Transcripts
1. Introduction and Class Project: Hi there. My name
is Nancy Clark. I'm a watercolor illustrator based out of
Louisville, Kentucky. I love creating watercolor
house portraits. And this passion for house
portraits has prompted me to create my masterclass
series for house portraits. In today's class, I'm going
to be walking you through how to draw ink and illustrate different
elements of the house. Now, this class is gonna be a really great accompaniment to my other masterclass for materials for watercolor
house portraits. I recommend if you haven't had any experience drawing or illustrating watercolor
house portraits, to check out some of my beginner level watercolor
house portrait classes. You want to be a little bit
familiar with drawing and illustrating and
painting houses. Before you take this class, I'm going to be walking you through different
tips and tricks, different tools that
I love to use in my own practice as a
watercolor illustrator. For our class project, I am going to be walking
you through drawing, illustrating the, kinda, the most common parts of
the house that I see. We're going to be illustrating doors, shutters, and windows. And after this class, you are going to have a really
solid understanding and grasp on how to break down different elements of your
watercolor house portraits. And to draw them with ease
and have some fun doing it. So I am so excited
to have you in class and I look forward
to getting started.
2. Drawing Tools: Before we get started
on our class project, I want to go over the tools that you'll
need to have on hand. The first thing that
I want to talk about is our watercolor paper. Now, I always prefer to
work on a watercolor block. And if you've taken any
of my other classes, I know I've talked
about it in those, but it's always a nice reminder. In terms of watercolor paper, or you typically can
buy it in a pad, a block, loose sheets, and also a role like a oversized role of
watercolor paper. I always prefer to work off of a watercolor block
for two reasons. So a block is a little bit different than a watercolor pad. A watercolor block is sealed up at the
top and the bottom. Sometimes you might
have a watercolor block that's sealed on all four sides. I love this for two reasons. A block, I'm keeps your
watercolor paper more stretched. So when you start to
add water and pigment, it reduces the chances
of your paper buckling. And then also with a, with a watercolor block
you have the great, you've had a nice edge for
your t-square to hook onto. And we're going to be using
a T-square in this class. And I love a T-square rather
than just a straight edge because I'm a T-square, can hook onto that lip of
your watercolor block. And it gives us are a straight horizontal
and vertical lines. A lot easier than if you
were just using a ruler. It's kinda hard to eyeball. Super straight, vertical
and horizontal lines and our t-square helps remove
the guesswork of that. We have our watercolor block. We have our t-square, will need a pencil to
create our outlines, and then we'll need
some ink pens. I love a micron ink pen. They are archival and
they're also waterproof, which is super-helpful
when it comes to working with watercolor. This one, they come in
different thicknesses. So we're gonna be using a
double 05005 for this class. But they come in a lot of
different thicknesses. And as you are
developing the skill of illustrating watercolor
house portraits, I really encourage you to
experiment with different pens, different paints,
different paint brushes, different different papers. You really want to figure
out what you love using. This is just a
jumping off point, so be sure to explore
and experiment. We have also two, I love using a white eraser. You can use the eraser at
the end of your pencil, but this is just a lot nicer for wider expanses that you're
going to need to erase. Then I have a couple of different watercolor
brushes in different sizes. Now, this class is
really going to focus on how to figure out the proportions and
how to divide all of the shapes of the built
parts of the house. It's not really as focused on the watercolor portion
of it, but we will, obviously we'll paint our we will paint the
elements of the house, but it's not super focused
on the watercolor technique. I will link all of these supplies in the
class description. And we'll need our paintbrushes, will need a paint palette with a couple of
different colors, and then also a big jar of
water and a clean paper towel. Again, this is a really
great class to have to take after you have a little
bit more experience of drawing and
illustrating houses. This is kinda getting
into the nitty-gritty of the little details that
make up our windows, doors and shutters
and things like that. So before we get started, I'm going to share
in our next section three things that
you'll want to be sure to keep in mind in this class.
3. 3 Tips to Keep in Mind: Alright, so let's talk about three different ideas and
principles that you'll want to keep in mind when drawing and illustrating
watercolor house portraits. The first thing is we need to think about all of
the different shapes, the basic shapes that make
up our house portrait. This is gonna be a really
great way to break down those more sophisticated shapes in geometry that
we see on houses. So just be sure to think about the overall shape of the different elements
that you are drawing. Next app we need
to think about are portion of these items
and the House in general, this is a really important
thing to keep in mind. The overall proportion,
how long is it versus how tall it
is, things like that. And then we can also
think about that in terms of proportion for doors, windows, and shutters
that we'll be discussing and looking
at in our class project. So we need to think about how we can figure
out the proportion. There are a couple of
different ways that I like to find the, how proportional things are. The first thing. And this is sort of a old art Class kinda trick is if you
are looking at the house, maybe you're drawing the
house from life or maybe from a photograph on a
computer screen. What you can do is you can use your pencil or
a pen or paintbrush and figure out the distance of the width versus the height. And that's going to
be able to give you an overall proportion
of the shape. Maybe your house is twice the amount wide
that it is tall. And that's if you're comfortable with identifying
proportion in that way, kind of identifying like, okay, this is half, half the way, half the width or
something like that. Another way that
we can think about proportion is a little
bit more tactile. If you have an image of your
house that is printed out, you can take your ruler. And if your photograph
is printed out in the same scale that you're
creating your house portrait. Like if you're creating a house portrait that's
going to fit on an eight by ten piece
of watercolor paper. You'll want to make sure that your printout is
on a letter size, so it's pretty comparable. Then you could just take
your ruler and say, okay, the door on my house is two inches tall by one inch
or something like that. You can actually identify the actual proportion and replicate it on your
piece of paper. Now, if both of those
techniques are a little bit too intimidating for you, I love using transfer paper. And transfer paper is a way that you can essentially trace your house and create a carbon copy on your
watercolor paper. I go over this in my watercolor house portraits for absolute beginners class. So be sure to check that out. That's also just a great way
to create a composition from a photograph or from a composition that you
really like in general. But proportion is really, really important because if your door is too tall or if
your windows are too wide, you're really not getting that accurate look of the house that you're
trying to achieve. Then the next thing, once you have that proportion, once you have the
sort of basic shapes identified and then the
proportion correct. The last thing that
you'll want to really pay attention to is the
division of the shape. You'll see in our class
project as we work through it. That being able to divide the shape up
is going to help us really identify those
different window panes at those different
areas of our shutters, doors, and windows, where our t-square
comes in really handy. And we're just going
to be able to divide and kind of move through
that pretty quickly. But yeah, so those are our three things that we always want to keep in mind when illustrating
kind of houses in general, but more specifically
in this class today, we want to break down
things into basic shapes. We want to make sure that the
overall proportion is good. And then we want to start figuring out
how we can divide up the shape so we
can illustrate it and showcase it accurately. So let's go ahead and get
started in our class project.
4. Bonus Tools: So for my new bond to
our house portrait and add a couple extra bonus
tip for our, for our tools. These are things that are really helpful
in the beginning. As you were starting to
get the hang of drawing, drawing, and
illustrating houses. The first thing is we
talked about those basic, basic shapes that we're breaking our hospital
entrance down into. Most, most of the time, they're going to
be right angles. Squares are going
to be rectangle. Sometimes you're
going to encounter arched windows or doors
like that, like that. So I would recommend taking a lot and maybe
getting some circles, stencils or even an
ellipse, students dental. And then this is going to help
you get those curves that are a little harder
in the beginning, the beginning to get
the hang of these. These are typically sold in
art supply stores or online. I use them in my college days. Acronym paradine students might find them into drafting
supplies like that, like that. And you can see
that they come home in a lot of different
sizes, depending on, depending on what scale or size of your drawing
in your house portraits, these bees will
be a handy thing. I don't have it with my life, but I wanted to share
it with you as we get into drawing and specific, specifically painting
elements of our house. You're gonna, they're gonna
be some places that you are going to want to
maintain my white paper. Because if we've worked
with watercolor, we know that we don't
use white paint. We just preserve
the white patriarch to represent white areas. And if you are working on a very complicated or an area that has a lot of
white in it. In it. You might want to
try masking fluid. Masking fluid is a wait. He paint over it
like white areas in your composition that
you want to keep white. You let that dry and then
you're able to paint around it. And what it does is it tells
all of the painting and maintain that that
paper, white paper. Once your paint is dry, then you're able to heal. And it has a consistent might
seem like a rubber cement or were white glaze. You just peel this off. I will say I tried using math masking fluid on your
watercolor paper. You'll see it called
like a £300 paper. I have experienced last
masking fluid typically done better on building under
watercolor paper weight. In today's class, we're
using a 140 town. I like that, That
weight of paper it is it is easier to
work with for me, but I enjoyed it. You take your pyramid but out in the area of your emptier
with your masking fluid. The last thing I
want to happen for you to experience
the heartbreak of math masking fluid tearing or wrecking the
surface of the paper because I've been there and I didn't have testimony
area that learned, learned from my mistakes. Alright? Alright, now, let's
head into our class project.
5. Shutters Part 1: So for our class project, we are going to be drawing, inking and illustrating
shutters, doors, and windows. And so I have all of the
elements already drawn out. So you kinda know where we're going with our illustration. And I have used the most typical styles and things that I see
in illustrating houses. And again, this is not a comprehensive style
illustration class for all of the things
you'll see on houses. You are going to
see if you do this, if you start starting to houses, you're going to start to
see a ton of variety. But my goal with this class and our class
project is to really start to get you comfortable with identifying those overall
shapes and proportions. So that when you do encounter more complicated shapes
and geometry on houses, you feel comfortable
breaking that down, finding that proportion and then finding where you can divide out that shape to replicate
what you see on houses. So this is just a overview
of how we start to do that. And not really a comprehensive on every
single thing you'll see because if you drive through a neighborhood or
drive through the city, you'll see a ton of different
architectural styles. And we just don't have time to do all of
them unfortunately. So let's go ahead
and get started. I've identified four
different shutter types. The first thing that we're
gonna do is we're going to use our pencil and we're going to
create our pencil outline. Then use our micron pens
to ink, ink our shutters. So the first shatter
that I have, you'll see it's just like
kinda made up of planks. And we are just going
to start to draw this. Again. This is, we want
to make sure that we identify our proportion. So you might have
shutters that are really tall and narrow. You might have ones that are a little bit shorter and wider. You just need to
kind of get into that rhythm of identifying that proportion of your
shutters and doors and all of those built
elements on your house. Because all they are
basic shapes with a little bit more
interests in the middle. So don't be intimidated by complex elements on houses
because you got this. So I am just going to use my T-square
and the t-square again, a sound nice because
we can create those straight vertical
and horizontal lines. So much easier than
if we were just using a straight edge. Straight edge, it
might look straight, but we really don't have a way to make sure that it is
completely straight. And this just allows us to move, move a little bit quicker. So for this first
style of shutter, I am just going to create two
tick marks up at the top. Then I can use my T-square to create those vertical lines. And you can see on
this style, I'm, what I'm trying to do
is I'm trying to show a shutter that's made up
of three planks of wood. And those in this style, you might have a little bit
of a groove or a grout line. Not a grout line
because it's weird, but kinda that groove
in-between those three planks. In the way that we're
going to do that is we are going to do a double
line when we ink it. And I'll show you
what that looks like. But again, I'm just replicating
this shutter from above. And I've created my
vertical lines with my T-square and then also my horizontal lines
with my T-square. Now, this one is
sort of similar. It has sort of as
vertical planks of wood. But then we have a kind of that cross piece of wood
on the top and the bottom. So I am going to first
create my vertical planks. For this one. I'm just going to divide it in half and then divide
it in quarters. You could take your
ruler and figure out how tall And how wide it
is and divide it that way. I do this a lot so I can kinda do it a little
bit more by eye. But don't be afraid
to use that ruler and actually measure it out and
say it's one inch wide. So each each line is going to be on the
quarter-inch mark or whatever. Then we're gonna go. And I'm just going to create
my little tick marks. And that just shows where my Those cross pieces of
wood go cross that shutter. And again, we always
start with pencil. This is, this is just
going to give you a really nice outline and sort of where to put your ink because pencils erasable
ink is not. Okay. So the next one, this
is a shutter style that I see a lot. It is just that typical
louvered shutter. So what we're gonna do
is we're going to do, we're going to
create these inset rectangles with my pencil. I'm just gonna go ahead and, and I'm gonna go ahead and extend these lines all the way to the top
and the bottom. Even if those rectangles
don't do that. It's just going to give me a good guide on where to start
and end those rectangles. So I'm just using my T-square
and I'm moving up and down. So I have my two rectangles. Another shutter style that
I see is this paneled one. And also I should say
with the t square, which is really great, is typically if you have a house that has
rows of Windows, you can use your t-square
and just kinda do those whole rows all at once and kind of map that
out before you ink it. So let the t-square kinda
do that work for you. And I'm just using the marks that I've used on
the shutter to the left here. And again, I'm just
gonna kinda like using tick marks because
it just shows me as I'm scooting my T-square
over my watercolor paper, I can kinda get a lot of
lines done all at once. So now that I have these
shutters mapped out, I'm gonna go ahead and take my pin and I'm
going to ink them. And remember on this first one, I'm going to go ahead and ink the outer line of the shutter. And if you are, if you want to use your
ruler for these ink lines, feel free to do that as
you get more comfortable. To show that this
has that groove. What I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna take my ink pen. I'm creating my ink lines and instead of drawing that
pencil line again, because if you are working with watercolor house portraits, we're working right now in this class project
on a little bit of a bigger scale than we
typically would mean. This would be a pretty
large composition and I'm showing this at bigger scale just for a
little bit more clarity. So what I like to do
is I like to create, if I'm doing a double line
like this to show the groove, what I'll do is I'll
just take my ink pen and ink one side of the line and
I'll ink the other side of the line to kinda get that
double line effect rather than spending all that time to
do another pencil line. Again, you're just
gonna get a lot more comfortable the
more you do this. So let's go ahead
and we'll go to our next style of shutter. I have said this
in past classes, so you might have heard this if you've taken my other classes. I like the feel of
inking with a freehand. I like doing the pencil lines with my ruler and my T-square. Then I like the kind of
looseness that freehand Inc. Brings. But again, whatever is
more comfortable for you, but I would encourage
you as you are experimenting and
growing your skills, that you'll want to try
this out and see how it looks in your drawings
and illustrations. And again, on this shutter, we have that kinda that groove. And I'm just using
that pencil line as a guide and I'm inking. I'm inking on either side
of that pencil line. For the lovers on this shutter. I don't typically do
the pencil lines. I just like to kinda do
those with my ink pen once I have that area identified where
those Louvre's are. But again, as you're learning
and as you're doing this, using more and more pencil
is never a bad thing. It's just gonna get you more comfortable with
drawing those areas. So that's why I left
that one blank. I wanted to ink the rest of this the rest of these shutters. We have our first, second style of shutters ain't. Then I'll show you what I mean with the Louvre's is
I'm just going to take my ink pen. Again. This has a larger scale, so we're seeing a
lot more detail and typically we're not
going to see all of this detail when
we're drawing and illustrating on a
smaller, smaller scale. So I'm just taking that micron
pen and I'm creating those repeating lines to show a
louvered a louvered window. So for this one, the paneled one,
it's a little bit similar, has similar
proportions. What we do to create that paneled effect is
we are going to draw little 45-degree
lines in our shutter. And then what we're
gonna do is we're going to connect those lines. Again. You can use your ruler, you can use this free hand. What that does is that
shows that those panels are kind of has that slope
that frame around it. And it shows that it is a little bit more of a
paneled rather than like a louvered shutter. So let's go ahead and erase our pencil lines
and then we'll move on to paint our shutters.
6. Shutters Part 2: So the colors that I'm
using in this class, it doesn't really matter. We're just trying to
create a project that has kind of examples of those different styles of
shutters, doors, and windows. So really feel free to choose whatever watercolors
you have on hand. And I am just going to stick to I'm gonna go ahead and stick to the colors
that I've used above. And again, if you have
worked with watercolors or maybe you've taken one
of my classes in the past. You know that we
build up our colors in watercolor, in layers. So we want to just
kinda first put down that layer of red
for our shutter. Then I'm going to let this
layer of paint dry completely. And then we're going
to add another layer. And while that's drying, I'm just gonna go ahead and move to that next shutter and
I'm going to use my blue. I'm not sure if this
is the same exact blue that I used on the shutter, but it gets the same effect. For these first two
shutters where you have those grooves that you
drew in with your ink pen. What I like to do and what I love about illustrating
health is, is the relationship of the ink and the
watercolor and how they come together to really
enhance and really showcase shadows and
depth and dimension. So once we kinda get
that second layer of paint on those shutters, I'm gonna take I'm gonna take my water down black paint
and I'm just going to paint with a really
thin brush down the grooves of those
wood shutters. And it just kinda makes it feel a little bit
more dimensional. We have the double lines of
the ink and then we have the water down black
paint of the watercolor. And those two coming
together really kinda have a cool effect and
add dimension and shadow. For my louvered shutters, I'm just going to use a green. Then my panel shutter. I am going to use a black. Again. I am using, you can see that the colors that
I'm starting with, that first layer of color, they're a little bit lighter, they're a little bit
more transparent. They have a little bit
more water in them. Again, we'd like to
build up in layers. We don't want to
come in too dark, too saturated with
our pink colors. That lets, that causes us to lose a
little bit of control in terms of the color and the
saturation of our piece. So it's always easier
to add more color, to add more saturation
to that paint. Then take it away in watercolor. I'm gonna go ahead and let
this dry and add another layer of each of the shutters colors. And then we're going to
come back and we're going to add in some shadows. Okay, so our second layer of paint has dried
on our shutters. And we're going to go back in and we're going to
add some shadows to increase that dimension and depth that we already have. So I'm going to take my smallest watercolor
brush and I am going to use a
watered-down ivory black. In our first style of shutters. I'm going to do a
really light line in that groove in-between those double lines that
we created with our ink. And if we have too much water, oh, that's not completely dry. This is a good
thing to show you. So if you try to
layer on a shadow, on a area that is
not completely dry, this is what happens. You can see that it starts to bleed. This was not planned. But what I'm gonna
do is going to take some watercolor season. They will take some
dry paper towel and I'm just going to act quickly and tried to soak up that
extra paint and that water. That is a good trick to know just for watercolor in general. So I'm gonna make sure that now I'm going to
really make sure that this red is completely dry. And I'm just, you don't
necessarily need to do this. This is just for demonstration. Having a lot of dry, clean paper towels handy
will always be good for watercolor because you can stop things like
that from happening. So I'm just taking that ivory black super watered down and I'm just taking a
really skinny brush and getting in-between
those grooves. This is just to kind
of enhance that, enhance that shadow line
on, on our shutters. Someone to do the same
thing for our blue shutter. So I'm just going to take down, take a watered-down ivory black for this style of shutter. I want to make sure that I do the same technique
with the groove. And add in my black paint
where those grooves are. If you have too much
paint like I have a little bit a little
bit dark area on top. You can take that dry
clean paper towel and soak up the paint. You can also just dry off your paint brush on
your paper towel, and then go back over that area. And that dry brush is
gonna kinda suck up that extra extra paint there. In addition to getting
those grooves. I'm also going to
do a little bit of a shadow underneath the, those crossbars just to
enhance that 3D quality. When you think about shadows and shadow lines in your house, portraits and ink
compositions in general. You want to make sure
that they're consistent. We're going to see this when
we move on to our Windows. But we want to make
sure that those shadows and that
light source that you've identified in your
drawing is consistent. So those shadow lines
are working together to enhance those places
of depth and shadow. For our louvered shedder. I am going to take my
water down ivory black. Since the louvered part is
usually recessed and then you have the little lines
for the Louver. I'm going to use some of that black paint that's
already on there and just pull with my brush
and kind of get that, get little shadow lines for those Louvre's
on the shutter. Now again, we are working
at a bigger scale here. You're probably not
going to be able to see this level of detail at
the scale you're working. I mean, unless you're
working at an 18 by 24 size or something like that. But this is just to show you
how you can start to add in those shadows and those
depths where you can see it. So don't if it's
tiny, tiny, tiny, you're not gonna get
the payoff like we're seeing in these examples, but this is just something to keep in mind when
working with watercolor. And for our last shutter style, again, this one is all black. And I'm just going to use my black paint and
I'm going to go around that paneled areas because that's really
where that shadow would be since it's all
It's all recessed. Again, I'm just going
to use my dry off my brush and soak up some
of that extra paint. But again, you want
to be consistent. Maybe your maybe you're showing that your shadow
line or excuse me, that your light sources
in the top-left so that only this area here
which show a shadow. So just something
to keep in mind. Again, this is a great exercise just to experiment
and play with. And just have some fun. Alright, so those
are our shutters. Again. Use your t-square
to your advantage. If you have a long row of windows with Windows
and shutters, use that t squared. You can kinda get that whole
row and sort of start to divide out your
windows and shutters with your t-square to make
it a little bit easier on yourself and make sure your paint is dry because
otherwise you might have some, some bleeding once you
add in your shadows. Next up we're going to
talk about Windows.
7. Windows: Alright, so we
have our shutters. Let's move on to our Windows. I have two different
styles of windows shown. Again, this class does not and cannot cover all the
different styles of Windows. But again, we're breaking
it down into basic shapes. Typically we're going to
see rectangles, squares. You might have a couple
of arched windows, either with a semi-circle
or more of that oval shape. And that's where those templates
come in, come in handy. But here are two styles that
I encounter most often. On the left-hand side, it's a little bit more
of a craftsman style. And then on the right-hand
side is a little bit more of a typical kind of typical window that
you see on houses today. So I'm just going to share with you how I like to
go about sort of dividing these and kind
of identifying or showing the different panes of
glass and things like that. So again, this proportion
of window could be, could very well be on the
houses you're illustrating. But again, we're just,
we're working on identifying the proportion
you might have. Just like your shutters,
you might have some long, tall, skinny ones. You might have some wider ones. You might have. Just pay attention to
the overall shapes. And then we can
start to break down the panes of glass
within those shapes. So I just have two
rectangle windows. Again, this is just more of an exercise of getting
you comfortable and sort of how we identify
the panes of glass, the sash on the window,
things like that. So I am just going to replicate
these two windows above. I already have the
rectangles sketched out. And you'll see on these windows and you'll just
want to make sure that you are trying to replicate what
you're seeing on your houses is typically windows have
a frame around them. Sometimes they're wider,
sometimes they're thinner. It really depends on the style of Windows, style of houses. So these are things that
you'll want to start to think about and identify
as you're looking at houses. And if you're anything like me, you're gonna be driving
down the street or walking your dog through
the neighborhood. And you're going to
start to really notice the little details on houses. And I am a firm believer that
these little details all combined to illustrate a house is really just the
way that it makes it. Someone's house, like
someone can see it. Even if they don't really notice the little itty-bitty
details that you do, but it's kind of
all those details as a whole that
make up their home. So obviously I'm very passionate about
health portraits and I loved them so much, so. Alright, so I have just
the two overall rectangles mapped out and I am going to use my T-square and I
just want to create that frame around my window. And you'll see that I went
in top and bottom. First. I didn't go to my
vertical sides yet. I liked it. Maximize the t-square when it's in that horizontal
position versus the vertical. So kinda saves you
a little bit time, especially if you are drawing a lot of
windows, lot of doors, all that stuff on a house
you want to maximize and use the t square in
the current orientation. And then before you switch. So I'm just going to
use a little tick mark and create my little
frame around the window. I'm eyeballing this. But again, if you want to go ahead and measure it out as you're starting
to get comfortable. That's totally fine too. Then we're going to divide
our rectangle in half. Again. If you want to measure
this, you can. Another trick to find the
center of a rectangle or a square is we could draw a diagonal line that
crosses in the middle. So just like an
x, we're going to connect those opposite corners. And that's going to show you
where the center of a square or a rectangle is
without using a ruler. So maybe you just have
a T-square with no, no numbers are no
measurements on it. So you can use it
that way as well. So I am going to create a double horizontal line to show the center
sash of our window. Then this first window here, I have a center line and then I have two more lines that sort
of divide it into quarters, and that is just the
top half of the sash. And then this right-hand window, this is a little bit
more traditional, and we can then add our
little tick marks so that we can go through and add in where the divisions of
the panes of glass are. Just like our shutters, we can, if you feel
more comfortable, you can go ahead and use that T-square and
create that double line. Or as you get more comfortable
with that ink pen, you can just draw that one
pencil line and then draw the ink pen on either side
to create that double line. It is entirely up to you. I'm gonna go ahead and
ink these windows. Then when I do the pieces
in-between the panes of glass, I'm doing that double line. But I'm not having
these double lines meet because this
has a cross here. Again, you are welcome
to use your t-square and create these lines. I just do this so often that it kind of comes a little
bit easier just to go through and ink
it and kinda keep those where those two
perpendicular lines meet. Now you'll notice on these windows above that
I've already illustrated, we'd like to maintain
the grid of that window. We want to make sure it's white. I'm going to go ahead and just paint it with
masking fluid. But this is a great example of when you would
use masking fluid. Again, masking fluid is a gluey, a little bit thicker than water substance and you paint it onto your watercolor paper
to maintain the white areas. I typically do not use
masking fluid a lot in these kinds of instances because if you think about it and you're
illustrating the house, you probably have 468, maybe more of these windows. And it's pretty
time-consuming to take that tiny little brush
and paint all of those areas that you want
to maintain as white. And so I would feel free
to experiment with it. If it's easier for
you, that's great. It's a really great
in handy tool. I'm just thinking in
terms of house portraits. It can get really tedious and it slows you down
because not only do you have to paint those
that frame around those windows and
those window panes that you have to let it dry. And then you have to
pay let the paint dry and then you're able to
peel off the masking fluid. But it is a totally
valuable tool. If you are just starting
out and you want to get into the groove of
using masking fluid, then all means do it. I'm just kinda playing
devil's advocate there. So I'm gonna go ahead and erase this and we'll move on to pain. So for painting glass, I have changed, changed
different ways. During illustrating
house portraits. Sometimes I do black with a
little bit of blue mixed in. I've done all blue
when I started out thinking that it
was sort of blue glass. I mean, it was just an idea. Looking back, I think
the houses that are painted with the ivory
black, super watered down. I think those ones with the glass or a little
bit more successful. I've seen some
watercolor illustrators. If you are illustrating
the house, what they do and say it
has lots of trees and a lot of landscaping
in front of the house. What they tried to
do is they try to actually replicate
the reflection and the shadows that those trees and bushes cast on the windows. I typically do not do that. But checkout other
watercolor illustrators and see how they handle
the treatment of glass. Because that is a very interesting
case study on its own. For this class, we're just going to use a super watered down ivory black and we're going
to paint the panes of glass, let that dry, and then go back
in with a little bit more of that ivory black to create a little bit
of a shadow line. I'm not super precious
about kind of getting all of the same
gray on those window panes. I just kinda want
a good coverage. If it's not totally
all colored in, I'm not too worried about
it because it's not like it's a painted surface
where it is all one color. Glass obviously has
some variations with shadows and light reflecting
and things like that. So if you have the majority of the panes of glass filled in with that
water down, ivory black. Then I think that that's
going to look really nice. So we're gonna go ahead
and let these windows dry, and then we're gonna go back
and add our shadows in. My windows are dry and
I'm gonna go ahead and add in my shadow lines. And I'm doing this
kind of similarly to adding the shadow
lines in the shutters. And again, we just want
to make sure that in our illustrating houses that we pick n stick with a
consistent light source. And then this is gonna give us, this is going to give
us a good idea of where to put those shadows and they'll stay consistent
and it'll look even better. So again, I would recommend experimenting with different different
locations of light sources. So you kinda get that feel of doing different,
different shadow lines. For the shadow line, I'm not I'm not really worried about it all
looking exactly the same. Again, glass is pretty
reflective material. It is. It's gonna look different
in different areas. It's not just a solid
painted surface. I'm just picking that
corner and adding in a little bit more
of that water down ivory black to create a
little bit of a shadow line. There we go. Next step, we're going to take a look at some front doors.
8. Doors: Okay, so the last element
that we're gonna look at in today's class project is we are going to illustrate two different
styles of front doors. And again, you might encounter front doors that
have side windows. They might have a transom
like an overhead window. But again, we're just breaking down things into basic shapes. And then once we've broken down those elements
into basic shapes, we're worried about
the proportion. Once we have the proportion, we're going to start to divide. So again, I want that to
be your mantra when you're illustrating houses
is your basic shape. You've got your proportion, and then you have your division. Those are three things
to keep in mind. The doors that we're going
to illustrate today, one is a pretty
traditional panel door. Sometimes you'll
see this and these, this top area will be replaced
with a couple of windows, whether square or
those arched windows. It really depends on
the style of home, the geography, all of these different things
come into play. Then the second door we have is a little
bit more craftsmen, a little bit more modern, where it has a panel of glass. And then also that, that raised panel that we've
seen in our shutter example. So let's go ahead and we're going to draw
out our doors here. I have created the
rectangle for our doors. And then I went ahead and make
these a little bit darker. You will, just like our Windows, you will encounter doors that
have frames around them. Again. Every house probably is
gonna be different in terms of the style
of that frame, the width of that frame. Sometimes in different houses, you might have houses that have painted trim
and it's not just white. I mean, it really just depends on the style of house that
you are illustrating. And so just to be aware of all of the
different styles and when you start illustrating houses and start
looking at health is, you're gonna be
amazed at how many different styles there are. So the first panel door, I've added this little
brass kick plates. Sometimes you'll see
them, sometimes you want. I just thought it was kind of an interesting nether material
we can talk about. And I'm just going
to start to divide out my panel door here. Again, I'm just eyeballing
these proportions. I'm just trying to
match this. Again. You could measure, you
could put a, you know, if you have a printout
of the photograph, you could put a ruler there and identify the actual
measurements. Or you could just do that kind of pencil trick that
we talked about. But you'll just want
to be aware of how the space or how the elements
of the door are divided. So I'm just creating
my tick marks so that when I use my T-square, I can be efficient
with using that. So looking at the first
are red panel door here. Alright, so I have that grid laid out and I'm gonna go
ahead and ink my front door. I'm gonna go ahead and
erase these pencil lines. And for this panel door, we're going to have
to do the same effect that we did on our shutters. And I'm just creating
little tick marks. Those on the 45-degree
angle in the corner. And what that's going to show
is that it's going to show that frame, that panel around. These shapes. Add a little bit more
dimension. Again. Feel free to do this with your
t-square and your pencil. You can add in a little door knocker and
some hardware as well. So I'm gonna let you go ahead
and paint this on your own. So I'm gonna go ahead and
let you paint this door. And then we're going
to also map out our more modern kind of a little bit more
Craftsman style door. So we already have that door
frame identified there. Then this door has
a window in it. So we are what I like
to do is map out where that window
occurs on the door. Again, I'm just looking
at that proportion of my window so that I can. Again, that was a
little bit off, but that's why we
start in pencil. And I'm just mapping out where that bottom panel is like that. So that now I can
use my T-square. I'm going to go
ahead and ink this. When it comes to
the window area, I want to make sure that
I do the same treatment that I did on my windows, my stand-alone Windows is
I want to make sure that the cross areas
are there as well. So for me, I'm just
going to create that double line on either
side of that pencil line to create those panel of glass. Then that bottom panel, it gets the same treatment as that panel door and
that paneled shutter. Then I'm going to add
some blocky hardware in. So go ahead and paint
those two doors. And you have completed
our class project of creating a little bit of a cheat sheet for
our belt elements, for watercolor house portraits.
9. Conclusion: So thank you so much
for joining me. It would mean so much if you would leave a
review on this class. This helps me learn what you
learned and how you learned. And also too, I love
suggestions if you have ideas for future classes or if there's something that
you would love to learn, I'd love to know that as well. So please, please
leave a review. It means so much and it helps me grow my own channel
here on Skillshare. Thank you so much and I
hope to see you next time. Happy painting.
Maizie Clarke, Charming watercolor illustrations
