Autumn Watercolors for Very Beginners

1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Welcome. In this free course we are going to paint four simple autumn thing subjects a leaf, a pear, an apple and an autumn tree. There are super easy and simple idea for very beginners. We're not going to paint realistic objects, but rather simple illustrations. As a very beginner, you will learn how easy it is to paint simple objects with only two layers and few colors. We are not going to mix colors only bleed them into each other. My name is Alexandra Gabor. I'm a professional art teacher, artist and an online educator. You can follow me on social media, for example on Facebook, Instagram by typing the name The Artmother, and I'm also launching my own website, www.theartmother.com. You can find my illustrations, designs, and online courses I'm offering there. You are mostly welcome to join our growing tribe of watercolor beginners on Facebook. Please just find the group Watercolor Painting for Beginners, and you can find an amazing community there. There are very enthusiastic beginners and you can just get an extra motivation. Are you ready to start learning? Let's get started. 2. Supplies: Welcome. In this video I'm going to show you what supplies I'm going to use. Let's start with the paper. It is Daler-Rowney Aquafine watercolor paper. It's 300 grams and A4 sized. It's cold pressed. It has a really nice texture. You can use any paper you have. Before purchasing a watercolor paper, make sure that it is at least 300 grams so that it will actually make sure your success. Let's continue. You will need clean water. This is a middle-sized brush and let's talk about the paints. I'm using a Winsor & Newton open set. You can use any paints you have, you're not really limited, but we're going to use only four colors. [NOISE] Then it's time to show you. Here they are. We're going to use cadmium yellow, sap green, dark brown. We're going to add in the second, third, and fourth project a little bit of red. Here are the projects we're going to do. Here is a total simple autumn leaf. Here is simple pair. Actually, if you can see, and you will see in the tutorial that actually they are pretty much the same. We're going to follow pretty much the same process with these two. Then in this third one we're going to add a different color. There's red. This fourth one is enough so the different technique, but still with the same colors. I hope you will enjoy the tutorials and please don't forget to share them. Even in the project gallery of this course or in the watercolor for beginners Facebook group. I really love to see your artworks. Let's get started. 3. Autumn Leaf Tutorial: [MUSIC] In this first video, we're going to paint an autumn leaf. It is going to be super easy. I am going to just put it here so that you can see. We are going to paint an absolutely easy shape. The first thing you need to do is to wet your paint, it will just make your work easier. Just put a little water into your paints. It is going to be useful so that know what things you are using. You can pre-sketch the shape of the leaf, but I think it is not necessary if you think it is necessary I'm going to show you. I'm just going to sketch the shape of the leaf like this. When you're painting, try to avoid painting over the pencil mark because you will not be able to erase it. Now I'm just demonstrating how to do that with careful brushstrokes. You can actually erase them after the first layer is dry but always erase pencil marks after everything's completely dry because it can mess up everything. What I'm actually doing is I'm painting light layer of cadmium yellow here, and I'm going to dab my brush into the sap green and I'm just going to bleed this color into the cadmium yellow a bit. What I mean by this [NOISE] is I'm going to try to mix color actually a bit with water I have on the painting, but try not to use too much water on the painting, I'm using a 300 grams cold pressed watercolor paper. Hopefully, it will not curl or get wavy, but if you use too much water, it can get. Now I'm going to add dark brown down here. As you can see it bleeds right into this cadmium yellow. What I'm actually doing is I'm underpainting, but it will be our leaf. Great, it's just enough, for now, you can play with the shape. Again, try to avoid to paint the pencil marks. This is our first layer, let's wait until it's dry. You can use a hairdryer or just put it aside and just wait. How do you like it? Our first layer is dry. I really love how it turned out. What you can do now is to paint a second layer to make these colors more pop or we can continue with the details right away. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to turn my brush into detail brush. But you can use your under side brush if you can paint thin lines, but I will go for this detail brush. I'm going to paint this down and follow the direction of this leaf. Makes sure that on these stems follow the direction of the leaves because it's like curving and that they start at the same spot. You can add more, you can add less, how you like it. You can take a real leaf as your reference photo. I think I would love some more here, down here. I really love it. This is our super simple leaf. You will need to wait until it's fully dry before you erase this pencil mark. Let's continue with the second object. [MUSIC] 4. Pear Tutorial: [MUSIC] In this video we are going to paint a pear following this taps and using the same colors, cadmium yellow, sap green, and dark brown. The only difference is in the shape. You can please catch the shape. I'm not going to, I'm just going to paint a simple pear shape. [NOISE] I'm using now only cadmium yellow. I'm going to do the same as before, I'm going to add a bit of sap green up here to blend it. Bleed it into the cadmium yellow. You can add a bit more water to water up the pigments. I'm going to add dark brown down here. Actually, I'm doing pretty much the same as with the leaf only in a different shape. Make sure you load lot of pigments so that you can add enough. [NOISE] We can wait until it's dry. However, I can paint the stem up here. It doesn't really matter that it bleeds a bit. It will make an effect that it's a bit like shadow. But I think there's too much water there. I will take a tissue and just soak up a bit of this. It soaked up too much so I can fix this. A bit of screen. Let's just wait until it's dry, the bit pigments. We can wait until it's dry. I'm just going to add a bit far off this dark brown down here to make it even more shadowy. Actually, I'm going to work on this. I'm adding more pigment at the edge. As you can see you can play with the shape a bit more. Now, add a bit of water and just work it towards the inside of the pear smoothly. The pear is finished. Only thing I'm going to do is to play with this steam pear a bit. Paint one side and down here a bit. Well, the pear is finished. [MUSIC] 5. Apple Tutorial: [MUSIC] Okay In this video, we're going to paint a super simple apple illustration. Actually we are going to do the same as we did with the leaf and a pear, only thing is changing that we're going to add a bit of red into our color palette. We're going to basically [NOISE] follow the same steps. Take your cadmium yellow and paint a simple apple shape. Round it. Now we're going to do the same so that we're brushing to the sap green and just bring some dots into the side. Add a bit of water to mix it up and bleed it into the cadmium yellow. What we are going to change in this one, we're going to add the red, not the brown. Take all red. I'm going to use this one and simply paint a thick layer to the edge and just let it bleed into the apple. If you have too much water, you can soak it up with a paper towel. I am on the border of having too much water, but okay. Let's bleed it into it. The red and the green bled into each other in here. I'm just going to soak it up a bit. I'm going to clean my brush now and take the Cadmium yellow and go over the place I soaked up the water too much. I miss pigments here, so I'm going to add a bit more on this Cadmium yellow and just play with it a bit. Now we can wait until it's fully dry and we can continue with the second layer. Okay when our first layer is dry, let's add a second layer. Only thing I'm going to do is to add a bit more of red to the side to make it a bit more defined or darker. You can play with the shape of the apple now. Just add a thicker layer of pigments to the sides, and then with your brush, and go over these edges with a bit of water and blend it into your painting. You can do this with any colors you want, for example you can make this green pop more. I don't really want it now, so I won't do that. I think that's cool. I would love to do one more thing, to add to this stem. Take your dark brown and simply paint it. But don't start at the edge but a bit inside the apple so that it makes more realistic. In fact, I will just paint this thing here. What you can do is to paint a trim line like this as if it would be like a hole you know from which this stem goes out. We can paint a bit of this down here. Make sure that you don't touch the red, so it doesn't bleed into each other. I think it's finished. It is a super easy and simple apple [NOISE]. I think where beginners can do this easily. We follow these steps. We actually did the first three objects with the leaf, with the pear. With the apple, we did the same so we made a layer of Cadmium yellow and added few dots of sap green to make variety within it. Then added shadow or darker part with the red and the brown. We're going to continue with an autumn tree, which is going to be a bit different, but we're going to use the same exact colors. [MUSIC] 6. Autumn Tree Tutorial: [MUSIC] In this video, we are going to paint an autumn tree, as you can see and we're going to use the same colors as we did with the apple. Our first step is to start with cadmium yellow again. What I'm going to do is to make spots like this in a shape of a circle. Now we're going to continue with the red. We're going to actually do the same and make sure that you put your brush to the parts which are empty, where there's white dots so that this red preserves its color. Also that it bleeds into cadmium red in some places. Just to make it a bit more interesting. Any splatter doesn't matter, just nice. I think it is enough for the red. Now let's do a bit of green. But from the sap green we are going to use only just few dabs so that it adds a bit of accent to it. Not rules the painting, so it doesn't rule the painting. I'm going to do the same with the dark brown. Here and there, just a few of this dark brown. Now I can continue with this tree. I can paint few branches down here and paint this part. It doesn't really matter that it bleeds into it because we are going to add a second layer, and I really love that it is just light here. I'm going to leave it like that. We can create something like this at the bottom. I need to continue with a wash here. I will make a second layer here too to make these branches. But now I'm going to start with the cadmium yellow again, and just make a few more leaves down here to make it a bit interesting. Again, we are just simply making dots. More of this brown can go down here and only a few greens. We can also create the effect of falling leaves. Let's choose some red, and some cadmium yellow, and a bit too brown. [NOISE] I think it's a bit too much but it's okay. Our tree is almost done. What we need is to wait until it's dry to paint a bit more branches into the tree. The only thing we need to do is you can branches like this here and there. You can renew some of this leaf colors if you wish. You don't need to do too much because it would ruin the tree. But to the end of these branches, make sure you are painting a bit of a darker color. A bit of red. I'm going to add it here, and you can just actually continue with this dabbing around to make this tree a bit more vibrant down here? I just love how loose it is. I will renew this part a bit more. We let the darker layer here. Our autumn tree is furnished I think. I hope you'll like it. [MUSIC] 7. Final Thoughts: Okay. I hope you liked this free course and the tutorials and that you were successful with them. Please feel free to join Skillshare, there's so many more amazing classes and watercolors. It is really a good experience, I really recommend you to just join us and also look for what I'm sharing in the art group on my Facebook pages and on my Instagram because I'm planning to add more courses and maybe even more free ones. I hope you enjoy, joyful, and wonderful art journey with full of success [MUSIC]