Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to this intermediate watercolor class, where we'll be painting these cute hedgehog in the autumn leaves. [MUSIC] I'm going to show you how to create her using the lightest of touches that doesn't require any brushstrokes. Though if you're feeling a little daunted by this subject, I would like to try something a little easier. Have a look at my beginner classes, and these can be found over on my channel. [MUSIC] I'm Jane Davis. I live, paint, teach. I walk my lovely Spaniel in the beautiful South Downs National Park, England. Over the last 10 years, I've taught myself the watercolor technique that you'll see today. Not having been to art school, finding my own way has been fun though sometime daunting, but it's allowed me to develop my own style. This has led me to teaching others either on a one-to-one basis or as part of a group in a wonderful studio in the heart and the South Downs. I also run a successful commission-based business painting pet portraits and wildlife art in my own home studio. In all my classes, you will follow along in real-time, or I can guide you to keep your work loose and fresh without over-fussing. I'll be sharing lots of tips and tricks along the way too. [MUSIC] I've provided you with a beautiful reference photo and template of her in the projects and resources pages. Don't feel using the template is cheating, this class is all about painting and not drawing. I'm going to show you how to create her using gravity, strength of color, and a little masking fluid, which is going to keep our painting lovely and loose and flowing. I'll also guide you through the process of sectioning areas off, that will help us control where the paint flows to. I'll be showing you how to create those autumn leaves that gently blend using a really useful technique of timing and paint application. [MUSIC] Of course, I'll share my tips, tricks, and musings at the end to bring your hedgehog to life. If you'd like to learn more about me or my work, please pop over to my website at janedavieswatercolours.co.uk. This can be found on my profile along with links to my Instagram and Facebook pages. I'm very active on my social media pages where I love sharing my art, especially on stories with many ideas, works in progress, and tells a studio life. I really hope you will share all your paintings on a project pages as I love seeing them are spaces. Don't forget, I'm here to help if you get stuck or have any questions. I want you to experience that buzz of painting in this liberating, wet-on-wet, loose style. So come and join me.
2. Materials: Welcome along to this lovely autumnal little hedgehog nestling in the leaves. Makes me feel all autumnally. Before I yak on about hedgehogs, let's run through the materials I'm using today. I'll start with my nice collection of Daniel Smith paints. Now, obviously, you're not going to have all these colors, so have a rummaging in your paint drawer or wherever you keep your paints and pick the colors you like. I get a lot of messages going what's a good substitute for x color that you're using? I would say just find the colors you're comfortable with. You don't have to have the same colors as me. Maybe pink is a little old to put in the leaves. You may have a lovely brown that you particularly like and you think that would work really well. Have a little experiment with your own colors. Don't worry too much you haven't gotten the same as me. I'm going to run through what I have got. I've got an undersea green, and these are leafy colors. I've got quinacridone gold, which is a lovely color actually if you're looking to add something to your collection. Sepia, I think I'll probably use sepia in every single class. I love it. Just a good, strong, rich brown. Then I've got transparent brown oxide. It's a good color. It's a rich chestnutty color and it has a nice unusual patterning in it. I like that. I've got a light brown ocher. Poppy, as it says, it's a little ochery color. Burnt tiger's eye genuine. One of my absolute favorites along with sodalite genuine. I think sodalite genuine, burnt tigers eye, and sepia would be my favorites if I had to only have three colors; bearing in mind I do a lot of animals. Then we've got a rose matter permanent, which as you can see, is used for the leaves. The lavender which I use just a merest of the hint on the back. That's any poppy color, it's just in blue, doesn't matter. It's just a tiny hint. Then I've got my paper I'm using today is Bockingford and that's a 140 pound note, and that's being stretched onto a board. Definitely worth stretching your paper before you actually do you main piece. It just hopefully stops buckling. Although mine does buckle half-width at the beginning. You can probably see a little bit of movement there. If you're unsure on how to stretch paper, you're going to have a Google. They would, I'm sure, explain better than me. Then we have pot of water. I have some masking fluid. We're just going to do some splatters and little lines just for the spines. I have a pencil and then I've got three brushes. I've got a number eight round. I've got a number two round, that's just for the small detail. Then I've got an eradicator, which is a lovely little tiny small chisel brush that's great for taking color out. Then I should paint with it, but this is to take color out. Then we have just a little something about an inch, two-inch high, just to raise the board. We just took the board at various times, that's just a pop under onto your piece of paper. Kitchen roll or paper towel, a little rubber. A hairdryer is quite handy. That just helps speed the process along better. It's definitely not essential if you're happy to let the paint dry naturally, which quite often is the better result. Again, a hairdryer isn't needed. Also, there's photos and the stencil on the resources pages. Please do use the stencil, and don't feel it's, as I say, poppy further on. It's not hopefully cheating, so use a stencil and grab that nice reference photo with the leaves and the hedgehog. Put them on an iPad if you can, if you can get those on a different screen so you can flick your eye back and forth in the photo to your painting. I haven't shown you tiny little bit of white Gauche which is just used for that little tiny speck. That's tiny little bit of that. I think that's all the resources, or materials should I say, that you're only going to need. Let's draw him out and get going.
3. Sketching Out: Now, I've drawn him out offline just so you don't have to watch me painfully go around my stencil. While I'm thinking about stencils, do use that in the project resources pages. As I say, this is all about painting and not about drawing. Give yourself a little bit of help and go around that stencil. But once you lift it up, just take a little bit of time and just neat up any edges, and that stencil tends to give you around off some of the edges situation nose and it'll lines down here and just make sure you got nice curve at the back. Make sure his eyes in the right place and keep it little or small. In the past I've said big eyes make the animal look a little cuter. But somehow with this hedgehog, it doesn't quite work. Some of the other practice pieces I did before to get schedule the steps right for you. I did a larger eye. To be honest, it didn't really look that great, so keep your eye to that size as you see in your reference photo. With the leaves, just find yourself a nice arrangement. You don't have to follow my pattern. If you want to do more or less, then let your imagination be free. [LAUGHTER] It'd be lovely to see what you can draw up. The other little thing was the leaves on the ground. You can just add, the mirror is the hint of the odd to tip and when we do that really loose ground, we can just pick out a tiny little detail with leaves. Just give yourself a couple of little edges. Pencil marks was the other thing I was going to mention, try and keep them as light as you can. Obviously you can see what you're working with better, especially around the leaves and on the back of the hedgehog. Now mine are a little heavier just so you can see what I'm doing and how I'm working. But it's lovely when we finish the piece to go to rub them out and not see any pencil marks and you get that lovely, loose, lost and found look, so it's definitely worth going light with your pencil marks. The next thing we're going to do is to add some of these gum or masking fluid onto the back. We do a few flicks here and there, mainly to get that little [inaudible]. I have got to see my very old tied toothbrush or whatever you do. [inaudible] said before, don't ever use your good brushes with gum because you will ruin them instantly. [LAUGHTER] You will never get it out. I'm going to try it carefully. She say very carefully hold on to this. Off-camera gums. I've ruined this lovely little potluck, I had had a lovely nib that it will get gummed up. My brush I put that down before I drop it and we're just going to tap. She said like magic and it doesn't work. You get a bit more than that point over the hedgehog. Just want a few splatters. If you think something's going to go analytical array, Don't worry because they can be locked down, say months. Almost better to do more. Then when they've dried. A concentration that [LAUGHTER] I am trying not to that stuff. Yes, you can always drop any spots you don't like the look of a gun like that one probably too close to the eyes or I'll lose that. We want to make sure I've got enough on the back. Pull camera's probably going mad trying to keep up my freaking think that will probably do me. I'm going to pull that out of harm's way. I'm going to do just with the tip of the brush. Just going to pull a couple of these, just a few, a couple of little lines don't do them all. That will do. I don't want to do anymore than that. That just needs to thoroughly dry before we can start painting so you can hair dry them and that does quick in the process up. Make sure they just start to go particularly tacky because in theory, you can probably blow those out. Let those dry slightly and give them a hair dry or just go make yourself a cup of tea and come back and they'll be dry.
4. Body First Layer: Now for the fun bit, let's get some painting done. But before, I'm just going to take out some of the bits of gum that I am not so keen on. I'm happy with this. There's no really big blobs or too many touching, so I'm going to leave that. Just going to get rid of that one. Just brush them off. I'm going to get rid of that one by the eye like I said. I think the nose, I'm not sure if I want one on the nose. Apart from that, I'm happy with the rest. These outside ones don't matter. They're not going to be seen, so you can even rub them out now or you can do them when we rub these out. I just want, just while I think of it before I start, to get rid of those. Big brush, lots of water, and we're going to wet all his body down. We're going to go around the eyes. Why we tend to go around the eye first is so I don't forget and we'd stroke over the eye. I'm going to go into the ear and follow that curve around. I've got a leaf here so that stops me going any further down. But if you haven't put a leaf there, then obviously, you just follow the body down. Follow that leaf line wherever you've made your leaf line and fill it in. Just make sure you go carefully up to your lines because the paint will follow where the water is, so if you've gone outside your lines, that paint will definitely follow the water. Before I start, I have mislaid my little wooden hat, which some of you, if you follow my other classes, will see. That just ain't bad [inaudible], but we've got a puppy at the moment. I have a sneaky feeling she may have pinched it, so this little pebble is going to do for me. I'm just going to put that there and that's going to allow that paint to run. I'm going to pick up my sodalite genuine, a little bit of sepia, and that goethite. I'm probably still butchering the name. I'm so sorry, Daniel Smith. I'm going to pick up that transparent brown as well, so I'm going to have four tubes in my hand up. How lovely. You have a little squint to your paper. Make sure it's lovely and wet but not too puddling. It's a real, I suppose, art to getting it just about right. It looks okay to me, so here we go. We want to be quite bold with this. I've got sodalite genuine and I'm going to go for a little bit of sepia. I'm going to put that because we want this to be darker, the front end. This side is the front. Gone a little bit blue, so I'm not going to put in much more blue in there. I'm going to try and get a sepia going. Just let that run down. If it's not running now, make sure your brush is lovely and wet. Just make sure your paper really is wet. I think you'll be surprised how much you probably need to get that moving. Just add a little bit more water if it's not moving. You can always tilt if it's not going in the right direction. Tilt your board. Don't be afraid of it. My little stone might not be doing as good a job as my little hat, so I'm just going to see if I can, it seems to be tilting backward. Let's see if we can move that over a bit more. Monkey of a puppy. I'm blaming her anyway. I'll probably picked it up and throw it away. It's by accident. We're just dibbling. We're just trying to get that lovely [inaudible]. We're not going to do too much here or worry too much here. Hopefully, that paint will just keep flowing over so long as we keep dibbling, keeping on the colors. That's gone a little bit too brown, so I'm just going to pop a little bit more sepia in there. We were only doing two layers, so we need to be quite bold with this one. We don't need to worry about putting any markings on, we're just trying to get some color. I'm adding almost too much water on my brush so I'm getting quite a puddle down here. I'm just going to pick up my bit of paper towel. Just touch the edge and suck that up. That's better. My spot stretching yet again has failed me. I've got a bit of a kinkle here. You see that? I seem to be able to stretch boards well enough when I do a pet portrait, but I seem to be having problems doing it for a Skillshare class. I'm going to keep it quite dark down at the bottom here. I know you may think, looking at mine, mine looks a bit like a mole at the moment, but I suppose that maybe they are a little bit more alike without their spines. I'm just trying to get rid of that. I've got a little bit too heavy here. Just add a little bit of water and allow that to flow down. Now I'm looking at that and I think that's actually doing okay. I'm a little bit annoyed that I have got a kink in my paper which is then allowing that water to sit there, but there's not a lot I can do about that at the moment. Sometimes, they leave you some interesting marks, so if yours are doing the same, don't worry. Just sucking up some of that water. I don't want too much water sitting there. I just have to leave that really. That needs to dry before we can then move on to the next layer shall I say.
5. Leaves and Branch: Once this little area is dry, we can move on to the leaves and if you're feeling brave, then you can just leave this wet. It doesn't matter as long as you can keep it clear and if you're going to put your hand there. I don't trust myself, especially filming. I've made sure that's dry before I move on to the leaves, that these are fun to do. What we're going to do, it's going to wet them down again. Again, go carefully around and you draw on edges just take your time to wet. You can take as much time as you want wetting down just if you find you is drying quickly, you can just drop a little bit more water in the sheet make sure you wet it down. You'll find it's needed the papers of [inaudible] particularly more water in to get that going again. Edges are nice and neat. I should have some hedgehog facts for you, shouldn't I? Sure if I've got many puffins that the spines are sometimes called quills apparently are just checked. Before I started calling them something they shouldn't, they aren't actually cool. I can see that's nice and we're actually keeping these on a tube. I'm hoping you will get some of that paint running down into the far side just to give us a little bit more strength. Just making sure I haven't got too much water sitting there so that's just taking the excess water off my brush and just popping it down and that will suck up some of that water. Careful we don't want [inaudible] suck it all up. Looks about perfect. I'm going to grab my pink, my green, and my gold. That's why I draw these [LAUGHTER] that would be catastrophic then. Nice handful. However you want to place these, it's sometimes fantasy to try them off. Have little play with these leaves and another little sheet of paper or something before you start and see what you like, but I'm just going to love these gold. Paint a little bit pink and the gold on top of one another, lovely. Just don't be afraid. Just place and leave is what I would say. Just drop the color and try not to use too many brush strokes back and forth to toss the innermost. You don't have to go way around and you can just do some of the edges I believe that nothing that is looking nice. I'm going to go for time. Just painting off-camera mono. Just going to pop some of that there, just allow that to the side up again, we've got a tilt that will help it move as well. If you find that it's not moving, wet your brush down again, and drop a little bit of color. I've got plenty of waters so not actually having too much trouble moving, but that what should get your paint moving if you're struggling with it sticking around here. Let's get a little bit of green we've used the green have we? Undersea green is a lovely color. Don't get to use many of these colors because they're not very friendly with these. Undersea green is very yummy. [inaudible] Pink on that. You can just go all the way around the edge not even go into the middle. That gives you quite a nice loose effect. Going looking to overworked. It's amazing how much it will move and change before we actually draw it. A little bit of a puddle still going here. Well, if I suck that puddle up from here, that will allow the paint and move into this area. Is only because there's a big bubble here and it's just stopping the paint from moving. It's going, no you're not coming down. Just pop a little bit off, I just want to make sure I've got that nice edge there. I'm going to leave it because that's looking nice. I'm going to put my little brush down, pick up my little one. Wake it up a little bit and just going to touch this and we're going to pull the stem up there. Hopefully, the paint should follow that wet mark without even me having to put any paint on. We're just going to run this demo. [NOISE] Make sure [inaudible] nice and clean brush. I'm just going to follow my wiggly line down, and then I'm going to drop whichever color you're fancy, you could do brown, bonnie your brown's, you've chosen to do the hedgehog with. I'm sticking with these they have got me on my hand. You don't have to even do the whole bunch so you don't be too methodical about everything around just drop little bit of pieces. It'll be enough for the eye to make it up. Pull out a couple little twingly branches, be careful not to go too [inaudible] I'll shape here. I know it made me say skewed every time, but I can't get that close to my painting. Quite hard to do that. Very fine details. It looks like that doesn't it? That my folks friends, folks and friends. That is about your leaves done, you can drop that is just drawing quite nice. If you can see that in the camera, can I twiddle around a little bit, can you see? Just don't go off nicely and I'm going to get a nice drop of water and it's going to pop some little droplets in there. Because leaves will see dying and they will go motley and marked. Then let's say you can't go too wrong with them. If you can put some really heavy coloring you can drop things out that you let marks happen that maybe might be frowned upon in a true wood color sense. That wood just gives that lovely effect. You could try some salt if you've played with that before, I'm not going to do on this today just because of the time and just another complexity, but you can pop some salt in there and that will give you a lovely textured look at well. Or even that cling film, if you've done the seahorse, we did in the cling film and that will give you a nice textured look as well. Yeah, don't feel you have to follow me exactly. If you have another idea and then go for that. I'm going to leave that to that. I think she says glancing around, I think that looks okay. Again, we aren't going to let that completely dry before we move on to the next layer. [NOISE]
6. Spines: I've let that dry. I did just drop some of the droplets, just like I did here, there. It's not actually that obvious but just in case you wonder why you think that's suddenly changed. I could actually get a little bit closer, neaten some of my edges up. If you notice it looks a little bit tidier that's why. We're going to do the back, either the spines or quills, depending on how you want to refer to them as. We're going to, again, wet all this area and it goes up to the top of the head as well. You can see your reference photo, there's not much up there but there's enough. Round the ear, down the back. Still tilted because we still will want that. I'm going to put a lot of paint here and we're going to encourage it to run down. One more tilted layer. That's not so wet. Just gone a bit dry up there already because I popped a hairdryer over there. If you do hair dry your piece, you will find that your paper is then warm and it, obviously, warms your paper up so then it will dry quicker; downside to hair drying. I'm going to pick up, I've got my geo light, transparent brown. I'm going to have the tiger's eye. I going to have those little collection in my hand at the same time just give it a little bit of a squeeze, make sure they're all awake. We're going to concentrate just on this line down here so let's try a bit of tiger's eye and transparent brown to see how it gets moving. Some paints, I will add just because I know they're going to shift a lot and tiger's eye is definitely one of those. If I pop that down I know that will move any paint I've got on my brush at the same time. Sometimes I use the paint because I know the effect that they will have. Let's have a little bit of geo light, let's have it on the back. Just added a bit more water, it's just not really moving very much. I'm falling foul of it not moving over that white down. Just grab a little bit of soda light as well so we can do a four handed piece again. Try and keep everything light. I'm still standing, so if you haven't had a go at standing doing your pieces, especially at the beginning when everything has to be nice and light and loose, it's nice to stand because I think it stops you overworking and over fussing. If you're very close to it, you're too close, you can't keep that nice looseness, I don't think. Only my thought though. If you're comfy sitting then sit. I'm trying my best not to even go into that area and just hoping that runs down. Because, again, we've tilted it, I've got a bubble sitting here. You can see, as I suck the water up it draws that paint down. Hope you can see that, it's moving. Yes, that's looking good. Once you've got something you like, don't be afraid to stop but, equally, we're only doing one layer so make sure you've got enough strength here. I'm going to put those down quickly. I'm also going to put a little bit of lavender on the back. Just a touch, just to break up that brown somehow. You know me and anything bluey-lavendery. Just enough, I don't want to add any more. Before that completely dries, put that down. I'm going to pick up my little brush and we're going to just pull some of those binds inwards. Make sure you keep your eye on that reference photo because it makes a contour around the body. Try to be random as you can. I think that's enough. All these flicky things, be careful not to overdo it. Just encouraging it away from that puddle that I've got. Sucking up my little pool as I want that to carry on running; it will keep moving. It's really interesting to set up a camera and actually watch to see how much this moves in the process from applying it to actually when it's dried. Fairly quickly. Once all this has started to dry, it gets tacky so we're going to pull out these binds. Little brush, again. Again, try to be random. They're not fluffy, I tried a different brush to make it more flicky but because they're stubby little things, aren't they? You just want to go quite carefully. I'm not sure I can do that left-handed. I'm trying not to get this in the way so you can see what I'm doing. Follow the contours of the back as well. Hopefully, I really want to try and keep this pale. I know it's not necessarily pale in the picture but I want that nice contrast between. It's quite strong here and really washed out. You need to do these while this paint is still wet. If you let it dry too much, you'll find your quills of spines will look like they've been stuck on so make sure that's still wet when you do that. I'm pretty pleased with that and I like the way that it's drying. Just trying to stop it. Hopefully, you've stretched your paper, yet again, better than me. That's better. We need to let that completely dry.
7. Body Second Layer: This is a big layer, so get ready. Firstly, it's all going to be laid flat now see if you can get rid your tilt to one side, strokes my rubber found anything. Straight. I'm just want to tell you that this is a leaf here, and you can see some of the paint has gone into there from the back. I'm just going to quickly tidy that up because I don't want to look like there's body on the leaf, that kind of makes sense. Fill that out, you may not have made that mistake, but I'm just going to tidy it up for me. Big brush again and we're going to wet this down and then we're going to actually do these leaves. We're going to do the leaves just as this starts to go a little bit tacky, so follow me. Wet it down, go around the eye again. When you're doing a second layer, just try to keep any brush marks, or touching any of this paper really light because you've probably got some lovely marks and sort of flowiness. You don't want to pick that paint up again, if you've hair dried it like I have the paper's warm and he's going to join a bit quicker. I'm almost dabbing the water in going right over and over those bristles. Some of those bristle marks might be lost but don't worry too much. I'm actually going to go around that leaf at the moment, around any leaves you may have put in. Just going to do the body at the moment but be ready to do the leaves, pre-warning. What we're going to do on this, we won't do another layer over these little hedgehogs. We need to just strengthen where it needs to. Have a look at your reference photo and have a look at your own photo. That is like your own painting and see where you think needs strength. We even to that point taking out. This is got a little heavy to me, so I'm just going to simply just go up some of that away. Just move some of that paint away, it just got a little bit too heavy for me. Probably, almost want to add a little bit heavier so I'm going to pick up that sepia because that is absolutely lovely and dark and I'm just squeeze to hold it out, and squeeze back in. I'm just going to again just tap some color in. When you're working on a layer, decide what needs to spread the most, obviously, I want needs to move quite a lot, so I want to try and get that line up there, then as your layer dries, then find the areas you don't want it to spread as much. I hope that made sense. Around here, for instance, I don't really want that to spread so much. If I do it now it's going to spread a lot. If I just hang on a little minute, just be trying to squeeze it to get it back out again. When we put that down in a minute, you won't travel as much that then you gain a little bit of control that way. I hope that kind of makes sense. We'll see and as the layers buildup, I just picked up the geothite as layers buildup, you find your paint won't travel as much either. If you don't generally do more than four, five layers at most, it begins to get a little muddy then what I want to emphasize though, is that line that runs up to here, haven't even decided that he or she yet. How bad is that? You can say hickey the hedgehog but it is a bit predictable, isn't it? Put that down and concentrate change nattering. I'm going to put. I want to put a really strong brown in here, but it's not quite ready yet. I can see it's quite low water sitting there, so actually, if you might grab so light and the transparent brown just want a little bit heavier down the bottom here. Now there is a leg, you can only just about see it but try to miss that leg out at the moment. Just by not actually painting in it would probably just give you enough impression there's a lake there. Not actually paint it, you know, anything about that, do much with it. Transparent brown is being quite strong so I don't add a bit more, so light in there. Just squint your eye see your look at your own piece. You think it needs strengthening in certain area and then trust your instincts. I really want to try and support that transparent down, it's a bit strong, too warm by sun from underneath. A little bit of sepia in there. Good old sepia, one of the colors I wouldn't like to be without. Now I can see this is beginning to dry a little bit more, so I'm going to do what I was hopefully trying to explain and try and add a little bit color. I'm going to pick up that tiger's eye. That's a lovely, soft, spready color. I'm actually going to pop something out there that transparent brown's leaving me almost too many unusual markings. Unusually, I think that's a proper word but unusual markings. I'm going to go round and she is actually got. I'm going to call it a she see if I can remember that by the time I write up the notes. She's got some quite dark areas around here she. Running up to the ear and squeeze, sounds a bit corny, but squint your eye because it really does help. Put tiger eyes there because I know it's going to push some of that over the paint out and step away. If you even me standing, I can get a little bit too close to it, so I'm just going to take a little step backwards and have a look. I'm quite pleased to know that's getting about the right level of drawing this. I'm going to take my excess moisture off the brush, quite strong, quite a lot of paint now. I'm just going to dip all that in. Should give you a nice defined revere. We can tinker with this in the last layer. It doesn't look quite right then. Don't worry too much, a little bit of water there that would just hopefully push some of that color back. Still struggling with my puddle here but never mind. Now I need to keep an eye on this area here. If you're working along more side me, just keep an eye on that, mine is a little bit too wet, but if you find yours is just starting to go you really don't want it to dry because the idea of adding these leaves in, it will just push and blend in. We want to catch it at the right time. It's just as it looks like it's got a glean to it, try and step back and get a little bit of perspective on it. See the light, see if you bobble your head up and down, you'll be able to see that glean a little bit more easily. Not quite there. I'm just going to push a little color down here. It's going to be moving a bit too much up there. It puppy with the rest. I shouldn't try fiddle too much, I don't think. Just waiting, we are almost ready. I'm going to do. I'm going to use the same colors as I've used up here, mainly I might put a little bit so like genuine if I feel I need a little bit more strength, but mainly it's going to be the pink, green and the gold. Quite yet. Not quite yet. Let's go for it. I'm going to clean my brush, make sure that's nice and clean. I'm going to take the excess moisture off my brush. I don't want to add too much water. If you get this too wet, you'll find that pushes up. That will be absolutely fine, if you dibble your brush on your paper towel that would have taken enough moisture off. I'm going to give these a squeeze. I'm going to start working straight underneath here to start within so I can see. I dried my brush a bit too much. see how the acts. If it looks like it's whooshing too much, then just hold on a minute, just hold your horses. You just want it to do that and it's doing now with me. Just enough. You'll find some of that brown will run into the leaves and some of the leaf color will run into the body. Then we just going to whiz it along, this way you can be really free. If you've done some of those leaves then make sure we get those points right. Take a little bit out there. Take a little bit of green. Green is not working up enough. I'm finding that that's probably traveled enough up there so I actually might do, just to stop it doing too much more running, I'm just going to tilt my board. I've got my little rubber. I'm just going to put it just enough to stop that from carrying on up. I don't want it to go any further, it's done enough. Equally, you can draw the color down with a big wet brush. You draw it right out. I got to remember, I've got this leaf here, haven't I? Actually, let's paint that in. The silence of concentration. Not sure if I like that pink and green. It's gone a be a bit tutti-frutti, isn't it? That's better. It's a bit more whooshy. Just a nice brush just dragging along and that would again pill that color down if you found, like me, it's going up the body a little bit too much. You may find at some point, "Oh no, maybe I need to lay that flat because it's actually dragged too much color down," then just lay it flat. It's all a bit of a learning curve. I can understand that but it's just fun playing. I might just, like I said, tiny, little bit of so light genuine in here, just to give it a little bit more strength. Just a tiny hint. I don't want to add too much. That's enough. Just put them back down there again. Just my little brush and to put it there. Pick up that gold again for a sec. I just want to tidy some of those edges up. It actually looks like a leaf. I might drop a little bit of water just in this leaf up the top so I can get something to make some unusual patterning. All the while, we need to be keeping an eye on this down here because we need to put some spines in. It might be her hair actually. As I keep her say it's a bit of a big layer this one. There's a lot going on. I'm just doing, I'm going to pick up a bit of green, so a little bit more green. I'm just going to do a little bit of gain, everything loose, just a little bit of twirly stuff. Again, don't go too mad with this twirliness. That would do me. Brush down, Jane. Because I've got a puddle here it's really sitting there. If I pull out that now it's going to go a little bit pear-shaped. But this is just about right here. I'm going to gain a little brush and you can just start somewhere in there not right on the edge. It just gives you a little bit more of a natural kind of flick, I found if I don't start right on the edge. I'm just going to be a bit cautious of my big puddle down here. You can even see my paper moving. I think I can probably get away with it. Yes, I can. That's a bit of a lot of things going on at once, isn't it, for this layer? But it's the only way to do it. Pull that out a little bit more. It's got a little bit of a pronounced bit there. I'm going to need to stop twiddling. Just need to do a few up here as well. You may find out that I've done this a little bit dry but I'd put a tiny little bit of paint on your brush. Just as the minutest amount. If you've got tiger's eye, go for something very soft. I'm going to use my little puddle here as a bit of water. Be careful you don't go too flicky. Don't go too spiky. Just shape that a little bit more. Yeah, I'm quite pleased with how that's working out. You can put little bits of droplets of water in here, just like we did with the leaf. You could've done the cling film. That would have been lovely. It was just I didn't do that in this lesson because the time and the joint time between the two. But yeah, you could have conquered some little bits of cling film. If you don't know what I'm talking about, if you have a look at the seahorse or Sydney the squirrel, that will show you the crinkling. It's a cling film when we pop that over the top but that gives you some lovely texture and interest. That, I think, is about it. We've done that. I'm just looking quickly back at my notes to make sure I haven't left some huge part out. A little bit of pink. I'm not sure if I'm going to do that now. Probably I might just tell my notes just to pop a little bit of pink around here. If you haven't done that then don't worry. It's one of those thoughts I wasn't sure if that worked or not but I'm just going to put that here because I do you have it near my notes. Just about dry, sorry. Just about wet enough to do that. We just need this little hedgehog to completely dry before we get on with the eye.
8. Eye: Settle layer is lovely and dry, so we can get on with doing the eye. I've picked up my little tiny brush. Even clean my water. Nice clean water always helps. I'm going to pick up the transparent brown. What we're going to simply do is paint this inner [inaudible]. I'm not going to wet it down. Literally, just going to paint it in nice wet brush. It's nice and wet, stays nice and loose. Not too clarky. Just carefully go around the little eye. Don't make it too big. Keep it quite small and get that shape just right. Take your time. There's no hurry at this stage. That is our Number 1 layer on the eye. I'm going to do a little surround around his eye. It's quite obvious if you look on your reference photo, he's got, not quite eye makeup, is it, but he's got a nice marking. I'm going to pick up the tiger's eye because it's a nice and soft color. I'm going to do actually, a rarity for me, a little bit of painting. Again, a little brush, and we're just going to do little lines underneath. We're just literally painting that on. Nice and strong. If you haven't got tiger's eye, you'll probably find that's a bit stronger than mine, but tiger's eye is a very pale color. It'll look a little odd to start with. Don't worry. Just take your time getting that white area about right. Again, as you progress through your painting, if you're standing, it's quite nice to sit because you can get a little bit closer to your work. I'm going to pull it down a little bit more. I think I can see from my distance. I will share a picture of Maya when I'm working and you can see how far I am away from the painting. Then what I'm going to do, clean my brush, and we're just going to very gently just soften that outer edge and just soften it down. You can use your little finger just to soften that and you can see those outside hard edge disappears. Just very gently blend it out because you don't want to rustle those layers, your one and two layers. Your finger is quite good at diffusing and just blobbing it out a bit. I'm actually going to put a little bit more strength there because that tiger's eye is so weak. I'm just going to tap a little bit more painting. Yours might be strong enough, so don't judge your own piece. If you think it needs any more, then, and don't make it any bolder if you don't need to. It comes down a little bit there, doesn't it? It looks all right. You could see how that started to give a little bit of a moving expression. We just need this to dry and then we can do the second layer. If you've got a hairdryer, that's quite a good time to whiz that over. But again, if it's sitting in a little bubble of paint, just allow that to dry first. [NOISE] That's nice and dry. Again, I'm actually going to wet the second layer down of the eye. A little brush again, a little dibble of water, and because the eye is quite little, you've probably got yourself, like me, a little bubble of water. I've actually taken too much color out. Look at that. It's such a soft color. Again, who says you can't take watercolor paint out? I'm just going to pop that transparent brown back in again. Because I've restarted a layer, I'll be able to progress to the second part of it. I'm going to pick up that sepia. I'm going to just gently, you can see there's quite a dark area underneath the eye, and we're not going to put as much, and I think that there's quite a lot of white over the top of his eye or her eye. Ungendered hedgehog at the moment. I think if you put too much white in, it can tend to look like a little bit of a cataract problem or something, so be careful we catchlights. I quite like to put a single little blob of white in rather than too much emphasis on the shape of it sometimes because it can make it a little, say, like they've got a slight problem with their eyesight. I'm just going to try and carefully dribble that in, and I have lost a little bit of that transparent brown. I'm actually going to pick up the transparent brown again and just replace that in there. I like that nice brown warm color although that looks quite dark in the reference photo. It's just nice to have a bit of warmth, I think. I've just dropped that back in again. Pick up my sepia. I'm just going to carry on making that a little bit darker underneath and shaping the eye. Really take your time. Don't hurry yourself. Step away. If you're sitting, then pop your head up a little bit and have a look to see where you think you're headed to and whether that's looking right. I think I might like a little bit more. There's usually, in most cases, with animals, a little bit of shadowing underneath the eye. It's quite nice to try and get a little bit of strength at the top as well. [NOISE] You may be able to hear the neighbor's dog barking. [LAUGHTER] I don't know if that's picked up on the audio. I've got a very sweet borders area. I'm going to pick up a bit more transparent brown. It's all a case of the eye. It's just fiddling a little bit. I have to say it's a little bit fiddling, but mindfully fiddling, so don't panic when you're fiddling. If you think it needs a bit more brown, like mine, I've definitely felt it need a bit more, just pop a little bit more in. If you feel like it's getting out of control a little bit, just stop. Put your paint and brush down and let it dry, and then just re-evaluate because you can do another little layer over it, pop a little bit more water, and again, just very carefully tinker and fiddle. But I think I quite like that, so I'm going to leave that to dry, and then we can put the pop, the little catchlight in. [NOISE] That's nice and dry. I'm going to pick up my little bit of white gouache. Clean the brush. Just wake this up. You want this really nice creaminess. We only want to put one little blob into , that's been woken up. Because we want it to be looking up at that leaf, so I'm just going to put the catchlight. Give that emphasis he's looking up. I'm saying he now, ain't I? It really does bring to life, doesn't it? That is your little eye done.
9. Finishing Off: Make sure that eye is nice and dry and anything else we may have tinkered with that you felt you had to. Just make sure all of this is lovely and dry because what we're going to do is rub out this masking fluid and we're going to rub out any pencil marks that you may have left. I'm going to do the masking fluid first. I like doing this bit. Just gently make sure you got nice clean hands and as I said, make sure it's really super dry. We're just going to gently rub them out. I'm going to get rid of any ones there out in the white paper as well. Go ahead, rid them all. It should give you just a slight impression of these spines. I'm obviously not doing individual ones, it's just hopefully an impression. Another one there, the same, up there. That's all done. I'm then going to rub out any pencil marks just gently run the leaves. This way it's nice to you, you'll find, you should gain some of that lost and found edges. What we're going to do is just we're shaping and taking nickel-base out, adding nickel base, it will just a nice solute increased Asia. A genuine chance it will work round in some old-fashioned [inaudible] generally but if we start off with the ground. This is anything I feel I need to alter here or take out you may want to take a little bit of light out of top of any of the leaves is a little bit, it's got to be heavy, just gently taking a little bit color out. Quite happy with how the ground looks at them on it, so I don't really want to fiddle with anymore. I'm actually not going to do anything here. I like that looseness. I could do some tiny little veins up there, but I'm happy with that. I will do just workaround. I'm going to take just a tiny amount of light. Just out of the back, really gently. Just cut off a night to have a little bit of area where there's been a little bit ecologists disappeared fractions. Any fraction amounts, take them, pop that down there. That's set. I'm now going to then, I just want to emphasize a little bit more light around this ear, the ear just again, very gently and so these colors are particularly soft, so they will come out very easily. I could be left with the right ear if I'm not very careful. I'm almost letting my brush just fall and just gently taking a current, keeping my eye on that reference data as well. That's enough, really enough for that ear. Swap brushes and ill pick up my little, eradicate our brush. I'm just going to just take a few tiny little marks that go into just get a little bit of just break this up a little bit more than anything. Again, rub those out. You can just see some of them are coming out. Just go back and forth. Say you want a nice little. I mean this is a wonderful little brush. It's tiny, it's a little chisel brush really, it does a great job. I see this small hard edges. Perfect for this. You can see them. Don't go and say all these things were any sort of spines or whiskers or anything that's freaky. Try to be random and don't do too many, so easy to get carried away with them. You find, you then put yourself a little [inaudible]. A little line of fluffy bit. Such thing try to be random and try not to get carried away and do too many either. That's what I'm going to do. Put that down again. Pick up my bigger brush. It's just a bit softer, this bigger brush. I know I can just take a little bit of light out. Again, just like the back there. I'm just letting the brush almost fall. Touching that with a bit of kitchen roll. You'll find It's just enough. As you step away from it, it's just taken enough out. We didn't see tiny little things at the end because generally my words quite loose and you'll lose, your work will be loose. With mine you need to, this little details at the end that get, do you actually bring the painting to life. It's worth taking the time at the end, just to really nail those [inaudible] detail in any taking out we've been putting in. I'm going to try and do this little nostril next and pick up my little brush and we're going to take again, take the color out we're going to catch that little bit of light. With an offshore that's going back and forth very gently. Tapping with your paper towel roll, pitch and roll, whichever you want to call it, gain a little bit light off the top of that nose. I'm going to pick up my bigger brush again. Just tap that gently. I don't want to take too much color out and be very easy to take it out. Very gently and that's enough. I look away from it and that's good. You can see a little white line where his mouth is gone. Her mouth I'm very carefully I'm going to take just a tiny amount out. Which way you can't perceive it, but it will be enough. I don't want to put too much emphasis on that really. That's plenty. I think almost a little bit too much. It could be a little bit too much now. What I'm going to do, pick up a big brush and I'm going to grab a little bit of tigers eye. I love your soft color. We did around the eyes. I'm just going to pop a little bit in there. Just didn't want that to be quite so hard. I could almost make a line that would emphasize it I had concentrating inside the top of her mouth. It can change so quickly. Doing mouths really change their characters. You always want it to be smiling but not too cartoony smile. I think I shall leave it like that and see how she draws [inaudible]. I don't want to have any hard line left there. Clean that off, pop it down again and just carry on working our way down. Might take like we did at the top here. Take a couple, allow out, just a couple. Just to give a little bit of light of these underneath to emphasize too much light underneath. She's got the makeups. Could be a little bit of light catching the fine hair. For it too carried away, going all the way down and shoot but some whiskers on actually, it's a little tiny brush and I'm going to pick up, I think so genuine. You might want to practice this very quick movement with a little scrap of paper. You see that here she can on the bottom punch going to just a quick movement like that or you can do with a pencil if you're not feeling brave enough to do those flicks very careful. I tend to wave it back and forth and slowly edge my way down and then it eventually touches the paper. You get a very fine set of whiskers and with luck. Again, don't go too mad. [inaudible] If you want to, just a little bit on top. Perfect. Put that down again. Say, I think I've worked here, I might pop her. We're just putting up my photo. I might pull a couple of little spines out here as well. We put some dark ones in one of those layers that way, but to just get a little hint of spines, putting it a little bit and try and go with that movement of the heavily forward as well. Do going the same direction that goes, runs around, doesn't it? I think looking back, I think that's enough. Again, I can actually do just have a few here and I really mean of you. I don't really want to start doing all this point. It would be very easy to get carried away and caught in that trap of doing all this points. Just a couple little bit of paint that's just come off taking them out. For me, that's enough. Yes, definitely enough. Since I was happy with the leaves on the ground I'm going to do is up to these leaves here. I'm just going to take, again, take a little bit of color out for those bind [inaudible] Get them out. You don't want to do the more holes you will be there forever trying to do little tiny veins and it doesn't necessarily make it any better if you were to do that. It can go pull it over fast. It's just a couple, just do one here. Tiny hint. This looks a little bit chunky to me, so I'm just going to erupt a little bit, soften that a little bit. There's a case now, we're going around your own pitch. You interview somebody you don't like, it's a bit chunky then. I'm going to put that one down. Pick that up and I'll take a little bit light off the top of that, get rid of that hard edge on that tree. This is a very pretty [inaudible] bit. But it's there. Sometimes you just have to go with what you put down. Pop from that like the rest. I think I'm going to leave it there because I'm pleased with that. I don't want to do anymore fiddling. I could carry on. I know what I'm like if I'm not careful. But if I step away and look at that. I'm pleased I hope you also turned out well too. Please as I say, always share these because it's fantastic to see your work. I look forward to seeing all your lovely little hedgehogs, whichever gender it may be.
10. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] I hope you enjoy painting this cute hedgehog in the autumn leaves. It reminds me of an illustration in a childhood book. Did you enjoy creating her using this simple technique of tilting your paper and adding heavy color then just allowing that paint to create you something beautiful and unique? Remember, just because you've wet an area down, doesn't mean to say you have to add color to every part. Judge, your own piece. How did the leaves go? The trick is to get the paper at the right right of drawing. It's worth noting, different brands of paper can act slightly differently. Did all the tweaks at the end pull your painting together? It's important to take your time. It can make all the difference to your hedgehog. We look forward to seeing you in the next class [MUSIC].
Jane Davies, Professional Artist and Teacher
