Watercolour Portrait from a Photo

1. Introduction: Hi, welcome to my studio. My name is Nadia, and today we're going to be looking at how to paint a watercolor portrait based on a photograph. I'm a professional artist mainly working in painting, and I'm based in Berlin. I studied fine arts at four different universities. In New Zealand, Spain Italy and Chile. And I was exposed to a lot of different techniques and ways of creating art through the various systems of teaching and each university. Then I finally got my master's degree in Fine Arts in 2014. And since then I've been working as a freelance artist, exhibiting internationally. Even though I've painted for years, it was usually in oil, so I really struggled to get a grasp on watercolor, probably mainly because part of its beauty is leaving the paint to do its own thing, sometimes, just giving up control. And then after taking a few workshops, something just clicked and Ive been loving watercolor, ever since. I am now convinced that with practiced and a relaxed attitude, anyone can master this wonderful technique. So I've done my best to make this course as comprehensive as possible. To include creatives of all levels, whether you're just starting out or you´re a practiced drawer or painter. In this course, you are going to create an expressive portrait in watercolor based on a photograph. I'm going to take you through the materials that we'll need and how to choose your image. I will then show you some basic facial structures. And then we'll look at two different ways to transfer your image to your paper, either by grid or by tracing. I will talk to you about the colors we will use and how to mix them. And we will look at some basic watercolor techniques. We will also be using graphite pencil as a complimentary tool. We'll see how to start painting by applying the first layers and then go on to focus on the various elements of the face. We will also be painting the contours of the face, the hair, and the clothes. At the end, we will add the finishing touches and I'll also give you a few tips regarding preservation of the work and framing. If you follow these steps, you will have the knowledge to create a portrait in watercolor that's rich in contrast and expressive. To take this course, among other things, you will need paper, paint brushes, watercolors, graphite pencils and a palette. This course is for all types of creatives and anyone who feels attracted to the wonderful world of watercolor. Essentially, I am hoping to provide the tools for all levels of creators so that it's accessible for absolutely everybody who wants to develop their watercolor skills. So I hope you'll enjoy this class and I'm really looking forward to seeing your projects. If you'd like to see more of what I do, you can check out my website at www.nadiavaleska.com or my Instagram at nadia__valeska I also have another class here on Skillshare, which is lino cut portrait in black and white for all levels. So make sure to check that out as well. 2. Project: In this lesson, I'm going to be telling you a little more in detail about what we're going to be doing in this course. We'll be making a watercolor portrait using a photograph as a reference for this, we're going to learn how to transfer our photo to our paper. And we will start working with a limited color palette from which will mix all of our colors. We will also be using graphite pencil as a tool to help us get expression and contrast and a painting. But we want it to stay in the background. As first and foremost, we want the watercolor to be the protagonist. We´re also not aiming for a hyper-realistic portrait, but rather an expressive one where again, it's about the watercolor and its possibilities more than getting the painting to look a 100 % Like your photo. I will be showing you how to structure the face by working in layers to give an impression of volume. I will also give you a quick overview of the basic facial structures to better understand the planes of the face and why shadows fall where they do. We'll also be working on how to paint the hair and clothes. You're encouraged to practice how to control the paint. Although with watercolor, there's always a certain element of chance, which with practice can work wonders for your pieces. As with everything, the more you practice, the better you get and I invite you to complete various portraits as a means of practice until you've produced one with which you're satisfied. Maybe you're already really happy with the first work you make. That's great. But if you're not, don't despair. I have found in my own work that the best things happen when I don't try for a good result, but rather see each work in progress as my next step to getting as good as I want at what I do. In any case, I would love to see the works that you're making as you go along to see how you're progressing. And it would be wonderful if you could upload those to share your journey with me. So in short, the final project of this class is to produce at least one watercolor portrait based on a photograph with which you're happy. And hopefully you will also upload your progress as you go along. In the next lesson, I will be showing you which materials we're going to be using. Stay tuned. 3. Materials & Finding Image: In this lesson, we're going to look at the materials that we're going to use. And I've made you a list here which I'll also upload. So basically the materials which will need will be watercolors, watercolor paper, a palette, masking tape, paint brushes, a wooden board, graphite pencils and eraser, paper towels and jars for water and also optionally some protective spray. Now for the watercolors, I prefer to use tubes, but you can also get pans and there's also liquid or in powder form. But just have a play around and see what suits you best. The quality also differs depending on the brand that you're using. So I suggest you just go ahead and buy a few and just try it out. So I'm working with these Winsor and Newton Cotman watercolor tubes and I found them really good. But again, it's a thing of experimenting and just seeing what feels good to you. In terms of watercolor paper, really important is that it's 300 GSM. So that's important because this paper is especially made to be able to absorb the water that we're gonna be using while we're painting without warping too much, so it won't ruin our painting. I'm using the brand from my local Fine Arts Shop. It doesn't need to be the most expensive paper, but you also don't want to be getting bad quality because this will really affect your experience of painting. You need to know that different papers will absorb the water differently. So it's important for you to find one that suits your needs. So again, I just suggest trying out a few different papers and seeing what you like and what suits you. Some good go-to brands include Canson and Arches, for example. There's a couple of different things you need to keep in mind about the paper. Number one being it comes in different grains. You have satin finish, you have fine grain and you have rough grain. I'm working with fine-grain because I like the feel of the watercolor paper, but I don't want it to be too rough. And satin finish is to smooth for me, it's almost like normal paper. The second thing you need to keep in mind is that the paper has a front side and the back side. The front side is granier, or more textured, and the backside is usually a little smoother. In theory, you could paint on both, but the backside of the paper absorbs very little water. So we want to be using the front side at all times. Okay, so now let's talk about brushes. Typically we use round brushes for watercolor because they hold the water better. So I suggest you get three or four different sizes. One small, one midsized one and one large one. So I've got a size three, a size ten, and the size 16. If you want, you can also get a very small one like size is one. And maybe another midsize one like a size six, that's up to you, but I would suggest at least three if not four. If you can't find these exact sizes, don't worry. I suggest getting one fine brush, one or two medium brushes and one large brush. I just want to mention again here, you also don't want to get the very cheapest ones. Often those packs that you get for very little money, they start losing the bristles really soon and that's really, really annoying when you're painting. You can use synthetic brushes or animal hair brushes. As long as they're good quality, it's really a matter of preference. Some people prefer to use the synthetic ones because they are more animal friendly. It's really up to you. Taking care of your brushes properly is also really important. You want to keep them flat and with the bristles as straight as possible. Don't ever put them bristles down into your glass of water because once the tip is bent, it's pretty much useless. Next, let's talk about our mixing palettes. This is where we mix our colors. It should look something like this. And the most important thing is that it has these little mixing compartments because the paint is really liquid and that's really hard to contain on a flat surface. We don't want it to mix with the colors that we're trying to mix on our palette. Then we will also need graphite pencils. So we will need a 4H age or 6H. And this is to make very faint lines, for example, for our sketch, because we want to erase the grid lines at some point. We'll be using the HB and 2B pencil for some details. What will also need on hand will be kitchen roll or tissue paper to absorb extra water from our brush or paper. We'll also need masking tape to tape our paper to a surface, preferably a wooden board. We do this because then the paper warps less. We will need the ruler to transfer our photographs to our paper. Also, we will need an eraser. And I have this putty eraser that I really like because it doesn't smudge the pencil as much, but it's also quite good just to have a regular eraser on hand. Last but not least. Let's not forget about the water. So I suggest having two containers for water. One is for cleaning your dirty brushes with, and the other one is for freshwater when you want to hydrate your pigments and make new colors. Now we're going to be looking at how to find the photographic reference for your painting and what I usually look for on the reference photos that I use. I particularly like to use Unsplash. This is available on the browser or as an app on your phone. When you're looking for a portrait, put photographic portrait or portrait photography in the search box because this way you get a much more specific type of image which will suit our needs better. There are a few factors that add difficulty to painting an image. And if we're just starting out, we might want to avoid these factors when we're looking for our reference image. So let's just have a look at a few examples. So one thing would be hair or objects over the face. Also, glasses. Glasses are difficult because it's quite difficult to get the shape right. And also sometimes they have these reflections or they hide the eyes. Also sunglasses, they're going to hide the eyes entirely and I find the eyes are really important factor to our portrait. Also unnatural, artificial lighting. Closed eyes and hands. Hands of very difficult to paint. As much as I love black and white images, we're going to want to avoid those for now because we're going to have to imagine the skin tones and that's going to add a difficulty as well. Open mouths, open mouth smiles with teeth. Teeth are very hard to paint. We want to avoid also photographs with these blurred areas. We want it to be clearly defined and we'd also liked the entire head to be in the image, if possible. Now let's have a look at some images that I find would be suitable to begin with. We have some clear, front facing or mainly front facing images with a good light shadow balance, tonal variety, quiet backgrounds. If you're tending towards the profile, it's best of both sides of the face are still visible. So if you have a torso in your image and you need to crop it, remember to maintain the ratio of the painting, so, if you're making a 30 by 40 centimeter painting, you need to crop your image to the ratio of three by four, for example. The image needs to have a high enough resolution so that you can still clearly see the features and the tones of the face. If you have an image that contains elements like jewelry or hands, that we can omit, because they don't cover important elements of the face, then that's also fine. I hope that's made it clear what we're looking for. I've gone ahead and chosen this image here for its simplicity. Front facing, very clear, we have a good light shadow balance. The background is very quiet and I'm actually going to not paint that at all. I'm also always really drawn to a strong gaze and I find that in this photo, this gaze that she has is very compelling. I also really like the colors. I love the dramatic shadows here, the reds and the tonal varieties in the shadows. And also there are no difficult elements in this face. There's no glasses, There's no jewelry, there's no teeth, there's no hands. So yeah, I think I will use this image to begin painting. I invite you now to go and look for your image. And I hope you find one which you feel like you're really excited to paint. And I suggest making a selection of different images first. And then out of those images, choosing the first image that you're going to paint. When you find your image, I will see you in the next lesson where we will take a look at some basic watercolor techniques. I'll see you there. 4. Basic Facial Structures: In this lesson, I'm going to give you a quick overview of basic facial structures and proportions of the head to help us later with understanding where the shadows usually go. Even if they're not, they're pronounced on your reference photo. What I'm going to show you probably won't be all that new to you, but I find it important just to cover quickly. Knowing these basic proportions will help you, even if you know how to draw, just to double-check that everything is in its place, just in case we miscalculate an element of the face. So we start with a circle and we just add the length of a half of the circle to the bottom there. You can mark the mid point of the face vertically as well if you like. We can connect the space, so the chin to the circle and then we have the shape of the head. So if we find the middle vertically, that is where the eyes will be. And then we go on to find the middle between the eyes and the bottom, so the chin, to see where the nose will be. The eyes and the top of the head to see where the hairline will be. Next, we're just going to put in the brow ridge here, to give us some guidance. And then we're going to divide the space into five more or less equal parts to see exactly where the eyes go. The general rule is that there's one eye between the eyes. We already know with the nose sits vertically, but we also want to know how broad it is. Usually the bottom of the nose goes from one tier to another. You just draw in the wings of the nose there. And then we also want to know where our mouth is. So that's halfway between the nose and the chin. We have the bottom lip, the bottom of the bottom lip. And the corners of the mouth are usually around the middle of the eye. So we can just go ahead and draw that in there. We're just going to put in the ear here. So the ear goes from about the height of the eye down to the bottom of the nose. Just going to put in the eyebrows. Start making the shape of the nose, the bridge of the nose there. So the nose is usually a little bit circular at the bottom. Then we'll just put in the chin. Let's just have a look at the volumes of the face. So we have this bone structure here. So there's a small inclination, which means when we look frontally at the face, this will always be in shadow. So we have the eye cavities and the eyes under the brow ridge, so they're always in shadow. We have these cheek bones. We have the chin and under the, under the bottom lip and above the chin is always going to be in shadow as well. And between the nose and the mouth and on the sides of the nose, then we have our neck muscles and the neck and the forehead. We'll just put some hair on them there. Okay. So the eyeball is around the base here and that is covered by the eyelid. Now for male jaw, it's usually more square and the female jaws tend to be rounder. So that's the basic structure of a frontal view of the face. The nose and the lips are fairly simple to draw. The lips can be constructed by using two small spheres and each lip and then constructing the lines around them. And the nose has two wings and the base, which is also kind of circular. So you just connect those really. Let me just quickly show you how to avoid the common mistake when drawing the eye, which is drawing the complete iris and pupil, we'll just start with the eyeball. Then we'll put the iris and pupil. And then we have to imagine that it's covered by an eyelid. So it's really very seldom that you see the iris and pupil in their entirety. Usually only with expressions is fear or disbelief when the eyes are completely open. So don't make the mistake of drawing a round circle for the iris and the pupil. Make sure you have some of it covered by the eyelid. Now let's take a look at the profile. We start again with a circle. So again we find the center. We add half the sphere at the bottom, just like before. Just gonna make a basic skull shape to begin with. Now let's find the center to put in the eyes, again in the middle. And I'm just going to see where the nose will end. Okay. And halfway between eyes and chin. And the nose will protrude somewhat from the face. Now we'll see with the bottom of the bottom lip ends just to mark that. And then the chin protrudes. Let's put in the eye and the wing of the nose again, by the tear duct around about, and the corner of the mouth is around about the center of the eye. Let's remember that bone structure and the skull here, which kind of goes backwards. Right. Let's put on the hairline again, that's about halfway between the eyes and the top of the head. Again, the eye cavity here. We'll shade in the side of the nose as well. Don't forget the cheekbones and around the chin. Remember that these measurements are only indications and very generic and they'll vary from face to face. So make sure you really look at your reference photo and observe what's going on there. It's just really good to know these basic structures because they might help you out if for example, you feel like your face looks a little bit off and then you can double-check, is the eye in the right places, the nose in the right place, are the spaces correct, et cetera. Now that we've got an overview over the basic facial structures, Let's move on in the next lesson to transfer our image onto our paper. Stay tuned. 5. Transferring your image: In this lesson, we're going to be looking at how to transfer our image to our paper. And don't worry, if you don't have any drawing skills, you won't need them for these techniques that I'm about to show you. So first of all, I'm going to show you how to transfer the image using a grid. Later we'll be looking at how to use tracing to transfer your image to your paper. You can use a light table for this or a window or any other light source. Of course, if you like to draw, you can just go ahead and draw your image onto your paper. So you'll notice that I've printed my reference image twice. That is because on one we'll be drawing our grid and the other one we'll be using for painting. Okay, So let's start on that grid on our reference photos. So for this, I'm going to make marks one centimeter apart, vertically and horizontally so that my whole photo reference will be covered with one centimeter squares. And later we'll transfer this grid onto our paper. Now on your reference photo, it's fine to use an HB or 2B pencil for your grid so that you can see it. But once we get onto our paper, you will need to be using your 4H or 6H pencil so that we can really easily erase it afterwards. Make sure you're starting at the same side, top and bottom and left and right, so that you match up the line. Now that we've done the vertical lines, Let's do the horizontal ones. You want to choose how large to make your squares depending on how large your painting is gonna be. So if you're making a larger painting, your squares can also be larger because the amount of information that you're going to have in each squared isn't going to be as much as if you're painting smaller. Once we have our grid, we want to start putting letters at the top and numbers down the side so that we can see where, for example, the eye starts. It gives us a reference and it makes it easier for us not to have to count squares across and down every time. My image is slightly smaller than my paper. So I need to first measure out the exact size of the photo, which in this case is 20 by 29. So now we start marking one centimeter by one centimeter on our paper like we did on a photograph. And this way we are transferring our grid to our paper. Now just a little note, don't press too hard here. We don't want to have indentations on the paper because the watercolor will register this and we really don't want that. Also remember to put the numbers and the letters at the top and bottom and sides. Let's start with where the eye on the right starts. I find this is a really good place to start because immediately you can see the face emerging and that keeps me motivated to keep going. For me the eye starts at M12. So we just make a mark at M12. And then we see where the eye ends, same thing. So we look at our grid, make a mark where it ends. Then we just go ahead and connect the two points, the beginning of the eye and the end of the eye. And we can see the curvature here at the top and the bottom of the eye. So you can really see how the grid is helping us put our drawing onto the paper. See where the eyelid goes at the top, seeing that I made a mistake there. So I'm just going to erase that, draw in the corner of the eye then already. And just get the eyelid to come across. Remember not to press too hard. When we're drawing the iris and the pupil, remember what we talked about? In the basic structures of the face, that they are barely ever completely seen. So don't draw it completely round. Now we're just going to put the eyebrow up the top there, if you need some guidance, then check the grid and your photograph, check your grid on your paper. Just going to mark here where the nose comes down, just slightly, and also the darker spaces under the eyes. So what we're doing here is really making ourselves a roadmap for later, to know where exactly the darker areas are going to go, when we start to paint, we're just giving ourselves some indications. So the more information you have, the better. So we're also going to be reserving this light line at the bottom of the eye there. So that's gonna be the white of the paper. We don't want to be painting over there. So let's mark that in there as well. So now onto the second eye, Let's see where that stops. Measure it out and see on the grid, on our reference image and then on the grid on your paper. We'll just mark the corner of the eye and the outer corner of the eye. So for the second eye, we'll just be repeating the steps that we took for the first eye. From one corner of the eye to the other, top, bottom, if we make mistakes, we can just erase them. If we need extra detail, we can make an extra little square within our square. Then we'll just put in the iris and the pupil, the corner of the eye, the eye lid, the eyebrow. This eye, you've got quite a large shadow under the eyebrow, so we really want to mark that. So now that I'm done with the eyes, I'm just going to do exactly the same thing for the rest of the face. Looking at the grids, see where the reference points are and then connect them. So just keep going until you've got the rest of your face on your paper. You'll notice that there's some important shadows, the sides of the face, the cheekbones. You definitely want to mark them in. So once we've finished our sketch, we need to erase the grid and be careful not to erase your drawing while you're at it. I've gone over my sketch lightly with an HB pencil so that I won't erase my drawing. And also you'll be able to see it clearly on the screen. Important things to remember, we will not really be using white paint. The white we'll have in our painting will be the white of the paper. So there are some areas you want to reserve. For example, the highlights in the eyes, the tear duct, some areas which are protruding from the face like the the cheekbones are the tip of the nose, the highlight on the lips, things like that. We're just going to go ahead and erase our grid now. And now that we've done that, we're going to tape our paper onto wooden board or whatever support we've chosen. If you find the grid method too difficult or too tedious, you can also use a light table or a window, or any other source of light to trace your image to your paper. So you want to fix your reference image without the grid to your light source. And then you place your watercolor paper over the top. Remember, we're only using the top side of the paper right now. And then you just start tracing. And same thing again, just with the 6H or 4H pencil. So for your roadmap, you'll want to outline the areas with the most shadows are, the most vibrant colors or details you want to reserve. We'll want to be doing this in a dark environment. So you can see how I've made outlines for myself to remind myself where to paint later. Okay, so now that we have finished our sketch, we're going to start looking at how to mix our colors in the next lesson. So I'll see you there. 6. Basic Watercolour Techniques: In this lesson, we're going to look at some basics of watercolor, which I suggest you practice at home. I also recommend these to loosen up your hand and relax and to get familiarized with the paints, the brush, and the technique. I'm going to put all the colors we'll be using for our project onto my palette now. It doesn't really matter which order you put your colors in. The colors from my portrait are Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Red, Crimson Red, Ultramarine Blue, Prussian Blue, and Ivory Black. Depending on the image you've chosen, you may also want to get Burnt Umber. I will upload the list in the resources for the course. We will also have a tube of white on hand, but this is only for the highlights in the eyes, should we not be able to reserve the white of the paper. Otherwise, the white of the painting will be the white of the paper. If your paint dries, the pigments can always be reactivated with water. So don't worry if you put too much on your palette. It's important that you practice a bit with watercolors before starting a portrait, so you have an idea of how to use the pigments. Remember that we want to start with the simplest thing and work our way up. And once we start working with our sketch, it's more complicated to just focus on how the paint works. Okay, so let's try a few things. I'm going to use my size ten brush and I'll start with the cadmium red. I just wet my brush and hydrate the color and bring it over to the mixing area of my palette. We always want to be working in calm movements. Bring a brushstroke from start to finish and not make little staccato marks on the paper, because then we lose control of the paint. Remember that watercolor is translucent and we don't want to use it like more opaque paints by applying it without enough water. If we do, we won't be able to build up our layers. Now how much water you should use is a practice thing. Your paint should be translucent. So I've made this brushstroke here and I can, for example, soften the edge like this. Up until now we've been applying the watercolor to dry paper, but you can also apply it to wet paper. And the visual effect is quite cool but you've got less control over your paint. So as you can see, just wet the paper and then you just dab the pigment in there and it starts to expand. Let's just try again to smooth out the edge here. As you can see, if you add too much water, the paint will expand into the wet area. You can always add pigment or inject pigment, and to areas where your paint is still wet, to make it more intense. I'm just going to smooth out the edges of the circular brushstroke here. As I said, with calm movements, taking the brushstroke from start to finish. Let me show you how to erase a brushstroke. If you make a mistake while it's still wet, you just quickly get your tissue paper and dab it on your brushstroke. It won't always erase a 100 per cent and some color may still be visible on the paper. So keep that in mind. And if it were the case, think about how you can incorporate this into your painting. Notice how I'm laying my brush on top of my water container and not leaving it stand bristles down. As I already mentioned, you should never leave your brush standing in water as the tip gets bent and then your brush is useless. Now let's try layering the blue over the red, makes sure the red is completely dry before you start. This is because otherwise the paint may mix, or you will get irregular white marks where you inadvertently remove the bottom layer of paint. Remember that all layers should be translucent. Let's try with the blue. Again, taking your color from your palette to the mixing area, we'll make a start and leave some pigment to observe how it dries. I'm going to take some yellow ochre to practice some more layering. It's a little too translucent, so I'm just going to inject a little more pigment here. Now we'll just quickly take a look at the strokes to the left here. See how where I left the extra pigment and the stroke, how it's dried Let's continue the exercise with the burnt sienna. Again, taking the color from the mixing palette and applying it to the paper in a calm, circular motion. When you clean your brush, use the dirty water first, dry your brush a little and then you can use the clean water to hydrate your next color. I want to see what happens if I use too much pigment for my purposes and want to make it more translucent. So I'm just going to take my brush and remove some, in between dab your brush on your tissue paper to remove excess water or pigment. We want to try layering with our crimson red, but as you can see, our ochre stroke is still wet. So we can either dry it with a hairdryer or wait until it's dry. And see what happens when we try to correct a stroke after it's already started drying. There are these little white marks, where I've passed my brush over it. Maybe while we wait for our brushstrokes to dry, we can practice with different brushes. I take the number three and just see how that feels different to the ten. We can just take the number ten to compare. Then maybe with the large brush, in my case number 16. Okay, the ochre seems to be dry now. Let's see how we can lay the crimson red over there. As you can see, the yellow ochre brushstroke is very faint and the crimson is quite charged with pigment, in this case, you won't see much of the underlying color. So that's something we need to keep in mind. So let's try, for example, layering some ultramarine blue over the crimson here. Again, I've used too much pigment, so I'm going to remove some so that we´ll be able to see the red shining through. So as you will notice, the pigment will appear different on the paper when it's dry, than when it's wet. And this is part of what makes watercolor so hard to control, because you won't know exactly what it's going to look like once it's dry, while you're working. This is why practice is so important because after a while you can kind of estimate the dry result and it means you don't overwork your paint. You can maneuver it a little, but you don't want to be going over it too much when it's wet as then you can get irregular areas or ruin your paper. One more thing I want to show you is how different the colors appear depending on how we apply them to the paper. We will start by painting a yellow ochre square. And while that's drying, we'll paint another one next to it, and we'll just go ahead and add some ultramarine blue. And thirdly, let's mix a color using the ultramarine blue and the yellow ochre, in one of them mixing compartments, and we'll just paint a little square next to the other two. We're going to keep practicing while those are drying, we're going to try the same exercise with the crimson, red and ultramarine blue. And then as we're waiting for those to dry, how about we go ahead and just take a look at what happens when we apply the darker color first and then apply the lighter color over the top. So in this case, if we apply the ultramarine blue first and then the crimson over the top. And remember if you use too much pigment, it's not a problem. You can just remove it by using your brush. Okay, so now that our squares are dry, Let's try applying the ultramarine blue to the first two squares and the crimson red to the last square there. As you can see, how you apply your paint to your paper will make a difference in what they look like. Okay, so I suggest you have a play around with these techniques of watercolor to see how the pigment behaves when you apply it to your paper. When it's dry, when it's wet. How you can remove the pigment, how you can inject pigment, how you can smooth its edges. All those things that we've just looked at. And once you're comfortable with that, let's go on to the next lesson and start looking at how we're going to mix our colors. I'll see you there. 7. Colours: In this lesson, let's see how to mix the colors I'm going to be using during this class. I'll be mixing seven tones for my portrait. And then later on my palette, I might add a little hint of other colors for more shades, but these seven colors will be the seven staple tones that I always want to have mixed on my palette. I've also gone ahead and made a few more mixes just in case the colors I'll be using for my portrait is not suitable for the image that you've chosen. So it's really a matter of looking at your image and choosing your staple tones for your color palette. You'll also find these in the resources part of the lesson. So the first color I'm going to mix is skin tone 1. For this, I'm going to start with some yellow ochre and some crimson red. We hydrate the color and bring it to its own little mixing compartment of a palette. And let's make quite a bit because we'll be using it a lot. Let's add some red to make a kind of orange and test it on the test sheet next to our palette. This is a great tool will want to use, because often the colors look different on our palette than on the paper. This color that I've made is to orange for me and it won't work well for skin color. Let's delve into a little color theory, for this, let's take a quick look at the color wheel, which I'm sure you've seen before. We have the primary colors, red, yellow, and blue, which we can use to mix almost every other color. Mixing red and yellow, we get orange, yellow and blue make green and blue and red make purple. I'm sure this is not new to you, but you might not know that you can use the opposite color to tone down any color that you're using. So for our orange, we mix in a little bit of the ultramarine blue. If we are using, for example, yellow, we would do the same thing by mixing them a little bit of purple. So as I said, we'll be using blue to tone down the orange color and we'll be careful to mix in little by little so as to not overpower it. If it turns out too dark, just add more ochre and red and make sure you remember that watercolor is translucent. So don't forget to use water. Once we're happy with that. Let's go on to Skintone 2. This is the same combination of colors, but we add more red and more blue to make it darker. So the skin tone that we're currently making, Skin tone 2, is used in our portrait to emphasize details. Now when we're happy with that, we'll go on to make the next color, which will be a coffee brown. And for this we will use the burnt sienna and the ivory black. Same steps as before, wet the Sienna, bring it over into its separate mixing compartment, then add the ivory black and we'll also be using quite a lot of this. So go ahead and make a fair amount. Try it on your test paper. For our blue black or Payne's gray will be using Prussian blue and black. This color is for the eyes and other dark tones and will not be using black alone to darken on our portraits. For some contrast, we're going to make a green tone with ochre and Prussian blue. So using greenish skin tones next to the reddish skin tones that we've mixed, we're really bringing out the colors. If at first your mixed colors don't turn out exactly how you'd like, don't worry, it just takes a little practice. Let's also make a purple for shadows. We'll use our crimson, red and ultramarine blue. And we can also mix some burnt sienna or some of the coffee brown that we've already mixed. But we won't be using our Prussian blue or our cadmium red because there´s too much yellow in those colors. So the last color we're going to mix is the skin tone three, which has the same combination is skin tone 1 and 2, except we're going to substitute our crimson for our cadmium. I find this is a really good way to bring a little bit of variety in there because often the crimson is just a little bit too pink. So these are the colors that I'm going to be using for my chosen photograph. If you find that they're not suitable for the photograph that you've chosen. Make sure you take a look at the other mixes that I've put together for you, which I mentioned at the start and also uploaded to the resources area. It really depends on your reference photo. So I suggest always having about seven or eight tones to start with. Once you've mixed your colors, Let's go onto the next lesson and start painting. 8. First Stages: In this lesson, we're going to start painting. Before we start, I just quickly want to show you how I have my workspace setup. So I have my palette down here to the right. I have my paint brushes and pencils. Next to my board. I have my board with my work on it right in the middle of my workspace. I also have my reference photo on the left hand side, which you won't be able to see, but I'll always be referring to that too. Then I have my paints, the tubes of paint in a little box at the top, I have my tissue paper for absorbing water from my brush, or also from my paper. I have my test strip of paper under my palette. I have the white tube of paint for the highlights of the eyes. And I have my two containers of water, one for cleaning my brush and one for wetting the pigment. And then I also have an eraser. Okay, so now let's get started with painting. We will start by working on the first two layers of our portrait. And I will be using my size ten brush. I recommend you see what size feels comfortable for you depending on the size of your work really. So I will start by wetting my paintbrush and going over to the skin tone one which we mixed earlier. Make sure this is a translucent wash. We want to be setting up very faintly with a lot more water than pigment. As I said earlier, if you charge your paint with too much pigment later, it's harder to lay more colors on top. So try it on your test paper and make sure it's very light. We will start out with this wash to mark the contours of the eyes, the nose, and the mouth. And then we'll go on to the contours of the face, the neck, and the ears. This kind of light wash will disappear later under the layers of paint. But it's a great way to start off and not be afraid of the white paper. So I'm just going to start on the right eye with the wash, with a very light wash. And you can see I've got my reference photo to the left just to see where the shadows are and where it's good to paint. We're not going to cover the entire face with paint right now. We're literally just going to mark the contours. Be careful not to paint over lines that we want to reserve the white of the paper like for example, the bottom of the eye, there's a white line. We want to make sure we don't paint over that. Also the highlights of the eye, we don't want to paint over it and also the corner of the eye on the inside. If you feel like your wash is too dark, you can always remove a bit of pigment with your brush like we practiced in the exercises. Now we're just going to mark the eyebrows here as well to give them a bit of a background color. Now, onto the nose, we will map the nose wing and the ridge of the nose where we can observe color. As you notice, the left side has more shadow than the right. So we'll just make that a little more dramatic so I will know to darken this later. We're just painting the shaded parts or parts we find important right now. Continuing with the mouth, it's not so important to stay within the drawing lines right now. You'll have to pay attention to this later though. Make sure the wash is still really light and maybe spare some of the highlights on the lips as well. Okay, so let's move on to the contours of the face now. You may need a larger brush for this. I'm quite happy using my size ten brush. So just outline the face and also start painting and where the big shadows are like, for example, she's got very defined shadows under the cheekbones also in the temples up here. And while you're painting, just remember what we said about the brushstrokes from beginning to end and smooth and calm. So as I said before, the aim of this first layer is not to cover everything in the layer of paint, but rather just to highlight the areas that are important so that we know where to darken later when our paint is a little more intense. And if you happen to use a little too much pigment at this stage, it's not to worry, you can always lift it up again with your paintbrush or a clean tissue paper. As I mentioned earlier, how much you leave the brushstroke on the paper and how much you soften that is completely up to you. I tend to soften the brushstrokes more at the beginning and then get a little bit looser as the layers start forming. So now that we've finished our first layer, we need to let it dry before we can move on to the second layer. So you've got two options. Option one is waiting for it to dry it, or option two, you could use a hairdryer to quickly dry it off and I'm going to go for option two and just do that quickly. So you just want to be moving the hairdryer around a little bit and not just keep it on one spot. So before we go on, we just need to make sure that it's really dry. And you can either do that by carefully touching your paint or you can see if it's still shiny and if it still shiny, It's not dry, but mine is dry. So I'm going to continue and I'm going to use a smaller brush for this. My number three, we are going to be doing the details of eyes, nose, and mouth next, and we're going to be using our skin tone 2 I just want to quickly remind you to always have a clean handkerchief or paper towel on hand, if you make a mistake, that's really important. Now, I'm just going to start with the right eyelid here, just with my small paintbrush and the skin tone to just gonna be putting pigment on here, wetting my brush and then smoothing out the brush stroke. We don't want to be going to intense yet, but we do want to start building our layers. If you notice that your wash is too faint, you can add a little pigment. And if you notice that your washes a little bit too intense, you can either add more water or erase the extra pigment from your paper if you notice it once you've got it on your paper, but also remember that we have our test strip to see what the pigment looks like on paper before we apply it to our drawing. We just continue intensifying the shadows that we've marked with our first layer. Don't modify your watercolor brushstrokes too much. They might disappear or you might get some really irregular white marks on the page. So just apply it. Move it a little, let it dry. So just observe what I'm doing here. Applying the paint and then if I feel like I've overstepped, I just take it away with my brush like we practiced. Now. I'm just going to move on to the nose now. And I'm going to start with the side that's more shaded. Remember the brushstrokes. And I am just going to smooth my brushstroke out a little bit. We're going to go over towards the base of the nose. The nostrils. There's a large shadow under the nostril on the left side of my paper here. And she's got quite a marked nose down the bottom there. Once we're happy with the nose, we're just going to mark the shadow underneath the mouth here. We're going to leave the actual mouth for a little bit later, but we can mark the shadow under the mouth and the corners of the mouth. So next we're just going to move on to darken the contours of the face. We really wanted to start bringing in a little bit of contrast here so that we can start seeing how the face has volume, but we don't want to overdo it with too much pigment or too dark colors. So little by little we just work up our layers. Okay, So I just realized I haven't actually done my second layer on the bottom of the eyelid, of the left eye here. So I'm just going to go quickly to do this. And then I'm going to change the size of my brush to do the rest of the contours to my size ten brush. So we want to stop being a little more careful about not going over our lines now. So if we make a mistake, we'll just wet it with a paintbrush and then dab it with a paper towel. Remember that it's up to you whether you smoothen out the brush strokes or leave them as they are. You just see how you feel. Maybe you can have a little bit of variety there. Just try a few things out. Remember to work a little on the forehead but don't overdo it. So now we've finished the second layer of our portrait, don't worry if your brushstrokes aren't all that clean at this point, we're going to keep adding layers, so a lot of them will just disappear. They just really important to give us an idea of how to continue now. And in the next lesson we're going to start looking more in depth at the eyes. So let's start. 9. Painting the Eyes: This lesson we're going to look at how to paint the eyes. They are the key element to your portrait and the character of the rest of the face is somewhat determined by them, so they are really important. I'll be using my smaller number three brush as we'll be getting into the details. We´ll be starting with skin tone 2 as before, putting it into the mixing area of my palette and adding a little bit of coffee brown that we mixed earlier with, just going to intensify around the eyes with this color. Just also want to make sure that our first layer is completely dry. It's important to remember that we're not painting a realistic portrait, but rather an expressive one. The photo is there to give us a guide and the base from where the start, but we can use our artistic license to use our watercolor in an expressive way, as we see fit. You can also omit things that you don't want on your painting. I decided, for example, to not paint the background color and just leave it white. While we wait for this to dry, we will just start on the other one. Same color, same method. Now for the shadow under the eye, I like to use the purple shadow. We're just going to continue to intensify around here, around the top of the eye. Just like we did before, building up our layers. Defining some details, the eyelash line for example, or the top of the eye lids, also the bottom eyelid. Just get into the details there with your small brush. Once we're done with that, we're going to start painting the iris. For this, we're going to use our blue black, or Payne's gray. You can paint over the pupil, but if you can, make sure you leave the highlights of the eye reserved as the white of the paper. Will be continuing to build up our layers going from lighter to darker colors. And we will be going over the pupil with lead pencil once the pupil is dry. And later on with our watercolor, again, you can choose if you want to wait for it to dry or use a hairdryer, but it must be completely dry before you start working on the pupil with your graphite. Otherwise, you'll ruin your paper. Before you apply your color to your paper. Remember that we are putting it on the test sheet first to see what the color looks like when we get it onto paper. So I've decided that I don't want the iris to be just one color, one uniform color. So I'm taking away some of the pigment and some areas to make it a little more varied. So just like we practiced, when the paint is still wet, you can take some pigment away by just dabbing your paintbrush on there and continually drying it with your clean paper towel. So once that's completely dry, we will use a 2B pencil to go over the pupil. And also the eyelash lines. Don't press too hard. We don't want to be making indents on the paper. We can also darken the outsides of the iris. Just don't overdo it with a graphite. We still want this to be a watercolor painting. See, we can make very small pencilstrokes here. To shade a little. Press lightly. If you've found you've used too much graphite, don't worry about it. You can just go ahead and erase it. Now that we've got our pupils ready, we're going to start on those eyelash lines starting with the left here, just lightly. And the outside of the iris as well. The corner of the eye, shade a little under the eyelid up the top there. It's always darker under the eyelid. Right, now the other eye. So when we've got facial elements that come in pairs like the eyes, for example, we always want to be working them at the same time because if we do one completely and then the other, they are just going to look really different to each other. Alright, now we'll just emphasize a few details up the top here, the crease and the eyelid. Alright, so now let's move on to intensifying those areas we've just worked on with the pencil, with our blue black paint. Okay, so we're going to be going over the pupil, the iris, and the eyelash lines. Starting with the pupil. Remember that we won't be using our blue black on skin tones, but it's really useful for these details. So as before, I don't want the iris to just be one uniform color. So I'm just making a few different marks here so that it has a bit of tonal variety. I feel like that makes it come a little bit more alive. So observe how usually there's a little red and the corner of the eye. Well, actually in both corners of the eye. So we're gonna be using our skin2 to just put a wash in this corner of the eye. The white of the eyes never really, really white, it's always a little, either a little reddish or a little bluish. So, for the corners of the eye, we're going to be using Skin2. And for the whites of the eye, we're going to make a very faint wash of our blue black or Payne's gray, but make sure it's very faint. Otherwise it'll be too dark. So yep. Also in this corner of the eye, we're also just going to put a little bit of reddish skin2 on these areas here at the top of the eyeball and at the bottom. I'm just going to intensify that a little bit and then I'm going to move over to the other eye and do the same over there. Now I'm going to start with my light wash of my black blue to paint the whites of the eyes. Just faintly, see how faint it is. We don't want to make it very overpowering because then we have these weird dark eyes, we just want it to not be the whitest whites of the paper. Okay, So I'm gonna start intensifying a little more this area of the eyelid with purple shadow. You can also use skin2, add a little purple shadow or just skin 2. This is kind of, from now on we're going to be working intuitively. I'm also going to be using the purple shadow for the shadow under the eye. Remember that we're building up layers here, so I'm not using the coffee brown yet. So we're just going to start with our purple or skin 2 to intensify these areas. Okay. Remember that little white line that we've reserved at the bottom of the eye. If we start putting a wash over the eyeball, it will really start to come out. Right? So I'm going to use our coffee brown to start intensifying the eyelash line. At the top and the bottom. Remember to work in pairs. So I would just intensifying here and you can start using your colors a little more intuitively. If it's no good, you can always erase it by dabbing your clean paper towel on it. Right? So intensifying this area also with the coffee brown. Just putting a few details in there, see how the eyes are starting to stand out. You can also intensify the shadow of the eyelid with a little bit of coffee brown. Careful not to go over the top. Now, I'm really loving the shadow on the left side here by the eye. So I'm just going to intensify that by taking a little Skin 2. And let's add some cadmium red to it because I really like that red tone. So I'm just gonna go ahead and intensify that. So as I said, your use of color is intuitive once you get a little bit more experienced and practice. So you can also use, for example, the skin 1 and add a little bit more cadmium or a little bit more crimson or a little bit more ochre depending on what your photos telling you. Just experiment a little bit with this. So after making sure that my layer is completely dry, I just want to darken these corners of the eyes. So again, working in pairs. Also want to darken a little bit the pupil. Just want the eyes to really start standing out. I find that once the eyes really start to come out of the paper, the painting becomes alive and it makes it a lot more fun to paint. Just going to start on the eyebrows. Now, I'm probably going to be painting wet on wet for these. So we're just going to put some water into the area that we've outlined as the eyebrows. And then we're gonna get a coffee brown and just dab it. And then, you'll see how the paint starts to expand a little bit. There's gonna be a bit of an organic feel to this. Later we'll add some details. If you have too much water, just use your brush to absorb some of that excess water. Just a little reminder. You can choose if you want to smooth out the brushstrokes or leave them as they are. Remember that if you make a mistake or a drip of watercolor, water drops onto your page, don't worry, you can just erase it by using a clean paper towel. I realize that there's a lot of information in these classes. So if you feel the need, just go ahead and watch them again until you feel comfortable. So I'm just going to intensify the eyes again a little bit with my thin brush and my blue black. If you're not seeing a lot of different colors in your photos just yet, don't worry, it's a training the eye thing. After practicing for a while, you'll start to see tones and shades that will really help your paintings have some more variety. If you didn't manage to save the white of your papers for the highlights in the eyes. You can now go ahead and grab your white watercolor and just without diluting it, apply it thickly like little specks in the eyes as the highlights. Now, this is not the final stage of the eyes. We will leave them here for now though, and revisit them again later. But first, let's go ahead with the rest of the features of the face. In the next lesson, let's have a look at how to paint the nose, mouth, and ears. See you there! 10. Painting the Nose and Mouth: In this lesson, let's keep going with painting the features of the face. Starting with the nose. We're going to use our 2B pencil again in the nostrils. And maybe also use some light pencil strokes to do some shading around the base of the nose, also on wing of the nose. And after that, we will go back to watercolor. Remember to work lightly with your pencil. We do not want to press too hard, so we get indentations on the paper. We don't want to go over the top with the graphite pencil. It's just a tool, but it's still going to be a watercolor painting. And remember, if you're using too much graphite, you can always erase it with your eraser. Back to watercolour. And I'm going to start off with skin tone 2. We can also use purple shadow to start adding darker areas around the nose. But at this stage, the purple shadow is really the darkest, we're going to go. Later, we can start adding coffee brown, but remember that we are building up our layers little by little. Remember that watercolor is supposed to be translucent. So if you're using too much pigment, you can even move it around or just absorb it with your paintbrush. I'm actually going to start using my number three brush first for the details, for these outlines. Just going to mark the shadow here underneath the nose and the nostrils. So as you can see by building up our layers, we're really starting to add volume to our face. So now I'm just going to change to my number ten brush, continuing with the skin tone 2 to work on the bridge of the nose and the shadow over the left side of my paper here. I'm going to smooth out the brush strokes a little bit. Also in some parts, I will leave them as they are to give a bit of a contrast. See, I've used a little too much pigment there. We really want to make a difference between the more shaded side and the lighter side. Now, once that's dry, we're going to start working on the nostrils with the coffee brown and our fine paintbrush. Again. Notice how one part of this nostril is a little bit red. So I'm just going to go ahead and grab my skin tone 2 with a little bit of cadmium red and just make that corner there a little bit redder. Continuing now with the purple shadow. Just go over what we've just done before and see where we need to darken or intensify the shadows. The details. Gonna go a little bit more reddish for the shadow under the nose here. So we'll just keep working on this layer until we're satisfied. And remember that we will come back to this also later. Okay, so for this moment, I'm satisfied with this. I've worked on the bridge of the nose, on the base of the nose and the nostrils. Okay, so now we're going to move on to the mouth. We want to make a more red tone for the lips. So I'm gonna be working with skin tone 1 and adding some red. In my case, I'm going to be adding cadmium red, but just take a look at what tone fits your painting. We're going to be painting one lip at a time. Otherwise, it just looks like one big blob. Don't forget to reserve the highlights here as well, in my case there on the bottom lip. So once that layer is completely dry, we want to darken the area between the parted lips. And we're going to be using our coffee brown color for this. If you want, you can add some pigment into the corners of the mouth. That's always a little darker and the corners of the mouth. Wait for that to dry. And then we can give the lips another layer. Maybe you want to use some purple shadow mix with your lip color for the darker areas. But make sure you watch out around the area with the coffee brown mix, if you reactivate it with water, it will mix with your lip color. And you want to avoid that. We're still going to reserve the highlights. We'll just keep adding color. So once we feel like this layer is saturated, we can let it dry and then go over it again with another layer. I've chosen to go very red, mixed my skin 1 with a lot of cadmium red. Because in my reference image she is wearing very red lipstick. And I really enjoyed that kind of dramatic effect that it has. Now I'm just going to darken a little bit with our purple shadow. So just in the areas that I find are a little darker, I'm just going to apply that. Now. I'm also going to smooth out my brushstrokes quite a lot. Then again, we have to let that layer dry and then we can rework the dark area in between the lips and then also just put a little more darkness onto our lips. So layer by layer, we're just going to be intensifying these colors here. Remember you can inject more pigment and areas when the paint is still wet. And also remember that between each layer you need to let your painting dry. Now I'm just going to be using a little bit of blue black here in the parted area of the lips. This is just to give it some more contrast. Notice how I've reserved the highlights on the lips, but I wasn't quite happy with that. So I'm just going to go ahead and smooth those out a little bit and then go back over it and add some more detail. Just going to remove a little pigment and then reapply a little pigment. So, let's leave it there for now and we can always come back to it later. And now in the next lesson we're going to look at how to paint the contours of the face. 11. Painting the Contours of the Face: In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to paint the contours of the face. But first of all, I can see my palette is extremely dirty, so we're just gonna go ahead and clean it. Now for the contours of the face, we're going to be a little bit liberal with colors and use them quite intuitively. So for example, we'll be using the green ochre color that we mixed up earlier. And this will really give an intensity of richness and variety to our skin tones and to our face. I mentioned this before, but I don't like to use one color to cover the entire portrait. So we're just going to be selecting some areas to apply this color to, because that way it really does give us the variety. And it helps us to build up layers in terms of volume. Don't forget to paint the forehead a little bit, paint underneath the hairline which leaves a little bit of a shadow as well. So, remembering that the layer has to be dry before you start on the next layer, I'm going to start applying a layer of my skin tone 3, which is the one with the cadmium red instead of the crimson red. Just going to intensify here where a face stops and the ear starts, also putting down a layer of my skin tone 3. And then I'm gonna go across and apply a little bit of shadow between the eyes. Remember that there is a concave area there. So we just wanted just a little bit with a very light wash now we're just going to take a smaller brush and take a little bit of our purple shadow and just intensify the shadows around the jaw and where the ear is. Again, we're going to let that dry and then we're just gonna go over the face with a little bit of skin tone 2 with cadmium instead of crimson, red. I'm just telling you what colors I'm using, but you can really just be very creative with this and mix your own colors. You can also try working wet on wet and the cheek area. And then smoothing out the edges like we practiced, it gives a little bit of a smoother look. So, remembering again that before we start a new layer, we always have to make sure the previous one is dry. I'm going to paint the shadow under the lip. And for that, I am using skin 2 with a little bit of our coffee brown. So yeah, essentially I'm just working up my layers, intensifying shadows, injecting more color into areas where I feel like it's necessary, like here on the cheek, I really enjoy that reddish kind of shadow that she has going on there. So basically we're just going to be doing that. Building up layers, injecting pigment, intensifying shadows, heightening colors, things like this. I'm still going to soften the shadows here on the cheek so that it's not too intense. Now I'm going to go and work on the forehead and the shadow of the hairline. So yeah, just keep working with your colors, intensifying, deepening, darkening. It's really a process. Remember also that between each layer it's going to take a litte time to dry unless you're drying with a hairdryer, but just remember to dry each layer before you start on the next one. Now I'm just going to come over to the ear here and the hairline and just intensify that shadow again with some coffee brown. I find that at this stage you can already appreciate why it's not such a good idea to cover the entire face with just one uniform color. Like, you can already appreciate a lot of tonal differences. Now we're going to intensify the shadow over this side of the face from the hairline. So I'm just going to go over here and go over the ear with some skin tone 2 and just keep building up that, darkening there as well. We're just going to intensify this shadow here under the cheekbone just a little bit. Alright, so for now we're going to leave it here. You will see that as soon as we add details like the hair and the clothes, the whole contrast is going to look differently again. So we will probably come back to deepen some shadows and exaggerate some colors. But for now, let's leave it there and let's go to the next lesson in which I'll be showing you how to paint the hair. 12. Painting the Hair: In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to paint the hair. So we're going to start with the HB pencil. And we're just going to divide the hair up into sections because we don't want to be working on the hair is only one section because then it will just look like a helmet. So try and find some sections that you can see on your reference photo. It doesn't have to be a 100% the same as your photo. So just kinda also use your artistic license here a little bit. So this technique with working with the pencil beforehand actually is appropriate for working with all different hair colors. So once we've divided up into different sections, we want to, with a very sharp HB pencil, sketch, strands of hair within the sections. It's not going to look realistic, but we do want it to look organic. You press a little harder at first and then you let it go so that it fades out. So at the beginning of the hair where it's attached to the head and at the end of the hair where it finishes, always going to be a little bit darker. You can see here if you want to press harder with your HB pencil or if you want to be using a 2B pencil. Just don't press too hard. So this is not easy and maybe you just need to warm up your hand a little bit. If you wanted to do a few exercises on a different piece of paper, feel free. So you can see what I'm doing here. Pressing harder as I stopped at the bottom or at the top and then let it go so that the line becomes fainter and fainter and thinner and thinner. That gives us a feeling of volume and light and shadow. Just remember that you can also always erase it. Okay, so before we start painting, I'm just gonna go ahead and shade this area here by the jaw line a little bit because I wanted to have a little more contrast. Now in my reference image we have blonde hair. So I've gone ahead and mix some ochre, some yellow ochre with my coffee brown. And I'm just going to start painting the hair by the sections that I've divided it up into, we're going to paint this back section here and I´ve added a little more coffee brown to it because it's a little darker. And the next section we're going to work on is not going to be directly adjacent to this one. So we're going to choose a section of hair that's not directly next to the one that we just painted. That in the end it doesn't look like just one helmet or one blob. So there's this kind of sense of the variety and differentiation in the hair. For the lighter areas, I'm going to use more ochre and that's going to be a little bit more of a light wash to begin with. Remember if you use too much pigment, you can always remove it with your paintbrush, in this way. We're just gonna go ahead and cover section by section, making sure that the area that we're working next to this dry. You can smooth out your brushstrokes. You can leave them a little bit looser. See what colors work best for you. So now that I've done my first layer in watercolor, I'm just going to go over section by section again. I'm going to put a little bit of texture in there, but also darken the darker areas. Put a little bit of contrast and build up my layers as we have done for the rest of the painting as well. Remember that even though we want to generate contrast here, we're still working with watercolors, so we want to be using translucent layers. And remember that every time we begin a new layer, the one beneath has to be dry. So making sure this layer is dry, my third layer, I'm going to take my yellow ochre with a little bit of coffee brown. And I'm going to take my number 16 brush and just put one layer of this mixture over the entire hair to unify it. So as I said, just make sure that the layer beforehand is dry. And once that's done before we continue, we need to make sure this layer is also dry. That might take a little bit longer depending on how much water we've used. Then we go on to deepen the shadows and create a little bit more texture on the hair. I'm working here on this part which is the darkest. Yeah. So exactly like we've been doing all along, we're just building up our layers and I'm just working with my number ten brush for these larger areas. Just building up the shadows and the contrast and the colors. Also adding some different shades. I've put a little bit of my cadmium red into my mix here. Remember if you make a mistake, it's not a big deal. You can just dab it away with your clean paper towel. Don't forget about the shadows on the skin. I'm just going to add a few finer lines here to get the sensation of hair. You can use a finer brush for this as well. So as I said, the head tends to be a little darker down the bottom and at the very top of the roots. And another pointer at the back of the hair, you usually have a slightly darker section as well. For the very fine details here, I'm just going to use my fine brush. Just a little, little bit more darkness here to really make it stand out. Some of these very dark areas, you can use the coffee brown or a little bit of blue black. But we're not gonna be using just black to darken. So once you get into it, sometimes it's just really hard to stop because you can always be adding more detail or more colors, more texture, more depth. We're going to leave it here in a minute. But I do hope you can see how by building up layers, we've really made the image start to really come out of the paper. So I'm just going to leave it here. Now, remember that we can always come back to this once we've done the clothes, most probably the contrast will be different again. So in the next lesson, I'm going to show you how I'm going to do the clothes. Stay tuned. 13. Painting the Clothes: In this lesson, I'm going to show you how I will paint the clothes. So first I'm going to start off with really outlining my jaw line so that I don't paint over it. And I'm just gonna do that with my HB pencil. Not pressing too hard, but just so it's clear for me where I have to start painting the clothes. So, seeing as the portrait has turned out quite neat and defined, I have smoothed out a lot of my brushstrokes, I really want the clothes to be about the watercolor, about the brushstrokes, undefined and really contrasting the face in this way. Really leaving the paint a little bit to do its own thing. On my reference image, I see that she's wearing some sort of black top with some detail, but I'll just go ahead and use my artistic license here. I find that when everything in the painting is very defined, it loses some of its spark and becomes a bit boring. I'm going to use blue black and I'm going to grab my number 16 brush and just start outlining here. So you wanna be working quite fast because once the paint dries, you'll be able to see different brushstrokes layered on top of each other. I really want is just an area of paint, undefined, flowing paint. If this is something that you would like to achieve as well, you can also work wet on wet technique. I've opted for wet on dry, wet on dry paper, but down the bottom here, I'm just going to let it flow out with a bit of water and at the top I'm just going to inject some more pigment to make it more dramatic around the neck line. I'm just going to put in a couple of details here at the sides. So now once I've got my first layer of the clothes, I'm just going to get blue black with my little brush and just start defining a little bit more detail areas with blue black. So just darkening, going around the neck line, making sure it's clean. Maybe also going into the hair a little bit, just darkening a little bit, intensifying the shadows. One important thing to keep in mind, if your layer of clothes is not dry yet, you need to make sure you don't touch it. And if you think that's impossible go ahead and dry it with a hairdryer. If you've used a lot of water on your first layer, you will need to wait a little bit to start drying because otherwise your paint is going to spread everywhere. So I'm just using this time while I'm waiting for my clothes to dry, to put a few details on here. Just a few touches of color. For your second layer of clothes, you want to make sure that your first layer is completely dry and then you just get your large brush, in my case, the number 16, and apply a second layer. I've chosen to add more Prussian blue to my color for the second layer. And again, you want to be working quite fast so that we don't get the layers of brushstrokes. Now if you've used a lot of water again, you need to wait a little while before you can start drying your painting, but otherwise you can just start drying it with your hairdryer. I think we're just gonna leave it there for now. You will have noticed that the contrast and the face is different now that we have the contrast of the hair and the clothes. So in the next lesson, we're going to work on intensifying certain elements of the face again. We'll just be putting the finishing touches on our painting. So I hope to see you there. 14. Retouching: So now we've painted the face, the hair, and the clothes. And usually you'll find that your painting is still missing a little contrast or drama, especially in the face. 15. 15. Final Tips and Steps: In this lesson, I'm just going to give you some final tips about your finished work. Firstly, we need to remove it from our wooden board. We want to do this very carefully as not to damage your paper. Having said that, this area which is covered by the masking tape now will be covered by our past Passepartout in the frame later.. So it's not the end of the world if her paper here is a little rough after removing the masking tape, we just don't want to rip it. So we're going to do this by carefully lifting up the tape and rolling it from the inside outwards like this, not lifting up from the bottom to top. Once you've finished your work, you may want to consider protecting it with a protective spray. I recommend using one which has UV protection like this one from Schminke for example. Many artists choose to go to a professional framer and to get their works framed. And you will need to choose a fitting frame and passepartout. The passepartout to or mat board should always be acid free so that it doesn't turn yellow over time. Essentially the passepartout separates your work from the glass and hereby protects it from humidity and temperature changes. Before you frame your work, remember to sign it. If you prefer to frame the work yourself, stay tuned. I'll be launching a workshop on this soon. So there are many, many different types of frames and you will need to choose one which suits your work. I've chosen a white frame with an off-white passepartout because I like it when the work hangs on the wall and it's not disturbed by a loud frame. So now we've covered all the contents of this course. I hope you've enjoyed it and that it's been useful to you. Painting a watercolor painting takes time and practice. As I told you, I used to really struggle with watercolor. So I think the more hours of practice you put into developing your watercolor skills, the better your work is gonna get. I've tried to make this course as comprehensive as possible, so that it's packed with information. So if you feel the need to just go ahead and watch the lessons again as many times as you want. So if you haven't started already, I invite you to start working, and working on your final project. And I suggest you approach it with a relaxed attitude and experiment a little with the watercolor. Don't despair if at first it doesn't do what you want it to. In my own work, I usually work on two or three paintings at the time. It really, really relaxes me and takes the pressure out of having to make one painting that's gonna be really good. So play around with the colors, the brushes get accustomed to use tools, loosen up the hands a little bit, and remember to have fun. If you make a mistake, don't worry! You can go back. Once you've made some headway, I would love it if you could upload your work into the project section so that we can see your progress. If you have any questions, please put them in the comments section and I will try and get back to you as soon as possible. Now have fun with this wonderful technique and let me know how you go.