Avocet Watercolour - Less is More

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Nadine. I'm a watercolor artist from Melbourne, Australia, today, what I want to do with you is to keep exploring this idea that Less is Me. The most enjoyable thing about watercolor is letting the pigment do the work for you and leaving the light. It's always about leaving the light. But funnily enough, it's actually really hard to leave the light and particularly leave white bits of paper. Everyone always wants to fill everything in. So what we're going to do today is an aset that's standing in water. We're not painting the water, we're giving a little suggestion of it. And the most important thing about this painting is living white, living light on the back. So I'm hoping that you'll be able to see by the end, but minimal is fine, and really you can portray the subject really quickly and easily without getting hung up in all the detail. So we'll go through the reference photo. We'll go through the sketch, step by step through the painting. And what I'm hoping is by the end, you haven't painted everything in. So really try and sit on your hands and leave some white paper for me. That's the aim of today. So let's get started. 2. Materials: Okay, materials for the class today. First up the reference photo. This one is from Pixel Bay, and I've got a link to that on the material section. I'm painting on 300 gram arches called pressed paper. I'm painting flat on a board, but I'm not taping it down. You'll need a regular HB pencil and an eraser. In terms of paints, I'm using the three main ones I've got. I've got some Daniel Smith Indigo, some Daniel Smith Vandyke brown, and I've got some Windsor and Newton burnt umber. Now, the Daniel Smith indigo is quite a different color to say, for example, the Windsor and Newton indigo, which is almost like a Prussian blue. Check the color of your paint. If you don't have that, you could mix up some burnt umber and French ultra to get a similar dark probably with a bit of vandyke in there. Just have a play before you go ahead. I'm using I think out my palette. I've got some cobalt blue. Could be French ultra. I think it's probably cobalt. Doesn't really matter. So whatever blue you've got hanging around is fine for this because you just need a touch. And I put a tiny highlight of white glass in the eye. If you don't have this, don't rush out and buy it. You can either leave the paper white. You know, just leave the highlight when you go to paint it or you could use some China white or titanium white. In terms of brushes, I'm using well, I'm using two. I've got two little synthetics here and the details of those are in the material section and I'm also using this stiff synthetic to fix a mistake that I made. You probably won't need that if you don't make any mistakes. Other than that, you'll need your palette, jar of water, some tissues or toilet paper, and I think we're good to start the sketch. Okay. 3. Sketching Up: So starting off with the sketch as always keep it nice and simple. So get the shape of the beak in a little bit of an indication of where the darks under the wing are, but I don't want to put in all this patterning, keep it nice and straightforward. Now for the legs, this foot is actually quite complicated when you look at the reference. It's hard to tell. I think this back bit probably belongs to the front foot, but because I can't see that, I'm not stressing about it. I'm just giving myself a little bit of an indication of the shape. Now, I am putting a few ripples in, but I'm not drawing all of this. I'm just giving myself, again, a bit of an indication of where some of those lines might go. So here for the beak, and just the start of these ones for the leg here. And that's all I'm going to do. I have gone slightly larger on my sketch than the image that I've printed out here just because I don't have any very good paint brushes at the moment that I've got a really nice tip, so to make it easier for myself, I've just got a touch a touch bigger. Now, if you don't want to paint sketch it up yourself, I have included a template that you can download from the Skillshare site, and this is actually a little bit larger than the printout that I've got there at the reference. So this is the same size as the one that I've got here. I think we're ready to paint. 4. Eye and beak: All right. So we're going to start off in the beak. Now, I actually did find this brush isn't too bad. I found one under my mess. I want to get this shape in, but I'm going to turn the page around because my hand, I can't do that easily make it a bit simpler. I'm going to come this way to pop the beak in. I'm going to go with some indigo. I've got squeezed out. I'm I haven't really drawn just looking at the reference. It's a bit hard to tell what's going on in the front here, but I'll make it up as I go. So get some milky probably indigo to start with. I'm going to straight onto dry paper. Start in the tip. I've got to be careful but this paint brush, it's got water on the heel of the brush there, so I want to get rid of that because if that dribbles onto the page, I'll be in trouble. Tip down. Coming on the underside of the be there and then I'm going to pick up a bit more paint, come into that wet area and come into the front of the face. Now I've just not quite come to my pencil edge there. I'm just going to tidy that up. I don't really mind that that's coming to the front of the head. I'm not fussed about that. I do need to close up now that light I was light to begin with because I didn't want to come on too hard and mess it up. Now while the page is still wet, I'm just going to drop in. A little bit more paint. I still think now, before I finish this, I think I want a little bit of light on the top. I've just wet my brush. Before this dries, I'm just going to pop a little bit of water on there and maybe come the other direction. I just want a little bit of a highlight on the top. Now, I could do that once this is all dried, but it's easier while it's still wet. I will need to go darker on the bottom, but I'm not going to worry about that until this is dry. I just keep wetting my brush, dragging it I'm wetting the brush, taking off the excess, and just dragging it through. But I think that's where I'll leave that now. I'm also going before I stop for a second, I'm just going to pop in I know we've only just started and we're stopping, but I want this eye and the beak to dry before I start the rest. That's just straight indigo onto dry paper, just popping in that little dark for the eye. Because I'm painting flat, I'm just going to pull that up and just make sure that that is the right shape before I move on. Now, this isn't dark enough unneath here, but I want to come out of that for now. Give that a couple of minutes dry won't take long. 5. Starting the Head: Okay, so I'm drawing there now. So we're going to put the head and the body in. Right. I'm going to use, I think maybe it's a bit tatty this brush, but I reckon I'm going to go with that. I got a tissue. I've got some water. Now, in my well, I have some van **** brown, some burnt umber, and I've got some indigo. I want to use a mixture of wet on dry wet and wet. Now, I might just do the head first. I want a little bit of light at the front, I think. I'm going to just throw on a bit of water come around that eye. Bush isn't very clean. It's going to throw a bit of water on. I might bring that to the back of the neck there. I'm going to keep that dry. We'll see what happens. Now I'm going to pick up. I've got a bit of my burnt umber, counts bit of my burnt umber and a bit of my van ****, a bit of both with milky consistency initially. I'm going to come onto the dry page here and pull that across to come into the wet area. I'm just teasing it into the front there so it stays nice and light. But I want a bit more in that. I'm now going to grab a bit more paint, probably more van **** now darker along this edge, I'm going to throw a bit more paint while it's still wet and let it bleed. Around the eye. Wash my brush, and then I'm just going to help tease that out to the edge. Now, what I want to be careful of if I've got too much water pooling and it pushes all out to this edge, I'll end up with a really hard line. So I'm trying to make sure I want to border on there to get some movement, but I don't want so much water that I end up having all the pigment push to this front edge where I want it to keep light. Testing back, I think I need maybe a bit more. I'm just checking a bit more of that van **** in bringing over top. I'm just eyeballing how much light I want to keep. Okay. Now also, I just want to rough up a little bit. We'll take a little bit of water. My brush is pretty dry still. I'm just painting underneath that brown. Then I'm going to come up and just ever so gently touch the edge, so I get a little bit of bleeding. But what I don't want to do is introduce a whole lot of water there because it will shoot all over the place. I just want to mustard up a bit. Really softly painting underneath and then coming up to meet that painted edge. I'm going to do the same here, just coming back into the shoulder. After that soft I feel like I'm going to put a bit of indigo as well. I'm picking up now some andyke and my indigo and now coming in again last time onto that wet edge because I've still got water in the page. My eyes lightened off too much, but I'll worry about that later. I've been in there a while now. The idea being that I wanted to get nice strength of color in here. I do want to e, although it's not in the reference, I do want to keep a little bit of light on the front, by doing it slowly like that, I've let myself keep that line without getting a really super hard edge. You have a little bit of an edge up there, but not too much. Now, the eyes are dark enough. I need more darks around the beak. There's more to go in here. But I don't want to make decisions on that until I've got everything else in. I think sometimes you go too much in one area and then realize it doesn't balance out with the rest of it. I need to come out of that and let that dry, give it 10 minutes, and then we'll come in and we'll do the main body. 6. Getting in the Body: Okay, it's been about 10 minutes, and I wasn't worried so much about this bleeding as me putting my hand in it, that's why I wanted it to dry. So we're going to come on and do the wing and the body here. And I want a mixture of wet and wet and wet on dry. So I'm going to grab my medium brush, and I'm going to throw a bit of water down just on the on the wing where the brown feathers are on the top of the wing here. So I'm just not we. Not absolutely saturated, but a reasonable amount of water. Just patchy. I want you to try and leave I'm going to put a little bit in here, but I want you to try and leave some white paper in there. Then I'm going to pick up. I'm going to put my brush in my brown, my blue, my warm brown, a bit of a mix. I come on and I'm not going to think about it. I'm coming onto I've got the dry edge here coming into the wet page and just throwing a little bit of paint on. Clean my brush. I'm going to just drag my brush at the bottom of this one just to get a bit more bleeding and I want a little bit of something. The same three colors, just milky into that that's maybe a bit browner, a bit warmer than I want. I'm going to get a bit of my indigo and chuck that in. And come out and dribble. Now, what I don't want you to do is now go on and keep going and filling all of that in. You want to stay out of that. I'm going to pick a bit of indigo up and just chuck a little bit more paint on a little bit darker on the edge here, tidy up I don't like this shape, so I'm going to chuck a little bit more indigo in there. Then I want a couple of little flicks for the tail onto dry paper. I'm going to touch my brush into the van **** and indigo, and I'm going to just pop a maybe another one. A couple of lines in just a couple of strokes. That's all. Then I'm going to come in to the rest of the body. I'm going to clean my brush. I wasn't clean. I'm going to pop some water on. I'm going to stay out of that tail coming around I guess me not having a clean brush, you can see where I'm actually painting the water, would have rather a clean brush. Throwing the water on coming under the neck there. Little bit up into the shoulder. Now I want to keep light through here. I want to keep light through the cheek initially. Just painting along my pencil edge. Then I'm going to pick up a bit of my andyke but more indigo. The dark blue and the dark brown keep them really milky. Then I'm just going to come in and actually just throw that didn't get much brown there into that wet page. And let the water wicket around. I'm going to come up and drag a few little marks into that dry paper. I want that mixture of bleeding, and then the hard edges. Hiding up my shape coming in here. You know, coming over into the front of the face there, touching into the beak, which I have to tidy up later. Okay. And then I want a bit more indigo at the bottom edge here. I've picked up a bit more of my blue dragging that through, letting it all bleed. I think up here I'm going to pop a bit more solid blue. So my indigo. I still nice and wet. Because there's that little shadow underneath this tail tail feather there that I'm going for. Then I'm just going to soften. I'm sweating my brush. I want some of these hard edges. I don't really want the hard edge on the face. So I'm just cleaning my brush, taking off the excess, and just worrying my brush along that edge. I get a combination of I guess, that thing where they talk about lost and found edges. That's what I'm after. I've got some really hard lines, but then I've got these soft edges as well. Okay. Now, because I'm not painting the background as such, when I put out that pencil line, I'm not going to have anything to show me what's happening there. I'm going to just pop a bit of water in there. I'm going to tuck a little bit of my blue, a little bit of browns probably a bit much, so I'm going to just flood that with a bit of water. I want a little bit of something, but I don't need quite that much. Again, when you do something like that, I decided that was too hard, don't panic, work it back off again. I want you to let yours dry. But do what I'm doing. Just sit and make sure you haven't got any edges that you don't like. Come out of that. Watch it dry for five or 10 minutes, and then we'll probably put in the legs before we go and then fix up the balance of the darks. Coming out and letting that dry. 7. Legs: Okay. I'm dry now. It's been about 10 minutes. I'm going to pop in these legs and maybe go into the water. I haven't quite decided. We'll decide as we go. So to help me with the leg, I'm actually going to put a little bit of water in first. So I'm just going to paint just a touch into each. No soaking, just a bit of water to help my pigments move. I think I'm going to go. It looks like actually when you look at the reference, it's bit of cerulean even in there, but I'm going to keep it simple and I'm going to go with my indigo. Start on that knee joint straight on. You can see that the pigments moving a bit. I'm just going to drag in a few maybe isn't sick enough. A few brush strikes, then I'm going to push out to my pencil edge. It's really easy with these to go fatter than you intend. That's why I started in the center and then I can push out so I can rescue it if I mess it up. Now I'm going to just soften off where it joins in there. I just wash my brush and just soften that back a bit. Then do the other leg while everything's still a bit wet. Well, I got no water there. That's a bit dark. I'm just going to get a bit bit of water into there to make it move a bit. Okay. Then I'm going to suggest that the leg behind. No, I think I want my claw to be a bit sharper, so I'm just going to drag my brush to get a bit more of a tip. Then I'm going to keep coming straight into these reflections. So I'm going to pick up. I think I'm going to do a bit of a mix of my blue and my brown, see what happens, not thinking, coming in and just dragging some stuff. So I actually I meant to go that way. I didn't do it. I don't care. I'm not going to overthink it. But what I'm after is a bit of a mix of the blue and the brown. Then I'm going to keep going with the same stuff on my brush onto the dry paper and just put in a little bit further one that's on the beak. Maybe I need a bit more under here. So I want a mixture. Of the blue and the brown. While that's drying, I'm going to come back into the face. Now here I'm going to switch to my small brush. I want to come back up to the face now. I need my eye to be darker. I want this light here, but I need a little bit more strength of color. I want to tidy up what's happening in the beak. I'm going to grab. I'm going to go straight indigo. I'm turning my page a little bit, going to go straight on to the beak. I think I think there's sort of a little bit of a line up here, I should probably put my other glasses on, but it's too late and just drag that down, wash my brush, run it along that join. So I made the effort to put that light in. Initially, I don't want to close it all up, but I just want to get a bit of a transition there. Come out. Might need to go darker again, but I'll let that dry, and then I need to darken off this eye. And you might find that you want to leave a little flash of light. I'm not sure that I do, actually. Some of you will do all sorts of lovely things. In that eye, that's totally fine. Go ahead and do that. I'm not going to bother. What I'm going to do is I'm going to let that dark kind of come down a bit into the front. So I want to strengthen up. I'm going to pick up a bit of my brown now as well. Just in this. Yeah, I know I spent all that time leaving the light, but I don't want it all wash my brush. Because it's always easier to put the light in first and then go darker if you need to. Trying to get the light back is really hard. Now, I don't like the shape of that eye. I think I want more brown than blue in here. I'm just picked up a bit more van ****. I'm just throwing that in. I think what I don't like, I think what it is. Let me see if I can do anything about it. I don't really like how far that brown lives come down. What I'm going to do, I'm going to take my hard oil brush. Let's see if we can fix it. Well, clean tissue. And I'm just going to I feel like this line. I feel like this line is too far that way. I don't like the shape that it's giving me. So I'm just going to see to keep watching my brush to do this. So I'm just dragging this clean, damp brush, hard brush to try and bring that pigment back a bit. Give me a well, it makes it a bit more interesting and I can correct the shape. I'm also not quite right down the bottom there, but I just bugging me too straight. I'm nearly there. Nearly there. I'm just going to tidy up. You know, you lift pigment like that, and then you've got to kind of chase the join to make sure that it doesn't that you can't see the correction. So yours mightn't have needed that. Mine was just wrong. And I need this is now not quite right. I think I want to tidy that up now, so I'm going to grab a bit more indigo and just that little spot in there. Still not quite. Everyone will tell you that watercolor is very unforgiving and to some extent it is, but you do have some scope for correcting, particularly if you've got a brand of paper that will let you lift and push and pull. That's why I use arches because it's pretty forgiving. I put that dark on there and now I'm going to switch glasses. I am going to just tidy up the shape here. Now that I can see that down. You think that's starting to look better? You know what? I don't know that it's in the reference. I can't. There is a nostril if you zoom in. I am but I'm just going to paint because I've got this nice bit of white. I'm just going to paint a little line on that highlight. Because I put that light in it, let's put that little bit of detail in. Okay. Now I'm officially fiddling. What I want to do is come out and let that dry. We're nearly done, but I want to let that dry. I'm going to rub out my pencil lines. We need to strengthen up a few of the darks and we need to put a few little ripples in. Come out and give that 10 minutes to dry. 8. Finishing Off: Okay. So on the home straight now, I'm going to put in just a couple of little ripples. I'm going to use. I think this might be I think this is either more French ultra or cobalt. Maybe it's cobalt. Doesn't really matter. Just grab some blue, and you want a really milky mix of paint. And then all I want to do, I want to think about there are some kind of circles around here. So I'm just going to pop in and maybe around the foot here. I don't have to be particularly accurate. I just want to get in. A few of those little. Some of you will do this with absolute accuracy and beautiful delicacy. Again, that's fantastic. Do that. I don't want to do it. I just want a little bit of the blue and a little bit of an indication that this is the top of my water. Well, that's drying, and I forgot to mention I have dried gotten rid of the pencil marks. Couple of little things I want to do. I've got a little gap here that I want to close in between this far legs. I'm going to put a little bit of a shadow in here. Maybe tidy up. I don't know. I'll see how I feel about that. I'm going to do this one first. Be careful not to put your arm in the water in the ripple that we just did there. I'm going to go on to dry paper, actually. I'm going to take some indigo. You can wait for these to dry. Obviously, you don't have to go straight on with it. It would be simpler, but I'm eager to push on. So I'm just closing up that little gap that I had. Now I'm dry cleaning my brush again and just teasing that down because I'm after the transition to dark to light. Now that I've popped that in now that page, I've effectively wetted it down, wet it down, we down. I'm going to pop in more solid plant. I really mean that now. But because I've already got water on there, it's going to move a bit for me. Goodness me, I have a coffee and now I can't find my words. So in there, and I think this probably hurts me this little light there, maybe. Because I want to see I think I'm dry there. I can put my hand in that now. Where that touches. I'm just painting with water first, seeing if I can move that around a little bit. Then I'm going to grab my indigo, just tidying up. Just a little bit. Don't have to go over the top. There's a little bit too much white paper there for me. Then I'm going to pop to bring this leg forward, I'm going to pop a little bit of a dark. I'm going to go onto dry paper just so I can chisel out and see what I'm doing. And then I'm going to get some water and come up to that join. Then I might pop. I'm now thinking about I talk about this a lot about the balance. I've got a nice dark here in the beak, I've got a dark here in the leg and then I'm completely light here. What I'm going to do just to get a little bit more of that dark in there, I'm going to take some water, run a line into that leg and down to that one got the shakes from the coffee. Then I'm going to grab a little bit of indigo. Actually get some paint and just drag a line up in there. I've just got a bit of interest. Now that little blip of light is going to hurt me, so I'm just going to close that in. And just to get a bit of something in there without having to overthink it. Maybe that's what I want, maybe I want a little bit of that on this too, just to break up that shape of just a flat wash. All right. Now, I have to have a look in here. I've been a bit messy. I'm going to just grab a bit of water. I've got that little chink there that I want to back off and I want to come right up to the leg. I'm just worrying some water over that and just tidying it up. Then this shape, probably it needs to come around and join to this one. I'm just going to tidy that up. Then I'm going to pop a little bit of indigo. Just to help me make that make sense. Not really what's in the reference, but I'm working with what's working for the painting in front of me, and then I've got to soften that back in. Washing my brush, and I think I actually want to make that I'm going to actually put a bit more pigment in here. I'm going to make that darker in there soften the edge. Always softening the edge. And then I think I need a bit more at that back there just to kind of match them. Okay. Now, I like all these mixing of colors here. I want to go a bit harder with the shadow underneath the tail there. So I think what I'm going to do, I'm going to take my medium brush and I'm going to paint just some water. Not soaking, I'm just dampening that. Here because I want to add then a little bit of indigo and let it do what it wants. Maybe I'll take a bit brown. I'm taking a bit of vanike and a bit of indigo, and then just chucking it into where I was wet there and letting that wick down. Then again, because I'm thinking, again, I've got that thing of balance in my head, I might get a little bit of that in a couple of places along here without closing in everything without overdoing it. Just a touch of my indigo under these ones as well. You don't need much and I don't want to paint all the way down. I just want a little bit more. I think I'm probably going to strengthen up the shadow underneath this chin, put a highlight in the eye and then I'm gonna stop. So softly, softly. I'm just going to grab some clean water. Paint down in here, damp, not saturated, further than I want the pigment to go because I want it to dilute out as it moves on the page. Then a little bit of my blue and a little bit of my brown. I didn't get any blue then. Mine to go. Get my brush. So there's quite a bit of pigment there, so I can now just flood that with water and just push that around a bit. Closing a bit of that light. So I'm just kind of get a bit of form, bit more form. And you can see that it's already diluted out a heap because I've been pushing it around. So now that that's all wet and I can see where I want to go, I can just pick up a bit more pigment, throw that in and I want to close off the light just a little bit there. I think I probably need a touch of the same thing here. So again, dry, sorry. Again, I'm coming on with clean water. Clean was the word I was looking for, not dry. My blue and my brown and just throwing just a touch in washing my brush. So I'm sort of looking at that shape where the shoulder is. And then just softening that back. And then I think I'm just going to put a tiny highlight of gouache in the eye. So, you know, you may have left the light initially, and I think I'm just going to put just a tiny spot of gouache in the eye there. Alright. That's actually where I'm going to leave it. And really, what I want you to get from this, it's this learning to leave the whites that it's okay to leave the white paper and for some strange reason, it's really hard to do. But it's important in this one. This is what it's about this lovely light on the back. So try not to overpaint. We're going, I'd rather you underpaint and then you can in a couple of days when you think, that's not quite enough, add more to it, the fill all this in and lose all that light. When you're finished, if you're happy with what you've done, take a photo for me and pop it up on the project section on the Skill Share page have a look at. Always happy to give feedback. I'll also be interested because I know some of you will paint all the water. I'll also interested to see how you go with that. Thanks for joining me.