Watercolor Treasures of the Sea

1. Intro: I am so inspired after a day at the beach, I just want to raise home and well, you guessed it in. This class will take you from my tools and materials to my sketching process to painting backgrounds of all types. Detailed painting, loose painting styles and everything in between, including a landscape. So join me start to finish in creating some beautiful pieces. You can hang on your wall, give us gifts, scan in and use for your business or otherwise. Besides, you get to spend a day at the beach painting Watercolor Treasures of the Sea, see in the next video. 2. Tools & Materials: regarding tools and materials have kept it really simple on these projects. I've got a watercolor set, Windsor and Newton brand Cottman Ah, addition. And it's I love to pinks because I can keep the ah paints really thick if I need to. I've got a round brush for mixing. I've got a larger brush for spreading out water on my paper. I've got to size brush pens small and large, and if you haven't used them before, they're super handy because you can fill the barrels with water. I've got to size microns, small and large pencil an eraser for sketching a recycled cup for holding water and paper towels for stopping up messes and so forth wiping off my brushes. As for paper, I'm using a Kant's and brand paper. This is a water color. This is where the what I'm using for the smaller projects of love. The texture of this Ah, it's cold press £140 it's got like a cool, bumpy texture, very thick and chunky for the larger projects. I'm using this acrylic paper. It's also Kansan. It's ah, good for acrylic or oil, so it holds a lot. It's just very heavy. Ah, but awesome for watercolor as well. And you can see almost has ah linea texture. It's £136 bleed proof. So it's also very excellent, but any heavy paper that will hold water will work for these projects. 3. Project Inspiration: So I found this National Geographic magazine that is loaded with super vibrant, beautiful pictures of sea life of all kinds, all shapes, um, from far away from close up, it's pretty helpful. This is the image I used for the starfish painting. And this is the image I used for the seahorse painting. The other resource is that I used Worth E um, Pinterest and I created board for this class in my Pinterest account octopus connection called Treasures of the Sea. And I really loaded it up with some really fun stuff. I got a little crazy because their pictures were just so gorgeous. I couldn't quite stop. Um, so lots of of references in there, but you're free to do your own search. Um, I also went on a few stock free photo websites, and just in one of them, I left you a few links in the class info I just typed in searches like like this one is shell. And then the site just starts popping up photos of different shells that you can use as references. So I look forward to see what you come up with. 4. Simple Coral- Beginners Level: I've begun this painting with a light aqua, green colored wash, and I'm just simply spreading it, uh, all over the center of my watercolor paper and just want to get a nice, even beautiful tone. And I'm doing this. This is going to be the Coral project, and it's going to be quite simple. So I wanted a pretty background look like ocean water, uh, behind it. So it gives it a little interest. And now that I'm happy with that, I've let it dry, and I'm going to just sketch out, um, the shape of the coral. It's gonna be a Siris of branches. So I started with one long one going diagonally across the paper. And I want this to be a really interesting shape, and you could see in the original photo it's kind of going a little diagonally, and it kind of makes it, um, interesting to look at that way. And I'm just you can see sketching little branches off the larger ones that I'm sketching so we can keep creating branches off of branches. It's gonna be relatively simple shapes, so I want it to have plenty of interesting form and with purple paint you can see. I've loaded up my brush pen and kind of going in a back and forth motion, creating the first line for the branch, and each one is going to connect to the next. So it keeps. It looks like it's growing out of the same trunk, and they're all relatively the same with, So it's going to make this really a very simple subject matter. Ah, the jacket, he lines kind of give it that texture that you see in the image, the smaller branches that the smaller the branches, the quicker this is going to go see a story. I'm just going to speed this up because it's pretty much more and more of the same thing. And the difference between a tree and the coral is going to be that like I mentioned, all of the's little branches are about the same width, and they have that Jaggi sort of look to them, so it looks like a rough coral texture. I want that little bit more going on that corner of the paper. That's better, and I just want to add a little more paint. Some of these paint end up a little bit sooner than I wanted. And then now that that's dried, I'm going to add a little bit of dark red. And I'm going to do this in the form of dots because I don't want it to look so flat. Purple and ah, the I feel the red is going to give it a little texture, little depth, little interest liking the way that looks. I'm just gonna go through and dot each one of these branches so that it's got a nice, even look. And on a side note, I, um I'm actually just speeding this up for you since again, it's more the same I But I wanted to mention with shape of the branches to be careful not to make them to straight. Ah, the crookedness of it gives it more of a coral like look, um, and if it gets too straight, I think it's gonna look too much more like a bush, like a bush with no leaves on it. So just a side note there, and coral is very fun and very easy to paint. There are lots of varieties of coral. They come in many, many colors. I encourage you to check the Pinterest board resource that I've included for you or find your own image or copy this one. And I look forward to see your version of this. 5. Fish- Beginners Level: All right. So a quick and loose sketch to start out our fish painting and with some geometrical shapes , I'm just going through and capturing. Um, the triangle tail, the Siris of ovals for the body, the little angle for the fin at the bottom. And this is the time to erase and, uh, get your sketch just the way you want it. Gonna duplicate it for the bottom fifth of the second fish at the bottom. Um, it's just a really fun shape to paint. The way the mouth is shaped is really kind of cute in that eye patch around. It's I That was really fun. Gave it a lot of personality again. I've got a go back and reshape the bottom. Once I have this just the way I want it, we can go ahead and start painting and, uh, get to the fund stuff. Cool. All right. So just gonna lighten these lines a bit so they don't show through the paint too much. I just want them as a guide and some of these air a little darker than I want. So Alright, starting with some very bright yellow, I'm going to go ahead and outline all of the main features of this fish in the yellow is our main attraction at the top of the page and just very loot, you know, loosely. But as accurate as I can, I'm capturing the shape with my thicker brush pen. And of course, you can use a regular paintbrush for this brush. Friends were not required. I'm just enjoying the use of it is I can squeeze water out when I need to. Ah, it's kind of convenient, easy. And they come in a variety of sizes. And now that I know I like this color, I'm going to go ahead and fill my fish with it's gonna spread that water around, fill it with water so I could easily spread my paint. And it will be nice and quick just dropping my pay cause you have sped up this video. It's pretty simple stuff. I'm just dropping my paint into the lines of the outline of the fish that I created, and I don't want it to be completely even. I want this to have some texture to it, so it doesn't have to be, you know, exactly. Even that would kind of take the fun out of it, to be honest, like a house looking a lot of love, the color and just kind of marking where these little sideline lines on the side of the fish are gonna go. And I want to do that with a little darker paint. But I wanted to dry a little more. So I'm gonna go ahead and start the next fish while the yellow paint is drying. And that's a great way to keep your paintings moving is to go to another part of the painting while when area is drying, you don't feel like you have to, like, let it sit forever. And, you know, wait, uh, aren't about you get really excited about my projects and I want to see him completed. You can see I'm doing the same thing. I'm filling the inside of the fish with water like I've done a little too much water. I want this to be quite dark, and if there's a lot of water, it's gonna drive really light. And I'm really liking this dark green. Think it's going to really pop on the page and because it's only a partial body, the the yellow will fish will still be the main attraction, which is what I want in the end. So I do think I'm gonna add a little yellow to this green, though, to kind of give it a little, um, continuity with the top fish and also just it soften the color just a little bit You can see in the picture. It's not, uh, it's got a little yellow in there. I think that's a fun element to add. Just mixing that paint just to give it a little. Almost a luminescence you could see have botched up that bottom fin a little bit. But it's OK. I've mopped it up. I've wiped off the excess paint with the water brush first, just toe wet it. I've mopped up the excess, and now I'm going back and do you telling it with some darker paint so it doesn't really show. In the meantime, our yellow fish has dried, and now I can paint my darker lines without them spreading out all over, and they have a lot of the definition that I want. And I'm just doing this quickly and loosely. It's not gonna be exact, but it's gonna have you know that fun look that Ah, the fish and the image has its just adds some personality and character. And now I'm feeling that eye patch area with a purple blue kind of mixed a little bit of violet into my blue and keeping a kind of light doesn't overpower my yellow hoops. Let's see, I ran the pain down the lower than I wanted, but that stuff can always be fixed. You can see I just created a nice little, um, body around it. And now with much, much darker blue. I want this to be really dark, um, to go with the green and have some contrast with the top fish. It's fun that thes two of the same fish or such different colors. I think it was really, uh, quite interesting on painting the fans. I'm sorry, painting the lines in the darker blue as well, touching up that bottom fin. The tiniest bit still have a little bit of excess green hanging off the end of that line and just kind of retouching that smoothing it out and with a micron pan, this is a number eight micron. I'm going to go ahead and color in the eyes now that that has all dried. That's a nice round I but I want took a little more globally. Have kind of that cute fish look pretty happy with. I repeat it bottom. Just erase any excess lines and our fish are now finished. That was fun. Look for to see in the next video. 6. Jellyfish- Intermediate Level : So I'm starting out with my jellyfish sketch, and it's really shaped like a mushroom. Um, so I'm going to start out with that curvy topped. It's a little wavy er maybe than a mushroom, but very similar in shape. So I'm gonna draw the separate the top from the inside. Get the stem going and you could see is a lot of wavy, almost roughly looking tissue as well as he's long tentacles that are kind of hanging down . Um, it's a really pretty shape, very fun to sketch. And I made my mushroom shape a bit too big, and it's a bit too low on the page, so I've erased it and started over a little higher, a little smaller. I really wanted to feel long and elegant on this paper. So now I've got it placed where I want it, and I'm going to start out with a green paint. I'm gonna be layering this a little bit, so this would be the first a layer of green paint on the top portion of this jellyfish, and I want Teoh. You've been that out a bit, and now I'm going to add some of the yellow in the center. I want to start laying down that first layer. We'll come back over and make it a little brighter later on. But I want Teoh be able to layer color on top of this, so I want to get this down next. It's just a beautiful, golden glowing look. Eso this project is going to be. If you haven't guessed already, it's gonna be a little more difficult than the 1st 2 but it's still going to be very simple and basic. We're still gonna be using very basic shapes. You can see I'm just taking these technical there, almost like ribbons hanging down. And then this center area, where it's just so bright and glowy a way down. So the curving of the lines you can see. I'm not making my line straight now. If I did, it would change the style. It wouldn't be in the would be anything wrong with it. It would just be different, but I'm really loving the curves on this beautiful creature. It's just so elegant and almost feminine, and it's a curvy nous. So I've added yellow and I've touched on the green that was still a little wet and I am loving how they are sort of flowing together, how the paints kind of mixing. It's giving it a very interesting effect that's almost natural toe what the picture looks like. That's kind of fun. So now I have taken kind of a reddish violet, almost a cranberry color, and I'm just starting to pay thes ribbons. And just like in the coral, I'm just waving, just like in the Coral Project. That was the first video in this class. I'm kind of moving my brushed back and forth in a wavy motion to create that ruffling effect, and we'll also, um, make those lines a bit crooked. So it looks like it's sort of weaving its way around that center yellow core, and I've got some, uh, much darker purple reddish violet. I just mix this color spontaneously, and that's the fun thing. With a project like this, you can really make it any color you want. You can see it's it's not coming out to be exactly the same colors in the image, but it's not about that. It's about you expressing yourself as an artist. It's about using the colors that excite you jellyfish like the coral coming all sh color shy sizes, shapes as well as the fish. Um, so it's really fun to paint ocean life cause you can almost fantasize a little bit about what this might look like in actuality. So I've got those ruffles waiving all the way down to the bottom. I've got one going behind the yellow one going in front, kind of criss crossing in the center toe look like it's weaving its way around that core. We're just gonna add a little bit of accent to the top and to the sides of the more to kind of fill in that shape of the top measure and portion, which is, uh, sky's head. So now, with a much darker purple and going through and detail ing adding some veins going up into the center core, the underneath side of the mushroom and then detail ing those ruffle areas coming all the way down, Um, having just more vibrant color and not trying to cover the first layer but layering over adding some depth, keeping my strokes going back and forth, undulating, too. He's that ruffle look going, adding a couple on the side there and just realised fight. Green is a little darker than what I really wanted. So well, it's wet. I'm just kind of stopping some of that up. And, uh, I like that so much better. So just outlining Anthee purple cranberry color outlining that mushroom creating that vein . Ah, and I'd like to actually use my dinner brush pen because thes veins air much for delicate looking than what the thicker brush can create. So carrying on with the thinner brush much happier with that stroke. So just creating the sculpted vain outlines, uh, going upward are you following the shape of the had of this jellyfish? It's kind of fun because these veins are really defining this shave of this jellyfish at the top. And it's it's kind of cool kind of fun to see that veins sort of sculpt, um, the shape of that talk of the head and going around the top now, and that's gotten a little bit wider than what I wanted at the line. But well, it's what it's really easy to put a little water and just mop that up and redefine it on caring on with it, uh, through the underside, loving that contrast. Ah, getting a little turquoise blue going underneath the head and you could see that there are these ribbons style tentacles kind of winding down the body. So I'm just going to go through. And now that the purple is dry, I can just go right on top of them with this. And, uh, these rivers are almost dancing around the core. So it's fun to create these curvy tentacles just redefining that area. Worried, kind of botched it up there and now going through with a really thick just not undulated yellow. I'm gonna kind of redefine that golden color and you can see it's very glowy through the talk. So I'm just gonna add a little yellow to kind of give some of that effect, Um, on the green. If you're using pan watercolors, you can pick up an acrylic paint or watercolor, too. Ah, that is super thick. If you have another type of yelled laying around, you could totally use it for this effect, and that completes our jellyfish. And I hope to see you in the next video 7. Starfish- Intermediate Level: and I'm starting right off with the starfish project. Um, with a quick sketch. And I've sped this up a bit for you to because it's pretty standard five triangles with uh huh five triangles facing one another and all connecting. I am going ahead and making the right arm of the star official curved as in the image and just sketching the squiggly center. I missed it. Of course, this is the time to adjust anything you need and get everything finalized. And on the first arm before I start painting, I'm just going to sketch out all the circles that I'll be painting, um, within this arm. So they're kind of half circles on each side and full circles down the middle. And then little circles in between is how I am doing this. So I'm gonna go ahead and my red pain is pretty dark, so I'm gonna add some yellow to lighten it up. I'm using my my brush instead of my brush pens. I don't get my brush panel mucked up and finally adding some orange to get it to where I want to really like this color eso I'm gonna go ahead and fill my brush pan and get started . Just carefully. Um, this is going to be a project of mostly line work, just outlining all these circles outlining the outside. And there's very little to fill in the middle. There is a little bit, but not much to filling in between circles. So it's just gonna be a game of patients and sort of, ah, therapeutic get lost in the project sort of deal. And now I'm kind of connecting these dots to the outline. Um, I want to make sure that they're going all the way to the outside, so they connect as I'm heading down the side of the arm with the brush pen. We almost have one arm completely done almost there. And I'm really kind of enjoying just relaxing process of just filling in all of these circles. One by one, the next step is going to be to fill in this least outlined the center part. So I don't overshoot my circles into the, um the middle of this starfish just carefully going around this curvy shape in the center and we can keep it going. So the rest of this I'm going to speed up for you because it's just going to be more of the same. And I think you've got the gist of it now. So I'm just going to quickly go through this arm is going to be a curved, but we're gonna do exactly the same thing. We're just gonna follow down the line of the of the starfish and other, have my process down. I don't need to sketch it through anymore. Kind of really Get the process now. Very well. And so I'm just going to buzz right down the side of the arm with these circles. Fill in the end. The end is a little bit different cause it's a little more red and smaller circles. And then we're back to the big circles again, filling in the small ones of the center. And that concludes the second arm. And we are starting down this third arm in the very same way We're just gonna gonna create the outlines first. Now that I know what I'm doing. Fill in all those circles large and small, the very same pattern as I did the 1st 2 So just keeping the process gone and they're each arm is gonna be slightly different to give it a natural look. You can see I filled in the center with with our red orange paint, and I'm just putting a lighter color of a lighter version, if you will. I've kind of liked it with some yellow to create, almost like that little face and center, but I kind of wanted a little bit lighter than that. So I'm just going to use my paper towel to stop up some of the paint just to pull some of the read out and helped create that face effect. It's I had to look it up. It's It's mouth is actually on the underside of it. But this kind of looks like a little a little face with two highs. And now perfect. No, I'm just going to start. Um, just wedding my areas around My starfish is my starfish is complete. I'm super happy with it, But I want I want to do a really fun background, uh, in the photo, The starfish is sitting on a bed of coral and it's just such a gorgeous color. I'm super inspired by it. So I just wanna do a loose representation of that. Ah, but I really love the contrast of the red and the blue. And I love that color. So I'm just gonna take my larger brush and quickly feel in the majority of the page with its I've decided, Yeah, I really love it. I'm going to go ahead and fill my page with it. So just dropping my paint into the wet areas, letting it sort of bleed around. I want to really lose abstract effect for this portion, you know, are starfish was super detailed, were super careful to capture um, some really fine lines there and details. I want this to be the opposite. I want this to be loose and very free flowing. You could say I'm careful not to touch my red paint. It's still drying of it. And ah, I have a lot to fill in yet. So I'm just gonna go ahead and do that while my red paint is drying and then we'll get up close to the starfish with the a little more care in detail. I just got that little too wet. I want to absorb a lot more color, So just stopping up some water and drop it somewhere. Pete, this is also a fun, fun process. Um, it's a little bit like painting the sky. We're just gonna be a lot deeper, a deeper blue. And, um, we're painting the probably a sea floor, and it's a little dark down there and a lot of lot of a lot of color, a lot of rich color. So I want to drop a lot of paint and you can see I'm now I'm spending my my brush pen in circles because I want to capture the texture of this coral. It's a lot of lot of round shapes. Um, so that's how I, uh, plan on capturing that same texture on my paper just by replicating circles and just brushing this background in a circular motion. And I can see how I'm taking my time to who wind my way around these starfish arms, being super careful not to mess with our work. There I was going back and darkening some of this and then I'm just gonna blend it right into the background we created around each arm individually and blending it in with the bat . The background we've created and some parts of this is gonna are going to be darker than others. I want this fought in part of the starfish to be super dark, this top part right here to be super dark, and I'm going to start dropping in so, uh, dark areas right in the middle of the light. So we have a lot of contrast, and then we'll be doing some fun white dots on top of these dark areas to kind of like I said, do a loose representation of the coral. I don't want to get super detailed with because I want the starfish to be. I wanted to pop. I want it to be the first thing you notice when you look at this, this painting. So I want to keep the background really abstract, starting to look really fun. Just having some fun with ease. Circular strokes. And now that that blue has dried, I'm going to go ahead and take some white to paint and just drop it right in the center. You could also do this with a gel pen. Makesem thoughts with, uh, by spending your pan around in some larger circles, he could use acrylic paint. If you're working with pan paints and you don't have a thickness to your paint. Uh, or you don't have a white. You can go and use acrylic paint. Chalk paint. It doesn't really matter. This is your creation in the end, so be created for sure and use what you have. So I'm just into written Lee in the darkest areas. Is dropping these white dots on there? It's really creating a nice balance with the starfish. The white areas of the starfish is well, it's kind of softening that background and giving it a little whimsy. And that concludes the Starfish project. I hope you really enjoyed it. 8. Seahorse- Intermediate/Advanced Level: So I'm just sketching out, um, the project for the seahorse starting with the head and, um, go moving on to the body and just catching it where it's it's bodies thick where it goes thin. And I'm gonna show the tail wrapping around this sea grass. Um, because that's just a fun element to a seahorse to show that tail and how they use it. I'm gonna be incorporating the sea grass into the background of this project. So it'll be a fun element. Now. I'm just dropping paint into the outlined pencil sketch, and this is just a background to get me started. Kind of just a yellowish brown, um, to get the basic shape painted. And then we can add detail to that. And very carefully, I'm going to zigzag my brush to show the ridges on the on its back and then very careful not to paint the entire tail cause part of it's going to be invisible behind that sea grass . So we'll just omits some of that volume there so we can put the grass kind of right in between there. That's kind of fun. Little spiral. Okay, so I'm gonna ready to do the background and be careful not to touch my wet paint. I'm just going to spread my paper with water and I'm gonna try kind of ah, grayish sandy color and got a little bit wet. So just mopping that up a bit, add that little brown in there and blend a little darker. It's gonna drive a lighter, so I want to make it a little bit darker and then just fill in right around to the seahorse now that it's a bit drier. Great. It's pretty blended in, and I have sped that up for you because it's a long process, Um, and just continue my outline of the seahorse now that I have a background and I'm going to start with the sea grass. So I am keeping my strokes thick at the bottom and thin at the top so we can show the blades of grass. Um, really careful, right around the seahorse that I don't paint through it and pick it right back up. Here we go. That looks great. So we show a little depth by making the seahorse stay in the front, and there's another blade of grass that we're gonna show going right behind our seahorse. And all you need is a couple two or three to show that perspective and depth rust of them could be pretty pretty standard. So I'm showing thin ones. I'm showing Thich ones going in different directions. So it looks very natural, dark in that one a bit more. And that's a really fun part of the project. At some color, add some interest and gives our seahorse a habitat. And I'm careful to fill the page, but ah, seahorses the star. So we want it to take center stage and be really noticeable right in the middle. So we'll be creating some accents on him in a minute, and I'm pretty happy with that. All right, so now the blade of grass that goes through the tail, they're just really careful not to pay the tail itself. And we're gonna make it a thick one, cause it's gonna be holding its body. And you can see how I paint and write in between that corkscrew he created in his tail and right up the top. It's really pretty simple. Um, if you just take it in those steps. So the bottom in between the corkscrew and then out the top. I'm just painting a few more thin, thin seagrass to show depth in the back. And I think we're ready. Toe, I'm ready. Start accenting way. Seahorse will make him a little darker in places, um, on its nose around its eyes. Here we go. Just going. Teoh start showing some. He's got kind of a dot pattern going down, his back showing kind of like to Ridge is going down, and that's a really fun element. So I really want to highlight that. I'm just using dots because the dots make it look like bumpy ridges, just like in the photo. We don't have to spend a lot of time with that detail, and it still looks fairly accurate. And I'm just gonna put those two bridges together along the bottom part of the tail. And then I'm just gonna paint dots on his belly. Teoh show some texture on his ah, his skin. We'll do that all the way down around the bottom of the tail. That's pretty fun, but yeah, I want to paint his belly a little darker. I want to show a little shadow and little little volume and a little more interest. I want him to really pop, do a little shadow under his nose and kind of blend it all in more about this here, down the back and just soften it with some word fighting dot patterns. I'm gonna take a micron and just draw a little bit of an eye eye ball for him. So he bring him toe life a little bit more. And now I'm just gonna add a little bit of violet to his belly and underneath his nose to show the shading and show a little bit of color contrast. I think the violet is a really fun play, and it works nicely with seagrass as well. And I'm pretty happy with that. Whips got a little too much on there, um, a little bit of an outline for his nose, a little bit of an outline around his ear just to highlight some of those, uh, features that really show him off. Just blending a little bit more on his belly. Um, And after seeing the background dry, I think it's just a little too tame and neutral. I think I want something a little more colorful, so I've decided to put some aqua like the color of the ocean water. But, ah, so long side of the grass that will actually cause our seahorse to pop a little bit more. And it's okay to change your mind. If you're not happy with your painting, you can always fix it. Um, so I'm doing that here, and I'm just being careful. I can paint over my blades of grass without too much problem because they're pretty dry, and I'm not going to completely obliterate them. I can always accent them again a little bit later, and I've gotten a couple of awkward strokes that were really dark. So I'm just going back with water and just deluding them into the space. If you see that happen, you'd get a stroke that's too dark. Just stop get some water and dilute the space. Just spread it around, and it's just like all the other areas when you're when you're finished. If you dilute it. Ah, instead of adding more paint, just a little trick if you make a boo boo there. So I'm just literally going into every little space very carefully around the tail area. They don't botch it up and then I'm just going to go through and just touch up my blades of grass to give them, um, that pop that they originally had afterwards. And I've decided I want my, um, pain to go a little further down the page as well. So I'm gonna add the awkward down there. And then I've also decided that I would like my, um my blades of grass to go down a little further and to not and in the same place below. Um, here we go. I'm going. Teoh, start a little lower on the page on some and leaves others higher. So it gives them not such a regular look. It gives them a little more natural looking, growing pattern. But very carefully, I'm just gonna go through and highlight my blades of grass over that aqua pop a little bit more. The aqua becomes a little bit more neutral again, but it has a little bit more color and more interest. I'm way, way happier with that. Cool. So when all of these are finished, you can stand back, take a look, and, um, see if I want to make any more changes to it. But I'm really liking the way it looks. Sometimes it just takes a little patience and a little tweaking, Uh, until something looks really good and you and you are pleased with it, but it's all worth it in the end, and that concludes our seahorse. 9. Shell with Seascape: some starting out with this, um, background that I painted with us. You know, light brown, sand colored, uh, watercolor with my large paint brush. And you can see I'm just sketching out right over that, um, the sea shore line where this the water hits the sand. I'm sketching out the shape of my shell and I'm gonna draw in all the lines of the shell so that I can paint right over that, And I want it to be kind of detail as possible, because that's going to be really the framework from my pain t of the shell. It feels lines get smaller on the side, and I'm going to start with painting the sun. And this is just kind of going to be a framework. We're gonna be building layers of paint on top of that, and there's kind of a glow, the sun. And when I did this background, I didn't necessarily intend to do a landscape on top of it. But I really liked the idea of having, um so you can see I'm kind of removing some of the paint from the sun, so it really glows. I wanted to be super bright in the center, and the the sand color was a little dark. So I just lightened it right there. And I like the idea of the this background and this kind of layering on top of it, kind of. It's a new experiment for me, and I'm kind of kind of enjoying. That might be something I'll repeat in the future, for sure. So starting out with a light blue and I'll just be layering dark on the outside, lighter to the inside, fading into the yellow glowing sun in the center. You can see him extending out closer to the edge of my page, getting the other side and getting that darker paint toward the outside. I just want to repeat everything I'm doing on one side to the other side, and I'm going to start while that to drying. I want to make that darker, but I want to to keep this painting moving while that Skye is drying. So I'm going to you can see I'm dropping life first layer of blue paint into the shell shape, and, um, I really want those lines pretty prominent, so I'm going to go ahead and dark in my pain and just start creating my, um, this show kind of ripples. Kind of like sounds kind of silly, but kind of like a potato chip. Like a ripple. Potato chips are gonna I want to really create the, um, lights and darks pretty dramatically on this shell so we can kind of layer on top of what I've done. Um, I'm gonna layer on top of what I've done there. Uh, I'm going to let that dry, and I'm going to start. My, um I can see him extending my sand colored background to the outside of the painting role more so the colors look more even. You're going to do that on the other side and on the bottom. And now we can move on to the sky now, but it's tried a little bit more. Gonna keep layering the blue into the yellow so it creates at the end. It's gonna be a nice soft fade one color into the other. To replicate that sky in the photo just takes a little bit of patience and a little bit of a waiting game. But thankfully, we have lots of elements in this project. Um, on this painting, so we can let one dry while we keep going on the other. And I think I've got about as much paint on this is I can for now. And I'm actually dropping some white to Cem thick white to paint around to that son. Ah, a little more blue hating that into the outside while the center is drying. And again the same thing on the other side. Uh, now I'm going to take some graham mixing some light grey so just black and white. And to make a light gray and starting ah, the shoreline or with the water hits the sand, and I want it to look like a reflection of water. Not necessarily the water itself. Um, the sand is wet and it's the sun is reflecting in it. And that's what I want to capture. And that right there is where the the water is running into the shore. So it's this, um, sort of crashing motion, and I've done that in a dark gray. The tide coming in a little further out is just all shadow. So I've done that in a dark navy, and I'm going to capture this shadow with just a little dark navy here and there underneath in between, um, to accent it says a little more shadow detail. Now I'm gonna do another layer of the sea shell with a much darker paint, and I'm going to start. Really? Um, defining this, uh, light and dark that's happening here and the back part of the shell away from the sun is gonna be darker. The front part is gonna have a little more light on it, since the sun will be hitting it when it's just a matter of just taking your time, I'm going to speed this up a little bit. It's the tiniest bit tedious, but I'm really enjoying the process of just laying down one row of dark at a time. And there we go. So no toe let that dry and going back to the sun, getting pretty close to getting this pretty blended, uh, dropping a little bit of of dark yellow into the blue to kind of blend that golden effect as well into the blue. And it's working on fading the to, um, around that sunlight. And I'm just dropping a little bit of white into my water reflection to give right on top of the grey that we did give it a little bit of highlighting. And now, with the grayish blue, I'm just filling in the ocean right up to the horizon line. It's a very similar color to the sky, just a little bit grayer. Just putting a little bit of dark gray around that crashing wave A little bit shadow detail along the bottom of it. And it's just really a Siris of just dots, some thicker, some thinner to show some variation. It's just a very basic stroke, and I have sped this up. But you can always slow this down on your computer or your phone, Um, and see a little bit more in detail. How just dotting this all the way along and just not keeping it regular. Keep going up a little bit down a little bit thick, a little bit thin with the dot so it has a natural look to it, just adding a little more variation. I'm just adding a little variation where the water is running onto the shore and you could see a little bit of shadow there. Um, what's running ahead of that crashing wave there, and I'm just starting this reflective water area with a little bit of glowing. The sun is glowing on it, so I'm just touching, um, that wet area with a little bit of yellow to capture that. And now to make some definition on this sand, I want it to be super rich looking. And ah, for that I have to dark it to a very dark mustard color and went a lot of contrast. Um, with the shore, the water and the sky. So that's gonna really help us. And I'm just filling this in very irregularly to kind of show some highs and lows, darks and lights into the sand, being very careful around the shell and then just blending in around it. And now well, that's drawing. I'm gonna show that Rocky her rise in line, way in the distance. It's just gonna be a very, um, thin line, really. But I want to again dot some highs and lows on top of that line, I just made to show that rocky texture going up and down and now all the way to the where the water starts. And now I'm just kind of with a very dark brown, just making a bunch of dots into the sand just to kind of make it look a little more natural, A little more riel. It shows, um, some lights and darks in the sand and, uh, just makes it look a little bit less, even a little more. Find a natural and they're kind of going to be few and lighter going off into the distance . And while that's drying, I'm going to creating more detail on my show. Um, by darkening my darkest parts of the rippled texture on this show very meticulously. Just this is really going to make the shell pop and really gonna show some shadow and light . And I'm going to come back later and really brighten up those, um, lighter areas on the sun side of the shell for now, concentrating on the dark and now with a light vanilla color of mixed a little bit of yellow into my white and, um created a light vanilla color to start creating the lights in the opposite side of the ripples on this shell. And now I'm just creating little dots where it looks like the shell might have been scratched at one time. So it's got this beautiful marking all way across the ripples right about the middle. I think it's a fun detail, so I'm just gonna again, just It's kind of a combination of lions and dots. It's not too hard to replicate. So now, with a lot more thickness of paint, I'm just creating this, um, light effect right over the dark areas of the shell. And you know, you can actually do this with a gel pen after you drop in your dark paint. Ah, acrylic paint works great. It's pretty open as far as how you do this. Just taking my time and going back and really accenting these lights across the shell. And I've actually gone over some of my lights on the sun side with a little yellow to capture some of that gold reflection from the sun. And now it's the fun part. I could not wait to drop this red. You could see I'm skipping, um, and just capturing the top part of the ripple with the red so really pops. All right, all the way around. And I'm loving that it really makes a shell pop in the painting. And just to polish off, um the ocean and sky. Um, because they are skies blended pretty nicely. I'm really happy with that. And I'm just going to create a separation on the horizon line with a little darker grey and blend it right into our ocean color. And I'm going to extend the crashing waves all the way to the horizon. Line a bit more nice line of separation and even darker grey, a little blue in it as well, so it can really blend into the ocean, just running that a little further out into the horizon line. You can see I'm doing smaller dots as it goes out into the distance, a show perspective and the very last touches to add a shadow under the shell. Because that son, when it's setting those shadows, are very long. So in with the way the direction the sun is going, I'm going to create that long shadow right up to the edge, very carefully going right to the edge of the shell. Now that it has dried, um, with a very dark brown right over that sand and just running that shadow right across to the edge of my my page. And I'm just gonna fill it right. And so thank you for joining me on this project. It was a long and arduous, but it was really fun and very satisfying. I hope you enjoyed it. I cannot wait to see your project in your take on this project. See what kind of things you come up with. I look forward to see you in the next video. 10. Final Thoughts: I really hope you enjoy this class, and I cannot wait to see your project. Whether it's complicated, it's simple. With the background or without, I can't wait to see how it turns out, you can post your project in the Project gallery. If you need any help doing that, please feel free to reach out. You can find me in the community section where you can post questions comments to me or your fellow students, and I would sure appreciate your reviews so I could keep improving. Until then, I hope you enjoyed your day at the beach painting Watercolor Treasures of the Scene Bye for now.