Transcripts
1. What will you discover in this Class?: When I think of autumn, I think of toadstools, I really think
toadstools and autumn, they just go together. And when it's autumn here in
the Netherlands and I start walking around hunting
for mushrooms, toadstools are always there. In this class, we're
going to paint a beautiful toadstool together
on a postcard with gas. I'm going to show you how to paint a fairly detailed postcard without going overboard in the details because it
still is a postcard. So we want to create a
reasonably quick painting, omitting some things
and focusing on what is important to paint a beautiful
autumn scene in gas. Together we're going to work on all the aspects of
a Gah painting. The sketch, the background,
the main elements, the light and
shadow, the details, and of course, some
nice finishing touches. By the time we're done,
we've got some nice skills, techniques and a beautiful
autumn postcard.
2. Materials we're using in this Class: Before we start painting
our postcard, we of course, need to know what we need to successfully
paint this postcard. I'm going to take you through
all the materials needed in this class so that you are ready to paint this beautiful
scene together with me. You see some materials
on my desk already. We're going to talk
about what we need to paint this postcard. The first thing which
we need is some paper. What I'm using is hot, pressed smooth watercolor paper. This is a very inexpensive paper which I got here locally
from a local supplier. You don't need expensive paper. If you want to have that laying around, that's fine with me. I'm using hot press and YI am using hot press
to smooth paper because it just brings
out the details and the colors nice and sparkling. And guash has this tendency
to dry up really dull. But by using this paper, as you can see here, you
get a nice brighter image. If you want to use a
different kind of paper, just watercolor paper or a mixed media
paper, that's fine. But then just use
a watercolor or mixed media paper that
will take the paint. But preferably get
some hot press paper. You don't need to buy
an expensive brand, just some hot press
paper will do to paint. We're going to
need some brushes. Of course, I'm using
this set of brushes, inexpensive set of brushes. I've got a flat brush, 12 and a round brush, 12. Somewhere around those
numbers you need. So that's pretty
much not too large. Medium digs will be large, it's somewhere in between. The next thing I'm
using is a round brush. Five, the very small zero. If you have a one or lower
than a zero, that's fine too. That's for the details, A range of round and a flat
brush to be able to paint. Of course, we need some paint. Now I'm using the
standard set of the royal tiles designer. You can use any, got any brand you want will
work. That is fine. I'm going to just call
out the colors in this. There is a range of colors and I'm making use of
that range of colors. First of all, we it's not
the first paint we're using. Actually, it's a later
paint we're using. But the first color is white, then there is a yellow. I'm using a regular yellow. If you have a different kind
of yellow, lemon yellow, or mid yellow, that is okay
too, not too dark yellow. The next thing then
would be pretty much close to the yellow
is a yellow ochre. If you don't have a yellow
ochre but regular ochre, then you can mix it with the yellow to get a
slightly lighter tint. I'm also using a brown. This is a burned sienna. If you have a
brown, that's fine. I'm using a burned sienna, we're going to need a green. I'm using a viridian or some
call it I think emerald, but that is a mid tone
green light, not a dark. If you have a lighter green, you can mix it with some blue. If you have a very dark green, you could mix it with some
yellow to get a lighter tone. And we're going to do
some mixing actually, But it's more of a mid green. So I can go both ways
to light and dark. As you can see in the picture, there's light and dark in it. All right, The next thing you're going to need
are some blues. I'm using a atomarine
deep and a Pruscian blue. If you only have one blue, that's not a big issue. I'm only going to use this altomarine deep for the
background a little bit. Yes, there's altmarine in there. You don't see it like
this, but it is there. And the Prucian blue
is a bit darker blue. I'm going to use for the
shadows, darker tones. And then the last
thing are two reds. I'm using a familiion, a lighter red, and a
carmine, A darker red. That's pretty much it.
White. A yellow ochre. Preferable, a lighter ochre. Then a brown, not a
really dark brown brown, a mine green, a lighter
blue and a darker blue, and a lighter red,
and a darker red. All right, that's the paint. The next thing we're
going to use is a palette to mix our paint on. Here's my palette. Just
a plastic palette. If you want to use a plate, Tear off palette cardboard, some plastic or wood
that would be fine too. Something to mix the paint on. Two bowls to put in some water, One for clean and
one for rinsing. And we're going to
do some drawing. So you may need a pencil
and an erasor and a sharp. And HB, I'm using an HB, don't use a two B, free B or whatever that Mars in. You get a darker tone from that that mixes in
with the paint. Just HB is fine. Don't use a heart
because you might damage the paper HB something
or a number two pencil. I think it is in the States
just a regular pencil. I'm using a mechanical pencil, but any pencil is fine. The next thing you may
need is some towel, like this paper towel
to dry the brush on. You can use a cloth
to that's fine, and top some things away
if we make a mistake. Now one thing you won't see me using is this masking tape. But you could use that
to put down the paper on wherever you're
painting on so that it doesn't move and
doesn't buckle as much. I'm going to leave it
just like this loose, but you could tape it down
with some masking tape. Some sensitive masking
tape would work the best. If you don't put it
down, then you might run the risk as I have
to get paint that is on your surface onto the
back of it, that could be. The disadvantage
is that of course, you get a little bit of a white board that
looks pretty nice, or you could just cut your
paper slightly larger, then tape it down and cut it in the end. That would work too. The final thing
I'm using is this a hair dryer to
speed up the drying. You don't have to use it. If
you want to let it air dry, take breaks between
the painting sessions, then you can do that too, of
course, but I'm using that. The last thing is the reference. We're going to use
this reference from a photo I've taken. We're going to just
loosely use it as a guide for our painting and it's supplied with
this class, of course. I've also supplied the sketch, which we're going to
make with the pencil. If you rather look
at that sketch before you start painting,
that is fine too. If you don't want
to sketch at all. Well, that's okay too. All right. I think that is it. We've got everything we need
so we can start painting. Okay, so now we've got all the options.
All the materials. So I would say getting
your materials and then we can start painting
in the next lesson.
3. Creating a background and Sketching: For this Autumn Postcard. We're going to start with painting the
background together. I'm going to show you how to very quickly and easily paint a background that creates a nice contrast with
what the final, I was going to say,
the final subject, the main subjects
are going to be. We need some contrasting
colors so that the toadstool and the greenery will come out really nicely. In this lesson, I'm going
to show you how to do that. I've set everything up that I'm going to need, and
here's my reference. I'm going to put
this reference to the site so that I
can clearly see it. You can't see it anymore, but you have your own reference. What we're going to do first, we're not going to
draw in the reference, we're actually going to
add the background first. Then we're going
to let that dry. And then I'm going to draw on the background the toadstool, and the other things I
want for the background, I'm going to use a flat brush. I'm going to use
the flat brush 12. But you could also use a larger flat brush
or a smaller one. That's up to you or larger
would go quicker, wouldn't it? Now, the background
on the photo is a bit boring and I don't
want all of that on it, But we're going to make
a nice background color. I'm going to start with
mixing a few colors. I'm going to pick yellow ochre. I'm going to take
a blue with that, I'm going to pick a yellow,
whatever yellow you have. I'm having just a regular
yellow, ultramarine, deep. And these three colors
I'm going to mix for a background and may create a little bit of an
interesting background, starting with the yellow ochre. Putting that down
here a little bit. Next I'm going to away from
it a little bit of blue. I want some of this
yellow right next to it. I want to lighten that
yellow ochre a little bit. All right. Put my sleeves, I've got two balls of water. This will be my clean bowl. This will be my rinsing bowl. So I'm going to take water
from the clean bowl. I'm to pick up that
blue with some of that yellow and that ochre. I'm going to mix these colors into an interesting background
color. There we go. This will be my background
color, blue ochre. If you have a really dark ochre, you may just use
some yellow with it. Then picking up a little
bit of the blue with it. Slightly different
tint. There we go. This will be my
background, not yellow. I'm picking up some water
now so that I can add my background color
a bit better. There we go. I want to
just paint my color in. Now what you can do, you can
go all the way to the edges. If you do that, you may
want to put a paper on it if you can see
what I'm doing. I'm just making
strokes like these, but I'm not going all
the way to the edges, I'm picking up some water. Again, this will be a nice
contrast color to all of the darker colors we're going
to use for this last one. As you can see, I'm
only picking up water. I want to spread out this paint, fin it a little bit. And as you can see, what
happens to the paper is that by just
adding some water, it will start to
buckle a little bit. There we go. Now I'm going to the edges and what you could have done, what I haven't done
is you could have taped down your paper. I'm hoping it's dry there. There we go. And there's
my background color. We'll let this dry. That shouldn't take too long. And once it dry, go
down a little bit, it buckles now, but
once it's dry it down. Now, for drying, if you want
to speed up the drying, what you can use is hair
dry, Simply like that, you can go over it a few times
and then it dries quickly. Let me see if I can connect this somewhere that will
make some noise and putting it on the
middle heat the 'dr hopefully you can still hear me making sure I'm not
drying all my paint. And there we go. Oh, as you can see now
that it's dry again, it just stops buckling
the way it is. All right, that's my background. The next step is I'm want
to draw in my subject. The subject is of the too, which disappeared
from my reference, so I've got to get it back. The now, looking
at my reference, it might take about half of it, a little bit less than
half of the paper. It's not on the bottom totally. I'm going to do, I'm going to simply start
with the cap I want. The cap I'm seeing
in my reference, the cap is around the middle, It's not straight, it's a
little bit under an angle. I'm just going to sketch in
very simply a line like that. If we do it slightly taller than what it is on the
reference, that's okay. I actually might want
to have it slightly taller to fill up a little
bit more of the paper. Now the cap itself
is nicely rounded. What I'm going to
do is half of it, I want to end up there. I have a reference point where I want to end
up and I'm going, seeing that this is a bit
rounded and I'm going to go sketch towards my top. I'm going to do the
same at the other side, this is slightly rounded. I'm just going to simply
make that sketch. This thing is a little
bit in the way for me, but for the camera set up, I'm going to leave
it right there. There's my cap now. I don't think it's
rounded enough. I'm going to do it, I'm going
to put it slightly higher. That's the nice thing about
creating a sketch first. You can create it as you want. And I'm not worried about these lines because we're going to put paint over it and in the end you won't see the paint anymore. The next thing is
we're going to put in the stark the stem of the. To move it over slightly. Yeah, that can so that
I have some room to draw it totally straight line. We're going to give it a little bit of a
curve at the end. I'm going to do the
same right there. It's not totally straight, slightly under an angle. Now right here, there's some
brown leaves on the photo. What I'm going to do is I want to pretend those
brown leaves are just some ground as if it is a little bit
on a hill like that. Now, I cut my reference now. The rest I'll probably
just paint in. I know there's this leaf here. I might just draw that in just some rough
lines like that. I'm just looking
at the reference, drawing what I'm
seeing. There you go. There's a little
branch going there. Now we're going to
bring in some color. Let's see, there's
one back here too. I might one draw. There you go. And
then there's one back right here,
slightly under it. It's a bit higher than
what I'm drawing it. There you go. There
we have the plants, We have that and the rest of the plants we're just
going to draw in. I'm going to do it like this. That basically is my
sketch for the toad. From here I can start
of working, well, the start of our
postcard is there, but we, of course, can't
send this to anybody. We need some nice
subjects on it. And that's for the next
lesson, we got our background. In the next lesson, we're
going to start painting in the main elements that will be the focus of this postcard.
4. Working on the major Shapes: Now that we have our background, we can start painting
our main elements. For that, we're going to use a technique called blocking in. We're going to paint
the main elements very roughly so that
we know exactly where they are and then we can start refining them
in the next lessons. First we're going to
determine what colors to use, where the main elements are. We already know from the photo, I want to show you how to
paint them in and how to start approaching a quash painting after you've done
the background. Well, we've got this, we've
got the sketch and the rest, what is in the photograph, I'm just going to paint, draw paint in loosely. But now I've got a reference
where I got a paint. Now let's start with
this toadstool. Let's start with the cap of the toadstool.
The hood, the cap. I want to pick the brush. 12. Pick up some clean water. What I'm going to do, I want to start with a yellow color. Let's see if I can get a yellow. Really yellow. Let's make sure
this is the right yellow. A little bit of yellow. Put
that on the cap. Why yellow? Because if I use a yellow, I'm going to brighten
that red a little bit. That is the whole idea. As you can see, I'm
adding some water. This is still quite wet. Make sure we're
preventing to dry colors. We want to have some wet colors but not as wet as the
background that was really wet. Somewhere in between. We're treating the gage as
water color paint steel. So there's the cap. There you go. I'm going to
look at the photo reference. I'm going to say, well, might do these leaves in a
little bit yellow too. To brighten that green, I've got a quite dark green, so I'm going to put
some yellow under it. All right. I've
lowered this a little bit so I can see it
slightly better. Just too far away. And it's all as well. You still should see it really well. There you go. If you add over the paint,
the drawing, of course, will slowly but surely
disappear if needed. You may want to draw in some of the things that
are disappearing. Now, I want to spread
this out a little bit n this stage is quite rough. There you go. And that is okay. Now we've got the subject. I want to clean my brush. This is dirty already
so I'm going to use this S pick up color. All right. While that is drying, I'm going to do the ground, I'm going to use this color
which I already mixed. But I'm going to add
some burn shenna to it in the corner there. A little bit of burn
shenna mix these. I want to add some browns, wet my brush, Pick
up this color, this is still quite wet. I might just mix these
in. That would work good. This is quite a dark color. Loaded up my brush
with this color, mixing that in a little
bit with that color. I mixed before the yellow, the blue, and the ochre. All right, that is nice. And I'm going to
paint this stage in roughly slightly different
than the photograph. To make it myself a
little bit more easy, may need to work away
the pencil parts. Treating this more like a
sketch like this on the bottom. I might not actually
do much about this anymore grass later
on in front of it. There you go. I'm going
to let this dry now. That should be pretty dry area. What would be next is
adding some red light. I'm pretty much going to follow the photograph more or less. Have the light a little
bit from the top site. Top there, This side. A little bit for the red. I'm going to start
with a famillion. That's the color I have
put a little bit down, make sure the brush is clean and I'm picking
up this pure familiion, but water is loaded on my brush, and now I should get a nice mix. Going towards the
orange, not to red. There we go. Now I need to make sure I'm actually getting rid of these lines here. Now in the photo, there's
all scales on it. We're going to add them.
Lastly, with some white. There you go. We're going to let this dry. We'll put this brush aside. I'm going to swap brush, smaller brush for the brush. Five, I've got, if you've got a slightly different
size, that's okay. I want to pick up that green, quite a dark green fid
the only green I have. But that's the green
that came with this set. But I think I need to some
clean water. This is too dark. I'm going to mix that
with the yellow to make a nicer lighter green. There you go. You
can work with this. See, now I create a
much lighter green. And while this is drying, I want to add a layer of
this green on my leaves. And later we have to
bring back the overlap here and the large leaf, pick up a little bit of water and add some more of this green. And now this little
branch is gone. So I'll have to bring that back, make sure I'm
working away all of my pencil lines here too. And there we go. We got
the main subjects on our painting. All right. I'm going back to
the other brush, get some water, and I want to add another layer
of this red on top of it. And there we go. All right, well, let this dry now. This is almost dry.
This is drying nicely. I want to add that right there. Where is pencil line? I want to dry this. When
it's dry, I'll be back. I'm now going to add the
branches of the leaves. I'm going to use the zero, the small brush for. I'm going to paint
that over and will do the same color for
now as the ground. If I have that, I'll
need to add that. And there we go. All right. Good. All right,
and I want to clean that brush. There we go. And I'm going to go back to this green brush and I want to add some
darker green tones. So I want to clean it. I'm going to pick up that green. I have Ford. I'm going to see where I want some of the edges to be darker. If I have my son somewhere coming from this
direction a little bit, then under here I may want
to add some darker colors, not under brown itself, although there is some
green in the brown. We'll add that. I'm going to spread this out a little bit, create a little bit of a blend. We're actually looking more
or less at the bottom of this leaf by doing this with that still wet brush, we're getting a nice
blend of green. I'll leave this
edge a little bit, and now I need to
go to the brown. And there we go, nice. I'm doing the same on this leaf, but this leaf gets
quite some sun. This leaf I need to bring back, it's going over the other
leaf at the bottom. I'm going to add
that darker color. There you go. And I'm going to do the same
with this leaf. Might extend that, leave a little bit to get
a bit nicer shape. There we go, Look at that, that's nicer, Darken
it there slightly. There we go. Only here. Missed a little bit of a darker
color. Yeah, I like that. There you go, Go to
clean this brush. Now I've got some yellow still. See if I can pick
that yellow up. I can without any of that green. So I want some yellow. I'm holding my brush
a little bit where the sun hits slightly here too. I'm going to add some yellow. And now I'm going
to clean my brush. I need a paper towel. I'm going to dry it, and
this paint is still wet. I'm going to mix that
in. There you go. To get a bit of a
transition in colors, I want some of that
pure yellow back. I'm using the yellow as a
highlight on some more of it. There we go. Okay, there they go. Now, the leaves are looking
a lot nicer already. I'm going to let
that, the next thing, this should be dry too. I'm going to that red, but I want a dark, I could
pick a dark, I have a carmine. Or I could mix in a little
bit of black or blue with it. I'm going for that carmon
that is a nice color, but I don't want to use
this large brush anymore. So what I'm going to do
is I'm want to clean this brush and I'm going
to put this aside. I'm going to swap
to that brush five, making sure I got most of that. Yeah, green out, picking up some water here will load
my brush with water. What we're going to
do is the next color is we're going to get some
detail like we have here. Nice dark red. There you go, at the bottom and at the site. And now I'm going to do
the same as with the leaf. I'm going to mix this in, creating a nice color. I'm using the side of my brush. There we go, spreading
it out even more. The brush itself is now slowly but surely
running out of paint. Not here because I'm picking it up and that will give
me a nice blend, picking up some of
that dark color. Again, definitely at this site, I want it to be darker
on the here too, and around here, I want
it to be dark too. Now let me mix this in a little bit using
some loose strokes. Now let's use the flat side
again to mix this in nicely. There we go. That will give
that interesting effect. All right, I need to clean this brush and I want to
meet this dark color, that lighter color I still
have here on this side. I'm going to add some of that light color and I'm
going to mix that in this. They go to get a nice transition
between the two colors. There we go. See, now that
looks good. Here you go. Well, let's pick
up some of that. Dark, but now
really figure dark. And go for this side here, there we go. I'm going to
let that dry, that's good. Clean my brush and I'm
going to let this dry. And for the next lesson, we're going to add the stock in it. Well, our painting is starting
to look like something, but not something I
would send to somebody. We're not at that stage yet. We're going to do some refining
on what we've painted, and that will be for
the next lesson.
5. Painting the Stalk and Details: The next step in our Autumn as postcard is to refine
what we have painted. We now got the major
shapes really roughly. So we're going to refine this process a little
bit more so that we're going to get closer to the
final outcome that we want. All right, everything is dry. The next thing I'm
going to do is I'm going to add the stock. Now, I don't want pure white. I want a little bit of
an ochre with white. So I'm going to find my
yellow ochre that is here. I'm going to add a little
bit of yellow ochre. That is not good oily substance. There we go, That's better. With that yellow ochre, I'm going to get my white. That's probably going to
have the same problem. I'm going to use more
of that white later on. I'm going to get that brush. That brush five, I'm
going to use for this, I'm going to clean it. All right? I definitely need to
mix a little bit. And while I'm mixing
it, I'm going to put it in a different part there because I only
want a bit of it Now, clean my brush nicely, pick up some white and mix this in to a much lighter color. I like that a lot better. There we go, add some
water to it, it will flow. I'm going to put down that
color on this side to see what that color looks
like. That is good. Look at that. We can use this very nice
space for the color. As you can see, I'm
using some strokes like this to get my bearing. But once I've done that, I'm going to pull that down. And I want these
vertical strokes on the stalk of the mushroom, for sure the stott, they go. That looks nice. That
is the dark base. Now, want to work away
the lines on the edge? Let's add another layer of
this color at the bottom. I'm going to make it a
little bit interesting, Not so straight. Here you go. Good. While we have this color, I want to rinse my brush. I want to add now some
more white to this color. I want to use that
for the scales. Definitely, although it might be slightly too early
for the scales, Let's add the lighter version
first to create a light. Now, I don't want
to touch there. That is where it is darker. We're going to add
some shadow there. I think I want it
right here with some loose strokes.
There you go. I'm going to let that dry. I'm leaving the marks, the strokes definitely in. And I'm going to let that dry. Nice white lighter color. I'm going to put
this brush aside. I want to get the
brush zero again, rinse that a little bit. We pick up this same color. I'm going to use this as a
highlight color on the leaves, a little bit on the
edge of the leaves. Oh, this is not the right brush, I'm noticing now this
is a flat brush. Zero, I think. A round brush. Okay, well, I'm making use
of the flat side then. Create a little bit
of a distinction between the edge and
the other colors. There's some light on that. All right, I'm going
to let this dry. I might go back to
the hood now or I might add some
darker color there. Now, let's do the darker
color there first. Let me clean this brush.
This is definitely not the right brush. I found the round brush
instead of that flat brush. I'm going to put that flash
brush, flat brush away. I don't want to use that. All right. Let's see what
we're going to do next. We've got all of this, we've got the toads to
which looks pretty good with this small brush, I go round brush zero. This should be the
right one. I want to pick up some white
just a little bit. I want to add some highlight
that I'm dipping this in. These are not going
to be the scales. This is going to be high light. And I'm going to clean
that brush right away. Pick up some water. I'm going to mix this in
with the color to create, as you can see, this
high light effect. There you go, that looks
good on the edges. I want to pull it into the paint a little bit with the
flat side of the brush. Make a transition
a little bit here to pick up a little bit of that. White might want to
have slightly more on top but not that strong. I'm mixing that in.
There you go again, so you get a nice highlight. There we go. See we've got
some nice light parts. We've got some nice dark parts. We've got some highlights
on that. Looks good. Now on the stark itself,
I might want to, at the edge, pick up some
of the white right away. Now it's pretty much pure white. There we go. I like that. We'll leave that to dry. I'm
going to clean this brush. I'm going to use it
again. We're going to take a darker blue. I'm going to use a prucian blue. Put that in one of
these slots there, that will be my
dark shadow color. Rinse my, pick up some water. Pick up some of that paint. See, I'm making a
pool of water there. I don't want this pure. I want this to be, oh, that is too wet. Let's get it a little bit
stronger, not too wet. And with that light brush, I'm going to add
a line like this. Next, I'm going to
just rinse my brush, dry it now, it's a really
dry brush from this hip. I'm picking up this paint. I'm going to paint
that right here. See what happens. You
get a nice shadow color. I'm doing that here again, I'm picking up that paint. I'm on a little bit of a
shadow color right there. This is a bit natural create that Slightly more natural
might be slightly too much. While I have it
still on the brush, that's pretty much gone. Let's wet the brush, and wet this a little bit better
so that I can create, again, a nice transition
between all these colors. And that's the nice thing about you can activate it again. There we go. I like that. A better pull that
into this color. See, now we get some
interesting shadows going on a little bit on
the bottom there. There we go. Now it's starting to look
really nice, doesn't it? Some darker shadows which
are pulled into the lighter. If you want to bring back
some light colors here, you're just going to
rinse this brush. And what you do is pick up
some white paint that in, paint that back again. This, I think I might like this and not
touch that anymore. It looks nice. Clean my brush and so you can bring them back, you could use that middle
color to All right, let's see, we've got this now. This looks good. Highlights
some shadows here. There is some highlights,
some shadows on it. I don't think I
want a difference. There might perhaps do under
edge, pick up that blue. Not too much. A little bit of an edge at the
bottom here too. And down there.
Yeah, I like that. I want to do the same
pull that color. Into the other
colors so that you get a little bit of an
interesting transition. Now the sleeve is getting
larger and larger. I don't want that. Let's
leave that too dry. That looks nice, good. Might add slightly stronger
color. There you go. At that edge, right? And we're going to
leave that now. This is nice and dark. If you want this edge
to be slightly darker, of course you can
do the same thing. Add in some of the blue
That will work very well with, as you can see, the red to just at the bottom
to create a nicer shadow. There we go, That looks good. Now what I want on this ground, while I have my blue, I'm going to add a little bit of a shadow right here
from that toadstool. There you go. And at the
bottom a little bit too. We're creating some
depth this way. Pulling this again while
the brush is getting dry, and pulling this color into
that brown a little bit, creating a nice transition. I think that looks good. Nice, Okay, Picking up
a little bit of that blue a little bit where these
guys are just a little bit. And we got to do
something with these still because these are
now stalks branches, what they are branches stalks the officially branches I
guess because this is going some plant with that small brush going to give this definitely
a nice shadow site. If I run out of paint I'm picking up from the larger pool. Again, it's tricky. Stop at the bottom, think I'm
cut a little bit too much. And if I cut a
little bit too much, you can see I'm
just pulling away. See, now I get a better car. I'm just putting it on my tray and that way I get less paint. All right. But that
looks nice, doesn't it? Good. Might strengthen
this edge down here that is really in shade and add some
texture to it, a little bit of random texture. I'm going to do that here too, and definitely on this one, a little bit. There you go. I'm going to leave
that too dry and I'm going to add a light edge there. I want to pick up that yellow. That should still
be active. It is. We'll see if it
is not too runny, why it is too runny,
but we're okay. Might have picked
up slightly thicker yellow to get slightly better color. There we go. And I'm
going to add some yellow there to get rid of that blue. And this we need to mix in
now a little bit with green. There you go. To get
back a bit of that, better stock color
or branch color. There you go. I'm
going to leave that to dry. It looks nice, good. All right, we'll leave
this now to dry. In the next lesson, we're
going to continue this. Our postcard is looking
better and better, but still not something
I would send to someone. We need some more details and some more elements on
it. We're not done yet. In the next lesson,
we're going to just take the next step in creating
this beautiful postcard.
6. Refining our Postcard and adding the Ground: The intro of this lesson
can be really short. We're going to add some
details to our postcard. It's looking good, but it can look a lot better when we start adding some really nice details to make this postcard pop. All right, let's do that. We're going to do the scales. For the scales, we're
going to use the white and some of
that yellow ochre. And I mix that here already. Let's see if this
is still working. Yes, I mix some of that
yellow ochre and that white. I'm going to use
that as a base and then light it up
with pure white. Let's see, I'm going
to add some scales, more or less stipling these
scales at some points. I'm noticing there's
on the photo, a lot of them on the bottom, but I don't want to put them, so I want to do it
a little bit more like this and here too. Definitely add one here and you can put them actually where you would like them to be. There's one on here. There you go. And
small one there. I want one there. Maybe
I want one there. Oh, I like this. Look at that. I want one on top, definitely. There's another one there. Do the slightly
better move them, making sure they're
also under it. There you go. Adding one there. I think I want to keep
my nice rounded too. I think I might just do it like this and now I'm adding
another layer to make sure I really see that these are my skills with
that very small brush. I'm just stabbing, stippling these skills and I'm not pressing
hard on the brush. Here you go, Nice. Good. I'm going to cleanse that brush, cleanse, clean, cleanse, wet it. I'm going to pick
up some pure white. Now that is too. I'm want to dry it on
some of the pure white. And on the top edge
of the scales, I'm going to add a little bit of a high light color that really starts
to pop a little bit. These are two, I'm going
to make sure they are two. These on the top a little bit, he now, those don't
really catch a highlight. I want to clean this brush. The next thing I'm
going to do now, this is going to be
slightly tricky dry brush. There should be some
of that blue left. I'm loading up my brush
but I not a wet brush, It is quite dark
but I don't want that strong color
where I laid it off. So I want the
lighter blue color, which I'm going to do next with this small brush
at, at the back. A little bit of shadow very carefully. Let's not say dry brush, it's more a little
bit of a damp brush. By doing this. Now these skills definitely start to show that is not a skill,
that is a high light. That is a skill. There you go. I think I picked enough. I want these two. There
you go. Look at that. I'm not going to
touch this anymore. That looks pretty good. All right. So we've
cut this so far. I've got my
toadstools clear as I wanted cut the ground is a little bit boring.
I've got these leaves. What we're going to do next is the reference has some
bit of moss in it. We'll add some. Yeah,
something like it. With this small brush, I'm
going to use this color here. I've wetted this, which I
have that lighter green. I definitely want to
use that sea now. It's activating slowly. Again, if it's totally
dry on your palette, just add some water. Load up your brush with water. You can use this color again. I can use this. Let's see, I'm going to add
some of this grass. I want to make sure I'm adding that one blade of
grass that is in the photo. And actually pull it
all the way up there, turn it into a
blade a little bit. There you go. See that changes my whole painting right away. As you can see,
this is fairly dry. Someone adds some more
water still to it. For the other parts, it's get some more parts. And this is going
with loose hand, adding some blades
that makes it easier. Add the blades of grass
instead of all this muss. But now I'm going to add
with the stipling, again, turn the blades into a bit
more of this muss stuff that makes it interesting to add here one carefully, the ego in front of it. I want to keep this
interesting line so I'm not going over it. There you go. I might
need some large ones. I'm just going to pull
some strokes here. I need to be careful. There we go. Look at that. That looks a lot
better right away. Let's add some down here to my brush is running out
but it's a good thing. All right. Good. I like that. Now on the photo, there's
all kinds of things going in the back to a lighter grass. We could add that
probably that would work. Clean the brush. We've got this
brownish, yellowish, brownish color what we made, Pick up the white, add that
to it and activate this. This is going to be a
different color now. We're going to add some blades. I'm going to pick up some
of the paint right there. Make sure I have a
point on there you go, that works point on my brush. I was going to say,
and on the back here on some of this
color, let that dry in. I need some water. Not behind here. There's
actually nothing there, some over the grass to
create some interest. And there you go, see not, not sure if the
camera picks that up, but I'm getting a lighter
dried grass behind there, which I want, I want there. Let me add some there too. There you go. Think
I'm getting there. I may want to add some of that
color also here in front. So that is obvious that there is some dry grass
here too. There you go. Okay, that looks better. Now we're getting some depth to the next last thing is now it's going to
be the tricky part. We're going to add some darker
green to clean my brush. See if I can activate
that darker green. Yes, I still can, and I need
a nice point on my brush. Now we're going to here and
there add a few strokes of this darker
color in it to see. And now you're getting some
nice interesting depth. Let's add a little bit here too. And I'm letting this
brush run out, dry up. So these strokes getting
fainter and fainter. There you go. I like that
sea. That looks good. And now we've got a nice scene. All right, good at sea. Now you could add some yellow, if that would work on
the background we have, we can try it no slightly, but not a real strong. If you add it over here a
little bit here and there. Just a few strokes, not too many of yellow. There we go. I like this. I want to think about what
I'm going to do here. Still want to leave it
like that on that color? I might just leave it like that. I think I like it like this. Our postcard is really
starting to look good and this is something you
could send to somebody. But in the next lesson, I want to add some
finishing touches to just make it totally complete and perfect so that it can go to whoever
you want to send it to.
7. The Finishing Touches: We arrived at the final
stage of our postcard. It's looking good, but we
can go one step further, add some finishing touches, and that is what I want to
show you in this lesson. I filmed the last lesson where I was going to
correct my mistakes, add a little bit enhance
things a little bit, and for some reason, the
camera did not film it all. So I have to do it. But I can't go back since
what is here is here already. So I've created two
paintings, you see here. I created a little
bit of a new one to show you how to correct the mistake and also to show you how different the cold
pressed water color look. Now some people really
like this look. I really like this
because it's brighter. Colors are nice and smooth and here you get all
the texture Ford. And sometimes you just
want a nice smooth. I prefer working
with Guash on this, but that's a
personal preference. But for this class,
I get these nice, bright, strong colors and
that is what I wanted. All right, let me show you
how to correct the mistakes. First of all, we're going
to need that paper. The mistakes which I had, which are now gone
were in the leaves, the grass behind
it, I put over it. So that is a mistake, because now that looks strange, how to correct that, is to simply pick up some clean water. But not get a wet, wet brush. But a little bit
of a damp brush. That's why I press it
on the paper and then start mixing this in like this. There we go. And we're going to do it the same
here too with a damp brush. Correct that mistake like that. And I'll pick up some water. I want to create a little
bit of a better transition. Now, there you go. The other way to correct
this is very obvious. I'm going to go do it there. If you still have
the same color, which I probably have
a little bit of here, is just pick up the paint
and start painting there, correct it that way over it. Now, the mistake is
gone to two ways, whichever way you prefer. Now you see the difference. This makes it slightly darker, this makes it slightly lighter. That depends on the subject. Now, this part where I've
come wrong was light, so it didn't really
matter that much. That's to correct mistakes. You can do it with a damp
brush or just paint over it with that nice and
easy here mistake too. With the M brush,
now it is gone. That is the first thing. The next difference you
probably see is around here. I added a little bit of green. Now there is this
trans, bit harsh. And I said, now I want a bit of a transition from the green, the grass to the ground. What I've done, I mixed the light color again
and I'm picking it up from my palette
yellow with my green. I painted it in.
But as you can see, this is way too strong. It's way too dark. By the way, by picking up some
water, I paint this in. And I'm going to do
the same here too. This is not strong enough. There you go. And the
next thing what I did, I cleaned my brush like this. And now with the dry brush, while almost dry
brush, it's still wet. I made this transition between
the brown and the green, mixing them basically
a little bit. Now, this is a bit
too strong here, so I need to add a little bit of green
back here. There you go. Let's do that here
too. That's better. There you go. I made the
transition from to the brown. Clean the brush a
little bit and pick up a bit of that
green and spread it a little bit playful like
that. That's what I did there. Then let it dry and you get a little bit better
transition that way, not that harsh line like we
have here with the mushroom. I think that is fine.
With the toadslsin. We added the shadow and
there is a transition. But with the grass, I
wanted a little bit of a transition,
That's what I did. And you can play a
little bit with that. You could add a little bit of more color and dab
it in like this, make it look a little bit more
grass like. There you go. The next thing you see is difference are these dark spots. And that is very simple. I want to add a little
bit of life to it. Like not everything is straight, straight blades of grass, but a little bit of variation
because it was moss. In the photograph, I picked
up reasonably dark color. What I did was with my pen pen, with the brush, start stippling. If you press really
lightly, the light ones, and if you press a bit harder, you get the big figure that changes the
whole few from this. Or if even here you can
see how different that is. Now, that went a little
bit wrong, too much, but could spread this
out, there you go. And now it's few
blades of grass. And that is what
I did there once. The brush was more or
less dry, which is not. Now I added a bit of
background texture like this, then you get even a bit more
interest, there you go. And then I let it dry. That is the differences I did. The rest is pretty
much the same, but I I added these darker
spots and I did not sptter. You could splitter this too, but I don't want it to
go all on the toadstool. So I need to protect some of it. I'll sptter with
my hand like that. That's basically the difference. All right, that's it. Now I've corrected
my filming mistake, which I discovered after, when I started to add it,
that something was missing. And that is the changes between the previous
lesson and this lesson. Good. Now you also
have the difference between the smooth paper
and the bit rougher, cold pressed. And
this is hot pressed. Well, this postcard is done. It is looking good. And I have no issue with sending
this to somebody. And whoever receives
this postcard will be very happy with
this lovely scene. In the next lesson, we're
going to look at the project, give you another assignment, because now we have
get some techniques. But we can do more with
these techniques of course, but that's for the next lesson.
8. There's much more to Autumn: So you arrived at
the last video. That means you have
a lovely postcard. Thank you for being
with me in this lesson. I really enjoyed creating it, but don't run yet. Hang on. I want to give you an
extra project to do now. We've done a toadstool
with some green in it. But with these techniques
we have picked up in the lessons you can
create more postcards of. I would challenge
you to either go outside if it is autumn
and find some mushrooms, not at to different mushrooms. Leave them where they
are. Take a photo or look online plenty of
photos of mushrooms. And create another postcards
in autumn setting. Once you've done with it, I would love to see
what you have created. You can post your
results of the class and the extra project here at the project section
at Skillshare. Then we can all see it and enjoy the beautiful artworks
you've created. Now if it is not
autumn at your place or you can't find
any autumn images, I've supplied an
extra reference, as you can see already here for you to use in the extra project. If you can't find anything, use that image and create
another postcard with that.
Benjamin A, Art Teacher, illustrator Art by Benjamin
