Watercolor Floral with Hand lettering: Peony

1. Introduction: high art lovers. Thanks so much for joining me for this class where we will learn how to paint a watercolor . Pani, with just a few simple layers will make your floral dreams into realities. It's really quite easy. It's very relaxing, and I love the floral subject. I hope that you do, too. We'll take just a few layers of water color and then we'll outline them and ink and then we'll add some hand lettering. I think that'll be some fun for us. And I sell these all over the world through Art Amat. We'll talk a little bit about that, too. Thanks for joining me. Can't wait to start. 2. Supplies: Okay, let's talk supplies. So you're gonna need some water and you'll need some very small watercolor brushes that hold up well and do not lose their bristles. Also get you some Sharpie markers or favorite castle, whichever is your favorite. You're gonna need a drawing pencil and a nice eraser. And I like the cancer on watercolor paper that's £140. Ah, watercolor, cold pressed. Then you see, this is my primo watercolor palette. It's just the classics version. Very basic, but all that you need. I love to mix the colors here. You'll will see me do that here very soon. This is They come in all different kinds, and I really enjoy these. 3. Let's Paint: First Layer: well, it's the exciting time where we get to start painting and you'll see that I'm creating colors here. I'm starting to make some pink and orange. My goal here is to create a basic peach and then a basic coral. I'm going to go in between those two with some really pastel pink and some orange and some quarrelsome, darker coral on. And I'm just gonna kind of modulate between those. And what that's gonna do is it's gonna allow the sunlight to come through in places in unexpected places, and it's going to allow some shadows to develop in unexpected places to. So the penny itself is a very complicated flour, and I don't want you let that overwhelm you instead, embrace that and know that it's actually very forgiving. People can't necessarily pinpoint to one place and say, Oh, there should definitely be a shadow here because it really depends on the light above the flower if it's under modeled light. If it's under partly lit conditions dappled light, then the panty can't surprise you in different places, and so you can just use your imagination to create the lights and the darks, and you'll see that I go darker here lighter here. What I'm trying to do right now is paint individual pedals, and I enjoy doing this. There's no hard and fast rule. Lots of people paint differently. Some people paint very freely with lots and lots of water. You'll see I'm not using as much water as as some people use. Instead, I'm going for a more realistic approach, and that's why I'm doing petal by petal. Also, I'm doing this because I know as a little cheat that I can come back later and add more on top. So if I want a certain pedal edge or an entire pedal to be darker, I can come back later. Once that pedal is dry and add some more in some of these places, you'll see that I'm doing a wet on wet technique where I am painting wet on top of already wet. I'm just I've decided that I'm gonna get a darker or I'm gonna change the color a little bit. But right now I'm pretty much keeping things in separate so that they will dry separately and you'll see more of this later in the middle of the flower or is the opening of the flower. This this is a pretty open of opinions. It's not a closed that a tight clothes, but rather it's It's much more open. And so I have deliberately kept some places white, and I mean I have not painted them at all. I haven't used masking or any other type of tool. I'm just keeping them completely unpainted, and you will see in the next layer that I am going to paint those with yellow. So I'll come back in and and create that pollinated look in the middle of the flower, and I think that'll be fun, so you'll see how I leave things blank. And I'm creating negative space on purpose to come back in and fill it in later again. No hard and fast role, but lightened like two dark is a good idea That way. If you decide that you want to go darker, you can. It is a lot harder to go lighter, so you'll see me later. I'm going to start mixing white with pink on, and when you see that, you'll you'll know that I'm going for a real baby pink look care ago. This is it. I remembered I did this. I wanted some of the pedals to be a real baby pink on dso I decided to go in and create the illusion of light basically coming behind the pedals and really just making them almost translucent and they're in their lights on. And then I'm gonna go back later and have the shadows appear in different places and in the shadows again, they're gonna be somewhat unexpected. And then in other places, they'll be very logical. So again, don't let the complication off this flower overwhelm you. Rather embrace it and be very forgiving of yourself where you create these lines because you'll learn more as you practice more. So no reason to beat yourself up about quote making mistakes. You know there's no mistakes. There's just practice. I'm gonna create a link on my website that will help you learn a little bit more about Art Amat so that you can understand what I do with these flowers. Once I cut them out of the water color paper and then adhere them two blocks and so we'll get more layers in the in the next couple videos, but you'll see sort of where we're going with that and how that's dispensed out of the automat machine. If you follow those links and learn more about that, actually end up bisecting the flowers and sometimes making them into quadrants. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a later video. Here, you see, I'm using some wet on wet in some places and using some wet on dry but definitely somewhat on wet here to create a whole pedal different color, darkening the entire pedal. That's the goal here, wait. 4. Let's Paint: Second Layer: Okay, so now we are in our second layer, Um, in painting this pne and you can see that I have already started painting a tulip. And that's because I get so impatient. And I just want to keep painting, and I have to make myself stop in order to go back and do some wet on dry technique. Remember I told you in the previous video that I had left some parts completely unpainted in the middle of the pne. And that is because I wanted to go back in and put these pollinated, uh, the these heavy pollen stamens in the middle of it so that you can see that there is actual actually a middle that is open, as opposed to a more closed but pne. And so now I'm going in, and I'm trying to add some shadows, but also just the very basic anatomical structure of the flower. And I'm doing that by trying right now to make sure that I'm staying in the areas that are dry again. If I overlap them, I'm not gonna get too upset. And then eventually I will start overlapping them so you'll see kind of a mix of different things in this video as as I go on. And right now I am going into pedals and creating some depth in some shadow s. So this is what on dry technique nail. And it does take patients. So give yourself some time. The to look will show up in a later video. I hope when we go over painting how to how to paint that s o just to keep yourself creative and busy. Uh, but don't allow yourself to get to ruin your painting that you're working on by by poor planning. So I'm gonna go to the edges of some of the pedals to define them a little bit more, and that's gonna make them pop a bit more and make their shadows look a little deeper. And it's gonna make the light portions that I'm not hitting look more translucent, as if light really is coming through the back side of this pedals or reflecting off the top of those pedals. So I'm being very patient here. You should be very patient, and you should be very forgiving of yourself too. If you feel like you painted a line that you're not happy with you painted the the edge or the corner of a pedal, and you didn't mean to paint it there. Don't beat yourself up about it. Remember, the pain is is a complicated flour, and therefore there are lots of almost like little rivulets within the flower. Lots of flow, lots of organic shapes. So you really can't go wrong. Don't beat yourself up about mistakes, because mistakes or just a way to learn, and they just provide more opportunity in the future for practice. I really I really don't think that there is a whole lot of mistakes here, so I'm creating a little bit more death here to try to show that there are many, many complicated layers within this. This beautiful, beautiful I guess it's my favorite flower right now, and so I'm using different colors, but basically staying in the coral area, you'll see that I pick up a little bit of orange. I get a little warmer. Sometimes I get a little cooler sometimes, depending on where I am on the actual flower itself, on going back in the middle and kind of re creating that a little bit and trying to create some definition there. One thing that you'll see in this video in the next video is enough. Refer to it already is that I bisect these flowers. Sometimes I do them in quadrants, and so what I do is I cut them out so that when a customer gets this flower, they don't get the full flower. They have to use their imagination to actually fill in the rest of the flower in their minds. Mentally, I like to do that as a mental exercise to help people feel more creative. And and that's part of of the experience where I sell these flowers on and I sell these primarily through Automat. So I'll put some information on my website about that, and hopefully you can. You could learn about that. If you want Teoh again here, the goal is adding death, and you can see that I'm just adding some lines to create the illusion that there's there's more fluff to this flower, and there's more buoyancy and adding dimension, especially, is my goal here 5. Outlining the Flower: So now we go to the controversial part. This is where I actually outlined the features of my flower with a Sharpie marker, and I'm using a fine tip art marker that's a Sharpie. You can use a different A brand favorite Castel. There. There are lots of different art workers on the market, so I'm just feel what you're comfortable with. You use what you want. A lot of art professors will tell you that this is a big no no, that when you pay realistic flowers, you never outline your work on DSO. There's, you know, I've talked to other watercolor artists, Onda, part of groups on Facebook where we discuss this, and sometimes it's, you know, let's leave it as it is. And then other times you feel like you need to get back and just delineate. This edges a little bit more. Right now, I'm at a spot in my art where I really do enjoy outlining the artwork outlining the flower . After I have completed the painting. Essentially, I feel like for me it's reinforcing, drawing that I did underneath. It's helping me be a better a better artist, and it's helping me render the flower in the future. Better. I'm really understanding why I painted what I painted when it comes to the pedals, the layers that I'm looking for, and I'm hoping that in time it will. It will help me become a better renderers of flowers at the basic level, and I'm a gets a point where I don't want to do this in the future. This'll is totally up to you. It's an optional step. When you do your project, you can do a full flower, as I have done, you can dissect it. You can see on the screen that I have bisected this flower, and I have spoken before about how sometimes I use quadrants and then I'll dio hand lettering in the margins. I'm now starting to do some floor wreath so we might see that in a future class to But, um, this this is a completely optional step for you. You don't have to do this part if you don't want Teoh again. If you do want Teoh, I think it has a little bit of a modern edge to it. And for those of you who are interested in floral tattoo art, you can find some really beautiful art on Pinterest and other places. And I think that the lines that you see will really help you understand the basic anatomy of the flower and create something that you're very proud of. And it just it just takes practice. And it's it's just a fun exercise. So again for your project, feel free to skip this step. But also, you know, go ahead and embrace it like I did. If if you want Teoh, don't worry. If you feel like you didn't get the exact edge of the pedal, there really aren't any ways to make mistakes here because the pedals are so very delicate that you it creates just more interest that I feel like if you if you grabbed a little bit of light when you meant to GOP straight along the edge of a dark on edge of the pedal. Don't worry about that, because pedals are they move in the wind. They have a life of their own. So again, embrace all of your mistakes here. And don't don't put pressure on yourself 6. Hand Lettering: Peace: nail. You will see me do hand lettering that I like to do in the margins of each of my art amat pieces. I like to have a word that is an inspirational work that somehow speaks to me about the flower that I've created. Sorry that my hand is in the way so much here. I intentionally I'm leaving you a link so that you can go to my website and have basically a template of this hand lettering that I've created. You can be creative with it yourself on. This is modern calligraphy, so there are no rules. It's not like traditional calligraphy. This is very much what you want it to look like. And you can add your own signature too your projects on. But I encourage you to add a word of inspiration to it because it just gives it a little bit more on character and helps it stand out as a work report. I hope that you've enjoyed this class, and I hope to see you in future. Classes will recover some more flowers and their inspirational lettering