Transcripts
1. Welcome To The Class!: Hello everyone. My name is Will Elliston and welcome
to my Skillshare class. I'd always wanted to learn how to create
beautiful paintings, but when I started, I had no idea what
supplies I needed, how to mix colors, or even how to start a painting. Autumn is full of lovely colors, as the leaves start to change
and fall from the trees. Today, we're going to paint
a colorful Autumn scene. Whether you are
new to watercolor, or you already have
some experience, you'll be able to learn
something new in this class. Join me as we explore a variety of essential
and expected techniques. I've been a
professional watercolor artist for many years now, exploring many
different subjects, from wildlife and portraits to cityscapes and
countryside scenes. I've taken part in many
worldwide exhibitions and being lucky enough to win awards from well-respected
organizations such as Winsor & Newton, the International
Watercolor Society, the Masters of
Watercolor Alliance, and the SAA Artist
Of the Year Award. I also have collectors that buy my paintings around the world. Watercolor can be
intimidating for beginners, so my aim is to allow
you to relax and have fun learning this
medium step-by-step. Hopefully, by the end, you'll surprise yourself
with a nice painting. If this class feels too
intimidating or too simple, please check my other
classes as I have them available
across all levels. My approach to
watercolor starts off loose and expressive
with no fear of making mistakes
because we're just creating exciting textures
for the underlayer. Then as the painting goes on, we'll add more details, bring the painting to
life and making it pop. I try to simplify
complicated subjects into easier shapes that
encourages playfulness. The autumnal red, yellow, and oranges brighten up the
landscape in a majestic way. This scene we'll be painting today is a great
opportunity to use vivid colors and discover how
they react with each other. Not only will we be learning
about complimentary colors, but also how to paint in a bold way without
getting overwhelmed. All these things
will help you create striking paintings that
capture the attention. When you enroll in my class, I'll give you the
high resolution image of my painting to
use as a guide. Today's focus is about
painting rather than drawing. So I have included templates
you can use to help you sketch out the
drawing before you paint. I'll also include
my color charts, which are an
invaluable tool when it comes to choosing
and mixing colors. Throughout this class, I'll be sharing plenty of
tips and tricks. I'll show you how to use
mistakes to your own advantage, taking the stress out of
painting, and having fun. I'll explain which
supplies I'll be using, so you can follow along exactly. I'll also cover how to choose
and mix harmonious colors. I'll be splitting everything
up into short videos, so it's easier to take in. You can also pause at any moment if you
want to more time. If you have any questions, you can post them in the
discussion thread down below, I'll be sure to read and respond to everything
you guys post. Don't forget to follow me on Skillshare by clicking the
Follow button at the top. This means you'll
be the first to know when I launch a new class, post giveaways, or just have an interesting announcement
to share with my students. You can also follow me on Instagram to see
my latest works. If you'd like to create
your own vibrant landscape, all whilst learning fun and useful watercolor techniques, please click "Enroll"
as I'd love to have you in my class.
Now let's begin.
2. Your Project: First of all, thank you so much for enrolling in my class. I really do appreciate it. We're going to have a great
time learning a lot about watercolor using an
easygoing approach. As seen in the
introduction video, today we're going to
paint an autumnal scene. I think it's a great subject to explore color and
painting in general. Because of the bursts
of warm color, we shouldn't have to worry about colors getting muddy or dirty. That will give us more
freedom to express ourselves. I'll also share tips and tricks that will improve
your composition. The style we're
painting in today doesn't rely on a heavily
detailed drawing, which means there's less
stress and it gives us more freedom to express and
explore new techniques. This means you'll learn more and end up with a
better painting. You can choose to paint as loose or as realistic
as you want, depending on your level. You're welcome to copy
my drawing and follow it exact or experiment
with your own. I will put my painting
in the resource section so you can use it as a reference
throughout the process. There's also a template
you can use to trace and transfer
it onto your paper. Don't feel guilty
about tracing when using it as a guide for
learning how to paint. It's important to have the
under drawing correct, so that it doesn't
inhibit your ability to practice and learn the
watercolor medium itself. Whichever way you
use this class, it would be great
to see the outcome and the paintings you
create in this class. I'd love to give you feedback. So please take a
photo afterwards and share it in the student
project gallery. You can find the gallery under the same project
and resources tab. On the right, you'll
see a green button that says Create a Project. Tap that. Once you're there, you'll have the option to upload
a cover photo, and a title, and write
a little description. I would love to hear about your process and what you
learned along the way. Once your project is uploaded, it will appear in the
student's project gallery. You can view other
projects here. I'd highly encourage you to like and comment on
each other's work. We put so much time and effort into creating
our paintings, why not share it with
the world and help support each other
along the way? Now you have a good
idea of this class. Let's get stuck into it, starting with the supplies
and materials I'll be using.
3. Materials & Supplies: Let's go over the materials and supplies you will
need to paint along. We'll start with
the colors I use. Unlike most of the materials
we'll be using today, is a lot to do with preference. I have 12 stable colors in my palette that I
fill up from tubes. They are Cadmium yellow, yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, cadmium red, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, cobalt
blue, cerulean Blue, lavender, purple, viridian,
black or neutral tint. At the end of the
painting, I often use white gouache for
tiny highlights. I don't use any
particular brand, these colors you can
get from any brand. Although I personally
use Daniel Smith, Winsor, and Newton
or Holbein paints. Let's move on to brushes. To keep things simple,
in this painting, I'm only going to use a
small selection of brushes. First is this mop brush. Mop brushes are good for broad brushstrokes and filling in larger areas or washers. But they also have a tip
for some smaller details, so they are one of my
favorite types of brushes. Next is this, a
Skoda Perla brush. I use various sizes, but for this painting, I'll use Size 8. These brushes allow for
more precision because they have a finer tip and
last quite a long time. For even more precision, when painting final
touches or highlights, for example, I use a
synthetic Size 0 brush. All brands have them and
they're super cheap. This here is a sword
brush or a rigger brush. It's quite long but thin. It's only used for
very small details, much like the Size 0 brushes, but it holds more
water and pigment, saving time and
effort refilling. The only drawback is it's more difficult to control
as it's more flimsy. That's it for brushes.
You're of course, welcome to use your
own favorites as well. Onto paper. The better
quality your paper is, the easier it will be to paint. Cheap paper crinkles easily
and is very unforgiving, not allowing you to
rework mistakes. Good quality paper, however, such as cotton base paper, not only allows you to
rework mistakes over multiple times but because the pigment reacts
much better on it, the chances of
mistakes are a lot lower and you'll more likely
create better paintings. I use arches because it's what's available
in my local art shop. Next, some various materials that will
come in very handy. A water spray is
absolutely essential. By using this, it
gives you more time to paint the areas you
want before it dries. Also, it allows you to
reactivate the paint if you want to add smooth lines
or remove some paint. Lastly, masking tape. This will hold paper to
the painting surface and it will create
a nice clean border when you take it off at the end. That's everything you
need to know to paint along. Let's get on with it.
4. Drawing It Out: Let's start the sketch and to keep it as simple as possible, we're going to break it
down into the basic shapes. Starting off with a line, it will be a horizon line. I'm only drawing in lightly. Then we'll build on top of that. That's the horizon
line. Simple start. That's about in-between a
third and a fifth of the way, almost a quarter all
way down the page. You'll see a lot of my
pencil movements are quite organic, circular, and rhythmic. I rarely let the pencil
leave the paper. I just find when I draw circles this circle, emotions,
wave emotions. It just all flows together. The composition just looks more fluid and stronger
and more natural. Especially good with these
nature scenes, landscapes. These are going to be
the tops of the trees. I'm mainly doing this from
memory or just my imagination. We'll clear this
up with a rubber. Just trying to get the rough idea of where
things are going to go, using these circles, I'm trying to simplify it both
for teaching purposes but also I actually do
it this way myself because by breaking things down and making them
easier to understand, even as a experienced artist just makes the whole
process a lot easier. A lot of these shapes that I'm drawing won't make
a lot of sense now, but when it comes
to the painting, you'll see why I
put them in there. I'll leave a template that
you can use to trace it out to make it easier if you're not so confident
with your drawing skills. Because drawing
isn't something that you can just learn overnight. It's perfectly
acceptable to trace it. Let's define the tree shapes now that we've
added the outline. I'm, of course, leaving a bit of a space here for our border
for when we stick it on the board because
we'll be using masking tape. Most of the time I do my sketching once I've
already taped it on, but it's easier for these
lessons with recording and for teaching purposes just
to draw it out like this, get the angle perfect
for the camera, and then when I make
sure it's ready, I can tape it all up. You don't need to follow
exactly as you can see. It's quite random where
all these circles are, I'm just basically
creating simple shapes. We're almost done
with this stage. There's no right
and wrong really, so whatever feels right for you. You don't have to have it
in the exact same position. For the drawing stage, that's pretty much it. Let's get on with the painting.
5. Painting The Underlayer: Before we put paint to paper, we're going to think about
which order we'll paint this. I always start off
with the underlayer and that's usually the
lightest part of the painting. I think it'll be the ground
area here in the trees, which will be the lightest part. There will be some
white in the sky that gradually turns
into a deep blue here, but I'll do that
last over the top. That doesn't count
as the underlayer. I'm going to mix
some viridian green, a bit of yellow ocher just to fill in some
light ground here. It doesn't matter if you
go over the lines here. This is just the underlayer. We'll be going over this with much darker tones later
so it's no stress. You can fill down there. You can use the same
colors as I'm using, but it's not a strict rule
is whatever you feel. If you feel like it should
be a bit more brown, if you want to do brown
here rather than green, that's fine, but I'm
trying to think of a bigger picture and use
colors that are complementary. I'll add some yellow ocher here and I'm thinking
about the reflection on the water because there
would be a lake here. Try not to get really hard
lines because those bits will be difficult to
cover, but it's okay. When you get a hard line
like that, for example, I just get a wet
brush that doesn't have any pigment in it and just brush it down there and
that smooth this out a bit. Then I'll have a
foreground area here, so we've got a foreground, mid-ground, and a background. Maybe I'll make this
reflection a bit more yellow. I'm going to get quite
bold here and use my brightest red or orange. I've put my orange with red
because it's quite similar. It's cadmium yellow
mixed with cadmium red. That's going to put a
burst of that here. Now I can move on to the
trees using that same parallel cadmium
red, cadmium orange. Now you can use your
own judgment here with how orange or red or yellow you want the
autumn leaves to be. I'm being very loose
with my brush here. Flicking it around. This is going to
be the underlayer, so you don't have to be so strict with where
things are going. Quite a thick pigment. This is a good example
of expressive watercolor because at this
stage it will look very messy and out of context, it will be difficult to tell
whether it's working well. Whether it will end
up a good painting, but it's always the
case with watercolor, that it looks weird
to begin with, but it slowly and gradually looks more
attractive in each stage. This is a mop brush
I'm using here. Creating a few gaps
at the top here, which might indicate leaves. Few splatters of water, making sure it's pure
water. Quite a full brush. Splashing it on the edges here. Make sure you top up your water rather than flicking more. It would be a light flick
and if it's not flicking, add more water because otherwise the flicks go everywhere and it
gets a bit messy. Some very strong yellow here. This painting is quite
dynamic because we'll be having the trees here, dark trees on the
light background, and then on here we'll have
a dark sky on light trees. It will create a nice effect
having that transition, the reversing transition of light and dark to
dark and light. It's going to add a bit of a background in the
distance here as well. I'm not being strict at all, I'm just experimenting,
putting my colors around. Not very organized. That's okay with this first stage of doing
the underlayer. A bit of flicking of water. Distant trees here
in the background. If you look at the
reference images or my completed
painting of this, you'll see what I'm
trying to do here. I'm going to just do a rough
background and then I'll use negative shapes to cut
out the trees later. I'm going to have a blue sky because blue
works with orange very well. Then I'll have some purple dots every now and again influences because that'll go
well with the green. Purple will go well with the yellow and the red will
go well with the green. We're coming close to
the end of this stage. I'm just going to switch over to a brush that
has a bit more of a tip so that I can really indicate the
edges of the trees here. I'm just going to use a
hairdryer to dry it quickly. Now that it's dry,
I can touch it and I'm not afraid to
get my hands on it a bit and get into some
more finer details. I shouldn't call them finer
details because we're not trying to get it realistic here, just adding some
smaller textures. It's quite random. I'm not
doing anything specific. Another red color here. Just a random mixture of different reds to
orange and yellow. All the classic autumn colors.
6. Painting The Sky: Now I'm going to do the sky and I'll have two
brushes ready for this. One for the larger strokes
to fill in the details and this one to fill in
the little gaps there. But before I start,
I'm going to mix my colors so that I have
everything ready to begin with. The main color I'll be
using is cobalt blue. We'll mix in some cerulean
blue into that as well. Then as it goes, I'll start adding other
colors like purple and fading out here into almost
white really, a very light purple,
yellow ocher color. Straight into it. Got
a water spray as well. [NOISE] Don't be afraid to put really thick pigment in there. Being as quick as possible, but still trying to
have a bit of control, I'm filling in down
to the horizon line and [NOISE] spraying in
every now and again as well. Now currently, the purple has more of an influence
and it takes over. [NOISE] You splatters
of yellow ocher here. Using this water, just drag it out. Fill this out into little areas. Maybe it's a bit too
much water down here, so I'm just going to use a tissue to pull
some of it back in. I can move some of it
over here as well. Suck it up on the brush and
move it around down here. I think that it
needs to be a bit, just be some more purple
here, some deeper purple. Some distant mountains. [BACKGROUND] Some splatters. It's really in blue. If you're using
good quality paper, it doesn't matter if it
buckles and wrinkles. As long as you go to
tape down properly, it should dry out flat again. Making sure there isn't lots of water build-up because
otherwise it'll dry unevenly. If it builds up too much, you can pull it
out of the brush. Draw some tree trunks. Distant trees implying it. [NOISE] Add a few
more splatters at the top here where
it's a bit dryer. Now I'm going to dry
it with a hairdryer just to see where we're at.
7. Being Bold With The Paint: I want this bit to
be a bit lighter, so I'm just going to activate it again with the water spray. And that's it. I'm just showing you for
example what you can do as a nice technique
for retouching, you can respray any thing. Your pencil, let's lift it up. Not entirely essential,
but it's a good excuse, good opportunity to
show you how to use or one of the ways you
can use the water spray. I think I want the tree to
be a bit more vivid here. So what I'm going to do is take the brush and
just go back over it. Plus the yellow. I'm using the pigment very thickly at
this stage by dry brush. If we find it's too
wet on your brush, you can just dab it off on a tissue and it sucks
the moisture out and makes the dry brush effect create more texture
on the paper. So now you can see at this
stage the dark tree is on the light sky and light
tree is on the dark sky. I think I want the trees to be a bit
more vivid here too. Now, it's time to get very bold. By that, I mean, I'm going to get my
paint thick with black pigment straight from the tube and just block
it in the darkest areas, making sure everything else is dry so that it doesn't get wet. I mean, it's gone a few places. Now, I take some Alizarin
crimson and do a similar thing for the shadows
inside the trees. A bit of purple
in there as well. So you're practicing
dry brush strokes now.
8. Creating Varied Effects: Then we'll come back later and activate it again
with water and that's where it gets exciting and
creates lovely effects. I think it's time
for that moment now. We can take another mop
brush and spray it a bit and just activate the paint that we just didn't have
to interfere that much. Just wet the paper and
let it mix itself. Take this rigger brush
and imply some branches. Here you want to, just as it's on the point
of drawing about 80%, if you add some water, it will add some nice effects.
9. Painting The Branches: It's Rigor again, I'm just
going to imply few branches. I'm going to flick some white, mix some white and cobalt blue flicks them on there, because the purple mix as well. Bring back some of the black to indicate some
trees, some branches. I think in some pigment, and then using water
to just draw it out, bleed it into these
different sections. Flickers of vivid orange paint. Maybe even some
yellow flickers here.
10. Adding Texture: It looks like a mess at
this stage, which is okay. That's how watercolor
painting is, it's 80% abstract and then
just a few details at the end, just bring it together. Adding in this lavender
because as it dries, it will spread out. Some more leaves
coming out here. This is the part
where you can really experiment with watercolor
and what it can do. A bit more purple in here. Some flickers. Now I'm going
to add some green here by mixing blue and
yellow together. There are many complementary
colors in this painting. We've got green and red, blue and orange, and
yellow and purple. All I had to bleed a bit more. I'm just going to add a bit
more atmospheric perspective. Flicker it with plain water. Wait a few seconds
[NOISE] and then rub. I'm going to wet this bit here for some shading.
11. Painting The Water: Now for the water, add a bit of blue here, and a lot of purple. A little bit of black
just across here. Now I'm going to start
adding red on top of that purple and
let it bleed down. I have my canvas has a slight angle so that it
can bleed down like this. Trying to connect
everything together. Murdering in down here. Try it off again. I feel like I need
to get a bit bolder. I'm going to get back into it. Look more bursts of color. A bit more color here and lavender. In the water can come
down and it mix itself. We can add few darker lines on top and very dark here, where it meets the water. Mark out some trees.
12. Applying Splatters: You have to force yourself every now and again to be
a bit more playful. I could feel myself slowing
down and getting stuck in details and starting
to lose the energy. With oil painting, you can style where you get to sit down and you get lost
in your painting for hours, but you have to always be a bit more active with watercolor. [NOISE] We do a light flicker here, one, two, here we go. We can do this red. Needs to be thicker. It's easier to use a bigger
brush when flicking actually because otherwise it gets very messy if you're flicking
with a small brush.
13. Painting The Grass: Now using this rigger brush, you can add a bit of grass here. Starting off quite dark [NOISE] blurring into those
distant trees [NOISE] I'm going to refine
that background a bit [NOISE] Some splotches of yellow.
14. Finishing Highlights: I'm using pure white
and a spot small brush. I'm just going to quickly
go over some areas here just to imply some holes in the leaves. I'm scared to use your fingers
either just to blur it in. A few highlights leaves here. Now when you're painting
is about 80-90% done, I take the tape off, disconnect from it for a bit
and then have a look with a fresh eye to see if anything
can be improved later on. In a minute, that's
what I'll do. I'm going to take the tape off, disconnect for a bit, see if there's any improvements, and then we'll sum it up.
15. Final Thoughts: Welcome back. Now the
painting is finished, let's have a close
up look at it. I hope you have your own
painting to look at as well. After taking the tape off, I put the painting away for a few days and tried
to disconnect from it, so that when I return to
it, I had a fresh eye. I could more clearly see any obvious mistakes for
corrections I should put in. You can try to do different
variations of this painting using different techniques and exploring different colors, maybe even using a
texturized sponge to painting the
leaves on the trees. The goal, ultimately, at this learning stage is just
about having a bit of fun, exploring the possibilities
of this exciting medium. It can be easy to
feel a bit stressed during the painting if
it gets challenging. But remaining
positive and keeping faith really helps in the end. Try not to compare your
painting with mine, as no two paintings
are alike and everyone has their own
individuality and nuances. In fact, painting in
this style should be very liberating
because it encourages loose brush marks and it gives an opportunity to
discover your own style. If you would like feedback on your painting, I'd
love to give it. Or if you'd like any advice
related to watercolor, please share your painting in the student projects
gallery down below, and I'll be sure to respond. If you prefer, you can
share it on Instagram, tagging me @willelliston
as I would love to see it. Skillshare also loves
seeing my students' work, so tag them as well @Skillshare. After all that effort
we put into it, why not show it off? Remember, please click
the Follow button up top so you can follow
me on Skillshare. This means you'll
get a notification as soon as I publish
my next class, or have important announcements
like free giveaways or sharing some of my
best student artwork uploaded to the project gallery. Thank you so much again for joining me in this class today. Please leave a comment below
in the class discussion area if you have any questions or comments about today's class. If you have any subject wildlife or a scene you'd like
me to do a class on, by all means, let me know about it in the discussion
section as well. I hope you learned a lot and are inspired to paint more
in his wonderful medium. Until next time, goodbye.
Will Elliston, Award-Winning Watercolour Artist
