Painting Loose Watercolor and beautiful Wildflowers

1. Trailer skillshare: Hi, guys. And welcome to class. My name is Camilla, and I'm a water colors from Denmark. And today we're going to call my favorite subject, and that is loose florals. Hey, that's gonna be so fun. Eso We're going to paint this lovely okay, over here that I picked just for you and we're going to do some exercises. We're going to draw our subject in pencil to just to get to know the shape. And then we're going to look at house who hold up Russia's to get a more loose struck, and we're going to pay this together as well. And that is our class project a lot to see your projects in the gallery or on Instagram and have chosen three types, I think flowers here so we can focus on technique to achieve this instead of just creating a lot of flaws. So I think that says this going to be so much fun. I can't wait to see what you come up with and the let's get started 2. Welcome to Class!: Okay, so now let's stop by looking at some materials to use here. First we have some different types of paper. I'm going to use this Canton Bryant. It's a huge each a three paper just to make sketches and the to have some room to have fun . Uh, then we have our 100%. Cotton is also canceled, but it's, ah, better quality. And still 300 grams like the other one. And I have some regular color paper just for sketching. Nothing fancy here. Just took it out of the cupboard machine. Actually, then I have my paints. These are mostly brand from from Daniel Smith. They come in a tube, and I'm just squeezing him into these pens and letting them dry, and they can last for such a long time. I love these paints. They are a moving. Then we have, of course, an assortment of brushes. And I'm not going to use all these. I'm just going to show you up different types of brushes, and I'm going to going a little bit more in detail with them in our pending exercise. And then, of course, a pencil is a to B, so it's good for sketching, but you can use whatever pencil you have lying around, Uh, water, of course. And lastly, we have e a toilet paper roll. I'm using this mostly for my That's my tissue and that is it. Now we're going to go out and find some nice reference. And I just went outside to look at the flowers I have outside my door, and I have picked some flowers and let's look at the bouquet. Here we have it whilst I was amazing and love wildflowers and they just so accessible we're going to look at lavender and then this lovely yellow, and it's not easy to get it out here. This lovely yellow flower. You have no idea what it is, but it's beautiful, and it has a lot of texture and grace. I'm just going to arrange this again. It's not easy to get these out here. Okay, I'm going to take this as well, just an assortment of different shapes, and, uh, and we can take a look at them and let's see if we can sketch them 3. Excercise 1: Muscle Memory: Okay, so I set this up and we're going to start with lavenders. And we're just going to look at this shape here of flour. And you might be thinking, Why are we during this pencil sketches when we actually want to paint lose. And that is a good question I saw about assume they're just going to, uh, fix this. So you go, Um, that is a very good question, and it's not because we're going to do pencil sketches or anything like that in our actual painting. It's just because we want to get to know the shape off the flower, and sometimes it's a lot easier to paint something if you actually know the shape. And it's even easier to painted loose when you, uh, kind of gotten the muscle memory off the off the flower. And the only way to get muscle memory is to practice practice, practice some of the flowers. I we can see this small look at the details here and there, small leaves, and you want to try to, uh, get all the all the small details that makes this flower unique. When you paint these, he sketches the small flowers on on there as well. And I tried to capture them, too. This one has a long stem, and it's kind of flimsy, very, very thin. And, uh, you can almost not see the flowers here, so just shapes. And it has some cool foliage as well. So I'll try to capture that too. But we were talking about muscle memory, and one of the flowers I actually enjoy painting the most is, uh, puppies because I painted them so many times that they they kind of they just come natural to me. I don't have to look at Poppy. I just instantly know how a probably looks. And that way I can make it looser and looser and looser and still get the feeling of a puppy. Um, but I still also enjoy a lot to do flowers. I don't know. And that's why I've chosen to do these wildflowers because there's so many types, so many beautiful shapes. And, uh, if you practice them a lot, you can use them in your Neil Those paintings, just like I used my puppies. I can show you a picture of my puppies right here and crazy about puppies. Sorry, but I am greatly about this. Get is well, I really love the shape of this. And you can see I'm not being super detailed here. I'm just trying to capture the essence of the flower and foliage chew and trying to see what makes this flower unique. Besides, from from the beautiful color actually really like this village that it's so so cool. And I and I really enjoy that. It's a very thing stroke. Okay, this is the problem of firstly picked while sours, they do tend to drip on the paper. Um, this is the last time I'm going to draw Has a nice But there, too I'm not, but I think it's actually a now that has been a flower, but now isn't anymore. Ah. Oh, I tried to say that one of the cool thing about, uh, while songs is that do a lot of them are kind of looking and the they make for a perfect loose, flowy element in a bouquet kind like grasses and stuff like that. And I really enjoyed that. I can see in this flower. I'm just going to do the pedals outside pedals and just tried to look at the shape and the direction of the pedals. No, I have these in the middle. Little kind of going up, Um, and that is actually more or less what makes this flower unique and has this long thing with the leaves here. And I'm actually, I think, looking a lot more at the reference that I am on the paper. Um and sometimes that that helps to keep your drawing loose as well Can see. I'm just going to do the but us well, and you can see him, but did speed this up a little. But you don't have to use a lot of time of on this. Just take 10 minutes. And Megan easily paint a lot of flowers and hago. They can see the lavender and the yellow flower with no idea what it is. The yellow flower and the purple one 4. Excercise 2: Loosen up your stroke: So now we're ready for the fun part. Now we've done our homework and sketched off flowers. It's no, we have an idea. How are flower looks and feels No way will go and get some color on it. And in this exercise, I'm just going to first. I'm going to draw this lavender, uh, draw. Paint this lavender. And I'm trying to be lose here and in loose painting you, in my experience, is that you really have to paint this several times before you. Actually, I feel you gotten the the looseness and the color and the style that you want. So therefore, I'm not going to paint this once, but three times and for every time I will lose. No need to apologize for the right here. I have some trees outside and some sun, so I hope you can the past it and not get too dizzy. Uh, I am getting a little dizzy, so I really do apologize. Um, apparently this wind. Okay, I'm just going to mix a little color hit and just doing this one more time. And now I'm going to see and try to paint these a little closer. The clusters and I'm going to dropping a little color here at penalties in blue and just dropped in a little color to give it some some detail and just continuing the next flowers in the new color so it would get some different types in a different shades. And then I'm just going to add a little water as well to gives him life in the dimension. Um, when you add Clearwater, you have to be careful because sometimes it will make blooms and stuff. But I actually really enjoy that. Bloom can be super pretty in watercolor. And, uh, I know a lot of professionals really don't want it, but I love them. You can see I'm actually painting a lot faster this time. And that is because I really want to be loser loser in my my lavender here just dropping in some car and, uh, trying to keep keep adding a new thing. I'm not going to do the small flowers at this time because I felt it gave it a little too much detail, and I let these green bleeding a little bit in, and the flower has. We're just adding a little border, too, and I like this. Look, last one. But before we continue with two next flowers, I want to talk a little about a bit about brushes because the way we use brushes are actually super important in lose painting. I have all these different brushes. You don't need all these brushes, but it is nice to have a big brush like this. This is around natural hair brush. It's, uh, da Vinci. I think it's eight. Yes, it's an eight, and I love this color. This brush, it can hold a lot of water. And then I have this rigger brush, which is a super fun and has this long tip, and them can be so input unpredictable. So I love to use that, and you can see that later. Is the cattle. Um, then I have this synthetic brush has a nice you can see. It has a nice swing to it, a snap, which is a super fun, but sometimes it's a little hard to use in loose paintings. Then I have this nice round brushed with a nice tip, and you can see there's different ways to hold it, even holding that super close. Get a lot of detail with this, uh, with the thin tip, but you can also get very detail oriented. So what I do is hold it like this and you get a free a stroke on, even even freer if you hold it like this longer. Uh, you can actually do this, too, If you really want to go crazy. I'm not doing this a lot because you lose all control. But the longer you hold up, the handle you, the less control you have. You can see it gets nice free stroke. Here, take a look at all your brushes and ask yourself, um, how many strokes can I get with this? How many types of strokes and you can actually achieve a lot So you don't need all these brushes, he said. Just because I'm a nerd and I think it's fun, and, uh, I think we can get back to the painting now. But do practice your brushes. It's a lot of fun. And now we can go in and take a look in our yellow flower. You can see I'm actually holding this brush in the very detail oriented way. Like I said, I didn't want to, and I think that is because, um, I haven't painted this flower before, so I'm attempt to hold it super tight. You can see, I actually I've moved my hand a little up the handle to get a looser stroke, and I think it helped a lot. You can see how much looser that got. And I'm holding it side again because I'm doing these stems that ah, pretty detailed. So I can see it makes a lot of difference how you hold your brush. Now I want to make it even more predict unpredictable. By using this, I can't control this. And I'm holding it pretty far up the stem stem off the handle. Uh, I'm actually adding in a little green, too. So it's not just the yellow, and I like that. I'm going to paint this m. I think I'm only going paint this two times. Um, but you should paint these as many times as you like, and you will get looser every time. An experiment with the brushes and how you hold him and the amount of water and drubbing in color where you like them. I actually really like to have both some some colors that are super strong, but also some that, uh, super watery can see this not much control over this brush. And I love it. It's beautiful. Um, but a very fine tipped a round brush conduce the same. If you hold the handle, don't hold up the handle. Um, And now let's take a look at the last flower, and that is the purple one that was sketched last. I'm just going to assume in a bit here. So you can I see it a bit better on just Diego, and you can see that's not much detail here. I'm just doing the out of pedals first. Driving in a little color was kind. It's a very watery mix, just adding a little, uh, color. And now I'm just going to do the upward strokes You and you can see how there's no detail here whatsoever. It's just the petal shapes and ah, the direction and just letting the green flow in here as well, which makes for a beautiful effect and creating that looseness to it. And I activity can see this color is a bit muddy, and that's because I had some green on my brush and we're as you know green and and red do tend to muddle, but I like that it did that because it creates another color, and it's good to have different types of color in the flower, so it's not flat, flat enough color. Just don't be afraid to mud up your colors and and see it did the same when the green bled into the to the red. And he I'm just adding a little car, um, thick color, and it'll bleed into the wet areas and just create nice shadow. 5. Now let's get loose : Okay, now we are ready. Waited all our exercises and I hope you had a lot of fun experimenting with your brushes. I think it's seriously some of the best gift of ever Get gotten his brushes because it's so versatile in the I get super inspired by new brush, even if it's just a round brush. I love it. I'm going to do a bouquet and I just kind of measure where I wanted it. Um, and I'm just diving in doing some lavender. You can see how I hope my brush own. It's, ah, up the handle kind of halfway. And, um, I'm just doing these super lose the way I I didn't before and the either with some water on it or with the different colors or just yeah, you can see it just dipped a little extra painter, and you can just experiment. Just go in and place them while you I feel like they fit here. At first we have it's eat. It's hard to actually imagine where you want them, but sometimes the the white paper is the worst, so we can just add some flowers and we even see where we go from there. Uh, I'm just doing some stems here. Um, I want to talk a bit about painting stems here, Um, recently assault YouTube video. I really don't remember who it was. I'm sorry about that. Uh, but he said that we should paint without fear, and that is one of the most important things in watercolor. And I couldn't agree more. And I always remember that when I'm painting stems because it can be daunting and kind of scary to get that line, but pain with no fear. And you will do just fine. Don't go in and ruin it time after time. You just make it voice. So even though I have some holes in my stem here, you can see that doesn't matter. I think we can use it later. ***, I just painted this yellow flower. You can see how loose this and, uh, just confident strokes. No fear, no fear. Just dropping in a little water and adding a little color. And the most important thing here is to have fun and the sometimes that's hard. And I know that can actually be really hard just to let go relax and have fun. Um, especially if It's a subject that you are not super familiar with, but especially in this type of painting. It's OK and is actually a lot better if you just lose your losing your shoulders a bit and and relax. I found it. This is a little trick, and it's a weird one. But I found that if I have just done my laundry or dishes or something like that, I have a little, uh, dry hands that makes my painting worse. So make sure you're comfortable and have, uh, nicer, smooth hands. That helps a lot. And you could actually also do some some meditation or yoga before just to loosen up. Um, while I painted this, I listened Teoh music as well. I listened to one of my favorite playlists owns, But if I, which is Ah, morning classical, I think it's called. It's a lot off classical music in a very nice pace that just gets me in a relaxing mood and just sets the pace of the painting and then instead, off off, thinking too much about shapes of the flowers. You you kind of made the twenties shapes. It's a muscle memory before try to listen to music instead and try to capture that movement of the music in your painting. That is a lot of fun, and I promise you that it will be amazing. I didn't see one of the things that being cautious about here is to to make sure that these flowers are overlapping and that they, uh, organic. So there's no straight lines. There's no no, no, no straight lines, actually pretty accurate, accurate, because I want to make this flowy and loose. And we don't have a focus long either. This is wild flowers, and it's not. If we had a PNE in, this bouquet would be different, because then we would make that kind of center start with that and then just at the other surrounded. But now we have three flowers that are almost similar in size. The yellow one is a bit more detailed, has more texture, Um, but it's still they're still pretty similar, and therefore we can't just put one in focus. We want to to just have fun and try to paint them all and paint them in different shades. So some of very watery like considered one in the corner to the right, the purple ones. Very watery. I might drop in some paint later. Button that see? But when you make some of them very watery and some of them with a lot of color, you will create this dimension. And, uh, it's beautiful. Okay, I'm just trying to add about here, and I'm driving in a little bit of the blue I used in the lavender to make it cohesive with the others. And that's just because I thought the green waas little to monitor him for the other colors . Another about here. Uh, I think this is actually I'm kind of improvising now because, ah, I tend to do this when I'm painting lose. Because now I want to create more movement. And I'm doing some grasses and butts and just to get more life in the composition And, you know, grass is always fun to to paint. And this is a great place to practice your pain without fear. Um, because you really just have to let the brush do the work and trust study goes the right way, and if it doesn't, then it's OK because grasses never go straight up or straight down. They are always kind of whimsical and all over the place. And so I'm just adding a little bit of shadow here to the purple flowers, Uh, just to make them pop a little more. And when I'm doing this, uh, this composition, I I spend a lot of time just looking at it and ah, seeing what? What does this Okay, need where do I need more blue and whether we need more flowers? Um, and you should definitely do that to just try to look at it and see how can I good, more life? How can I get it too? Will not be more realistic because that's not what we're going for for more, more life. I think it's actually mostly most appropriate word. Um, see if you can overlap some flowers, paints, um, in Clearwater almost but little color and just see how many flowers tohave of this and we need some more. Um, I often find that an uneven number of flowers is better than ah, an even number for some reason. But that is that's money in my experience. So always consider it on. When you're painting and going in your sin mode and you can see I have collected all the all the greens in the center because I want to make a vase afterwards. You can totally do that or something else. Um oh, yeah. I'm just sputtering a little paint here, and, ah, if you think about whilst I was in nature, this all these bees and almost just flour dust and the insects and stuff all around And I want to make that with a little paints bladder just to create some more More life. Yeah, I'm just doing a glass vase and I paint us this with the clean water. At first, you can do a ribbon or something as well, but I like to do this, and I'm just taking a little Payne's grey is very water. Uh, just in the left left side here to show that this is a round ways on a little in tough. So you can see word begins, of course. And I want us to be pretty settled, but still recognizable as a glass ways. And I'm just adding in a little blue to the mix to just show the water. And here I'm just sipping the glass, all the paper to let the water through the work, and you can see how nicely it flows down the paper. Um, and especially when you're painting water, I think it's and so poetic to actually let let the water to do what it does best. So here, I'm just adding, you can see it, but I'm adding drops of clean water at the top of the base and letting them run down to show some highlights through the the water. I think it was a little bit too much. So, um, probably think I'm gonna go in with a little more color. Uh, because it did erase a little too much. But first, I'm going to define the right edge. You go. I'm not doing that much. And you can see I'm being super light with my my brush here, just going to make it a little bigger here, so this flower will fit in there as well. I love the color of this race because the green really ran into into the clean water and just gave it a nice nuance. I am just going in with a little more color here, too, that the water do its work. You can see in the bottom right corner this actually no definition of the base at all. But when you're painting loose, you don't need to define all shapes and all, which is actually often it's better not to, and that I will assembled puzzle even if there's a couple of pieces missing, so of Children to leave this alone on a really, like the way it highlights the vase, I'm just going in the little more shadow. Um, one of the key things to painting loses also to know when to stop. And that is one of the hardest things I think in this type of painting. And I did ruin a lot of pieces because you could caught up in the process. And it's so fun and you're listening to music and your kid is sleeping and everything is great. And then, bam, you ruined it because, uh, it puts limits detail. So when you feel like it's done and you question yourself, will doesn't need more. Then stop and go make a cup of coffee and read a book something and come back to it later. Um, you can also have an other painting next to that. You can continue if you want to, but try to leave this one alone because there's a good chance to. But you'll overwork it and I to speak from experience that it's it's just so easy, so we'll work something. So now that I'm adding details and being and this mostly shadows, I'm being so careful and I am. You can see him holding my brush halfway up because I don't want this to be detailed. I wanted to be lose like the rest of the painting. Even adding the little detail in the grass is here the butts just to make it pop, Um, and even though I'm wanted to be careful about details, the docks do make a painting pop. So you should have some detail in some shadows because that's really, really, really make it pop. If you only have flat colors, it's it's going to be a little sad and a little boring. So do at some talking in there. But to start light us well and we'll work towards the duck. And now I think this is done. So let's just ah, quickly recap what we learned and, uh, wrapping up. So this is the main points we've gone over here today. The 1st 1 is its experience with precious um, If you have a brush treasure, use it in as many ways that you can, and you'll, uh, have a lot of ah ha moments with your brush. You don't need a lot of brushes. You can do a lot. Just a few. Keep your strokes mechanic and paint with no fear. And I think that is super important and have it always have a ride in the back of your head and you remember it and have fun and let loose super important as well. And ah, the next point with trying yoga and meditation before painting helps you loosen up. Also, listening to music can help with the getting of it was a stroke and just getting that flow in your painting. And lastly, don't overwork your painting, and I think that is actually the hardest one. Just to know where to stop and look up. And it does take some practice, but just keep going and you'll get a hang of it, and I think that is it now. So let's wrap up and I'll see you in a second 6. Wrapping up: Thank you so much for taking this class with me. Let's roll. This is one of my absolute favorite subjects to teach, and I hope you enjoyed it as well. Uh, I'd love to see what you come up with in your interpretation of this class. So police uploaded to the Project gallery and on Instagram. If you're on there and check me so I can see it and comment on it. And if you like the class, please leave. A review grew and follow me if you want to know more. There's love classes already, but you can follow and get notified when I create new classes. So I'll definitely do that just to make sure And that is it for now. And let's just grow a brushes and start painting and then I'll see you next time.