Transcripts
1. Welcome To The Class!: Hello everyone. My name is Will Elliston and in
this class we'll be focusing on one of the most
adorable creatures that inhabit our countryside,
the field mouse. This cute and charming creature, with its tiny paws, bright eyes, and inquisitive
nature, makes for a captivating subject that is perfect for exploring various
watercolor techniques. Watercolor is a medium that allows us to capture
the beauty of nature with its delicate
play of light and ethereal quality of
transparent hues. We'll explore the
harmonies of color, secrets of blending, and
the magic of layering. I've been a professional
artist for many years, exploring lots of
different subjects, from wild life and portraits to city scapes and
countryside scenes. I've always been entranced by the possibilities of watercolor, but when I started, I had no idea where to begin
or how to improve. I didn't know what
supplies I needed, how to create the
effects I wanted, or which colors to mix. Now, I've taken part in
many worldwide exhibitions, been featured in magazines, and been lucky enough
to win awards from well respected
organizations such as the International
Watercolor Society, the Masters of Watercolor
Alliance, Windsor and Newton, and the S AA Watercolor can be overwhelming for
those starting out. Which is why my goal is
to help you feel relaxed and enjoy this medium in
a step by step manner. Today, I'll be guiding you
through a complete painting, demonstrating a variety
of techniques and explaining how I use all
my supplies and materials. Whether you're just starting out or already have
some experience, you'll be able to follow along at your own
pace and improve your watercolor skills if this class is too challenging
or too easy for you. I have a variety of classes available at different
skill levels. I'd like to start off with a
free, expressive approach, with no fear of
making mistakes as we create exciting textures
for the underlayer. As the painting progresses, we'll add more details to bring it to life and
make it stand out. I strive to simplify
complex subjects into easier shapes that
encourage playfulness. Throughout this class, I'll be sharing plenty of
tips and tricks. I'll show you how to turn
mistakes into opportunities, taking the stress out of
painting in order to have fun. I'll also provide you with
my watercolor mixing charts, which are an invaluable tool when it comes to choosing
and mixing colors. If you have any questions, you can post them in
the discussion thread. Down below, I'll be sure to read and respond to
ever think you post. Don't forget to follow
me on skillshare by clicking the follow
button at the top. This means you'll be the
first to know when I launch a new class
or post giveaways. You can also follow me on Instagram at Will Elliston
to see my latest works. So without their redo, let's gather our brushes,
prepare our palettes, and embark on this delightful
adventure of captivating the essence of acute
mouse. Let's get started.
2. Your Project: First of all, thank you so
much for choosing this class. I'm thrilled to have
you all here today as we explore how to paint
an adorable field mouse. I believe art is more than
just pigments on paper. It's about captivating feelings and celebrating the
beauty around us. What better way to do
that than by focusing on a creature that often goes unnoticed but is
full of curiosity. The field mouse, with its
cute and endearing features, has a charming simplicity, but also represents
adaptability. Much like painting
with water color, we're not just
capturing its likeness, but also embracing the spirit of curiosity and the
joy of discovery. In the resource section, I've added a high
resolution image of my finished painting
to help guide you. You're welcome to
follow my painting exactly or experiment with your own composition
as we're going to be focusing on the painting
aspect of watercolor. I've provided templates
you can use to help transfer or trace the
sketch before you paint. It's fine to trace when using it as a guide for
learning how to paint. It's important to have the under drawing correct so that you can relax and have fun learning the
watercolor medium itself. Whichever direction
you take this class, it would be great
to see your result and the paintings you
create through it. I love giving my
students feedback, so please take a photo
afterwards and share it in the Student Project Gallery under the Project
and Resource tab. I'm always intrigued to
see how many students have different approaches and how they progress with each class. I'd love to hear
about your process and what you learned
along the way, or if you had any difficulties. I strongly recommend
that you take a look at each other's work in the
student project gallery. It's so inspiring to see
each other's work and extremely comforting to get the support of your
fellow students, so don't forget to like and
comment on each other's work.
3. Materials & Supplies: Before we start the painting, let's go over the materials
and supplies I use. Having the right materials can greatly impact the
outcome of your artwork. I'll go over all the supplies I use for this class and beyond. They're very useful to have at your disposal and we'll make it easier for you
to follow along. Let's start with the
paints themselves. Like most of the materials
we'll be using today, it's a lot to do
with preference. I have 12 stable colors in my palette that I
fill up from tubes. They are cadmium
yellow yellow ochre, burnt sienna, cadmium
red, Alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, serian blue, lavender,
purple, di, black. At the end of the painting, I often use white guash
for tiny highlights. I don't use any
particular brand. These colors you can
get from any brand, although I personally
use Daniel Smith, Windsor, and Newton
or Holbein paints. Let's move on to brushes. The brush I use the most is
a synthetic round brush, like this Skoda Pearl brush
or this Van Gogh brush. They're very versatile because
not only can you use them for detailed work
with their fine tip, but as they can hold
a lot of water, they are good for
washes as well. They're also quite affordable, so I have quite a few
in different sizes. Next are the mop brushes. Mop brushes are good for
broad brush strokes, filling in large areas and creating smooth
transitions or washes. They also have a nice tip that can be used for smaller details, but for really small details, high lights or anything
that needs more precision. I use a synthetic
size zero brush. All brands have them and
they're super cheap. Another useful brush to have is a Chinese calligraphy brush. They tend to have long bristles
and a very pointy tip. They're perfect for
adding texture or creating dynamic lines
in your paintings. You can even fan them
out like this to achieve fur or feather
textures as well. And that's it for
brushes onto paper. The better quality
of your paper, the easier it will be to paint cheap paper crinkles easily
and is very unforgiving. Not allowing you to
rework mistakes, it's harder to create
appealing effects and apply useful techniques
like rubbing away pigment. Good quality paper, however, such as cotton based paper, not only allows you to rework
mistakes multiple times, but because the pigment
reacts much better on it, the chances of mistakes
are a lot lower and you'll be more likely
to create better paintings. I use arches paper because that's what's available
in my local art shop. A water spray is
absolutely essential. By using this, it
gives you more time to paint the areas you
want before it dries. It also allows you to
reactivate the paint. You want to add a smooth
line or remove some paint. I also have an old rag or T shirt which I used
to clean my brush. Cleaning off the paint
before dipping it in the water will make the
water last a lot longer. It's always useful to
have a tissue at hand whilst painting to
lift off excess paint. Also, you never know when an unwanted splash or drip might occur that needs
wiping away quickly. I also have a water dropper
to keep the paints wet. When you paint, it's
important to have them a similar consistency to what
they're like in the tubes. This way it's easier to
pick up sufficient pigment. A hair dryer is useful
to have for speeding up the drying time and controlling the
dampness of the paper. Lastly, masking tape. And this of course, is just to hold the paper down still onto the surface to stop it sliding
around whilst painting. Also, if you plan on
painting to the edge, we'll allow you to
create a very crisp, clean border and that's everything you need
to paint along. I encourage you to experiment and find out
what works best for you. Now let's get ready to
start the painting.
4. Starting The Background: For this class, I'm going to
go straight to the painting, skipping the drawing section. It's pretty much
the same process each way when it
comes to sketching. Just starting off with
big broad shapes and then moving into smaller details once you know they're correct. Jumping straight into it, we're going to start painting
the background. I've made sure my pencil lines
are quite light so that it doesn't show at the end
because you won't be able to rub the pencil marks out after
you put the paint on top. To start, I'm just going to use this water spray to give it a light mist so that we can give the
background some blurred edges. We don't want harsh lines, we want it to phase like the effect you see on
cameras sometimes. So it's all nice and wet. Now I'm going to yellow
ocher here with a bit of regular cadman yellow may
take burnt sienna here. Really playing around with
the yellows and browns. Now just going to
do a test stroke just to see what it looks like. I guess it's not too bad. Maybe a bit more yellow Oca, it's a bit too wet at the time. Time being you can see how
wet it obviously bleeds out. So we need to wait a bit for it to sink and absorb
into the paper, and dry a little bit so that the line is slightly harsher. I still want a soft edge. That's okay. We can
start doing lines now. You can always rewet it if
you want the softer markings, painting the corn a si as well. Some sections can
be even thicker, so we're building on
different layers. This is a nice playful layer. The easiest layer to do
because it's so light, I can use this. So far we've just been using
synthetic round brushes. I'm going to use this
number 12 Van Gogh one, a bit bigger, and just to
fill in some space here, I painted over there, little c the foot as, so I'm going to use a tissue
just to take away the paint. Six stratton marks
on the edge there. So nothing with too much detail
or focus, no sharp lines.
5. Adding Depth: Maybe I can put a
bit more detail onto this one in the distance. Just a little bit, dulling down the
burnt sienna of a bit of black because
it's too vibrant. Turn into more of a
brown than an orange. Add a bit more. I want this to go to the side, right to the edge
of the mouse there, and then fade to white. Okay, Now I'm going to dry that off
with a hair dryer. Actually, I don't
need to do that yet. I'm going to make use of the different drying times to have a range of
different edges. So I'm going to paint in this, you can see this one's
got slightly harder edge, it doesn't fade as much. So it's important to have a range of soft
and hard edges in watercolor painting
because these things creates depth dimension
and visual interest. And mastering this technique requires a bit of
practice and control, but mainly it comes down to
controlling the water levels. The more water you use, the softer the edge
will be, or the edges. For harder edges, you
use less water and apply paint more directly
without dampness there. First, we started off
in this painting, soft edges in the very distance, and then we layer
more brush strokes on at different dampness
levels of the paper to a few lines here. Just using the
different pressures on my brush to vary the thickness.
6. Finishing The Background: So too potent. Dial it down some black and
then dilute it with water. We're building on the layers, and now we're using a slightly
thicker darker pigment. By building these
layers from soft to hard edges and from light
pigment to dark pigment. We're learning one of the
most fundamental techniques in watercolor painting because
not only it adds depth, but it also guides
the composition. Starting with soft edges and light pigments as
your initial layers. It mimics the natural way
light interacts with objects. Light tends to
diffuse and create soft transitions between
objects and their surroundings. By layering light washes first you establish
a base that gives the illusion of
objects receding into the distance or appearing
three dimensional. Taking advantage of making use of the watercolor
medium itself, which is a transparent medium. Which means you can
gradually build up layers without obscuring the
layers beneath it. Soft light layers
allow you to establish a foundation as you
build up on them, you can refine details
as you progress. This also helps maintain
the luminosity of watercolor and achieve
a sense of depth. There's an illusion of death. Because of the
atmospheric perspective. We're creating objects
in the distance appear lighter and
less detailed due to the atmosphere effects by
applying lighter colors in the background and gradually intensifying the
hues and details. As you move forward
to the foreground, you convey depth and distance
in your composition. So building up the
background layers a realize bold stroke there, creating a bit of movement. I'm not painting anything
too specific here, I've just have
various references. And I try and create brush work that has the
same kind of feeling, not too much detail at all. Just trying to get
the feeling of it and moving my hand around with a brush and making sure I don't go over the lines
of the hands and feet here. Or any other part allowing a few white gaps in between
the strokes as well. Abstract shapes that
look similar to corn. It's useful to have a look at my color charts in
the resource section, if not just Google
a color wheel, because it's a good
idea to have an idea of the relationships of
different colors and how they mix together and what their
neighboring colors are. You can see that
I've got yellow on this side, on the left side, and red on the other
and brown in between. And I'm just mixing
them all together, getting a bit darker
the further down we go, adding pigment and then using pure water
to move it along. It's an interesting technique, using thick pigment
and then pure water. When we use thick pigment
and move it around water, we can create very
interesting unique effects, captivating effects by using
a concentrated pigment. Whatever color it is, the selectively
adding water to it. We have creative control over the intensity and texture
of it because the pigment is just very refined grains or whatever element it
is that makes that color a bit like very fine sand. You can see if you allow the water to move
that pigment around, it has varying results. You should always test
out or do swabs of a pigment when you
first buy one or if you haven't already done it
with your current paints, just to see how thick
the pigments are, the little grains or granules because some
have very thick like cobalt blue is very
heavy pigments. And you can see when you
empty your water container, that blues always sink
down to the bottom. And the yellows are so thin and fine you
can't see the pigments, so they don't sink down. And having this awareness can help you with
different effects. Adding different thicknesses of pigment at different times. Don't get afraid
of being too messy because this is not
the center of focus. The mouse will be
when we paint it, this is just to create
a subtle background. Or not even subtle, but out of focus, not detailed.
7. Painting The Head: I completely dried it off. And we're going to start
working on the mouse because without having the
mouse painted, it's difficult
without the context to see how much we should
do to the background. The colors are fairly
similar with the mouse. Like always, we're going
to start with an under layer which is going
to be a quite a mild color using what's already on my palette as a base. So that's a yellow ocher, burnt sienna, and
a bit of black. And because it's
the end of layer, we'll paint very
lightly to begin with, filling out the areas and
then using the tip of the brush to create
a high like texture. Maybe I'll add a tiny little,
let's be very careful. A tiny little dot of red or lizard and crimson on this ear just to
make it slightly. That's enough. I don't
want to overdo that. And then do the same over here, but starting with a
pink that we just used and bring out
the brown into it, but more pink on this hair. I think even though we're going to paint
the eye black, I'm still going to
avoid it at the moment. Now again, as the
pigment starts to dry, we can go back into it,
get different textures. The longer you leave it, the
hard of the line will be. Maybe I'll get that pink
again for the nose. Cute pink nose. Yeah, it's quite liberating at the moment at this stage
because you don't need to focus on that many details. You're just filling it out. You're dropping in
liquid pigment someplace and just moving it around. If it's too much in one area, you can draw it out like that and then move it to
another area up there.
8. Adding Shadows: Using the tip of the
brush on the edge. Maybe getting a bit of purple, a bit of coolness, a
bit of blue as well. Just a tiny bit. Drop there, starting at the error end. Se, easy mistakes
happen like that. Where you touch an
area that's already wet and the pigment bleeds out. So what you can do is just
use a tissue and stop it. It's just as easy as that. Let's go back up here. Jo sir, just laying it on it doesn't even need to be that accurate to any reference image. As long as you have the fur, have the fur going in
the right direction, it should be fine. Got a bit of a spill there. That's fine. Easy
way to deal with it. You just use a little bit
of water to smooth it out. And then continue it up until it's not
noticeable anymore. Can re wet these edges. And before I come
down to the bottom, I'm just gonna paint the paws, the hands and the feet
with that pink again. Or at least paint the
under layer of them. When looking at a subject, we try and visually work out how to break everything
down into simple steps. Layering is a good
way to do this, and that's what we're
doing with these hands and feet were a simple layer
of pink to begin with. And then later we'll
add the shadows. We break everything down into a single step to
stop the complexity. Of course, we could
do it much faster by doing it wet into wet and doing all the
tones in one go. But even though that's faster, it's much trickier to do. If you take things
at a slower pace, layering each stage, it's
easier to do a painting, but it takes much more time.
9. Painting The Paws: Testing the dampness
of the paper to see whether it's safe to
paint that area again. And I believe it is just going in with
thick pigment to begin with and then drawing it out, a re, pigment up there. So it's the closer
it gets to the top. Test that bottom edge. I
think that's okay too. And I can start
merging them together, but I'm going to do a bit more
interesting on the bottom. I'm going to add a bit of blue. And you're thinking,
that's crazy. That looks too much. But you'll see how I'm
going to use that, the brown, to
neutralize it a bit, because blue is a
complimentary color to brown. When they mix together,
they'll look nice. I got to make sure your brush has a nice tip. I realized the last brush, this brush is starting
to lose its tip. So it's not very good for these things anymore.
It's gone past. It's yes, of letting the water and pigment react the way
that they do naturally. Without so much involvement, you just drop the pigment in and let it land where it will. Because like we're
saying before, the pigment is just very
small grains or granules. The more we manipulate it there, the result is less
organic or appealing a bit too dark in
so other areas. I use a tissue again
to draw it out.
10. Using Complimentary Colors: Can I paint the insides
of these close shadows? Can do the same down here
too while we're at it. Getting back to
that thick pigment. And I'm gonna paint
the other way round, paint the fur going upwards. We're gonna do a similar
thing with that blue. Up here you get a kind of purple blue. You can see, again,
on my color charts, blue and purple are
complimentary colors. They look nice together
when they're mixed. That's why I've chosen them. I'm not just choosing them randomly because I feel like it. I'm looking at the color charts and seeing what I personally like as it's a
complimentary color, they usually look best together. Adding colors that aren't natural really make it exciting. Sometimes like
this purple, blue. I'm not just choosing black
to make things, I'm using the
complementary colors. Black drains the life out of it. Sometimes it makes things
a bit too monotone, which is fine if you're
doing a monotone painting. But when using black to
darken a colorful area, unless you want solid black, it's nicer to use
a different color. It's off the side
of the stick with the purple in the purple, blue in the shadow areas To
make it a bit more dynamic. Then I go back up to
the warm orange ones. Burnt sienna yellow Oka.
11. Painting The Ears: Now I'm gonna go
back to this ear. It was a bit of a warm brown. Like a red brown, I'm go fill it out of that
color. To begin with, allocates the bottom
American painting fur, then at the top a bit darker. So a bit of terminal
practice here. Drawing in liquid, sucking up
liquid until it just right. I think that'll do makeup. Nice bright red here
and do a similar thing, it's a bit too red, so bring out the brown
up here to merge it. Now a nice bit of blending here because it's all wet except that's dark and that's light and it'll all connect
us. Transition. Take your time, but not too
much time before it dries. M quite happy with that starting to add
more darker tones to the areas that need it. I apologize for the angle of the brush for most
of this painting, but this effect, or
the way we paint fur, relies on the point
of the brush. And to have that, I need
to have it very upright. But even though you may not
be able to be able to see directly how the brush
is touching the paper, you can see the angle that I'm holding the brush,
my hand position. And you can in fact, get a better idea of how to hold the brush yourself
by seeing that, even though you're not seeing the paint being
applied directly.
12. Some Corrections: I'm not too keen on the
color of that section, and so I'm just going
to wet it and correct it taking some off, and I'm going to use that purple blue again. When painting this fur, you should check that your
brushes have a pointed tip. When the bristles are wet, they should come to
a fine, sharp edge. When I'm picking up color, I'm trying to v the
colors each time I dip. Just so that I can mimic the
variations of the fur tones, can extend the shadow
on the other side. A little bit of straw
is going past there, which is quite interesting
compositionally. But it's quite difficult
to paint, but it's doable. You just have to be a bit more patient and make sure
the lines are right. I think I want it to be a tad yellower. Just can add a bit of a glaze
of yellow over the top. With glazing, you have to work very quickly because
you don't want to interrupt the pigment
that's already down there. You're just literally doing
a light layer over the top and letting it dry. Going to glaze that
section as well. Again, moving very quickly. I'm gonna light in this area. With a rougher brush, I'm risk going to wet it. Can do that because I'm going
to have it quite dynamic. This white little straw is light there and then when it goes
there, it's going to be dark. And I need that contrast. So I had to lighten the
background to do that, blend that edge a bit better.
13. Foreground Elements: Now I'm going to add
just a few darker lines in the background or down here. Instead of using black, I'm
going to use blue to darken the brown just to have a nice tonal range. They are not specific details, they're just opportunities
to use a darker tone. I have fun with some textures. I dry brush to these corn heads. I'm basically thinking
of two different tones. I'm basically thinking of
three different tones, the darkest, the lightest, and the mid range. With that, you can imply detail without actually
putting much detail in. Just looking at where the darkest parts are
and dabbing them there. And then the same when you
look at the mid tones. Look where the middle tones are. And of course, the
highlights will do at the end time to paint this. And I'm going to
rotate my board just to get a better angle on it. Maybe we can have on this
side, that's the wrong tone. We're going to soften
some texture a bit, not a bit more sitting
to the feet here, I think 0.
14. Painting The Eyes: Now I'm going to paint the
eyes, and quite simply, I'm going to paint them black, nice, black eyes cut with
a few highlights on. Instead of using my palette, I'm just using this board, which is just like the palette. I just don't want to use
up any more sections. I always use the darkest darks a bit more. It's drying out. Starting
very carefully at the edge cover that white bit. Actually you can also paint it all black and put those white dots in with
white gas if you want to. Now I'm going to support
change to my very smallest mixed a dark
brown for the whiskers. Now making sure you've
got a very sharp edge. It's adding in some
whiskers here, even lighter on this side. I rotate the board to get
a good, nice, clean angle. I'm actually going to make
the eyes slightly bigger, that will make them even cuter, Getting some white gash. I'm adding a little
outline like that, and I can even use this whitewash
to add to the whiskers, add some more fur. This is basically white
and yellow ocher. I just have it in a tube so it's easier to use frequently. One straw going across here, I think that's it. I'm going to take
the tape off now, rub out the lines and
disconnect from it for a while just to see if there's anything else
that needs to be done, But I think that is it.
15. Final Thoughts: Welcome back and congratulations
on completing the class. I hope you had fun watching. And if you haven't already
given this painting ago, now is the time to put what
you've learned into action. Let's take a moment to reflect on what we've explored today. Throughout this class,
we've learned about the unique qualities of water
color, their translucency, their ability to
blend seamlessly, and the way they capture the delicate nuances
of light and texture. Beyond the technical aspects, we've explored the
characteristics of a field mouse through painting, we've tried to
capture the spirit of curiosity and adaptability, which are very useful
traits to have when painting in the unpredictable
medium of watercolor. Remember, watercolor painting is not just about technical skills, but also about expressing your creativity and
personal style. I encourage you to continue
exploring, experimenting, and pushing your
boundaries to create your own unique
watercolor masterpieces. As we come to the
end of this class, I hope you feel
more confident and comfortable with your
watercolor painting abilities. Practice is key when it comes
to improving your skills. So keep on painting
and experimenting. I want to express my gratitude for each and every one of you. Your passion for
watercolor painting is so inspiring and I'm honored
to be your teacher. If you would like feedback on your painting, I'd
love to give it. So please share your painting in the Student Projects
Gallery down below. And I'll be sure to
respond if you prefer. You can share it on Instagram, tagging me at Will Elliston
as I would love to see it. Skillshare also love seeing
in my student's work, so tag them as well at Skillshare after putting
so much effort into it. Why not share your creation? If you have any questions
or comments about today's class or want any specific advice
related to watercolor, please reach out to me in the discussion section and you can also let me know
about any subject, wildlife or scene you'd
like me to do a class on. If you found this class useful, I'd really appreciate
getting your feedback on it. Reading your reviews
fills my heart with joy and helps me create the best
experience for my students. Lastly, please click
the follow button up top so you can follow
me on Skillshare. This means that you'll be
the first to know when I launch a new class
or post giveaways. Thank you again
for being part of this class and for the
enthusiasm you show. Farewell for now
and happy painting.
Will Elliston, Award-Winning Watercolour Artist
