Red light. For the yellow. Would just try using maybe actually I'll use a warmer yellow. I forgot which one this was. Hold on. Let me check what I'll be using. I think this was the cadmium yellow light. Cadmium yellow light there. And for the brown I'll be using, Let's see. This burnt sienna. I'll try burnt sienna. Burnt sienna for the blue. I'm going to use ultramarine for the black. Ivory black again. For the gold. I'll be using this one called the red gold because it's stronger. Thank get on, match the other colors because they're very strong looking. Basically the green note, the unmixed of ultramarine with the cadmium yellow gray color would be this mixed with the red that I'm using. A bit too much red, they're going to add a bit too green mix hint bit on the green side, but I think that will do. I'll try using all these colors to see what it would look like. I'm going to be mainly focusing on coloring this and then talk a bit and then wrap up this class. I'm pretty much done here. I did two practices. You can do as many as you'd like until I get the one that I liked the most. But I think I really like this one. So I think I'm going to stick with this and try this for my final project. Please upload all these exercises that you've done because it's great to kind of look at what kind of variations you can come up with. And there'll be lovely to see how far you can gotten better at this as well. Okay, so let's go to the final project. 8. Final Project: Lesson 1: Okay. So this would be the final project. I put a masking tape that I had gotten Japan. And because I like the clean edged look, you don't have to do it, but it looks nice. So I would be doing that. And I'll also measured the middle point right down here. And also the middle point of the cat. I'm going to put this cut out cat shape, try to make it fairly in the middle. I think that's about right. Then I'm gonna mark very lightly the outline of the cat. The reason why I'm doing this is because I'll be drawing the pattern in the back first. I don't want to cover up the whole area with my patterns because then later on I'll have to erase them. I don't want to damage the paper as much as possible. Once you have made the outline of the monarchy nickel, then choose the one of the Japanese traditional parents for the background. I'm gonna be using this one. I really like this. I'll be using this as my background. What I would do first is basically mark 11 cm markings every one centimeters. You can also choose knee measurements you like, I'm just gonna go with one seat. Making a light marking here. I'll be making it right here as well. We'll be drawing the horizontal line first and then the 60 degree slanted blinds. Well, kind of put these aside for SAP a bit of space. Very likely. Making sure you don't draw the cat. Now that I've drawn the slanted 60 degrees from this side, I like to go over it. That's for this. It's gonna be a bit just get these lines more in calligraphy. It's gonna be a bit more easier because now you just need to connect these sites where it intersects with a slanted in the horizontal. In my case, I'll be going over all these lines with actually a waterproof pen. Just because I like to have that effect of the geometry of pumping out after I've laid down my watercolor. So I'll be going over it first before hand. If you still because the pencil mark shows, even if you tap it out and with the kneaded eraser, I mean, that might be an option for you. It to kind of like market, relatively light so it doesn't really stick the watercolors, but I quite like just using these lines to pop out of the watercolors. I'll be using this, be working on this pretty quiet. Just fast-forward. This bit. First horizontal lines and then the 60 degrees slanted lines. Then for the other 60 degrees slanted lines, I just go ahead and use my water waterproof pen to kind of go through the bit that crosses the horizontal and the slanted lines. And then I went over the rest of the penciled bit with this waterproof pen. And the reason why I'm doing this is because you could kind of erase the pencil marks as much as you want. But I just don't like a bit of them like seeping through the watercolor that I'll be using. The watercolor that I'll be using for the background is gonna be fairly transparent. So I don't want any pencil marks to show and I do like how the water proof pen is going to be seeping through the watercolor paint. And I like the geometry look of it. So I'm going to go with this. So if you don't like it, then you can just erase them so you don't like you barely see them. That I've covered all of it with my pen. I like to erase whatever pencil marks that I've got underneath with my kneaded eraser. Finally, what I'll be doing is I'll place this money kinetochore back to where it belongs. I think that's right. And you could use masking tape. Then once you've done that, once I erase everything, I was going to put my tracing paper over. Then I'll go over my pencil to trace everything. Check to see if you've missed anything. Most likely. I do miss things. I think I'm done. I don't know if he could see it closely. I would like to start with first the ears. I'd like to go quite light first. Since if I'm using really nice watercolor paper, It's going to be quite easier for me to work on it. Rather than the non cotton paper that we were using. The initial stages of this class. Be adding a triangular shape here. The middle, just to get it a bit darker. A wet on wet technique that we've worked. Next, I'd like to go over the patterns. Cap quite thick. It here. Here as well. Next, we'll be working on like to go. First case. I made him It's thick. I can always go back and rework it. Happy with that overall. Is this bit a bit more? Because doesn't quite have enough. The brown here. I think I'm going to wait on the rest to work on it on another day because I want it completely dry, but go over the eyes. Again, make it darker. I don't quite like the paint here, so I don't smudge. All solve this. I'm quite like how it turned out. I'm trying to rework it a bit. When you want to rework an area, you would definitely want a bit of synthetic brush rather than using natural brushes. So it's harder and it's, It's much easier to rework an area like I am. I'm going to let this dry a bit and then to trace out the area that I have it with just the color. Now that it's the paint has dried and I didn't include the color a bit. I'm going to go over the cat once more. Leave a trace mark for the color. Maybe several bits because I can't really see where things are supposed to go. Making sure that I clean my hands after I've traced these. Finally, I'll be picking up from where I finished last time. Now the eyes look not as dark, so I'm going to go over it again. Like one side looks darker than the other, which I like. My black to that. Then doing the color a bit can't really see. I'm going to try and create that white space in between the bill. The color. I'll be using the wet in wet technique to create some depth. Near the neck line. You've been a bit of blue balloon putting some water where it's almost dry. I could add to the upcoming on the painting. And then next, I'll be working on that pencil mark there. And then I'll be working on the green here. Getting Naples yellow, blue. Thank using a lighter green here for me at least. Looks nicer because it will be adding darker green value later on. Pattern. I'm also trying to create the whitespace here. Between this green and the middle. I mean the bill. And eventually between the coin. 9. Final Project: Lesson 2: I'll be working on the gold bit in the middle. First, working around their characters. Me. Later on when I draw it. You don't have to go really dark in the first layer. You could always add the gold separately a few times because gold's tend to be not as vibrant for the first layer. Next characters. Now this may be a bit off later, but again, doesn't really matter. We're just trying to kind of define the shapes. It doesn't have to be strictly what you defined here. Because when he use your brushes, this width like to hear strokes and not really painting. I think it looks way better. Done that point. Try it to define the lines outside here of the middle because then because white, the white bit here would be the shape of the cat. And since we're not going to be coloring it, or you might choose to color your cap, but me at least I'm going to be using the white and the background as the color of the cap. It's good to define the shapes on this side. Bottom. I'm going for a second layer here. Just to make it thick as possible. Thank looks funny. Next, I'll go over the nails of the cap from the top so you don't smudge them. Them in a triangle shape. The top being the narrowest and the bottom wider. Again, and doesn't have to be perfect. Just like whoa. That's perfect. Our okay. I'm going to skip it a bit of time for the goals to try for now before I get into the calligraphy. But now what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to create the lines right here on the color a bit. I'm gonna create a darker color and I think I'll burn paper. It's dirty this bit right here. I like it to be a bit darker than that. And that could be curvy a bit. Curvy here. Shutting down my brush. Okay. Then I'll use a thinner brush. I'm going to use blue for this. Needed water. I'm done. But the color that the red bit, I think I'll work on it more at the end once it's much drier than it is right now. Next, I think I'll work on the clicker that I tried to check which watercolor paintbrush is quaintly to fit the area the best. I think for this bit, I think I'll be using a thicker a brush, a bigger size brush for it. First. I'll be using blue. Then quickly I'll be answering the prologue. So using this black, I was just thinking maybe I'll use the granulating block because it creates more fun by granulation, but like separating the pigments. But I think I'll just use a regular black. It is here. I can go. Remember the strokes. If you can't remember the strokes, tried to go back to the lesson. For you. Don't really want the goal to mix and blend into it, but if it does a bit, It's fine. Not the end of the world. Then I'm going to add a bit more blue inside. Not to change the color of this strokes, but rather to add a bit of water so the black cannot blends in. It is a wet and wet technique. Try not to do it on the whole area or LCL just like mixed totally with the first layer that he did. It kind of don't want that because I think a bit of blending just makes it a really pretty and just letting the watercolor do its job. So maybe I'll let that dry a bit. Because I think it might. That's enough. For this one. I'll be using a bigger brush. So let me get I don't quite have a size that fits. I think they have to use this brush. You can shift the papers so it's straight towards you. So be going with the blue first. So one stroke. Then one stroke. The brushes, not quite the correct brush. Then one stroke. I think all cannot add more water, so then I can add and try not to change their shapes. The outer line of the strokes. Think that's enough. The next stroke looks a bit better. I'm going to wet. Inside of that is a smaller brush. That's enough. The last one. Now, this is gonna be a bit trickier. More strokes. One, gonna fill up my brush and do that again. 2346. I'm going to wet areas more. Did I really need that stroke there that was I think I'm happy with that. Gonna leave it. Let it dry and then I'll go over once his trial go over it with a bit of gold in the bit stuff's kinda just white. Next, we'll be making in grey water. I can always help out on clearing some space this later with white gouache if you need me. Okay, so we're going to create green. I'm just going to use this. As I mentioned in previous classes. This pigment is actually pigment green rather than blue. I'll try mixing it, but it's got a time purpley. Then I'm going to add a bit of the yellow than April sale that I use. It's become to help keep on trying to mix and get the correct color. Just take this case, it looks great enough, so I'll use that. First. I'll go for an in-between the claws. And I'm going to push the biggest struck at the top and let it go as I slide it down. That was pretty quick. And then again, I'll go over these clauses right here. Then again, these ones, there are two bits here and not there. Right here. Finally, can not work on certain areas that need shadows. Here I'm gonna go pressing lighter at the top and going really dark. If you'd like to try. Effect. You can't just leave it as it is. I quite like how it looks like there, so I'm just gonna leave it. I might work a bit more inside here. This dark. Then. I am going to work on this corner to contour the face a bit. And then pressing the bit, the baseline of the cap. There's a shadow right here to make it up it lighter. I personally like better phone liked her grief for here. Press, press, press. Then I'm going to go over the cat's nose, the sides, the mouth as well. With this neutral color. There's going to be chin down here. And then there's also like a grayish marking here, usually. Also right here. Press a bit. It's like the legs shadows of the legs. Shadow there. And also right here a bit. You don't have to overdo it, but I do quite like just the look of it when I do all these, I've tried many different ways, but think I like how it looks. One, small shadows inside. Leave this neutral color for a later will be stink, a bit of wash to it at the end, and then make some whiskers. Because once we're just going to color the background, and then we're going to make the whiskers. So then the whiskers actually kind of pop out on to the final background as well. Then we're going to create the bits where the whiskers actually, I think we're pretty much done. We're almost there. We're gonna get the gold color again. Then work the inside. It's where we didn't quite cover trying not it to like change the strokes because that's the beauty of it. You want to keep those strokes visible. Sometimes you do want to erase some bits, maybe. Like I don't quite like how this truck came in here. So I'm just going to cut it out with the kind of reshape it. Because they've got connected drink, They're think that looks better. I think I'm pretty much done. I'm almost there. So next I'm going to get the white wash bit is right here, but more onto my client to put a bit of squash onto the ice cap. I quite like that book. I think it makes it quite cute. But you don't have to if you don't want to. And then I found my pattern of the color. I'm gonna make it into a very simplified flower. So you can move the paper around if it makes it easier. I'll do that. I think that's enough. Then next we're finally going to get this red and make it quite dark. We are going over some few places for the final it touched to the cap. So try to leave a bit of shadow. But going over some bits of the shadows with red. It's totally up to you to do this or not, but quit like it. So I'm going from the top down. I think I should've a bit down, a bit down. It just gives a bit more depth. Then also the nose, but we're going to go light and then thicker. And then push a bit. Also the mouth strokes. Then also these claws. Think we're pretty much done with the cat. Only the final whiskers that is left. Now we're getting into the exhibit which is working on the background. This will take a bit of time and then the whiskers in this class, we'll be trying to finish the background of the painting with my kneaded eraser of the deleting. I mean, erasing all the pencil marks that is around the cap. Because my cat is white, I'm not going to be painting and I wouldn't need those marks anymore. I'm also erasing some parts of the cat where I actually didn't really paint in anything that I don't need the pencil marks off. If it's not underneath any kind of pigment, then you should be able to erase it. Won't be working on the background first, I'll be going over it with a wash. It depends really what you selected for the background pattern of your painting. Because if it's just lines, then of course it would be a bit different. But I'm sure you'll be going over it with one color, like a wash off a certain color. I'll be using this big brush so I can easily do the wash. And then as I get closer to the outline of the cat, I'll be using this. I might even use the smaller brush so I can get inside the details. Once we do one wash. We'll let it dry and I might go for go over like a darker wash. I do want it to have a feel of think I like sunsets better. So I might go over a darker, wash out the top and make it quite light at the bottom. I might do the other way around. We'll see. I'll be getting this cobalt and try to cobalt turquoise. I'll be painting with this cobalt turquoise blue and tried to get as much pigment as possible that could cover the whole area. I'll start with my wash. At this point. I don't really mind if it goes over my masking tape, but just making sure that I keep it quite wet. So I totally forgot to tap on the record both tin when they started doing the background. So sorry for that. I'm just going to explain what I did. It's fairly simple. I kind of made a lot of pigment, watercolor on my palette enough to cover at least half because I don't have much space here. I can leave a certain one-color. I should just clean it up, I suppose, but anyhow, so I worked on it and I made sure I use a big brush for this wash. You can cover up most of the areas for the certain areas of the outline of the cat. I thought I'll use the small brushes. Whereas like I was able to just go over it with this like the tip of the mop brush that I have. So it kind of worked. I would recommend that. And then there are some parts that I kinda went over the outline of the cat, which then later on redefine it maybe with a darker blue up outside and then use a white gouache to kind of make it crispy around the edge. But we'll see what happens. So I've done my first layer. I like to make this bottom bit darker than the top. So I'm going to go over it with another wash. Going to create color here. I'm going to flip my paper so I can work the other way around so I don't have to smudge anything and get paint. And I work the other way. Fairly dark wash here. Then trying to be mindful. Outline the cat as much as possible. I went over that area, I can scoop it up with a brush. I'm sorry. Basically, when I did the background, the recording stopped at some point and I didn't realize it. So I'll be explaining how I did the wash for the background. In another piece. I would like to show you how I did the wash. I don't have the lines in the background with a waterproof pen, but I think you'll get the idea. So I've carved out with pencil of where the cat will be placed and then I'll work with the same color. Stick with it, and I'll do my first wash. I've only actually use this brush the biggest. Because I was able to go in the small details of the outline of the cat with this, just this one brush. This paper is quite different from the one I use. Like I mentioned before, if you use a 100% cotton, not pulp paper like this one is, I think this was a pulp paper. It doesn't react like, similar to that of 100% quality watercolor paper. So it would be easier for you to manipulate the watercolor pain. First. These, but I'll try my best here. It's better to keep the edges wet. Work your way in. If he did get a bit of the paint inside the areas that you didn't really want the blue paint to go or to paint the pink color that you are using to code on. You could still use the white gouache at the end. Or if it's not a staining pigment, you can always use a clean brush to take as much as possible away from it. I use I think I painted this wash. It was a total before I bought the final look that I wanted. I did think that I was calling to have a darker blue at the bottom, but actually I like the look of having the blue different values and different areas. I kind of dropped in this blue tank over some areas here and there to make it darker. For the first layer, I didn't really go over the areas where I drop more paint and make it thicker. Just concentrating on creating first layer wash. So that's my first layer. I would go in with my second layer. This time around, I'll be focusing on dropping darker values here and there. Dark, dark. Area again, when using such a big brush. So easy to lay up, like to just continue laying out the water. It's nicer to work with. I'm going to make this darker. So what I did was quite random for the background. This is adding in dark pigments, certain areas. This area. And also at the same time making sure that you don't don't try to go over places that are still wet and also a bit going dry. Because what happens is that you'll get a background or cauliflower effect, which kind of happened here a bit. We'll leave this to dry and then come back to work on maybe the final layer. I'll see how this looks later on. Okay, so now the paint has dried. So I'd like to work over it again since this bit is it looks like a background. Again, the paper is not the best quality, so it's gonna be a bit hard to manipulate the water and pigment. I'm going to create tons here. Again, I liked the effects that there's darker areas at the bottom. Not canal to too much here. I like to keep certain areas flux right now. Thank this area could be a bit darker. This area as well. Maybe this finally think'll bit even add a bit of water area. That part. I don't think I'm pretty happy. So this would be the explanation for the wash. It background. And what we're gonna be doing is I got out some gouache white paint right here. You can use like ink, white opaque ink. If you have that around and I'll be using this very thin brush. So depending on which pattern you did for the background, it'll be different. But I'll be doing the asana, which is basically like a star shape. And here I have a fabric that exactly is that. It's a triangle with a dot in the middle, then a line from the top to the bottom sites. So this is what I'll be like, basically doing the same thing over and over for the rest. We've done this practice. I'm sure you'll be okay doing it again. But if you haven't, please go back to that list and where I explain about japanese patterns and how to draw them by hand. Okay, So I'll be in also one more note is that I'm gonna be using this opaque white. But of course, while I kind of use it, it's going to get less of the gouache on my paintbrush and that's fine. I like that effect of like, Okay, here is opaque, more thicker, but here it's lighter and you barely could see the white is what kind of look I'm going for. I'll be starting from here. I'm not gonna be using any sort of like a ruler for this. I don't mind a bit of messed up look, because I want it to be kind of organic as possible. I'll pretty much be quite quiet and working with this. Kind of follow me, enjoy, relax. I'll have a bit of music on probably while I do it, I might speed it up. But just on a note when they are doing this, I'm also going over the pen marks that I have because it's not going to be perfectly covered. That's why using a water proof pen is quite nice because he's still see that blind here and there. And I just like the effect of that. Then as you can see, some bits are more opaque than others and that's totally fine. That's the look I'm going for. If you want it to be perfect, you just have to keep on adding that paint. As you go. These lines don't have to be straight. Some could be like dots just to give it a bit of variation. But at least for me, I'm going to be doing the same thing over and over and over again. As variations go, there are so many things you can do. You can kind of do a bit of Asana Aha here, here, here. Not do the whole thing, but just do like a bit of area in the painting. But since I'm not quite doing it perfectly, some bits will be more opaque than the other. It'll naturally give that look of variations, which I quite like. So That's fine by me. I'm finished. Patterns of the assignment. Part of this painting. Quite relaxing. It did take quite odd time. But at the end of the day, I think it looks really nice. Some parts are more opaque than the others, unlike the variation in that, by drawing by hand, it creates that organic that it's not perfect in precision. Now that we've completed this going over the whiskers, I still have the neutral I've created with mixing the red and the green that I've used. But I will be adding some light to this. And I don't want it to be very dark, but I think that color is not gonna be in. I'm awesome. I'm going to make the mixture the color again with thread. Bit of the green. Adding the yellow that you've chosen. Still exhibit purplish, but you could also go with black if you want, but I just like it to not be as dark. Habit. Finish this piece. But once the background is dry, I can take off the masking tape. Although I do although I do like how it looks on here. When you take it off. And people like to use a hairdryer just to make sure that it's completely dry and it will not rip off the paper. When you do use a 100% cotton in a high-quality paper, that doesn't really tend to happen, but you do want to take off the masking tape. It's like completely flat towards the direction that you're pulling it just so you don't rip off the paper. I think this tends to help it a bit more. I completely forgot about this section right here. I said I'll go over with quash just to kind of redo cobalt turquoise color that I got there. By accident. I would be trying to put a bit of white gouache just to redefine the outline of the cat. Since like, if you do look at it close enough, you would realize that there's like gouache layer there. So I minus will make a bit of brushstroke that kinda looks nice as well. I think I'm done. It's complete. It, no, I think I'm done with this piece. So once you've created your own, please share the final projects that you've created. I love to see what kind of variations you could come up with and it's always fun to see what you've created. Also, if you have some comments as in like, you wanted to see more of the Japanese calligraphy slide or the Japanese pattern-making. I would love to hear your comments on that in the review section. So then I can it'll help me to know what, if you would like to see for the next class that I'll be making, it's very helpful. So please do that. Okay. Thanks, everybody. 10. Thank You!!: Made it this far. Congratulations, please leave yourself a pat on the back for taking the time to learn something new. And hopefully it was also leaves offload the Japanese patterns, sketches, colored theory, calligraphy, and the final project, anything that you've created that you feel happy to share it. It's so much fun to see what you all create. Please also leave comments as to what you would like to see more often in the future. This will help me to focus. I want to bring to the table and assign. Thank you.