Creating Texture in Watercolour: How to Paint Bird Eggs

1. Intro: Hi, my name is Sharon from Sharon Stevens designs. This class is focused on painting bird eggs in watercolor. In the class, we'll be focusing on a number of different techniques that would allow us to create these beautiful eggs. You'll be able to use these techniques in many of your other pieces of artwork. We'll start with a practice session where I will share my tips with you for how to paint neat edges, how to paint gradients and use these gradients to create a dimensional egg shape with shadows and highlights. We are going to practice techniques that allow us to create different textures that we will use for the eggs, including dry brushing and painting different marks and fine details that we can make without brushes. I will then take you through painting all 10 of these eggs. The class is designed so that you can either paint all 10 with me in one go or different now and just paint your favorite eggs. I really hope you will enjoy painting these beautiful subjects with me make and I hope you'll be able to take some knowledge away to use with your other watercolor work. Okay, let's get started. 2. Supplies: In this video, I will take you through the supplies that you'll need and the supplies that I will be using in this class. You' ll need watercolor paper. I'll be using cold press paper, which I would recommend for the class. I'll be using my Langton paper for the practice session and my bigger Arches part for the page of eggs, which is 9 by 12 inches. Both of these are 100 percent cotton and 140 pounds in weight. I wouldn't recommend going any lower than that. I'll be using a variety of brush sizes from my smallest 3/0 for the finest details to my larger Size 4 and Size 6 brushes. Most of these are round brushes, but I also use spot brushes for data work. But if you only have round brushes, they'll be perfectly fine for the class as well. You'll need some water color paints and a palette or plate to mix them on. I'll be using my Winsor & Newton professional paints, but you can use whatever you have. I'll be using a number of different paints, but I'll also be giving you a little bit of guidance throughout the class on how to mix some of these colors with just your primary colors. When we start painting each egg, I will talk you through the palette that I'm using for each egg and what colors we will be mixing with them. You need a glass of water for your paints and a paper towel to take any excess water out of your brush or to mop up any mistakes. You'll also need a pencil to draw your your eggs. I like to use a fine mechanical pencil, and you may need an eraser. You can draw your eggs freehand or you can use a circle template like I will be doing. I like to use a circle for my die cut machine which is about the same size as a reel of washy tape. There's one egg that I'll be using masking fluid for and I'll be using Winsor & Newton colorless fluid for this. But there are many different types out there which you can use as well. I'll be using a small dish to decant some of the fluid into to use it and a silicone color shaper to apply it. I recommend using these color shapers over your brushes as the fluid will ruin your brushes whereas you can just pull the dried fluid off of the silicon head. The one I'm using is a pointy shaper and it's a size zero, so it's nice and small. If you have any questions about any of these supplies, please just drop me a message in the discussions board. Let's move on to our practice session. 3. Tips & Techniques Part 1: Before we start painting the eggs, I want us to spend some time practicing some basic techniques that will help us build our skills for painting subjects like this and these techniques which you will use again and again when painting with watercolor. Then, well, worth spending some time on. In this video and the next one, we'll be covering painting neat edges, painting gradients, using a dry brush, and painting different details, and making different types of marks with our brushes to add texture to our paintings. I've started by dividing my page into four and labeling each of the sections, edges, gradients, dry brush, and details. Let's start with edges. I start by drawing a straight line, an S curve, and a slightly wide curve. We just want to practice painting inside of these edges as neatly as possible. Pick up your paint, make sure you don't have any excess water on your brush. You want as much control as possible. I'm using a Size 2 brush. I can just see there's a bit of excess water on there, so I'm going to take that off. I'm holding my brush almost at a right angle to the line so that the only the tip of the brush is touching the edge. You can rest your hand on the table or the paper to get your hand nice and steady. When blending the paint away from the line, try not to add too much water because that will push the pigment towards the edge and create a harsh line, and we don't want that. So you can build on the edge now, making it as neat as possible, and if it's still wet, that should just blend in nicely to the rest of your paint. Now, let's move on to this S curve. I'm using the same technique, keeping my brush roughly perpendicular to the line, and just following the curve round. Finally, let's just practice on this wider curve at the bottom, using the same process as before. When I'm painting something circular like this, I usually like to move my paper around as I paint. So I don't have to paint awkwardly when I get to the right hand side. However, in this class, I'll be keeping my papers still, so it's easy for you to see what I'm doing, but always do whatever feels best and is easiest for you, so you can have as much control over the brush as possible. Next, let's move on to practicing some gradients. I want us to practice blending a highly pigmented color out to practically nothing. Painting gradients and being able to blend your colors smoothly will make all the difference to your work. It's a great way to add dimensions to your work by having highlights and shadows. We'll start with a straight gradient and then we'll move on to a curve, and then finally, practice painting an egg so we can get used to where we need to put those shadows and highlights to make them pop out of the page. Start by adding your color to the page. Now, we want to spread that color that is already on the page out. We want to clean our brush as we don't want to add any more pigment to the page, and take out any excess water. We only want a damp brush to blend this out. To start to blend the colors out, just pull it out with your brush. After a few strokes, you need to clean your brush again as it would have picked up some of that pigment off of the paper. You need to keep doing that over and over again, blending out a little, cleaning the brush, and taking off the excess water. Keep doing that until you've blended out the colors so that it's clear. You can then go back and pick up your pigment and make the beginning even darker. Then, if you need to, you can blend this out to make it really smooth. I'm constantly cleaning my brush and taking the excess water out. I'm just using the paint and the water that is already on the page and just pulling it around until it's nice and smooth. Now, we want to see the same, but this time in a curve. I'll start by painting a C shape. Then, we're just going to use the same technique as before, but just keep the curve running all the way along. Okay. Now let's practice painting these gradients within an egg. Which we'll paint the baseline is for each egg in this class. This is what will give us all three-dimensional look. So first we want to draw our egg. So you can do this freehand if you like. But the way I like to do this, to make it as neat as possible, is to use a circle as a template. So I use a circle from my disco machine, but a role of washy tape is a similar size or you can use a base of a spice jar. So I'm using my mechanical pencil as it's running fine. I'm just going to draw around the circle just under halfway up. Then I want to go about half the height of this circle up again. I'm just going to make a little mark there, and that will be the top of the egg. When start the top and draw a curve, and then join these edges out as smoothly as possible. Okay. So now we have our egg shape. Let's look at whether the highlights, and shutters through paint. So we're going to have the light coming in from the top-right. It's going to be hitting the egg about here. So I'm just going to draw that in as a guide. We weren't withdrawing the same when we paint the eggs, but I just want you to be able to clearly see where it should be, and around this spot which would be the lightest, or gradually get darker and darker. This area underneath here, and the area to the left side are going to be the darkest. There will be in the more shadow as a curving away from the light. So they're getting the least amount of light. I'm going to use my size four brush, and I'm going to paint this dark is dairy, and first to the left side, and at the bottom. Remember to work slowly around these edges to get them nice and neat. You can switch to a smaller brush if you need to. Now using techniques we've just practice with gradients. Start blending this out, so clean your brush, take out the excess water, and just pull that paint across the page. So just remember to always paint in the direction of your subject. So keep painting in these curves. This what will give you the shape of the egg. I'm going to switch to a smaller brush now, and switching to size two for the top edges. Now, I want to build on this even more. I'm going to get back to my size, full brush, and work on that dark area at the bottom, and on the left side. So be careful when you get to this highlight area. Make sure your brush is clean when blending this in, as we want this to be as light as possible, it's really easy to add too much paint here, when you're blending the dark areas out. If you need to, you can just use a clean area of your paper towel to just tab at that highlighted area, if you've added too much pain, and this will pick some of it away. So just keep working on it until you have enough contrast between the shadow and the highlight. It's all blend in smoothly and it really starts to pop out of the page and looks 3D. 4. Tips & Techniques Part 2: Okay. Next, let's move on to using a dry brush. This is a really useful technique for creating texture in your work. It's called dry brush but your brush should be damp. It just should be dry enough that the paint won't run smoothly over the paper. It should create a patchy effect. Just start by taking most the water out of your brush. You can do this by pinching it gently with a paper towel. Then add your paint and again, dub it onto your paper towel to take off any extra water that was in the mix. Now, just using the side of your brush, move over the paper gently and you can see the only covering the raised surface of the paper. This is quite an extreme version of dry brushing as my brush is already dry. Now let's practice layering our colors using this technique. I've just added a few more colors to my pallet [inaudible] and permanent rose. I'm going to start with my yellow and lay down a fairly large area with this dry brush. Then I'm going to layer some of the brown over the top, Because I'm working with such little water, I don't need to wait long to be able to layer this, I don't need to wait long for them to dry. Then finally, I'm going to add the rose over the top. You can see each of these colors coming through. Okay. Now let's paint a small area of wash at the bottom of the page. I'm going to use my brown. I'm just going to wait a few minutes for that to dry before painting a dry brush layer over the top. So if you're following along, you can just pause the video here and start it again once your paint is dry. Okay. Now that it's dry, I'm going to use my rose to paint over the top. So it's really patchy. You can see that brown coming through from underneath. This method is really useful when you want to paint something with a rough texture or you want to paint something that has a patchy almost speckly detail to it. Okay. In the final section, I want us to practice painting some of the finer details using different size brushes to make different markings that we can add to our eggs and any other work. I'm starting with my smallest brush, which is my 30. This is a lovely brush, its so delicate and you can get such fine details with it. So I'm starting with some really fine lines. I'm painting some of these a little weakly with some bolder areas, some connecting to each other. Just have a play around. With the same brush, I'm just going to paint some tiny dots. Some of these finest details look barely noticeable on their own but they can make such a big difference to your finished piece and how realistic it looks. Okay. Now I'm using a slightly larger brush. This is my size zero and I'm just going to play around making some different marks with this brush, some fairly patchy marks, different sizes, different values of paint, some washy, some quite strong and I'm going to use the same brush with a washy brown to paint some patchy areas here. We'll come back to this shortly once it's dry to build some layers on top. Okay. Next, I'm going to paint some markings going upwards following the curve of the egg. So just practice in thicker strokes and some light thin strokes. Now all these markings, they can look a bit messy on their own. But this is just really an opportunity to see what kind of marks your paint brushes can make. I promise you they'll look really good when we get to the eggs. Okay. Now I'm going back to this brown. I'm going to add some pink in here and paint some more patches over the top of these washy areas. You can go back in and add some more details, some more darker areas to these markings. Just play around with your brushes and have fun with it. Don't think too much about what you're doing. Okay. So that brings us to the end of our practice session. In the next lesson, we'll be moving on to sketching out a page of 10 eggs, so that we can use all of these techniques to create a variety of beautiful textures and unique looks. 5. Sketching the Outline of the Eggs: In this video, I'll show you how I planned out my page of 10 eggs. If you just wanted to see how I draw an individual egg, you can skip ahead to the time showing up on screen now. The watercolor paper I'm using for this is arches cold press and it's nine inches by 12 inches. I wanted two rows of eggs each with five eggs in. I started by drawing out some guidelines for the top and bottom edges of the eggs with a gap in the middle about an inch high. I knew I wanted my eggs to be about two and a half inches high because the circle template I used for the base was about one and three quarter inches wide. The height of the egg was roughly one and a half times the height of the circle. Once I've drawn my guidelines, I started by finding the center point of the page so I could figure out where my middle egg would set. Starting with that middle egg just meant that I would know how much distance I needed to leave between each egg on either side so that they would all look nice and even across the page. To draw the egg, I've got my circle template and draw around the bottom half. The top of the egg is about half the height of the circle again and reaches up top guideline I've drawn. I just made a little mark where that center point is and then I drew the curve of the top of the egg. I then joined it up to the bottom half. When you're doing this, just try and make sure that that joining section is slightly curved rather than straight so it flows well into the base. I then just drew out the other nine eggs in exactly the same way. Once I had finished drawing all of my 10 eggs, I use my blotting eraser to take off any excess pencil on the outline of the eggs. Now we're ready to start painting. 6. Egg 1: Base Layer: The first egg that we'll be painting has a white shell with dark browny black speckles, mainly at the bottom and at the top. The palette I've used for this egg are the three Winsor and Newton primary colors: Winsor Blue, Winsor Lemon, and Permanent Rose. I've used these three colors to mix up the initial washy gray mix for the base and also, the dark browny black mix for the speckles. For this egg, I've used my round size 4 for the base and a spot size 2 for the speckles. These brushes are nice and sharp to help with those neat edges and fine details. If you need to use a smaller brush to get the same effect, please do so. Let's start with making the washy gray mix for the base. I have my three primary colors on my palette, and I'm going to start with my Windsor Blue, then add a touch of my Permanent Rose, and then I'm going to add some of my Windsor Lemon. It's already turning into a pale gray mix. I just wanted to test this out on my scrap piece of paper to check it's the color I want. I want this to be a bit more of a browny gray, so I'm going to add a little more paint to the mix. You may not get the color you want straight away, so just keep adjusting it until you do. I'm just going to add a touch more yellow to this to make it slightly browner and that looks good to me now. We want this to be really pale, just add a bit of shadow to the egg to give it some dimension. We want to mainly concentrate this layer around the left and bottom of the egg. The areas that are most in shadow and around the edges to really show off the curve of the egg. I'm using my size 4 for brush for this layer. Always try and paint in the direction of the curves of the egg as that will really help show the shape of the egg. Remember to leave that highlighted area as we did in the practice session. Just build on the shadowy areas until you're happy it has enough depth to it, but do remember this is a white shell, so we want to keep it fairly subtle. Once that base layer dries, we're going to move on to the base layer of the second egg. If you want to continue with the first egg, just wait for your first layer to dry and then skip the next video. 7. Egg 2: Base Layer: The second egg we'll be painting has this lovely blue base with brown speckles. The palette I've used for this egg is indigo and burnt umber. If you don't have these colors, you can make a blue similar to this with your three primary colors. Start with your blue, and just add a tiny amount of your red and yellow until you get the color that you want. You can make the brown in a similar way using these three colors. Start by mixing in orange with your red and your yellow, and then add a tiny amount of your blue to neutralize it. I've used my round size four, and spot size two again for this egg. I've added my indigo, my burnt umber to my palette. I'm going to start by pulling some of my indigo around as I want this to be the main color in my base mix. I'm going to add a tiny amount of my burnt umber to this mix and test this out on my smart paper until I get a nice blue that I'm happy with. I'm going to start by painting the dark areas, those areas that are in the more shadow on the left side, and at the bottom. I'm working reducing the value of the color towards the highlight. Spilled on these dark areas until the egg starts looking three-dimensional. Whilst we wait for that base area to dry we can go back to our first egg and paint in the speckles 8. Egg 1: Details: For the speckles of this first egg, I'm going to mix up a dark brown black using my three primary colors again, but they're going to be much more concentrated than they were for the base. You want this to be a really concentrated dark mix. So these speckles really stand out. Just test this out on your scrap paper until you get the color that you want. Starting at the bottom of the egg just start painting tiny speckles ranging in slightly different sizes. Keep some of them gathered together. Paint some right on the edge. They don't have to be dots, they can be small marks which come naturally with your paint brush. I'm using a very light touch here with my paintbrush to get these really fine speckles. We want this first egg to be quite subtle. So don't go overboard with these, just to try and have a bit of concentration of speckles at top and at the bottom. That will help make the egg look more curved. Paint some light ones towards this highlighted area. That's our first egg complete. Now, let's move on to the details of our second egg. 9. Egg 2: Details: For the speckles of the second egg, I'm going to mix up a dark brown using my burnt umber as my base, and then add a touch of indigo which will make it darker. If you're using this mix, just be careful when adding your indigo, as it's a really strong color and will easily overpower the brown. We want to start with a fairly washing mix for the first speckles and then we can build on them later. These markings are slightly bigger than the ones in the first egg. Again we use different shapes and sizes using a light touch with the brush. With the same colors, make a more concentrated brown and build on the markings we've already made taking around these edges on the left side and at the bottom where egg is more in shutter. Okay, that's our second complete. Now we're going to move on to painting the base of our third egg. 10. Egg 3: Base Layer: The third egg that we'll be painting is this Willow Grouse egg. It has a yellowy golden base covered with dark browny black splotches. The palette I've used for this egg is yellow ocher and indian red for the base. Then for those details, I've used my three primaries again to mix up that dark browny black. If you don't have yellow ocher which is a lovely golden yellow, you can use your three primaries to mix up something similar, just start with yellow and a touch of red to add some more warmth, and then a tiny touch of blue to neutralize it. If you don't have the indian red, you can build the shadowy areas out with a darker mix or your primaries, or you can use burnt umber if you have that instead. I'm going to start with my yellow ocher and paint in the base to give it that shape. I am then going to use my indian red around the edges to really build on those shadowy areas. Okay, whilst that dries, let's move on to the base of our fourth egg. 11. Egg 4: Base Layer: The fourth egg that we'll be painting, is the thick-billed warbler, which has a pale pinky skin colored base, and brown faint hair-line streaks and marks. The palette I've used for this egg, is the three primaries again, to mix up the skin color, and I used my burnt umber to build out some of the shadowy areas of the base. For the details, I used my burnt umber again and then a darker brown mix from my primaries. I use my size four brush for the base and my finest brush, my size 3/0 for these fine details. To mix this pale skin color for the base, I started with my yellow and then added some of my permanent rows. I then added the tiniest amount of my Winsor blue. Make sure to test this color out first, to check if it's okay. Then, as with all of the other eggs, just start by building up the color on the left side first, keeping it really washy and pale. I'm going to use my burnt umber now to built out some of the shadowy areas. Just be careful to keep this quite subtle, we want this to be one of the palette eggs on our page. Now we have finished the base of this egg, we can get back to our third egg and paint the details in. 12. Egg 3: Details: The details of this side egg, I want a really dark mix of my primaries. So I'm going to add some more of these paints to my palate, so that they'll be as concentrated as possible, and to stop painting in these splotches all of different sizes. I'm going to pull some of this color out on my palette and dilute a little so we can have slightly palette mixed to the area of the highlight on the egg. Keep working away around the egg, when you are working on the edges you can paint nicely edge line end, and this will make it look more in shadow dimensional. Now I'm going to stanch my smaller brush to fill in some of these gaps with tiny makings. I'm painting over some of these line to areas here so that they look more in shadow around the left side and around the very bottom. If you need to go over any of these markings to make them really dark, do so as I think this egg looks really striking because of the contrast between that baseline and the darkness of these splotches. Once you're finished with this egg, we can go back to a warbler and painting our fine hair line details. 13. Egg 4: Details: For the details of this fourth egg, I'm using my smallest brush, my size three-zero, so I can get some really fine hairline details. I'm going to start with my pen umber, and we will build on this later with a darker brown mix. So start at the edge of the egg and start painting in these hairline streaks. Try and work with the curve of the egg, or [inaudible] just try straight lines across the egg. The key to these fine details is to use very little water, so you have control over your paint, and I'll say to use the brush very gently because this paint brushes are so Fine and I'm not using much water. I will need to add the pigment regularly to every few strikes. Now, I'm just painting some even fainter lines and markings that added texture. The peel of this egg is that it looks so delicate. So we want to make sure we don't lose that by being too heavy handed. Now I'm going to use one of earlier darker brown mixes, and this is a brown I made using my three primary colors. And with this I'm going to talk about some of the markings that are near the edge of the egg. I'm just adding some small details, I'm markings elsewhere. Remember to keep all of this redefined and settled. Now we've finished with this fourth egg, we can now move on to the fifth egg which is based on the [inaudible]. 14. Egg 5: Base Layer: The fifth egg that we'll be painting is this Marsh warbler egg, which is olive greeny gray with all of this lovely texture and these markings all over it. For this, we will first paint the gradient for the base, and then we'll be using the drybrush effect, which we practiced earlier and will be layering different values on top of each other. For the pallet for this egg, I've used my olive green and my permanent rose. I'm going to start by mixing my olive green with a tiny amount of my permanent rose. If you don't have olive green, you can mix up a similar neutral green with your primaries to start by mixing up a green and then add your red to neutralize it. Painting your base as usual keeping it very light to this stage. Once that dries we'll move on to the base of our sixth egg. 15. Egg 6: Base Layer: The sixth egg that we'll be painting is the great tip egg which has mostly a white base shell with pinky browny red markings. For the base, I'm going to mix up a washy pinky gray mix with my primary colors, and then for the details, I'm going to use my Indian red and my burnt amber. I'm going to use this early mix of my three primaries as a base for mixing this pearly pink gray color that I want for the base of the egg. I'm just going to test this out to make sure it's the right color and it's pale enough. Then I'm going to start building that shadow around the edges, but I want to leave a lot of this egg white on this one. I just want to give it some shadow with this mix that we can give it egg-shape. I had a little technical problem, so my paint is dried once I sorted that out. It won't matter as I can cover this up with the markings, but do try and blend yours in if you can so you have a nice and smooth base unlike mine. In the next video, we will be working on the details of both eggs five and six, going back and forth between the two and we'll be layering the details, so this will allow time to each layer to dry. 16. Egg 5 & 6: Details: Going back to egg five now, we want to start adding these markings by using our olive green mixed with a little permanent rose again. We're going to be using the dry brush effect for this. I'm using my size four brush, but you can use a smaller brush if you're more comfortable when working around the edges as you want to make sure that these edges are going to be nice and neat. I'm using the side of my brush and starting quite faint with these markings, so that we can build them up gradually and layer them to get the most texture with different shades of color coming through. I'm going to leave that highlight alone for now. I am just working around the edges. Whilst those layers dry, let's head over to egg six and start painting our markings on this one. For this, I'm going to use my Indian red. I am going to start by watering this down and painting some pale markings around the edges. I'm using a dry brush now to add more patchy texture. Whilst that dries, I'm going to get back to my marsh warbler and build on these markings with a dark mix of olive green and permanent rose, especially around these edges. Now that's finished, let's head back to the sixth egg and build up these markings with some dark color. I'm using a more concentrated version of my Indian red and layering out these details starting from the edges. I am going to leave most of that highlighted area alone. I'm going to make some of my burnt amber with this Indian red to get a slightly darker mix, a slightly different browny red mix, which I can use to darken up some of the markings at the edges. Now we've completed six of our eggs. I hope you're happy with them so far and enjoying the process. I find it so relaxing to paint because you're pretty much free to paint on how you want to. They're great for practicing those textures and practicing being a bit more free with your brush. Now let's move on to the seventh egg, which is the paradise rifle egg. 17. Egg 7: Base Layer: The seventh egg is a paradise rifle egg, It has this almost golden base with these thick brown and red markings at the top and at the bottom. The palette of use for this egg is yellow ocher for the base, with some burnt umber for the shadowy areas I then used a few different mixes of brown for the markings, some of which already on my palette from earlier eggs, I use a washy brown mix of three primaries my burnt umber and then a mix of my burnt umber and indigo for a really nice dark brown. I'm going to start with my yellow ocher to paint the base and get the shape of the egg. I'm now going to use a little of my burnt umber just around the darkest areas or the edges to build that shadow up. Once that dries, let's move on to the base of the next egg. 18. Egg 8: Base Layer (Masking Fluid): First egg, I've used masking fluid as my first layer to get these white speckles and I've covered it in a deep blue indigo. We want to start by masking out all of these speckles. I have my masking fluid and I've just put a small amount of this into a separate dish. I have this silicone color shaper, which is nice and pointing. It's a size zero, so it's nice and small. I much prefer using these over paint brushes as you can just pull the masking fluid off once it's dry, and it doesn't damage your tool, whereas the masking fluid will ruin your brushes pretty quickly. I'm just going to use a shaper to dot the masking fluid all over the egg. I'm going to spend a bit of time doing this so I make sure that I cover as much of the egg as possible, and I make these dots as small as possible. We want to wait until this masking fluid is completely dry before we paint over it. Lets get back to the last egg and finish off the details. 19. Egg 7: Details: For the details of this egg, we want markings of different shades of brown, so I'm going to start with this washy brown mix, which is on my palette from earlier. This was made up from my three primaries, I'm going to start from the top of my egg and paint these marking, teasing a kind of flaky motion downwards following the curve of the egg. I'm using my size full brush for this, make these markings different sizes, some smaller than others. Then I'm going to do the same starting at the bottom and working upwards. I'm mostly leaving the center of the egg align here. Now am going to pick up my burnt amber and start layering this with dark markings, if your painting is too wet, just wait a few minutes for it to dry before adding the second layer of detail. Use different concentrations of these mixes to get more texture, especially using darker mixes at the edges. Now I'm going to add a tiny amount of my indigo to the burnt amber to darken up a little, and layer these over the top. You should be able to see all of these different mixes of brown coming through, different values and different shades so it gives a really nice effect. Okay, once you've finished this egg, I think the masking fluid needs a bit more time to dry so let's continue with our last two eggs and then come back to that one at the end. 20. Egg 9: Base Layer: The ninth egg that we'll be painting is based on the nacunda nighthawk egg which has a golden base and is covered in this reddy-brown pigmentation. The palette I've used for this egg is yellow ocher for the golden base again, and Indian red with a touch of indigo for the details. For these details, we'll be using a dry brush effect. So I'm going to start with my yellow ocher for the base. So now we have our base painted, let's move on to the 10th final egg. 21. Egg 10: Base Layer: For the tenth egg, I'll be using a pale blueway-gray mix for the base. I used a mix that was already on my palette, which is made up of my indigo and burnt umber. But you can use your three primaries if you wish, you will be able to get very similar color. I then use my three primaries to mix up a dark purpley black for the details. I'm going to start with this blueway-gray mix, which is already on my palette and paint in the base of the egg, keeping it nice and light. We want this to be one of the paler eggs. I'll also wait for that base of dry. Let's go back to our last egg and paint in some of those details. 22. Egg 9: Details Part 1: For the details of this egg, I'm going to be using my Indian red and one of my smallest brushes, my Size 20, because I want these details to be really fine. I'm going to be using a dry brush effect all over, building out from the edges and layering them with dark mixes so that texture shows through. If you need to test your mixes out first on a scrap piece of paper to make sure your brush is dry enough, every time you apply more paint to your brush, please do so. Keep using your paper towel to take off any excess water and dry out the brush. Let's wait for that to dry and we can come back and build up some of these areas, particularly around those edges in a bit. Now let's go back to our tenth egg and add in the details. 23. Egg 10: Details: For the details of this tenth egg, I'm going to use my three primaries to mix up a really concentrated purply black color. So I'm going to add some fresh paint to my palette to make sure it's really dark. Now I'm going to start around the edges and build up these markings with my small brush, add some small fine details randomly around, make sure they don't look too uniform and consistent. They should be a bit splattered about. Okay, now that's finished. Let's go back to our ninth egg and add in some final dark layers to finish it off. 24. Egg 9: Details Part 2: Now that this is dry, I'm going to continue building on this texture with my engine red, especially around these edges to make those areas darker. I'm still using this dry brush effect so the paint is really patchy and textured. I'm going to mix up a darker mix using a touch of my indigo and my engine red and use this in the more shadowy areas. Now that we've finished this egg, we can go back to our eighth egg with the masking fluid which should now be dry. 25. Egg 8: Painting & Removing Masking Fluid: So before we start painting you want to make sure that this masking fluid is completely dry. I'm going to use my Indigo for this egg, it's quite a concentrated mix of it so it's nice and dark. I'm going to use my size two spot brush so I can make these edges nice and neat around the masking fluid. I'm adding the concentrated mix all the way around the edge and then I'm going to use a little water with my brush to play out so we have a nice gradient towards the highlighted area. Now we just want to wait until this paint is completely dry before taking off the masking fluid. Now that the paint is dry, I'm just going to use my finger to rub the masking fluid off, so be careful when you're doing this not to pull a tear as this will easily rip your paper, to take it easy and work fairly gently. Now that I have removed all of the masking fluid, I can see that some of the white areas are bigger than I want them to be, I want them to be nice and spawl and speckle. So I'm going to use my small brush with my indigo and fill in bits of these areas. I'm going to use a darker concentration around the edges and a washing mix towards the highlight. Once I finish filling in any areas, I'm going to use a little water on my brush around the more shadowy areas to add a glaze across the white areas and this will pull that indigo over this areas so it looks like it's in a bit more shoddy. Just be careful when doing this, you don't want to make those areas too dark. Now we've finished all 10 of our eggs. If you've painted along with me for all of these or even just some of them, well done. I hope you've enjoyed the class and that you feel more confident painting different textures now. I can't wait to see your work. In the next video, I'll just be sharing a few final thoughts, including a little bit about the next class I'm working on for you. 26. Final Thoughts: Congratulations, I assume that because you've made it to this final video, you have now painted some or all of the eggs. I really hope you've enjoyed the class and you've had fun trying out different textures and brushstrokes. Please do share your work in the student gallery for me to see. If you'd like any feedback or have any questions, I'd be happy to help. You can also show your work with me on Instagram where I like to feature my students' work in my stories. Just tag me in the photo of your work at Sharone Stevens Design. You can also use the hashtag, learnwithsharone. For my next class, I'm planning to continue with the theme of watercolor textures, with the class focused on painting different styles of wood. So hopefully, you're already following me. But if you're not then don't forget to click that button so you get notified of the class when it's published, and you'll get any other updates as well. Okay, I'll see you in the next class.