Beginner Watercolor Painting: Loose Floral Watercolor Peonies

1. Introduction: Hello everyone. My name is Jenny. I will be your Skillshare teacher for the loose floral watercolor peonies class. Just a quick background, I started my desire for art last April 2016. I first fell in love with calligraphy and eventually explored the world of watercolor. I'm not a born artist. If you think you can't create art because you don't have any idea about it, I feel you. That's how I started too. But believe me, it's a skill. You can learn it if you pour your heart into it. I'm here to help you and share my four years of experience with you. Let's explore the world of watercolor and maybe calligraphy soon. For this specific class, we will be tackling the following topics. Materials that we need to paint loose watercolor peonies, how to mix colors, color mixtures, basic strokes that we need to create loose watercolor peonies, how to paint leaves, how to paint peony buds, how to paint close peony and how to paint open peony. And for your class projects we will be creating peony read and a bunch of peonies. I'm excited to share my passion with you, and I hope you are too. So what are we waiting for? Let's go. 2. Color Mixture: Our first topic is color mixture. For this topic, we will be discussing the colors that we will be using and how to mix them. The color that we will be using is peachy red, and it's a mixture of perylene maroon and yellow ocher. Mix it and add some water, and then let's try to swatch it. Let's also swatch the other colors that we will be using. First is perylene maroon and then yellow ocher. Then we'll also use olive green. Finally, shadow green. You can use other shades of green, other shades of yellow, other shades of red. It's okay. Just make sure you have at least one shade of red, one shade of yellow, one shade of green. Now let's discuss the mixture. Now let's discuss the combination of color and water. It's a very important topic since we will be using a lot of tea mixture on our class. What's tea mixture? Tea mixture is a combination of color and water. So 25 percent color and 75 percent water. Next mixture is a milk mixture which is composed of 50 percent color and 50 percent water. This is a bit darker version of the tea mixture. The next mixture is the butter mixture, which is composed of 25 percent water and 75 percent color. Butter mixture is used for the details of the flowers like steaming, and if you will be doing the wet on dry. Yeah, that's our color mixture, and see you on our next topic. 3. Materials: The materials needed are watercolor, paper, water. You also need, of course, a brush. So one round brush, either a size six, size five, size four and one round brush that's smaller, either size two, size one, zero, zero zero, or zero zero zero. It's up to you. Next is watercolor, and of course, we also need some tissue for the excess water. 4. Basic Strokes: Now before we proceed to the actual painting it is important for us to know the basic strokes. So the first stroke is thin stroke where only the tip of the brush will touch the paper. Try to do it as light as you can, control the brush and just glide it. Try and try again until you get familiar with the stroke. So after that, our next stroke is the C stroke. It is the same as thin stroke but it's a little curvy. So we'll do something like letter C. It's up to you if you will do it going up or going down, but the important thing is you will do it on a curvy way. So for this next stroke, you will only use the tip of the brush again. You will create a C-shape for your stroke. Then do it on another side. Inverted C with thin stroke. Try to control your brush as much as you can. Next stroke is the thick stroke where you will press your brush and then glide it. Press, then glide. Try to maximize the width of your brush. Give stress when you push it and then glide it. Next stroke is a combination of thin and thick stroke plus the C stroke. The first thing you need to do is to create a thick stroke. So push, then glide and then at the tip of it you will try to create a thin stroke. Remember to do it on a C-shape. Then after that, give it a partner. Do another thick and then thin stroke then glide it on an inverted letter C-shape. There will be case where you will accidentally put a space in the middle of the two strokes that's okay. Just cover it while it's still wet. We'll call this one the leaf stroke and then the next stroke that we'll be doing is the teardrop stroke, wherein after doing the leaf stroke, you'll be adding those thin curves around your leaf. Try it and then familiarize yourself with the stroke. That's it. See you on our next topic. 5. Leaves: For the leaves, we will be mixing shadow green and olive green to create the perfect shade for our leaves. Remember our leaf stroke, that's the same stroke that we will be using for the leaves, obviously. Let's try it again. Push and then try to create a thin tip for your leaf. Once done and while it's still wet, you can add a milk mixture of the color with mixed earlier, and you can glide it on one side of the leaf to create some shadow. Try it until you're familiarized with the strokes. Next is small leaves. First thing we need to do is to create the main branch. Try to make it a little curvy and not so straight because nature is imperfect, so our painting should also look imperfect. Also, you have to add little branches on the sides of the main branch and then add the leaves. You can use smaller brush like Size 2 or Size 0 for this one. Again, we will be using the mixture for this one. If there are some empty spaces, you can always add some more leaves. Just make sure that they won't look awkward and overlapping to each other. 6. Fillers: This one's easy. All you need to do is get a color, whatever you want, either it's brown or green, so for me it's brown. Then create thin strokes that would look like little branches. Then get a color so for me it's yellow ocher and then try to create three different mixtures of that color. One tea, one milk, and one butter, and then create small circles at the top or in the middle of your thin strokes. That's it. If you feel they're open spaces, you can always add some more fillers around it to make your filler look full. I know you guys can do this. 7. Peony Bud: Our next topic is feeling buds. For the feeling buds, we will be using the peachy red mixture that we had earlier. This one is so easy, you will only create one teardrop and then half a teardrop, and then at the top, you will put some milk mixture to have a wet and wet effect on our feeling bud. Just put some dots. 8. Close Peony: For the close puyne, the first thing we need to do is to create teardrop strokes. We need to create three main theories of strokes and then don't have teardrop strokes on this side. While it's still wet, we need to add milk mixture at the bottom part so it will bleed. Then at the top of our puyne, we will be adding 3 1/2 puyne teardrops. This is how I do the top part of the puyne. You just need to create a circular motion on your paper and let your brush do the trick. Then after that, we will be adding this tear-made yellow ocher. Let's wait for it to dry, and then when it's dried already, let's add another layer of the mixture of our peachy red shade. Do this to create depth for our flower, then after that, let's add burnt sienna on our stem. 9. Open Peony: Our next peony is the open peony. This is the shape of our open peony. Remember that it has four main teardrop buds at the middle, two half on this side and at the top, there are three. So we will be using our picture red mixture for this one. Remember that our mixture is picture red team mixture. Now we're creating our first teardrop. 10. Class Project: Peony Wreath Part 1: Now we are going to create our first class project, which is the peony wreath. First thing we need to do is to create the big circle as our guide. You may use pencil or colored pencil for this one, it's up to you. Now, the first element that will be putting is the open peony. Next, we'll be adding some leaves at the top of our open peony. We can always customize this. What I'm doing is just a guide. You can always do your own version. Then after the leaves, we will be adding some yellow fillers. Also, the colors that I'm using are just guides. You can always choose which color do you want. You can put purple, red, whatever you want. After the fillers, we'll be adding a peony bud. You can also add some more fillers and some more leaves if you want to. Peony bud and another peony bud. In case your artwork is not looking the same as what I am doing right now, that's okay, you can always customize this one the way you want to. After the second peony bud, we will be adding some more fillers and some more leaves. 11. Class Project: Peony Wreath Part 2: We're done with this one side. Now, let's go to the other side. To create the division between the two sides, I'm adding some leaves. Next, we'll be adding our second open peony. This one's facing the other side, so going to the left side. After the open peony, we'll add some leaves again. Actually, we're just replicating what we did on the other side. After the leaves, we'll add fillers and then peony buds, and then fillers again. So it's just the same, we're just copying. After the two peony buds, we'll be adding fillers and then more leaves. And that's it. We can actually stop on this part, but if you want to, like me, you can also add some more shades, so we'll be using team mixture to add depth on the main subjects like the open peony. Then I'm also adding second layers for some leaves, just to add depth. Once done, you're good. You can write anything you want. You can write your favorite word, your favorite coach, or the initials of your favorite people. It's up to you. Don't forget to upload your class project at the class projects section of this class. See you at the next class project. Bye. 12. Class Project: Bunch of Peonies: So our second class project is the bunch of peony. First we'll be painting one open bud peony, and then after that, we'll have one close bud peony. You have a reference both uploaded at the class project resources. So go there and then download the photo for your reference. So after the two main peonies, we will be adding one peony bud. This is such an easy class project and I know you can really do it. Once done, you can always add some more details, like for the stamen of the flower. You can add burnt sienna for the dots and the stamen, and then you can add some mixture of the green that we used for the leaves and some more mixture for the flower as shadows, and that's our final project. If you are part of the first 100 students of this class, please know that we have a raffle. All you need to do is submit your class project, give a review, and then share your class project on Instagram and tag us at the after set. The winner will take home some exciting prices, and you can check that at the class project section of this class. 13. Wrap Up + GIVEAWAY!: Thank you so much for joining my class. I hope you learned and enjoyed as much as I did. If you have any questions and suggestions, feel free to post it on the discussion section of this class. Also, don't forget to join our class giveaway. One blessed winner will take home a watercolor set. All you have to do is watch at least 30 minutes from this class, submit one class project, leave a review, and share your class project on Instagram with a caption "Join the latest class of the After 7". Tag us on Skillshare and win a watercolor set. That's it. This giveaway is open for the first 100 students of this class. The winner will be conducted via email. Thank you so much and see you on our next class. God bless.