Duckling Watercolor - Wet in Wet

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Nadine. Thanks for joining me for the class today we are going to be painting this little duckling. Now for this class, what this is all about, is making use of soft and hard edges. Really lots of wet in wet joining into dry paper. So you get lots of interesting things happening without really having to try very hard. And really I think the only challenging thing about this painting, and it's very, very simple and I've put it for all levels. The only thing to get your head around and is that when we paint this part of the body, is that you need to be the bit random. You need to leave some whites in the paper and trust that the paint is going to do something nice for you. So not trying to get too hung up, looking at the reference and trying to get it exactly the same. Just making use of the water and the pigment to make an interesting effect. The rest is just a few little details, little bit fiddly, but nothing too difficult. So what we'll do is go through the materials, through the sketch, and then we'll go step-by-step with this painting. And hopefully by the end, you're happy with the results. 2. Materials: I'll just run you through the materials that we're going to use today. First up the paper I'm using 300 gram Arches cold press paper. I'm painting on a board, but I'm not taping it to the board. There's not a huge amount of water on this, so it doesn't, it won't really buckle a lot, but if you'd rather tape it by all means go ahead. The reference photo you can download from the Skillshare site and with the reference photo, I've also included just a little template. If you'd rather use that, I've actually left off the little water droplet on the end of the beak, which is, it's kind of nice, but it's quite big. And although it's convincing in the photo, it can be a little bit difficult to make it look convincing on the painting. So for simplicity, I've just left that out. To sketch up. You'll need just a regular HB pencil and an eraser. Then I'm using four different brushes. So I have here. two small synthetics size two and a double 0. I think it doesn't matter what brand, preferably one with a nice point. These have been well-used so they're a little bit tatty on the ends. I'm using a Neef squirrel taklon mix 4750 LP brush size 8. This is one of my favorite brushes. It doesn't matter what you use, whatever your favorite brush is, it just needs to be a reasonable size so that you don't get too fussy. I'm doing a lot of, a lot of this detail around the face will be with the small synthetics, but for the body and the water, he needs something slightly bigger. I've also got, this is actually for the size of the painting a little bit too big. This is a bright stiff synthetic. It's just a nice stiff brush for lifting out a little bit of a highlight. If you've got a smaller one than this, that would be preferable. I'm actually using that in here and it's just a little bit, it's a little bit large. In terms of the paints. I've got a few winsor and Newton and a few Daniel Smith and I've got burnt sienna, yellow ocher and some French ultra. Now for this really the colors don't matter that much. You can paint with whatever you like, whatever your favorite colors are. And I'm certainly not being completely true to the reference. I'm just using what I like to paint with so you can use whatever takes your fancy. For the Daniel Smith paints, I'm using some Van Dyck brown, which is all this dark brown that you see, you could use burnt umber and I'm also using some indigo for the really dark darks. The last thing I'm using is some Art Spectrum white gouache. Doesn't matter what brand all I'm using that for is the little spot in the eye. So if you don't have that, you can use some china white or some titanium white would be fine. Other than that, I've just got some tissues, a pot of water, and my palette. I think that's probably all. I think we're pretty right to go onto the sketch now. 3. Sketch: So a quick word on the sketch for this one. I want to keep it really simple. So all I need is the shape of the body here. Pay attention to the shape of the beak and the position of the eye. Now I'm not going to worry too much about all the striping in here because I'm going to use my brush wet and wet to put that in. So I'll give myself a little bit of an indication, but not too fussed. I will put the position of nostril but I might end up painting over that. But just for now I'll keep that in. But I'm not going to worry about all of the detail in the water here. If that's your thing and you want to do that by all means you can put all of that in. I'm just going to pop a slight suggestion of a reflection in the water. If you don't want to sketch it and get the shape right there is a little template that you can download from the Materials page. I think we're probably ready to start painting. 4. Eye and Beak: We're going to start off really simply by just putting in a little circle of burnt sienna for the eye. Then we'll come into the beak probably with a little bit of French ultra. So, small synthetic clean water I've got some freshly squeezed burnt sienna in my well, I'll make up a milky, milky to creamy mix of that. I'm just going to go straight onto dry paper. Now I'm going to paint that slightly smaller than my pencil line just because it's really easy to get it you keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So I'm going to just shy of my pencil initially, just a really flat wash. Then I'm going to come into the beak and pop in a little bit of color. Now I think I'm going to go with my next size up. Still small synthetic. I'm going to take I think a little bit of French ultra. You can put whatever you like in, French ultra is just something that usually people have. I'm going to make up a pretty milky mix. I don't want a really strong blue in here. So really watery. Straight onto the dry page. Down in this bottom bit here. Drag that around. Down the length. I have painted over my nostril, but I can still see it. Now, while that's all wet, couple of things I'm going to do. I'm going to pop just a little flash of burnt sienna. so I want slightly thicker paint than is in the beak at the moment, because I don't want you introduce a whole lot more water less water on my brush than in the page. I'm going to drop that in to the very tip of the beak, wash my brush, take the excess water off. I'm just going to tease that in. What I don't want to do is introduce a whole lot more water because it will push that French ultra out of the way. But while this is still wet, I'm going to take a tiny bit of indigo I've got in this well, I'm going to take my excess water off the brush. And I'm just going to paint. a little bit of an indigo line while this is still wet down a couple of places in the beak. I'm not really paying attention to the reference. I just know that I want a bit more stuff on the beak and I'll come back to that later. So I've been in there a while. I need to come out, let that dry, and then come back in. 5. Body: So the next thing we're going to do is get the body and the start of the reflection in the water. This is going to be very wet in wet, and I don't want you to overthink it. What we're going to do is come on first with some patchy yellow ocher. I'm going to take my bigger brush now. I want to make up a pretty milky puddle of yellow ocher, or raw sienna, whichever you got. I'm going to paint through the head. Then onto the back here. On the back, particularly I'm going to leave some patches of dry paper. I'm going to start on the back of the head and just tease through this yellow ocher. I can touch down to the beak because I'm dry. I'm painting through these areas where I've got the brown stripes to come over the top of the head, keeping it really light for this first wash, teasing that paint down. Now when I get to the chest, and this part of the back, what I want to do here is leave some whites. So again, not overthinking it, I might start in the tip of the tail here. I'm just dragging some paint through. Really light, really milky. And I'm leaving lots of patches of white. Now while that's still wet. And then I'm gonna come into my I've got some Van Dyck brown here. Thick paint, so toothpaste consistency paint. Here now I'm going to come in and touch into that randomly, keeping it, keeping some whites in the paper, letting a mix of wet-in-wet and wet onto dry here. Now when I come to the bottom, I'm going to use the tip of my brush to create a few flicks. Coming around. I'm still wet here through the chest. Being careful to stay within my pencil lines there. Wash my brush, take off the excess water, soften that little bit there. I'm not quite ready to come up into that part yet. Now, while I've still got water here, pigment, I'm going to take my brush, clean brush, paint under the, under the duck on the page. Then I'm going to come up. I'll show you how much water I've got. If I catch the light. Pretty wet. I've not got huge pools of water but pretty damp, come up touch to that wet edge of the paint. And then I'm going to tilt my page. I'm just looking to run a little bit of that pigment down now to keep my page, I'm just going to put a tube of paint underneath my page to keep it up. Now, I probably don't have enough pigment in there. So while I've still got that wet, I'm just picking up a bit more Van Dyck and I'm just going to run it along that edge. to get some pigment to move, wash my brush, drag it through. So that's my first start of where the duck meets the water. What I'm going to do actually, I think to be nice to you, although I've normally if I was painting this for myself, I would keep coming up into this head and do the same thing here, up in the, up in the face. But you might be taking a breath after getting that in. So what I'll do is I'll let this will be dry. So I'm going to leave this for ten minutes. Then I'm going to come back and I'm going to put a little bit of water back on here to re-wet and then do darks again just so that we get that mixture of soft and hard edges. So I'll let you come out of that and sit for ten minutes and then we'll come back into the head. 6. Head: I'm dry in here now. I'm going to put my paper flat again. Then we're going to work in the head here. What I'm going to do is just get it a little bit damp. A clean brush, my middle sized synthetic. And I'm going to pop some clean water over the top of the head here. Down into the front where I touched the beak. I'm going to pop a little bit of water. in those stripes in the front of the face. So I'm just painting either side with water. The stripes through the back of the head a bit. And I'm just going to rough it up a little bit down here. So just kind of scrumbling my brush. Might just bring a little bit underneath the chin there. Now I'm going to take initially creamy Van Dyck, just going to drop that into where I've just wet. Bring it up to the top of the head. I don't ever start on the pencil, the pencil edge and come down. I tend to start in the middle of the shape and push out. Again just so that you don't make your shapes too big. Down to the front of the head here. Wash my brush and I'm just going to drag my damp brush along. that edge and I'm going to drag a little bit of pigment through that front stripe, tease it down a little bit. Now there isn't really any brown on the back of the head. It needs something, I'm just going to wash my brush, take off the excess water and just drag it through. Just softening. Softening the edge. Now, there is some brown through here. I'm not sure if my page is wet or dry there at the moment. I might just just, Ive grabbed a little bit of water. I'm going to run it through the front of the cheek here. Then I'm going to grab a little bit of Van Dyck milky still and just touch a little bit of pigment. Roughly through there. I'm still after these bleeding edges in there. Just looking at my line here. I probably need this dark, so I'm quite strong in the dark here, in the brown here, I probably need to bring that a little bit further over the back of the head. I'm just going to drop it's still wet there. I'm not really paying attention to what the reference is showing me. I'm just thinking I need a little bit more. On the back there. I'm still all nice and wet, damp, not soaking, just damp. Now I need to strengthen up the Van Dyck on either side of the eye here. So now into toothpaste type paint. Let's see if there's any water in there. A little bit. If the paper is really dry, when you do that, the paint will just sit and you'll get a really sharp edge. So I'm trying to get just a few little bleeds to make it a bit more interesting. And if you put it on and it hasn't moved anywhere, because you have dried, you can just get your, a little bit of water and just run it along the edge of the pigment and let it bleed. I'll just come over the top come over the top of the eye there. Just drag that pigment just down into the front where we, join the join the beak, clean my brush and I'm just pushing it around. I haven't really gone I haven't gone underneath. I'm leaving the light underneath the eye there. Now, this isn't dark enough, but I've played in there a bit. So I probably need to get out, let that dry and come in with another layer later. What I am going to do while I'm in here is I'm going to take just a tiny spot of indigo. And I'm going to paint in the pupil. If your brush is tatty like mine and you can't get a decent circle. You can in a tiny shaped like this, just use a fine liner. I have to let that dry and then I'll come back and build up some layers in there. 7. Starting the Shadows: I've been out of the five or so minutes. It's drying pretty quickly it's quite warm in my studio, so fully dry. I'm going to start with some darks for the shadows. So I'm imagining the light is coming this way and I'm going to put a little bit of a shadow underneath the chin here. I'm going to start by painting with my smallest synthetic with water around this shape. Further than I want the color to go up to the beak. I'm not painting into the beak just around it. Then I'm going to take some initially milky Van Dyck and I'm also going to touch it into a bit of indigo. I'm using the indigo just to make it a bit darker, blue a bit of the brown bit of the blue. Coming onto the wet page. Wash my brush, take off the excess and I'm going to drag my damp. I didn't mean to I didn't take off my excess and I just introduced a whole lot of water which I didn't really want to do. Wash my brush, take off the water and just dragging it around the edge where the pigment it's kind of stoped there just to soften that edge. Now, when I do that it, then it's really dilutes the pigment so then I'm going to go again. Bit of brown, a bit of blue. Drop that back in and let it bleed. We'll probably have to go in here a few times to get it to the right strength. But I would rather build up that dark, then go on to hard and not be able to pull it back. I'm going to just drag that along the join. of the beak. See, I've disappeared. I really disappeared there. So I'm going to take a bit more, blue and my brown and just, so I've got a bit of time to play. This will take a few minutes to dry, so I've got a little bit of time to play here. Washing my brush, running it over that. I'm just defining the edge of my beak. It's not enough yet but for the interests of not fiddling. I'm going to come out of that and let that dry. I'm going to come a little bit underneath. Here again, I've got the blue and the beak. I might introduce a little bit of blue in the water. Take my bigger brush. I'm going to do the same thing where I'm going to paint the page with water. I'm going to come up. Everything was completely dry. Paint with water first, I'm going to grab a bit of my French ultra milky. Just drag that through. Just going to let it do its own thing at the edges. Then while that's still wet, bit more Van Dyck, bit of indigo this time I think I've touched my brush into both thick paint. I'm just going to restate that edge where the birds sitting. I just had a bit much pigment on my brush then. While I've got this on, I'm going to just drag it down in a few lines into the water, get out, let that dry. I just had a bit so that's a lesson in. When you say get out, get out because I had a bit of pigment just on the heel of my brush there. I've got to try and tidy that up so I don't want to introduce once I've wet that, I can't introduce a whole lot more water because it will form cauliflowers so I can keep layering it and keep doing it. But I want to do it a step at a time. I don't want to get puddly in there, and I may want to strengthen that, but I would rather let that sit, come out, come back again if I need to, I need to start to build up some more color in the face. While that's all still drying. I don't have to touch this. I can stay out of that for now. I'm going to work a little bit on the back of the head here. I want a bit of burnt sienna in here now I want to warm it up. So I'm going to take my little synthetic here, middle-sized synthetic, take a bit of burnt sienna. I'm dry up here. I'm going to come straight onto that Van Dyck and just paint straight over that wash down into the front here. just running my damp brush along the edge. of that join. I'm going to bring that down I think again a little bit into the back of the head there. wash my brush take off the excess and run it just along that edge. Now I made a bit of light there that I don't think I want. So I'm going to take some Van Dyck now because everything's wet. Then I'm going to take some, I'm dry on either side there. I'm going to take some burnt sienna. I'm just going to rough it around in those light areas, so not not thinking about it. I'm just putting a bit of a rough wash. And if you get if it goes too heavy, you just grab you tissue and dab it on because I don't mind if it's a patchy area of burnt sienna on there, but just a bit of warmth. I need some more. I'm actually dry in there now. So even though I went on with the Van Dyck and the indigo, it's dried off really light. I'm going to warm it up first before I go on my second shadow, I'm putting on that burnt sienna on that shadow that kind of disappeared on me. Washing my brush, running it along that edge. Yours might not have disappeared. And if it didn't, you can just run the burnt sienna, over it like we did on the top of the head, but mine really I didn't have enough pigment. Still still not dark enough in there, i'm I'm gonna put a little bit of Van Dyck. I'm just going to back off the light on the top half of that burnt sienna in the eye. So I'm just painting little bit of a dark through the top of the eye there. I just want a little less light on the top than the bottom of the eye. Then before I do anything more in the head, let that dry and then we'll come into the beak before we go back. This again is still too weak underneath, but I've been in there for a while fiddling so I need to come out. 8. The Fiddly Bits: There is a fair bit more to go in here, but I'm actually going to stay out of there for a bit and come into the beak. I'm going to ignore the reference again. And I'm actually going to make it darker underneath here. Than on the top I'm going to leave a light on the top of the beak. I'm going to take, again my synthetic, actually take just a milky indigo. I'm dry. I'm going straight onto dry paper. I'm just going to paint in along the bottom half of the beak. I've washed my brush. I'm putting my damp brush just to soften where I'm joining the dry paper. And then while that's still damp, I might take my smaller brush, it's got a slightly better tip. I'm going to take some indigo, take the excess off. While that's still got a little bit of moisture in the page. I'm just going to drag a harder dark. I took too much. I took everything off. I've got nothing on my brush now. Tease that around. Got a bit too, because I went on, I took too much of my brush. I've got a really solid line there. I'm going to break that up by just putting a second one so I've gone back into the indigo, just dragging a little bit more of that dark, wash my brush, take off the excess water. Just tease that. Made him a bit smiley, but it's a cute little duckling and that's okay. So this kick here that I've got gives it a bit of a smile, but I think I'm probably going to leave that. I'm just picking up a bit more indigo. I just want a slight dark where the beak is meeting the feathers here. Just a touch more definition. Just closing, I've go a little bit of a light here. I just want to define that a little bit more. What I might do next, I'm going to put a little highlight in the back of the eye here. I'm going to take some gouache. I'm going to go make sure my brush is clean. I'm going to go straight into the tube. This brush isn't, it hasn't got a very good tip. So if you've got a brush with a nice tip, use that instead. And I'm just going to touch tiny little highlight. Now, I do want to get a bit more serious about what's happening here. I puddled and I puddled and I haven't quite made it. So I'm going to go onto dry paper. I'm going to stay out of that dark at the beak. I'm going to take my Van Dyck and my indigo onto dry paper. And I'm really going to actually mean it this time, wash my brush tease that down. I'm running my damp brush along the join between the pigment and the dry page. But because I didn't wet it first, it should stay a little bit stronger. And I'll put just one more touch now, my brown, my indigo and my Van Dyck just underneath. Let that bleed out. As annoying as that is having to do it so many times again, I would still rather have to go multiple layers than go too heavy and be trying to lift off darks that I don't want that's harder. I think I still think I still want a little bit more strength through here. And I also need to match my burnt sienna through the back here because that's disappeared a bit. But the first thing I'm going to do, I'm going to be a bit sneaky. I'm going to take my oil brush here, make sure it's clean. Take off the excess water and I'm just going to lift. You might not be able to see until I move my hand. I'm just running it along the edge of that brown in the head. Going to lift a little bit. Of a highlight. Just to make it a little bit more interesting. If I don't like it, I can just fill it back in again. What I really want to retain, I want to retain that little light that I've just put in here, but I want to backfill some of that. Because this, because this painting is quite small, this brush is probably a little bit too big for it. I don't usually paint this little. It's lifted a bit more than I want. So now I'm just going to take some Van Dyck that's too thick, need a bit of water in there. And I'm just going to pop a bit of color in pop a bit of pigment in and leave the little highlight that I want. I'm bringing it a little bit darker as it joins the beak. You can push and pull in here quite a bit without getting into too much striffe. Just that little flash of light. And to accentuate that, I'm going to take some Van Dyck, just put a little bit of a dark just underneath it. I'm going to backfill that a bit, lifted a bit too much there. It's really just kind of sitting back and looking at what's working on your painting. Not the reference, not my painting, but what looks good with what you've got in front of you If your head already looked great, Then don't do any of this. You've got to decide what's working and go with it. Because I've done that, I still feel I keep coming back to this point that although in the references on this slide here, I still really want to be more dark there, so I'm just going to do it onto dry paper. Wash my brush and soften that back. Every time I looked at it, it just doesn't quite work. I think this stripe here, I probably want a bit stronger to in the front of the eye. So I'm just again, dry paper down to join the front of the face. I've just washed my brush and now I'm just softening the edge. Although I went on to dry, I'm then roughing it up a bit with a damp brush. Same I think in the back just strengthening it just a little bit over the top. Wash my brush, soften that back into the washer underneath. One last go. The dark underneath the chin onto dry paper. Just with the Van Dyck washing my brush and smoothing the edge. That's been the most annoying part of the whole painting. While I'm doing little annoying things, I'm just going to pop the spot in for the nostril. So I'm gonna pick either the Van Dyck or indigo or a bit of both with my little synthetic. And I'm just going to spot on I'm just going to clean my brush. I've just taken off a little bit of light in that front bit, so it's darker at the top, taken a little bit of paint off in the front bit. So you've got a little bit of variation in tone. And what that also then says to me is that that's not dark enough. That dark I have to match with a dark along the beak here. Kind of balance them up. So I'm just again going onto dry paper and just restating the dark where I was before. Just so that it kind of talks to the dark that's in the nostril. I think. Probably I need a little bit more. I want to strengthen up the water bit, but I'm just going to put one more two more little things in here in the face. I think I want a little bit more brown, so I'm taking damp brush, just running a little bit of water along that. cheek, taking some Van Dyck. I'm just popping it in. I want a soft a soft bleed and if it gets too much, I'm just going to run my damp brush over that, but I want soft edges in there. Then I also need a little bit of the burnt sienna that I've got in. The front here. Just in the back, not much. And it's not really what the reference is but just for balancing up here for mine, What's what's in front of me Just going to put a little bit of water just in a few spots. in those already painted bits. So I'm going to take a little bit of burnt sienna. And I'm just going to drop it in a few places. Again, you can just if you get too wet or too much, you can just drop the tissue on to pull it back a bit. Probably constitutes as fiddling now. So I'm going to come out of that, let that dry and then all I'm going to do is strengthen under here, maybe put a little bit of a highlight on the beak. 9. Finishing Off: I think we're just about there. I think really all I want to I do want to strengthen. I think I went a little bit more blue in the water. And particularly on the video, it's not quite as pale as it looks on the video, but it is pretty pale. And I also think maybe I want a little bit more dark. I can see I've got darks here, here. Here I might put a little bit more dark underneath here just to balance off a bit. I'll see how I go while we're painting it. So I'm going to do the same thing with clean water. Well, my water is not all that clean anymore, but preferably clean water. Painting underneath. Need a reasonable amount of water on here. I've got fluff. If I can catch, I've got a reasonable pool of water there and a splash there. So pick up my French ultra again. Bring that under. I'm not going to, I'm not going to drag it all the way down. I'm going to let it bleed. I might put my tube underneath. Then I'm going to take again my Van Dyck and my indigo. Just going to touch a bit more, didn't actually get any paint. So this is really thick. consistency paint now, I might drag it a bit more underneath the front there too, drag a few little lines trying to decide where I tidy it up at the end. Just take all the excess moisture off my brush and I'm just teasing it to where I want it. Certainly. You can go crazy with the reflections and do them all properly. It's not for me. This one isn't really about that, so I'm just giving it a little bit of an idea and not getting too hung up on it. I just want this join to be a bit stronger. Wash my brush and just tease that down. So just each time you come on. You don't want to introduce more water than is in the page. So your brush and your pigment, need to be drier than your page or you'll come into strife. Now I think probably, I think probably that light there is a bit much. I'm going to tempt. fate, take a little bit of Van Dyck brown and I'm just going to back that light off just a touch. Then I need to strengthen. I've diluted my join here. Picked up a touch more Van Dyck. and I'm just going to run that. That's where I'm going to leave it because I can tell that I'm starting to fiddle now, so I need to walk away and let that fully dry and come back and see if I need to do anything else. I don't really think I do. It might be that you want to strengthen the water or that you want to play with the shapes and the shadows in the water and put more detail in there totally up to you, when you finished actually, particularly if you do that, let me let me have a look. Post a photo of your painting in the projects part. And I'll have a look and leave a comment. So thank you for joining me and I hope you enjoyed the class.