Adobe Fresco Practice: Paint Happy Houseplants

1. Class Overview: If you've been playing around with Adobe Fresco and are feeling unsure about how the different types of brushes work together, this class has got you covered. I'm Stephanie Fizer Coleman, a children's book Illustrator and digital art teacher. In this class, we're going to practice combining pixel, vector, and live brushes to paint this trio of happy houseplants. You'll start by blocking in flat colors with vector brushes. Then you'll add texture and color variation using pixel brushes and clipping mask. Next, you'll throw in some live watercolor brushes for a gorgeous hand painted effect. Finally, you'll use a pixel brush to add final details to your illustration. By the end of this class, you'll have a full understanding of how a combined pixel, vector, and live brushes in Adobe Fresco. Are you ready to start painting? If you are, head on over to the next video and let's get started with Adobe Fresco practice, painting happy houseplants. 2. Brush Types Overview: Before we get started, we're going to do a quick overview of the three different types of brushes that you have available in Adobe fresco. First we have pixel brushes, and these are just the ones that you're used to using in Photoshop or a procreate. If you've got favorite brushes that you really dig in Photoshop, you can actually easily import these into fresco. I'm just going to tap this little plus sign under the pixel brushes menu and just tap on either import from files. If you have ABR file that you want to import or you can also go to get more brushes and that will take you to Adobe site where you can download some of Kyle Webster's brushes. In this class we're going to be using these pixel brushes just to add some texture and some detail. Next up we're going to look at the vector brushes. The vector brushes allow you to draw free form using brushes that are infinitely scalable so you are going to be creating vector art with this. This is just like the art that you would create in Adobe Illustrator. In this class, we're going to use these brushes to easily create flats that have nice clean edges and you can see there I drew a line and I'm zoomed in like 6,000 percent now and it still has these really nice clean edges. That's what our vector brushes are for. Then the last brush that we're going to be using in this class is the live brushes. You have two live brushes that you have watercolors and oil paints and both of those are designed to be just like real paint. The cool thing about Adobe fresco is you can actually combine all three of these types of brushes in tons of interesting ways and that's actually what we're going to be doing in this class. In this class we're going to use vector brushes to block in our flat colors. We're going to use pixel brushes to add some texture and some details and then we're going to use the watercolor brushes to give everything a really nice, beautiful hand painted look. Now as you're going through your brushes here, obviously there are a ton of options. If you want to mark your favorites as you're going through here, let's pull up the dry media brushes I love these, you can actually set these as your favorite whenever you have got your brush active, like whenever you tap on it, a little star icon comes up next to it. All you have to do is tap that icon and it will add it to your favorites list, so you can just have all of your favorite brushes organized in this one list. Now this works per type of brush so you wouldn't have vector brushes mixed in with pixel brushes. When I go in to my watercolor live brushes, if I go to favorites, it's only going to show me the watercolor live brushes. It's not going to show me my pixel brushes or my vector brushes so that's just something to keep in mind. Now, if you're brand new to Adobe fresco and you're like, ''Man, I wish I could learn more about all of these brushes and the brush settings" I highly recommend that you take my intro class, which is called explore Adobe fresco, and it really covers everything that you need to know to get everything set up, and then be able to start confidently drawing and painting in fresco. If you're brand new to fresco, take that class first because this class assumes that you've already got a basic working knowledge of fresco. I'll head on over to the next video and we're going to go ahead and make our sketch that we're going to be working from and then we will be ready to get started. 3. The Sketch: Friends, we are going to start off by making a sketch of a trio of house plants, which is what we are going to be painting today. You can feel free to draw any plants you'd like. They can be real or imagined. I'm doing a combination of both. Each one of the plants is going to come in a cute planter that has an adorable happy face on it. I am not focusing on realism at this point. I'm just drawing from memory, just making it up as I go. I'm not using any reference photos or anything, but if you need a little bit of inspiration, I would suggest doing a quick Google Images search or have a scroll through Pinterest and see what you can find. This is just a super rough sketch. Overall, I'm just really focused on making simplified shapes. That's pretty much it. I'm going to go ahead and speed up this video. I'm just going to finish up this sketch and then we'll take a look at it at the end. Here we go. We've got our sketch completed. I made this sketch just using a charcoal pencil brush, and I chose a gray color for it. I'm going to be ready to take this to color in just a minute. I am going to provide a template of this so you can practice your drawing. When you get to the year project part of this class, you should really sketch your own piece and work from that. But it's okay to do a practice round from my sketch if you'd like to. You can download that template at learnwithsfc.com/happyplants. Head on over to the next video and let's get started with the color palette for this piece. 4. The Color Palette: So for this piece is, I really want to use a color palette that is green, yellow, and coral, and then I'll use darker or lighter versions of these colors when I'm ready to add in the final details. So I like to make a separate layer that I can put my color palette on. There is really no rhyme or reason behind that, it's just something that I like to do. I'm just going to pick, I'm going to pick the natural incur brush, and make it pretty big, and then let's make sure that flow is turned all the way up, so let's go ahead and start with our green color. I'm just going to pick a dark green to start with, then we need a yellow. I'm going to go with maybe a yellow-orange, I think. That's pretty. Then finally, we're going to pick a coral red color, as our third color, so there is our basic color palette. I'm going to use lighter and darker versions of these colors as I go through to add the final details. I also want to be really playful with the color. So I don't necessarily want to make all the plants green and all the parts, yellow and coral. So we're going to be playful with this as we go through here. Now, just like the sketch from the previous lesson, you can also grab this color palette so you can pick the colors and use it in your own work. You can download that at the same place. It's at learnwithsfc.com/happyplants, and you'll be able to get the sketch template in the palette all in one page. So you can just import that into fresco and be ready to go. So head on over to the next video and we're going to start blocking in our flat colors. 5. Flats: All right friends, we're ready to start on our flat colors. Now the first thing that I want to do is, I want to go to my sketch layer and I'm going to go to my layer properties and I change this to multiply and then I'm going to scoot the opacity down to about 25 percent. This sketch layer, I'm just going to be using for reference, it's not going to be part of my final art. I'm going to make a new layer beneath my sketch layer to get started on. We are going to start with our vector brushes. So for this part, I'm just going to be using the basic round brush, not doing anything fancy here. Basically, all I'm going to be doing is I'm just going to use this brush to draw in the edge of each shape and then I'm going to use the paint bucket to fill in the color. Let's go ahead and start with our red color which I already have selected and let's just start drawing in the edge of this pots. I like that nice hand-drawn look even when I'm getting these nice clean edges, so I think that it's okay to have wobbly edges. Then I select my paint bucket and just tap in the center and it automatically fills that up for me. I'm going to continue to do that exact, same, very simple process through the rest of the parts of this illustration. I'm just using my coral yellow and green colors and I'm just pairing the vector basic round brush with the paint bucket to drop in colors. I always find this is really helpful if you're new to digital art and you feel like the edges of your shapes are really wonky if you try to use the lasso selection tool, so this is going to help you get nice clean edges. Of course, we're not going to keep this vector look, we're going to fancy it up a little bit as we go through but I still think it's really helpful when you're first starting out building inner shapes. I'm going to go ahead and speed up the video here and let's finish blocking in all of these flat shapes. All right, so there we go, we've got all of our flat colors locked in on our illustration now. Like I said, I was a little bit more playful with the colors than you might've thought based on this color palette. You also might notice that I've kept a lot of elements on their own layers. I've got these yellow leaves on their own layers, the pots are on their own layer, then I've got some of this greenery and then this greenery on their own layer. Now the reason that I do that is because A, it's going to make things easy if I ever needed to edit it and B, it's going to make things a lot easier for our next step where we're going to be adding in some texture and some color variation, because we're going to be able to use clipping masks and just apply our color and texture to certain areas of the illustration. Let's head on over to the next video and let's talk about adding that color variation and texture. 6. Color Variation & Texture: All right friends. In this video we're just going to be adding some more color variation and some texture. I'm going to go ahead and turn off my sketch layer at this point and just really focus on these colors. Now for this video, I'm going to be using a pixel brush to just add in some color variation to the leaves and the planter. Now, the planters in the end are going to have a soft watercolor vibe and then the plants are going to have a more bold saturated look. I think it's going to be fun to play around with that. That's just something to keep in mind as we're working through with this. Now I am going to go ahead and add some color variation to the planters, because when I add my watercolor in the next video, I really want to have that pretty, melding of colors that's going to be really beautiful. We're just going to go ahead and select a pixel brush. Let's go with the dry media and then I'm just going to pick past L square, which is one of my favorites. It's got a ton of really great texture and we're going to have a lot of fun with this. We're going to get to be really playful when we're adding in this color variation and we're just going to make it super fun. Let's start off with these yellow leaves right here. I'm going to select that layer, I'm going to make a new layer. I'm going to hit this little button right here and this is new since my explore Adobe Fresco clause, which is awesome because this means we can create clipping mask. I'm just going to tap that and you'll see right here that this layer has a tiny little arrow and it indicates the layer below it. That means that anything I do on this layer is just going to apply to these yellow leaves right here. It's not going to apply anywhere else and I'll show you what that means here in just a second. I'm just going to go ahead and let's make our yellow just a little bit orange. We'll zoom in a little bit here and then yeah. We're just basically going to just throw in some color variation here. You can be pretty random about it if you want to. You don't have to stick to any rules or anything. I picked an orange color and then I'm just going to go back in with a brighter yellow, color too and just add. I just like adding this little bit of contrast and variation. I just think it's fun. Let me show you really quick how this clipping mask works. Now if I hit this again, it's going to unclip it and look at this mass. It just goes everywhere. If I clip it again, it's going to just go back onto these leaves. Now, the reason that I like clipping masks when I do the step is, it's nondestructive. That means that I can delete this layer if I want to and it doesn't affect the layer underneath. It's still there. I can start over and it also means I can move it around if I need to. Look here, I can scoot this color variation around if I want to. I can make it bigger and smaller. Yeah, I can have a lot of fun with it, so let's see. We're done with that and then let's just put it back where it was. There we go. That looks great and now basically I'm just going to continue this process on for the rest of the leaves and for the planter. I'm just going to add a whole lot of color variation. Now, when I work on the planters, I'm going to be a little bit blackier about it. Because remember, we are going to be going in and adding some water color over this, so I really want to make sure that I'm able to get a really nice flow when I watercolor over those. I'm just going to continue along just adding some color variations as I go and I'm going to speed up the video and I will see you on the other side. So here we go. We've got all of our color variation and texture added and just using one brush, nothing too crazy. I really added in a little bit more color variation. I added on some bright pink to these leaves and then I added in a little bit of blue over here on the green because I obviously you just can't live well enough alone when it comes to color. I always want to add just a little bit more. Let's head on over to the next video and we were actually going to tackle these planters right here, which we are going to be adding some water color too. That's really going to soften the edges and blend a lot of these colors. It's going to be really fun. 7. Watercolor: So we are ready to start adding in a little bit of watercolor texture down here on our planters. Now, this is one of the reasons that I like to work in a bunch of different layers, because now I know I want to add watercolor brushes to the planters on the bottom. Because I've got the planters on their own layer here, that means I don't have to worry about mucking up the rest of the layers with us. I'm going to merge my clipping mask down. So I've just tapped on that and have merged it down. So now everything is just included on this one layer with the planters. Now, once you do this, there's no returning from it. It's no longer non-destructive once you merge your clipping mask down, so that's just something to keep in mind at this point. But yeah, I do find it really helpful to just have everything on its own layer, so what I want to do now is let's go to our watercolor brushes, and I'm going to pick the watercolor wet spatter brush. Let's go ahead and put a star on that because I love that brush. It's just going to give us some really nice soft edges. We're going to be able to soften the edge and we're also going to be able to blend a lot of the color. So the first thing that I want to do, is I want to blend the color and to do that, I'm going to go ahead and just lock my transparency, because I don't want my colors using out everywhere just yet. That's going to be in the next step. So I've tapped on my layer, going to hit Lock Transparency, and this means that anything that I do on the flower pots, is just going to stick to the flower pots. Now this is not clipping mask because this is destructive. Whatever I do, it's done. There's no way I mean, I can undo it obviously, but there's no way for me to move it around, or make any adjustments to it. So this is a little different than a clipping mask, but because we're working with watercolor brushes, I need to actually be on the layer that has this paint on it. So I will be able to access it. So we've got our watercolor spotter brush selected. I'm going to go ahead and leave it on this blue. Let's see what happens here. So let's go ahead and zoom in on this part right here, because this is going to be pretty subtle. It's really just going to soften. See how it's just softening the edges there. It's just really blending the colors together and making it look really lovely. I'm not sure though. I actually do like that for this one too, so I've just stuck with the same blue color, and just washing over it. It's just giving everything a nice soft look. Now, one thing to know, is that I do have my water flow turned down on this, which means that it's not going to have as much of a running quality as it would if I had that turned out. Now, I'm not sure that this blue is going to work for the orange, but let's see what happens. That's a little murky for me, not super happy with that. So let's go ahead and let's try out some other colors. This is what I love about digital watercolors, is you can just try stuff. If you don't like it you can undo it. As a person who is not good at committing to paint, this has been really amazing for me. Now I do want to start softening my edges a little bit now,so I'm going to make my brush just a little bit smaller. I'm going to go in and I'm going to unlock my transparency. So now when I draw, it's going to go outside of the lines too. So let's just make this a little bit bigger. This again is just the wet spider brush. Some really just going along the edges here and I'm just softening this up in a few spots, so we've got some bleed out, just soften the edges, faking a few happy accidents in a few places. Again, this is what I like about digital watercolor, is I can try things and if they don't work, I can undo those babies. I'm just going to do this all the way around. Then I'm going to go back to my other two flower pots. I'm going to do the same thing to those. I'm just going to work on the edges. Just going to go pick up my blue color again. Then I'm going to speed up the video now and just finish adding the rest of these edges. So I have finished adding the soft edges to all three of my flower pots, really happy with how this one looks. It's got a really beautiful watercolor look. So the last thing I want to do with my watercolors, is I'm just going to tap on my layer. Let's go ahead and draw that. Now I'm going to add just a little bit more color variation here. So I'm just going to get my brush a little bigger. Just going to pick up my original color and let's just make that a little darker. We'll just add a little bit more color variation. Just add a little bit more interest. The reason that I draw this layer first just because it makes a lot of different effects that happen when you do this. If you draw your layer before you do it, so have some fun and first go playing around with how the brushes interacts together, how the watercolor works. What happens if you dry your layer or you don't dry your layer? Just basically have a lot of fun with it is what I'm saying. So there we go. We're all finished now. Well, at least we're finished with the watercolor part. so let's head on over to the next video and we're going to be adding in our final details, making our planters look adorable and cute, and then you'll be ready to get started on your project. 8. Final Details: So it's time to start adding in our final details. We're going to go in and just touch up some texture in a couple of places and then we are going to add in a lot of our final details. I'm going to go ahead and hit up my "Clipping Mask Layer" here, and I'm just going to go back up to my pixel brushes. I've still got my past l square selected so let's just go ahead and use that. Make it a little bit smaller. If I go back and turn my sketch on, I still have these little scribbly details in here. This is a snake plant and we'll call it that. I just want to go in with a yellow-green here and add in some of these details now. I'm then going to go in with a rough incur brush and add in just a little bit of final detail on this. I think that this really is just going to give it that extra bit of zing. Let's then go to this plant in the back as well. Just going to pick the light blue color. I'm going to go with green. Let's go to the darker green back here. I'm just going to do, not as the same color that we started with. So indeed, let's go with the yellow. We're just going to add in some of these scribbly details. All right. Let's go ahead and turn our sketch layer back on so we can see what final details we need to add onto this illustration. Let's start with what we were just working on. I'm just going to make a new layer for this bit right here. For our brushes, let's go to our ink brushes and let's pick the natural inker. I love this brush because it's got a nice bit of texture. You can also just make it really small. It's going to be perfect for this. Let's go back in and pick up our yellow for this. Again, we're just making stuff up as we go here. This isn't realistic at all, and that's part of the fun, right? Just going to add an quick detail here. You don't really have to do this part on a clipping mask, but it does make life a little bit easier if you're worried about going outside of the lines or outside of the shape, I guess I should say. I like a clipping mask because it lets me work a lot faster because I don't have to feel so tentative when I'm making lines. Turn off that sketch layer. I don't think I'm going to do anything on the back part of that. I think that it looks fine without it. So I'm going to go ahead and just make a new layer on top of everything else here. I'm just going to take this dark green color. Let's make it even darker, almost black, and start adding in some details here. I'm going to make my brush a little bit bigger, will take it up to about 30 percent. Let's just start drawing in some line art on the leaves to give them a little bit more form. We're going to do this on all of the leaves. I'm just being pretty rough with us. How much liner you add is really up to you. Just do whatever feels right. All right, I'm going to speed up the video, and I'm basically just going to continue adding line art details and this dark green color to all of our leaves. We're then going to talk with the painters. All right. So we've got our liner details completed for the leaves. Again, I just used the same dark green color across everything because it really helps to unify this piece. I just really roughly added some details. You can see here, I went outside of the shape that I created when I made the color. I just think that it gives it a really fun, quirky look. We're going to turn our sketch layer back on and we're going to continue to add these details on our line art layer, which is right here. We're just going to stick with the same dark green brush. I've still got it set to 30 and I'm just going to start adding in some of my details on my painter that you can change your line art color if you want to. On this one, if you wanted to use a dark red or maybe if you wanted to add some white details, I think that's perfectly okay. Just do whatever feels right for you. Experiment a little bit, see what works best. You can always undo if you want to. I think one of the fun things about Adobe Fresco, because it really embraces painting a little bit more. You get to embrace those happy accidents a little more than you would if you were just using Photoshop or Procreate. I think that's one of the fun things about it. Let's draw this little plant stand here. Just making it wonky and cute. Now let's add this face. I'm just going to go ahead and speed up the video here as I continue to add details to our plants. All right. I've got my sketch layer turned off now and this is where we're at. We've just got a couple of little things that we want to add in. So first of all, I'm going to pick a white, and I'm going to go in here and just add a little eye dot to each one of these. You can use an eye dot just to make your pieces look cute, but you can also use it for a little bit of functionality. So you can make them look like they're looking in specific directions. All right. Next up I want to swap back over to our pastel brush. I'm just going to go to Dry Media and I'm going to pick pastel square. Using this brush, I'm going to make a new layer. I just want to add in a little bit of a cheek color on each one of them even though they are obviously planters and don't have cheeks, but they also don't have faces. We're just making it up as we go here. Yellow for him or her. The very last thing that I want to do is, I just want to add a shadow under the entire thing. So I'm going to go add a new layer down here at the bottom. I've got my pastel brush selected. Let's just sweep on some color under each one of them like that. There we go. Just a little shadow under each one of them. I'm just going to turn the opacity down on that because I don't think it needs to be that crazy. I'm going to move this up just a little bit. There we go. We're done. Here is our trio of happy painters in Adobe Fresco. Next, head on over to the final video and let's talk about the details for your project. 9. Your Project: Your project for this class is to sketch and paint a trio of happy houseplants in Adobe Fresco using any combination of brush types. I've provided a sketch template that you can use for practice, but for your project, please work from your own sketch to create an original piece of art. If you need inspiration, a quick Google images or Pinterest search will help you get started. Share your finished piece under the Projects and Resources tab on the SkillShare site, or share it on Instagram using the hashtag #learnwithsfc. Happy drawing.