Cheap Gouache Painting - Mushroom!

1. 1 Intro : Hi, I'm Bill Singleton. And today I'm gonna talk about painting wash on the cheap, and, uh, I went to Michael's and they had this wash, their store brand, the artist lock brand, by the way. I do not represent Michael's in any way have no ties with them, but they have some good products that are actually really cheap. These air 5 99 and they're actually really good. I've used them before, and I did a side by side with some of my expensive wash. And, uh, I came back later, and I could not tell the difference between the two. These air light fast. The colors are good. 5 99 for this whole back. I paid more than 5 99 for one. Too expensive quash before. So it's a good bargain. And also Michaels is 25 piece brushes and, uh, 5 99 So once again, the artist, this is that tack line. They last literally for years. So for 12 bucks, you have a complete wash painting kit. The most expensive part of the whole thing might be your paper today. I'm gonna use this Kansans mixed media paper. I think this is UH 10 99 at Michael's. So there's 60 sheets. I think that comes about 18 cents a sheet or something. The sisters get for acrylic, and it'll take wet media The thickness on here. Let's see what it says. £98. It's pretty good if you don't get too wet and wash. I don't paint really wet. I don't know if I would do watercolor on this paper would probably pucker up too much, but I wash I worked fairly dry, let wet to dry. So this works great. So, for, like, 23 bucks here, you've got a complete wash painting set with possibly 60 magnificent paintings. So Michael's is a place to go for cheap art marks the place. Um, Also this T shirt. I got it. Michaels. And you get these on sale. This is the Glidden brand, I think. And, uh, their own cellar. Two bucks. I forget what the regular prices, but when they're on. So I just picked up a bunch of them, and I just You can paint these with acrylic paint, so this is acrylic, and that's pretty easy. I just concert of Stretch it out, pin it down on cardboard so that it doesn't pucker up. Is your working sort like a canvas? But it's pretty easy to paint and the when. Use acrylic the light fast, waterproof. I've washed this one several times. You can see there's very little where to it. So it's cool, cheap, inexpensive, way to make cool clothing. So today I thought, we try the wash out with some mushrooms. So these are a couple that I picked from the yard here, so I think I'll do this one. It's kind of cool looking, so I set up a little still life here in the studio. We'll get the wash pain out and painting. 2. 2 Setup: Okay, so this is my basic set up. So I just made a little makeshift table here at the mushroom. I sort of positioned in the angle, I thought look cool. So for lighting, I have Ah, on l a delight here, which I have as, uh right now it's on warm. You could make this cool light. That would be cool to have. Ah, a warm light here. And then I have this led light here, which is cool. So you see the cool lights coming from this way and the warm light is coming from this way here, so that will give it a little variety there, Uh, have my my brushes, some water, and this is the the paper here. So what I've done is it's hard to see, Probably that I have a clear piece of, uh, this transparency film, which is for copiers. And so what I do is use that as a palate and I'll put my paints here, and this is good because, um, you can use it with colored paper, too. And that way you have the same color as you're working on here. He's your little metal clips to hold it on. And then I usually put water in a little cup here with a magnet on it. So it stays on there. And then to keep this from sliding around, I get this museum putty and you just get, like, a little dot of this stuff and I just stick it to the back here of this and it just keeps things from sliding around pretty handy to have. So I got her paints on. We are ready to go. 3. 3 Inspiration: So when I'm gonna paint something a lot of times I like to get in the mood. I like to look at, see what other artists? That gun and Beatrix Potter before she did. Peter Rabbit and Flopsy. Moxie and cottontail. She was a psychologist. She did some pretty amazing mushroom pains just from stuff around her in the woods. So these, um here are water college, But respecting watercolor wash is pretty synonymous. Quashes watercolor. Basically, it's just so take watercolor. So pretty amazing artwork she actually discovered made some scientific discoveries about the way spores fly out of the gills. But nobody would listen to her because she's a woman. It's, um but should you get some of her stuff published, but gun fungi, Beatrix Potter. So I have painted some. Also, this is my little you're here. So here's someone painted in the backyard from the backyard. I think this is the same type of mushroom organ pain today. That file, um, lived a tease. Similar is easier. These air quality acrylic wash. But today we're gonna be using wash another spread here and with brush. The cool thing about washing. That's why scientific illustrators have used it for years, as you can get a amazingly precise amount of detail in the painting. So that's why nature, artists and journalists on scientific illustrators have used wash for for a long time. And big wash dates back literally hundreds of years. Sometimes you can paint this so tight they spores kind of want to come right out the page. Let's get the painting. 4. 4 Drawing: So start with the drawing. She's a mechanical pencil and kneaded eraser. Sort of generally drawn kind of how I want things where I want things to be. So I think we want see the mushroom about here, Stem coming up and then the shadow is gonna be coming out this way. The shadow here. Okay. And then coming. Erase these extra lines here. I don't want to shadow the show too much. All right. Ready to start painting? 5. 5 Brushes: Okay, So here are these, uh this is that 25 piece pack from brushes from Michael's. And, uh, I said I thought the thieves will last for years. If you take care. Uh, these air plastic pallet and I've switched would probably never used, but I guess you get using for oils, but you get easier for oil, darker electric washing, water color and all of these. Right now, I'm probably just gonna use these, uh, these right here later. And for 5 99 it's pretty amazing. A Z I've told you before. Someone other videos, my preferred brush of these a Skoda's. But what did Jesus coders? This one brush here has more than this entire pack of 25. So this set of Skoda's here is probably 10 times more expensive than this set. So the question is, are they 10 times is good. I doubt it. They're I'm sure they're twice is good that they're not sometimes did, but it shows everything is relative and solve personal preference. See what you want. But for this video for this demonstration, I'm gonna use these chieftains and Chief Wash, and we'll see what it looks like. So let's get going 6. 6 Painting: All right, So for this painting, not gonna leave it need a lot of colors. Actually, this raw sienna black, All right? And if it is, if you've seen my other videos, you know, for color easily. There are three primary colors blue, red and yellow. So I like to have one of each of those on the palate in some form, So get blue. Yeah. Wow. Uh, that's probably good read to have, actually for yellow. I think this yellow car is actually closer to the color I will not use much of this at all Is blue and read will use very little amounts. Most of the pain is going to be done with black and white. And in these browns right here, this is pretty handy thing to have for but your water in. All right, So these air sealed, have a little pointy thing, their toe, puncture it, get the black. That said, we won't use much blue. You probably won't see the blue. It all. Actually, it's just gonna be for color temperature setting. Same with this red kind of watery. Okay, The white using a lot of white. And like I said, I put a sort of a row of the white because you're gonna want to sample that at different areas. Teoh get uncontaminated stuff. This yellow will probably be isn't quite a bit. And this burnt Sienna, it's actually this burnt Sienna. Maybe enough red. I don't know if we'll need this other red. This is pretty thick, All right. Skinner cheapo brushes out here. So we'll start with this yellow Oakar and white. Yep. That looks about right. So this right in here is a little cooler. Where that cool lights hitting it. So a little water, the more white here, the pain goes on pretty good. Okay, not for this underneath shadow Here. Put a little bit of black in this, as you see that cooled it down quite a bit over one at that. Cool. So we're gonna warm it up with this. What do they call this Burnt sienna? Let's see how this does Here. That's pretty good. Looks just about right. And then this stem here, the stipe ist kind of blackish. So clean the brush a little, get a little more black on here, then I'm using the side of the brush here to get more of a stripe. It's a little too dry. This may be a little too dark, but that's okay. We can modify that. That's cool. Thing about washes. You can come back in and modify it. That looks just about right now when I indicate this shadow here. So since we're getting warm light coming from this way, this shadow is actually gonna be warm. So I'm gonna put a little this yellow ochre color. Let's see, Let's mix this down. It looks about right for the the darkest part of the Shadow is gonna be right here, and then it's gonna get lighter as we go out here. So just what the excess pain out there looks a little more white in Okay, I think that needs to be a little darker right in here. So there's this shadow coming out here, and as it goes out, the line becomes more and more indistinct. That's here. The cool thing about washes. You can teas these edges so that they can be very indistinct because we don't want a hard edge away out here. This is where this shadow is just fading off. I don't want these lines in here really Now, this here is about as wet as I ever get. And you see this papers kind of pucker up just a little bit. The shadow here for the stem. Okay, I think that's about right. Then it washes brush up, and then while it's still a little wet, I'm gonna sort of fade this line out here. This is the really cool thing about washes that you can coming and modify stuff like this. Modify these edges. So see how that was a hard edge there. And I'm kind of softening it. If I had thicker paper e, I wouldn't have to worry so much about this puckering. So, like I said, this is about as wet as I'm gonna get this pain. Here are this paper. This should This is a little too dark way out here, so I'm lifting it up here, lifting some of the paint off the cool thing about wash. You can lift off with it, lift up excess paint, something you cannot do with acrylic. Just gonna paint right through this stem for the moment here. Well, this could go over it afterwards, All right? I think that looks pretty good. Maybe a little too cool back here, but we can modify that later. I gotta get this little area here. All right? I think I'm done with this brush here. Him away. We'll try this when this may be too big, but try it out. All right, start working in some of this in here. So the other good thing about wash is that on your palate here, even though it dries up like this, pain is dry here, but with Gua shi can reactivate it. Something you cannot do with acrylic. So kind of modifying this shadow area back in here could indicate a little bit of the gills down in here. I can't really see him too much from this angle. So what worried too much about that? So, once again, this is that warmer, dark color that we're getting in here. - All right, It's killing to the camp here, and you start modifying this edge here. I'm using that same kind of warm color cause this side here is getting hit with the warmer light. So a little bit warmer, Not much. So you see, I'm just putting this warm color back into this color that was already here. and then you concerted tease it in and get it to mix down. We'll get this little airy along the edge here where that's kind of curling down. I'm gonna get a little more water in this. Drag this up in here. You don't get it to wet because you don't want a lift off to, like, for right now, I'm not lifting off this color. That's behind it. At least I'm not trying to clean my brush and then sort of tease the shadow back a little. Yes, I'm starting to lift off, which I do not want to do. Pregnant. The brush just a little too wet. Just modify this shadow edge here. Okay? That's working pretty good. All right, there's this cool design like design. Yeah, somebody designed this. I guess God designed it. Um, the kind of cap. Just kind of a cool feature. It's a little bit warmer. So this mushroom, I believe, is Cora file, um, liberties, which is actually one of the most common mushrooms in North America. This is one that grows in people's lawns and yards, and it's it's poisonous, so don't eat it. I don't think it will kill you. but said it gives you a lot of Ah, uh, discomfort. Intestinal discomfort. So we're not gonna eat it. We're just gonna paint it. It's a little darker back through here on a warm this up a little bit. Back in here too. Shadow should be a little warmer, which is easy to do with the go wash. I don't want trouble. You have Teoh. Watch out for is overworking area, especially the paper. Sometimes if you brush too much into an area, you can kind of mess up the tooth on the paper. This modify this little edge here. All right. I think that's about as far as we want to go with. This brush here will go down a size now, like I've said before, it's like gears on the car. So and use this one now that we're getting to just a little bit more of the detail. So the light is hitting it right in here. So we want to put some highlights. Yeah, white is a cool color, so let's see if just white will work on this. It may not. That calls it down a little bit. I think I might have contaminated my white a little bit there. So in a prelim, were out this way is actually fairly warm. White. It varies from brand to brand, and that is actually the reason I put the blue on the palate. Here we may need a little touch of this blue toe Cool the light down. But this white may work, so you can see this in here is like in a little cooler. And the reason I put the two lights on it, it's it's cool effect to have warm and cool light. It really helps. You'd sort of define your, uh, your object. And it's easy to read like the planes, uh, in the three, the object there if you have different lighting on it and in nature to there's actually similar lighting. Cool light from above generally. Okay, that helped that a little bit. So I think See, modify these darker. I think I'll put some darks in now and that See if that helps the light pop a little bit. So wash this out. So let's go in with some warm darks. So get black and is burnt Sienna. One thing about thes thes of these cheap, uh, Michael's brushes and one thing about is the hairs aren't always perfect on it. So sometimes if you kind of twirl it, it'll get those. Sometimes there's a little random hairs kind of sticking, and we're directions kind of twirl it. It helps to get back into shape there. So, yeah, see, just putting that edge really kind of started helping it pop a little bit that really pulled that shadow Back, Back down into there, Into the form. Hey, in the stem here, little brown into that. Find this edge a little bit. This should be a little thicker here. And I think I got a little too warm. It this the stem itself is actually pretty kind of black, Not too much brown in it. Pollute more black. Feels a little dry. No. One thing about these cheaper washes that the consistency may not be quite as good as some of the more expensive ones, but that's pretty good. It's not bad. I would like my gosh to be a little more fluid than this, but, uh, it's not too bad able to work with it. Just get that a little darker right in there. Maybe put some really a few little dark areas right in here where the shadows are strongest . We'll see how that makes that go back and makes the cap kind of full forward there. Okay, that's starting to work there. Now need to get this little Arian here. Forget what you call that. So, once again, I'm re wedding some of these colors here. And that's the thing I do really like about washes the fact that you can go in and re wet your color. So sometimes you sort of mixed colors over here and you get a really specific color for a certain area. And ah, with acrylic. If you wait too long, it'll be dry. You can use that paint again, but with wash, you can keep coming back and re wedding it, and you can reuse that again. So that's one of the cool features of gua sh Get a little bit of these cooler highlights here in this the base. So it's already taking shape. See, this is already dry here, but I can re wet it. And that's why I keep this little water. Ah, Catholic kept a lid of ah water here just a re wet tip of my breast. I don't need to wash it out. I just need to re wet it and moisten it up a little, especially on these. These ah, paints are a little on the pasty side. So this is just catching the light here. Barely this here too. So once again, I'm using the cooler paint there. Where the cool lights hitting it on this side. Okay, that's looking pretty good. I think this part's pretty much done. Now, the shadow doesn't look exactly rights, not attaching itself to the form properly here. So we need toe fix this edge right here. I think it looks pretty good out through here. So, did you see the dark in this? So that this shadow connects to the shape, So wash that out. Let's see, it's go. I don't want to go to cool because we're getting the warm light from here into this shadow . So the shadows being cast by the cooler light this way, that's the main shadow. But this warm light coming from this way is warming the shadow up a little bit. So right in here, sort of the transition zone between the cool and warm. So let's get a little bit of this. This is on the way to dart. But if we modify it with what's already there, I think it'll work. So once again, and just sort of teasing that shadow down into the rest of it. All right, now these two blended in a little too much. I think so. We need to modify that edge. He's gonna re wet this. All right. I think that works. Okay, this is looking pretty good. What will be coming up on right at half a Knauer? So I think we're just about done. It's a quick little wash sketch. They put a little bit more detail in here. She's in the same warm color here to put a little bit of details. So I'm doing this pretty light. This is fairly, um, translucent in a way. What I'm doing right here, that might be a little too dark right there so I can make it a little more transparent. Yeah. Come in here with that, you can get some really subtle effects with the wash. And that's why artists have used it for nature studies for literally hundreds of years. Because of the amount of detail and precision you can get with it if you look at any of the old botany illustrations from Q R. No, Margaret. Me O r. Different people that have been on the field wash is almost always the medium of choice for on location and studio renderings of a botanical specimens. And this is the reason because you have so much ability to manipulate I'm gonna warm this up just a little bit. So I put some of this, um, raw sienna in maybe a touch of this to the yellow Oakar and see what this looks like. Okay, so just to finding this little pattern on top here, warming this shadow up a little bit of that same color if you make this a little bit harder edge right in here, we're just about done. Let me put just a touch here. Be a little bit here where this warm light's hitting it in here. Maybe just a little bit right here, where the light's hitting it. All right. I think we're about there. Let me see times at this point, I take a step back. Yeah, I think that looks pretty good. Maybe a little more highlight. Cool highlights right through here. I think the shadow part, it fades out Well, I swear I didn't hear the stem. So this this works well in here because you get this warm shadow and then the stem coming down is it's darker, but it's cooler, so it makes a really nice contrast. And then this works in here, this warm, dark here in this slightly cooler area here. So I need to cool out this just a little bit and will help Sort of the three dimensionality look of it. So let's see, Haven't uses blew it all. And we may not need to. It may be overkill for this. Just cool down this area right in here where the light's hitting have to be careful not to get it Chalky looking. All right, I'm gonna try Just a touch of this blue with the white, See, like it's the tiny bit. You can't even see the blue in it there. Can you tell he's blue in that? No. But if you put it here, it's enough to where your eye can read that color difference. So hopefully it cooled it up just enough to give that three D illusion all right. I think we're done here. Kind of get my water offer here so I don't spill it. Gonna pop this up from the sticky stuff. Zoom in a little bit so you can see the detail there. So one thing I might want to do at this point is get my kneaded eraser out and clean up some of these areas of the drawing here. So the guy washes dry. At this point, washing dries really fast because I would not want to use this eraser if the paint was Wedel. Just smear it around. So you get rid of these. Any constructions and lines left over from the dry. That edge is there. See little marks in here. All right, I think that's it. Just a quick little basically half our sketch. And I could have done this even faster if I wasn't talking and instructing as I'm going. But you get the idea of how quickly can work with the washing, how you can modify it back and forth. It's a very malleable type of paint, and it's fun and you can go back in like if I wanted to A year from now, I could come back in and modify one of these areas and, uh, would be just like working on it right now, something you cannot do with oil are acrylic er actually any other medium. But the fact that Thea Washes re wed herbal allows you to do that. Now, if I was doing this for ah, an illustration for ah, book or or something, I would probably clean this up and get really tight in here. And I could get really precise edges and refined this even more and more. And that's cool thing about wash Tuas. You could keep working on this. I could work in this another half an hour and just really refine it and make it pop. But for the demonstration, the purposes of this video I think this is all we need. And I kind of wanted to show you two how Just using cheap wash from Michael's for 5 99 for a whole pack is, uh is usually adequate for doing a lot of stuff, especially for if you're going out in the field and doing nature journaling and stuff. These paints here more than adequate for that kind of stuff, so I hope you enjoyed the video and, uh, give it a like and check out my I've got stuff on Pinterest on instagram YouTube, Facebook. So check it out. Let me know what you think. Give me any feedback below and for a class project. Um, just get some paper and a cheap notebook. Cheap paper. This just set up here is pretty portable. You can take this out into the field. Um, and you can use ah colored paper too. And take thes paints with you and these cheap brushes and water. Why? He needs a water container. A lot of times out in the field, I'll take a small container like this, the wash my brushes out, and then I can pop it down there, too, on the other magnet there. So sometimes they keep the two magnets. Have one for my to wet my paint and want to wash out my brush so you could have this totally is a portable field kit. Take this out in the field. It's portable. Cheap. If you mess up a drawing, you haven't wasted much, uh, money at all. You can get pretty good results for spending very little money. So I hope you enjoyed the video and I will catch you next time. 7. 7 Final Thoughts: the thing with these house totally disposable or if you don't want to pollute the environment, you can just get out a damp cloth and white this down, and you could use this multiple times. Very little. Waste it on. Or if you're doing similar colors, you can actually cool thing about Wash as you can leave these paints on your palate. If you're gonna do more mushroom, say tomorrow. Similar colors. We have this pain here, and you can re wet it and use it again over and over. The other good thing about washes. There's very little waste if that's the way you work. So set like this can last. How much paint months or even years? Probably so. It's very economical, fast and easy way to do stuff. So here's the final, and only a limited war should read. Do not let you can't dry in your brushes. Isaac. Wipe until they're clean, so there's no trace of pain animate. Yeah, the good thing about quash is that it dries super fast. So if you're out in the field or something can sketch in your book and then you can close it up, not worry about stuff getting messed up, something you cannot do with oils. Incredible