Transcripts
1. Introduction: You wish you could
draw and paint sceneries with galactose
and backgrounds, but don't know how to do or are missing some points
in the process, then this class is for you. Hi, I'm Lisa. I have spent my early college
using different art school and I have a certification as
an illustrator for comics. Today I'm an illustrator
and I could say I have specialized in drawing sceneries
and my favorite mediums, are ink pens for drawing, and watercolors and
gouache for painting. As far as I can remember, I have always dreamed
to be able to do the scenery if there were
extra pic from comic books. Acquiring the skills to do so
has been a real challenge. Indeed if anyone said I had the big [inaudible] to
draw characters [inaudible] there was so much to learn to be able
to put sceneries. Like how to draw a sketch, how to pick on top, what paper to use, what are the best tools
to do all the process. That's so many questions that
arise during the process. On top of that, [inaudible]
experience on what I have experienced was the lack of time to dedicate to
my art practice. I did my favorite mission to find a process that
would be time efficient. That would allow me to pick that as many sceneries as I could. If you too are struggling with
the process on your time, then I'm here to help. In this class we
are going to see everything from tools
and how to use them. Most specifically, how to go from sketch to line
out to what are the tools and how to use them and all these being
time-efficient. Then painting part, how watercolor and gouache, I did their combination to work fast way on
reaching your artwork. The goal of this class
is not to give you a rigid process but
rather to give you a starting point to
prevent you from being stuck and these
exclusive bonus, so you can then experiment when you grow with
your art practice. I want to insist on
the fact that we are going to focus on the process. This is not a drawing
technique class, and this is not
either watercolors and gouache basic
techniques class. You will need to have your
own basics on those topics. However, only very basic
skills are needed for drawing, you only need to
know how to draw the way they appear backgrounds, and popping things only a paint, both paints on the
paper is needed. Your class project will be
to create your own scenery by following the different
steps of the class. First we'd have to do
sketch then we'll line out, then apply watercolors
and then gouache. Now if you don't want to
do your own composition, please feel free to
take my regular size. Now if you're ready,
let's get started.
2. Class Project : [MUSIC] Your project for this class will
consist in creating your own scenery
either by creating your own composition or if you prefer to focus on
your training only, you can also use
mine as a reference. You can download my final
artwork to help you. Now, if you don't feel
confident yet with your drawing skills and still
want to take on the class, please feel free to trace my artwork so you
can still learn. I've put the line-art version in the download section
to help you with that. More precisely, the
different steps of this project will consist in
creating your own sketch, doing the line-art, paint the base with watercolors, and then strengthening
your shadows and painting your highlights and all those small
details with gouache. I chose this project
because I think it's a great way for you to experiment with the
different tools, and to understand how you can
use them in a seamless way. Those are very
versatile mediums, so once you've
done this project, you should start to see
other possibilities to use them so you can
start to develop your own art style on process. This is the right project
for you if you're new at creating finished artwork, meaning if you have
many training to draw only characters for
instance or only backgrounds and haven't
really neither a full piece or if you're new to drawing and painting
traditionally at the same time. To set yourself up for a successful project I like
to remind you that you are in an experimental phase and
you don't have to put any pressure on yourself for
succeeding in the first try. Your goal here is
really to experiment with the different tools
and understand how you can implement them
in your work to help you be more fluid and take more pleasure
in what you're doing. Art is really about
instant learning, so you will find what fits
you the best with practice. Doing this project,
I suggest that you show your work at two
different moments; One work in progress
when you've completed your line-art and your
final work at the end. Like this, you will be
able to get feedback from myself and from other students. What I will look at is
how you've combined the different techniques to
make them work together. The first step to begin
this project will be to watch the next video about
the tools that you need. Like this, you can make sure you will have everything that you need on the long to complete
this project mostly. See you in the next lesson.
3. Choose Your Tools: In this first lesson, you are going through
every tools that I recommend for this process. The goal of this
class is, firstly, to let you know what you
are going to need to take on this lesson but
also to give you the specificities of each one of the materials that I am
going to mention so you can make your own choices
as for what you want to invest in right
now or in the future. I want to insist
on the fact that I'm not asking you
for the sake of this lesson to get all the tools that I'm
going to talk about. Instead, this lesson works as an overview of what
is going to be used during this process and why and then choose what
you want to do from there. Either work with
what you already have or go and get
what you think is important for you to take the most out of this lesson
and in your own process. Also, don't hesitate
to just take notes of the tools that you'd
like to get for the future. Tools are an
important investment so getting everything over the years is a lot more sustainable than getting
everything at once. Now if you're ready,
let's dive into it. If you already have
some experience, you might not want to watch all the details about the tools. Here is a quick overview of
what you're going to need and feel free to skip to
the next lesson if you're already happy
with what you have. You will need paper
and something to hold it, an eraser, erasable colored pencils, ink pen and watercolor set, gouache sets,
palette, and brushes. Now let's go more into details. The first thing we are going
to talk about is paper. If there is one medium amongst the one that you are
going to use that is very demanding in
terms of paper is watercolors so we are going
to go for waterproof paper. Paper quality for watercolors makes a world of difference. If you're on a budget, you can sacrifice the quality of the [inaudible] if you want. But there is one thing
that makes a world of difference in the
painting experience. For watercolors, it's the
quality of the paper. Then in criteria in terms
of qualities are, first, you need to be at least
300 grams, otherwise, the paper will crinkle too much, and then it needs
to be cotton paper. You know it's cotton paper because it's written
on it because if there is nothing written on the paper concerning
the materials, then it's usually not
a good quality paper. You will need to avoid that. The problem with
synthetic fibers is that it's not too absorbent
enough so your paint will stay on the surface
of the paper and it will make the painting
experience very stressful. Even if you are a beginner, it's really not good for you. Now depending on the brands, cotton paper can
be very expensive so I have found that this one, Arches, is actually one of the most
affordable out there. I have another option that
they have found quite recently and that have
given good results, it's this brand that I
have found on Amazon. It's not 100 percent
cotton but it still has 50 percent cotton and I find that it does
a pretty good job. It's very affordable. You might be able
to find it as well. I will use this one for
the course so you can see what type of result you
can get with a cheaper paper. Now there are mainly
two types of paper; one is cold-pressed and the
other one is hot-pressed. The cold-pressed paper is very smooth while the hot-pressed
has some texture. The hot-pressed paper
is better to draw a smooth line but is
less absorbent while the cold-pressed is better to absorb the watercolors
but you will have some texture in your line art. One is not better than the other so it's really a
matter of preference. Personally, I tend to use both
depending on the project. This one that I am
going to use is cold-pressed so it will
have some texture. My entire trick to
do it faster is to do it in an A5 format. It's still big enough
to draw whether these sentimental
details but it's way faster than doing
in bigger formats. Of course, smaller paper
is also budget-friendly, but you need to be
comfortable drawing small. A lot of artists
prefer drawing bigger. So a format is all about
your own preferences. While painting with watercolors even if your paper
is quite thick, it will still crinkle so you
need something to hold it. I have three options for you. The first one and the most
commonly used is washi tape. You just have to
place the tape all around the paper and
stick it to your table. It will make a neat border all around your painting
once you remove it. The downsides are that it
can rip off your paper while peeling and it also tends to
stick during the process. The second one is clips. You'll just have to clip
your paper on support. I like to use the back of the
watercolor paper for this. You just have to
remove the sheets. Keep the cardboard and
keep your paper on it. The downside is that the paper would [inaudible]
go around between the clips and it's quite inconvenient for you hand
placement while you paint. The third one which
is my favorite, even if I have never seen
anyone else doing it, is to use adhesive gum. Just make sure you take
white adhesive paste so it doesn't stain the paper. We will be using erasable
colored pencils for two things, sketching and distributing
the colors before painting whatever could happen so it's going to
be good for both. I really like these
erasable mechanical pencils and they are more
precise for sketching. They are from Pilot and they are color [inaudible]
Any eraser is okay. But what I like the most is
to have two types of eraser; a kneadable eraser on one hand because it's
very versatile and clean and a pen eraser on the other hand or any
fine eraser for position. I recommend two
[inaudible] eraser though because it tends
to stain the paper. Ink pen will be used
to do your line art. I prefer to do the line
art first and then paint because we see a lot more clearly what we are
doing this way. The main requirement is that
your pen is waterproof. You can know your
pen is waterproof either when it's
written waterproof obviously but also when it's written permanent
ink on your pen. Actual examples of pens
that does waterproof in pen are Micron, Uni pen, Tombow, Pentel, Faber-Castell, and you can probably find a lot of
other ones as well. Another alternative would be to use water in [inaudible] ink. I find it less convenient
as you will have to get infrequently and
have more risk of stain, but it gives a nice
different look in terms of waterproofing. I really like this
one because it doesn't mean alone
and this one is colored ink because
I didn't have any black one but you can totally use colored ink as well. It gives a nice look too. Now if your hand is not
stable enough to make ink [inaudible] out which
is very understandable. It's a complicated
skill to master. You can also do it with
a graphite pencil. I prefer a mechanical
pencil over a regular pencil because you
don't have to sharpen it. The main thing is to take a [inaudible] graphite
together with a kneadable eraser
to remove any excess before painting so it doesn't
transfer in the paint. For watercolors,
you don't need to have a set as big
as mine to paint. Very small is enough as long as you're okay
with blending. If you're just beginning with
watercolors and don't want to invest in a professional
quality set just yet, you'll have to know
that there are affordable paints with
very decent quality today. You might have some
trouble finding them in your local store depending
on where you live. The best place to find
them then these on Amazon and to know which one is good you can rely
on the reviews. The only problem
that I've found with cheaper watercolors is that
some colors tend to not hold well on the paper
especially those with more capricious pigments
like blues and browns. My advice then is to
buy only tubes of professional watercolors to replace the problematic colors. You still have a good range of different colors while
having a glimpse of the differences in
feeling between professional or
non-professional watercolors. During this course, I will paint with professional
watercolors because this is what I have but don't be
intimidated by that. I didn't know you only work with only cheaper brands and
still had great results. I never had any bad experience with cheaper gouache
like with watercolors. It's role [inaudible]
and easier medium. Even though I have professional
quality gouache now, I still use my cheaper sets too. It only slides a little
bit less well on the paper but it's still
very pleasant to use. However, I advise for
tubes against brackets because gouache is harder
to revive than watercolors. Make sure to take regular
gouache and not Acryla Gouache. We are using gouache because
of its similar properties to watercolors so you will lose this advantage
with a colored gouache. If you already have a palette
with your watercolors, you can use it for both
watercolors and gouache. Then if you don't,
you can either get another palette or take
an old ceramic plate. The main thing to know is
that plastic palettes tend to stain more than ceramic
ones, but personally, not [inaudible] Ideally, you'd like to have
two types of brushes; one for watercolors
and one for gouache. But don't worry if
you don't have. Both pens can be applied
with post-absorb brushes. It's just going to
be a little harder. For watercolors, the idea of brushes would be with squirrel or marten half or high-quality synthetic
watercolor brushes. For the synthetic option, it may depend on the
brand you'll find. I can't really talk
about it as I've never been able to
find anywhere I live. Otherwise, squirrel
brushes are water loose while marten
brushes are more precise. The brushes tend to
be quite expensive, especially marten, but I don't think you will need a
lot of brushes to paint. I do most of my
work with this one. I also like to have that
very precise one for very small details and a
bigger one for big areas. But honestly, I
could do without it. As for wash basis, synthetic brushes are better. The hairs are more
resistant than multiple brushes so it will apply the thick
wash more easily. It holds that paint
at once so which is why it's less optimal
to use with watercolors. Those brushes can be found
for very cheap prices. To recap this lesson quickly, I would simply say that
the most important is a good quality watercolor paper and the rest is
to you like here. Remember that you can find the list of the tools
in the description. Now it's time to take action. Gather what you already have
and if you want to make a shopping list with what you'd like to get before starting. Let's keep in mind that the tools that we
talked about are just recommendations that are made to simplify
your own journey. You can do the other
size with whatever you already have if
it's what you prefer. I [inaudible] paper even though I have talked about a lot. Just remember, if you are using best quality
paper and run into problems that it
doesn't come from your skills but really of
the quality of your paper. During the next lesson, we are going to sketch. At this point, you
will need your paper, colored pencil, and eraser. We won't talk about
composition in this class so you can
choose between doing your own composition or you can follow along with mine
if it's easier for you. Remember, if you're not confident enough with
your drawing skills yet, you can still download
my template now so you can do the sketching
class by tracing over it. See you in the next lesson.
4. Sketching Process: In this video, we'll see
everything about sketching. The first way I'm sketching
for inking afterwards was by sketching with a
regular graphite pencil first on a draft paper, and then use a light
table to trace the sketch on the watercolor
paper to make it cleaner. The problem was
that we don't see the sketch so well when
tracing because of the thickness of the paper so I always lost the life of the original sketch
in the process. Moreover, tracing the sketch
is rather time-consuming. So instead, now I
sketch directly with erasable colored pencils
on the watercolor paper. Contrary to graphite pencils, colored pencils blend
nicely into the paint, so you don't really see
it once the artwork is finished or in a very
subtle harmonious way. Just be careful not to use
dark colored pencils on areas that will stay light
so it doesn't show up. Now if you don't have
erasable colored pencils, feel free to use whatever
you have on hand. Not everything needs to be
perfect on the first try. Now let's dive into it. Before starting drawing
on your watercolor paper, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to draw
to avoid over erasing. My tip is to draw
a mini sketch on a separate paper to check
if your composition work. It doesn't have to
be detailed at all, it's just useful to
clarify your own mind. Then overall, keep in mind that the lighter
the pencil stroke, the easier it will be to erase. Even with erasable pencils, strong strokes will
be hard to remove. So the method consists in starting to build
your sketch with very light strokes and
make them progressively stronger as you define the
right placement of your lines. Now take your watercolor
paper, pencil, and eraser, and let's
start sketching. I advise that you don't
fix your paper yet on the table so you can move
it around while drawing. Begin by placing your
vanishing point. I'm doing a one-point
perspective composition here to keep it as
simple as possible, but you can go for
more if you want. As you can see, I'm
starting by pacing with very light strokes a few lines to get the perspective right. You can't see it very
well on the camera because even in reality on the paper, it's
barely visible. This is how light
you want to go. Draw the line correspond to the main shapes of the drawing. A frequent mistake is to draw the character first
and then the decor, but in a scenario like this, the character is entirely
dependent on the decor, meaning that a lot
of elements in the decor will impact how you
will draw your character. So you need to treat your character as
element of the decor. Here, you can see that
I only have drawn its overall shape and leave
the details for later. What you need to take into consideration right
now though is your character's proportion in comparison to the
decor around him. To do this, either rely
on reference photos as the base for the placement of your characters and
background elements, or try to take an element of the decor that can serve
as a measuring preference. Here we have that
armchair and the desk. I happen to sit in a chair behind the
desk while drawing, so I see that the
armchair goes around here in comparison to the desk, and that my head
goes around here on the armchair when I sit upright. So I'm estimating my proportions from that reference point. You can do the same with
whatever you're drawing. If you don't have the
reference object around you, let's say you're drawing a character next to
a bunch of tree, try to find online a picture
of a person standing by a tree so you can average
your proportion from there. So to sum up what I've
just done up to here, I've placed all the main shapes of each element of the drawing, which basically includes all
the shapes of the location. Here it's a room, so I indicated
all that characterized the room and all the big
objects of the composition. This way you are way less likely to make any composition mistake. Now we can start to add details. Now that the main
lines are drawn, the rest becomes easier. All you have to do is
to fill in the gaps by drawing more and more
details into your decor, and by adding pressure to
your pencil as you do so. Think about going
from big to small. Try to build the different
areas of your drawing at the same pace to make sure
everything is balanced. This also makes mistakes
easier to spot early on, so you shouldn't have to erase a whole bunch of
your work at once. Notice how my sketch becomes more and more
visible as I move on. In the end, ideally, all that I have to be clearly
visible are the lines that have to be inked to
avoid inking mistakes. Here I've kept my whole
character building for the end, but you can of course start working on it earlier
in the process. It's all about what you
feel right for you. Here you can see that I'm
using different pencil colors. This is a little
trick that I like. When the sketch starts to
be too heavy in details, I use different colors to differentiate the
elements from each other. Just a little tip
concerning the character, try to take colors closer to your character's skin color
to make it done nicely, especially if your character
has a clear skin tone, so it doesn't show up
underneath the paint. Orange, red, and pink work
really well for that. Now the sketch is over. Another little time-saving
trick here is that you don't have to sketch every single line
of your drawing. There are easy part that you
can directly add with ink, like the details of the book here or the paintings from here. This is really up to you. You don't have to force yourself if you don't feel
confident enough yet. To sum up this lesson, there are two main
points to remember. The first one is to
place the main shapes of your sketch first and then
build the details gradually. The second one is to start with light pencil strokes and build your line intensity
progressively. Now it's your turn. Make your own sketch, and don't hesitate to share it with other students
to get feedbacks. During next lesson,
we'll talk about inking or line art in general. At this point, you will
need your line art tools, whether it's ink pen, whether ink and nib, or pencil. See you in the next lesson.
5. Draw An Harmonious Line Art: During this lesson, we will
see how to do the line art. To begin, let give you a quick definition
of what is line art, when creating a painting, you can define the shapes
in two different ways. The first one is
with the paint only, where we will be able to
differentiate the elements from each other thanks
to the values, light, shadows and colors and the second one is with
the so-called line out, which consists
basically in drawing the outline of each
element to define them. You can, of course, mix both techniques in
one artwork as well. Before this lesson we will focus on the line
art method only, meaning that we will draw the outline of each element
of the illustration. Now take your favorite
art tools and let's draw. The main thing that you need to take into consideration for drawing and I'm on your side
art is your line weight, what we call the line weight is the thickness of the line. When you do your line art, you don't want it to
have the same thickness everywhere that
would be where we blend and not easily readable. Instead, what we're doing is drawing the
line not weight in a strategic manner so it makes
the drawing more on life, and the different parts of
the scenery more readable. There are several takes on it, but I'II show you the easiest
and most basic principles, so you don't get overwhelmed. Concerning the
overall composition, the closer the object, the thicker line will be
and then the opposite, the further an element is from the viewer the
thinner the line is. Then elements on the same plane also have flying by variation. The main shapes or
elements will be thicker than the
little details inside. For example, the
folding this skirt thinner than it's outline or the keyboard on the computer is thinner than the
computer itself etc. Here is another example where you can see those
principle better. Look at how the
line is thicker in the front of the
counter on top and in the character versus in the back of the
counter top and how the decorative lines of the sweater are thinner
than the sweater itself. Now you may wonder, how do
we achieve this technically, I would say that there
is overall three ways. The first one is to
do a uniform line art first and then go over it where you want your
line to be thicker. The second one is simply to evaluate the pressure
on your tool. It works particularly
well with tools that have a soft edge and offer a
lot of line variation. But it will work with any tool. The last one, which is the one that I'm using for this drawing, is to use tools of
different sizes, like a set of pens or nibs or mechanical pencils
of different sizes. You can also of course
use a mixture of it all. Finally, the last thing to
take into account for drawing the line art is in which
order do we ink the drawing. [inaudible] is to begin
in the upper-right corner of the drawing and
move through it from left to right and
from top to bottom. This is supposed to be easier
because if the direction in which we write in
contrast with last two line, at least an average
merging because your hand will go on top of the line out were
you are doing it. I don't like this method
because first it doesn't take left-handed people
into account and second, I also find it very unnatural because it ignores
the hierarchy of the elements in the
illustration and I mean by hierarchy which elements
are in front of others, which can cause overlapping
lines mistakes. Instead, I suggest that you in the element that are in
the program first and move progressively away
towards the background so you'll know exactly where to start the
lines when they are objects in front of others. Now you know everything
that you need to begin to do your line art. Remember to evaluate
your line weight on one end and on the other end to begin by the element on the foreground and move
towards using the background. Now it's your turn. Take your favorite
tools and make your liner directly
onto your sketch. Don't forget that your
ink need to be waterproof or two W pencil line
art within WHO razor at the end so it doesn't smudge
when painting on top. During next lesson,
we'll see how to distribute your main
colors before painting. For this you will only need your erasable colored
pencils and your razor. See you in the next lesson.
6. Distribute Your Colors Efficiently: During this lesson, we
are going to see how to distribute the colors on your drawing before
the painting phase. Applying the paint without a relatively precise road
map is a very risky, the size for complex
composition. Even with an approximate
image in mind, you've got a lot
of choices to miss some trickier areas and to end up with the resultant
so harmonious. Other artists choose to do a digital version of
the color in first, before starting
painting traditionally. That's not my favorite method
because first I find it time-consuming and
then not everyone has digital tools to do it. In this lesson, I will show you a very quick way to make sure that the distribution of your
colors will be ammonias, without overworking
unaddressed color of version of your drawing. The first thing I would
recommend in that is you create a mood board of your images that inspire you for
your color palette. Like this, you'll
know beforehand what colors you want to
roll with it towards. Once you've decided upon
your color palette, we are going to
distribute them with irreversible workload pencil
directly on your drawing. Don't worry, it won't show
up until one paint it. To distribute the
colors is easy, I start by the elements that have the most obvious
colors for me. I know I want everything
in to be in brown, the walls and
window to be binge, the armchair to be red. Then I work on deciding
for the rest from there. The goal here is to
very quickly fill each area with it's
attributed color. Keep your hand very
light so you can erase the color if that's something
you change your mind. You don't need to do
a nice pencil job. The steps are as only as a
visual guide where you paint. You don't need to
be precise with your color you use either. I work with only a very
restricted pencil palette and I'm only making sure the
main colors do staples well. We really don't
need to know more about what we'll
do at this stage. A lot of decision can be made during the
painting process. Okay, that's what you need to know about color distribution. The main thing is to
remember to focus on the juxtaposition
of your main colors and avoid overthinking, and to keep your
hand light and not spend time making
it look pretty. You won't see any of
these at the end. Now it's your turn. Take your color pencils, your razor and drawing and start distributing your colors. Doing next lesson, we'll start
painting with watercolors. Prepare your watercolors set, brushes, water jars, paper to work on your
tool to fix your paper, and let's start painting. See you in the next lesson.
7. Paint Your Color Base With Watercolors: Watercolor is a very
convenient medium to paint the base of your drawing and there are several
reasons for that. The paint is transparent so it doesn't cover the line out. It's better first to apply
as it plays very well. It allows some room
for correction as you can remove it to
a certain extent while the paint is still wet and you can easily create
nice effects with it. However, the downsides
of watercolors are that it requires a lot of
layers to build up values, and you can't paint
light over dark colors. Our goal will be to take
advantage of the properties of watercolors and to compensate its own side with
the gouache later. Start by securing your watercolor
paper with washi tape, clips of easy paste and then take your tools and
let's start painting. The first step is to fill your line art with each
element's local color. The local color is
the color in hand to each element without
lights or shadows. Watercolors can be
reactivated even once dry, so remember to paint
the light colors first, so the dark ones can
transfer into them. If you have light sources
visible on your painting, keep them white or paint them first with their
attribute to lead color. We're using the white
of the paper for this like we traditionally
do with watercolors. However, I advise that you don't go there with the
small highlights now, they can be a little bit of
a headache to anticipate, so they will be in most cases easier to handle
with the gouache later. Same thing with small
painting details, we'll handle them later. For now, just handle the big shapes and
keep your mind free. For this lesson, I'm
trying to keep things as simple as possible to make
it big enough friendly, so I'm basically
fitting everything with a flat wash without adding
any special effect. If painting with light washes is more than enough
for you today, I recommend sticking to it until you get more comfortable. You can already create so many beautiful scenarios with this most simple technique. Now if you're more advanced, I encourage you to play with the many effects that
watercolors offer. Watercolors are absolutely great to add lots of details in your answers as you can work it in so many different ways. We don't have the time to talk about this during this lesson, but I encourage you to check the watercolor courses here on Skillshare to get inspired. I'm still giving you a
few examples here on the screen to give
you some directions. Once the color base
has been painted, let's add some soft shadows. I'm only adding one layer
of flat shadows here, again to keep it very
quick and simple. But of course you can complexify
as much as you want by bending or adding more layers to make your painting
more interesting. Just don't try to go too dark as we'll keep it for
the gouache part. I'm also adding
some [inaudible] to the skin of the
character at this stage. Do it preferably before
shading your character as your paint is likely to be
lighter than your shadows. Now you're done
with watercolors. What you need to remember
about this lesson is first that watercolors are great to paint your color bases really, as well as light
and medium shadows. Then remember to
use the white of the paper for the
big light areas, and don't bother with
the small details and darker areas, that will be handled more
easily with gouache afterwards. Finally don't hesitate
to get creative with the different watercolor
techniques to make your painting
more interesting. Now it's your turn, secure your paper and paint your
drawing with watercolors. First the base,
and then the tint of the skin and
overall soft shadows. Next we'll finish off our
painting with gouache. Prepare your gouache paint, synthetic brushes and palettes if you have specific
tools for it, and let's complete
this art work. See you in the next lesson.
8. Enhance Your Painting With Gouache: Finally, it's time to wrap
up this course with gouache. In this lesson, we will see why gouache works particularly
well with watercolors, how to use it to save time and build intensity
into your painting, and how to get
harmonious results while mixing both paints. First, let's start by the reason why gouache works well
with watercolors. I got the paints like
acrylics or outgoing stands. Gouache is a water-based
paint just like watercolors. Concretely it means that both paints blend
very well together. We can wet then to
alter them once dry and you can make them more
transparent by adding water. Although you can sometimes
work them in similar ways, the main differences are that
gouache remains flat when applied onto the paper and is easiest to control
than watercolors. The paint is opaque so it can be worked from
dark to light. I don't find gouache
convenient to do a whole illustration
because it covers everything so that I
know don't show through. However, it's very convenient
to get done vertically the watercolor layering to build color intensity in
the dark areas. It saves plenty of time and makes the painting more intense. Our goal is to use
gouache to build dark areas and add details
on top of the painting. Let's start by the shadow part. The principle here is to
darken our existing colors, where the shadows are
the more intense. For this apply a
relatively thick layer of gouache in the relevant
areas and if needed, thin the paint on the
edges by adding water to create a gradient and then blend it with
the watercolor parts. Overall, you want to
keep your shadows flat on flat surfaces
and to create gradients on rounder surfaces to distribute your light and
shadows in a realistic way. For more precise work
like the wood area here, for instance, you can use a very thin and precise
brush like this one. Make sure you've
put enough water in your gouache so your paint is freed enough to spread well, but not too much either, so it still has
enough intensity. To find the right blend, you will have to test and play around with
it a little bit, and that's it for
the shallow part. Now the finishing touches
are the highlights and details that will be
treated the same way. Traditionally, when we
paint with watercolors, we anticipate the
lightest part and let them be white or paint them
first with light colors. As we have painted
the dark parts, we take gouache, I find that
working the Light parts, the water colorway
creates intense texture, so I prefer to handle it
with a gouache as well. But that's just my opinion, so you can of course
paint as you please. For the highlights, I just
pour several gouache colors to match my watercolor use and make it lighter with white. You could also take white
gouache and then blend it with the watercolor paint to
use to paint each element. You would know the hue stays the same and just have
a lighter value. Now this is when I find using some opaque paints
the most useful. Which is a moment we can polish our artwork and paint
additional details. We can really finish our painting with
patterns or details, or smaller objects
at this point, and it's a lot easier
to unroll it now than to manage it with
watercolors from the start. Here, I'm just putting a few dot pattern
on the curtains, for example, but you could go a lot more
creative with it. Everything is labeled with
the gouache of course, which is why I'm putting this
type into gouache design, but you can actually use rather different
tools to do the job. Gouache is a especial
you would even to paint clear elements on top of darker ones but
you can of course, add water color patterns
on light areas. Although tours are
more especially fond of golden water colors, which texture is actually
between gouache and watercolors as fluid and
malleable as watercolors, but its opaque so you can
work it on dark areas. I also loved Posca pens, which are filled
with acrylic paint. Fast model highlights, it
will look similar to gouache, and it's easier to use than tiny brush
filled with gouache. Simple gel pens are
also favorite of mine. They are opaque as well. You can find some
very thin lines that are even more precise than the Posca and some have very nice vibrant colors
that we can experiment with. Now despite all the
option that you have, please remember
that less is more so don't advertise
your painting. Now congrats you've made it
to the end of the class. To recap that last lesson, we use gouache to save time
building stronger shadows and then we distribute for highlights to harmonize
all paintings. Then if needed, we can decrease it by adding
small details, either with gouache
or with any of our favorite tools.
Now it's your turn. Finish off your painting
by strengthening your shadows and adding your
highlights with gouache. Once you're done, please share your final painting with your other students
to get feedbacks.
9. Conclusion : First of all, a huge consideration for going
through this class. We've covered so many
things during this course. First, you learn how
to sketch directly on your art paper
without using any draft, then how to make a
beautiful line out that feels a live on top of
which you can paint, and then you learn how
to use watercolors as a creative and first
things in place. Finally how to put corners and enhance your painting
with gouache. Now, I realize that
this process might not be the most
comfortable for everyone. This is very normal as
we are all different but if there is one thing that I want you to take
from this class, is that a process can always
be adjusted to your needs. Don't get discouraged
by the obstacles you might encounter like
the lack of time for instance of the skills
that you want to get and have
difficulties to get. That instead of thinking that
something is impossible, just try to ask yourself
how to get there, and even if it needs to tweak
your process over and over again until you'll feel
comfortable with it. Now if you have tweaked, please, download your final project
into other gallery so me and the other students can have a look at it and
give you feedback. As for this class,
please feel free to leave a review and you liked it, don't forget to
follow my profile so you can see my
future classes. Thank you so much again, for taking this class with
me and see you next time.
Fanny Richard, Illustrator
