Beginners Gouache and Acrylic; Create a Playful Bird Painting

1. Introduction & Project Overview : Hello and welcome to this class on how to create a Playful Mixed Media Painting using gouache and acrylic. I'm dawn Cawthra. I'm an artist or designer, holistic health educator. And I've been teaching Art, Design and Heritage Craft classes for many, many years. Today's project is to create a stylised bird and flower painting using lots of pattern and different texture. As well as learning how to do a composition in a really easy and simple way, we'll take a deep dive into understanding how to paint with both gouache and acrylic. So that you will increase your knowledge and build your confidence in using the different mediums, either on their own or together. If you're already familiar with gouache and acrylic, but would like a little refresher than this class is for you. But it's also totally suitable for beginners. Because I take you through the whole thing step-by-step in a very easy to fall away. We'll start off by taking a look at the different types of acrylic that you can buy from artists range down to basic student's range and how they differ. We'll paint some swatches so that you can see how the different qualities work. What happens when you mix the higher and the lower qualities together and when and how to add the Matt Medium. We'll take a look at the two different types of gouache. And we'll experiment with the traditional gouache and the acrylic gouache so that you really get a sense of how those two different paints work. I'll also show you how you can create a really rich color palette using only two colours plus black and white. Before we start them in painting, we'll practice applying and blending acrylic paint using three to four colours plus white. Once that's dry, we'll add some simple patterns with the gouache paint so that you can see how the two mediums work well together. Will then play with the acrylic paint pens and add that on top of the gouache, will practice the stroking technique that's used to create the textured background that gives it the movement. Starting a new composition can sometimes be a bit daunting. Particularly if you're not that confident about drawing. Don't worry, because I'm going to share with you my cut-out and collage technique that will make the whole process much, much easier. I love birds and I love painting them. If I need a quiet moment in the middle of a busy week, I liked to take a walk down to the we'll lock that is quite near to where I live. I like to watch the Bird just saw during the goals particularly taken off and landing. I just find it very graceful and it just calms my nervous system and makes me feel very peaceful. There's something about the birds and the water, the freedom that they have, and the way they just land so gracefully. I really enjoy it. But I'm particularly interested in little garden birds. And those are the ones that I like to paint the most. We have a cheeky little blackbird that comes and visits our garden often. He's bobbing up and down in the foliage looking for food. Sometimes it brings his Layer different with him. And it's one of these two get together and I'll watch the antics. That's what inspires me to start painting a stylised picture. I hope you'll join me in doing the same. I could watch these two 4 h. I'll see you in the next session where we look at the materials we need 2. Materials : I like to work with two or three brushes. I like to have a fairly fine round brush and a medium round brush. These happened to be a number one and a number eight. And I also like to work with a flat brush as well, which happens in this case to be number six. But you don't have to have those sizes. What's important is that you're competent with the brushes that you using and they do the job and get the paint where you want it to go so long as you feel competent and comfortable using them. Use what brushes you've got. I also liked to have a stash of paper towels and a couple of sponges just to wipe off any excess paint or water. Personally, I like to have two or three water jars on the girl. These happened to be little glass jars that had chocolate mousse in them. Not that I need an excuse to go out and buy glass water jars because I'll have a chocolate mousse anytime. But they are very handy for using after that. And I also like them because if you happen to have any acrylic paint left on your palette afterwards, you can pop that over the top and that will keep that usable for up to a couple of days, providing the temperature is not too hot where you're working. You could use any kind of palette. You can get ceramic ones, plastic ones, tear off. One's an old plate. I just happened to light using an old glass chopping board. I'd just like the size of it. And I can have acrylic on the gore and gouache on the gouache because it's big enough. And of course it's very easy then to scrape off and wash. At the end of the day. The first layer of the painting, we'll be using acrylic paint. Now it doesn't matter what quality of God's, whether you've got craft paint or basic student range, or whether you've got what they call a more professional artists range. Wherever you've got, just use that because you'll still get some really lovely results. Will also be using acrylic pens. Now, I, you can imagine have quite a selection. This is just a small selection of the colors that I have here. What I would suggest if you can, is to get yourself a white or ivory. I happen to have one here. That's a pilot Mick. This is a Posca. These two here are the molecule range. And I've got them in petrol and grasshopper green there because they happened to be the colors that are suitable for my painting. I've also, I'll also be using these colors as well in the posca pen. But again, you might go with completely different colours to me, which is why I haven't said that it has, you know, you need to get a specific color. Once you've done your samples, you'll get a feel for the kind of colors that you like hopefully, and you'll work with those. I also have, um, a couple of fine liners that I like to use just for adding a little bit of extra detail onto it. Again, it doesn't matter what size you use. It all depends on the depth. Sorry. On the yes. The depth of the line that you want, whether you want it to be a fine line or whether you want it to be slightly thicker. So whether you're going from craft through to professional, it doesn't matter, use what you've got. And in terms of the acrylic pens, again, try and get yourself an ivory or white or dark one could be black or dark blue, maybe a green, but that depends entirely on the colours that you choose to do your own painting. We'll be using gouache paint on top of the acrylic paint. Now I'm quite a fan of Winsor and Newton designers gouache, but again, they come in all sorts of different brands. So you go with what you've either already got or go with what your budget allows. These are traditional gouache, not acrylic. There's a difference. I'm, I'm going to be working with this particular colour palette here. And I've got that colour palette just by using Naples, yellow, deep primary red, a little bit of ivory black, and a little bit of zinc white. So that's, those are the only colors that I've used there in terms of the gouache for quite a bit of my painting, I have brought in other colours for the leaves. And for those, I've actually used acrylic gouache, which is a slightly different product to just the traditional gouache. Now, if you don't have acrylic gouache, it doesn't matter because I'm going to show you how by using less Acrylic Matt Medium and adding it to your traditional gouache. You can make a product very similar to the ready-made acrylic gouache. So if you don't already have some of those, don't worry about it, just use the gouache that you've got, but I would recommend that you get yourself some acrylic medium. If you can't get yourself some of that and you just want to go with gouache, you can still get some fantastic results. So again, you know, there's lots of flexibility in this painting, lots of flexibility in the process of it, I should say. So again, go with what you've got. I've shown you the two colors that I'm going to be using, but you might want to choose completely different colours for you painting. So again, it's down to personal choice. With regards to what we're gonna do the painting on, you've got lots of different options here. You could go with paper. I've got a watercolor pad here, which is a 200 GSM. It's suitable also for gouache and acrylic, which is why I like this gold line on. It's a nice thick paper here. So it'll take a few layers of paint. If you go for something 200-300 GSM, either in a watercolor paper or in a cartridge paper. That would be absolutely fine. You could also do it on a canvas panel. These are great for doing Acrylic paintings on, again, the common all sorts of shapes and sizes. I like to also paint onto these wooden panels are like them because they're very solid. And I can get lots and lots of detail and texture onto these without spoiling the surface. So I do enjoy painting on these quite a lot. But for today, I'm actually going to be painting onto Mount board. I'm going to be doing my acrylic sample onto one this shape. And then I'm going to do in my painting onto a piece of card like this That's just a little bit bigger than that one. I'm basically it's the same kind of card that's used for when you are mounting your pictures and your paintings. You can get these from most Art Supply shops and the very easy to combine, very easy to paint on. So that's what I'm going to be using. 3. Understanding Acrylic: Let's take a look at the different types of acrylic paint that you can buy. It's basically a water-based paint that has a very quick drying time, usually 10-12 min, and it often dries to like a nicer Satin sheen finish. Most manufacturers have two lots of pin that they have. One is classed as the student quality paint, and the other one is the artist grid. So what's the difference between the two? When you're using a student paint, the pigment in it, That's the little granules that carry the color. You don't have as much pigment in the student quality. Whereas in the artist quality, you've got much more pigment. And even within the student and the artist quality range, even that can differ a little bit. For example, Liquitex are the, this is their basic syringe here, and they maintain the quality of their pigment in the student range is just as high as the quality of the pigment in their artists range. The only difference is, is that there's less pigment in here. I don't know about Dealer one. Again, this is a very similar range to the Liquitex range here. I'm and what that means when it's got less pigment is that it wants stand the test of time in a way that the artist grade paint would. So it may well feared a little bit all the time. But for what we're doing here, It's perfectly fine. Is actually great for using as backgrounds. And then you've got other color going on top. Deal around and do this system three acrylic, which is classed as an artist grid. There's a much wider variety of colors in this range here than there is in the graduate range. And then when you go up to the heavy body, are artists acrylic. This has the purist pigment in it, and it also has, again, a wider variety of colors available. If you're a professional painter, then probably you'll use these paints more often than you use these. Having said that, I very often use a mixture of them all. I don't get too hung up about it really about which ones I'm using. A generally speaking, go for the color that I want. And if I don't happen to have the color that I want in the basics range, but I've got it in this range. Then I'll use this one and vice versa. As I say, for what we're doing with our project here, It's perfectly fine to go with the student. I'm grid and it's a lot more budget friendly as well. So let's just have a look now at how the different paints look on the page so that you can just get more of a sense of how to work with the acrylic paints. This is the liquid tech Liquitex basics. Primary blue here. I'm just going to paint with. And he could see what a nice strong colour that is. And I'm the consistency that goes on. It's quite opaque. In other words, you can't really see through it. But obviously, just like gouache or like any other paint, if I add water to it, that will make it more transparent. And you can see there as well. But it also changes the color slightly. So you can get some lovely effects, thereby just adding more water. Now, it's recommended though, that you don't put more than 25% water in it because that then alters the ratio of the pigment. And so you'll end up with a weaker color. And obviously it less pigment in your paint. If you want to take it down even lower than that, then you're better off adding what they call an acrylic medium to it because it's made up of the same thing. That paint is, that the acrylic paint is. But it acts as a dilution, but of course it's got no color in it. So you can add that to your paint quite readily to make it, um, you know, if you want to lessen the dilution, but without actually listening the pigment itself. So that's the basics range there. Let's use now the system three from Dale around it. Now that comes out. It's got a nice flow to it. Just get some of that water off. And you can see straight away though that that has got a higher pigment level to it than that one. You're not seeing through this tool. It looks like a flatter color than that one. You're not seeing the brushstrokes. Again, if I put a bit of water into that, I can water that down to a degree. But you can see the difference there in the pigment quality. And if I watch it down again, there we go. So the same rule of thumb for this one as well. If you want to dilute even further than dilute it with a Matt Medium rather than with the water. I don't have a pure pigment of a similar blue. So we'll just, I'll just show you this in comparison. Again, the quality there. Again, you can see the difference between that one and that one. So it's all dependent on the pigment, the level of pigment when the paint, and depending on the brand of paint as well, some pigments will be of the same quality, even in the student range, just less of them. But some of the brands will have a less quality pigment in them. So again, it's a bit of trial and error really, and just playing around with what you've got and seeing the different results, each one gibbs. Now that I've got all those on the, um, on the page, I'm just going to mix a bit of this student range with the artist range. And that's often what I do there. To get different colors, to get different effects. Isn't that just beautiful? Again, just keep adding a little bit of water to get a slightly different, more transparent effect. But you can see that the two qualities actually mixed up reasonably well. Even though we've gone from the most basic up to the purist pigment. Basically just play around, use what you've got. Play around, make sure you have FUN with it. That's what it's all about. And rather than waste the paint that I've got on my palette here, I'm just using these colors up to have a little play. Practice some strokes. This is what I call crosshatching. It's funny just to do this with the parent that you've got left, just simply because you can I'm going to bring a little bit of white because I'm curious now, let's bring that in there as well. It's a good way to practice blending paint together as this. This is a technique category that we're going to be using for doing the background. So again, it's a nice way to just put in a few minutes of practice with this practice and play. We go, I'll do from before we've even started doing proper Painting. 4. Understanding Gouache: There are two types of gouache, regular or traditional gouache and acrylic gosh. The traditional gouache behaves like watercolors. Do. This means that when the paint dries, you can still reactivate it with water. It's made from natural pigments and a binder, which is usually gum arabic and water. Acrylic gouache is slightly different. This is made from pigments suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. It's still water-based, like the traditional go ashes, but it's Polymer elements give it a more durable, a water resistant finished when dry. So unlike the traditional gouache, acrylic, gouache dries quickly and once it's dry, it can't be re-wet it. So let's have a look in practice how these two things work differently. On my palette, I've got some Liquitex, acrylic gouache in primary red. I've got the Winsor and Newton design ago, ash also in primary red. And I've got some of the acrylic matte medium. So I'm going to start off with the traditional Gosh, first. I've probably put a little bit too much water in there, which means that you can actually see some of the brush the brush marks. But that's okay because it'll dry to a fairly chalky finish. And if I can still see the brush marks in it and I don't want to, I'll just put another layer over it. Whilst I've got that on my palette there, I'm going to take a bit of that paint and I'm going to add a little bit of the acrylic matte medium to it. Now adding them up medium two, it will change the color slightly, as you'll see. It has turned that ever so slightly pink here. In a similar way as to how it might do if I went and added white to the primary red. But there's not much difference. That's okay. I'm going to still with that on the brush. I'm going to just put a little bit of water on my brush and show you what happens then when we keep adding more water to that. Acts in a very similar way to how watercolor paint does. Of course, with the matte medium in it. You're also diluting the matte medium as well. So that's just something to be aware of. But I'm going to explain a little bit more about this map medium in a moment. I'm going to just wash my brush out and take the excess water off there and go back into that primary red. But I have got water on my brush now. Add it up to there and you can see because it's got water on it, that it's again, beginning to act a bit like you can do with watercolor. Can keep diluting it and diluting it to get some really transparent finishes. So here's the acrylic go wash. The brush isn't dragging at all. It's very thick. That will also dry to a nice chalky finish. I'm going to add a little bit of water onto my brush there. So as you can see, you can still start getting that same effect where you're getting a more transparency through your paint, although not quite as much as the traditional go as you can see. I mean, I've hardly got any paint on my brush there. And it's still eventually get into something like that. I need to let these dry before I show you the next bit. I'm so I'm just gonna put these two one-sided moment, let them dry, and then come back and show you what happens and what really defines the difference between the traditional go ash and the acrylic gosh. I've been aware, made myself a cup of tea. And as long as that's taken me probably about 10 min. You can see that this paint has dried well enough now as has all this paint. I've, I've added these here because I want to show you something with these here. So this is just a repetition of that bit there, the traditional goulash. And I want to show you what happens when we add water to this. You can see that that's reactivating the paint underneath. And it's pulling that paint down. Like so. So in the same way there as it's doing on the paper, we go back to this bit here, which is the traditional gouache on my palette. And you can see there that I can reactivate that paint on the palette as well, just by adding some water so that I've been able to reactivate it there. If we go to the acrylic gouache Let's see what happens there. There's no dragging of the paint. There's no reactivating the paint because it's got that water resistant finish, um, because it's in that polymer emulsion binder. And if I take the water onto my palette, we're just getting a little bit of reacting there, reactivation. But actually it's gone into bits. So if I tried to put on there from there, you would end up with a very bitty. When I'm saying bits as in bits of pigment look, he can just see that there. So that's not good to be painting with that. And actually, if that had dried on the palette for another 5 min or so, I wouldn't have even been able to do that. It would have just been hard paint as it were. So now let's have a look at what happens with the traditional go Ashe that's mixed with the acrylic matte medium. Now that also doesn't really can just see, it's bringing a tiny bit of color down there. Look, it's, it's nowhere near as much as the traditional go ash on its own. It does bring a little bit off. But not, not nowhere near as much as that. But obviously, it's not, you know, like the ready mixed acrylic gouache. But let's see what happens again when I activate that on the palette. So you've got something similar going on there too. What happened with the ready mixed acrylic gouache? It's now gone into bits. So you can't really reactivate that either because it's got the acrylic in it. So the question is, why is it important to know the difference between one and the other? I'm going to put some yellow Naples deep or Naples yellow deep onto the palette here. If I wanted to change the color, for example, if I had worked on, um, some of the painting and decided that I didn't quite like the color that I had chosen and I wanted to alter it slightly or put a different color on. Let's see what happens if I add yellow over to that original color with the traditional gouache. Now you can see that that's two, that's changing that into an orange color. Which, you know, that's okay. I quite like it. It doesn't really matter. That's fine. But what if I had wanted really to actually change the whole color into this yellow Naples, yellow, deep color. Because I really, really decided that I didn't want the red. You can see that it stays yellow because the acrylic binder in that Gosh doesn't reactivate the paint. So that's a huge difference between that color and that color, even though it's the same colors on top of them both. And what happens if we do it on top of the, um, traditional gosh, where I've added the acrylic matte medium. Let's see. That's also pretty good. Now the reason that I wanted to show you this ready mixed one as well, is more to do with budget than anything else. Because the acrylic gouache paints are quite expensive. And if you budget doesn't allow that, if you can't afford to get that set or to get some of those paints, then it's worth just buying yourself an acrylic matte medium tube and adding it to your regular gouache. And the beauty of that is, is that it gives you two options then it means that you can still use your traditional gouache paints in the way that you would normally use them. But if you really wanted them to, you know, give it an acrylic polymer, then you can just add that map medium and you've got the best of both worlds there. So you don't need to be going out and buying the acrylic gouache if you don't want to, if you've already got it, great. But if you don't want to add that extra expense, then just invest in some of the matte medium instead. I hope that's, I hope that has made sense for you and that you've, you've, you can really see the difference there between the three types of paint and why it matters that you know that information. I'll see you in the next session. 5. Playing with Acrylic : I'm not palette. I've put some titanium white. I've put some heavy body, yellow, green. I've put some golden fluid in the, not even going to attempt to say this benzimidazole on yellow medium. And then I've got some of the phthalo turquoise as well. And I am quite literally just going to pick up little pieces of color onto this board here and just spread it around. Not going to overthink it. I just wanted to get some color on in this kind of what I call a cross hatching motion. You can see I'm just picking color up here randomly using these four colours. Because I literally just want to get this acrylic on cover the background so that it's ready then for us to be able to put the gouache on, then the acrylic pen on top of that as well. So don't spend too much time doing this. You know, you can see I'm doing this really, really quickly. What I am trying to do though, is just getting a bit of a contrast in the different areas with different shades. So it might be a bit greener in one, a bit bluer in the other. Just make it a little bit more contrasting. Add a bit of water if you paint, starting to drag paint around those edges as well. Unless you brush needs a little bit of water because you paints dragging, then I would say don't bother mixing. So we don't bother washing it in-between picking up the colours because when you pick one called loop after another, it creates some really nice tunes. So you can see how quickly I'm doing this. We bit more white up here. Pull some of that. Hello turquoise back in. See the lovely texture that this is creating as well. And that's what we're after. We're after some nice Textural Background. Basically. That will be the backdrop to the painting. Bit more yellow down there. I think. We're not trying to create anything here. We're not trying to make it look like anything specific. We're just getting this acrylic on so that we can then add to it. Once it's dry. There we go. Doesn't get much better or much quicker than that. 6. Playing with Gouache : This middle one is the one that I painted whilst I was on camera. And then because I'd got more paint on my palette left, I decided to paint another couple of panels as well. So what I want to do now is to just add some gouache paint. I'm just going to spread it across these three panels, but you don't need to do three, you just do one. That's absolutely fine. And I've put different colors on the palette here. I'm, I've got some ultramarine blue, primary blue, primary red, yellow Oxide, primary yellow, and a little bit of Mars black, doesn't matter what color pinch you use. Just go with whatever you've got. Because we're literally just going to have a play. How about putting some pattern onto here? Again, we're not trying to create flowers or birds or anything like that. It's literally just to have a play to see how the gouache reacts with the acrylic underneath. So he goes, I'm just starting off. Now that's dragging. With the gouache. We need to make it more creamy. So let's just redo that there. Get a sense now of how this gouache will work on top of the acrylic. Again, don't overthink this, which is put in pattern on. Sometimes I'm going to just go from one paint to another. Well, the times I will wash my brush in-between. Again, you can see that that's dragging a bit. So I'm gonna put a bit more water into there. Now look what happens because I'd already got some of that red on my brush. That's brought a lovely kind of stripy effect, which is really nice. Like that. Lovely. Do alter your brush. I'm using the same flat brush here that I used for putting the acrylic on. It's a flat and it's a number six. But again, it doesn't really matter what size brush you use at all. It's just, as I say, a question of getting some pattern onto this acrylic. I'm really, really, really not thinking about what I'm putting on here. I am quiet honestly just going with the flu of what appeals in that moment. This is playtime at its best. You just go with what seems to be happening rather than overthinking it. Have a little experiment in turning your brush two different angles, or bringing a different brush. Let's choose a different brush. Let's see what happens here. When we use round brush. This is a number ten. So just keep playing with the marks. Keep playing with the different colors. See where the shapes take you. Like I said earlier, don't overthink it. You can see here that just by adding a tiny bit of black to that red gives you a very rich color. So again, it's really worth just playing with the colors, see what colors you can mix. Basically just have some FUN with it. That's what it's about. Just have some FUN. Don't try and, um, you know, paint something that's recognizable. Just put some shapes on and have some FUN with it. It's really about getting to see and feel how the gouache works, the consistency that you need to get, the kind of result that you want. That's basically what this is about. He could try adding pattern on top of pattern, dots, stripes, little dashes, whatever comes to mind, just have FUN. So I'm going to leave that like that for now and I'll see you in the next session where we start to add some more detail with the acrylic pens 7. Adding detail with acrylic pen : That gouache has dried. So now I'm going to add some detail on top of it with some of the acrylic pens. Again, I've got a variety of different brands in here, so it doesn't matter which brand to use, and it doesn't matter which colors you use either just go with what you feel drawn to in that moment or whatever you've got. Don't forget to just give them a good shake. And you might have to do a little bit of pumping just to make sure that that comes through. I'm doing this really random. No rhyme or reason, particularly. Just making marks. That's all it's about, really Mark Making at this stage. Now the one thing to just watch with this when you working with acrylic pens is to remember that it is actually paints that you're working with. So if I were to just put my finger put my the edge of my hand onto that bit there that I've just done, it would smudge it. You better off turning year, painting around as you need to, so that we don't end up smudging what you've already done. This is one year. Painting can get quite transformed into something entirely different. I'm going to do here on this bit here is do the stroking method. That makes up quite a bit of the background so that you get a sense of how to do this. Now, I like to use a combination of yellow, ivory and white. Let's do it on both of these bits. What I like about it is that it still allows the texture on the contrast of the Background come through. Turn that round, do a bit more down here as well. Let's create a bit of movement with this one. We go. So you don't cover up all of the background. You cover quite a bit of it, but it's still just allows that very interesting texture to come through. It's rather similar to how Van Golf would have painted. Let me he wouldn't have used acrylic pens, obviously. He would have done it with his own brushstrokes. They can see there that there's quite a bit of movement that's been created there. And that's what I'm after, I'm after that movement. This is what we're going to have in the background of the painting. We're going to create lots of movement in the background. Go just back onto that ivory. It's good if you can let each layer dry before you put the next layer on. Otherwise you'll end up with a very dirty nib, whatever color you've put on Biddle beforehand. So I'm using the same stroke and method. I'm going from kind of like the top to the bottom as it were. And I'm going partly over the yellow and also over the background as well. It's really worth playing with this technique on here. This is what you practice pieces for to have a play with this. Let's see what happens here. If we don't put the yellow one first, but we put the ivory on first. You get a very different effect. Lead to let that dry. That one's still a little bit. What two are there? So let's see what else we can do as well. So using this technique with the acrylic pen on top of the gouache and on top of the acrylic paint underneath it means that you can add some really fine detail to maybe flower petals or your bird wing or leaves, whatever. And wherever you want to add a bit of extra interest, you have a play with what Mark Making makes you smile. But you can really see how this little sample painting is beginning to transform into something else entirely. Now that we've got these details on and is still getting that lovely texture coming through in the background, which is what we wanted. It's worth also, I've used that pen there to put on top of green so you can see there how that color acts with one underneath it that's very similar. What happens if we put it onto a darker color that's almost the opposite end of the color spectrum from it. Let's have a look. Has a different feel entirely, doesn't it? Of course, we are, in fact painting this because that's what's in here. Paint. Go back to this bit here and do the same direction with the ivory pen so that you keep that sense of flow and movement. Now, if I go background to this one here and put some white on top of there. These are all different size and libs I'm using here. And again, you just need to experiment with them. Obviously, if it's a thicker nib, you'll get a thicker line. If it's a fine and you'll get a final line. That goes without saying, of course, we've got three colors going on there. We've got the yellow underneath, the ivory on top, and then the white on top of that. When I bring the white on top of this as well. But you can see there's quite a different effect there simply because of the colors of the acrylic paint in the background. So this one's feeling quite a bit lighter than what that one is there. And that's what brings the interests for me. Which is why I wanted you to really give some depth of color into your acrylic background to begin with, so that you'd end up getting some very different effects there. We can also use a fine liner as well to add even more detail. So if you wanted to outline something, for example, you could always use a black fine liner for doing that. I just think it adds, again a bit more interest to bring some very varied Mark Making in. It gives your painting a kind of wow factor. Instead of it just being quite flat. So don't be afraid to try on your samples here and create some different patterns. You know, if you don't like them, you don't like them, that's fine. That's as, that's as equally valid to find out what you're not so keen on as it is to find out what you are keen on. So have a play with that. See what you think to it. Just get used to having all the different stratas together. Here. Acrylic, gouache, here, acrylic, and a bit of fine liner. And when you feel happy with what you've done there and you've had enough of a plate, then it's time for us to get on with the painting of the Bird and the Flowers. Hopefully you've built your confidence up a bit there to be able to start your main picture 8. Composition and Balance : How do you choose a subject view composition? So in this case, it's going to be a competition that's going to include a bird and some flowers, maybe some berries, maybe some leaves. I'm an avid collector of magazines. I have to say, I quite like going through with a nice cup of tea, just having a look at some of the pictures in the magazines and cutting out any that I think might be of interest. I also took copious photographs, tons and tons of photographs, which are then might print out myself. And I can also use those as a reference. Plenty of reference material, of course, in magazines. You can see here. It's very easy for you to find shapes of flowers. And it's not even that you need to copy them directly, but to give you a bit of an idea of what they look like, it's a good starting point to be able to just think, okay, so that's how a foxglove looks, and you can then stylize that in your own way. But magazines are a great place of reference for both birds and for flowers. And I use them both. Of course, I find it easier than being online and looking at them online. I know a lot of people use Pinterest, which I have used as well. But I do prefer, I noticed my preference is actually to just look through magazines and see what photographs, what lovely images that I can find in there. I mean, there's some gorgeous ones here of birds. I mean, how sweet is that? And then, you know, find a way, See that's such a beautiful shape there, That's lovely. And you can easily trace around that one and make it into a bit more of your own composition, your own stylized version of that. It's very simple. So I would say, when you're looking for inspiration by all means go online and have a look on Pinterest and wildlife sites, that kind of thing. Um, take your own photographs or just have a look through some magazines. And this is a picture that I got out of a magazine as well, um, and it's the artist, I believe, if I remember rightly, of Angela Harding. And it's interesting to see how she's stylized as Herbert. Um, so, you know, you can do what you want, really. It's just you having the competence to do it. Here's my board that I'm going to be working on. I've put masking tape around the edges because I want to keep that a nice clean line at the edge rather than paint all the way over to the edge of the board. And I'll explain why I do that a bit later. When I'm looking at a composition of something that's recognizable as opposed to an abstract, then I like to give it some thought and use why call a cartel and collage technique. Now, I have this little bird shape here, which is a composite of other birds that I've seen. Um, it's not an exact bird as you can see, but I rather like the shape of this. And given the antics of the black birds that come into my garden, I wanted to create a composition that somehow reflected I'm there cheerfulness and their quirkiness, if you like. So I want this competition to feel as if the bird is in and amongst the flowers. Now, I've got photographs that I've taken here of tulips. Um, then I printed off and I've cutout. If at all these cutouts here are flowers that I've actually photographed myself. And I'm just going to play around with them here to see whether or not I want to bring those into the picture or not. Now, I want the bird really to be the star of the show. So in a way, the flowers need to be, you know, round the back of him and perhaps in front of him. So using these little pansies, for example, they would be quite good to be at the front of him. But then I want some slightly bigger ones, um, maybe tulips or something in the background. I also want to bring a son into it somewhere as well. So when I've finally got the composition in place where I want it to be. I'm going to do then is I'm going to draw around these shapes and get my composition that we're basically, I might have missed something from a magazine and cut it out. Or I might just have seen something directly in a magazine and cut that out or taking my own photos. I'm going to play around with these, you know, I've got leaves and all sorts here. And just see what I might want to bring into this little painting. I'm sorry, I'm going to just have a little play around with that. And then I will bring you back into the lesson when I've decided exactly what I'm going to be doing? 9. Acrylic background layer : That's the composition. Now as I've drawn it, as you can see, I've traced around the bird shape. I've traced around the tulip shapes are added some free form leaves. And I've roughly traced around some pansy shapes at the bottom. Now, if I think about this as being a stage, then I want to know what the backdrop is. And the backdrop of course, is gonna be the sky and it's going to be the grass or the ground. So I want to paint the backdrop first. Some people prefer to do the back, the background last. That's entirely your choice. There's no right or wrong to that. It's just preference and I prefer to do mine first, the background. So I'm going to depend to some water. I've got the four colours again that I had when I was playing with my samples, when I was doing the acrylics. So I've got the, um, heavy-duty yellow, green. I've got the primary yellow. No, it isn't primary yellow. It's that funny named on benzimidazole alone, yellow medium. I've got fallow, turquoise and I've got white. And again, just these are all different quality paints and a mixing them all together. So again, please just go with what you've got. Um, because you'll still get a lovely result. So I'm going to start off by doing what I'm calling the sky. Now again, the choice of color is entirely yours. Funnily enough, I'm gonna go with green and yellow, which sounds a bit bizarre. But of course, when we put the stroking technique over the top of it with acrylic pens that you lose a lot of the background color anyway. So this is really just to add a texture. And the color that I'm putting on both the sky and the ground is really about building up texture. So I'm going to do what I did with the, um, samples. And I've got a smaller brush here. I'm sorry, I can't tell you what size it is because it's a it's peeled off but it's a flat brush again. And I'm just gonna go in with that little crosshatching technique. Now, you can see that I've drawn, obviously, I've drawn over the, um, you know what I've traced, I've drawn around the outline and I'm, I'm painting right up to those edges. And the chances are, is that they'll end up going over the lines, over the pencil lines. And that's absolutely fine because I can reinstate them if I need to. The real they're just there as a guide for me. Some of that yellow in there because that's a wee bit dark for me that I want there. What I'm trying to achieve here is a contrast of shades and tones. So I'm just starting off by putting on a layer here, which I'll keep working into and going over until I get the effect that I'm after. As I said, I want this to be a wee bit lighter up here because obviously the ground's going to be, you know, a bit darker. So I'm just literally working these strokes into each other and building up the layers so that it creates a nice texture for me to then add the acrylic pen tool in the same way that I suggested in your samples. Don't overthink it. Just get the paint on. As I say, think of it as the backdrop in the theater, on the stage. This is the back curtain. Keep working at it. Until you've got the tonic. Doesn't take long at all. It really doesn't. He can definitely see here that I'm going over those pencil lines. But as I say, it really doesn't matter. It's not important. If you want to make your pencil lines a little bit thicker than mine, a bit heavier than mine so that you can definitely see over them. Then please do. Just going to put a bit more white up here because I really want that to be a little bit paler, but I'm not covering up everything that I've just done. Because again, it's about leaving some nice tunes for me to be able to then work around with acrylic pen. So now I want to come down to this bottom layer and I want to make that slightly darker. So I'll bring in more of that turquoise color. And again, I can lighten it up if I want to. Just playing around there. Around the edges of the Pansy shapes. I'm calling them shapes because they might not end up being Pandas by the time I finished with them. Who knows? We'll see. Now what I do want to do in fact is just define where the sky begins, where the ground begin. So I'm just going to make their way a bit stronger. They're just so I remember that. There we go. That's almost done. Do take a bit of time just to blend those colors in. Um, but as I said, leave, leave some nice textured lines as well. Try not to make your design too complicated, otherwise you'll forget where you're painting. Um, well, I shouldn't use a statement for myself. I forget where I'm painting sometimes if I make lead designed too complicated to turn it around as you need to pop a tiny bit of white in there just to bring a little bit more contrast in the color. I think, well, I've someone that down there as well because that's rather nice, isn't it? That needs to dry. And then I'm going to start working on that. I'm with the acrylic pens before I then paint the Bird and the Flowers. But before I do that, once it's dry, I'm gonna just reinstate some of these pencil lines so that I couldn't remember. Western bits are. But that's it for now. And I'm gonna leave that to dry and then come back to it. 10. Adding the 1st Textural Layer : I'm going to start doing the lower part of the painting now the ground stroke grassy area with the acrylic pens. And this is why you'll see why I prefer to do the background first. Because show you going to start off with the yellow. And I'm gonna do a straight up and down stroke basically, or a stroke like this that starts at the top and comes down to the bottom like this. And I'm going to start with the yellow. And it will go over the edges of the leaves, the Bird, the flowers at the bottom. Now, that's okay because as we know from having done the samples, the gouache will cover over anything that's underneath it. But if I painted the leaves and the Flowers and the burden, everything first, then I would have to be much, much more careful about doing this stroking technique source to make sure that it didn't go. I'd already painted. So this is why I prefer to do the background for this technique in particular. Why I prefer to do it first, I'm using quite a thick nib here. This is the, um, five M in the Posca pen range for this yellow. But again, you can see how quickly that's going on. Doesn't take long at all. Now where is the line? I think it's about there. I can always alter that later. If I find that I want that to go either slightly up or even slant is further down. But just for now, that's absolutely fine. Now, of course, I can't do the next layer yet on here because this layer needs to dry. So what I can do is go up and start doing it on what we're calling the sky area. So I'm going to turn that around so that I don't put the edge of my hand into that I've already done. But this time I want to create some kind of movement to this, I want to create some kind of flew going on. So what I'm going to do is in fact I'll just do the first bit so I get the flow I want. And that's a sort of flow that I'm interested in creating their. And then it will come around here and round there. So you start to see the direction that I'm taking this in. Again quite quickly to get that sense of which direction which the sensor, the sense of where the floor he's going. That's lovely. That's great. So I turn that around and just follow that through with the same sort of strokes. But this time are going from left to right rather than up and down. Now, don't forget, we want to keep some of that lovely texture showing through underneath so we don't want to be covering it all with these pen marks. Don't worry if you go over your pencil marks. Like I said, the gouache will soon cover those up. Now when you get when do you get it Come into two different directions here. So we've got the floor going that way and we've got the flow going this way. And basically all you do is join them up in the middle, like that. Keep turning your painting around as you need to so that you're not putting your hand in paint that you've just put on. And keep doing this until you've got that first layer on. You could try in different colors if you wanted to. You could try it with a pale blue. Or you could go really dramatic and go orange. You can do whatever you like. The sky's the limit to quite literally the first layer of the yellow or pin, the sky area. I'm going to bring this lovely green. This is in the molecule range and it's, um, it's actually called grasshopper, which is a lovely green. Actually. I use this one a lot. And I'm going to go over that yellow on the lower half now with this one. And again, making sure that I keep some of these textures showing through from underneath with the acrylic paint 11. Adding the 2nd Textural Layer : I'm just gonna keep doing this all over with the green until I've covered most of that lower surface area. That's starting to show some really interesting textures coming through there. Now, see this lovely dark color showing underneath. And we'll end up putting one more layer on top of that. But you'll see what that looks like in a moment. So backup to the top layer now. And I'm going to use the ivory pen, this one, and I'm using the one with a really thick nib. This is another posca pen with a five nib. I'm going to follow that line round. That flew around that I started. And again, just continue until I've covered all the surface area that we're considering to be the sky. Keeping that flow going. Same kind of strokes. Left to right. Because if you're left-handed, you might prefer to do it either way round, go with whatever is comfortable for you. Starting to get a sense now of this flow on the second layer of I'm acrylic paint markers on top of the original acrylic. Can you see what I did that I've just so much that bit there, so I'll quickly go over that. It will get another layer on top of this. So it's not the end of the world. But you do have to be careful on mindful. You don't have to be a bit mindful of where you're putting your hand. Mindful of where you've just painted to bring another yellow into this, but a slightly lower nib or a 3M into this one. Now, i'm, I'm making this slightly more of a dot coming through rather than a stroke. And again, it's just to keep that texture interesting. You can see how the two are beginning to look quite a bit different. Now. I'm going to go back up to that one there. And I'm going to bring in a white. And this is only a one M 12. Adding the 3rd Textural Layer : Okay, and don't forget to just shake it and pump it through. That's not written. That's better. Just needed a bit more paint to come through there. That's better. I can just keep going on top of what you've already done. Keeping that flow going. And it doesn't take long to do as you can see. Now, you can make these lines as close together or as far apart as you want, depending on how much texture you actually want to show. And of course, you can always add a little bit more to it at the end. If you feel that you want to just refine it slightly. You can see here that this is much more of a loose texture, whereas this one's now is starting to look much closer together. And that's intentional. Because I want to really create a different feel to the upper part of the painting and the lower part of the painting. I'm putting quite a few of these, um, finer white strokes onto it. For that very reason. To make this top layer a bit more compact looking. I'm just going to carry on with this until I got it too. I want it to be. If you end up with something like that where I've got a bit of a smudge. Their fancy, just need to get it off with a piece of kitchen roll. Pen is not behaving very well. Is it? Good? I can of course, leaves some areas a bit looser up here, not do it all quiet so tightly done together so that again, it brings a bit more contrast. But actually I want this one to be generally fairly tight. Over most of the sky area. Quiet small strokes are these? When I say small, I mean small in length. But look at that. That's been created now. That's just lovely, really lovely, lots of lovely movement there. So now I'm going to come to a more narrow 3M ivory pen. And I'm going to bring that down small strokes again into this area here. Quite loose over the top. Not too close together, not as close as it was on the upper part of the Painting. Because I've used similar color pens in both the upper and lower. It works. It looks cohesive. Even though the strokes are going in different directions and this one's looser. It definitely works. For the moment. I think that that's all I want to do actually. Do I want to do it? No, I'm going to change your mind. And I'm gonna go with this lovely pen here. I'm, It's called aqua green and it's just a one M. So again, it's quite light. I'm just going to add a little bit of that too here. Just a little bit in parts. Not even everywhere. Again, that just brings a little bit of a different tone to it in certain areas. That's it. That's as much. So I'm going to do there. If I decide once I've got the painting with the bird and the flowers in it, that I need do a little bit more on that area than I will do. But for now, that's where I'm going to leave it 13. Painting the Background Flowers : This is all nicely dry now. And what I hadn't realized was that hadn't filled in this little bit here. So I've been over this as well and I've just reinstated a stock there because I'd obviously painted over that as well. I'm ready now to get to the really sweet stuff and that is to start painting the flowers. Now, if you remember, I suggested that we thought about it as a stage. So we've already done the backdrop. So now it's like, okay, who are the players at the back of the stage now? And they of course are the flowers. Then it would be the Bird, and then it would be the pansies and the leaves below. That's because what we're thinking of is what stays behind everything or look at it the other way, what comes in front? So the flowers come in front of the bird. The bird comes in front of the Flowers there. So we're going to paint from the back forward as it were here. I've got the colors on the palette, and I've also added a little bit of the Acrylic Matt Medium so that I can turn my gouache into a water resistant one if I want to. This is the palette, just a reminder that I managed to create from these four colours. And I'm going to use that as a guide to, um, give me some ideas as to what colours I actually want to paint the petals themselves. Now, again, when we're thinking in terms of what's at the back on what's forward. If we look here, that petal there and that bit there, and that bit there are at the back. So those are the ones that I'm going to start off with. And because they're at the back, I'm going to make them a little bit darker. Then I'm gonna do the petals at the front. So I'm going to take some of that red out. And I'm going to add the tiniest bit of black to it. Not much. Look how rich that looks, Isn't that gorgeous? I'm gonna put a little bit of the medium in with that as well. Because I want to make sure that that's water resistant. And I'm going to be painting those petals there. Don't worry. If you go over any of the edges of the other parts of the petals, like I'm doing here. Look, because the minute you put the other color on top of that will just cover it up. Keep turning your painting round as you need to, so that your brush is always where you can see it, the tip of your brush. And not I'm shielded by your hand like this for example. I'll put a little bit more black into their for the other one. Now because I'm using a very limited colour palette. I just know that it's going to be harmonious. That the effect that I'm going to get at the end, even though I don't have a plan as to what colours going to go away. I just know it's gonna work because I've got such a limited palette and all the colors are coming from that palette. So it's all going to work, which is useful to know. That petal there is slightly behind that one. So I'm going to take a bit more black and darken that up even more. Then I'm just going to play around with mixing the different colors I've got together here to fill in the colours of the other petals there. Paint a bit more of this off camera, and then I'll bring you back in again to let you see where I've got to with it, that color there's looking a wee bit flat to me. So I'm just going to pull in some of that yellow on top of it and see what happens. That's too much. I'm going to pinch some of that red and join that with it. Because I want it to be in a more vibrant orange as better. And this is the beauty of working with gouache that you can just keep reworking it until you get the colors that you want. Now, I also liked the fact that because that colours mixed with the one underneath, It's giving it a little bit of texture as well. In fact, you'll notice that's better, that's a much better color. You'll notice that there's some texture in these, um, leaves as well, which I really like that just lifts it all. Now, what I'm gonna do here, and this is where we get start playing is an I might change it again just so do you know I might change it if I don't like it, but I'm forever just trying out. Does it work? Does it not work? If it doesn't work, I'll alter it later. But let's just have a look because I quite like that color that I've just created there. And see what happens if I just put some little dots in there. See, I think that's rather sweet. Probably will end up leaving that like that. And I think we'll just do the same in here. We go. I'm going to leave that for the moment. Now that's the Background Flowers done. And then I'm going to move on to the Bird next. So I'll join you in the next session or other see you in the next session. When we start looking at how to do the Bird 14. Painting the Bird: But the bird, I'm gonna be using the ready-made acrylic gouache. And I'm going to use a mixture here of the routine hue and the primary blue. But I might also mix it with some of the traditional gouache, white as well, just to get the color that I want. So I won't need the Acrylic Matt Medium. I'm, I'm just going to play around here. I've already got the two colors on my palette. I'm just going to add a little bit more of his primary blue. And I want to put this on fairly lightly at the moment because I'll probably go back in and work into this with a little bit more paint. But just to start with, I'm gonna go from whatever's behind first. So that's that back wing. Can you see there? You can actually see little bits of color coming through from that background. And I actually don't want to paint those out, so I'm going to leave those in because I think they add quite a bit of interest on a take a little bit of white from over there, mixed it in with a portion of the paint on my palette. I'm bringing the other wing. I'm not worrying too much of this stage about the brushstrokes because I'll probably end up adding something on top of that. Again, I'm just going to leave that there for now. And I want the actual bird itself to be slightly darker. Ever so slightly darker. So I'm pulling in more of the viridian hue into the mix. Let's take a little bit of that black from the traditional gouache and add that to it as well. Now, that's made it too dark. So I'm going to just mix everything together that I've got on my palette here in terms of those blues and what I've created there. And see if I can get more to a color that are alike. And let's just see. Yeah, that's lovely. That's very nice. Do like that. I must say. I'm going to paint all the way right up to the beak around the head. Doesn't matter if I go over the eye, I'll reinstate it lead to owe to their very carefully and round this wing. I'll do make sure of course, that all this bit here is dry before you start putting the side of your hand in it. Because we know what happens there when you don't see how nicely it covers up that background there. Which again shows you why I like to do the background first. I'm just going to take that color ever so slightly. Hope that wing there just along the edge of it and then water it down ever so slightly. There we go. Without getting rid of that level of texture behind. Now I could at this stage add some different detail onto the bird's body. I'm really liking this kind of feathery effect. Again, I haven't planned it. It's just the way the pin is going. And I'm rather enjoying that. So I'm going to leave that just as it is for now and let it dry before I add anything else to the body and the wings. But I am going to paint its legs in just now. I'm going to take some of that black because the legs are usually darker than the rest of the bird. And I'm adding it to what I've used for the colour of the body there. You can see there that's quite a bit darker While I'm waiting for that to dry, I'm going to go back to me traditional gouache with the Naples yellow deep. And I'm just going to do the first layer of the Sun. Taken the column more or less as it comes out of the tube. It's quite watery at the moment, so I will need to put another layer on it. But I just wanted to get a sense now of where and how that sun is coming in. And we'll add a little bit more white. Actually. As you can see, I'm putting that white directly on top of the elephant. I just wanted to turn it down slightly. And I might end up putting the or the yellow back on top of that once that's dried. But we'll see, we'll see what I think about it when it's dried. I'm going to come back into this yellow again. And with the number one round brush, I'm going to put in the first layer of the bird's eye. And I'm also going to do the beak. Starting to take shape now isn't Epstein to look really sweet actually. I think whilst I've also got this yellow because this is how you can start linking the painting together and linking the colours together. I'm gonna do a little bit of decoration on this flower here. Now remember, we're not looking to make this look like a proper flower. We're stylizing them. Can you see the color coming up from underneath? That's okay. Again, it gives us, it gives it quite a bit of interests there. That's good, that's already dried. So we'll go back now. And I'm going to take some of the black, put it into that blue I created for the body. I'm gonna do some tiny little marks just coming around here. Let's add a little bit of detail to that underbelly on the bird. And for that, I'm mixing the yellow Naples deep in the traditional gouache with a bit of the primary red in the traditional gouache. Lets sorry, in the acrylic gouache. And I'm going to take a little cotton bud and just dip it in. Test a bit. First of all, on the side there, I'm going a little bit more yellow in that I think. And I'm just going to do this onto the body. And I think that's enough. I don't think it needs anymore than that. So I'm going to leave the Bird like that for now. I'll probably end up doing some more with the acrylic pens later. But for now, that's as much as I want to do on the bird. So let's have a look next at filling in the storks 15. Painting the leaves : I've got a mix here of the viridian hue and the Naples yellow deep. And I'd quite like in that column just going to do a little test out of it there. I'm gonna do the stocks with that. In fact, I'm going to use a much finer brush for this one. Let's start with that one at the bank, they're going to do the leaves the same as well just for the moment. But again, I might end up adding a little bit more color onto these. But just for the moment, gonna do it all as this one, flat color. Do this one here with a bit more blue in it. And of course, once I've seen the painting with the panties on as well, if I decide that it needs another little leaf somewhere, that's something that again, I can always add. Because as we know by now, the gouache covers everything up underneath it really. Well. I think I might just add a little leaf here and there. And basically that's just to balance the composition, really. Nothing culpable. Another little one here. Look. And that's looking really sweet. I'm going to carry on playing around with this for a little bit and then let it dry. And then I'll take an overview of it to see if I want to make any changes to it. So I'll do that off camera and then we'll be ready to start painting the flowers in the Foreground. I'll see you in the next session. 16. Painting the Foreground Flowers : As you can see, I've made a few changes to the Bird. I've softened it all and I've lightened it all. I felt once it had dried, that it was actually a bit too dark. And I've just done that by using the gouache and going over in I'm watery, feathery strokes. You can see here that it's still got some of that orange and the underbelly. And I'm going to leave that because it's nice at this moment that it suggests that there's some kind of texture going on on the belly. So I'm gonna leave that. And, um, you can see that I've lightened the head area up here. And again, just by putting the gouache over what was already there. So this is where it's good to let things dry and see if you need make any changes. Have also darken some of these leaves here. And don't be afraid to put some dark colors in because again, it gives it a nice lot of contrast. Now I'm ready for painting the little pansy shapes. And I've mixed on my palette some of the primary red in the acrylic gouache and some of the Naples yellow deep in a traditional. And I've just mixed those together. I'm gonna get the first layer of paint on to see. Why think it looks like. Now, painting is not a science, of course, you know, it's very much an emotive I'm activity. So you can start off by doing one thing. And as you go along, you know, recognizing that actually that's not what I want. I want it to be slightly different. And that's why I say it's good to just go in, have a look, you know, take a step back from it every now and again, and just see, is that actually what I'm after? And if it isn't, then change it. When I'm painting and decorating in my home. That's the kind of attitude I have as well. If I don't like it when I've done it, don't put up with it, change it and get it. Keep working at it until I get the, um, the shade that I really want. I do a lot of my own mixing when I'm painting the walls. And sometimes it just takes a few girls. I know that sounds like a lot of hard work, but because I love colour so much, I don't mind. I don't mind taking the time. So I'm just getting this color on first. It's covering quite a bit. What's underneath it. Very good. It's doing well in covering those acrylic marks and some of the pencil marks. Now, I obviously don't want them all to be exactly the same, so I'm just going to pull in a little bit more red there. And that gives a bit more shading look, a bit more contrast. So again, I'm just using the two colors here and creating a different mix with each petal up yonder there as well. And of course, I'll be adding more pattern on top of these with the acrylic pens. You can see how this color palettes working really well together. There's a lot of bright colors in it, but they work because as I said in one of the earlier lessons, because it's a limited colour palette. And the mixers are coming from those, then you just know that it's good to work. Keep dipping the brush into the water if it's starting to drag a little bit. These are looking sweet. Obviously, if I can see the acrylic paint underneath after the first layer, then I will go in and put a second layer on top of that. So that's the first layer on things. I'm just going to let that dry and see where else I need to go in and do an extra layer on top. I've let it dry. I've gone over these with another couple of layers just to make sure that most of that background was covered up. Reinstated. The little belly texture. And I've just deepened that sun up there. I'm going to pinch a bit of this black and pop it into that red there. I want a little bit more. And I'm going to get my cotton. But again, I think these cotton buds are on the way out, so let's find another one. We go up. And I think that needs to be a slightly watery mix, more and more watery mixture. That's better. That's better. I'm going to give these little flowers now, always still thinking of them as pansies. Now, that's still not going to do is it. Let's add a bit more of that black to red and make it a bit of a thicker consistency. And that's what we need to do. That's better. Dip that in there, have a practice. And let's try it. If it doesn't work, then I'll think of something else. I'm just twisting that as I put it in. Now you can see that by doing it in this color here, it's pulling in this color now. So again, we're getting some correlation between what's happening up here on what's happening down here. That for me now is as much as I want to do with a paints. So I'm going to completely let that dry and then I'll be going into it with the acrylic pens. I see you in the next session. 17. Finishing Touches : We're now ready to add the finishing touches. And I just wanted to show you this painting that I've done of three birds obviously. And you can see how by adding the different marks, adding extra details with the acrylic pens. It really takes it from a much flatter level like this into something quite different. So that's what we're going to be doing now on this painting here. And you can see here in the background, there is this suggestion of a son. And we're going to start with that one there and really knock it back so that it's nowhere near as bright and loud as it is. We're going to be using a similar technique to what we used for the sky here. I'm gonna go in with the large nib, white acrylic pen. I'm going to start around the edges, covering those edges. In fact, I'm going to do that all the way through until I've covered the whole thing. I'm keeping the curve going. I created with the brushstrokes because that's the movement, the direction that I want to go in. Now of course, I'm going to have to let that dry because reminder, it is paint that's in these pens and it will take a few minutes to dry. So whilst that's drying, we can just turn that around and start looking at where else. Want to add a little bit of detail. And what I really want to do is to give the Bird, it's I. So here we go. Width and white thick pen again, right in the middle of that yellow. Then I'll be adding a little black spot to that a bit later. I'm also going to put some white in the middle of these flowers here. Now you'll notice that these pansies are starting to look much more like puppies. Now. This is the beauty of allowing the paint to unfold, allowing the painting to unfold, allowing it to evolve, and not holding on to tightly about it. So that what ends up coming out of it ends up coming out of it from a more playful perspective. Rather than absolutely, it must look like this. We're going to go now in with the pilot pen, the fine liner. And I'm going to do some small details on these leaves here. Now, again, don't forget, I've just put that white people there. Don't be putting your fist in it and smudging it. Turn it around as you need to. Create some different marks. Don't all have to be the same. Let's add some dots on this one. You just have to go with what appeals to you. I want to just I like these little seeds in the middle of here. And I can tell already that that white paint that I've got my handover was not dry. Can you see? It's smudged but it's okay because I know that I'm going to be putting on at least two, if not three more layers on that. So at this moment, I'm not really too worried about that. Can see how the painting starting to lift now current year. And I want to add something here to this one here, Mark safe. But I think I'm going to do that with the white pen. I'm just going to put some dots on the outside like that. And I'm going to do the same for here as well. Taking that slightly high white nip. I'm also going to add some freely around here. See what you like. If you don't like it. I'm gonna go back up now to the sun. And I'm going to bring in the very thick nib to ivory pen, which has got a bit of yellow, white. And that's okay because that's actually what I want to do. And I can feel that. And if it hasn't fully dried, I can always do this with a bit of paper towel. But here we go again. So I'm totally softening that colour of the sun underneath But still allowing some of that golden yellow to shine through. Can see how that's now starting to transform. I'm going to put yellow on it at the end, um, but not just yet. Obviously, I need to let that dry. Wants to do a little bit more on these leaves down here. And it's all about just adding more and more interest. A little something with that leaf there. I think that's all that one needs, doesn't really need anything else. Now, I know I keep saying to you, if you don't like it, change it, and I can't emphasize that enough really. What I notice I'm not particularly caring for is the white. So I'm going to go in and with my orange posca pen, which is a 3M somewhere. It'll tell me it's a 3M. Yeah. I'm just going to soften that light up a little bit. Now that's not really liking what I'm doing there, is it? This pens not really wanting to play there? So I'm going to swap it. Library pens said that, let's go with the one that's got quite a bit of yellow on it and see what happens. They're not quite as bright as the white. And I'm even going to bring this lovely big thick yellow nib and pop that in the center. Instead of that white. Let's go back up to that. That's fine. Keep following the same curve round. I'm going to be put in the final layer of very fine white on top of that one providing the nibble. Let me do it, of course. Um, so I'm just going to let that dry fully. And whilst that's drying a little bit, I'm going to give the Bird, it's final bit of black in the eye. There we go. Just going to let that dry. And then I'll come back into that with the fine white pen That's fully dried. And so I've started adding this white, very fine liner to it. You can see how that's really not that back now. You'll also notice that I've changed those Flowers down at the bottom of the painting. I didn't like that ivory. It was just too stuck on it. So I've added a pink posca pen to it. And then gone over it with this one here, this pen here, which is a burgundy color. I'm gonna do one final thing with this color, this burgundy color. And that's to just do some weed dots around the edge of the wing. I don't want to do too much on it because there's a lot going on in the rest of the painting as well. But just to define where that when is the one behind that's the finished painting. I'm going to tick this off and have a final look at it. And we'll just add some final thoughts. And I'll see you in a few moments in the next session. 18. Final Thoughts 2: Here's the painting with the masking tape off. And I like to give myself a border around the edge so that then I've got a couple of options as to how I want to finish the painting. Quite often. I like to give it a green border around the edge which pulls in some of the color from the painting itself. But I think for this painting, I'm just going to use a mount and frame it with the mount. If you're interested in learning little bit more about how colors can work well together and how they mix and the different combinations that you can use. Then feel free to pop over to my class exploring contrast, color, and pattern. It's in two parts. And the first one shows you a lot about how to mix colors together. And the second one is all about pattern and how to add pattern by hand or even by printing. Hope you've enjoyed the class. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed teaching it. I'd love to see what your managed to do. Whether you get to paint the whole picture with the bird and the Flowers, or whether you just do the doodles where you're getting a feel for the gouache and the acrylic. I hope that you've really got a sense of how those two mediums work together. Now, the so forgiving in the sense that when you make any kind of, we'll call it a mistake, but it's not really a mistake is it's just a learning, you know, that you can always paint over it and that's what I love about that Medium. If you'd like to show me what you've done and leave it in the project section by hitting the project button. That would be great because it helps other people as well to have a look at other people's work and see whether they want to take the class. And if you'd be kind enough to leave a review, that also helps other people see whether they want to tell the class or not. I think we can all probably learned a thing or two from birds. I'd like to leave you with a little exit from the book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard back. It's a beautiful book. If you've never read it, it's really worth having a look at it. Until I see you again. Take care. They came in the evening and found Jonathan gliding peaceful and alone through his beloved sky. The two goals that appeared on his wings, what pure starlight and the glow from them was gentle and friendly in the high knitr. But most lovely of all was the skill with which they flew. Their wing tips moving a precise and constant inch from his own. Who are you? He asked, we are your brothers, Jonathan. We've come to take you higher, to take you home. I'm ready, he said at last. And Jonathan Livingston, Seagull rows with a two-star bright goals to disappear into a perfect sky.