Alleyway Scene: Urban Sketching in watercolour and Ink

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to urban sketching in watercolors. Anning. I'm Suzanne and I'm a watercolor artist. I also love to paint in the traditional technique of line and Bush, using watercolor as my initial sketches and line for enhancing my sketches later on. In this class, I'll also be demonstrating a little bit about perspective drawing that is necessary for our project today. The watercolor techniques used here in itself, it's quite loose. The lines that we use over these water Karla washes helps us to enhance our sketches if we think we need that step. If you prefer more, offer, lose watercolors style and you like what you have done with your watercolors, you are free to skip this step of enhancing that with ink. Saying that if you're somebody who loves to use ink or drawing me do over your water color. This course could be a great way of learning this technique. This course is ideal for anybody who has a very busy lifestyle and would like to take only a few minutes a day to learn something new or to do something to relax and unwind. I hope you will enjoy this course as much as I did making this happy painting everyone, and I'll see you in the next video with materials and all the other information. 2. Suggested materials: Let's look at some of the materials we require for today's course. Let me start off with watercolor paints. I have a palette here with watercolor paints squeezed out from tubes. I normally use tubes and watercolor pans. It doesn't matter what you use, as long as they are watercolors and they're good quality, it should be fine. Also, there are no specific colors that we require today. You can use any Carlos. And I think if you have a collection of primary colors, you should be good to go. Now moving on, we're going to look at some of the brushes we need. You don't need a huge variety of brushes today. You can just do with one medium sized round pointed to brush. What I have here is size ten. I also have a smaller one of size six. It only if I need to do some details with it. But if you don't have it, don't worry. Moving on, because this is, this is a line and wash technique that we're going to talk about today. We definitely need a pen for our lines. I usually use calligraphic pimps mainly because I like the characteristic lines that it produces with these beautiful nibs. If you're using a calligraphic pen, I would suggest that you also have indenting. Indenting is slightly thicker than a normal calligraphic Inc.. And also you also get that in waterproof. The part here says it's non waterproof butt. I filled it in with waterproof Indian ink and it is perfect if you want to do some washes over the lines. Again. If you're not comfortable with calligraphic pens, you can always use a normal black ben or a gel pen. This one here is waterproof as well. It's not necessary. You need to have a waterproof. It just gives you a different effect when it's a non waterproof. Another material that you may require is a pencil and an eraser. It's not necessarily that you have them for today's caused mainly because we're going to try and do some watercolor washes directly onto the paper without any pen mark saying that for your final project, if you would like to do it in a large scale, it's always best to have pencils so you can mark out a few things. You would also need tissue, paper or kitchen towel to dab any extra paint. And two jars of water, one for fresh clean water and the other one for washing your brushes in. The next material, which is the most important of all the materials is watercolour paper. It's very important to use good-quality, a 100% cotton watercolor paper so that they can hold washes and they don't much like a normal paper. You can also try to use multimedia paper. And that usually works for a line and wash because we don't have a lot of layers on this one. I also use a mole skin sketchbook. For some reason. I loved her paper on more steam sketchbook and it can hold afield washes and it doesn't tear. It's very durable. And the good thing about this book is that the paint layers dry pretty quickly, which means you can place extra layers on top of it. If you are somebody who likes to just get shoes every day and you want to keep them together. A sketch book is a good option. So that's all the materials that we need for this course. 3. Examples of perspective drawing & creating depth : Perspective drawing, or the word perspective is something that many people feel uncomfortable with. Today, I'm going to explain this to you through a simple landscape drawing. So let's start off with a line about the middle of this paper. And this is what we're going to call as the horizon. A horizon is an imaginary line that an artist sets, and it is at the level at which we see things in front of us. On the horizon, a half placed a point and this point is called a vanishing point. I am now going to draw a straight road right in the middle of this picture. The road is straight and long and we can't see where it ends. But for us, it ends at this particular point. That's a vanishing point. And that's as far as we can see with our naked eye. And hence we stopped there at the vanishing point. We can't see the road ahead of that point because it's not visible to our eyes and we're not trying to depict that in our picture. You can see that the two lines are the two sides of the road converges as it moves away from us. And this gives us an illusion of depth in our drawing. Now, let's make this illusion of depth a bit more obvious by placing a few things on the sides, starting off with a rough depiction of grass on either side of the road. And sticking to the rule of perspective, which means that in the grass becomes smaller as it moves away from us. Now let's draw a little tent looking at the position it has far off from us in this picture. And hence it's quite small. Let's do another ten, this time, a bit nearer to us. And hence, it's a bit more bigger than the first one. You can also notice that I am able to actually place a few more details on this dent compared to the little one we drew sized. Similarly, you may also notice that we're not able to capture a lot of details of things far away from us, and hence drawing the focus onto the objects near read to us. I'm also going to place a vehicle in the foreground Just to add more interests too, a picture and to create a more beautiful focus in our picture. Now for our background and we don't need a lot of details. So I'm just going to place a few hills and some foliage. Now in line with the perspective, let's depict a few street lights along either sides of the road. So for the lamps far away from us, they are going to be quite small. And as draws nearer to us, it becomes taller. However, if you drew an imaginary line along the top and the bottom of these lamps, they would converge or meet at the vanishing point on the horizon. The same rule of perspective applies to the clouds in the sky, depicting them larger nearer to us, and smaller away from us. You can probably notice that in our panoramic view photograph. To explain this perspective a bit more clearly, let's do another activity. In this exercise, we're going to draw cubes. So we start off with the horizon, which is very important in everything redraw. It is what we see at our eye level. We could also see things in the same frame that are above or eye level or below our eye level, depending on where the object is placed. So if we were to draw a few cubes, let's start off with one Dax and good load the horizon. So here I've drawn a cube that is below the horizon. And you can see that. You can see the top of that cube because it's below our eye level. And if we were to draw another one above our eye level, I would be able to see the bottom OK. At cubed because it's above eye level. If the cube was sitting at our eye level, we would only see the FRAND and perhaps the favorite if it was towards our side. But we would never see that top and the bottom because the is sitting at our eye level. Please don't worry if this video didn't make any sense to you at this point. But I assure you that this video is going to be really beneficial to your once we start doing our project. 4. Warm up with watercolours: In this video, we'll be practicing our brushstrokes and warming up our hand movement. We are going to paint a part of a building with some shuttered windows and doors and some foliage bearing in mind all the things that we learned about perspective in our previous video, we're going to start off with the base of the building using a neutral tint. Here, I'm using Payne's gray for that purpose. As you can see, I have placed the line slanting to begin with, and now I'm going to build the rest of the illustration on this line. The important thing is to plan how you are going to go about it. Mainly because we don't have a pencil line here to guide us. Working this way will help you to increase your confidence using watercolors and the end product will look more dynamic. Next step is to keep it quite loose and not to worry too much about it looking perfect. So I'm, I have just spread out that layer of pinned to the side. So it's going to be the pavement or the street. Now for the building, I'm going to use very light, ultramarine blue. I've kept it the lights so I can wipe it off or lifted off if I want. The top of the building is widening as it comes towards me. This will give the illusion of a sense of depth to the building. I'm just going to wet areas. So once I start placing the details in, especially to the far end of the building, it's not so stark and it goes a little bit fuzzy. That's just my personal style of doing it. But if you prefer to have a bit more details on your illustrations, you don't need to wet the area as much as I have done here. So let's start off by placing some details, like the shuttered windows and doors and a little bit of foliage. Again, you don't have to use the same color as I'm using. I'm using varied in green here. It's just my personal choice. You can be as free as you like with the choice of colors that you use. So you can see here my shuttered windows, away from me, quite fuzzy. That's because I'd like to draw all the focus on to those shuttered window that's right in front of me and the one that I'm painting right now. So as you can see again, we're not going in for strict perspective and details here. We're just trying to stick to it and At the same time having lots of fun. So your illustration can be as sketchy as you like. And please don't worry about not having straight lines. I don't think mine are either. It's just part of having fun. And if we are to careful with making it perfect, sometimes we tend to forget to have fun with the painting that we do. Finally, placing a door in the middle of those shutters are fused, Payne's gray for painting in the door and you can see the sides are quite fuzzy. Again, at this stage, I'm not too worried about it being too fuzzy. Ofcourse I'll be using ink over it and I can I can fix all these things at that time. Moving on, I'm doing the foliage now. I'm using sap green for the foliage. If you have another choice of color, or if you'd like to do some autumn colors, you are free to try those colors. You don't have to stick to the same green color. So for the foliage, using lazy stippling type of brush movement. So mainly using the tip of my brush and just moving it lays Lee over the paper and creating these scribbly lines. I'm also going to place a little bit of red just to indicate that they're BRAF flowers on these tiny edges. It's not necessary again, that you do the same thing as I do. You can just have a Folly ish that's green. Or if you'd like another Carlo, you can do that. Or if you'd like to do a mixture of colors, that's also fine. Whatever works for you. Again, if you'd like to have a little bit more fun with painting, you can always use a splattered. So that's just splashing paint over their paper in areas where you'd like them to be. So this is just a fun way of painting. And I passed nearly prefer painting this way because it makes me so happy to see a lot of squatters on my paper. Now moving onto the pavement or the street right in front of that building. Just going to add in a few random rectangular shape lines. Not so much a rectangular, but a very abrupt rectangular shape. Just to show the details on the pavement. Again, I'm trying to use as less brushstrokes as possible, trying to pull the brush across the paper and not really painting it in. So we're going to try and keep all these brushstrokes quite free and not over worked. And to finish off, I'm also going to depict a little bit of foliage at the far end of the building. Just to show that there's something beyond that point as well. And little details like these gathers interest to the people who are viewing your illustrations. Now, let's also do a quick practice of a flight of stairs, something that we will be doing for our project. So starting off, let some neutral tint. Here, I'm using Payne's gray. I'm going to paint a few horizontal lines to recreate the flight of stairs. And as you can see, each line is slightly shorter than the one below it. And making sure to leave a small area white in between each stair. Next, I'm going to paint the wall to the side of the flight of stairs and a doorway and a small window using the same neutral tint or Payne's gray. And we are working wet in wet, especially to depict the door as well as the window. If you'd like to depict a too wet in wet, you will have to make your pain scree editor bit more, thicker inconsistency. That way, you can add in the door and the window slightly more darker than the warm color itself's. Next, let's do a quick flurry tree using crimson, red or permanent rows. Now for the trunk of the tree, I'm going to use some burnt umber. This is just a practice session and so I'm not going to go too much into the details. So lazy circling for the foliage, using the tip of my brush and moving it leisurely over the paper. And now for the tree trunk and mixing the burnt umber, you could also add a tiny bit of Payne's gray if you'd like to make it that little bit darker. And slowly pulling down a trunk. It's going to come and meet the stairs at the bottom. And I'm not too worried about the details. At this stage. We're just trying to paint attend to see how it would look. I think it's gone wrong and the tree is looking quite awkward on this Tez is don't worry at this stage because this is just a practice session. So doing a practice session like this would give you an idea of what to do in your real project. So I'm also doing a little stamping technique with the brush just to depict some brick grew up on the wall right in front of us. And with this, we are finished with watercolor warm-up session. In the next video, we'll see how we can use ink over this. 5. Warm up with ink: In this video, we're going to use lines to define our illustrations. So this step is completely optional. If you like, a quick blues and effortless administration, you do not need to do this step. I personally loved the use of characteristic lines. I love how it looks different for everyone as our lines can be so different. Again, this is only a warm-up session. And so we're not going into a lot of details. I'm using a calligraphic dip pen and Indian ink. You are free to use any pen you like. A gel pen or a ballpoint pen should work. It should ideally be waterproof so you have the option to paint over it if you like, saying that it's ok to use a non waterproof pen, the end result would just be slightly different. As I always say, the main thing is you enjoy what you do and it does not have to be perfect. So starting off with defining those shuttered windows, the video about perspective drawing is a great reference to complete this illustration. That top and the bottom lines of the shuttered windows are drawn, slanting and converging, less detailed on things that seem to be far away from us. As we begin to draw the windows nearer to us, I'm going to give a little bit more details, like the ones on the chateaus. And now starting with the dole, the insight of that door needs to be much more darker. And you can choose to do this using paint or ink. Here I'm using ink so I can define the doorway. I'm also doing a little bit of the foliage that's falling above the door. So I'm using quite lazy stippling for that. So we are trying to do the same things that we did with the brush, this time only with a pen. And so the lines are going to be a bit more starker. Now, filling in the inside of that door, which is going to be much darker. So I'm using thick indenting. Using the pen itself. I'm going to make that insight a bit more darker. And as I come to the bottom of that door, I'm just going to add in that extra little bit of detail that is a little step at the bottom of that door. And as you can see, and now I'm just going to fill that area to become a more darker. And we will be done with the door. And finally for the last shutter and the foliage, I'm going to use some squiggles are lazy stippling as we call it. For the foliage. You can see that these very rock squiggles, and you can use any type of squiggles that you like with your foliage. Or if you're somebody who likes a little bit more details, you can even try to draw in a few leaf-like shapes or flour like shapes just to add in that extra bit of detail. Now for that shutter, I'm going to add more details compared to the other shutters in this picture. So I'm starting off with the lines of the shutter, which is each plank of the shutter. And as I draw these lines, I'm going to make sure that they are slightly converging to the side that's away from us. Doing a little bit more details on those shutters, especially those little lines that make it look as if it's standing out. And doing the other edge of the shutters as well. Just finishing that off. Last step here is to define the details on the pavement or the street. So I'm just going to do that. So first of all, I'm going to draw aligned to define the bottom part of that building. And now enhancing those rectangular shaped stones on the pavement. Next, we're just going to try out a few lines on the second warm-up illustration that we do. That's the flight of stairs. Here. I'm not going to go in with a lot of details. So this is just another way of using lines. Either, you can either begin by using a lot of score to Carlos and very minimum lines, or you could do a lot of lines with very minimum water color. And it depends on each and everyone's interests. So I'm just going to enhance those days, making shorter leave those white areas White. And just to add a few more lines on the tree. And I'm going to stop there. 6. Project: Sketching: In this video, I'm going to start off with a very quick pencil drawing. If you're not a big fan of doing this pencil sketches, you can always start straight away or with a watercolor wash. Today I chose to do this so that when I demonstrate you have an idea of where to place the washes and why. If you like to trace this line drawing, I believe a reference picture in the projects and resources section. Here I am trying to sketch out the buildings on either side and the flight of stairs. I'm trying to keep the drawing to a minimum, so I don't add a lot of details at this stage. The far end of the building that's away from us is obviously shorter. And if you notice, a top of the building is slanting and moving towards the horizon, which is at the top of the stairs. The same rule applies to the windows and the doors as well. The bottom of the building also widens as they move closer to the foreground, that towards us. And now for the details like the doors and the windows, there'll be in line with their perspective. So the bottom and the top of the doors would be slightly slanting and with the ends near to us wider than the other side. Once I've marked out all the basic shapes like the stairs or windows and the buildings. And I have an idea of how it looks in perspective. I can stop because I don't want to overwork with my pencil. Leave a lot of pencil lines on my paper. Because when I start painting with watercolors, I prefer nice and fresh without a lot of events. 7. Project: watercolour: Now that we have our pencil sketch ready, we're going to start doing a watercolor wash first, starting off with a very light watercolor wash. So I'm starting off with the buildings and using very light yellow or curve for the buildings. If you like, you can always test your colors on a separate piece of paper if you want to know what sought of pigments so you're going to use on your project. So here I'm testing it out on a separate scrap piece of paper. And once I'm happy with the pigment, I'm going to just start painting, starting off with the buildings. So I'm using the tip of my brush and just doing very minimal washes and making sure to leave a few white areas as well for some highlights. And you can see how pale my watercolor washes at this stage. It's almost as if it's just water and very little pigment in there. And at this stage I'm not too worried about where pigment is going as long as I get a nice even wash on the building. Once I have the first layer of paint down, I'm going to go in for the second layer of details. And for this, I'm going to mix a little better off bond number. Or you can even use any type of Brown you're like, just for that extra bit of details, our shadow on the building. And you can see I'm placing this color where I think is a bit more darker. So starting off with the top of the building, just under the roofs, under the windows, and under the balcony. May me and for others have used mixture of Prussian blue and some venetian red. You could even use bands CNN, IP or like, and you get these very darker browns. Again, you can see that I'm only placing it randomly, indifferent areas where I think it could be darker. And next I'm going to use the same mixture of Prussian Blue and bonds here now or oppression. Learn venetian red could also work. And I'm going to make it a bit more on the grace size, which means I've added a bit more crushing blow this time to do the inside of the windows. And now I'm going to move on to the doors. This term, I'm going to add a bit more brown. Or even, you can even use. Bond number for this to do the details on the door that has an abrupt right in front of us. At this stage, you can see that I'm only filling in the area with the color. Again, you don't need to stick to the same colors as I'm using. You might prefer another kinda door and you are free to use your own colors. Now moving on to a document, a few areas or the shadow areas on the windows. And now wonder dose as well. You can see that I'm adding in a few lines, still keeping the first layer of brown to shine through it. And now let's do the balcony door that's on top. Doing the same thing as we did for the first door. I'm going to add in very few details. And at this stage, we are not looking for a perfect door. It might look a tiny bit wonky or slanting, but it's OK because this is your artwork and do prefer it to be a bit more wonky. You are free to try that out. So I'm just filling that door side of that door with some Prussian blue and a little bit of brown as well. And making sure to leave a few highlights of whitespaces unpainted. I'm also going to use the tip of my brush to add in a tiny bit of details around that balcony. Do mainly the site of the DOE and the wall around it with a little bit more details. You could also choose to do this with your pin pen at a later stage. But if you prefer doing a lot of water Carlo's on your illustration, you can try this out with the tip off your brush and adding a little bit of shadow to the inside of that doorway as well. Just to bring in their sense of depth. Next, I'm going to move on to painting the top bit of that building. So that's the roof bit. And for that, I'm going to use venetian red. Just adding in that extra layer of a wide, a wide layer of vanishing dread and darkening the bottom of that weighed layer of rendition, Dredd would immediately create a sense of depth in there as well. And if you see I have actually left the one side of the roof unpainted. That's mainly because there's going to be a little bit of foliage that's going to come there, which you may not see right now because my pencil marks are very, very faint. Moving on to depicting some foliage in the foreground. And in those two plant parts right in front of the front door. So I'm using sap green. As you can see. I'm trying to keep the pigments to a minimum as well. So I'm not using a lot of pigment to make it complicated because this is just going to be the first wash. And I'm going to go over it with a little bit of Ben. So just doing the foliage with lasers to playing off the tip of the brush. You can also add in a tiny bit of another color. I'm using red here, just show some flowers in those parts. And that's completely optional. If you don't want to any flowers and new airports, you can just leave it. I've screened or whatever Carlo you chose it to be. And now I'm just going to paint in the part itself and I'm using venetian red for it. So making sure to leave a few white areas and not, and trying not to touch on to the green of the foliage that we just painted because it's still quite wet. And if you did touch your brown onto there, it could get a bit mixed up and muddled. So trying my best to leave a few white areas around those green foliage as we did. Once. I've placed the first layer of venetian red. I can now go on and add a few more details like the shadows with the tip of my brush and I'm using Prussian blue to dark and those areas. Now moving on, I'm going to paint the building that is far ahead of us right now. So the building or the little bit of the building that we see above the flight of stairs. And preparing some yellow ochre for this. And this time as well, I'm going to keep my washes quite diluted. So I think that pigment is a bit too much, so I'm going to take that out a little bit. So washing my brush clean and lifting out with a damp brush, I'm taking out extra pigment, making it a bit more lighter. While that layer is still wet, I am going to add in a little bit of lemon yellow with the same brush. And I'm adding some lemon yellow and it can touch the yellow ocher off that building as well. So starting off with the yellow, lemon yellow for this, for the foliage. And now I am going to add in a little bit of Sap Green over it. Continuing with my foliage, now going to do a little bit of flooded in the foreground. So I'm going to start off with a flowery tree or the bokeh in military. And I'm using permanent rose for the book in midair tree. So starting off towards the right of the foliage that we've been doing so far are continuing with the laziest to playing with the tip of my brush and keeping it quiet, dynamic, spontaneous and free. We don't need to worry too much about how they are going to look. And to make it a bit more interesting, you can always platter pinned. Now for some deeper greener in the foreground, the S4, All the foliage on the boat and building a tree. We are going to use a deeper green. So we're going to work over the lighter cameras in the background and still working wet in red. I'm only going to drop in a little bit of green where I feel as needed. That way, I do not have any hard edges and the green has blended into the background colors nicely. And for much deeper green, you can always mix a little bit of Prussian blue with the Sap Green that you're using now to guess an even more deeper green. And if you notice we are still working wet in wet. And when I drop in that deep green, it blends into the background. Green and the yellows that we had, we had used and the background. Once I'm happy with the greens now I'm going to move on to the tree bark. So for that I'm going to use a little bit of burnt umber and some Prussian blue to get a very deep brown or almost two. What's a gray side? As the tree bark is at a distance, we are not going to see a lot of details on the tree above. Sarah's starting to paint that tree trunk in. And you can see that I'm not doing a lot of details. I'm just painting that Brown mixture that I created with band and Prussian through and trying to keep it quiet, lose not overworking too much. And when you think that the pigment is too dark. You can always water it down by taking a little bit of water on your brush and painting with it on the paper. And you can see it immediately a dilutes the pigment down to create a lighter value of the same color. Once I have the whole tree trunk down, I'm going to use the same pigment to painter in tiny bits of branches in-between the foliage. So I'm using the tip of my brush for that and just painting small shock lines in-between that foliage. This tree in the alleyway is the main focus in this painting. And so anything beyond that point, especially that building area beyond that tree, is not our main concern. At the same time, we still need to paint it a little bit. So I'm going to use a very neutral shadow color, which is Payne's gray. And I'm just filling in that area, basically sticking to the shape of the building. Our next step is to paint in the stairs. So if we remember how we painted in stairs in our practice session, we're going to do something similar. So leaving a thin line of white area unpainted and filling the rest of the area with neutral tint or Payne's gray. At this point, my stairs are becoming wider now so you can see I'm leaving. Wider areas are white and I'm failing and the rest of the area, again, making sure that I'm not painting and everywhere I still need the whites to show highlights on the stairs. Now industry of leaving that area stark white, I'm just going to use a dry brush to just move my brush over that white area to create some texture on that stair. And just to create a little bit more interest, I'm going to paint in a few flowers or depict that there are few flowers that's fallen down on but stair. So adding a few squiggles or dots, just dropping in some pigment. Just at the bottom of those tears. You can even use splattered to depict this. My next step is to paint in the building on the right. So I'm going in with some yellow ochre to begin with, just like how we did the building on the left. So once I've painted in the yellow or occur, I'm now going to mix a little bit of deep ground. That's worth burnt umber and Prussian blue again. And I'm using this mixture to create the texture of bricks on that building. So for this, I'm using a dry brush technique. So for then I have to load my brush and use a tissue to take out all the extra pigment from my brush. And I can just move my brush across those walls where I need the bricks to be. That way creating a very rough lick of Greek war. And I'm going to do the same thing for the top part of the building as well, as well as the dry brush. I'm also going to use a little bit of stamping with the tip of my brush, creating tiny brick like structures on that building. Please note how I'm holding the brush. Actually holding it down in a way that the bristles of the brush can touch the paper nicely. I'm going to use a little bit of ultramarine blue for some shadow. And if you'd like your ultramarine blue to be a bit more deeper, you can always add in a little bit of venetian red. And I'm going to add in the shadow of that tree that's falling on the building. So going in with some very light stippling, continuing with placing their shadow, going to place it on the building just below that building that I just painted as well. So that is going to be more broader wash for the shadow of that building. So I'm using ultramarine blue. The clinician read to create a very bluish gray shadow for the building. Before you work on this area, we've just got to make sure that the layer underneath has dried quiet enough so that when we placed this lay off shadow infrared, it's not going to get washed out. And you can also continue to use a dry brush technique. And that way you wouldn't wash away all the textures that we did in the layer below this. And now I'm going to mix in a little bit more ultramarine blue and Venetian dread. To create the same pigment, but a much more deeper value to create some more shadows in the doorway just beside the tree. So I'm just creating a few lines just to depict a darker areas. And of course, the doorway itself needs to be slightly more darker. Doing a few more details on the far end where you can see a tiny door just above those tears. I'm just going to do a few outlines for that doorway. Using the same mixture of ultramarine blue and finishing great, I'm going to complete the pathway in front of those days. So you can see that the pigment is slightly different compared to the greyish color that we used for our shadow. So this is because I added a little bit more of a vanishing red into the ultramarine blue mixture, giving it a more brown Look. That was just a first layer of wash. And the next layer, I'm going to play there in a few more details on the cobblestones or critiques that's laid on the pathway. Just to create an illusion of Greeks are cobblestones and stamping my brush. And because it's done wet and wet, you can't really see a lot of details at this stage, which is OK, we can always come back and work on it and add an extra layer if we like. Using the same story, which is a mixture of ultramarine blue and venetian red. I'm going to deepen or dark and a few areas on this painting. And also especially the top door on the building. On the left. It is going to be a balcony. And I'm just going to paint in the underside of the balcony right now. And also a few other areas where I think darker line would benefit or it would change the whole look of the painting itself with a few darker or deeper lines. The reason why I have painted in so many layers, even though we're going to use pen over IT. S because I personally love the different layers of watercolor. And also we didn't want to use pen over it. I can always change my mind and keep it either lose watercolor painting. So we're done with the painting right now. And if you'd like to add in some characteristic lines, you can always refer to my next video where I'll be showing you how I added more lines into this painting. 8. Project: Inking and pep talk: Hello and welcome back to our project of painting this beautiful alleyway scene. So we had finished doing the watercolor bit in the previous video. And in this video I'll be showing you how we could use a few lines to enhance the whole painting. This step is completely optional and you can choose not to do it if you're very happy with your illustration, acetate is. But if you are somebody who likes a few sketchy lines over your watercolor washes. I could show you how to do this in this video. So I'm starting off with that building on my left. And I'm adding in a few details of roof on that building, mainly using small vbe lines to create the texture of the underside of Andrews. Next, I'm going to create a very rough outline for that building. I'm also going to draw the outline of the window on the side. So just the bottom bit, darkening that area, mainly because it is above eye level and you could probably see the underside of that window still assert going down with the alkaline and also adding a little bit of a window detail at the bottom nearer to the stair. Wherever I had already painted in a little bit of darker pigment. I am darkening the side of that building a little bit more just to show the detail of a pipeline going down that building. That again, is an optional thing for you to do. I don't usually plan these little details. I just go, I feel when I start doing the ink over these watercolor washes, it completely depends on the ideas that you have in your head. So if you don't prefer a pipeline down that building, you don't have to do that step. So the main thing for us to do is to try and keep it according to your interest. So this is not something that you need to completely copy what I am doing. You can keep it quite fluid and feel free to add in details that you think might be good for your illustration. A simple example would, would be to add in like a hanging basket or something on that building. That's something if that's something you would like to do, I would definitely recommend you to try that. I'm just darkening the insight of that window using ink. So if you don't really want to use ink to darken the areas, you can always go back and use a little bit of watercolor once you're finished with inking the whole illustration. Again, I'm going to do some details on that door. Mainly just enhancing the lines. All the details that aren't on this door had been decided previously while I was doing the watercolor wash. And to right now I'm just enhancing lions on these doors. For some people, you may just want to go with a quick watercolor wash and then think about adding extra details with your pen, which is also fine. That's just another way of doing it. So the little details that I've just added on to that door where especially the two tiny mock pillar lake structures on either sides of that door. Something that came into my mind just now and I just added that. So you can add in these few tiny details if you like. And again, the balcony that I'm adding right now, I hadn't painted the bars of the balcony with watercolor earlier, Iran, mainly because I thought it would be a good idea to add it in using ink. So this way, I get to choose what sort of balcony boss that I would like for this balcony. So I'm going in for slightly curved type structure. Just to add in that extra bit of interest on that balcony and now enhancing their platform right under those bars. Moving on to our next dough, I'm just going to go around the door frame, enhancing those lines, as well as darkening the areas that are in the shadow. I'm also going to depict a few details on the door offering. Mainly the brick work around the door frame. So adding in a few extra lines to show that there is brick work and some extra lines on the door itself. Just to depict. The texture of a wooden door and finishing off the bottom of the door as well. So adding in rough rectangular shape. Now, adding in all the other details like a little bit of details on the roof. It's just to show some darker areas. So we're mainly placing the lines where all you need a little bit more darker areas or to enhance or to depict a few extra details. Say, going into that door at the far end, beyond the stairway. Finishing that off with a door frame. And again, at this stage you can always add any number of details that you would like. So few prefer brick luck for the building at the far end. You can do so at this stage by adding in a few ten marks. And now moving on to enhancing those lines for the stairs as well. Making sure that I'm not overworking, mainly because I'd like to leave the whites acetate is say, I have a little bit of highlight on the stairs. And continuing with the lines or the edges of this tears enhancing deck and with my pen. As well as adding in a little bit more darker areas. In areas where I think I need it to be a bit more darker, especially the area near the tree. I feel that the stairs can be a bit more in the shadow, mainly because of the tree that's standing right above it. And with all the roots of the trees, those areas can be a bit more in this shadow and hence, it could be a bit more darker. So I'm going to go in and use a few shocked lines or what we call as hatching to add in a bit of shading or darker area to those stairs. As I move down to that wider stare area, I'm going to add in a tiny bit more details like the cobblestones on, on those stair area. So I'm going to use random triangle or rectangular like shapes to depict cobblestones or little tiles on the pathway. So these are little details that you could bring in later on as you're working with the pen. You don't necessarily have to do this while you are doing your watercolor wash. And this is one good thing about using line and wash, mainly because we can use our own creativity and add in details that we prefer to see in our pictures with our pen. So which means in that area I have very little planning. When I go about my illustrations, because I can always add in details with my pen. And for that I don't need to plan sometimes as much as I do plan for proper watercolor painting. Now I'm moving on to the next step where I'm going to do the same details as I did for this step before this. So adding in some details of tiles or cobblestones on that step, because it is wider and we can see more of that step area compared to the other steps about it. And the building on this, on the left side has got another opening or a window like opening at the bottom of that stairs, which I added in with my watercolor in the beginning. So now it's a stage where I can go and enhance that. And if you didn't warn that window there, you could probably make it into something else like a rock sitting there. Or you could use your imagination and see what you could do with different types of lines. So we're nearly at the bottom of the flight of stairs. And I'm finishing off the last step, just adding a little bit of darker area. Just to enhance that, just to show light and shadow. And for the street or the pavement right in front of those stairs, I'm going to add in some details like the cobblestones or Titles again. So before I move on to that, I'm just going to finish the platform like area on which the pots are sitting. Again, that's again, that was my imagination. That was how I wanted it. But if you didn't want your pots to be sitting on any platform like that, you can always place them on the ground and you don't have to go in and do that extra detail. It depends on how you're watercolor wash turned out to be. And depends on what your imagination is and how you'd like to use your pen mux to create extra details on your illustration. So I'm going to finish off the bottom of those tears with some details of cobblestones or tiles on that pavement. So you could choose any random geometric shapes. It could be a rectangle, triangle. It could be a bit more rough shape like a semi-circle, or it could even be like a random shape. It doesn't have to be an exact geometric shape. The only thing that you need to note is that. When they are far off from us, that's just at the bottom of those tears. The tiles are going to be much smaller. And as you work your way to work with you to the edge of the page, which is the area that would be closest to us. The tiles are going to be a bit more larger. So you have a set of tile smaller and moving on to becoming slightly larger as they come towards us. That again is in line with the perspective drawing that we've been doing before. So the things away from us are much smaller compared to the same thing if placed much more closer to us. Say, we are doing the tiles in a way that, that will create a variation of depth in this painting. A few more details of filenames, mainly on the building on the right side. I'm going to add in a little bit of details of bricks on that wall. And making sure that I'm not overworking. I don't really need to draw a rectangular shape for a break. It could be an rectangle, which means you're only doing probably two or three sides of that rectangle just to depict a rough shapes of brickwork on a building. Or if you don't want to do that, you had liked that wall to be a plane. You can always do that as well. Crm just enhancing the contours or the outlines a little bit mainly on this building, because this building has two sections to it. That's the rooftop section, as well as another section that is joining onto that wall. You would get a better idea of the sketch from my projects and resources section where I had shared line drawing of this picture. And I'm working on that door right now, just enhancing bat to start off with. And when I enhance and making sure that I'm not overworking on the areas where I like it to be lighter, but I'm working on the areas where it needs to be a bit more darker. So especially the top bit where I can see a little bit of shadow. And also adding in a little bit of stone or brick work detail. You can also add in details at the bottom of that doorway. If you think that it's very wake for you, you can always add in details of a step or anything to complete that bottom of the door. I'm also adding in a little bit of texture on on that wall again. If you remember, we did a little bit of texture with watercolors and now I'm going to enhance those textures with little bit of lines as well. So I can't really say they are rectangular shape brickwork, but I'm just doing some random lines just to enhance that area, which already has a little bit of water color texture in there. And finally to add in the fine details of a cable or a wire that's going over that building, just drawing in those lines. Or it could even be a crack on the building if you didn't want a cable or a wire going that way, you could even do like a crack on the building using append. Again, those are the different types of things that you could do, but depend and feel free to add in any details that you prefer in your illustration. It doesn't have to look exactly like mine. It's completely your choice of adding different types of elements in your illustration. And finishing off that tree with a little bit more details. Just a few lines to enhance that tree. Mainly just to enhance the darker areas are the areas that are in the shadow. Finishing off the lines on that building. These are the little details that you could just go ahead and try different types of lines on which your pen. So if you'd like a bit more details or texture on your tree, you can add it with your pen at this stage. And if you prefer to leave the foliage capacitors, if you, if you love the kind of watercolor wash that we did and you want to leave it that way just to show off the watercolor washes, you can leave it unpainted. So I think we're nearly at the end of file painting and illustration with the pen. I hope you really enjoyed this project as much as I did. And I hope to see at least some of your works in the projects and discussion session. Please feel free to contact me in the same section. If you like to talk about your illustration or if you wanted to share your process, or if you wanted to ask any questions regarding this project. And I'm always happy to help you with that happy painting. Everyone.