Draw with Me: Expressive Sketching with Gouache & Colored Pencils

1. Intro: Hi, everyone. I'm Julia Henze, a professional artist, a top teacher here at Skillshare, and an urban sketcher based in the Netherlands. I love to experiment and use different materials in many artworks. A combination of gouache and colored pencils is absolutely one of my favorites. I hope during this course you will fall in love with it too. So this course is not about drawing windows, as you might think. What I was teaching in my previous class, windows in watercolor, developed drawing, shadowing, and painting skills where we learned how to draw windows in general, apply shadows and paint glass and reflections in watercolor. This class focuses on gouache technique I use for most of my urban sketches. It helps me make them look impressive, whimsical, and dynamic. At the same time, it releases the pressure of perfection and reduces the fear of failure. Because I'm building up the sketch from a very loose first layer and refining it along the way by adding details and shadows. As you might know, refining is usually much easier than drawing or painting something at once. In this class, I will start by taking you through the tools and materials I'm going to use and give my suggestions to to. Then we will do some color mixing, put a color palette together, play a bit with gouache and colored pencils. Finally, we will create a finished project, a beautiful window sketch. I will take you through the step-by-step process of making a loose and lively drawing and give you lots of tips and tricks. By the end of this class, you will have much more knowledge and confidence in creating an impressive gouache and colored pencil sketch. This is an excellent class for people who are relatively new to gouache or have more experience but want to learn painting in this style. Even if you're a beginner, give it a try. Following my instructions, you will be able to create a wonderful artwork. Are you ready for a new adventure? Let's get started then. 2. Tools & Materials: Sketching with gouache and colored pencils is always an enjoyable adventure. There's absolutely no need to be afraid of making mistakes because even make some, we can always fix them easily with another gouache layer or some pencil strokes. Let me show you what we're going to use in this class. First, we will need some gouache, of course. As you can see, I have quite a limited color palette here. Yellow, red, two blue's, my favorite colors, so one is definitely not enough for me. Burnt sienna and two whites. A transparent one for mixing with other colors to make them look less bright. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to use it for our sketch, but it's always good to have it. An opaque one for painting non-transparent layers and highlights. This one one be very important for this class. It's great if you have some more colors, especially some special ones. It's always cool to play with them and look at how their make some work together. But actually, this small set will be enough for most of your sketches. [MUSIC] Then we need some colored pencils of different colors that match our gouache paints, but are not exactly the same. A few dark ones, for shadows and counters, and a few light ones for the highlights. We're going to need a regular pencil for the preliminary sketch. I prefer 2B, which is quite soft and easy to remove, especially with this kneaded eraser. It looks a bit strange at first sight, but this eraser is very soft and doesn't damage the paper as some other erasers do. Then paint brushes. I commend synthetic brushes for gouache because they provide much more control than the most natural hair brushes, are less expensive and work very well. I'm going to use these three synthetic brushes for this class. This one stroke professional credit color size strand for the largest areas, around size eight, it's called a [inaudible] for smaller areas, and around size two. A [inaudible] for small areas and details. Next, you will need a palette for mixing gouache colors. A sketchbook or a sheet of mixed media or watercolor paper. I'm going to use this etches perfect sketch book, but you really don't need anything fancy, gorgeous great on pretty much any paper as long as it is not too thin, the thickness is essential for avoiding buckling. The best paper for gouache paint needs a thickness of at least 200 grams per square meter. Then we will need some draft paper of the same thickness, a tape, a paper towel, a jar of water, and a spray bottle. Not always necessarily, but when I use old paint from the palette, it's good to have it within reach two violet. That's all for materials. Let's get started. 3. Create a Color Palette: [MUSIC] I think this is the most fun and most wonderful part of any sketching process. When there is no pressure of making something perfect, beautiful, or whatever we tell ourselves we have to do when we don't dare to do. Because imagine that we make a mistake and then there is actually no pressure at all. Nothing will happen if you make a mistake or even if the whole artwork fails. However, we often have the idea that we have to perform and create something perfectly beautiful. This cause tension in our muscles and we end up performing even worse than we normally would. To prevent all of this, we need to do three things. First, we need to tell ourselves that we're learning now, and making mistakes is an important part of the learning process. Without mistakes, your brain won't learn anything at all. It will just live along happily, never really growing. Embrace mistakes, they are the engine that drives learning. Second, we need to loosen up our drawing hand before we start to work on the actual sketch. You can grab some draft paper or make some thumbnails or do warming up exercises. However, this time we won't make thumbnails, but instead we will try to kill two birds with one stone in a very playful and relaxing way. We will do the warming up and choose color for our sketch. Both will increase our confidence and decrease the tension. Third, we have to keep in mind that the technique we will use in this class will allow us to fix almost any mistake we possibly can make by adding a new gouache layer or drawing or refining with colored pencils. Let's start. In previous part, I showed you the colors I like to use in most of my sketches. I'm also going to use them for this sketch. Maybe you've noticed that there was no green tube between them. Well, we will definitely need some greens for our sketch, for the green of course, and for the shutters. We could use green right from the tube, which is much easier to do. But your painting will always look much more expressive with mixed colors. First thing I like to do is create some green mixes and choose the ones I like the most for my sketch. By the way, if you want to paint shutters with another color or you use your own reference for this class, no problem, just try to do the same with the colors of your choice. In my class, working with gouache and colored pencils, let's draw on homes. I'm explaining how to mix different colors using only three primary colors: yellow, red, and blue. But back to the greenery. To create a green color, we need to mix yellow and blue. If you've never mixed colors before, don't be afraid [LAUGHTER]. It's really easy to do and very fun. Just follow me. The first thing I'm going to do is just grab a good amount of yellow and put it on my palette. Then I add one of my blues. Mix them well and apply to the paper to see how it looks. Not that complicated so far, right? Then I add some blue to it to create a darker mixture. [MUSIC] Some yellow to create a lighter one. Because when we paint greenery, we will need at least three green tones to make it look lively. I think these will be my three tones. I'm very satisfied with these mixes. The greens look absolutely wonderful, but it's not a coincidence, of course. I knew that the yellow and the blue I have chosen would create a lovely green. I tried them all before and I often use this combination in my sketches, but not every combination of yellow and blue will provide a nice green mixture. I also explained it in my class, working with gouache and colored pencils. Let's draw some homes, but let's take a quick look. This is another yellow, a bit warmer than the previous one. More like the sun, not the lemon. I take it right from the tube because I need just a little bit, put on my palette and put the same blue I used before. You can already see that the color is not very attractive. It's a slime green. Definitely not what we need for our bright and cheerful sketch [LAUGHTER], right? But let's try another blue maybe it will provide a better color [MUSIC]. I'm afraid it's still not that great, but I already have a good combination. If you haven't yet, keep playing with the yellows and blues that you have and try to find the best possible mixture. If nothing works for you, you can use any green you have and add some yellow to it to make it more playful. Then we need colors with a part inside the window, that's towards interior. It will be a nice warm mixture of yellow and I want to try orange first. It wasn't on my list, but I want to show you what happens when I use this beautiful, bright transparent orange. [MUSIC] I love this mixture very much, but I'm not going to use it because it's too bright. It will be in the background, and in the background, we never use colors brighter than ones in the foreground. Let's try another color, red. [MUSIC] This is a much better mixture. Wonderful. Slightly muted orange. [MUSIC]. Next is the wall color. The color in the photograph is pretty complicated and I actually don't like it that much. So we will look at our other colors and try to find out what suits them best. Let's take some yellow, burnt sienna, to make it a bit deeper, and a drop of red to add some warmth, [MUSIC] apply it to the paper. [MUSIC] I like this color, but I think we can make it a bit richer, more interesting. Let's try some red. [MUSIC] This is much better. I love it. Next we need a color for the stuff in the display. I can take the same ultramarine I used for the greenery. But remember, I had two blues, [LAUGHTER] so we can try another one, cobalt blue. It's a less bright color and I think it will work best with a muted orange-yellow in the background. When we choose our colors, we constantly look at other colors and try to imagine how they will look together. If you're not sure, create a quick thumbnail, it will help you see the whole picture at once. Before we go with the colored pencils, I want to do a very quick exercise with painting greenery. So that it will be easier to do it in this sketch. We also need to choose a color for the flowers. I use the same mixture I've made before, apply it to the paper, and add some pure yellow, working with short strokes and blending colors right on the paper. For flowers, I actually have only one color, it's this red. [MUSIC] I can use this or get another color from the right part of the pallet. It's more pinkish red. I think I will decide later when I start painting. Colored pencils. I have a whole box here, but we certainly don't need that many colors. What we need is a green color which is darker than the shutter's color. I think this dark green will work perfectly. I apply it to the paper, [MUSIC] and see what happens. You immediately see the depth. We also need a lighter color for the highlights. I think light green will be boring, but yellow or white will be a better option. I will probably use them both to create even more contrast and playfulness. I also have a light yellow, by the way. Maybe it will work even better, we will see. [MUSIC] I love to use blue for shadows and textures, so this short guy would definitely come in handy. [MUSIC] A very dark blue will be great for details, contrast, and maybe also for shadows. I draw some objects or just a few lines to see how the color looks. I want to encourage you to do the same. Draw something to test your pencil colors and to loosen your hand. Do some hedging, draw straight and curved lines, add shadows and textures to the gouache spots we've already made and so forth. Just play for a while with your tools. This page is for practicing, so you can't do anything wrong. Once you are done experimenting with your paints and pencil colors, select the ones that you definitely want and make some notes on what colors you have mixed, which combinations are your favorites and so forth. Otherwise, you won't forget it the very next day. [MUSIC]. That's all for practice. I'm very excited about the sketch we are going to make in the following videos. Let's get going. [MUSIC] 4. STEP 1 | Make a Pencils Sketch: We start our final sketch with the preliminary pencil sketch. I love to draw loosely and maybe it looks like I just grabbed some paints and paint the whole thing without any preparations, but it's not the case. I definitely think of what I want to have in the picture and where. I want my window to be more or less in the middle of the paper, shutters more or less equal. Then I want to have enough space for the greenery. I actually would make a thumbnail if the composition were more complicated. But in this case, it's quite simple, so we will draw right in the sketchbook. To find the middle of the paper I connect the corners and check if the parts are actually equal. Then I draw the bigger shape here, the whole window including the shutters to ensure that they all fit. If I measure the height and the width of the whole window, we can notice that it's almost a square. We can grab along pen, pencil, or a brush. Not lower, please. Measure the distance between the lines we've just drawn and apply the same distance to the height. We create almost a perfect square. Now I want to divide my window into four equal parts. Two for the shutters that are half of the window, and two for the window itself. Of course, when we start to paint, things might change a bit, but we now have a very solid starting point that will help us create a great, not a wonky sketch. I get rid of unnecessary lines and draw the contour of the window. I think it should be slightly higher on the page so that I have more space for the greenery. I just move all the lines equally upwards. More like the greenery we're likely just to see if there is enough space for it and we're done. Let's erase everything lightly and carefully and go over the painting with gouache. 5. STEP 2 | Paint Loosely with Gouache: In this part we will forget all our fears and just paint loosely with full commitment. We already know what colors we want to use and how to mix them. But before we start painting, I want to show you something you need to remember for later in the painting process because we will work pretty quickly and we don't want our painting to dry while I'm explaining something. I don't know if you have already noticed, but here is essential difference from all my previous classes regarding the light source. Usually we choose one side, left or right, where the light comes from. This time the light comes from two sources, from inside the window and somewhere outside. We know that because the wall is light, which make it more difficult for us, but we are not afraid. We will think logically and decide what is easy to do for us and what will work the best for the viewer. The first light source shines from inside the window to the shutters, which makes them lighter and creates shadows and highlights. Shadows on the outer sides and highlights on the inner sides. We will draw them with colored pencils in the next part. It's not per say what you see on the photo, but it makes it easier for us to create an impressive sketch. The second outside light source makes the wall look light, and since it apparently comes from the top, it creates shadows at the top of the window and under the window in the shutters. I hope you understand how it works now. If it's still too complicated, no worries. Just follow me, and we will create a beautiful sketch together. I start with painting large areas, shutters, then the wall, and then the background and the window. For large areas we use large brushes, of course. This flat brush is perfect for painting objects with sharp corners. I add more paint to make sure I already have here because we need quite a good amount of color for the shutters. Compare with this watch and start to paint. It's okay if the color is not exactly the same. Sometimes we may expect a little more suitable color combinations along the way. The most important thing here is that you enjoy looking at the color you've created. Do you like the color? Go ahead and paint. Is the color not that beautiful yet? Just keep mixing a bit longer, adding more of one or another color. Now you can see the benefit of the flat brush. Just a few strokes and we have two shutters. I'll leave some white textures here. Not sure yet if I can use it somehow, but it's always easier to make it darker later than get it right back. Then I make some more paint for the wall. As you can see, I use a lot of water for this mixture. I want my wall to be light and a bit transparent. I explained different gouache techniques in my previous class. Let's draw some homes. This is a watercolor technique where we use a good amount of water, and not that much paint. I want to make it slightly warmer, a bit redder. Now I just color the whole wall. I'm painting on 100 percent cotton paper, and it requires even more water than any other paper, so the amount of water that will work for you depends on the type of paper you use. The smoother the paper, the less water, the rougher the paper, the more water. I add some more warm spots here and there to make the wall look less even. Now, the greenery. We have already practiced the technique in the previous video, but we will apply it on wet paper this time. Yes, like the wet on wet watercolor, if you're familiar with watercolor techniques. I grab some yellow, add it on this side of the mixture I already have here. Blend it just a bit, and start to paint with short strokes. But don't try to paint any leaves now. I forgot to say I didn't like the plant and so we will only paint the plants. Very loosely, we only make a suggestion of plants. Light at the top and darker at the bottom. The paint is still wet and I want to add shadows to the wall with burnt sienna as I showed you at the beginning of this video. The same dark color between the plants. We paint this one loosely enjoying the color flowing and blending a bit into each other. Gouache doesn't flow as easily as watercolor so it's much easier for us to control it. Now let's add some flowers, also very loosely. I use Bengal-rose, a cool red color, kind of dark pink. You can use the color of your choice of course. The next step is very cool. We need to create suggestion of the stores interior and we don't want to draw out the brick wall and the shelves. We want to keep it wake, soft, and not too present. I get back to my flat brush, grab some yellow, add my normal red to make it warmer, mix, and color the entire area varying the amount of one or another color to make it look vivid but not too bright. The same is for the top part of the window. It's slightly darker than the other parts so we can add some burnt sienna here. That's a little bit too much, I think Look at how beautiful it turns out. Now, I add some more color to the brick wall and paint the dark part in the bottom right corner, and let it dry. Next, I make the light board of the shutters lighter and dark parts darker as I explained before. Again, it's not what we see in the picture. It's our interpretation that is supposed to make our drawing look much more impressive than this quite boring photograph Now, I mark the green frame lightly, dark at the bottom because of the shadow from the outside light source. We need to add shadow on the top. I make burnt sienna darker with ultramarine. Now let's add the pattern to the wall. I didn't like that much what happens on the left here. It's not very clear and won't make always sketch any better, so I changed the pattern bit. I now use the smallest brush and the same mixture I used for the wall. Somehow it's slightly dark now, so perfect for the lines between the blocks. through all the shelves in the foreground. Make the green frame a bit darker. Paint greener with the same mixture, short strokes. Add a shadow under the window. Next, I'm going to paint the lamps in the window. I use permanent white, which opaque and covers the yellow underneath it very well. Here's nothing special. Just start to repeat the shape of the lamp. I skipped the blue one in the middle, we will do it later. Now we can use the white on the brush to add some highlights created by the light from the window. The shape of the window gets much clear now. I'm mixing burnt sienna with a little bit of blue and painting that. I didn't know, is it the three branch? I think it is. Go further with painting all the other objects in the window. I make some of them light blue so that they don't look all the same. There were a lot of objects here but as you can see, I don't try to draw exactly the same bows and jacks. I just look at what I like to draw, what works better, and what is maybe less interesting to show in the picture. Now I can add the ornaments to my lamps with cobalt blue, also simplified. Draw the blue lamp in the middle. The last thing, I add some burnt sienna to balance the composition a little bit. Now I'm actually done with the painting part, and go over the colored pencils. Sometimes I add some painted ornaments later in the process. Don't put your gouache away too soon. Maybe we will need it at a later stage. 6. STEP 3 | Refine and Add Details with Colored Pencils: The next step is refining our sketch with colored pencils. Now, we can make the wonky lines a bit straighter but not too much. It's still a loose sketch and we add details and textures that will make our sketch look really cool. I start with the ornament in the upper part of the window. I draw it with dark green, with almost no pressure at first, only to find the shape. Then press harder to draw the actual line. I add a dark brown pencil to make the lines on the wall a bit sharper. I vary the pressure to make it livelier and darken the shadows around the window. Now, move on to add shadows to the shutters according to our scheme, with my darkest green. Refine the shape of the window with the light green. Add highlights with yellow, then darken the shadow behind the window. The combination of brown and our green or blue always produces a very dark color. You can use this part for painting and drawing with pencils and markers. More highlights to make them brighter and more in contrast with the shadow behind so that there appears the tension that makes our sketch look much more vibrant, lively, and more attractive. I want to add another bar here, less present. I see that the shutter consists of two planks, an important and lovely detail, so I want to show it during my sketch. Also, here I draw both the shadow and the highlight. The same on the other side. Add textures, more highlights, more shadows, and so forth. Now, our lamps are hanging there naturally so we need to add power chords. I use a dark-blue pencil for that. Now, they look much more realistic, not like five flying saucers anymore. I add a few dots to the lamp with my favorite cobalt-blue pencil and make the shadows darker and cooler. Now, I want to refine the upper part, make the shadow darker, add highlight here, the shadow under the branch, and random shapes and details of the objects behind the glass using different pencil colors. Add some greenery too and the stripes. Here we have two marks that are pretty cool to draw. I use a dark blue pencil for that. With the same color, I had some of the click bowls and other objects, just a suggestion. Add more highlights with a very soft white pastel pencil here and there to make the sketch shine. Darken the light in the upward part. Add the shadow. Also add a few light spots where the gouache makes a share of permanent white and yellow. Use the same mixture put the highlights. This space in the background is too light and too empty now. I want to darken it as well. Some more details and textures in the background, not too many and more texture to the wall with a light brown and just a little pressure. Then grab a darker brown color and darken area find the lines between the wall blocks with some more pressure in the corners. I forgot to draw all these spots in the corner. But no problem, of course, I can draw them now. Add a few lines in the background and darken the wall behind the greenery, so it won't get forward. Add a few more details, textures, shadows, and highlights. I don't actually like the emptiness on the right side behind the shutters, but I see two pipes in the photo. I think the dark one will be enough to make it more engaging. This is the power of gouache compared to watercolor, we can add as many layers as we want to. I paint the pipe and add shadow and some details so it looks three-dimensional not so flat. It looks very good to me now. Let's get rid of the masking tape. I would say that we're actually done here, but am I already satisfied with the sketch? Honestly, not that much. I have the feeling that I can make it more impressive by adding more details let it shine. But I'm actually not sure what I need to do. Now, I want to show you something that I've never shared before, but I do this very often when I make videos for my classes or when I just throw away any other artworks. It's a very handy tool, and I would encourage you to use it when you think your sketch is done or when you get stuck or when you're in doubt. This is how it works. I get my phone, take a picture of my artwork, and look at how to improve it. It's a very small picture still you have a better overview and you look at it more like a viewer not as a creator. It makes you notice different things than when you're on top of it. You can also use another method, put your artwork aside, and look at it few hours or days later with fresh eyes. But there is a chance you will never get back to finish. The phone method works better I think. These are just a few minor adjustments, but I love it so much more now. I hope this little trick also will help you with your other artworks and make them shine a little bit more. This is it. Our sketch is really done now, I hope you enjoyed drawing it. 7. Final Thoughts: Thank you guys so much for joining me in this class. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and like this technique, I also hope that you fill in lovely little bit with these beautiful materials and that you will keep practicing and experimenting with them, and I'm so excited to see what you have created. Please share your artwork in the project gallery, and let me know if you want to get more profound feedback. I'm always happy to help you grow as an artist. Also, please take a moment to check out other students' projects and the way down a few nice words in the comment section. It's so good to encourage and motivate each other in the creative journey. As you share your artwork on Instagram, don't forget to use the hashtag Julia Hansen on the score Skillshare. I'll be happy to see your artwork there as well and share it in my stories. Also, if you have any questions, thoughts, or suggestions, please leave a comment in the discussion section under the video, I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks again. Have fun and keep practicing and keep making art. See you in my other classes. Bye bye.