Demystifying Liquid Watercolor and Creating Magic

1. Welcome to class: Hi, guys. I'm Camilla and Army watercolors from Denmark. And today we're going to cover the mysterious liquid water colors here. And you might ask Wiley good watercolors when we have all these amazing pants and troops already. And that's a good question. I think the most important feature about the watercolors in the liquid form is that they're super vibrant. The colors are amazing and they spread like water already. So they have another field through him, and they actually super easy to implement in your daily work. And I hope to exemplify that by showing you some techniques and comparing it to the pan colors. So, uh, it'll be super easy to find a way to implement it in your work as a class project, we're gonna pay a koi fish really like this amazing koi fish. We're gonna use all the techniques that we come and create an amazing project. And I hope you'll uploaded in the project gallery. I would love to see your work and the attack me on instagram if you like. And let's get started by looking at some materials 2. Tools and Materials: Now we're ready to look at some materials, look understand out by a paper, and this is canceled 300 grams so it can hold a lot of water. I think that's perfect for the liquid water coast. Then we have the round brushes in different sizes. You can use whatever you like, and I have a fan brush, and that's that's optional. But I use it for texture, and I actually have an acrylic brush here, and I use that protector as well. And you can use use whatever you have handy. Then I have a micron here. It's a fine line of syrup 0.1 and the White Gilpin for details. Of course, there's some tissue is always and the essential water, and I have a regular plastic pellet pellet here for mixing and diluting with water. And I have salt and its regular salt that just looks fancy in this container, actually, an old container put soft in. When I have this pan collar, it's Payne's gray, and you said throughout the painting, just to show how you can use the liquid with pain cars. And then I used these to liquid water coast to simplify its um, Agencia and a ultra Marine violet only use these two, and that is it. For now, before diving into the actual painting and techniques, I have a few notes about the liquid watercolors. First of all, as I said before, they're super intends and vibrant, vibrant colors and then the l transparent. So not opaque like wash. They're not always light fast, and that depends on the brain, but the ones I'm using or not. So if you want to preserve your work, scan it in. This is good for illustrations that's going to be prince and stuff like that. But it's not very good for find out that you're gonna sell like it is. Then they relatable went dry, and that is both really cool that you can go in when the painting is actually dry and manipulate with water. But it's also a challenge when you are painting transparency and stuff like that, and then a little goes a long way. I used my colors for several months, and I can't even see that I took any of it, so that is pretty cool. There are a lot of brains out there, but the two main players are equal lines and Dr Peter Martins And in this class, I'm gonna cover ICO lines. And I know a lot of you have Doctor pH. Man, and I totally get that. They are so beautiful and the containers are so cute, and you can easily follow this close as well. The techniques are the same, but do go to their website and check out there the specifications as well. They can be a little bit different from the ICO lines, and then there might be other brands out there. I think plena marketing actually is about to launch a new line off. They could Warnaco's. I look forward to that, but again, if you have other brains, check their website and do it. After you've seen this class, I think you can hopefully learn a lot. And now it's time to go over some techniques 3. Basic Techniques: to get to know these mysterious liquid watercolors were actually gonna look at them just like regular water colors. And we're gonna cover techniques that we used with the normal ones as well. So I created this judge, shot a basics one and 8 61 and fill them in with liquid watercolors and hand colors so we can compare them. And these are super basic techniques. You all know them. It's wet on wet. Wouldn't dry the transparency stuff like that, and we're gonna look at them and see how we conducive. So let's stop. I go over these, and after that we'll do some examples. Okay, we start by the basic techniques here, and I compare liquid water hose to water color pants and we start with wet on wet. And as you can see the super vibrant on this side and very diluted on this side and the liquid water cause actually pulling up and not spreading us nicely as the pan Coz and I also pressed by this, I must say. But apparently that's how they work. So that's good to be my foot boat. Then this wouldn't dry. They have some super sharp edges and they do both of them, but the edges are sharp on the liquid side. I think that's because they're more pigment in the in the liquid form. Then there's a tricky one that is transparency. And it was actually hard to get all the values out off liquid watercolors. And that's just because they are. How did you control with the with water? But you can mention, and I'll show you in Annex table later. And there's a glazing leering, and I ended a lack of color and then a very diluted one on top of it, just to see how much replete in the into each other. And as you can see, they actually both them bleed. And you can't really help that the last one is lifting for all our group sees, and I used 80. It's issue from the left one and a brush on the right one. And as you can see it, ah, it's not easy to get it back to square one on the liquid watercolors. That, and that's because it stains the paper a lot. So you have to be super careful, not Teoh paint over your white space. Now this that fun judge the texture one, and we start up with dry brush. And as you can see, that's a lot difference here. And that's because there's a lot off water in the pigment already. So even though you would use a dry brush, it will behave like a wet brush almost until it. It kind of uses that water so you can see on the pain inside you. It's a lot dryer, and I actually use and colors mostly for this driver's technique. This water blooms on the left. One is I applied the border a little later, so it was a dryer bridge. They spread super nicely in the assault, and that works really nice on liquid watercolors. Well, and I'm happy about that because I love that effect. Then we have one of my favorites, favorites, which is splatter, and I actually prefer the the liquid watercolors when doing splatters because they're just easier to control and you apply them like this. All this and super easy. There's a lot of texture and movement in your painting. And speaking of favorites, I have my ink details here. That's a fine line up. I used on top of it just to see if it it works and you have to use a waterproof eyeliner. If using water on some of it, you can see the white joke. And actually it works better on the panko us than on the other colors. And I think that's because they're small pigment in the liquid watercolor and change through the Gilpin. It's a shame, but we can work with it. And that is all the technique I'm gonna cover. And we're gonna go in depth with it in the in our examples, So I'll see you there in a second. 4. Vibrant galaxy: Okay, so that was the techniques for now. So let's start by painting a galaxy to show off some of those techniques. So we're going to stop by putting some of the paints in the palette. And these pains come with eight stupor. Handy trouble tool. So we can easily put the paints in the palette. If you don't have a rubber and your your pain already, you might want to go out and get an eyedropper to easily get the pain out of the container you want to avoid using the brush in the container can contaminate it. I drew a circle here, and you can use a cup to trace it. So you want to get a nice even circle? No, I'm just using a big brush to apply water inside the circle and the you noticed a filming outside. And that does make a difference here because the border will dry out faster. That IHS kind of inconvenient, but just keep applying order, and at some point it will be a with circle and the as your guests, we're gonna use this circle too. Try out the wood on wood technique and I'm sure you all no this technique. If you come as far as liquid water cause you probably tried pan cause and you because as well and you stick this technique and I'm just using a temp brush here, you can see it's already drying out, and I'm trying to to fix it. Um, I'm not wearing the paint. It's It's wet already. So it's almost like applying water in water, which is which is kind of funny. You'll see in some of the next examples that it does spread east more easily when it's not drying out this fast. But you can see that this gives some nice effects, and when applying water it will spread even more. So you can. You can work out from the the places you already applied it and C year. There was a lot more water, so it spreads super nicely. That's actually one of my favorite features about this pain is that it's It spreads so beautiful in horror, and I'm actually by luring the world the paint us well with border. One of the things about these paint is that it's very vibrant, and it can actually it can look a bit unnatural. But by diluting it with border and mixing it. It helps a lot. And as you can see, I picked up my small Payne's gray here, which is a panko to show you that it's super easy to to use pen covers alongside the other colors. And it has actually mixes super well. I think it's and I never used liquid water cars along because the pen colors and the true cause really makes them work more natural and gives them some some some tents that they can really provide for themselves. The liquid water coast kind of gives us all the color and vibrancy and the the pen close kind of get them down to Earth again. I now let the painting dry a bit, and now I'm gonna do a bit off blazing are layering. Look, I'm actually doing this with my break, and I'm doing it in in on the edge off this galaxy to giving him more dimensional look, and I'm just applying the paint, and afterwards I'm going in with a day brush and softening it. And as you can see, it doesn't disturb when you don't use that much border, it doesn't disturb the the painting underneath so even though that these paintings will really activate when it you can do placing like this. And I think for a galaxy, for example, this the shadow makes a lot of makes it pop a little bit more. I am almost holding the brush completely flipped on the paper when applying the water to give an even spread. But drawings aboard too much water. I'm actually going in a second time to to give it even more color. You can see it. It It already made a lot of difference, you see? I think so. And now I'm move, applying another layer of color to my to my original Galaxies galaxy colors. Ah, and that is just too deepened. Um, a bit. And the giving them with more dimension. This will. I'm trying to do this a little wedding with as well, but applying sold this time I really love salt in liquid watercolors because they besides from retracting some of the color and the creating an amazing texture. They also kind of messed with the colors underneath it, which is kinda cool, him doing a little bit of lifting because I applied too much water, so lifting can you can easily use that to remove some excess water or paint. Just ah, be mindful that the's pains to stain or than regular one. So getting back to square one with the white paper is hot, and I never actually managed it. I think it's impossible. Ah, even try it. But be careful in the mindful off, leaving whitespace at first. Now I'm just going in with a damp brush and softening the edges. And here it is as super nice features that you can actually review it. The paint. And I'm not doing it with all the inches cause I like the texture of so that it is being shot. The pain is great in the bottom, right? Gonna keep that. But some of the others I'm gonna soften and especially the ones that applied here at a late stage on certain. Now I'll just let the the painting dry a bit and we'll get back to it in seconds. So completely dry when removing assault from a a painting, you have to make sure that it's super dry. And I actually did this a couple of times because it wasn't right. Eso really be careful about that I'm going to apply different media. This is the white to create some. That's actually I think, inside the galaxy just kind of fun, because there's not stars in Galaxies the outside of the galaxy, But we're still applying it. And I think it looks cool. And I'm just doing small clusters of last year and always in on even number, and I think it's Yeah, I don't know. I think I think it looks better with its uneven numbers and they are kind of clustered together and just randomly spread out. And then I'm gonna use my my crone here just to make an outline, to make the rich look a little bit nicer. Even though, uh, I did stalking ditches and do all this stuff. I really like to create the outline as well. And that's just my style. You could do it either way you like. I just for some reason can't seem to hate anything without Inc. And, uh, I know it's an addiction, but I like it so you can do how ever you like just removing from the pit of sold here and here you can see the final results just gonna make good shower here can see this some nice texture going on with the salt. And, uh, it's been spreading super nicely and let us out first exercise with them. 5. Delicate flowers: As you might have noticed, we didn't quite cover all the techniques in this first example. So before we head into the class project, I'm going to do another quick example. What? We're gonna go in depth with the last techniques. In the second example, we're gonna work with the transparency and values. I'm just going to start by putting a little bit of pigment in the separate room here in the palate. And I'm just applying a lot of water to really water it down to kind of, ah, get rid of some of that very vibrant color. And I'm doing the same with the Makinson. It's kind of out of the picture, but I'll do it super fast, so hopefully it's not gonna be a problem. I'm just going to stop by putting down down some of the what, it down, color him and this gonna be a lose floral arrangement and it's going to be super lose. Um, just a picture. It might be some kind of tulips, maybe, uh, but you can see just not really mindful about anything but getting some shapes down here. And I'm kind of just using. I'm only using the border down paint at the moment and trying to paint some shapes behind the others. And it doesn't matter that they bleed a bit into each other. I like that. And now I'm just lending making a little bit more. I actually used up my pain really fast, but you can easily do that. Just more pigment and more water. And if you're interested in flowers, you can take my loose floral class if you like, have one on greenery as well s O That was just a little service announcement, but seriously, feel free. Okay, now that it dried a bit, you can see I just stepped my finger to make sure dried to apply a second layer and here can see the transparency happening. It's not sugar easy to create transparency with these colors because they re wet a reactivate. When When we're so you have to be be a little bit careful here and now I'm switching up the values so I'm not only using the super watered down, I'm actually using some with the more pigment to make it more interesting painting, but still focus in on on creating some transparency and just some some movement. Actually almost using the the original color there. And I think by using these different values, especially when you have so few colors like I'm using here. Bettors are key to making an inter interesting painting. And now I'm just going to apply a little bit of Payne's gray for the stems here, and that is just very lightly, uh, thin, thin stroke and nothing too serious. I really like the loose arrangement because they so playful and fun, and you can do almost whatever you like. I don't even have to look, liken, accept lower. You just have to make it feel like flowers. I'm just adding some water down leaves in the violence, and you can see that I'm actually kind of moving away from the original cars here because I kind of mixed on the go and you can. You can, of course, mix mix the colors ahead of time, but I'm kind of mixing them in the pelant and in water. And I'm not being super careful, and I know some Penis would hate that method, but I really like the the way that you can't really predict what what will be the outcome. See that fly on painting there has the bleed from the other two flower that I really love. I'm just doing a little bit off layering here to make the flowers more dimensional again. The I'm using the Paynes grey to create some shadow and some definition. And as you can see, I'm being super careful because I don't want it to bleed into the others. Other colors. Oh, and there was a little bit of lifting. Yes, I did apply way too much water on that flower. So and you can lift either with a brush like I did just here or with a tissue Leggett it in the last example here. I'm just doing even more definition on the flower and just wedding the brush a bit to create some some nice self ditches. You don't have to do this. I just like to do it to create some dimension in your flowers. And if you like reference pictures, I'm doing this from my head. But go to Pinterest and find reference photos there. So much inspiration and don't use it to copy it. But gives it is as an inspiration to just look at the shapes and even the colors off the flowers, but don't copy it. It's so much more fun to just go with the flow and get inspired and see him almost out of paint again, actually, using quite a bit painting this this one, even though these paints really go a long way with very little. But I am using a lot of water to, and I think that a lot of the pigment goes into the water jar as well. Now I'm gonna take this actually acrylic brush and it's It's dry. It's a dry brush. I'm just going to apply some of the paint directly from the the pet pellet and doing some lights drugs here to create some texture on the flower, and I'm mixing it up. So I'm using both the magenta and the violent, and I'm doing this to great texture, of course, and an interest in the painting. I think that a watercolor can be a little flat, so by creating texture, you get some super NYSE interest and you can see it already change its changes. The feel of the painting a lot and you couldn't use whichever brush you like. Uh, I'm doing the pains great here as well, and I'm actually using that to create some depth again in the bottom of the flowers. Whether would be shadow. And you can use whatever brushes I tried to say, Um, you as long as it's dry, you can use whatever brush you like and last time toe at some of my beloved Inc. And since these are not exactly houses, can be a little a little hot. But I'm just winging it, trying to make them look like something that could be a flower. And I am kind of imagining tulips in my head. So So I have some reference to go from. But these these outlines are super lied and, uh, and not really outlines at all, just to just to shape the flower a little bit. Or and besides from outlining, I'm doing the the inside as well, and I am having my hand in the way on. I apologize for that, but I'm trying to just shape the flower him with some strokes just to indicate the leaves and which way the direction let go. And I did speed up this process a little bit, so I'm not drawing quit this fast just so don't feel intimidated and they go. I've finished my I think, and I am doing some splatter here, and that is one of my favorite techniques. And that is super easy with the liquid water coast. It's easier, I think, then the pain colors and they have the final results. You could see this so many value differences here and the that's super vibrant, almost unnatural field is totally gone, I think, and you get some nice texture with the flowers because of the dry brush. So oh yeah, and that very lovely Mackenzie is shining through up here, and I really love that pop of color as well. And it's better. I love this better, and that is it from a 6. The magical Koi Fish: you've done all the hard work now and you've hopefully learned some new techniques about legal oracle stand painted these to practice pieces. And now it's time for the fun part, which is, of course, the class project. And as I mentioned earlier in the class project, we're gonna paint koi fish and I love core fish. And that's super freaky. I know, but they are so cute. And the if the fish can be cute, of course, and they cannot look super vibrant. So they're perfectly liquid watercolors, and they cannot look like they've been painted by what a cause themselves. They are so fluent in there, this shape and, uh, and pattern. So I think they're perfect for this exercise. And I uploaded a a sheet of drawing off the fish that I'm gonna paint so you can download it and paint along with me if you like, and just trace over it. And that would be perfect. And if you like to to to draw your own fish, of course, that's totally fine. And I would love to see that as well. And I would really love to see what you come up with. Don't, uh, don't hold back. I've load your projects in the product, gallery and segment instagram so I can see it there as well. That would be so fun. That is totally the reason that I'm that I'm doing this. That's because I can. I can see what you guys are doing. So that's not most more, much more to say than, uh, let's start painting so you can see I have my my drawing off my fish here. And it's the same as I uploaded uses just not in pencil, but in pixels. And I'm just wedding this first fish in the places I want my color to go and just dabbling in the color in wedding, would you can see um uh, using the color to move the pain here. And I really want that watery fields to the paint because that's really what the's koi fish all about. The special thing about core fish is that they have spots of color. They have a lot of white space, and then they have ah texture on the this scales and stuff like that. I'm just randomly dropping in some some pain here, and even though that paint up towards the tail had dried. I am manipulated with border, and I could easily make it flow again. And I'm careful that the pains are not mixing too much. Otherwise, I would lose that. Spot it character off the fish, and I'm implying some Payne's gray as well. Just like the practice pieces. I use Payne's gray here to, and I'm actually going to use quite a lot off pains, great on the head, but being mindful that I'm not painting over the eyes. But I think that the paint grade really helping to define the fish when painting the head, you can see it's already already looking like a fish, which is cool. We have a lot of a long way to go yet, but it's it's looking good. Allow it. I'm seriously loving those vibrant colors, the amazing in there when you can dilute it with water and mix them with the with the pen Carlos say, bring the whole piece to life and them trying to paint around the eye here just to give myself some room later. And these, uh, funny little hair I'm not sure that is actually I'm painting that in a swell, and now I can see, I'm using my fan brush and this is a dry brush, and I am going to use it for the the fin and the father. Vincent, too, can see that it creates a nice movement, and I actually think that dry brush is perfect for this. Those fishy details, like fins and until it's super light, strokes here, especially because when when it is liquid water, cause there's a lot of water in it already. So if you go go harder with the brush, it'll be more watery. But if you keep it super light, it'll just be the the dry strokes. And it catches even see, creates a lot of movement to the fish and actually have a lot of texture because of that dry brush, I kind of place that Finn in a in the wrong place. That's okay. That's okay. I don't think the fish minds does he know? I actually, now I wet my brush and that you have to do that, especially when you're using different colors. But you have to get really dry before you use it again. And now I'm actually doing the same to the other fish here. Just wedding. It why I want the the pigment to go and dropping in some wouldn't wit color, and you can see the wedding wit technique works a lot better here than in the galaxy, and, ah, I think that's because I'm outside and it could be a little tricky to control the drying time. But I'm using less water here and in the galaxy where you had to keep the whole circle wet . Here. It's easier to control, and I'm using the Paynes grey as well on the on the head, just to get at the definition and the little around the sides to find fish, but also diluting that with water. You can see him super mindful about keeping white space. And if you look up koi fish, they are very much by print and colorful, but also have a lot off white and they actually not. Not these two colors, that is, uh, that's just my interpretation. They are usually more like Brett and an orange, but you can go either color you like. I just happen to like those colors and I'm going in with a fan brush chicken, which is little hard to control because it's it was wet, but, uh, where did my paint with another brush? And, uh, uh, I'm able to get some nice nice texture here and getting the fencing, and I'm kind of mixing between using the Paynes grey and using the the water colors. The other water cause liquid watercolor paints. Gray is off course, also a watercolor that's just a pan color. I'm being pretty loose about thes strokes, and, as you can see in the tracing image I provided you, that's not much to it. There's only simple lines, and I think that's that is enough for a painting like this where you can play and lose. I think the main shape is the most important thing. Just, you know, what's a precision? The fins and that sale and oops, I just dropped my pressure pit. That happens a lot, So if you does that happen to you guys, I'm throng around my brush all the time. Never mind. I'm just going in with a Payne's gray now, too, to glaze the sat here and gets him some definition and some shadow on the fish. This is actually dry now. The wooden wouldn't wit foundation, so this is more like a wouldn't dry technique now and I'm going to the fence as well to define it. So we have that nice texture and the on the edges off the fin. But also it has some somebody to it. So it actually looks like a fin. And you can see here as well that I preserved the eyes so we can go in later and and to find them. And I'm just softening the edges here. Yes, you can see with the like like with the galaxy. I'm not manipulating the paint underneath. I'm not using that much water. So that reactivated and ruined the super nice texture I got already and I'm doing the same over here with my first crawfish. Seriously, Encore fish. Amazing! I read somewhere that they can be up to 165 years, which is really crazy, and I posted it on Instagram, and apparently that is a myth. So I've been fooled. But I was amazed by that fact until I found out that they can only be like 15 or 20 years. But now the tail was so cool that I'm kind of sticking to it anyway, That means they've seen a world without instagram in the cars Smartphones. I love cool stuff, actually, but they've seen all the development. Well, they haven't because of a myth. But you get the gist. I'm just, ah, working in some move. Some small details here. Remember, it's dry now so I can go in with a a paintbrush and do some some more detail work defining the fence and on the H issue and that Finn looks really weird. But we live with that. I'm not gonna visit up and let's soften those edges to. Otherwise, it'll look like it has a black stripe, which is kind of weird. And I'm just going to paint a paint the back here as a kind of a line defining the back of the fish. And then it has some small texture. Elements here is I think it's the scale actually, that you can you can see in photos of of course fish. And I think just adding those small strokes, that makes a lot of difference. And I'm just that they do. They do dry lighter than the one applied. So mostly going in now and and just especially the Paynes Grey because that will dry, a lot lighter, just going in and and darkening those those tones. And here, um, besides, from having my head in this jet, I am trying to. So from that back stroke as well, so it's not quite is obvious. And now all the go in and add some shadow underneath the fish. You and I think that's a nice touch that really makes the the fish pump off the page. I'm just waiting the area on underneath Fisher in a fish like shape, so it looks a little like like the fish. And then I'm just they're looting some off the pigment here to make it less vibrant, and I'm mixing it. So get another tone here. So it's more like a purple, almost like lavender color. And I'm being careful that these share shadows are not too intense. It has to make the fish pup, and if you make it too intense, it will overshadow the fish. Kind of funny that it's a shadow could overshadow, but okay, details. So I'm doing the same over here, and you can actually see some of the fish is, uh, it's bleeding into the water that apply? No, I think It's really cool, creates a nice effect. Nice, fluent and watery effect. And I really like. And I think that actually emphasizes the qualities of watercolor, so totally keep that and be happy about it. But that's just my painting style, and you can easily just wait until it's completely dry. And it won't do that, especially if you keep the water a little away from from the actual fish. And I'm just darkening the shadow right underneath the fish. So it's it's more. Oh, and there's some splitter. Blatter is so one of my favorite effects, and it really makes the painting come alive, and I actually kind of splatter some of it in the wet paint as well, and that create some nice movement to There you go. I waited for it to dry, and it's time to go in with my fine line. And again, I'm just kind of kind of making gestures here. I'm not doing an exact outline, and especially here where it's white. I'm being careful to not overtake it with with the fine line, and that would be a shame for the fish. But just trying to define the main shapes here. The older texture in the sale. I'm not gonna touch that with fine liner because I grew in it, but I can do the outlines of a little, and that will define the fish more. And, of course, those hairs. That is a special feature for the the koi fish. So it's it's really important to have that in the painting as well. And I am trying to do an eye here, and I think, no, it's a little hard to see, but you can see it in the final painting. But it's just the basic technique here is just to to paint a round shape and makes sure to leave some some white in the in that So you have a highlight and them doing doing a few strokes on the outside as well. And now I'm taking my my Gilpin to do some some highlights on the fish. Yes, we all know fish live in water, and there's a lot of reflections in water, and that will reflect on the the fish as well. So I think highlights on. That would be amazing and really make it look like it's in water. No, I'm actually going to go in and what with the shadow a bit more just to make it even more dark and put some solden just to get some texture and get a feel off the on the ground that they swimming over. I'm just going to do that here. This will just re wedding, just talking a bit. And so opening the inches insult. No, we, uh, slowly coming to an end here, just doing a little finishing touches here to the painting. But we are almost done. And I think this has been such a fun challenge to paint coefficient. I really hope that you take up this challenge to paint these beautiful fish with me, and in a second, I'll be done with this painting, and, uh, I will see you to a brief wrap up. 7. Wrapping up: that is it for now. I hope you learned some new tricks and hopefully get a little more confident using these bad boys. And I hope you can get them out of the closet and implement them in your daily routine. I would love to see your class project your koi fish, so upload them in your class projects section and on Instagram and take me so can see them . That would be so fun. And if you like the class, please leave a review and a thumbs up that helps other students find the class more easily . So thank you a lot. And thanks a lot for taking this class with me. It's been super fun to teach is always and you can always check out my other classes as well. They are also on watercolour and ink, and the next one will be a swell. So hit the follow button up here. If you wanna know when the next one is out and there's not much more to say than the grab your brushes and start painting and then I'll see you next time