Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello, and welcome
to butterflies. This is the second in my
three class beginner series. Simple trees was the first
and introduced you to the joys of watercolor using my wet or wet
free flow technique. Now, let's use
what we've already learned and start
adding some layers. These will give us more
depth and interest. You're going to love how
this simple technique will help you tackle
complicated subjects with confidence and ease. I'm Jan Davis. I live, paint, teach, and walk my lovely spaniels in the beautiful South Downs
National Park in England. Over the last 20 years, I've taught myself the free flow technique that
you see today. Not having been to art school, finding my own way has been
fun and sometimes daunting, but has allowed me to
develop my own style. This has led me to teach others either on a
one to one basis or as part of a group in a wonderful studio in the
heart of the South Downs. I also run a successful
art business where two days are never the same from the thrill
of exhibiting to painting pet and
wildlife commissions in my own home studio. Today we'll be
adding two layers to one butterfly while leaving
the second with just one, as it's really interesting to look back and
compare the two. I'll also be showing you the importance of
judging when to add the paint onto wet paper
to get the perfect outcome. If you can nail this, then many things become a lot easier, and those fuzzy little
butterfly bodies are a perfect example. Lastly, we'll look at
how to take color out of your painting to add some wonderful light
to our butterflies. When we're done, Panda will be the third and final class in our series where we will combine everything we've learned to paint our first animal together. Then you'll find dozens of
my mask classes available, covering a wide range
of beautiful subjects. In each one, I share the techniques I use in
my own professional work. We'll have a lot
of fun together, and you'll gain the
understanding and confidence to
incorporate everything you learn into your own work. You'll be amazed at how
easy watercolor can be. Plus, I share a few of my tips and tricks
along the way, too. If you'd like to learn
more about me or my work, then please pop over
to my website at Jane Davis walkcolurs.co dot k. This can be found
on my profile page, along with the links to my
Instagram and Facebook pages. I'm very active on
my social media, where I love to share my art, especially on stories
with many ideas, works in progress, and
tales of studio life. I really hope you will share all your paintings on the
projects and resources pages. I love seeing your masterpieces. And don't forget
I'm here to help if you get stuck or
have any questions. I want you to experience
that buzz of painting in this liberating wet on wet loose style. So
come and join me.
2. Materials: Let me run through all the
materials you need to paint these gorgeous butterflies in my second of the
beginner classes. So, I have a lovely collection
of Daniel Smith paints, and it's the brand I have
used for a long time. But if you haven't
got Daniel Smith paints, please don't worry. Whichever watercolor paints you have will be absolutely fine. And again, the colors can
be totally up to you. Don't feel restricted or restrained by trying
to copy mine. But I will run through
what I have got. So I have so like genuine. A real firm favorite of mine. Ultra ultra marine violet, pretty pretty violet color. Serenim blue. I have a rather old tube of Haines yellow light
and Ozzie red gold. Now all these can be found in the projects and
resources pages, so no need to try
and memorize them. The paper I'm using
is Bockingford, and it's 200 pound knot. And as you can see, it's
not being stretched. And if you're unfamiliar
with paper stretching, just go and have a little
look on the Internet. However you use your
search engines, search for Watercolor
paper stretching. There'll be oodles of
videos that will explain it better than I can at the
moment and bamboozo you with. But for the time
being, all you need is a piece of watercolor paper. I have my pot of water. I have a little rubber. I have a little my little
trusty wooden heart, which if you continue
following me, you'll see throughout
the glasses, and probably at the beginning, a little less moth
eaten by the puppy. But it's about an inch high. Is there anything that just to give my paper a
little bit of a tilt. So whatever you've got to
hands about an inch high. Kitchen roll or paper towel, a little pencil, but again,
any pencil would do. I have two brushes. I have a number ten
and a number naught. But again, whatever
size you just want a larger size that you're happy using and a smaller size
you're equally happy using. Now, on the projects
and resources pages, there's a printable
download sheet you can print out and then
cut round and get your butterflies so you
can use as a template. And they're just
handy butterflies are quite symmetrical
and it's nice to get them nice and yeah,
the shape nice, so you can just
enjoy the painting rather than worrying too much
because all these classes, all my classes, there's no I have no emphasis
on drawings. We all use templates,
so don't feel. You have to draw these out
and get them right by hand. Equally, if you're up
for the challenge, then do go for it. And I think that's
all the materials you need to know about today. So let's go and sketch these
lovely little things out.
3. Sketching Out and First Layer: Okay, so let's sketch out
these little butterflies. Now I've got my
little templates, 'cause they are helpful. And all I'm gonna do, again,
just like simple trees, you want to keep your pencil
marks as light as you can, so we can rub them
out afterwards. But mine will be a tad darker than yours so
you can See why I'm going. Okay. Can round it gently. They. Today and
then the other one. These are actually
the original ones. I say, I'm filming these
three beginner classes, simple trees, butterflies,
and panda again, as they were filmed
four years ago. And I just need a
little updating and a little little refreshing. But I've actually got
the same templates. Quite impressed
with myself. Right. You don't really need
your pencil anymore, so you can put that to one side. And we're going to start
with a bigger butterfly 'cause this is going to be
the one we put two layers on. So it's Okay, I'm gonna
pick up my bigger brush. And actually, what
I'm going to do, and I found this quite
helpful in future classes, I'm going to put a tiny little
bit of colour on my brush. Now, this color is just for you to be able to see
where I've wet down. So keep yours your water lovely and clean. You
don't want any color. But as I say, this
is I think found I found it student
found it quite helpful. You guys found it helpful so you can see where
I'm wetting areas down. It's not easy to see,
is it otherwise? But, basically, we're
going around the outside. Outside. We're going round the inside of the butterfly,
sorry, not outside. That's a bit of dyslected
coming in for you. Okay. So keep within those
lines as well. Try to be really neat
because these butterflies. They're ever so sort
of symmetrical, so you can't really
get away with having jaggedy lines cause
there's no fluff. There's no sort of the lines
are quite unforgiving. So you want to make
sure it's quite easy, but wherever the water is, your paint will find that. So be mindful of that, as well. So, have a look,
so I'm gonna pop my so you can see, it's
enough color for you. I'm just going to duck
my head up and down, and I can see I've left
a little bit here. So I'm just gonna make sure
I got that nice and wet. So, take your time. There's
no hurry at this stage. You just want it nice and wet. L simple trees, you want
it good and soaked. You don't want it
sitting in a puddle, so if it is sitting in a puddle you can either take it off. You little puddle,
you can soak up your puddle with a bit
kitchen roll just a corner. Or, again, you can
do it with a brush. You take the excess
moisture off on your brush, and you just pop your tip of your brush in there, and it should soak it up. Okay, I'm just checking. I'll put that nice one wet. I say, if you're
working somewhere warm, my studio is quite
warm at the moment. I can see it's beginning to dry. Again, like simple treat, we can just pop a
little bit more water down and make sure
it's nice and wet. Okay, what I'm gonna do, we're gonna do it
a little bit of tilting to start with as well. I'm gonna pick up my trusty little hot and put
it underneath. So we're just allowing
that to run that way. Just gives us a little
bit of movement. And I'm going to pick up
the ultramarine violet, and I've got the serenm blue. Make sure they're awake. Okay, make sure my brush
is nice and clean, take the excess moisture
off from my brush. Now, a a good little tip here is to when you
wet your brush down, it's quite tempting to
then take it straight to your tubes or to your pans
if you're using pans. Say I'm not familiar
with using pans, but it's easy to
then oversaturate your painting so you can then add more water
than necessary. So try to when you
clean your brush in between sort of
different colors, take the excess off on a little bit of kitchen
roll beside you. It just stops it
becoming too saturated. And then we can pick up
a good amount of paint, and we like simple trees, we're going to put that
right on that edge and allow I got a bit other clean because I
want to do the serenm blue. I'm gonna pop out on top. Now, every paint has
its own character. So that's just again, practice. It depends what
colors you're using, you may not be using may not even be using the
same brand as me. So that is something it's worth experimenting with
and your paper. You may not be using
the same paper as me. But they all add to your style. And how you paint. So it's worth becoming
familiar with that. Now, simply by doing that, that is enough for one layer. I don't need to do anymore. I just need to make sure
there's no raggedy edges, as I mean, they're
nice and neat. I've gone round it
quite carefully. But I want that to
just move on its own. It's amazing how watercolor once it's dried, how
much it's moved. But a good tip is because
we've got that on a tilt, there'll be water sitting at
these tips of these wings. So what we want to do is to make sure I'm going to do it
with my kitchen roll. Make sure it's not
sitting in a bubble. I don't know if
you can see that. That's quite wet down there. One that will stop your paint
running off the outside your butterfly and two it will allow the paint
to carry on moving. If there's a big bobble
of water sitting here, it will sort of stop somewhere here because it can't
move any further. So you don't want
to make it dry. You just want to soak up
the excess bobble of water. And honestly, just
allow that to dry. Whatever runs you've
got, you can see it for some reason, I've
got a line there. That to me, adds to the charm. If I was to start trying to fill that in with other bits of, you know, if I went in and
tried to fill that in, it would just go muddy. You would lose that lovely
sense of freedom and movement. We will do another
layer where we can then we can give more
depth if we need to. But yeah, that's beautiful. I really don't want
to do anymore. Because this little
chap I want to do with just one layer and I
want to do it flat, I'm going to have to allow this little one to dry thoroughly because if
I lay that flat now, I will lose some of
that movement at the moment, we can't see it. But that pigment is still
moving and running. So by laying it flat again, it will just stop doing that and you'll lose some of
that charm, I think. So I'm going to
allow that to dry.
4. Bottom Butterfly: Right, once your top
butterfly is dry, we can lay the paper flat. How does your butterfly look? I hope you've managed
to just be brave and allow that paint to just run and create something
beautiful for you. Now, if this was
only the one layer, if I actually rub those
pencil marks out, you would still see a little
bit of colour on that tip. And that's, as we're going to
hopefully demonstrate here. Sometimes the one layer is
enough for some subjects. So we're going to do
number two butterflies. So one layer butterfly. Again, we're going to do exactly the same as we did with here, so I won't put any color down because I don't really
want to be able to paint this without
any residual color on my butterfly give
myself a bit of a chance. But we're staying really
within those lines. Again, take your time. And sometimes as you
go round corners, just the way your
wrist goes, it's easy. There was a certain direction. I always used to go out
of my line. So beware. Sometimes you have a little
first time I have a bit of a kink in your wrist action. So again, make sure it's nice. You want everything covered. You don't want any dry patches. If you end up with a little
dry patch somewhere, the paint will just go round it. It won't go inside what you say, the paint will only find. Where the wet paper is. So if you've got a little dry
patch, it whiz around that. That's not what we
want in this exercise. Okay, I'm just ducking
my head up and down. I can see the sort of glean. It's just a nice
amount of water. I've got to get the water. Now's another third thing out, but actually was a dog
hair, a bit of fluff. I need it nice and wet. If it's too dry, the paint will just stick. It won't move, so
you'll just find it. And then it's really hard to
get it sort of moving again. So make sure it is nice and wet. Okay, what we're going to do, I'm just going to
use the yellow. Yellow, the orange
and the yellow. And we're going to very again, everything's nice and light, and I'm just touching the paper. There's no brushstrokes, so
just touching, no mixing. I'm going to start with
the Ozzie red gold, and I'm going to go
down the center. So just as I say, a bit of dibbling and dabbling. Now, again, this
is where sometimes your character of your
paint comes into play here. Ozzie red gold doesn't
move in all four mount. So if I put a little bit of
yellow, this just helps it. The character of this yellow just shifts a little bit more. So sometimes I will use paint for their ability to move the more than I
will almost the color. I'm just going to carry
on adding a little like we did with simple trees. If I keep adding
little bits of color, it will encourage it. But care again, if
you've got a lot of water sitting on that corner, it may be enough to
stop your paint moving. And you can add, you
know, if it's not, if it isn't moving, sometimes just adding a little bit
more water can help. If it's starting to dry, be careful you don't end
up with those bubbles. But again, I am
going to give it. Just put those down for a
se put them down there. So some semblance of order. And I'm going to give
this a little tiny, little bit of tilt,
again, just an inch high. I might only do this for a
little minute, actually, because I don't want to paint
the rest of it on a tilt. You can see, hope that's
catching on the camera. It's just moving,
isn't it? You can see that's going
down all on its own. I just want to make sure it
stays, catches those edges. So it catches it goes right
up against the edge so that's what I'm catching the
edges. Doesn't make sense. So I'm trying to trying
not to interfere too much with how
the paint's moving. I'm just a little
bit monitoring it. I'm just being there.
That's probably enough. I'm going to lay
this flat again. Let's take Look take that away. That you will see if you've
ever did a time lapse. It's quite interesting doing
a time lapse actually on your painting so you can see how much all the paint moves. That's probably enough
that will start to run back down there
again, a fraction. Again, it's just
playing, really. The more you do this,
these little exercises, the more you have
these ha moments, you're like, Oh,
look, that does that. Now I understand. So it's just having a play, and keeping everything
ever so light. Now, bearing mind, we are
just doing one layer, so we need to just
get a little bit of color all over this. But I don't want to
I don't want you to pop colour right in
the middle there. I want that ugly sense of light, probably not very helpful
saying I want color all over it because it encourages you to sort of try
and add color there, but I'm just going to
really put a bit of a heavy colour and allow
that to sort of move. Again, I can give you
a little bit of tilt. I give a bit of
movement if I want to. S I see a little bit bubbles
of water sitting there that I've got almost too much water sitting
there at the moment, because then it's not allowing
these colors to move over. Oops, so that's a Here's
a bit of flick for you. And we once did a beautiful kingfisher
Just right at the end, I did exactly that. Actually, and it was a blue. I just perfect. Sometimes you have to
go with what happens. And, as they say,
go with the flow. Now, it's always really worth. If you're sitting, I always stand to paint, very rarely sit. So it's not even if
you just stand up for a minute and get away from your painting and see
and look above it, you don't want to lift
it up because obviously, this is all wet,
so if you lift it, we're in effect, doing a tilt, so I would keep it flat, but just stand up or just
try and get away from it. You can see how that's looking. I say, you could do these
butterflies 1,000 times, and every single one will
be slightly different. So you have to be
a little bit of a judge of how it's looking. I would always err on
the side of caution. So I've just put a little tiny little bit of
yellow down there. Sometimes you have
to keep looking taking your brush away
and looking at it. But what we need to keep
bear in mind before I let that this
important stage go past is we need to catch this at the right stage of dryness
so we can get the body down. At the moment it's too wet. Now, this is a little hard
for me to show you on the camera the actual what my
paper actually looks like. It's 'cause I need to give it a tilt
railing and show you. So you want it again, this
is really worth doing. And you can even do
rather boric strips if you wanted to and just find the ideal stage of dryness. So you want the little if you're working on a little bit
of a rough paper, you want the very tips of the rough paper
beginning to dry. I say, it's just trial
and error and practicing. I can't, I'm afraid, give you a magic tip
or solutions to this, I can just show you my piece and show you how I judge mine. Okay, I think I'm there. I'm gonna pick up
my little brush. Now, what do you want to
do when you're adding something with a
bit of strength is to make sure clean your brush. At this stage, we don't
want to add any more water. If we did, it all this
would sort of run again, and we'd have to wait,
and I would lose this nice sense of freedom
I've got at the moment. So clean my brush.
Gonna do it again. Taking the excess moisture off. I've got so like genuine, and I'm going to gonna pick
up the Ossie red gold. Now, when you're working
out of the tubes, make sure I'm just gonna dip
that on the kitchen roll. I don't want any water
sitting on the top, occasionally, you can end up with a little bit of
water sitting there. I want this lovely and thick. So if you're a little unsure, then you can always squeeze
a little bit out onto a plate and make sure you've
got it nice and sticky. And it's heavy, so I've got quite a lot of
paint on my brush, and we're going to run down the center of this butterfly,
and you can just start. And if it's moving too much,
just hold on a minute. It means your paper is
a little bit too wet. And bear in mind, this
will carry on moving. Mine is probably a
little bit too wet. Again, it's just I got a little, you know, I've done this a lot. And I know that if I carry on, this is going to
carry on moving. I say, it's just suppose it's
muscle memory, isn't it? You just remember, and you
know what that feels like. Again, I can duck my head up and down and see
what that feels like. It's, say, a fraction too wet. Sometimes it only
takes a few seconds. I just gonna make sure I
haven't, it's not too wet, making sure there's not a bobble of water on that those tubes. Sometimes other parts of
the painting are ready. So let's go down there.
Gain a little bit, as you can see,
that's spreading just a little bit too
much, can't you? So I am just going to
hold fire for a minute. Just to let that
dry, just to say, it can be 30 seconds,
not very long. Especially at the moment, I say, my studio's nice and
warm as I'm filming this in the English summer. So I can just make
while I'm waiting, I'll just make sure
I've gone round those pentrl marks and
everything's nice and neat. I haven't got any bottles
of water sitting anywhere. Okay, let's me have another try. Let's see how that feels now. I'm gonna duck my head up
and have a look and see, I reckon I'm probably
about there now. So I'm gonna start
adding that color. Say very gently, you don't even have to go all the way along. You can leave a little gap. And you can see that that's
just blended perfectly. It's just a perfect time.
It's nothing clever. It's just catching it
at the right time and getting the right sort of
consistency on your brush. You don't want to really don't
want to be adding water at this stage to your
brush and then adding it will it will
go horribly wrong. I don't want to
even show you how horribly wrong it would
go because it does. Alright, I can do a little say, little head. Come out. Tail. I'm doing it
up a little bit. I' gonna say, I'm gonna take my brush away. See what I think. A little bit of orange in there. It's quite heavy at the moment. I don't want it to
be it's heavy in colour. A little
bit more of that. Now, if it does start moving, you see how that that is
moving quite quickly. I can essay ever so gently. Take make sure your
brush isn't wet. You can very carefully. Oh, it's just
touching the paper. And the paint, you can
sort of squig it in a bit. Say very gently. No
heavy handedness. Okay. I think I'm going
to leave that to move. Now, at this stage, you
can either be brave with your brush and pull
out these antennas. Is this like that? Or if
you're not feeling brave, and they can be a little scary, just do it with a pencil, okay? Sack the same thing, and then
if they go a little pear shaped or not quite the right
shape or go to laureate, you can rub them
out and try again. So obviously, don't rub them
out while this is still wet, but at the end, you
can then rub them out. Okay, I'm going to allow
that to dry 'cause that is your one layer butterfly. Yeah. I think you see how that's giving us a nice
amount of light. There I there's no paint there. It's just where we let that
run, and it's gone round. And that's obviously left us
a nice sense of light there. So it's just it's being brave enough to put
that color down boldly and allowing it to run and move and knowing it will move further than
you think it will. Quite often further even
still than I think it will. So, so, yes, allow that
to dry before we do the second layer on
that because what you don't want to do is
and it's easily done, is to carry on with
this piece and then smudge it with your hand, and it's a bit disappointing.
5. Top Butterfly Second Layer: Right. Once you little one layer
butterfly is good and dry, so make sure it's
dry because it's if you've got it in the
similar place to me, it's easy to smudge. Just a quick word on sort of paper towel and sort of
keeping things clean. It's always nice to keep
your water, you know, clean. If it gets really
mucky and murky, it will tap the paper. So it's worth keeping your
pot of water fairly clean. Mine's okay. That wouldn't
give me much of a color. And again, paper
towel is nice to um, keep them dry so
it's not soaking. Okay, I'm going to start
this one nice and flat, so I've got no tilt
on it at the moment, exactly the same thing applies, and we're going to wet it
down exactly like we did with the first layer and
like we did with number one. So, okay? Go carefully, you say
this stage is no hurry. But a good tip once
you start layering is to keep your brush as
light as you possibly can. So the brush is almost I'm letting it
just fall on the paper. I'm not pushing at all, because if you start sort of scrubbing and being
heavy handed, some colors will
lift out or it will affect other colors
more than others. That makes sense. Some colors will really move if you
scrub and move around. So I'm trying to add this second layer of
water ever so gently. You probably all
these lovely say, if I was to wet this
again, we're not, but if I was to, it's easy to lose these lovely
sort of those marks. So ever so gentle. And what you do end up
getting is puddles of water, but that can be easily rectified
by just soaking it up, it's better to have
it puddler and not muddy that layer up, that first layer up, than it is to go gentle with the
amount of water you put on. So add plenty and
we can take it out. But the key is not to
disturb that first layer. Again, you can bobble your head up and down cause we want it. Nice and wet. White up to those lines again. So be nice and say
there's no hurry, but be nice and neat. It makes a difference
to these butterflies. Other subjects
aren't quite so um, picky about being very neat,
bitter. Butterflies are. Okay, I can see
that's nice and wet. And I haven't actually
got in puddles, but if I did, I can then, again, like we did before, I just literally just soak
them up with your edge of your kitchen roll or with a
dry brush or a dry brush. Just making sure it's
all nice and wet. Okay, I'm going to start. I've got my two original colors, and I might use a
little bit of so light genuine just to give me
a little bit of umph, a little bit of depth, but let's start with our
two original colors. I'm going to do the
same, actually. I'm gonna add it at
the bottom here. Now, you will find that the
colors won't move as much. So you could put
the exact amount of paint onto your
butterfly on this layer, and it won't move as much. So that's where you start gaining some
control over watercolor. So whereas if I put this amount of paint
on that first layer, it would have whizzed
right up like it did. I know we had it
on a slight tilt, but generally, the
more layers you put, the less your paint will move. The same amount of paint
won't move as much. I hope I've said that
the right way around, so That's where you can start adding shadows
and depths and things. Okay, let's put a little bit. Now, just because I've
wet an area down, it doesn't mean to
say you have to add paint in every single part. You can just choose
where you'd like it. The reason I wet it all down is just to
avoid water lines. So if I was to only wet it up to here because I didn't want to say I didn't want to put any more colour on there, once it dried, I'd
be left with, like, a tide line, and it
would segment it. So that's the reason
we wet it all down. It's not because I necessarily
want paint everywhere. I just as I say, top those sort of tide lines. Okay, I'll tell you
what we do, as well. We're going to put put a
little tiny little bit of this yellow that we use
on number one butterfly. Make sure my brush is nice and clean if we're gonna end
up with a bit of green. I say, it's just touching. Just allowing it to happen. Again, we can give it a little tilt if we want to if we want to sort of merge it
a little bit more. Always take your brush away, it have a little glance
at how that looks. I see, I've got a touch of a puddle of
water sitting here. Yeah, that's looking
quite pretty. I'd say, when you have
something you like, step away. It's so easy to
carry on fiddling. But it doesn't always help. All right, I'll go. You're going to put
a little bit so like genuine in there
'cause I said I would. So just to show you a little bit more I get a little bit more strength in the
bottom of that wing. Take the brush away.
You don't need a lot. You don't want to be too heavy, but we can gain a nice
little sense of light. They're nice sort of contrast at the bottom and nice
and light at the top. I can give it a little tilt
if I want to for a minute. I say, be careful. The paint doesn't run
and then run off, so be mindful of that. Pop back down and once
it's kind of run up, you can pop it back down again. Soak a little bit up there. Now on the first
time I did this, the first time round, I
actually put some spots in. But when I came to look
at my piece that I did, let me show you this
was the original piece. I wasn't so keen on the spot, so I'm not doing
spots, but you can. Again, you can do
many pieces of these, which I would highly suggest. And yeah, if you like
spots, then pop spots in. Butterflies, I have tried doing a particular species of butterflies. I find
it quite hard. So this is just an exercise
really on layering. We're not actually painting
a species of butterfly. It's a completely
made up specimen. So I'm sorry if you're
into your butterflies, and you you're expecting me
to do a certain certain kind. Right. Again, I'm going to have to I'm going
to watch my piece, and I want to get it
to the same sense or same time of dryness. So I want the paper to be, the same amount of dryness.
Does that seem right? So it just needs
to be going off. The tops of those little bits of paper just needs the little bits of rough paper if you're
using rough paper, just starting to sort of appear, and they're starting to dry. It's a little bit too
wet at the moment, tell? I bobbled my head up and down. But again, I can while I'm
waiting for it to dry, I can just go around these, make sure they're nice and neat. I say, if you can
get timing right, it's a huge game changer. It's a big thing in watercolor. It's catching the watercolor, the paper at the right
stage of dryness. And it is, like I said, the number one butter, it's just trying
it and playing and saying your paper will act slightly different
than my paper. If you're not using the same, the paint all act a
little bit differently, and the paints you've chosen
to add the body will react. So it is a little bit, I say, a little bit
trial and error. Okay, I'm going to I'm going to do the bodies
the same color. I'm gonna pick up the so
light genuine OsiodGld. I'm gonna see how it feels. Again, that brush
is nice and dry. I haven't added too much water. The paint is quite gloopy. So if you're using pans, make sure you get a real
creamy consistency. Okay, I see how that's feeling. Yeah, that doesn't
actually look like it's moving very much, does it? So we just want to catch it at that perfect
time. You can see. So like genuine actually
moves quite a lot. So other paints don't. I use Sepia a lot. I didn't want to add it to this class for various reasons, I won't bore you with, but, um, that doesn't move very much. It's quite a sticky paint. It's a useful one for
doing things like this. So yeah, it's playing
with the colors you have. Okay, I've got it just
at the right stage. I'm gonna carry on. I'm just going to
keep adding paint because that will just
slowly blend out. So, you don't have to
go all the way up. You don't need to
make a straight line or get everything Yeah. Try to be random, that's what
I'm trying to say, really. And you can try and make a body shape out of the
butterflies if you're feeling a little more keen on trying to make them getting the dimensions of
the body right, but say it's just an
exercise really on again, just playing with layering. And you see how that's giving us a bit more depth and allowed me to add
more colour, as well. So be careful you don't add any water water
to your birch and then onto your painting.
A bit of orange in there. Long look at that tail. Again,
you want this to still be a little bit damp to do those
lovely antennae better. If you're not feeling was
and just use a pencil. But you're getting out I
think I'm about right. I'll put those down and
clean my brush, again, take the excess
moisture off and just touch see a little bit
too much water on that. Just touch those
and just whiz out. I'm getting here. Yeah, I
think that's done a good job. Now, I'm just going to
it's still a little bit damp on that corner
there, so in theory, I can add a little bit
more colour if I wanted to a little bit more yellow. I get just it's
just stage of how my painting has sorry,
the paper has dried. That was just the right time
to get the body in, I think, because I say, I'm working
on unstretched paper, so that is a little
bit rise than that. So this is still a bit damp, so I can I can add a little
bit more paint if I want to. But gay say just
literally drop it in. Don't try to do any brush mooks. It'll. But I would I
would do lots of these. Is to say, it's a lovely excite. You can make little
cards out of them. And all the while learning. Win win. I say can keep
everything wonderfully light. And you will say, you'll get to a stage where
things are starting to dry. I'm probably getting
there if I'm I say, this is beginning to dry now. The edges are still quite wet. But you don't It's a
bit hard to explain. It's just a gut feeling
that you feel like, Oh, no, I know I've just
done enough fiddling. If I do more, it's
going to ruin it. And you'll become familiar
with that feeling. So I think we just we've got a couple little
bits to finish off, rubbing those pencil marks out and just taking a
little bit of light out. But for the time being, I think I need to allow that number two butterfly
to thoroughly dry.
6. Finishing Off: Once these lovely butterflies
are nice and dry, we can then rub out
the pencil marks, but make sure it is really dry it's ever so disappointing to start rubbing stuff
out and realizing it's, your painting is
still a bit damp. Now, I have made my pencil
marks I say quite heavy, but it's more like I say, for you for you to be
able to see clearly. So they may not come out
quite so easy. Go gentle. Say some paint and paper is not quite so tolerant for a
rubber being gone over them. This is it's quite a
tough paper, this. It's one of the reasons
I love it so much. Brush it away, and you see that even those heavy pencil
marks have lifted, and they will lift underneath. Paint some paint what I
say more than others, is getting to know the character of your
paper and your paint. And if you are just
literally just starting out, I'm gonna go on to here. It's quite often manufactured or online stores will offer a trial pack of
different papers. That's a really good way to experiment with
different papers. I think that's probably
how I found it came across my favorite paper, which is Bockingford Okay. So once those pencil marks
are out, you can see, especially on number one, or, sorry, the layer
number one butterfly. Just by taking
these pencil marks out here, especially
around here, that's given that lovely
what's quite watercolor, they talk about the
lost and found edges. So this is where they
disappear off onto the paper. There's no real sort of
line or defining edge. And that just gives again that magical sort of feeling
of light and looseness. Once you start layering, as you can see here,
it becomes heavier. You can lose the lightness
if you're not careful. And this is always a juggle between how many layers
you add to a subject. Something like butterflies. Sometimes just a
simple one layer is nicer because they can end
up getting a little muddier. Whereas if you go on
to paint something a little more, say,
a black labrador. If I paint a black labrador, there'll be up to six layers, 'cause you've just got
to get the depth in. Anyway, it's just
judging, really, on your subject of how many layers you want or how much depth you
want until it form. But hopefully,
this has given you just a very broad overview
on how you can add layers. I would say, as I
will stress again, just go very gentle. If I wanted to add
another layer over this, there's absolutely no
reason why I can't. Apart from the body, you wouldn't want to wet this again now that body would merge. But before we added the body. I could have allowed
that to dry like we did and then added
another layer, then put the body in and just
added and given more depth. So it's worth trying that. It's the only way you experience these things is to experience
these things to see how it feels and looks to say how it feels with your
paper and your paint. So again, worth
experimenting with. So we're going to take a
little bit of light out and how we can if
we've lost light, how we can reclaim it. But first, we're just going
to take a little bit of paint off the bodies to
give us that that again, the sense of light sort
of hitting the body. So bigger brush.
I've cleaned it, and make sure it's
nice and clean. Definitely excess
moisture off your brush. By very gently. Start brushing and lifting away. You say, some paints lift out
a lot easier than others. So see how that feels. You can see that's starting
to come. Clean it off. Okay, go back in. Quite often, suddenly it
suddenly lifts off and you're left with that nice
sense of light. Now, you can either squidge it with a piece of kitchen roll. I quite like a finger. It squidges it around, but quite often doesn't
soak as much paint up. So I do actually use
my finger quite a lot. You can decide
whether you want to take more light
out further down. Again, it's a little bit
of a personal choice and how much color
you've got on yours. For me, that's
enough on that one. I can go over to this,
particularly please see how that body's just spread just catching it
at the right time. Dan, if I wanted to
replicate this butterfly, exactly, I'd never do it. It's just that you just have
to learn with watercolor. It's not you can't replicate it. You can just and
that's the joy of it. I think every piece is
going to be different. I think it squig. You see,
take your finger away. If you feel it again, if
you feel you need more off, You can just go down
a little bit further. Don't want to take
too much more off. You say, there's
always a risk of actually taking
all the paint off. And it's very hard then
to go back and put it in. Okay, I think that's enough. I personally don't want
to take any more off. Now, I don't want
to take any paint out of my butterfly on this
little layer number one, but I will take a
little bit out of here. So again, clean my brush, excess moisture off, and I can I can take little bits out. Say these paints lift
out ever so easily, and I can then almost go back to number one and
get those lost and found edges I can reclaim. And this, I actually will. I haven't got a particularly
clean piece of kitchen rob, so yeah, be mindful that
your kitchen roll is clean. You can see I've lost
that edge there. And then when you
step away and take your brush away, it's
giving you a ne. It's just giving you a little
bit of sense of light. Go and do it on this edge. I tend to do it on edges where obviously, the
light would have fallen. So I'm visualizing the light
coming from that top corner. Then maybe you can give
it a little bit of a suck up with that, take your brush
away. That's enough. I don't like, particularly going last for
these butterflies. I wouldn't go in here. It would take too much. It
would look wrong. And sometimes you have to
go with your gut instinct. Once you saw progress and get a little bit more familiar
with watercolor, you have to sort of
trust your instinct. But what we can do,
if we've gone a little raggedy, like
I have in places, we can tidy those edges up so we can sack up how we
took the light out there. We can just take the
color on it if you can see That's not easy sometimes how I'm
painting the angles, but you can see I've gone
outside those lines, so I can the damp brush, I can just get rid of
those tidy that up. Let me just give her a squig 'cause you want that to be gone, so got a little one here, but I think you get the gist. Again, some paints will lift
out easier than others. Most the Daniel Smith
cakes are quite kind. Okay, so the last
thing I want to show you is just the splatters. Now, it's up to you whether
you'd like to do some flicks. On my original piece, or I bring back here, which is you can see I've
done some little flicks. And the best thing to do is actually get a little scrap
of paper and practice. I I've picked up just a just
a rough old piece of paper. I'm going to pick up,
say, the Ossie red gold. I've cama brush. Same thing. Excess moisture off
from the kitchen roll. Pick up a little bit of color on your brush and just finger underneath and just flick back. And like that, it
doesn't happen. So let's wet the brush again. Let's see if going make it a little bit better
in there so you've got a bit more of
a puddle of paint, and then we can flick. So you can either do them like that or then clean your brush, get a little bit more
paint on your brush, and you can hold it horizontally and then just tap the end
up with bigger spatters. So again, this is really
a personal choice so you may not like the idea of spatters or want to ruin
what you've already got. But for the sake of helping you out and
doing all these things, let me do both, so I'm going to go for the
big spatters first. So I've got quite a lot
of paint on my brush. I'm just going to tap. Seems to I've got
bigger spatters there. Sort change the angle
of my brush so it doesn't become too angled. And I can do some flicks. Let's do some flicks
with the yellow. I get that off my finger. Squibed with the yellow.
And again, same thing. Hold your hold your put your finger at the
edge of the tip of that brush and just flick. Yellow is a bit
subtler, isn't it? So you can get the idea. I can put that on top of
some of those. Quite nice. They can give a little
sense of movement, something a little
bit different. I'm always torn we I
like them or not really, and a little bit
depends on the subject. But So, yes, I think I
have covered everything. I would like to
explain in this class. So I would. Honestly,
like simple trees, I would do these a few times. We could have filled the page
up here with butterflies, even just one single painting and given some different ideas I tried, different colours. There is let me show
you this piece I did. The butterflies are
slightly smaller. Let me just get
this out of the way cause splatters are a bit wet. But I say, the butterflies
are a bit smaller, and I've used some quite
punchy colors in there. They're quite vibrant. Again, I've used
exactly set technique. I've just used a
little bit of salt, but I will explain
salt in other classes. But, yeah, that's again,
just another idea. And you can layer. This
little one was laid on top. So when I painted it, obviously, I just wet this back
butterfly up to that wing. That makes sense. And then
when I painted this one, I went in, wet that in there. So yeah, you can
sort of layer them. I say, have a bit
of fun with them. Don't just experiment, be
creative, and curious almost. So if you think,
Oh, you know what? I've got that colour sitting
in the back of the drawer. Han't you used that for ages? Pop it on. I say there's
Don't be afraid. Nobody has to see
these butterflies. You can do page of them. If you get say this paper
is relatively cheap, so it's not too expensive. And you can use the whole pad. You can do simple
trees and butterflies. And you would have gained so
much knowledge out of that, and nobody has to see them. So if you're worried
that Oh, my goodness, this is going to
be a special piece because I want to give
it away or somewhere, it puts a lot of
pressure on you. So I would tuck yourself
away, pull out your paper, and just simply play and enjoy and be light
hearted and loose. And I will leave you with
those thoughts. So thank you. Oh, and as I say, always at the end of all these, pop them on the projects and resources pages 'cause it
is fabulous to see these. And any questions, then pop that in the
discussions pages, and I endeavor to get back
to you in a couple of days. So thank you for joining me. So we look forward to seeing
you in the next class.
Jane Davies, Professional Artist and Teacher
