Transcripts
1. Welcome To The Class!: Hi, everyone. My name
is Will Elliston. Welcome to my
Skillshare class on watercolor for
complete beginners. Just like you, I'd
always wanted to learn how to create
beautiful paintings. But when I started, I had no idea what
supplies are needed, how to mix colors, or even how to start painting. For this class, I'll be
taking you step-by-step through a complete painting
of these boxing hares. I'll be breaking
everything down into a very simple formula that will show how to use and
manipulate watercolor. You'll be able to follow along
at your own pace and watch every step of how to paint expressive,
impactful paintings. Join me whilst we
discover how easy it can be to paint these fun
and simple techniques. I've been a
professional watercolor artist for many years now, exploring many
different subjects, from wildlife and portraits to cityscapes and
countryside scenes. I've taken part in many worldwide exhibitions
and been lucky enough to win awards from well-respected
organizations such as Winsor and Newton, the International
Watercolor Society, the Masters of
Watercolor Alliance, and the SAA Artist
of the Year Award. I also have collectors that by my paintings around the world. Watercolor can be
intimidating for beginners. My aim is to allow
you to relax and have fun learning this
medium step-by-step. Hopefully, by the end, you'll surprise yourself
with a nice painting. If this class feels too
intimidating or too simple, please check my other
classes as I have them available
across all levels. My approach to
watercolor starts off loose and expressive
with no fear of making mistakes
because we're just creating exciting textures
for the underlayer. Then as the painting goes on, we'll add more details, bringing the painting to
life and making it pop. I try to simplify
complicated subjects into easier shapes that
encourages playfulness. I've purposely chosen
boxing hares for beginners because all the
movement and character in them allows for loose and expressive brush marks with no fear of mistakes. It's even fine to paint
outside the lines. For this painting, we'll be keeping things simple and only using a basic brush and
four different colors. But even two colors
will be good enough. With what you'll
learn in this class, you can take forward into
painting many other things. The same principles apply to any subject you
want to paint. You're welcome to
use this approach with any reference you have. When you enroll in my class, I'll give you the
photo reference I used for this painting, as well as a high
resolution image of my painting to
use as a guide. Today's focus is about
painting rather than drawing. I have included templates
you can use to help you sketch out the
drawing before you paint. I'll also include
my color charts, which are an
invaluable tool when it comes to choosing
and mixing colors. Throughout this class,
I'll be sharing plenty of tips and tricks, I'll show you how to use
mistakes to your own advantage, taking the stress out of
painting and having fun. I'll explain which
supplies I'll be using so you can follow along exactly. I'll also cover how to choose
and mix harmonious colors. I'll be splitting everything
up into short videos, so it's easier to take in. You can also pause at any moment if you want
to take more time. If you have any questions, you can post them in the
discussion thread down below. I'll be sure to read and respond to everything you guys 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, post giveaways or just have an interesting announcement
to share with my students. You can also follow me on Instagram to see
my latest works. If you'd like to create your
own expressive work of art, all whilst learning fun and exciting watercolor techniques, please click Enroll
as I'd love to have you in my class.
Now let's begin.
2. Your Class Project: First of all, thank you so much for enrolling
in this class. I'm very grateful. We're going to learn a lot
about watercolor using a fun and easygoing approach
that's free from stress. As seen in the
introduction video, we'll be painting boxing ***. I think it's the
perfect subject for beginners because they have
so much movement and energy. Having that mentality
as a beginner is very useful as opposed to being timid with the paint
and lacking energy. You can always turn
it down once you start learning how to
control the medium more rather than overwhelm you with a multiple
of techniques. This is going to be
the basic process for which you can build
upon in the future, integrating new techniques
wherever you feel comfortable. The style we're
painting in today doesn't rely on heavily
detailed drawing, which means there's less
stress and it gives us more freedom to express and
explore new techniques. This means you'll learn more and end up with a
better painting. You can choose to paint as loose or as realistic
as you want, depending on your level. You're welcome to copy
my drawing and follow it exact or experiment
with your own. I will put my painting in
the resource section so you can use it as a reference
throughout the process. You can also find
the reference photo that I'm going to use in
the resource section. I use photos as a guide. However, I do deviate and stray from the reference when I think of all the different
watercolor effects I can take advantage of. There's also a
template you can use to trace and transfer
it onto your paper. Don't feel guilty
about tracing when using it as a guide for
learning how to paint. It's important to
have the underdrawing correct so that it doesn't inhibit your ability to practice and learn the watercolor
medium itself. Whichever way you
use this class, it would be great
to see the outcome and the paintings you
create in this class. I'd love to give you feedback. Please take a photo afterwards, and share it in the
student project gallery. You can find the gallery under the same project
and resources tab. On the right, you'll
see a Green button that says "Create a
project." Tap that. Once you're there, you'll
have the option to upload a cover photo and a title and
write a little description. I would love to hear
about your process, and what you learned
along the way. Once your project is uploaded, it will appear in the
student's project gallery. You can view other projects
here and I'd highly encourage you to like and
comment on each other's work. We put so much time and effort into creating
our paintings. Why not share it
with the world and help support each
other along the way? Now that you have a good
idea of this class, let's get stuck into it, starting with the equipment and materials I generally use.
3. Materials & Supplies: To keep things simple,
for this class, we'll only be using
four different colors and the same type of brush. However, let me go through all the basic
materials and supplies you need to start painting
watercolor beyond this class. We'll start with
the colors I use. Unlike most of the materials
we'll be using today, is 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 ocher, burnt sienna, cadmium red, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, lavender, purple, viridian, black or neutral tint, and at the end of the painting, I often use white gouache
for tiny highlights. I don't use any
particular brand. These colors you can
get from any brand. Although I personally
use Daniel Smith, Winsor, and Newton
or Holbein paints. Let's move on to brushes. In this painting, I'm
only going to use Escoda Perla brushes
like this one here. But first, I'll show
you some other brushes that I use in
painting in general. First is this mop brush. Mop brushes are good for broad brushstrokes and filling in larger areas or washers. But they also have a tip
for some smaller details, so they are one of my
favorite types of brushes. Next is this,
Escoda Perla brush. I use various sizes. These brushes allow for
more precision because they have a finer tip and
last quite a long time. And for even more precision when painting final
touches or highlights, for example, I use a
synthetic size zero brush. All brands have them and
they're super cheap. This here is a sword
brush or a rigger brush. It's quite long but thin. It's only used for
very small details, much like the size zero brushes, but it holds more
water and pigment, saving time and
effort refilling. The only drawback is it's more difficult to control
as it's more flimsy. That's it for brushes.
You're of course, welcome to use your
own favorites as well. Onto paper. The better
quality your paper is, the easier it will be to paint. Cheap paper crinkles easily
and is very unforgiving, not allowing you to
rework mistakes. Good quality paper, however, such as cotton base paper, not only allows you to rework mistakes over multiple times, but because the pigment
reacts much better on it, the chances of
mistakes are a lot lower and you're more likely
create better paintings. I use Arches because it's what's available
in my local art shop. Next to some various materials that will come in very handy. A water spray is
absolutely essential. By using this, it
gives you more time to paint the areas you
want before it dries. Also, it allows you to
reactivate the paint if you want to add smooth lines
or remove some paint. Lastly is masking tape, which you can use just to
stick the paper down to the surface to stop it sliding
around whilst painting. That's it for materials. Let's get on with
the drawing stage.
4. Sketching the Basic Shapes: For the drawing, one
of the first things I do is just mark out how high how low I want
the drawing to be, just so that I can make sure
it's as central as possible. Usually I do this in my mind, but for this purpose
it's just to demonstrate what I'm thinking. I don't want the drawing
to go beyond these points. Then using very
organic loose marks, I simply add simple shapes, mainly circular because I find circular shapes quite
fluid and easy to do. It helps connect
things in organic way. Keeping a very loose
pencil mark the moment. You don't have to be
detailed whatsoever. Just roughly figuring
out the composition. Even if you're a beginner, you don't need to worry about
putting in too much detail. I'll be doing as
much detail as I can but it's not necessary. Just do the best you can do. This style is good for expressive styles
that are a bit looser because they have
a lot of energy. Boxing has or rabbits need that look of movement and that's where these loose lines come in. If it was too detailed
it'd lose the element of magic and action. Now I've basically got
everything blocked out. I'm going to start to go
in a few more details. Of course, I've left resources, templates for you to trace. If you're really
not comfortable, which is perfectly fine, I'd rather you learn
more about painting and have the drawing absolutely correct. It's up to you. I'll be using a rubber
later to rub out all these loose marks and
just keep the outline. Learning to draw is entirely different thing
that takes a bit of time. You don't learn overnight. This part of the
class I'll speed over because it's usually
the same concept, whatever you're
drawing or painting. This class is mainly focusing
on the painting aspect. For those of you that
aren't going to trace it, hopefully this will be helpful but if you're going to trace it, it's perfectly fine to go
straight to the painting stage. But it can be quite useful just to see how I
go about drawing, how simple it can be if
you find the basic shapes, mapping it all out and then once you've seen that's correct then moving on
with more details, not adding any details
until afterwards. It's actually quite
quick in the end. Rub out some of the loose marks. Some whiskers. We're almost there. Now I'm just going tape it
onto the painting board. Let's get on with the painting.
5. The First Brush Strokes: To keep things as
simple as possible, I'll only be using one
type of brush today, and that's this
Escoda Perla brush. I'll be using three
different sizes, though. We'll start off
with this Size 8. Also, to keep things simple, we'll only be using
three different colors; burnt sienna, yellow
ocher, and cerulean blue. I've just recently squeezed fresh paint into these tubes, and it's like the consistency
of Marmite or jam, really. I put some on my
brush and I look at the reference image and using
this thick consistency, I'm just putting it in the areas where it's most
dark, darkest areas. I'm just generally putting it, I'm not being that
neat about it. Just where the general area is, that's where I'm putting it in. Quite a simple process. Hopefully, there should
be no stress involved. The plan is to fill these areas in with this dark pure pigment, starting off with
this left hare. Then we'll use water
to spread it out. That way, we'll have
much more control. I'll show you what I'm talking about when it
gets to that stage. But that's what a lot of watercolor techniques
are based on, is using, of course, the interaction between pigment and water to create the effects
that you want. This is one of the simplest and most effective
ways to do it. This left hare will
be in burnt sienna. For the time being, that's fine. I'm going to clean my brush, make sure there's
no pigment on it, and then I'll move
to burnt sienna. I'll do the same
thing on this side, putting down thick pigment. You can do it straight
from the tube. No stress at all. At this stage, it's
just as simple as this. No need to overthink it. I'm just looking
at the picture to see where the darkest areas are. That could be down
to judgment as well. Maybe that you see a different
to the areas that I see. It doesn't need to
be overthought. This can be the same
principle to any subject, it doesn't have to be
a hare. Any animal. You could start off with
a basic outline drawing. Look for the darkest points. Thick, pure pigment on there. A bit of a crossover
on that bit. That's the first step done.
6. Adding Water: Now I'm going to move over to my size 12 and
scourge the brush, and with pure water,
no other pigment. I'm just going to start
wetting this area and gradually interact with what
we already put down there. You don't need to go
over it loads of times. Filling it out. You didn't even need to be that clear
with the lines. One thing I will
say with the eye, I'm keeping it a little bit lighter than the
rest of the area. [NOISE] Letting the pigment and paint do its own thing. You don't need to keep on
messing around with it. As it dries, it creates
its own nice effects. [NOISE] Now, you can splatter
as it's drying. That also does a nice effect. When it's about 50 percent
to 70 percent dry, you can flick like that and you can see it
adds a bit of texture. The closer it is to drying, the harsher the texture will be. Now a complimentary color, or the opposite color
on the color wheel, to brown, or burnt
sienna is blue. I'm going to take a little
bit of cerulean blue here, and this one I am going to
dilute with a bit of water. I'm just going to drop it in, to some shaded areas here. Again, the darkest parts. I'll just go over, interact
with what's already there. [NOISE] In fact, I
can do a splatter. So when I do splatters, I make sure my brush is completely absorbed
as much as it can, with water before
dripping and then tap. [NOISE] Splatter
with just water. If there's not enough water on your brush when you splatter, it tends to go everywhere. But you can have a
bit more control, if you fill up completely
and only tap lightly. Now we can move on to this side.
7. Painting the Second Hare: Start interacting
with this pigment. We can let the two
merge together. Very quick exercise. This is, of course, the basic idea. The basic idea that has
quite an impactful result. You can always take this
further with more details but this is a good
summary of ideas. Of course, the movement of the boxing hairs really helps
with this expressive style. If it was a creature or animal that was
just sitting still, it may not work as well. Now, I could do exactly the same as I did with
the other side just using burnt sienna there. Just to make it a
bit more exciting, I've chosen to do yellow ocher. Of course, the opposite
of yellow ocher on the color wheel is
more purple than blue. I'm just going to
pick up a tiny bit of purple here and mix
it with blue that I used on the other side and
start dropping that in a bit. Only a small touch of purple. I don't want to overdo it. That goes well with the
burnt sienna there. Most of the time, I'm only
touching things once, unless I'm adding new colors. I don't mess around a
bit because the magic happens when you
leave it alone to do what it wants to do. Now, I'm going to
flip this side, fill up my brush
completely like last time, just tap, tap, tap. I think there were a bit
too many spaces there. I'm just going to
quickly, before it dries, use a tissue to pick up
some of that splatter. Now, the splatter
adds more movement. It could be seen as mist or due that's picked up by
the boxing hairs and sprayed into the air. I'm going to take this mix of yellow ocher and burnt sienna. In fact, I am going to use
a different brush for this. A slightly larger brush. A mop brush because I want to do a nice big
splatter in this color. If your brush is too small, the splatters will be too small. I'm just increasing
the brush size just so that splatters
will be bigger. That's fine. Now, I'm just
going to let it dry by itself for the time
being because sometime the hairdryer can make these splatters run and I want
them to stay as they are. I'll wait until it's just
about dry and then a hair dryer to completely
dry it altogether. I'll come back to
you once it's dry.
8. Pulling Out Highlights: Now it's completely dry, and you can touch it without worrying about it
getting smudged. The next step is to
create some highlights. Do that, I'm going to use a brush that's
wet but won't drip. I'm just going to
look at the picture, and just go over some areas
to activate the paint, and then I will just wipe away, and there'll be a
little bit lighter , and that's all we need. Same way with the
eye. Rub over a bit, wipe a bit, and pull away. Luckily with this painting, it's more of a silhouette. There's not actually many
details we need to put in. Of course, that's why having a good photo
reference is important. Having a good photo
reference is important because, if it
wasn't a silhouette, there'll be lots of
details that you have to paint in in order to convey a convincing painting. But with this one, it's
just the basic shape. Now that stage is done.
9. A Few Details: Now, I'm going to create
a few whiskers using this burnt sienna liquid. Make sure it's the
right consistency. That's not the
right consistency. It needs to be a bit wetter. There we go. We want
on the eye too. Darker. These little details
are the nose here. Even though it's very abstract, just these little
small details do a lot to make it a
convincing painting. Now I'm going to use pure
black and very carefully, I'm going to paint in eye
eye, just the circle. Now, there are many photos of boxing hares online
that you can find. You can use this reference image or any that you find online. I'd love to see your
interpretations. You can experiment
with different colors. It's a good way to experiment
with different colors, see what works well together, what compliments each other. For a very quick exercise, you can learn a lot by redoing this exercise
again and again.
10. Finishing Touches: I'm going to get a pure white
straight from the tube. This is white gouache
or white watercolor. Some are some areas where the silhouette or the
outline is not clear. I'm just going to make it
easier to read the eye. You can see there, we've
gone outside of the lines. That's perfectly fine. It adds more character. Now, the smallest details of the most powerful impact is these two tiny dots there and there. That's done. Maybe when it comes to this part
of the painting, take a step back, have a look, see if there's
any obvious mistakes. You don't need to rush,
you don't need to do it at the same time. Sometimes when it comes to the end of the
painting like this, take a step back, maybe don't look at
it for a couple of days and come back to it with a fresh eye to see if
there's any obvious errors. I might just quickly add a
little bit of a belly there, very subtle, not even necessary. This is actually one of the most dangerous
parts of painting, is knowing when to finish. You can overdo it sometimes. Let's have a few close-ups
and sum up the painting.
11. Final Thoughts: Welcome back. Now the
painting is finished, let's have a
close-up look at it. I hope you have a painting of your own to look at as well. You may have found painting these boxing has to be
easier than you thought. But don't be disheartened
if you found it challenging and aren't
happy with the result. The good thing about
this method of painting is that it's
quite quick to do. You can try again, carrying forward what
you've already learned. A lot of times, it can be hit or miss. The most vital
aspect of learning watercolor is to have fun, be happy, and remain
positive whilst painting. With watercolor being
so unpredictable, it can be easy to lose faith. However, having a playful
and bold attitude brings out the best qualities
of watercolor and allows us to create
better paintings. The goal, ultimately at this learning stage is just
about having a bit of fun, exploring the possibilities
of this exciting medium. It can be easy to
feel a bit stressed during the painting if
it gets challenging. But remaining
positive and keeping faith really helps in the end. If you would like feedback on your painting, I'd
love to give it. Or if you'd like any advice
related to watercolor, 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 @willelliston
as I would love to see it. Skillshare also loves
seeing my students' work. Tag them as well at Skillshare. After all that effort
we put into it, why not show it off? Remember, please click
the follow button up top so you can follow
me on Skillshare. This means you'll get
a notification as soon as I publish my
next class or have important announcements like
free giveaways or sharing some of my best student artwork uploaded to the project gallery. Thank you so much again for joining me in this class today. If you have any
queries or questions, please reach out to me
in the comment section down below and I'll be
sure to get back to you. If you have any subject, wildlife or scene you'd
like me to do a class on, by all means, let me know about it in the discussion
section as well. I hope you've learned a lot and are inspired
to paint more on this glorious medium
until next time, goodbye.
Will Elliston, Award-Winning Watercolour Artist
