Beginner Watercolor Class: Romantic Rose

1. Hello! Class Overview: Hi there. My name is Michelle, and I'm a watercolor artist from Manilla Philippines. Welcome to my class. Today, I'm going to teach you my process for painting this lovely romantic rose. As a beginner, I understand that you may be struggling with painting this rose, and you may have been searching for the right class to teach you how to be able to create this particular effect when you paint. I myself was in that phase too, and I understand your struggles. This is partly why I'm offering this particular class along with other beginner friendly classes on roses. There are ways you can paint a rose, and there are so cos to choose from. For this particular class, I'm going to teach you how to paint this very nice romantic red rose. And I'm going to show you all the things you need to be able to prepare you for your painting session. I film the entire class in real time so that you can paint along, and also so that you can have a better grasp of the painting process. You'll see the strokes in real time. You'll see how I move along and think as I paint so that you would not be pressured to try and do the brush strokes quickly, unlike the videos that you see on social media, which are often times in time apse version. And even before we begin painting this rose, I am going to show you some basic techniques that I hope you would try first before you start painting because this would serve as your warm up as well. It's good to be able to do the warm up before you do the painting session so that by the time that you're actually painting the rose, you're very comfortable with your strokes. Again, welcome to this class. I hope that by this time, you are already as excited as I am to begin this session. That's all I have to say for now, and I will see you in the next video. 2. Materials: For this class, you'll need the following materials. A rinse bottle with clean water, some ceramic dish for mixing your paints. A round brush. I'm using size seven for this. It's a squirrel mix. You can use whatever round brush you have, either synthetic or natural hair. A water color paper. This is 300 GSM, white, cold pressed watercolor paper, and of course, your water colors. The colors that I'm using in this class are crimson lake, lemon yellow, hookers green, and turquoise blue. And lastly, some tissue paper or cloth. 3. Basic Techniques and Brush Strokes: Now, let's begin with the basic watercolor techniques, starting with the different consistencies that you will be requiring for this painting session. So the different consistencies here would be honey, milk, and tea. So let's start with honey. With a wet brush, grab some water color. This is crimson lake. So this is a very thick consistency. This would be the thickest consistency among the three. So after grabbing some paint, you go straight to your paper. As you can see, the color is very rich. Now, grab some water color and then add some water. Okay. So just some water, just a few amount of water, and go to your paper. You'll see that this time, the color is less saturated. Now, without grabbing more water color from your pan, just add more water. Then go to your paper. This would be the most diluted of all the three consistencies, and this is called the T consistency. So to recap, your honey consistency would be the darkest. In terms of tonal value, this would be your darkest. Next, the milk consistency would be just dark or mid tone. And then the lightest one would be your t consistency. Knowing how to add more water or keep your water to a minimum will actually affect the way your watercolor looks on your paper. So imagine with just one watercolor, you can actually create various tones or various shades of just one color from light to dark. Next, I'm going to show you some wet wet and wet on dry techniques. Let's start with wet wet with a flat wash of a very diluted color. You'll see that here I'm using t consistency. We're going to wet the paper first. Then we're going to grab some colors straight from the pan, and then just add this to the two edges of this square. As you can see, the water that's coming from the edges is actually slowly spreading to the rest of the square without any hard edges. This is one of the benefits of a wet un wet technique. Let's try wet on dry. So I can actually just apply the color directly on my paper, but I want to show you the difference in effect when you do wet on dry. So I'm going to lay down some water color first. I'll do another flat wash. And then I am going to let this dry for a bit so that when we do apply the color, it's going to be wet and dry. While we're waiting for this to dry, Let me show you another painting technique. This is called lifting. So what we're going to do is, we're going to start with another flat wash. So again, I'm going to just create another square this time to be able to show you the effect of lifting, I'm going to have a darker square. So this is more like a melt consistency. So while this is wet, I am going to rinse my brush. So after rinsing my brush, making sure that my brush is with no pigment at all. I'm going to grab some tissue. And then I'm going to dry my brush, okay? Well, not completely dry, but it's not going to be very wet. Okay. So at this point, I'm going to slide my brush against the paper. And as you can see, the color is actually lightened. Okay? In some watercolor papers, this may actually be more lighter, depending on the water color that you're using and also the paper that you're using. Now, going back to the wet on dry technique. This time, this square is already dry, k? So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to grab some crimson lake again. Straight from the pan and similar to what we did earlier on wet on wet. I am going to add the color to the two edges. Now, observe how the hard edges have formed. Okay. So the lines are actually more defined, unlike the wet on wet technique. So as you can see, it really depends on the type of effect that you want to achieve. If you want something that's more of a gradient or fading effect, then go for wet on wet. But if you need to have defined lines, then go for wet on dry. Now, another thing that I want to show you is how to soften hard edges. This will come in handy, especially if you decided to just soften an edge instead of having a hard edge like the one that we did on wet and dry. So let's take this rectangular shape as an example. I'm going to rinse my brush. Now, after I've rinsed my brush, I'm going to grab some tissue and dab my brush a few times. So that I have a damp brush that I'm going to rub against that hard edge. See how I'm able to soften it very smoothly. Now, another technique is what we call a back flow. Okay? So let me create another rectangular shape. Now, for this example, I'm not going to use a damp brush to soften this hard edge. Instead, I am going to rinse my brush and with a wet brush. I'm going to glide my brush against that hard edge, and I'm going to let the water flow back to that rectangular shape. That's why it's called back flow. So the water is actually blending your hard edge, Now, this might be called a mistake for some artists, but some artists use this as a technique. Next, I'm going to show you the different brush strokes that you'll need to master before you start painting your rose. But before that, let me just briefly show you a flat wash. Actually, there's a lot of different types of washes, but this one is the only wash that you will be needing to learn for this particular painting session. A flat wash basically has just one color, and it is evenly distributed all throughout the area. Now, let us go ahead and proceed with the different strokes, starting with the C strokes. So with C strokes, you're actually creating um, figures that resemble a comma. That's why it's also called a comma stroke. So, how you do this is when your brush touches the paper, you actually create a curve by exerting more pressure as you do the curve. Okay. So these are the C strokes, and these will be mainly used for the middle part of your rose. Now, you will also be creating some diamond strokes, and these will primarily be used for the leaves. Okay. So Like the C strokes, when your brush touches the paper, you exert pressure as you go to the middle. However, for diamond strokes, your strokes are straight and not curved. Now, you can use just one diamond stroke for a narrow leaf, but you can also create a wider leaf by combining two diamond strokes and just connecting them from end to end. Now that you know, the basic brush strokes that you'll be needing for this class. We're now ready to explore the different petal shapes. So I have actually defined three classifications of petals for this session. One is the petals for the center, the petals for the middle, and the petals for the edge. So basically for the center part, we are going to use small c strokes or coma strokes. Okay. So what we're going to do is, we're going to start with very small a strokes and add more to this layer by layer in an alternating manner. As you can see, as you go farther away from the center, the comma strokes are also longer. But the comma strokes in terms of width, they're actually the same. So we'll keep the width narrow, but the length will be longer as you go farther away from the center. Next, let's try painting the middle petals. There are two types of middle petals. One is shaped like this with a pointed tip. And then the other one is with a dull tip. Like so. And then let's move on to the edge petals, okay? The edge petals will basically look like triangles. There you go. Easy. Now for the leaves. Similar to what we did earlier. These are just two diamond strokes that are connected from end to end. Now, there would be leaves that are placed the rose itself. Directly beneath the flower, and these would actually resemble the shape of the petals that we paint for the middle part of the rose. M 4. Painting the Petals Part 1: Wet on Wet Technique : Now let's start painting. We'll begin with lemon yellow. Create a t consistency on your mixing palette. Then form the basic shape of the rose using this color. This will be the first layer of our rose. For next layer, grab some scarlet and create a consistency. Add this color to the tips of the roses basic shape. This is what we call the wet on wet technique. Now, as you can see, I'm just sort of connecting the dots here, and you'll see that our red color is actually nicely bleeding through the rest of the shape. Now, in the middle, I'm creating a circular shape surrounded by some of the middle petals that we will be emphasizing later on. Now, I have just grabbed crimson lake directly from my watercolor pan and adding this color to the tips. By this time, these tips are not as wet as before. And so you can see that the colors are still bleeding, but not so much. And you can also see that these colors are stronger or bolder than our first or previous layer. Now let's soften this edge using a damp brush. What I did was, I just lensed my brush, tapped it a few times on tissue paper, and then glided my brush against that hard edge. At the center, I am now beginning to add the small strokes that I've demonstrated in our previous lesson. Now, let's start adding the middle petals. Make sure that there's enough space between one petal and the next. Now, you'll see that there's a slight lead onto there. We'll be correcting that in a bit. At this point, I'm not going to be very detailed for each petal because we will do that later on as we define the details. Now, to correct this, just rinse your brush. Tap it a few times on your tissue paper and then rush over it. That. Now, let's add a few more red petals in the middle because we want the yellow to just shine some parts of the petals, but not to be a dominant color. Okay? So I am now adding another layer of petals in the middle parts. 5. Painting the Petals Part 2: Wet on Dry Technique : Now, at this point, we're going to take pigment directly from the pan for a very rich consistency. And this would be forming the darker tones of our rows. In this center, I am painting comma strokes again, but I am allowing the previous layer to show, okay? Now, next, we're going to paint the middle petals. Remember that there are two types of middle petals from our previous lesson. So I'm just checking my rows right now to see if this section has tried. We want to paint on dry paper this time. So now that our paper has tried, let's start painting the middle petals. Taking from our previous lesson, this technique is called wet on dry. Compared to how we were painting earlier on wet on wet technique. You can see that this time, the petals are more defined, and the colors do not bled to the rest of the wet section. Okay? So this is actually very good for defining details on your painting. Again, remember to leave some space between each layer of the flower or the petals. As you can see, I'm also turning the paper as I go along so that I am sure that I am painting the shapes the way they should look. Now, that's soften these dark colors using a wet brush. Okay. So I just rinsed my brush, taped it a few times on the of my bottle. And then now I'm brushing over the inner edges of each petal. Oh. And now, we're done with the petals. Let's proceed to the next lesson where we paint the leaves. 6. Painting the Leaves Part 1: Base Layer: In this lesson, we're going to paint the leaves, and we'll be starting with hookers green. So grab your color from your palette and add some water to it to create a milk consistency. From our previous lesson, I have shown you how to paint leaves that are directly beneath the rose. And these leaves would form a shape that's similar to the middle petals of our rose, like so. Oh. Oh. Now I'm going to grab some turquoise blue, and I will be adding this color directly on this leaf wet on wet technique. See how nicely this color plans with the rest of the layer of hookers green. So that is the effect that we're aiming for. And we will use this technique for the rest of the leaves. Oh Oh. Now, this time, we're going to paint leaves that are not directly beneath the rows, and we're going to create this leaf using diamond strokes. Now, you'll notice that for each leaf that I'm painting, there are varying degrees of greens and blues. So this is actually a very nice way to paint leaves in a way that they look more natural. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. O 7. Painting the Leaves Part 2: Details: Okay, at this point, I'm happy with how the leaves are positioned around the rose. Now, let's start painting the details of every leaf. Okay? So I'm going to take some hookers green directly from the pan. So we have a very rich consistency. Then I will just add a middle line for every leaf. Make sure that your middle lines are curved so that they look more natural. Then from this middle line, I am going to add the veins. Okay. So there's no hard rule whether to add the veins from the center going to the edge of the leaves or if you would have to paint from the edge going towards the center. You can actually do either one of those, make sure that these veins are very thin and also curved. Oh. Ooh. Oh. Oh. Oh. And there you have it, our romantic rose. A 8. Final Thoughts : Thank you so much for joining my class. I hope that you enjoyed painting with me and learning from my techniques as much as I enjoyed creating this class especially for you. I hope that you would share your project, and so I could give my feedback as well. And if you're sharing this on social media, especially on Instagram, please don't forget to tag me. Again, thank you so much. Until our next class. Bye for now.