Transcripts
1. Welcome To The Class!: Hello art lovers.
I'm Will Allston and I'm absolutely delighted
to welcome you to this exciting class
where we'll be exploring how to paint a face using
fun, expressive colors. If you have ever felt the
urge to paint a face, but have given up or been overwhelmed by trying to
mix the precise colors, Then this class is for you. I'll show you how
you can capture a captivating portrait whilst embracing the freedom of
vibrant expressive colors. We'll embrace the joy
of experimentation, letting your creativity soar without the constraints of is. I've been a professional
artist for many years, exploring lots of
different subjects, from wildlife and portraits to city scapes and
countryside scenes. I've always been entranced by the possibilities of watercolor, but when I started, I had no idea where to begin
or how to improve. I didn't know what
supplies I needed, how to create the
effects I wanted, or which colors to mix. Now, I've taken part in
many worldwide exhibitions, been featured in magazines, and been lucky enough
to win awards from well respected
organizations such as the International
Watercolor Society, the Masters of
Watercolor Alliance, Windsor and Newton, and the SAA. Water color can be overwhelming
for those starting out, which is why my goal is
to help you feel relaxed and enjoy this medium in
a step by step manner. Today, I'll be
guiding you through a complete painting
demonstrating a variety of techniques and explaining how I use all
my supplies and materials. Whether you're just starting out or already have
some experience, you'll be able to follow along at your own
pace and improve your watercolor skills if this class is too challenging
or too easy for you. I have a variety of classes available at different
skill levels. I'd like to start off with a
free, expressive approach, with no fear of
making mistakes as we create exciting textures
for the underlayer. As the painting progresses, we'll add more details to bring it to life and
make it stand out. I strive to simplify
complex subjects into easier shapes that
encourage playfulness. Throughout this class, I'll be sharing plenty of
tips and tricks. I'll show you how to turn
mistakes into opportunities, taking the stress of, of
painting in order to have fun. I'll also provide you with
my watercolor mixing chart. Which are an invaluable tool when it comes to choosing
and mixing colors. If you have any questions, you can post them in
the discussion thread. Down below, I'll be sure to read and respond to
ever think you post. Don't forget to follow
me on Skillshare by clicking the follow
button at the top. This means you'll be the
first to know when I launch a new class
or post giveaways. You can also follow me on Instagram at Will Elliston
to see my latest works. Let's unlock the
magic of painting fabss with freedom and vibrancy.
2. Your Project: First of all, thank you very much for
choosing this class. I'm extremely happy that
you're joining me here today. We're going to paint
a vibrant portrait. What I like about this
is that it can be taken in so many
different directions, depending on what
colors you want to use. You can really follow
your own creative path and use it to have fun
exploring watercolor. I've planned out
a simple step by step approach you can
follow along with. But if you're feeling brave, you can add your
own individuality to it by choosing
different colors. In the resource section, I've added a high
resolution image of my finished painting
to help guide you. You're welcome to
follow my painting exactly for experiment with your own composition
as we're going to be focusing on the painting
aspect of watercolor, I've provided templates
you can use to help transfer or trace the
sketch before you paint. It's fine to trace when using it as a guide for
learning how to paint. It's important to
have the underdrawing correct so that you can relax and have fun learning the
watercolor medium itself. Whichever direction
you take this class, it would be great
to see your results and the paintings you
create through it. I love giving my
students feedback. Please take a photo
afterwards and share it in the Student Project Gallery under the Project
and Resource tab. I'm always intrigued to
see how many students have different approaches and how
they progress with each. I'd love to hear
about your process and what you learned
along the way, or if you had any difficulties. I strongly recommend
that you take a look at each other's work in the
student project gallery. It's so inspiring to see
each other's work and extremely comforting to get the support of your
fellow students. So don't forget to like and
comment on each other's work.
3. Materials & Supplies: Before we start the painting, let's go over the materials
and supplies I use. Having the right materials can greatly impact the
outcome of your artwork. I'll go over all the supplies I use for
this class and beyond. They're very useful to have at your disposal and we'll make it easier for you
to follow along. Let's start with the
paints themselves. Like most of the materials
we'll be using today, it's a lot to do
with preference. I have 12 stable colors in my palette that I
fill up from tubes. They are cadmium
yellow, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, cadmium
red, Alizarin, crimson, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, serilian blue, lavender,
purple, di, black. And at the end of the painting, I often use white gas
for tiny highlights. I don't use any
particular brand. These colors you can
get from any brand, although I personally use
Daniel Smith Windsor, and Newton Holbein paints. Let's move on to brushes. The brush I use the most is
a synthetic round brush, like this Skoda Pearl brush
or this Van Gogh brush. They're very versatile because
not only can you use them for detailed work
with their fine tip, but as they can hold
a lot of water, they are good for
washes as well. They're also quite affordable, so I have quite a few
in different sizes. Next are the mop brushes. Mop brushes are good for
broad brush strokes, filling in large areas and creating smooth
transitions or washes. They also have a nice tip that can be used for smaller details, but for really small details, highlights, or anything
that needs more precision. I use a synthetic
size zero brush. All brands have them and
they're super cheap. Another useful brush to have is a Chinese calligraphy brush. They tend to have long bristles
and a very pointy tip. They're perfect for
adding texture or creating dynamic lines
in your paintings. You can even fan them
out like this to achieve fur or feather
textures as well. And that's it for
brushes onto paper. The better quality
of your paper, the easier it will be to paint cheap paper crinkles easily
and is very unforgiving. Not allowing you to
rework mistakes, it's harder to create
appealing effects and apply useful techniques
like rubbing away pigment. Good quality paper, however, such as cotton based paper, not only allows you to rework
mistakes multiple times, but because the pigment
reacts much better on it, the chances of
mistakes are a lot lower and you'll be more likely to create
better paintings. I use arches paper because that's what's available
in my local art shop. A water spray is
absolutely essential. By using this, it
gives you more time to paint the areas you
want before it dries. It also allows you to
reactivate the paint. You want to add a smooth
line or remove some paint. I also have an old
rag or T shirt which I used to clean my brush. Cleaning off the paint
before diving it in the water will make the
water last a lot longer. It's always useful to
have a tissue at hand whilst painting to
lift off excess paint. Also, you never know when an unwanted splash or drip might occur that needs
wiping away quickly. I also have a water dropper
to keep the paints wet. When you paint, it's
important to have them a similar consistency to what
they're like in the tubes. This way it's easier to
pick up sufficient pigment. A hair dryer is useful
to have for speeding up the drying time and controlling the
dampness of the paper. Lastly, masking tape. And this of course, is just to hold the paper down still onto the surface to stop it sliding
around whilst painting. Also, if you plan on
painting to the edge, we'll allow you to create a
very crisp, clean border. That's everything you
need to paint along. I encourage you to experiment and find out what
works best for you. Now let's get ready to
start the painting.
4. Tips For The Sketch: I'm going to sketch out
the rough outline and I'm going to give you a few
tips along the way just to help you if you want to draw it out yourself
rather than trace it with the template
I've provided. First of all, with every
single drawing I do, I just map out the main shapes where roughly I wanted to go. I'm using a soft lead pencil. Soft leads are the
higher numbers with B in I think this is six B, but anything from the
two onwards would work. I did a circle to begin, and then I did, I extended
that circle there. That'll be where the hair is. This will be where the chin is. Maybe the hair will
go along there and then there'll be
a little curl here. A few more curls here, possibly just putting circles where the hair will
be at the moment, in the edge of the face. So the hair will be here
and the face will be here. Breaking it down to
lines and shapes. At the moment, the chin
will be about here, I'll do a line here. The neck can come
down like that. Possibly you can
split the face into, let's say this is
the top of the head. Then you can do the third, and that's where the
eyebrows will be, then halfway in between, that will be roughly
where the mouth is. But it always changes depending on the person
that you're painting. So you've got to
keep that in mind. And then you can do
a line parallel to that that will indicate
like the edge of the nose and the
corner of the mouth and where the eye
starts to take place. Then once we've got
that mapped out, we can start to think about
a nose coming out here. Then it comes around here. That nose roughly placed
there of doing it lightly. We have lots of different
lines and we'll but, and then come back
with thicker lines. We have a finer pencil later. The eyebrows, of course, there. Then you go to think
of where the eye is in that perspective, Bring it across right there. I'm going to do a
closed eye just because it makes
life so much easier. I think it also makes it
a bit more emotional. If the eyes are closed, because the eyes are closed on
the subject, you can, it gives off a feeling
of imagination because you close your
eyes when you imagine something by having
the subject close their eyes plays more with the imagination
of the subject. I know I was going to do
a little rhine like that. A draw line goes towards
the ear up here. Do you feel more curves
of hack? I haven't yet. You're lying now. I'm going to rub that bit out
because I think it's wrong. And you can see because
I'm using a soft, rubber, soft lead, I can virtually take
it back to normal. Get the white of the
paper directly on there. There needs to be a bit more of a chin or a gap between
the mouth and the chin. This is why I usually do the whole drawing off camera because it just takes a lot
of going back and forth without actually
much technique. It's more about observation. There's not really much to
learn other than practice. Because observation, it
gets better after practice. Not in there. You can see we're
building it up. We're going from larger shapes and gradually putting
in more detail. We'll do one pass and
then I'll rub it out. And then for example I'll rub it out and you can still see a
rough under line of there. And then I'll go back
with a finer pencil to get a nice clean line. I'll see you once
I've done that.
5. Starting The Painting: When starting a painting,
you've always got to think of the color scheme that you want. You can use the
color charts that I provided to help you with that. With this painting, I'm not going to stick
to realistic colors. I'm going to be a
bit more abstract and use colors to
convey a motion. I'm going to try and
keep it harmonious. I'm going to have a, a mixture
of complementary colors. Let's start the painting
and I'll talk more about what colors in
particular I'm going to use. First of all, I'm just
going to start to wet the paper because
I want a soft edge. I'm primarily going to be using blue and it's
complimentary color, orange, purple, with its complementary
color being yellow. I'm just wetting these
edges just to have a wetting the paper
so that I can have a nice soft edge nearly working from
light to dark. We're doing a light under layer to begin with, bright colors. This is clean water, so it shouldn't mark
the paper at all. Yeah, mixing some yellow. I think I'll just
cover the whole of this area here with
this bright yellow quite abstract. I'm not
following any pattern or think just ply some yellow in this area because the rest
of it's going to be purple. I need somewhere to put it
and it may as well be there. Then take a bit of this red. It might be a bit too much
because they're very powerful. And mix it with that
yellow to create orange. That's a lox'm. Just going to fill the brush of water there and soften it up, make it a bit lighter. Maybe add a bit more
yellow into that. Maybe even when we get
put some red down here, all the warm colors.
6. Abstract Underlayer: Abstract. It's best not to overthink because it
can be a strange thing, like abstract seems
like it would be quite easy because it's not necessarily conveying anything
or portraying anything, rather, but it is
conveying something. That's what makes it difficult because you're conveying that doesn't have real life shape. It's abstract, That's
the nature of it. One thing on a little
bit more orange up here, starting off a bit of red, maybe even burnt sienna. So I think that's done with
the reds for the time being, because that's the
case, I'm just going to clean my palette
of those reds. See how the red pigment is so strong that it
even stains my palette.
7. The Forehead: Now most of the painting
will be blue and purple. And I'm going to favor
this ultra marine blue. Yeah, maybe a dab
of purple in there. I'm going to keep it a
very diluted one here, because again, we're
working from light to dark. I'm just going to paint
to start painting in and go over the lines here. Actually, it just fades
as it gets to the top. Fades out. You can control it by sucking more water
out and moving it around and then adding
more water again. Might actually add a
bit of purple there. Red Alizarin Crimson. And if you follow the
template that I provided, if you've sketched
out all these lines, it's a bit like a painting. Numbers a bit more complicated because you have
to work it out yourself. But that's the principle. By sketching it out, it makes it a bit easier so
that you don't get lost. Because you're relying
on the pencil lines, you can dab a bit
more pigment into the areas that need a bit more where it gets a bit darker. But you've also
at the same time, got to make sure that there's
not too much dilution. Like if you add pure water, it will dry unevenly. It does take a bit of practice, but that's what these
classes are for to practice. Then I just dried my brush and going back then I'm sucking some water out there just to make a
bit of a high light. You can do the same thing with
the edges to soften them. There's hardly any water on my brush, nothing's coming out. It's just softening the edge. It gets a bit dark here. Sans. Again, adding the pigment where it's dark. As it starts to dry, it gets much harder to control. It gets much more sensitive
at some point and time will tell and you'll
be able to work it out as a point where you just
have to stop and then come back to it once
it's completely dry. But I think I'm
okay at the moment. You can go over the parts
that are completely black. The context of my
painting is much easier to understand if you're able to have a photo
of my finished painting. Because I'm painting with
the final image in my mind, it's difficult to explain that. But you'll see that if you
look at my final image, that I'll come over
this with black later. The eyelashes are
painted with black, so some lines you can go over. I'm using quite thick pigment
just in the corner there. There's a lot, the eye
goes in quite a lot here. So there's going to be
more shadow moving down. I'm just checking my values. I'll do a few lines
for eyelids here.
8. The Lips: Okay, now let's move
along and I guess going to start painting the
under layers around the nose. Now bear in mind that
before a class like this, I spend a lot of
time sketching out different poses and working out where the lighting will be. Because it's quite
difficult to look at a photo and work it
all out and one go, it looks like I'm getting quite detailed with where things
are going with the underlay, but that's essential
with all my paintings. I do that, I do sketches
beforehand just to make sure I've worked out the different values and put them into
different sections. Moving down yet again, I think
I'll paint the lips now. Perf, kind of lips.
Now the lips. I'll start with a top lip. Quite a lot of
water on my brush. I can pretty much
cover the whole of that top lip in one wash. Then again, I clean my brush, suck the water out of it, and move some paint from the top to make it
lighter in the light areas. Clean the brush again, go back. You can even do it with
a tissue if you want it. Can see how that
makes it lighter. At the top there, I went over the line there, I'm just cleaning that
up and then going back with more pigment to go like fix the form of it. Takes a bit of back
and forth to make sure you reach the
tones that you want. I'm going to be
quite brave and go in with very thick pigment down here, pure ultra marine. While it's still wet so that
it has again that soft edge. You can do a bit of that. A little tiny little
wrinkles that you see on the lips can go there too. Clean the brush. Now to paint the bottom lip, I'm going to be
very careful now. I don't want to
activate the top lip, so I'm going to leave
a very small cap. This can overlap a bit on
the bottom because we'll, again, we'll paint dark
on top of it later. Now, I'm going to use my
hair dryer to completely dry it off and just
reassess everything. There's a slightly darker
section there on the lip. I just want to emphasize.
9. The Nose: I'm ever so gradually going to work my way back up the
nose with darker pigment. Now by darker I mean thicker to the less water and more pigment twizzle my brush around so I make sure
I've got my strong point and bring it lighter,
adding more water. I always clean my brush
before I add more water because it's better
controlled that way. Had a bit of red there, adding
a bit of red on the nose. I like to do because
it happens in nature, we naturally quite a lot, people have red noses. Then it gets darker
around the bottom here, if you think about it. Right at the crease of the nose here is where the
least amount of light gets to because it
curves and goes inside. That's why it gets darker and everything that reflects the light is obviously lighter, now going to be quite bold
and start adding some black. I try to add black
as soon as I can, as long as it works. When the most appropriate monument comes to add the black, I try and take advantage of it, because by adding black, it sets our full tonal range. And then we've got something to compare throughout the
whole of the painting. But of course, you can't add the black until the
opportunity arrives. As soon as the
opportunity arrives, I take advantage of it. This black is obviously
the shadow on the nose. Here, back of the black. I'm going to paint the
inside of the nostril. Now notice that I've
used the same brush, this number eight Ascoda purl brush for the whole of
the painting so far, until a particular detail stops
me from using this brush. I'll try and use it
as long as possible. Because this brush
has a fine tip. It should be fine for
pretty much everything. Maybe when it comes to the
eyelashes or the eyebrows, I might need to use
a smaller brush. But for the time being,
I think it's fine. A few more of the
wrinkles there. I don't know, calling them wrinkles on the
lips that creases. See, my knowledge of
anatomy isn't so good, but it doesn't
actually need to be. As long as your observational
skills are there, you don't need to
know the names of things or the proportions. With your own observation, you can work out those things. When I paint the lips
or the nose or the eye, I'm not thinking it's a nose. I just break down
what I see into different tonal groups and
different measurements. I'll paint this bit here. The other side of the nose. See, this painting is quite
dynamic because it involves both abstract elements such as the background and these
more detailed elements that require a bit more
planning and thinking.
10. The Eyes: So again, using the point of my brush to flick out
eyebrows and trying to, I think I need to edit
my values here a bit. Now. I'm going to paint those
eyebrows with the black, using a dry brush
technique To begin with, I'm just going back and forth over it like that. Lots of artists have different signature
styles and a lot of students really want to find their own style.
I certainly did. In fact, I wanted to have the style of
my favorite artists. But I learned, I
discovered myself, that I actually, deep down, prefer not to stick
to one style. I don't really mind if I
don't have a signature style. I just want to
paint what I want. Maybe it's abstract,
maybe one day. Very representational
art. By the way, I'm just using a palette knife, but you can use a Tu pick if you want just to scratch
some texture into there. Have a bit more fun with it. I don't like to be held down
by one particular style. I don't really mind if no one really recognizes my art as a William
Ellison style. Also, although I'm known
for my water color, I like painting and oil. I'd like there to be a time when I can paint just as
much oil as watercolor. I want to paint watercolor. And the other day I want to
paint oil or even acrylic. May 1 day I want to paint
people and then animals. The other day you, if you look at the great
artists from throughout time, they don't tend to
stick to one medium. John Singer, Sergeant, who's a well known watercolor
artist and oil painter. He also paints people as well as wildlife and city scenes,
countryside scenes. He doesn't stick to a
particular subject, which is what I like
about those artists. I feel like nowadays, maybe because of social
media or Instagram, you have to stick to your following in order
to remain popular. But I'd like to
break free of that, just what I want to create, that freedom to just
express what I want to express. What next? I think while I'm
thinking about it, I'm going to just spontaneously
do a few lines down here. Maybe there are shadows
from the hair that's above. I'm gonna do a similar
thing here too. Maybe now I think I'm
gonna paint their eyelids following the
curvature of the eye. I'm imagining in my head the
curvature of the eyeball. And following the eyelids along the little wrinkles on the top of the eyelids there. It's quite strange if you've
followed my other classes, you'll see that I usually do the more detailed things towards the end of
the painting process. But with this one,
basically we've already got the main details painted
in right from the get go.
11. The Jawline: Now I'm trying to brace
myself for the next part because this might be the most difficult part of the painting because
it's quite a large wash. I'm going to basically paint the cheek and I have
to connect it from here all the way down to
the chin in an even way. There will be a lot
going on. I'm trying to figure out how to make it easy as possible by
breaking it down. One of the ways we can
do it is we can pre wet the paper up here to make sure
sure there's a soft edge. Thinking about that, we can
also wet the edge here too. And then it'll connect there. We need to overlap there, but we can't agitate
that pigment. Or it'll run out, or maybe we want a little bit
of that going on. There'll be a shadow under here, that's a check mark. Once we get under
there, we'll be fine. But I also want it
to come around here, so I'm going to imagine
there's a line there. I'm going to paint
down to that line. There's going to be
a shadow over here, so we can paint underneath
that line basically. Okay. So I'm going to prewt
the paper, like I said, I'm going to paint that cheek line up like that, create a little gap there. There's a lot of things
that seem overwhelming, like I just said
about this section, but once you break it down, it's not actually as
bad as I thought. I think this will be Okay. So, I've pre wetted this area. I think I'm going to go with a bit more of a Serilian blue. This. I'm going to keep this brush, I think I'm going to just wet that a hear,
soften it up there. Okay, Salian blue. There we go. It's already on my palate a bit, but I do need more, so I'll mix some more there. Okay. Now I want it to be quite dark here
and then soften up there. Lighter up there. I
put that down there. Then I clean my brush
and draw it up. Getting lighter and lighter. Maybe I need to put a
bit of purple to help that transition into there. Okay, that seems to
have transitioned quite nicely because I pre
wet the paper here. I haven't got any dry edges yet. Okay, clean my brush and
continue on downwards. Maybe I'll incorporate
a different kind of blue as we go down. Just to keep it interesting
that ultra marine. Okay, that Cirilian's going
down quite nicely, I think. Now it just gets a bit
lighter here actually. So I'm going to
move that pigment, brush that pigment
around this way, and down under here, my serlian blue is
quite thick particles, the pigment is quite grainy, which can be a good
thing or a bad thing. I'm just going to emphasize that edge because I want
this edge to be hard. I squint my eyes when I look at my reference images just to get an idea of the
tterninal values. I'm actually going to put
a little bit of, okay, Pig went there and let it
bleed out in the corner here. It's like that.
Hopefully that's enough.
12. Starting The Hair: I'm going to use this
calligraphy brush because I think it's nice for hair using similar colors
as we've used before. I'm just going to
do a few swirls. I just have to be more careful than I would
be before because I don't want to interact
with the chin bit. Start of bits down
here. Actually we can, because we're going
to go back over that. Anyway, maybe a bit more purple here. Maybe you, in a bit
of tiny bit of green, make it even more colorful. I'm going to just experiment
and put a bit of red there. Just having fun. Like I was saying
before, it's difficult sometimes to create abstract. Abstract shapes can
be quite difficult. But just to have faith
at the end of the day, it's all about
having fun anyway. If you're not having
fun, what's the point? Having fun is the main idea. That's why we sit down to do it. St, I don't want to touch
the lip here, but I do. At the same time,
I want to get very close to it, and
that was too close. I want to emphasize
the edge of that lip by this painting up to it. I'm going to do the
same thing down here. Pretty much all the way down a tissue to suck up some of the water because I
think it'll be too dark. Otherwise, I'm actually going to use some negative painting
now to paint the nose. I'm going to connect it. What shall I do
here? Because it's the same tone and I want it. Okay. I'm just going to leave a little
bit of a highlight. That should be enough. Hopefully, I think that'll do, yeah.
13. Abstract Curls: I'm going to take a little
bit of a pause from that section, touching that. Okay, I think I'm
going to go back here. I'm going to try and not get
over excited and ruin it. The difficult thing about being abstract is that you
don't really have a reference when you're painting realistic or
something representational. You've just got a
reference that you can follow as close as you want. But when it comes to abstract you, there's too many options. Imagination can just go wild. You have to learn to tame it. But I think I'm happy with that. It always takes a bit of time to really know
whether you like some things can grow on things that you can turn out to be things
that you don't like. Later on I was just going, I don't know why I
suddenly saw this, but maybe this
will be a mistake. But I just wanted to emphasize
a little highlight there. I think I'm going
to paint this lip, I'm going to start with a black. And this can do
that's too diluted, I can tell that's too wet. If it's too diluted, it will just dry gray even
though it looks like black when you painted. Okay. Now I'm going to go
cobalt blue, I think. Same as this down here. I think I actually,
so I think I did put a little bit too
much black perhaps. Okay. Hopefully that will
dry the way I want it to. Okay, now Ultra Marine, I do like Cobot, so I'll mix that
in with there too. I'm going to create
hard line there. We've got a soft line and a hard line that needs
to be a bit darker. And we do need to merge it
slightly into that area. We have to transition it a bit, so I'll go back of a clean brush and that should
be enough just to transition that soft
edge to that hard edge. Alan Blue, come down here.
14. Expressive Brushmarks: So there's a draw line
here that I want to kind of abstract outwards. I'm going to go with some
thick pigment again. I'm going to be quite bold,
actually. Agitate it. Agitate that edge. Take that love green again, because I like the idea of that. I'm actually going to swap
swap to a bigger brush. Back to this click free brush. Few artificial drips. Well the necessary, then you have to be artificial again. When it comes
to the abstract phase, you've just got
to put your faith in all together and
hope for the best. Not much to do other than that. I'd like to leave a few white
gaps every now and again I fill areas with
water, pure water. And then just plunge
it, so to speak, with pigment, some purple. Try and do a few circle try
and practice your circles. Maybe you a tissue and just drop some water for
right in there. There's something about
creating almost ugly edges. Is when you do abstract
work work, it's quite nice. Well, that's too green, I think. Why not? Are you still there? Whatever floats your boat.
15. Building On The Hair: To get things really abstract, wait until it's 90% D, and then apply more water, and it will spill out and create nice washy kind of textures. Col, flower kind of textures. And watch how these little
dots spread out in time. Soften that edge here a bit. You could add salt if you want. I'm not going to do that today, but if you want to experiment, you're more than welcome to. Maybe I can put a
bit of this green up here and I have a bit
of under lay going on. What else you can do while
I'm thinking about it? Also you can mix some
of the screen up. Quite waheryurh, just
little.in there. And you'll see what that'll
do in a few minutes. Likewise, you can do
that with the blue. You can put that there,
a few dots there. I feel like adding
a red streak here. For some reason I just feel like it maybe it won't pay off. Maybe it will. Ads more
orange can do a proper red. I just love adding colors. Serilian blue right
there or maybe, oh, maybe actually ultra
marine blue right here. Think about this section.
16. Using Black: I'm actually going to go
and clean my water because my water buckets quite dirty. Now I want to do
a bit like that, A soft edge outwards, tilting my head so I can see
the reflection of the water. Because of course
it's transparent, so I can't see where it is
dropping pigment in there. That's for summers paint, we already got on our palette. Go carefully with
the black here, I go to create a hard edge. Shall do a flick like
that, like that. No, I don't think, I will very tempted to just do a
little curl up there, but I think I'll leave it now in areas that
is solid black. I just in the darkest,
darkest areas, I just yeah, you solid black. But I still, even when
I use black like that, I do try to incorporate
other colors into it, one way or another. Take this blue for example. I'm going to incorporate
that blue into that black. That was perf, think freak hair can be quite difficult to do to
keep that flowing. Feel. Some tips that I would
suggest is to not overdo it. Brush strokes bold. Take your time to think about what you're
going to do before you apply your brush to the.
17. Complementary Colours: Mixing in purple here. Purple works well, the yellow. And mix some purple into that. I think Bent see a maybe burns in little bit warmer purple parts. Put blue in there instead. Actually, let's
move that across. Mix that a bit up organically. Let me get put a big
blob of pure blue in the even bluer purple. Just having some funding
abstract dates with a burst of yellowish
orange here, blue here, some
purple thing here. Maybe I can do some bursts
of water right here. I want to put really dark
pigment here, very black. Because I want to
add a few flicks of orange over it later at the end. But more thick pigment
here, not that thick. Now, let's dry that off. Dry, dry and create a
drip or two going down a few slacks of water. Now let's try, I'm
gonna wait a second. A couple of last things.
18. Adding Highlights: Going to take a bit of white. You can take it from the tube. I just have some handy
there in my palette. And I'm just going to
do a few swipes of hair just here too much. That's okay. Lastly are some
bright orange splats. I want to protect the face. I'm just going to cover
the bits that I don't want an orange splats to
go to like that. I'm going to clean my palette. In this section, I got
this white mixed with yellow Oca, something yellow. I think I thought a bit
too much white there. That's better. Now, I'm going to take the handle
of something just I have to fill up
my brush even more. Have to create more water. Let it drip a bit drop. I want some of them
to be much bigger. Sir, I'll just add to them that and that's the painting done. I'll just wait for that to dry and then I'll take the tape off.
19. Final Thoughts: Welcome back. We've
reached the end of this colorful portrait
painting class and what a vibrant
adventure it has been. Now it's your turn to
get this painting. A go from the first strokes of the brush to
the final details. I encourage you to embrace the essence of expression
and creativity. There is absolutely
nothing wrong with making mistakes when
it comes to learning. In fact, mistakes
are how we learn. Throughout this class,
we've discovered that painting a face isn't
just about being precise, but also about infusing
it with emotion, personality, and spirit through the vibrant colors we choose. Each stroke tells a story. Each hue adds depth, and each moment of
exploration brings us closer to the essence
of artistic expression. Remember, watercolor painting is not just about technical skills, but also about expressing your creativity and
personal style. I encourage you to continue
exploring, experimenting, and pushing your
boundaries to create your own unique
watercolor masterpieces. As we come to the
end of this class, I hope you feel
more confident and comfortable with your
watercolor painting abilities. Practice is key when it comes
to improving your skills. So keep on painting
and experimenting. I want to express my gratitude for each and every one of you. Your passion for
watercolor painting is so inspiring and I'm honored
to be your teacher. If you would like feedback on your painting, I'd
love to give it. So please share your painting in the Student Projects
Gallery down below. And I'll be sure to
respond if you prefer, you can share it on Instagram, tagging me at Will Elliston
as I would love to see it. Skillshare also loves
seeing my student's work, so tag them as well at Skillshare after putting
so much effort into it, why not share your creation? If you have any questions
or comments about today's class or want any specific advice
related to watercolor, please reach out to me in
the discussion section. You can also let me
know about any subject, wild life or scene you'd
like me to do a class on. If you found this class useful, I'd really appreciate
getting your feedback on it. Reading your reviews
fills my heart with joy and helps me create the best
experience for my students. Lastly, please click
the follow button up top so you can follow
me on skill share. This means that you'll be the
first to know when I launch a new class or post giveaways
until we meet again. Keep painting, keep exploring, and keep embracing the
vibrant pat of life.
Will Elliston, Award-Winning Watercolour Artist
