Beginner's Watercolor Quick-Start Guide: Let's Paint Mushrooms!

1. Intro: Let's Paint Mushrooms!: Our first encounter with watercolors is often a magical moment in our childhood when our hearts brim with boundless creativity. Little do we realize the vast potential of this humble medium. Hi, everyone, I'm Cheryl, a physicist by training, and a self taught watercolor artist. I live in a small town in the heart of India, where I pursue my passion for art as my life's work. From a young age, creativity flowed through me like a river, nurtured by the clean and verdant surroundings of my hometown. Nature became my muse, whispering secrets of beauty and inspiration. For many, rediscovery of art in later years is a rare and special gift. It's an opportunity to step into the enchanting world of watercolors with new found appreciation. Just as mushrooms spring forth from the forest floor, fresh beauty emerges from our past experiences. This symbolism permeates our journey as we explore this vibrant and dynamic medium. In my class, we embark on an ahlarating adventure, delving into the tips, tricks and techniques of watercolor painting. Our project, painting mushrooms, symbols of transformation and growth. We'll learn to sketch the subject and then breathe life into our drawings with watercolors. Through layering, we will add depth and richness, balance our composition, and explore the power of a limited palette to create harmony. This beginner lever class is designed to be accessible using the supplies you already have. Join me on this thrilling journey and let's discover the magic of watercolors together. I can't wait to see what you create. 2. Class Project: For your class project, I invite you to get your watercolor supplies ready and paint with me. I will guide you on how to draw these mushrooms and we will paint them one step at a time. Along the way, we will explore a wide variety of watercolor techniques. I strongly suggest that you watch each lesson till the end before trying that part. This way, you can be better prepared for what to expect and hopefully avoid too many mistakes. If any part of the lessons are not as clear as they should be, please feel free to start a discussion below. See you in class. 3. Materials: For our watercolor mushroom painting, these are the materials we will require. The basic ones are watercolor paints, watercolor paper, brushes, and two jars of water. You will need a pencil and an eraser for drawing. It's also crucial to have a rack piece of cloth to dab off excess water from your brushes while you paint. You could instead also use paper towels. I'm also going to use the ceramic palette, but if you don't have one, you could squeeze your paints onto a ceramic dining plate and that would work just as well. If you use watercolor pants instead of watercolor tube set like me, that's perfectly okay. The key is to use whatever you have at hand. The specific colors I'm using our Sap green ultramarine deep, burnt sienna, yellow ocher, and scarlet laquer. You do not need to have the exact same hues. You are free to substitute them for similar looking colors that you have with you. My watercolor paper is 300 GSM or 140 pounds, and it's important to have thick and heavy paper so that you can sustain all the layers that we'll put down. 300 GSM or anything about that is fine. 4. Drawing: L et us get down to drawing. The materials you will need are your watercolor paper, pencil, eraser, and reference tensil. If you are not too confident with your drawing skills, you could use the tensil to trace out. Alternatively, you could first draw on a scrap sheet of paper before transferring the sketch onto the watercolor. I would encourage you to practice drawing yourself though. Any drawing can be simplified by viewing it as a collection of elementary shapes and lines. I first roughly draw the lines for the stems and later add the caps. These caps are just val, but slightly deformed, so we have a more organic look. I then refined my sketch, separating the top and the bottom parts of the cap with a curved line that captures my desired cots. The bottom part of the mushrooms will have gills, which we will directly paint. Where the stem meets the gills, I draw a ring and add a skirt. From beneath the skirt protrudes the stem, which I now draw. Additionally, I have some grass to balance the composition. I also draw some soil over which my mushrooms stand. 5. First Layer: Now that we have our drawing ready before us, we get to the fun part which is painting. For this lesson, I have in my workspace two jars of clean water, my color squeezed onto my palette, a piece of cloth, and my brushes. The size of the brush that you choose should be comfortable to use relative to the size of your drawing. I begin by applying a thin layer of clean water onto my mushroom caps. I apply more than necessary because it's hot where I'm located and the paper dries quickly. Furthermore, I want to take my time and apply sufficient water so that it can soak well into the page. You shouldn't have any puddles of water, though. If you've got too much water on the paper, it might create blooms when it dries. The solution is to use a dry brush to soak up the excess water. Now we start to lay down our colors. Starting with the lightest shade, it is a dilute yellow occur. I lay down colors on the wet mushroom caps. This technique is called wet on wet. When you paint, the water will transfer from the brush to the paper if you have more water on the brush than on the paper. This can cause unintentional blooms. On the other hand, if the brush has less water, the water flows from the paper onto the brush. This is how we want to paint wet layers. The way to control the amount of water on your brush is by using the rack cloth to dab off excess water from your brush. It takes practice to get water control right. However, with time, you'll get there. I use a thick consistency of yellow occur where I want the shadows to be. Now and then, whenever I notice excess water on my paper, I off a clean wet brush onto my cloth and then use this brush to collect the puddle of water off my paper. While my paper is still wet, I continue to layer now with burn Siena for darker tones. I proceed to the stem. Again, I bet the stem and then I lay down the lightest colors first. I darken these colors layer by layer. I'm primarily using burnt sienna with a bit of ultramarine blue mixed in. This gives a nice deep brown color. I vary the proportions of burnt sienna and ultramarine blue to add interest to the painting. You could also experiment with mixing little bits of scarlet or yellow ocher with your burnt sienna to get different shades of brown. Once I've covered all three stems, I proceed to paint the skirts. My stems are still wet, so I leave a gap between the paint on the stem and the bottom of the skirt. This is to prevent bleeding of colors. I lay down yellow ochre first, gradually building the shadows. I use burnt Siena to add depth as well as to paint some of the folds in the skirt. After this, I proceed to lay down a thin layer of yellow ocher onto the soil. I then use a relatively dry brush with burn sienna to add textures by stippling dry on wet. I then sip on the stem wet on dry to create the impression of soil. With this, we are done with our first layer. 6. Top of Mushroom Caps: Once our first layer is completely dry, we can proceed with this lesson. We will now paint the top of the mushroom cap with scarlet laquer. I have placed my mushrooms upside down because this makes it easier for my arm, and I invite you to do the same. I start by creating a dilute mix of the scarlet and I paint across the gap. You could also add some burnt sienna to create variety in tonal values. With a clean damp brush, I blend the top edge like so. I do the same for all three mushrooms. I place a higher intensity of color towards the middle of the mushroom, since this is where I want the greatest contrast. If you notice closely, you'll see that I have left some space between the scarlet paint and the pencil line the top of the mushroom. This is to give the impression of the mushroom caps folding inward at the boundaries. Depending on your taste, you could choose to leave such a gap in your painting or not. 7. Gills Beneath the Caps: It is now time to paint the gills at the bottom of the mushroom. I mix a very watery burnt sienna, and using a very fine paint brush, I create these pale lines. I try to vary the intensity to give it a more natural look by mixing in more burnt sienna. Try not to cross over the lines that you have already put down. It's a good idea to tackle a stretch at once. First, paint over a part of the demarcation line. Then pull out the lines from the edges and draw the one at the center. Then split in half the left segment and draw the middle line. Continue this process until you have enough lines. Keep wearing the hue and tone by mixing in the other colors on your palette with the burnt sienna. For darker areas, use ultramarine blue. Do this for all three mushrooms. Once the first layer of lines has dried, create depth by adding more layers of lines. This way, you can achieve a more realistic look. I have found that the patient you are with this part, the better the outcome. Since it's a repetitive process, this exercise doubles as a mindfulness exercise, and I invite you to be in touch with the present moment and enjoy creating your artwork. You may have noticed that we use the same set of limited colors for each component of our painting. This is generally a good idea since it makes the piece look unified and cohesive. Using too many colors or using different colors for different parts of the painting isn't usually a good practice. This gives the painting the look of a patchwork collage. However, if you believe that's your style, don't let me or anyone else tell you otherwise. Creating groundbreaking artwork is all about breaking the rules in interesting ways. 8. The Soil and Grass: In this lesson, we will work more on the soil and the grass around the mushrooms. I mix a dilute sap green and I start by painting over my thin pencil lines. I then add these small leaves directly with my paints. If you are not confident about doing so, you could draw first. With a thicker consistency of my green, I start to include this plant over the soil. I add some more greenery onto the soil. I go in with ultramarine to darken parts of the leaves. While doing this part, try to alternate your vision between focusing on the individual details and looking at the painting as a whole. This way, you'll be able to see if the value placements are correct. Or in other words, which parts need to be darkened and which ones kept lighter. I darken the soil to the left side to give the impression of light from top right. I then start stippling with a deep brown color onto the soil to build layers and at depth. Once all my water has left my brush, I have a relatively dry one. I use this to add more texture. Another way to create a brush is to load it with a concentrated brown pigment, then of the excess water on your. Then drag this brush over the paper to create texture. With this, our painting is nearly ready. In the next part, we'll make it stand out with some subtle but crucial finishing touches. 9. Finishing Touches: In this lesson, we'll add final details to our artwork. I thicken the fold in the caps with the dark mix of burnt sienna and ultramarine blue. I add textures to the stem of the mushrooms with a relatively dry brush. After loading the brush with pigment, I dab off the excess water on the towel. Then I lightly drag my brush along the stems. This gives the impression of soil and perfections on the stem. It's important not to go overboard with the step. Take a step back now and then and view your painting as a whole to decide how much texture is appropriate. I thicken the rings above the mushroom skirts with burn sienna and then add some discontinuous lines to the bottom. Don't make a continuous line though, because that would give the painting an illustration like fail. Next, I mix a dilute yellow ochre and use it to add shadows by dry brushing one side of the mushroom stem. Finally, I added textures to the gills of the mushrooms because I felt the need for texture there. But if you would rather keep the mushroom gills smooth, you may skip this step. With this, our artwork is complete. 10. Outro: Upload Project!: A Thank you for staying with me through the lessons and congratulations on completing your painting. As a final step, please do not hesitate to upload a snapshot of your painting process or your finished work to the project gallery below. Feel free to ask any questions in the discussions or seek feedback for your project, and I will be sure to take a look and reply. Do leave likes and comments for your fellow students projects to encourage and support each other. Please also consider leaving an honest review for this class, since this helps me improve my content and create more classes for you to enjoy. Until next time, happy painting.