Transcripts
1. Introduction: Here. Welcome to my Skillshare class. My name is Jamie Anderson and I am the creator behind
indigo Street studio. For this class. This is the
first in a series of classes. This was going to take us
through the alphabet a through E. Subsequent classes we will
go through the rest of it. And we're gonna go through each letter and draw
the letter and then add some animals to them.
Didn't show you that. History bear. And then paint them
in watercolor. Really simple class. It's a really simple design. There's a lot of drawings, but not difficult drawing. I'm going to provide you with drawings that you
can use if you'd like to. The watercolor painting that's involved in it is definitely
at the beginner level. So if you're
uncomfortable with that, I think you'll find it very easy and I hope
you will enjoy it. Let's get started. Next, we're going to
talk about supplies, and then we'll start drawing, and then we'll add
animals and then we'll paint. Let's get going.
2. Supplies: Hey, there, Let's get
started talking about supplies for this
watercolor project. I used Arches watercolor paper. Now I am a big fan of arches. I think it's really the
top of the line paper. And I understand that. That might mean it is
out of reach for some, but I would recommend for
this pack in particular, I bought it from Michael's,
but I use a coupon, so I got a good price on it. Look for those coupons to use. What's something like buying the expensive brands because it is really worth your time. The less expensive
brands like Canson or Strathmore are gonna
give you crummy results. You're gonna be frustrated
and think that you can't paint with watercolors
and that's not the case. Just the paper. Other
papers that I like. Not quite as well, but they work really well. Are Kilimanjaro, Fabriano,
also fluid 100 paper. What I tend to like to paint on is the cold pressed paper. You see it right there? I usually do the
140 pound paper. People also can choose from hot pressed or rough paper that has to do with the
finish of the paper, how flat it is. The cold press has a little
bit of bump to it that you familiar with in
watercolor paintings. Then let's move on to paints. You don't need a fancy
big palette like this. I've been painting
for over 23 years, so I have accumulated a lot of different paints and need a
pallet to accommodate them. You can pick up a very inexpensive palette from Michaels and do
masterpieces with it. So something like this
is really simple. It is nice to have a cover on your palette so that you can close it up when you're
not working on it. Some people like to use pan paints comes maybe
a little set like this. These are totally legitimate and excellent quality paints. These paints that I used
here are from tubes. So you squeeze the paint
out into the wells. It does dry up and then when
you're ready to use it, you put water on your
brush or your spray him. While I read it to go. Speaking of brushes, I will use two different brushes
for this particular class. The brush that I have right now that I'm using
is this number ten? It is a Princeton is the maker and it's their
Heritage Series brush. Lovely round brush comes
to a nice fine point. I also use a smaller brush. This is number two. This one's a little bit more
expensive than this brand. This is a creative mark, something you might
find at Michaels. Although you might find
Princeton there to look for those coupons and
buy your supplies with that. This is a number too, like I said, and it's
another round brush. You want your round brush to
come to a nice fine point and you'll be able to paint pretty much anything with that. In addition to paints,
paper, and brushes, you're going to need a
pencil and eraser for this project because
we are going to be drawing the letters
of the alphabet. And because they are so many round letters I tend
to use, I show you this. I tend to use a stencil. So that's what this is here. I use this to draw my letters. You don't have to do that. You could use a jar or a glass, something with the
appropriate size you'd like. And then I just use
a little Bueller. So those are all the things
I use for this class. Well, obviously, of course, since it's watercolor, you
need some source of water. And I tend to have a rag nearby so that I can
wipe off my brush. Blot off paint or extra water. You can use paper,
towel, tissue, a rag. That's what I do. Follow that in mind. If you gather all your supplies together, we can get started.
3. Drawing the Letters: Alright, so I've started
the process of getting the image on my watercolor paper by finding the center
of my piece of paper. So just measured here and
here and found the center. So you might want to
do that just so that your letter is centered
in the center. Of course, if you
don't want that, if you don't want it
centered, That's fine. Also, you might want it off to the side or
something like that. Then I'm going to
use a circle stencil because I cannot draw
perfect circles. Now if you don't have something
like that, you could, you could grab a drinking glass or a char or something with a round shape and you can
draw your circle that way. So I'm going to roughly center my circle for my a around
that center point. So I don't need it to be exact. I just want it to be roughly. I'm going to make
it really light. Circle there. To start with. I don't want to draw too
hard because I am using watercolor paper
and I don't want the pencil lines
to show too much. I'm gonna draw it
maybe a little bit harder than I normally would, just so that you could see it. I do want the letter to be
have a thickness to it. So now I'm gonna go
to a smaller circle and try to center that inside the first circle
that I made and draw one. Now I have circle
center of my page. And it's basically going to be a block letter so that
there's thickness to it. Now I need a straight edge. Well, I'm just going
to use the stencil. I could use the bullet
would work too. I need the stick of the a. So I'm gonna hold
that straight against here so that I know I
have a straight line. First-line. Now
my second line is going to go into this
a little bit blue. I might need to move
that over a little bit. Okay, So this is why I want
to draw really lightly. And case first-line or any line is too dark or in
the wrong spot, I should say. I'm going to move this
over a little bit. Let's put it there. I want the thickness
of my stumble, the a to be roughly the
same as the thickness of the letter C, that that's about a
quarter of an inch. Better. Let's make the line to
be right about here. I'm gonna draw a straight line with the help of my
ruler. Right there. I want another line. I know it seems
like it's going to be too far into the circle, but I think it
will make it look. I'm gonna draw another line yes. Into their erase portions
that overlap each other. And of course we need to
tap off our line here, so I'm going to make
it the same point. This ends my ruler straight by holding it against straight
edge of the paper. Now I have a nice
neat little letter, a race spots that I don't speed. We can see that that's going
to come nicely designed. Now I'm going to repeat
that for the other letter. In this one, I wanted to have let her
see a little bit up and off to top right In March here. But for e, I want to put my letter a little bit
off and up to the side. Let me go to the left side
this time with the CI, put it over here, the Ian's put it on the side.
4. A is for Ants: We have our letters drawn. Now, we're going to start
watercolor process. It's the letter a. It's going to have ants
crawling around the letter. The answer gonna be basically
in a really dark color. So I feel confident
that with this one, I could paint the background, which I'm gonna put a
yellow in the background. And then after that dries, I can then draw put the answer. Now I could draw
them ahead of time. But once I paint over them, I can't take away
the pencil marks. So that's one thing
I need to know with watercolor painting
is at once, once I, what I have to say, draw it, and then I paint over it, any pencil lines
will be permanent. So I don't want to draw my aunts ahead of
time just in case I don't like the placement of them once the
background is down. So first I'm gonna
apply my background, let it dry or dry it myself. Then I will put the answer in. Let's do that. Let's do the background. For this letter. I want to choose a
cadmium yellow and just think it's
bright, fun color. This caving me a little deep. Put that in the background. I'm going to do painting, wet paint on dry paper. Feel comfortable doing
that because I don't have a lot of area to cover. I'm gonna start by just doing the inside round the letter. Instead of the letter. I also am comfortable painting wet on dry paper
because I know that this particular color will
move pretty easily for me. Some colors of phi. So they did this. I'd get a really hard line here. Even this quickly,
I'm applying it. Pays some paint colors. You just have to work a
little faster with this one. I'm pretty confident
not pose a problem. So there's part
of my background. I'm gonna go around letter. Of course, if I wanted
anything to erased, done that poor hand, but I wanted to
leave some of this a little bit darker so
that you could see it. Now alternatively,
I could paint all around the letter a with
water, just clear water. And I'm sure that I will do that and some of
the other letters. But I wanted to show
you this method first. Just using my round brush, trying to be as close and as precise as I can
going around this letter. I can just move my paper
around to make it easier. Positioning it so we can move the brush close to that letter. That's gone around
it pretty carefully. Now I can make my background
in the shape that I wanted in my composition here. I'm just going back in with a little more paint on my brush. A little more water to water
does, helps spread it. What I want to have sort
of a soft edge to this. So this is a little more of
a harder edge over here. So I'm going to soften it up
with a little bit of water. See there where paint has dried. If I just scrub it
a little bit with my brush, I can move it. Like I said earlier, that's something I can do with this particular column easily. Other colors that
power line would be. It's very hard to cover up. I'm just trying to make soft dish with this
particular color. The way I'm doing that, I'm not going to now
into any of the pigment. I'm just going into
water on my brush, wiping my brush off
occasionally on my grad. I don't want to get too wet. Just soften that edge up. Now while things are still wet, just taking a closer
look at everything, making sure everything covered. Now all things are wet
is when you should fix any spot so you write a missed just trying to touch up here and
the center of the a, see that the center is
starting to dry a little bit. So I have to work that
paint in a little bit more. I just want to get a little more precise along this edge here. I'm basically pretty happy
with this. Now, we know. One thing we know
about watercolor is it does dry, lighter. Already see that
around the edges. So while things are
still a little bit damp, I'm just adding a
little more color to it so that it's
not so, so faded. Once it's dry. I do like this
colors or wanted to show. It's up to you how dark you want things going ahead and
adding a little more color. This like I said, this is easier to do with this particular color,
some pink colors. You're really won't
run into an issue when you go ahead and add. I'm pretty happy with that. I know it's still going
to try it a bit lighter. You can kinda see the halo
where I've darkened it, but I can blend that
out a little bit. Not so much an issue. If we do see some of these
lines where they dry. Okay, with it,
That's watercolor. Part of why I love
vodka. Sway looks. So I'm going to let this dry. More likely I'm going to
try it with my hairdryer. And then we'll come back
and put the answer.
5. Painting Ants: All right, so now we have this paper's dry and look at some
reference photos of ants. So I just did a Google search of ads and look at photos of them. I'm not going to say copy one. I'm just going to
look at the what, what exactly the body
shape of an ant is. And I'm going to draw
them this with my pencil. I'm going to drop
pretty lightly. I'm not afraid though if it's
a little bit dark because the answer is just basically
it'd be a very dark color. They're gonna cover
up any pencil lines that I might make. What I want to do is
make some kind of a fun looking piece with the ants crawling around the a. I just think that
that would be fun. So I'm gonna make One
coming into the scene here. So anti have three
body segments. So I'm just gonna draw
a little like that. Are insects and they have six legs come out
of this centers. Like that. I really could do this just with my paintbrush, but I'll do a couple of like
this first little antennae. There's one right there. Now I've kind of
established the size of the chance that
I'm gonna have, uh, which maybe that was
good or bad decision. I don't know. I'm going to have one maybe
crawling on the a here. Let's just really simple drawings there. I'm going to grab small brush. Just a really
inexpensive brush from Creative Mark. Works great. To use Payne's gray to paint these very dark color. You could see in
that little, well, it's kind of a blue tint
to it. Great colors. Payne's gray. I have a lot of paint on my brush and I am
going to paint once again, wet paint on dry paper. I'm just going to
fill in little ants. Now if at this
point I don't like something that I've drawn, I do have the ability
to erase it because it's on top of the
watercolor aircraft. So here where I'm
certainly not trying that exactly where
the lines are. I can erase those. Once that peak tries, I
can go back with a racer. So there's my letter a
with my aunts on it. I just think they're adorable. I don't know. Maybe it could use
a little bit more, but now this point, let it dry and erase any extra
pencil marks that I have. You could write the
letter or you could write the word ant for a is for aunt, or you could just
leave it like this. It's totally up to you. I think that would be
kind of look pretty cute, too bright, or an ant. But maybe you were saying
the individual pieces as a monogram for a child in a room or
something like that. So you might not
want to have it. So think about it ahead of time. What you're gonna be
using this form, extra.
6. B is for Bear: Really gets dry erase. Extra pencil lines here. Even the ones that
are singled letter. Neither. Now, let's
move on to the letter. With this letter, I do want to have a bear in the picture. I think what I want to
have is the bear standing up and kind of leaning
on the letter B. Balance this here and
I have something here. I'm just squint to look at some reference photos of
bears and draw from there. I don't want him
to be a huge bear. So, but I wanted to
maybe have this open for this letter. I am going to use
a red background. And I just want to show you a different
method of doing this. So this time I'm going to paint around my
letter and around my bear with just
plain water first. And hopefully you'll
be able to understand why I'm doing this when
you see it together. This allows me to do is to
paint as we call wet on wet. So I'm gonna have wet paint on my brush and it's gonna
be applied to wet paper. What that will
help me with that, I will be able to
work carefully around my letter and not have
the paint drying. I'm not working with it. I have a certain area wet now I'm going
to go into my red. I'm going to I could
just drop it into those areas where I'm not playing with it
because excuse me, going around the letter
and I'm going to work and be working there
and I'm not working here. It's not gonna dry
yet because there's extra water on the paper. That is the beauty of it. I can take the time now to paint carefully around
here and not worry about this portion
of it drawing. Now, I'm using a number
ten round brush, but probably wouldn't be a bad idea to use a
smaller brush to get into. So let me get into some of
these tighter corners here. But if your round brush
whatever size and this has a nice point on it, should be able to
do it. Problem. All right, so I'm gonna
go around the beer here. Now. While this is what
I'm going to get it close to the darkness as
I want it to be later. Remember it always
dries lighter. But I don't want this color. I don't want to go back
like I did with the orange and the letter
a and try to add some. I want to do it all right Now, I know, like I said, it's
going to dry lighter, but I think I'm happy with that. I'm cleaning off my brush now. I can go back in with more water to paint around because now
I'm going to extend the area that has paint in it. I'm going to go up
higher around the letter B. I'm gonna come out a little bit farther
to my background. I was extended a little bit. Let's work with that right now. I'm gonna move this around. So like I said earlier, it's easier to work. I'm right-handed. It's easier to work
with this in C tier. Papers not too wet there. So I'm just going to
add some that I had that nice soft edge
to my watercolor. Little bit Here's dry also. All right. Now I just
have to tackle the inside of the letter and I know
I have paid on my brush, but I can go fast enough. Careful trying to keep it urges. I'm sure you've noticed
as we've gone along, my clear water is no
longer clear as to what that Red Sea advantage of maybe having another
jar of water nearby. But you work with that way. When you're clear, water
is no longer clear, you can dip into that one. Okay. I've got that
all filled with water. Now. I'm just going to blot off my brush and just
add some pigment. So I'm not adding a ton
more water to my paper. Just wanted to darken
the inner portion of it. When your paper is wet. When you're filling in
the background areas. That right now I need to really check to see that I'm getting
close to the edges. I want to to close
like I did over there. But because when it dries, It's really doesn't look
as good when you go to fix it. It's better to fix it. Well, it's what here I
have a lot of water. I'm trying to pull some of
that out with a thirsty brush, which is just a damp brush. And I'm trying now to add a little bit more pigment so that when it tries
it's not so satellite. Don't want it to be
a pink, be nice red. I think I'm happy with that. I'm going to let that dry. And once that's dry, we can work on painting.
7. Painting the Bear: I have this dry. Now I'm going to
paint a little bear. A lot of choices
for color for that, I could go with a
yellow poker base or maybe some burnt
sienna or sepia. I want to start with
the yellow ocher. I know it sounds yellow. Why would you put
yellow but it's brownish color to it and it would just be a
base to start with. Then I can darken certain areas within the bear.
I'm going to do. I am painting wet on dry here. Cause I know enough about this
color or that snack going to cause me any shoes. Just going to fill in space. I have for the little guy. Maybe it's a PPO, I don't know. Did an acrylic version
of this painting and I have little beehive
appear on that. The beer is looking at
the beehive longingly. Something you can do
this if you wanted to. Just getting all
of those covered. As you can tell, we now have a sunny day, so I hope the visuals
not messed up. I don't have my light
shining on my paper. I have the sunshine
which is a nice change. The Pacific Northwest, so it's really nice to see
the stock today. Surprisingly, sunny in
our neck of the woods. This is extending it
to the letter here, just getting us all filled in. Kind of drill that
into you by now. You're going to do anything with your watercolor movement, going around, adding darkness, whatever, do it while it's wet. I like that as a base. Then now I'm going to
darken some areas. This is, this is good paper, this is Arches watercolor paper. So the paper really absorbs the water quickly and it
makes a big difference. What kind of paper you use. A little bit of white paper
shining through there. It makes big difference how
fast you can work on things, you can work on them a
lot quicker when you have good paper because it's
pink, it's absorbed. If you have curvy paper, paint and the water
sitting on top of it, doesn't need it to do. I'm going to grab some sepia, which was a really
dark, dark brown. You could do umber,
burnt sienna. And what I'm gonna do with this, I know that it's
not completely dry, but I'm not afraid of that. I'm just going to
make some areas the darker where there's
delineation or bear. So this is like whereas arm is taken some paint
off my brush now. I'm going to blend that in. Make this back leg a
little bit farther back on this front on a nice
blend in there. I might add some yellow
ocher back into it. I'm going to put maybe his
nose like that really dark. I might do maybe the
ears. What do you think? We can even put a little? And here, I would say
that looks like a bear. He's got a little tail there. So put a little shadow
under the tail. Going to put little more of the yellow ocher
and this arm here. Just a little bit
too light for me. A little more yellow
ocher everywhere. Leg is a little bit too
light compared to the other. Just going to spread a
little more yellow ocher. So secondly, robot. I think he's pretty cute. What's that? Dries, I'll
do a little more detailed, maybe even with marker like
a polo claws on the speed. Now I know the other arm is
lost there, but that's okay. It's just my creative
choice there. To do that. Let's,
let, let's try. Put a few more details on. My fare is dry and
I'm choosing how to use this ultra fine
point Sharpie just to kind of draw that little
claws on the bearer just because I think it would make you stand
out in a good way. I'm gonna do going to try to remove some of this paint. I got into my letter B. I'm doing is I put clean, clear water on my brush. Not too much, but in fact, I plotted it off on the rag
before I put it on the paper. I got some of that edge paint
of the letter b, letter P. I think he's darn cute. I think what would frame
out the letter even more? Outline them and
find point Sharpie. But that's your choice. Again, could write the word bear here to leave it like that.
8. C is for Coyote: Then my drawing of
Coyote takeaway, whereby central markets now, see that is going to
be this area here. This area here. It's going to be howling at the moon,
this being CB1. Look like the moon. Not really, but kind of four. C is for coyote. I'm just going to draw
little silhouette. Coyote looking up the moon. Trying to slow at
this little coyote. Have to make some
adjustments here or there. Let's see. Second line up. Peck like here. I wanted to be at the same level
as the front leg. Maybe a big fluffy tail. Coyote is just look
like little dogs. You still live in Arizona? Kind of works. Let me fix it. Back leg a little bit. All right. Profile of Coyote can
howling at the moon. I think that will work
really well here. Now that we have that drawn only have lots of shadows
here, sorry about that. Shadows from the sunshine
inside the pore back in and get that. Next.
9. Painting the Coyote: Now I'm going to
paint the background. This C is for chaotic. For this one, I
want to use a blue. I'm going to use just
a cobalt blue here. Sorry. Pretty coin to start by going around
inside of the sea. Now, think what I'm going to quickly do here is
just load some water on the front end of that
paint so that I don't get any hard edges from drying. Let me go around the edge of this inner portion
of the c letter c. The first. Sometimes while you've
got the momentum going, you just keep going. I know that this is
going to dry quick, so we'll grab some water
on my brush quickly. The edges of what
I just painted. Now I'm gonna bring that out. Now I got to be careful
to not make this too big of an image because
it will be a lot bigger than the a and the B. Because I have that see a
little bit elevated up there. So this can really
watch how I do this. All right. Flew out of my brush. I can as much as possible
get some of this paint. Okay, then I stick my video
cut out a little bit. But never fear. I did was continued
with my water and my cobalt blue all the
way around my image. Trend to look at
the overall area of what is blue, what's not. And even might want a little
bit more color up it here. Just a little bit more. Just to make it
more of a square. I think we're good
with that. I know that that is all dry. I'm going to grab my smaller brush to fill in my Payne's gray that's diluted
to look more gray. The way I make it lighter. More water there. I wanted to even lighter than
that of water on my brush. Here we go. That's roughly
value of the paint. What I think I want right now. I painted this and acrylic. I made this really minute
salad like I did the ants. I wanted to try it
like this first, I could always make it darker. Great thing about watercolor. I can make it darker. It's harder to
make it lighter if you make it dark to begin with. So it's always
best to start out, might go darker from there. Trying to get all my white
paper filled with pigment. How do I want? I might want it a
little bit darker. I'm just going to grab
some of my brush. Since everything is wet, I can drop it in and
it will disperse. I've put my brush off on my
rag because he didn't want to add any more water that might've been on my brush
to what I'm moving around. As things start to dry, you can kind of see
where I haven't gotten close enough
to the edge and some places trying
to fill those in. Now. Really sure what happened
with the foot down here, but we're gonna
leave it. Got lucky. I like the shape to it. I think I like it. It's a
little bit understated. I know. I might evaluate and
make it darker later on.
10. D is for Dog: The letter D. So it's
going to do that. Again. I'm just looking at
reference pose for dogs. And we don't have a dog but we have affection for
border catalase. I don't know why or
how it happened. We don't like I said,
we don't have a dog. So I'm kind of modeling this
after her Border Collie, but I know it doesn't
really look like one scale to look at something when you're
gonna really recommend whenever you're doing
any drawing of any kind. Looking at real version. Some way. What you
want it to be. Pure. Draw a dog, look at a picture of a real dog. Even if you don't intend for the picture drawing or painting wherever to be,
necessarily realistic. It's good to at least start
with a realistic thing. Looking at, it really helps. I think I'm gonna
change that tail. Let's see. I want to make the tail maybe come
in front of the dog. It's a little bit
different than the coyote. Don't want it to
be exactly alike, are related, but we
don't need them. Talk. Like here. We got this tail here. The feet are gonna be
kind of hidden by letter. That's fine. We will just put it under there. Like that. Used to be a little
more realistic. Like I said, just
a little bit more. A lot more. There's our cute
little dog in front of the teeth and we can paint it. For this. I am going to make
a green background. I'm going to use
sap green for that. Sap green is pretty
easy to work with, so I'm not going to do
the water ahead of it. Phase like I've done some
of the other letters. I'm going to lighten
my pencil marks. I'm just going to start by getting the precise
sections done. As I go along with that. I will wipe my
brush up on my rag, get some water on it, and soften the edge here. Really pretty green. It's a yellowy green. It's really a staple of
my palette. I love green. Let's prove that. Let me point my brush off again, add some more water
and soften that. Inch. Kids are coming home. I'm just kind of screaming
on their way home. Fairly happy to be on
the way home, I guess. Going to continue this process all the way around
the D and the dogs. Let me do that while you watch. Okay. Let's try this and then we can go in and work on the dock.
11. Painting the Dog: Dry paper, even good
paper will kind of patient gently roll. The other way. Better regulated
lot surprisingly. All right, Here we go. Now I'm going to fill in
some details with the stalk and I'd like to make them
black and white tog. Yeah, I think that's
what I wanted to make is not going to use black Pam
and use Payne's gray again. I'm going to start
what's knows build up. I don't have a set. I meant what I want, where I want it to be
black or white per se, but I know I want
nose too be black. So I'm going to start with
that and I could build from there, make us go. Those are sweep. Let's see. Let's put some color and here's, I'll give it feathery
a free luck. I almost said feathery. Know how dogs are. Patches of one color
here or there. That's what we'll do. I'm going to put some color. Different places. Gave his head can
look funny shape. But that is technically if you need to fix
something in watercolor and you're using a really dark,
literally Payne's gray. It's super easy to do. I can change the shape of this just a little bit to make it
a little more symmetrical. Just painting right
over the green. So that's what I'll do.
I don't want it to fill this whole head and
with the Payne's gray. So I'm just going to blend
it out a little bit. Some color on the side here. Someone there too. And let's put some in this body. What I'll do is I'll put some
of the darker color around the circular part of this d. That will help the letter. Going to didn't quite
fall of my green out of my brush. Get it up. Spread some of that around to work really fast
if you want to spread out Payne's gray because that is one that
will dry and make a really hard edge of color. Let's make his body this color. I tend to give all my
animals, I guess masculine. This is actually the
same color value that I used with the PRD, but it's gonna look
a lot different. We're gonna dark patches in
their coloration on the dog. I don't want any lines per
se where that scary dry, so I'm just spreading
this all the way through. Then I'm gonna go back to my small brush and a
lot of pigment and just going to add area's
going to be darker. Areas on the tail. Mirrors here. Spreads really nice. When you have water in there. I don't know. It might look
like I did that on purpose. Make us all make this painting. You can change this
however you like. If you wanted to do
a different animal, obviously for letter
D, you could. Could you do, you can do a dove. You could do a dragon. You could do a dragonfly.
I would be really pretty. I think that looks cute and actually it makes the dog
look a little bit tie-dye, doesn't it? Just thrills me. That's so cute. Let's see if our
tie-dye dark like that. They could put a little
more color of the face, but I don't think it needs it. That's our $4.
12. E is for Elephant: Alright, so now
we're going to draw the elephant for e is relevant. What I had mine when I put this e a little bit off-center
and two up to the left. Instead, I wanted the
trunk to be up here in the elephant's sitting with the trunk up in
the air like that. I thought that would be cute. Let's get that drug. Again. Just looking at a lot of
different reference photos. I want the body to be or the head to be
around here, I should say. Big ear here. With all of these, I had my grandson said mine
when I designed this self, they all look like they might go into nursery.
That's probably why. I don't think
that's a bad thing. Just wanted to be
one to explain it. Little foot here. Maybe another foot that's
coming down like this. Isn't all. Face. Little maybe that's
a little too high. Mouth open. The trunk coming up here. We have the eraser nearby because sometimes make mistakes. Ankle is quite right. I think I want differently. If I change that at all. That's okay. I didn't
quite how I want it. Right. I think that's pretty cute. That's okay. Like the size
of the I guess not much. That's okay. Alright. So
that's go from there. Let me do it. This one, this
one's going to have a pink background and
make great elephant. Let's get started on that. For this. We're going to use
opera pink for this. And it's really
bright. But it's fun. We're doing an elephant might
as well be fun, fun color. Again. Like in orange I did
a wet on dry technique. Pink is pretty
easy to work with. Annexin. Something's easy
or hard to work with. I mean, they're all of
them are difficult to set, some are more staining. And so they really attach themselves to the paper
fibers and make the, make it more difficult to move them around
once they've dried. So that really is what
I'm talking about, whether something is easier, difficult, important
to adjust this side. Keeping that pledges loose. Knowing though that the
watercolor dries lighter. So I'm gonna try to go in with a little more
pigment on my brush. Not a lot of water
on your brush. Just getting more pigment
to this already wet areas. Because the paper's wet, it will disperse and blend
out the paint that I just added around here. Just finishing up
here, excuse me. I'm trying to get as close
as my pencil marks as I can without invading
my letter E there. Also trying to work in the
areas that are still wet. I think that's pretty good. Really love this color. Makes me happy.
13. Painting the Elephant: I drive the alphabet. I just erasing any leftover
pencil marks from before. And I'm going to
clean off my brush. I'm gonna grab some
manganese blue and a little bit of
the Payne's gray. Just to get like a
bluish gray form, I just want a little more blue in it. Let's brighten it up
a little more blue. In that mixture, I just added
more of the Manganese Blue, really just going to cover the whole area with
this particular color. And then like we
did in the bear, I'm going to go back and darken certain areas like
under the flap of the ear where there are creases in the
trunk or in the legs. That's how I'm
gonna do for that. And it's pretty simple, pretty fun way to
explore, watercolor. Non-threatening way. I think hopefully this has
been experience for you. Just moving my paper around. When you're right-handed or
left-handed, you can do it. That's all done.
Painting wet on dry. If you enjoy
painting wet on wet, you could get the whole
space wet with water, clear water first if you wanted to drop in the color. As I have said, and all the other ones. I'm going to do any correction? I want to do it now.
Well, thanks for what? I have it all filled in. Now. I'm going to let
that start to dry a little bit before I darken. So I'm gonna darken
a little bit around the crease there and
maybe along the trunk. So let's let that happen. Paper is almost dry. I'm going to put in here where a lot of water on my
brush and just paint. Just going to make some
sort of lines that indicate that this chunk
is bending like that. Cleaning my brush off
and some water on there. I'm plotting that off to I am going to blend
that a little bit. The thing I'm gonna
do is just go in with just Payne's gray this time. I'm going to put just
a tiny little eyeball. The other thing I wanted
was a little tail. I didn't isolate that
out with the pink, so I'm gonna try to
add it here anyway. See how that goes. Kind of a task old tale. So I do that. That is my elephant might add a little more to
those creased areas by just dropping in a little
bit of the straight up blue where it's wet, wiped off my brush. Just kind of bringing the brush out the direction of how it
might crease. I don't know. I didn't get that might be a
little bit too much there. When it is too much. Red. Pull it up. Not liking it. I don't know if I do like it. Just kind of smooth
out this edge of it. I don't mind that it's
darker on the one side. Something I kinda starting to stand back from my painting
and that was bugging me. When something really bugs
you on your painting, it means you're
probably have to fix it. What I was doing. Sometimes you've got to
know when to stop too. But I feel like I want this
a little bit darker here. Sorry, It's a camera there. So I want everything
a little bit darker. I feel like I can do that
because there is some blending. Excuse me going out
around those things. I cleaned off my brush here and I'm going to plan that
one a little bit. I'm going to blend this. Also. Feeling good about that. Don't feel great
about the trunk, but I think that's where
we're going to leave it. There we go. Here's our relevant.
14. Your Turn!: I hope you enjoyed this class and I sure enjoyed teaching it. And I'm looking forward to uploading the rest of
the classes in the series. So please stay tuned for that. Great. If you want to
join me on those classes, follow me as a teacher
here on Skillshare and you'll be notified of
when those are available. I would love it if you would leave me a review
for this class and that way I know what I can improve on or what
we're doing, right. I would love to see
your version of any of the letters that we
did in this class. If you could post paint pictures of those
paintings or even just one, maybe you have favorite one, post that in your
project section below. Others can see it and
be encouraged by it. And it encourages me
as a teacher as well. If you'd like to see other art that I have produced and
you want some inspiration. You can go check out
my Instagram account or you can check out my website. She'd be Anderson
watercolors.com. I would love to see you there. Thanks so much again
for joining me. I hope you have a
great time painting and I hope this
is not stressful. I hope it's relaxing. Enjoy.
Jeanne Anderson, Indigo Street Studio
