Eagle: A Free-Flow Watercolour Masterclass with Jane Davies

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to this advanced watercolor class. Today we're going to be painting this majestic eagle together. We're going to be creating him using lots of water and flowing paint. This will give that wonderful softness and sense of movement. Now you can either choose to paint the sea eagle, or the bald eagle, they're very similar birds. They're just a tweak of the coloring on the chest. I'm Jane Davis, I live, paint, teach and walk my lovely spaniels in the beautiful South Downs National Park, England. Over the last 15 years, I've taught myself the free flow technique that you'll see today. Not having been to art school, finding my own way has been fun and sometimes daunting, but it has allowed me to develop my own style. This has led me to teaching others either on a one to one basis, or as part of a group in a wonderful studio in the heart of the South Downs. I also run a successful commission based business, painting pet portraits and wildlife art, in my own home studio. In all my classes, you will follow along in real time. What I can guide you to keeping your work loose and fresh without over fussing. I have over 20 classes available on Skillshare now. If you're just starting out, my three beginner classes will guide you, then you'll find over 20 masterclasses covering a wide range of beautiful subjects. In each one, I'll share the techniques that I use in my own professional work. We'll have a lot of fun together and you'll gain the understanding and confidence, to incorporate everything you learn into your own work. Plus, I will share a few of my tips and tricks along the way too. As ever, I provided you with a wonderful reference photo of him along with a downloadable template for you to print out. The template gives you a stress free drawing so you can just enjoy the painting. I'll be showing you the joy of simply placing paint onto wet paper and allowing gravity to create you something unique and beautiful. I'll be guiding you through sectioning areas off, and adding layers to create depth of color all the while retaining the light. I'll also be showing you how to achieve that wonderful detailed eye and beak. Of course, I'll share many of my professional tips, tricks, and musings as we work our way through the class together. If you'd like to learn more about me, all my work, please pop over to my website at janedaviswatercolors.co.uk. This can be found on my profile page, along with links to my Instagram and Facebook pages. I'm very active on my social media pages, where I love sharing my art, especially on stories with many ideas, works in progress, and tales of student life. I really hope you will share all your paintings on the projects and resources pages. As I love showing you more species. Don't forget, I'm here to help if you get stuck, or have any questions. I want you to experience that buzz of painting in this liberating wet on wet loose style. Come and join me. 2. Materials: Welcome along to this sea eagle/bald eagle. Mind become a little bit of a hybrid as I've gone through the class, but you can choose which one you prefer to paint and I'll show you how you go about doing that, and they're very similar in their colorings and stance. Let me run through all the materials I'm using today. I've just realized I've forgotten to put a little bit of kitchen roll, but there's some kitchen roll paper towel. Firstly, there's the paint, so they're all a collection of Daniel Smith's. A little word on the choice of colorings, it depends a little bit on whether you're doing the bald eagle or you're wanting to paint the sea eagle. If you're doing the sea eagle, choose a nice rich brown similar to what he's got on his markings. Have a little play around and see which colors you've gotten you think would suit him best. If you're wanting to do this bald eagle, I've used payne's gray, It's been quite nice to use, but really any dark color. I'm not a great fan of black, I find it quite heavy, so I tend to have blues or build up the darker colors with other colors rather than using black. But if you've only got black and you want to have a bash, then go for it. Please don't feel you can't do this project if you haven't got exact colors, I'm sure you will have something that's close enough, so please don't be put off. Starting from the top, I've got the cadmium yellow deep hue and I've also got a haynes or hansa yellow light. It was quite nice to have the two different colors for the bill, because as you can see, it's quite a rich yolk-y color and then he's got some really lovely light colors, so I found those two combinations nice. Touch of lavender, but if I'm honest, I've used it only a little bit on top of the head. Buff titanium is again, quite nice for the head. Just gave a little bit of just a different color, a little bit of warmth. It's a nice color. I've got sepia, which I love a lot, but again, it's not used a huge amount, just bits around the eyes and for a little bit of heaviness. Goethite, which I love and I use that quite a lot. But again, another of my favorites. I've got Payne's gray, which I used for the blue. You can obviously see the bluer colors there. I've got a bit of white gouache, which is, again, just for the eye, a little catch light in there. Obviously, I've got a pot of water. I've got some salt, which you can't see any evidence of, but it soaps quite nice. It may well work better on your paper with your paints. I've got a little bit what's called a magic sponge, but I actually think you could also buy it on as a house cleaning product so I will put a link in the projects and resources pages, but it's wonderful for taking color out just a little along the lines, especially for the bottom here. It's a helpful, clever thing and I only tend to use it day to day in any spattering as I get that all my white paper, that it's really lovely to take those out. Obviously, got a rubber. I've got just a little something to raise my board up that's about an inch high. You'll also need something a little bit higher because at some point we took these quite a lot. I've got a very old tin box which is about three inches high, probably so anything you can find, just a pop your painting up. It doesn't have to be anything posh. Brush-wise, I have got a large number 12 and that's just for wetting the areas down a little bit quicker. I don't actually use it to paint with modulus to wet an area down. I've got a number size 8. I've got a number 2 down here somewhere. That's obviously doing smaller detail and I've got my little Aurora dedicated brush, which is a great little tool, if you haven't called cross that. Obviously, got a pencil somewhere in this one collection there and I've got a fine liner pen. That's number naught 0.1, and that's for doing some really crisp detail around the eye that sits. It really sharpens detail up. It's quite fun to use. But if you haven't got one, it's not essential, but it's useful. It's quite a clever little thing. Obviously, I've got a hairdryer. Obvious I suppose, because you can't see it, but I do have a hairdryer and that's just to dry the layers a little bit quicker in-between. But again, not essential by any means. Just looking around, obviously, you got the reference photo and the template, which can both be found on the projects and resources pages. Again, don't be afraid to use that template because again, is all about the painting on. It is not a drawing class. I think that's it, so come on, let's go and sketch them out and then we could do the fun bit and start to paint him. 3. Sketching Out: Variety ***, onto the sketching our output. I know it's not the most exciting element, but it's quite important. As you can see, I've already sketched them out, so I just going to give you a few tips actually to the best way to go about him. Any little things I think were useful when I did many examples of him as practice pieces. Now, don't be afraid to use that template that's in the projects and resources pages. It's really helpful. It gives you the right shape, it gets everything in the right place so you can just enjoy the painting, so don't be afraid or feel like it's cheating. But if you do use it and you take your template away, you often end up with rather rounded shapes. It's worth than lifting it away and looking at your reference photo and just going around making sure everything's as it should be. The beak is really important on this bird because it's so distinctive and it gives the character of that certain bird. If I start, the actual beat goes in nothing because it's not that obvious on the reference photo, but it goes into the body, so that's worth. I'm just making sure you've got that little bit right and the sweep, and actually, I've probably got mine a little bit rounded. I might just adjust that before I start film. It's a little bit rounded, isn't it? It needs to be quite pointy, this shapes, quite important. Getting this little line here, you can see that it's just where the beak joins the puppy. A very posh word for that, but I don't know it. I get that little line in. The eye is really important on this painting because the rest of it is so loose and let for interpretation. But the beak and the eye are going to really pull it all together and making him rather than a lot of runny paint, so make sure you're getting you've got that in place. I've done the eyeball, and I've also done the little line that's going to be the yellow circle on the outside of the eye. Also get this little yellow, I'm going to call it mythical frown. Get that in, any little lines you think might guide you. Don't get too carried away with the flicks. Because what we're going to do in the first layer is to wet up to a certain up to here. Don't get too involved with trying to draw those flicks because it will just distract you. Just make sure you've got the sweep bright, nice wings again a nice important, so a shape, quite distinctive. Just take your time. There's no paint drawing, there's no hurry. On my commissions, as I may have said this in a few other classes, but I will always sketch out my piece. Go away and just 15 minutes, 10 minutes even, come back and re-look at it because you'll see a little bit like when you finished the painting, you will see things that maybe aren't quite right or just need a little bit of tweaking. But as I say it's really important to get this nice because then you can enjoy the painting and you know you've got the sketching. Just one other little line which isn't on the bird, but it's just a going to be an area we wet down very gently, just really gently because you don't want to see this underneath. That's just a little line we're going to paint up to. That's was very gently sketching it in. I would say with any line you put in mind, probably stronger than I would like, but obviously I want you to be able to see it. But try and keep your pencil marks nice and light because these all, ideally you don't want to be seeing once the painting is finished. As the subjects quite light, they will stick out if they're too heavy and it's so nice if you don't see them. Go in a really nice and gentle just so you can see where you're going. I don't think there's anything else to tell you, so let's get started. 4. Body First Layer: Let's get some paint on. Now we're going to do the black part or the darker part of the body. Obviously this week, I'm going to be painting the sea eagle, bear bear that in mind. But obviously this can be translated into the bald eagle, which just needs a little bit of heavy paint. While I'm doing so, the brown, I'll hopefully explain as I go along, but you'll be doing a slightly darker color than me. I will be mixing the darker Payne's gray with the tiger's eye. Again, you're more than welcome to follow me and paint this eagle. But if you're doing the bald eagle, you just want to go a little heavy and a little bit dark and go more heavy on the Payne's gray or your chosen gray than the brown. I think I've explained that. We're going to start by wetting the top of that wing line. Then we're going to follow it down just to the end. We just want all this to soften. I'm going down here. Tell you what I'll do. Let's put this here. This is just for you to see where I've wet down. Not for you to put any color in because I think this is helpful. I'm just going to pop a touch of color so you can see what areas I've wet down. It's not always that obvious, is it when it's on the camera. Can you see that? Yes, you can. Just enough. You got to be nice and bold now. You want it nice and wet. No dry patches. As ever, you don't want it sitting in puddles, but you want it as close to it. I'm just going to give it a little minute just to let that soak in a touch. Actually looks like I've stretched my board card fairly well. No buckling so far. I'm going to pick up Payne's gray and I've got the burnt tiger's eye as well. Let's give a bit of a squidge. Operational. We're going to work mainly on this edge. Just tapping. No brush strokes. We're going to do a bit of zigzagging. Work our way around to the other side. Make sure you follow that wing line. Keep it in lovely, neat. Try not to go in and keep it all tidy. I'm going to pop a bit of tiger's eye, I think this is moving around a bit. See how useful that tiger's eye is. Again, if you are doing the bald eagle and you're trying to keep to the darker colors and you've got a nice granulating paint, you know we'll move things around, then don't put too much of the slade. This is just, I would say it's an impression of the bald eagle and again it's an impression of this eagle. We're not doing a specimen guide. I'm just tapping and allowing. You need a good amount of paint. If you're working with pans, give it a really good Russell, get a lot of paint as much as you can get on your brush. I'm almost scooping. I want a lot of color here. We're going to move some of these up in a minute. Nice bit of tapping, and now we go over the top along because I'm trying to say. Just try to allow because always it's going to shift around so much. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed how many bodies I did. I'm just trying to get this right. Just trying to get it the right way around, if I'm honest and the best techniques. At this stage, it's all lovely and wet still. We're going to touch that wet line and we're going to draw it up. Just pulling. You can see, we're going to go up to that penciled mark we put in just by dragging. We can pull a slight tilt if it's not moving for a minute, I can get my little trusty heart. I can give it a little help tilt. Just watch it. If it moves too quickly on you just just take the little support there. Take your little thing that's raising your paper away. The reference photo isn't probably a lot of good really, because it's just an impression. I'm just going to try to get a little bit of color. Just watching it. That's flowing quite nicely actually. What you want to be careful, if it's tilted, you'll find that the water will start gathering up here, up at the top. Just drag and just gently stuck that up your bigger brush. Carry on pulling a little bit. It's lacking. Try not to panic. This is very easy, isn't it? It's all moving around and I'm like, goodness. A lot of it is just allowing this to do its thing really. The minute you think that's looking quite nice. That's nice. We will do another layer over here. We can always add more color. If you're doing more of this eagle, I'm going to lay my flax. I don't want it to get too dark higher up. But if you're doing the bald eagle and it's looking like your nice dark color is moving up, then as they say go with the flow. You know what? I think I'm going to leave that there because I know if I fiddle, it's just going to go a little bit array. I'm not going to add any more paint. Now it's really wet here and I want to add some salt. I also want to add some little marks with my kitchen roll, but I'm going to have to hang on. I might just fill this little corner in, just allow that paint to go away. That's the edge of the body that's touching the left hand wing. I think my left and right. Just tidy up at this stage, make sure the wings, you got this in nice shape so it's not too raggedy, so you can just have a little tidy, but try not to add any more color or add any drops of water at this stage just to allow this all to move. Because that's going to be your natural, lovely, loose flowing look that I'm after. If you start fiddling, you'll lose that. I'm going to just hang on a minute and let this dry a bit and then I can show you how to get a few marks and textures in there. Now I can see this little area is starting to dry. This is still a bit wet. Maybe my stretching wasn't quite so successful. It just is running in a little bit of a divot here. That's fine. But what I want to do, I'm going to put a little bit of salt here. Now this paper and paint is ideal for it. But I'm going to put it down anyway just because it's just for you if you want to add a little bit of salt, this is a good time to do it. Once your paper and paint is starting to get just to that right stage or dryness, it's just so you can see that shinny, knew know it's going off, you can almost feel the top if you've got a bit of texture which is starting to dry. It's a little bit of going by experience I suppose. It's worth, if you are unsure on the stages of salt, it's worth doing a little swatch, just a little bit boring, but it's worth doing because you're like, that's the stage. That's where my salt will make that mark. You can do little on a scrap of watercolor paper, on the paper you generally use. Just do little squares, paint it in and at different stages of wetness, add that salt and then you'll get a gauge of went it's too wet and when it's too dry. Now I can see this body starting to starting to dry. With a clean bit of kitchen roll, I'm just going to just add. I've just sort it up really. I'm going to just suck a little bit of paint up and try to be very random. I'm not trying to put feathers in particularly, I'm not going horizontal, trying to keep them vertical lines. Now if you do this when it's still a bit damp, they shouldn't mark too much. But hopefully when it dries, just gives you a little bit of texture. It's a little bit getting the timing right, so you don't want very hard edges, but just gives you a bit of texture. As we're doing another layer, they will soften anyway. I'm going to try and put a little bit of salt down here in a minute. But these, my two edges are a little bit wet, but I'll sprinkle some salt there and then literally I will allow that to dry all naturally on its own. The hairdryer is useful, but only as it begins to just about go off. Because what you really don't want to, especially on this land, how loose it is is to put a hairdryer through here, because it always and it will all move around and it won't go well, I don't think, so it's best to let it dry naturally. 5. Head: Now I'm pleased way way this has dried, so I hope you've had equal success. The next part we're going to do is the head. I'm going to do a bigger brush for just for a minute and get some paint down. I'm going to just pick up my Goethite, and I'm going to put a tiny bit of color, so you can again see where I've wet down. This is just, again, just for you because I'm nice like that. [LAUGHTER] Again, just go carefully, make sure you go right round the head. Just take your time. And we're going to miss our, we're not going to go into those flicks. Almost draw or paint should I say, wet a line down. You can see that. We're not going to go into those flicks until the second layer over the head. I've got this nice little gap in here, fill that in up underneath that beak, and we're just going to go down to that line we've penciled, that very light line. Just back-fill. Again, just make sure you've got it all nice and wet so you can dibble your head up and down. You can see, let me swap brushes, so I can get a little bit neat around the eye because I want to make sure I don't go into that yellow. Really want to, because we start going into that area, it's going to be hard for the yellow to take, so go really careful. Same applies to that top of that frown. Little frown, the yellow frown mark. I have got some eagle facts I'm going to bore you with. Where shall I start? The feathers. Apparently, a bald eagle, and I should imagine this probably similarly we applies to the sea eagle, has 7,000 feathers. There you go. Don't quote me and all of these. I have just looked these up online, so I don't know these off the top of my head. [LAUGHTER] Okay, so that's nice and wet. Just ducked my head up and down. I can see I've got no dry patches. Hopefully, you can see why I've wet down. Now, we're going to put that down for a second. I'm going to tilt this a little bit. I've got my little heart spout, as I say, probably about an inch high, isn't it? It doesn't have to be precise. Whatever allows your paint to flow, so just a little tilt. Now, be aware because we're tilted, you're going to find you're going to get puddles here. Even before you start, just makes sure that you haven't got a great big puddle there because you don't really want it whizzing off. So you just keep an eye on, be mindful of that. Now, in this layer, we're just trying to get a little bit of a light color down. Now, if you're doing the sea eagle, he's a little bit darker. But if you're doing the bald eagle, just go a little bit lighter. There's not a lot of difference, I think. [LAUGHTER] Again, apart from my many facts, I think a bald eagle doesn't actually mature his white head until later, and a sea eagle as they get older will lighten. So yeah, we're going somewhere around the middle. I picked up my lavender. I've got my buff titanium as well in my hand. A little bit that same color. I'm just going to touch that along the top there. All very light, just sort of hints of color. We can always darken on the second layer. It's almost better to go lighter, I say, especially if you're doing the bald eagle on the first layer. A touch more. Just allowing that to run, adding a little bit more water, and again, just be careful of the back of the head, it gathers. It's quite pale here, and I'm sure it would be on a bald eagle, so we're not going to put a lot of color. Just want to do a little bit of buff. I pick up my go for light. Those who followed me on other classes, this actually is the same tube I've used. They were a worthy investment. You don't use a lot of paint. Just going to start adding that you can see is a lovely sort of line that runs off that eye a bit there. Keeping everything very loose. Just holding my paintbrush right at the end and taking all my wrists as light as I can. Just dabbing, dabbling and dibbling. Let's get the Burnt Tiger's Eye as well. Let's have that one as well. One of my favorite paints. One of the very early ones I bought too. I do like it. So we've got a lovely little bit of darkness there, so we're just going to pop that in. If you squint your eye, you can see where the darker parts are. A little bit runs off there, off the top. Add little bits of water, you can add water here and just allow that to run. But as you add water, obviously, be mindful of the back of the head. Soak that up. We can get a bit of kitchen roll, perfectly clean, and just suck a little bit up. Just make sure it doesn't leave any marks like it did here that we intended to. Okay, let's get underneath this little part here, and actually before that dries because obviously your front area is going to dry quicker than the back because it's tilted. Let's put some of these, let's put those colors down. I'm going to pick up the paint gray, put the Goethite down. Burnt Tiger's Eye and Payne's Gray, and we're just going to out a nice matte under. their started to dry. It doesn't matter. I can just clean my brush, add a little bit more water to that, and just allow that to run. It's running partly because we have it on a tilt, partly because it's got some nice water to run into. Make sure you get right up against that beak. Getting a nice puddle down here again. Now, if it's running in a direction, you don't quite want it to because really I'd like you to run to what's that say? Four o'clock underneath this beak. I'm just trying to maneuver this so it's running. Just allow my paint to run a little bit more in that direction, so you can tilt it a bit higher. I will suggest when we finish, this layer is actually to leave it drying at quite a tilt. You can see how that's encouraging it to run quicker, and running, say, downwards. It's giving you that lovely texture and flow just by holding it up a little bit for a minute. Pop it down again. I don't really want to touch this area because I'm going to interfere if I add any paint in there. I'm actually quite happy with how this has sort of worked. I know I've got an extra layer. I can put a little bit more color down. Especially if you're doing the bald eagle, I would suggest that's probably enough for that layer. Again, it just needs to dry naturally, really. Put your paintbrush down and let it dry. I can see mine is almost always going now, so you shouldn't take too long. Before I disappear off, don't forget to draw it at quite a tilt. I'm going to use my, let's extract that out the way. I'm going to use my old tin. I'm going to leave that to dry and quite a tilt. Allow that not to slide. But you might want to just hang on it and stand and watch it for a minute, just to make sure you don't get any sort runoff here. Just to suck in the app better. Mine is drying pretty quick and I don't think there's much more water to come off. I'm pretty confident that won't bubble, so I'm going to leave that to dry it that real steep angle 6. Wings: You can remove whatever you popped underneath your paper to have a tilt with working flat again. You can put that back. We're back to working flat. We'll go model. Tidy here. On to these wings, nice and easy. Wet your big brush down and we're going to wet each wing. Again, just make sure you stay within those nice lines and touch right up against the body. If it bleeds a little bit, that is perfect. If it doesn't like mine, don't worry. With a little hard dry quickly just to finish it off so I could get on, and it's dried my paper, so it's warmed my papers so my water is going to dry a bit quicker. It's worth remembering if you do use a hair dryer, it's going to leave your paper quite warm so then your paint is going to dry a bit quicker and your paper. Again, make sure that's lovely and wet and no little dry patches. Wet again the edges. We're going to use the same colors again as we did on the body. That's the Payne's gray and I've got burnt tiger's eye. Now see how we go with these, might put a little bit of go flight in but we start with the Payne's gray and tiger's eye. I want to go fairly light, I don't want it to be too heavy. Obviously, if you've got a bald eagle and you're doing that, then you can go a little bit darker. But again, it's just a suggestion still. I think with both of these birds, you're not aiming to get that raw depth the color, is just an impression, I think that's what's lovely because it's obviously a bald eagle is quite dark and it got a bit of iridescent. You can see the brown underneath, but it's nice to have there left to a bit of interpretation. Right up against the edge, I put the Payne's gray, and the burnt tiger's eye. I am just dibbling. It's probably not overly helpful, but I'm just allowing just lots of water, just allowing that paint just to give me something interesting. I'm really not trying to do any detail on all those 7,000 feathers, apparently, just I always want a pleasing pattern and just keep that light. Again, I can put two colors on my brush at the same time and just touch and allow that to keep moving, a bit more, and you can just do a little squiggle around. Whenever you need to get right up against the edge, just so your eye can see of the ends. You got a end of the wing. I quite like leaving this one a little bit lighter to see, almost get a proper shean when you take your once it's dried. A little bit more depth on the right one. Again, it's just tapping and allowing. Any runs you get, just allow that to do its thing really. Put a little bit of color down. Just going to pop, let's actually pop these two colors and pick up the gothite. Just got a tiny little bit attached to that , almost too much. If you ever do too much, you can just easily sac and back up again. The Daniel Smith paints, [LAUGHTER] majority of them are very easy to work with, easy to lift back out. Obviously very beautiful in granulating as well. Pick your white ones, a little bit color. Pull your eye away, have a look, see what you think. We are going to do similar to what we did here. A little bit of salt if you want to add salt, I'm probably not going to, we'll do the kitchen roll marks because I quite like those. But again, they need to be done once it dries a little bit. Just sucking some of these, I've got quite a lot of water sitting here. [NOISE] I'm just going to put a tiny little bit of tiger's eye, a little bit too warm for my liking. Just delete it. That's enough. I think that looks nice. You just need to hang on, what eagle facts can I bore you with now? Apparently, they can fly at 30 miles an hour and up to 100 miles per hour when they're diving. One of those can be down at you because they're, big birds. These wings are starting to go, so I'm going do a similar thing. Just know horizontal lines, mainly vertical lines, because the feathers are obviously running more vertical. But just shape of the kitchen roll to give you some unusual patterns, marks, so I'm really not trying to put any feather edges in, it's just when it dries and you look away at it, it's just giving you a little bit of texture, a little bit a few lines. That's enough. It's a bit like the flix, it's very tempting to do lots. Put that to one side, and again, if you want to put any salt down, pop it down, just at the time it's just starting to go off, but I'm personally not going to, but I'm just going to allow that to dry and then it's only the beak 7. Beak: So it's onto the beak next, but just make sure your wings are nice and dry because it's very easy to put your hand in and smudge something, so just make sure they're dry. Now I'm just going to take a tiny little bit of my pencil marks out because I really don't want to be able to see these when it's finished. I'm just going to go ever so slightly and take some of that pencil workout. Hopefully you'll be able to still follow. Just so I can just about see them. Perfect. I will suggest a smaller brush and we're going to wet down again, I will. Again, this is just for you to see the areas of wet down. Going to put a tiny little bit of color on my brush. That doesn't look very tiny, does it? We're going to wet down the main part right down to the end, and go really carefully, even if you change brushes to something small, just make sure you get that lovely pointing. Because quite a few my practice pieces, I wasn't very careful and I ended up with a rather rounded beak. We're going to miss out the lower part for a minute. We're going to go into the, I'm going to call it his mouth. But you get what I mean, and then up to the higher part. You just be really mindful. You've got the bits you want wet, wet and not the bits you don't want wet, and make sure it's nice and wet. Not paddling. But as I say, pretty much. Almost pretty much, that doesn't sound very English, does it? Sorry. I've got my cadmium deep yellow, and I'm just going to tap right at the very end. You can see that's just moving up on its own. Take your time is no great hurry on this. Just going to allow that. You're going to run it to the lower part. I actually going to pick up my, the hinge yellow. I'm going to put on top just tap and allow we can mingle them around a bit, and also use that hinge yellow combination. Hinge yellow and the cadmium and go into the mouth area. Can just allow it all to move around. I'm not going to be too mindful, just going to allow it into there. But once that dries, we're going to put into another distinct layer just so you can see in your reference photo there's a sections off, doesn't it? It's a really nice part to get it get in. I think that's looking all right actually. Just make sure you get a nice good point and we are going to put that one down. Hang on to that. Pick up the goethite, give it a squeeze. We're going just to pop a little bit right at the end. Now if you've got, I've tried to limit my colors from my color palette, so I don't give you so many colors to look at. But if you've got a little like an orange or a deeper red, you'd put a tiny little bit of color. That's what a color rather than the goethite. But if this works, this works well too. But just if you have that to hand, you could always put a little bit of red in there. I think that's looking pretty good actually. It's you just want yellow in there. We'll go to tidy it all up in a minute and add this layer. But really, that is your main part of the beak down. But I would just say be really mindful. You've got a lot of really edges are loving and crisp. But that's the thing you want to do on this layer. I'm just going to add a little bit more color there. A little bit pale. You know what we've got to do now. Just allow it to dry really. See a bit of a bubble there. Just got to let it dry and then we'll do that under part. Can I bore you with a quick fact? They mate for life apparently. Bless them. So very loyal bird, anyway. [LAUGHTER] We just need to let that dry. I can see it's quite wet and again, the same applies to the hairdryer. Just be cautious of hair drying paint when it's still very wet. Now my beak is nice and dry. Or at least the top beak is, I can go underneath, so we're going to do, watch here. I might use my tiny little brush because I can be a little bit more accurate. We're going to just wet underneath this we get a really nice crisp line up against the upper part of the beak. Nice, it's wet. Last I'll put a hairdryer over this because my paper is probably nice and warm, so it's going to dry quite quickly. I'm going to pick up quite quickly the cadmium, and I'm going to have the goethite. Good color. Again, if you have the red, you can always pop a little bit of red, and do exactly the same just to warm that up. But as I say, I quite like the goethite too. Just tap in and just allow. The beak looks a little bit brownie. You can always pick up the yellow, the Haynes yellow. Hansa yellow sorry, not Haynes. Just try to allow the paint to move as I'm trying not to interfere too much, just allow it all to do its own thing ready. That's, I think sometimes it all seems too easy, doesn't it? Surely I should fiddle a little bit more, but actually that's done a lovely job and I don't need to do anymore. She said so, I just want to give it a little bit. I miss drawing actually, telling you to be careful about the drawing. I'm just going to get that right up against the top part of the beak. That perfect. Now we really again just need to let that dry because we're going to do the, just paint that little part in, but ideally we need to let that dry. Just give it a little bit. It will dry really quickly, especially if you've hair dried the top of the beak, and I'm going to probably use a hairdryer for that now and we can do the top beak. [NOISE] Once it dried, I'm going again, I'm going to stick to my little brush. Kitchen roles, blown off my hair drying. We're going to just wet this. You can see it's quite obvious, I think on the reference photo you can see the top part. Now if you haven't got this very strong, you can always add a little bit more color. I'm just going to go along the top and then take it right down to the bottom part of that beak we've just done. I'm just going to use the cadmium. It's a bit warmer and so creamy or isn't it? I'm just going to tap it along that edge really and just again, just allow it to move into the damper paper. On the top there. Get a nice sweep. Wait it can be a little bit [inaudible] with it as it were. Just make sure you've got that. It looks like it's actually going into the head rather than sitting on the outside of it. Make sure it looks like it's going in. We will take little bits of color out on the finishing off bits. But as long as you got something like that, that will be perfect. Now, just as that begins to dry, you can see it's little nostrils. So that's really nice to put in, and I'm going to use the sepia for that one. We haven't used it yet, have we? We will do. Just as it goes off, rather than putting on when it's completely dry, it should just give you a little bit of fuzziness, a little bit of quiet so hard. Perfect. Coming along, isn't it? You can see him appearing. We're going to do the eye next and that will really bring him to life. But some really ideally just want let that dry. But if you're confident you won't put your hand in it, you can obviously, just continue on with the eye 8. Eye: Right then onto the eye. Now you really just need a little brush. First of all, we're going to put that yellow ring in. I would suggest using the cadmin. You can always add a little bit of here, let's do the two. I'm being annoying, so it's just a literally case of painting and nothing complicated. You just really take your time if you like, if you've been standing like I have, I generally like to stand when I paint. This is a lovely time to sit and take the weight off your feet. Because you really want to be nice and close to this so you can get that lovely detail in because it's all about the nice crisp detail in the beak and the eyes. We're going take our time here. Get that in. That's nice, round and obvious. Don't go inside. Nothing complicated, just go round and it also wants to do the top frowny bit. More color underneath than the top you can see there's a nice lump of light but again, don't worry too much if you'd gone, just painted it all in because we can take a little bit of color out on top, on the finishing off bits. You want to get something like that. Obviously it needs to dry, but I should imagine because I've been doing a lot of hair drawing and my paper is quite warm so that will be dry within seconds but I will give it a little blast because I don't want any of that to seep because the yellow is obviously quite a light color and we're going to be working darker little bits. You want to really try to retain that yellow and keep it as clear and crisp as you can and clean. Quite simple, she says. You pick up your lavender and the hands yellow. Now you can, if you'd like mixing, you can mix this before you add. But you know me, not a great mixer. I'm just going to wet the eye down. Be really mindful of staying in those, not getting into that yellow. Really take your time. Then I'm going to pop down the yellow, just diblit. I'm going to put the lavender and diblit. I'm going to give it a bit of a brush around. Just so you get the right color to that eye. I'mma need a little bit more yellow, is going a bit greeny. Apparently, in Gaelic language, the sea eagle is known as the bird with the sunlight eye. Isn't that lovely? We're trying to get a little bit of sunlight in here. Might have a little bit buff titanium. This is where mixing would be quite a good idea to getting that color just right. If you're mixing rather than doing it as I'm doing but I'm happy with this and that's how I'm used to doing it. I think once the bits of color are taken out, I know that's going to be, it's a nice color. Let's pop that down. It's getting these out of order, let's try to be organized Jane. Obviously there's quite a shadow underneath there because what is a little frowny yellow top is obviously shielding and shading that eye so we're going to pop a little bit of tiger's eye. She's going to pick up the paint gray as well. Go very gently with the paints gray. If you're using or any gray, or any dark color. Just gently tap. If you want the shadow underneath and it runs around to the front, doesn't it? I'm getting into that to the corner. Just so it'll keep tapping and allowing and just hanging on a minute, just watch it flow. As usual, I'm working a little bit away from this so I don't get my head under the camera. Always so easy because I'm a little way away from it. Just doubling, watching, squinting, squint your eyes, look at the reference photo. With your eyes back and forth, further, reference photo and it's really helpful if you're using an iPad or anything. Obviously the device you're looking at, the reference photo, it's a scrolling so you can see that line nice and clearly. Always add a little bit water, if you find this begin to dry you can just wet your brush and just drop a little bit of water in there and it gives you a bit more time to continue playing. If you first find your suddenly getting a little bit muddled and you don't quite know where you're going, just allow it to dry and then come back to it, re-wet it and then you can, sometimes you need a break from it, don't you? I used to struggle a little bit with eyes and you really all get a bit messy. My best advice would be to stop, let it dry, see what it looks like when it's dried because obviously it lightened. I think that's looking okay actually. I just want to, when we do the next layer over the head, we darken this area, so get it dark but don't worry too much if it's not as heavy as you maybe think it should be, because we do add a little bit. That's nice at the moment, so I want to leave it there. Then obviously I need to let that completely dry and then we can do that nice crescent of dark and the scary pupil. But let's let that dry first. Once it's dry, we're going to literally paint that dark crescent in. Now I don't normally like just to paint but I did try this eye and then just like we did with a little lost or just putting in while it was a little bit damp but it spread too much. It wasn't ideal. This is a really crisp detail and so we'll crisp line. I think we have to stay true to that. Just very carefully, I say as we're painting, we're not waiting for anything to dry. We can be very mindful and gentle and just take your time. Keep your eyes literally on that reference photo and flick them back and forth. What we do do in the finishing off bits, I use a little fine liner and we'd just go over that again. Just a crispy up any detail that we haven't managed to get with a brush. You want to get it in and bear in mind, keep that eye pupil is round. Try make the pupil round by putting that darken. Say we can always just think and slightly adjust for that fine liner pen. That's quite nice because it can be really accurate then with that. I think that's looking all right. Trying to get close to this. The closest I can take without putting my head on the camera. I think that's taking okay. I may adjust it slightly when I turn the camera off. If it looks slightly different, that's why it's just I cannot physically get that close and see very clearly, but just take your time get nice and close to it and make it nice and neat. There under the pupil. Now he's looking, it's looking a little bit forward. What we want to do, start with a little dot and very gently, just keep going round and round and round. Take your brush away. It's always going to look a little bit odd and we're going to, don't forget, we will darken some of this as well but that pupil is incredibly round. Take your time, take your brush away. Have a look, get the right shape, get in the right position and again with that fine line at the end, we can always make it a little bit round or a little larger. If in doubt make it smaller and then we can add to it later so it's very hard to take, obviously the eye is very pale and it's quite hard then to take a very dark area out. If you've made it big, it's quite hard to then take out so I would air on the side of caution and make smaller and you can always adjust it slightly with that fine liner pen. Why is it going slightly funny trying to look at this talking about eyesight, so I can see 4-5 times further or stronger than we can. I can see mine is going to need a little bit of adjusting. This isn't quite round enough. As I say, I can't quite see it that close enough better. Step back, have a look, see what you think. I think mine still needs to go a little bit larger, but I'm going to make it a tiny bit bigger. Going against my advice. Yes, that looks better. Now it look a little odd at this stage, if I'm honest, because we've put some dark underneath the eye but we haven't done it all. But there's a lot of neat me up to do and softening. It's all going to look a little stark at the moment so don't worry because we all need quite a lot of adjusting. We're going do that on the next layer. I love doing a catch light but I think because the way these delay is structured, we're probably do that right at the very end in any lights taken out of the eyeball. At this stage that's probably your eye done. Now if it looks a little different, when I come back, it just I've been with get closer and neatened up the edges, but I haven't done anything different than I've explained to you. Again, just let that dry and then we can move on to the next layer where we can add a bit of depth and really soften that eye down again. 9. Body Second Layer: We're going to put the second layer over this body. Let's get rid of that salt, it should have dried nicely. Again, it doesn't work very well with this paper and a combination of paint. You may have used different paper and different paints, so you make get a nice salt effect. What we're going to do, we're going to give this a little bit of a tilt. Again, we may let it dry. You have to judge your own piece, but will probably let it dry at quite a tilt just to get that lovely flow down the neck. You need your big brush. We're going to pick up the go flight. The tigers and a little bit of lavender. Now, depending on what bird you're doing, if you're doing the seagull, would keep it quite light. If you're doing the bald eagle, probably want to add a little bit more color. What we're going to do, we're just going to pop a line just underneath near the wiggly line we put in. Underneath that wiggly we're going to pop some color. Just like a little mini palette. Doesn't matter what order or how you do it. Go flight, the tiger's eye, weekly along let me just pop a little bit of tiger's eye top. Really doesn't matter. It's just a little pallet. Clean your brush. We're going to have it right on each side. It's really nice and wet, and we're just going to drag some of that down. If you get little bits of clear spaces or dry spaces, that's absolutely fine. It's lovely. Just give you a really lot of interesting texture to run it down wiggly around. I just give it a dabble, get that running. Fairly quickly before it dries we want to then wait up to that wiggly line that we put in. Make sure these don't stain. Just give them a good old wiggle and then allow that to run. If it's not running enough, add a bit more water. Don't be afraid, but just keep an eye on this bottom, that obviously, it's going to puddle at some point because it's running. Let's go a bit further down. Then we can add more color. Give it a bit of a Russell, add a bit more. Just keep in mind these edges. What you can do just to stop this [NOISE] is to be careful. Get a clean piece of kitchen roll and just pop it right on top of where that's paddling, and just leave. It should soak up. Keep it a little bit higher, not too low because you don't want it to stain. Because there's always a risk of it staining, but as long as you keep it a little bit higher up. You can go higher if you feel like it needs a little bit of extra room to add that water. Let me put a bit tiger's eye then I go through it. Just allow it to run little bits of water. Just go really gently over this body. Again, if you're doing the bald eagle, you could add a little bit more depth. Just be careful because it actually there. The white feathers probably start here. Be careful not to add the dark too high up. Just bear in mind if you start adding it where that wiggly line is we put in, I think it's a little bit too high, so you could start adding the darker. I'll show you. You want it. I'm not going to do the dark, but that line you could start adding a bit more dark. It will bleed gently up. I want to do the sea eagle rather than the bald eagle. I don't want to put the dark, if you want to do the bogey, you'll just put a little bit more depth, a little bit more Payne's gray probably than the brown. You've got another chance to do another layer if needed. I won't, but I will explain when they're finishing off bits, if you need it to be a bit darker. Look away from it. If you're sitting, stand up, and have a look. Get a little bit of distance from it. I quite like that if you squint your eyes, it sounds really cool thing, doesn't it? A painter squinting their eyes, but it does work. If you needed any depth, if this too ended up getting a little bit washed out on your first layer, you can add a little bit of color here. Put a bit of depth there. We get round little bit. Just be careful because we put those nice little kitchen roll marks and didn't waste them. Be careful you don't add. Just be careful about rustling those layers up. You just want to go very gently, just drop color in. Put a bit of lavender there. I don't want to make this too dark on him. Just careful. What can happen? I can see as the water is gathering, it can then stain, so just be careful with that. Never quite sure if it's a good method or not. I can just run into that top wing. The funny little area here can be a bit problematic. I don't want it too dark, but I clear don't want to section it off. I like that, I don't think I want to put too much more and I want to keep it as light, I want to keep it really fresh, and moving, and flowing. I'm going to leave it at that, but what I will do, put down for a second. I'm going to really leave it to dry, at a quite horizontal but aquatic. Can you see that? Can't quite get the area, but I'm going to raise it up. I'm going to probably take it off the stand. Looks so cute. We've lost you, haven't we? [LAUGHTER] He can't quite get a gauge, can you have the age? But I'm going to leave it to dry on quite a tilt. Be really mindful of paint gathering on here. If you do use a kitchen roll, as you take that away, it might be worth just looking at it. As you can see, it can't use a bit of a funny angle, but you can carry on adding a little bit of water, but be really careful that it doesn't then run because you obviously steepen the angle. Add water and then suck it up as well. Yes, just watch your own piece. I will suggest that at this stage, while it's drying, you can add a little bit of salt. It probably won't come out. Salt is best done on the first layer or the kitchen roll marks. Look at your own piece and watch it. I will suggest at this stage and let it dry. Try not to fiddle probably too much, she says. Yeah, allow it to dry. We're nearly there, we're getting there. 10. Head Part Two: Once it's dried, you want to then lower it down to horizontal. How's it look? Just by tilting it quite an exaggerated angle is giving you a little bit more sense of flow, hasn't it? It is straight for you. Lovely. We are going to do the head area again. A little bit like I did with the bill. I'm just going to rub out this pencil mark. You could do the same as well. The first layer should give you the line of where it is. But I really want to be able to keep that head to clear of any pencil marks to give it that a lovely little lost and found look. I'm going to wet it down with a medium brush. It's going to be around the bill, around this lip area into a little groove around the eye. Again, tucking right up against that yellow over the top of the frowny yellow top. Right into the corner where that bill joins over the top of the head. Swing it around. We're still going to take it down, come up a bit of color. I didn't want to add too much color at this stage because it's not as easy to take out and but just hopefully you can see that. You want that straight line like we did on the first layer. Again, down to that wiggly mark. Go gentle, especially underneath where we've allowed that to flow. Any second line you want to go as carefully as you can, you don't want to upset that first layer. You can end up adding a lot of water because you have to be gentle. Don't worry too much. It's better to have a puddle of water than it is to so upset those nice layers. It's actually warm here up in the studio quite a bit. My paper's drying quite quickly, so I can see that was already beginning to dry. It had a bit of a hairdryer as well to draw it off. We just wanted to add strength to the head. Just scrolling in on my picture so I can see it clearly. Now we can do a little bit of tilt. Let's do a bit of a tilt to start with. I'm going to put my little heart down. It's only a small tilt, probably about an inch high. Just so we can get some of these off lines. It's got a lovely sense of movement at the moment. If we leave it to flatten, but do lots of layers and the second layer all flat, we might lose some of that and I like that movement. I'm going to use some sepia, hasn't been used yet; has it? Get it going. I love this line. This is a really nice flowy line down here off the top of that eye. Could see p doesn't move as much and because we're on a second layer, we can start to get some strength in without wasting too much. Again, there's a nice dark area and go right up to that yellow. Have a little bit of tiger's eye with it. It's a nice line again, off the lip area that's running down. If it does that and blooms up, you can just add a little bit of water to that side and just encourage it to flow down. You see how that's pushing. Again, be mindful of any puddles. I mean, go back under the chin. I just want to add a bit more brown feminists because I've got quite bluey there. Just add a bit more. Again because we're on to layer number 2, you have to judge your own piece a little bit is if you've gone quite heavy, you may not want to put as much color down. Judge your own piece. Get a little bit of we've got here. I'm going to put a little bit on top of the head, get a little bit of color, as I say, be mindful if you're doing the bald eagle you probably want. He's got color, hasn't he? You need to add something, although he is quite white, you still need to get some depth in there. But you probably don't want as much as if we're doing this eagle. That buff titanium, a little bit of buff titanium. Hanging off my finger there. Just to give a little bit of color, this little bit of buffering in that crease there. I'm just going to close it down a little bit. I might have made mine, it just attached too big. I actually you're going to close it down. I'm just going to go into that yellow a little bit and just drawn. Get rid of that, made it a little bit chunky. that's better. We can do a few little flicks out there just underneath that beak. Let's pick up my little brush. Just a few. Don't do too many. A little bit of color. Let's have sepia. I don't want to go too blue. That's probably enough. Let's put the buff titanium down, grabbing too many colors here. Put the paint. I've got sepia, goethite, and I picked up the burnt-out. Now, I'm try and get some of these fluxing now. There's a bit of a puddle going on. I'm going to just gently take the excess water off. Then I'm going to add a bit of color. We're going to use that color and we're going to clean your brush. You don't want your brush to wet, but you want some nice flicks. It's a bit scary doing flicks; isn't it? Because it's easy to go a bit array. I would suggest starting a little way in and then coming out. Because you do it right on the edge, it either looks they're being stuck on or you can go a little bit too far out with them and just run down. How's it looking? Add a little bit, not too much. Again, if you're doing the bald eagle, you wanted to go careful on here. You could add a little bit of blue or a little bit of lavender rather than the brown. But say is within the CEO. While I'm doing this eagle, just want a little bit of color in there. We need to tackle this little eye area and make it a bit softer. I'm going to lay this flat now. [NOISE] Now he's flat, a little bit of water there. We do little brush. We need to sort this out and make it a little bit darker underneath. What we're going to do, grab your tiger's eye and let's have a tiny little bit of Payne's gray. Be careful, mind your hand in this potentially wet underneath. We're going to add a little bit of strength. We're going to actually go underneath the yellow frowny line. Now we're going to just go into the eyeball. Very gently. You may find you got enough color just by introducing this tiger's eye in the corner and going into the eyeball may be enough. You may not need any extra to see how it looks. You can see that's already given him a shadow underneath there. The sepia. It's a really lovely dark part there. It's going up against that yellow, isn't it? We're running out. Just type that in. Tap underneath here. Have a little bit of Payne's gray, a bit darker. Also I want to very carefully just incorporate that sepia into the yellow ring just at the very top. I just want to get a sense of shadow. Don't try and go into this dark eye pupil. This is ideal for me because I'm so far away from this eye. I just then gently soften it out to the gently wet that eyeball. The color, not the pupil so the eyeball and just gently wet that down. Just as you can see that shadow is starting to appear, I'm going to put a tiny little bit, it's quite dark underneath here. It was a menacing, but it gives him that frown, it gives him that presence. Before that, he looked a little bit stock. Just take your time. Look at that reference photo. See where it looked for the dark, find the dark and just gently tap that in. I think that's looking all right. I need a little bit over the top. Now if he's beginning to dry on you, which I can see mine is, I just add a little bit of water. Just very gently. Don't put it too close to the eye because you don't want that to work careful what we're doing, but it just gives us a little bit more time to tinker. As long as all of it is still damp, you can just add a bit more water and then you continue. Well, I'm going to use a little bit of sepia with a nice ring underneath here. Nice dark line which goes up against that yellow, doesn't it? Tap that in your photo, see what it looks like. It's a little bit of lavender. A little bit of lavender just down there. It's like a little bit of color out. Quite light to right up against this corner of the eye. It's quite light there, isn't it? What we can actually do now is to go into the top part of that yellow of his beak. The bit we sectioned off. Don't go into the mouth, you just want that yellow, the very top yellow. If it bleeds, perfect. You can see this bit of yellow, can't you? That's mingling in to that face. If it's not mingling, it's got five tubes on the go now, you can just add a little bit, just of tiny sub hints, just tiny colors and suck stuff up. Losing some of the yellow, which I said was not ideal. Let's put some of these colors down, too many. I'm going to hold onto my sepia, and the Payne's gray. I'm trying to get away from it a little bit. Have a look, see how I'm doing. I think I'm there for color. I don't think I need much more color. I might do my little brush. Just to give a little bit more depth for these flicks to a couple of more, just a few. Give me a little bit more. We need to do it as well. Because there's a risk of getting a little bit of a waterline here. While this is actually still damp, where we wet up to, you just want to gently drag it down. It's almost a dry brush. If you get watermarks or waterline to further down, that's absolutely fine. Just give you a little bit more texture to the body. You get rid of this wet line where we started and we wet their head down, just drag it off. The whisk, you end up with a bit of a divide there and you'll see it quite obviously. I'm liking that. He's looking all right. See, I've got a little bit, I think a lot of the little bits and pieces can be altered in finishing off stages. I'm just going to take a little bit. I've lost as quite exact line underneath his eye. You can see if I can get it back in again. I just put it too much. Just suck it up. Let it dry on a tilt, actually get a little bit more movement back in again. I need to get a little bit closer to my eye to have a little feel. But hopefully that made sense to you. We just want you to just get the eyeball sort by going underneath. I'm going a little bit into the top of that yellow ring. But keeping the lower part clean, which I haven't done a very good at drawback because I'm a little bit far away from it. It's looking a little muddy at the moment, that's why but I might have to deal with that in a minute, and I can get a little bit closer. I just want to put a little bit more color. Well, that's beginning to dry now. I can add strength and it's not going to move as much. Again, I can re-put that in that lovely line off the top of the eye. I think I'm going to let us say I'm going to tilt that up and let it dry. It's a nice tilt. There's a lovely line coming off the corner there as well, isn't it? Just make sure you still damp your paper. He doing this still. I'm going to put a drop of water there and put those down. I'm going to tilt it and I'm going to let it dry because it needs to fiddling now. That little blob of water I popped on there, but hopefully just run down. You can see the lovely sense of light down there by popping a bit of water there while it's drying there will run down. Just create that line. That lies sense of light. Also you could do that at the top of the eye, you can pop a little dot of water in there and allow that to run. Again, that will flow down. Just be mindful if you've done any running or popped any water down, that it doesn't gather too much on those edges. But yeah, I think I need to let that dry and then we can do the last finishing off bits 11. Finishing Off: How's yours looking now? Now let's draw it. I'm quite pleased with how he's taking shape or her. Apparently, it's very hard to tell the sex between them, so him or her. I think she's, he's looking all right. Definitely needs a few little tweaks here and there, but that's what this finishing off part is all about. If you had it on a tilt, lay it flat now, and I've now got some clean water. Have gotten that kitchen water let me pop that on. Its a clean kitchen roll that really need my salt and get rid of that. I have my magic sponge, got my fine liner back in, and I've got my little eradicated brush. We're just going to go round and mope. I'm just going to go round and just thought a few bits and pieces out. I can see my frown just the eye area needs a little bit of adjusting. As I said, I was painting quieter away from it. Although I've had a little fiddle off-camera while it's still drying, I can still see bits that need adjusting. The fiddling bits, just say it wasn't anything I didn't say hopefully explain to you is just the fact that I'm working a little distance from it. I just needed to neaten it up when I could get a bit closer. I think first of all, we're going to rub out these pencil marks, so really make sure this is dry before you start rubbing any pencil works better or rubbing out because you don't want to find that your paper, or your painting is still a bit damp. But go round, take all those pencil marks out, let's paint here around the beak, top of that head, down the side. Anyway, you've got pencil marks basically. Just go easy. If you've got them in the body, just go easy. I'm trying not to rub too much. Also, that straight away looks better, doesn't it? It's just getting it, takes that confinement out. Looks better already. I'm going to tackle the eye I think first and we get that lovely sharp, then we see where we're going with it. Again, this is just personally, so it gets a little trickier as the class goes on that obviously we start to differ from one another. But the reference photo he's frown, he's a little bit more slanted than mine. I want to put a little bit more dark underneath here. The rest of the eye has worked out okay , it's dark enough. If I start, say yours might be fine. If your any of these little finishing off pieces, you can see that yours is absolutely fine. Don't follow me. It's just a case of looking around your own picture really and adjusting if need be. Trying to make this a little more tilt here. I've got the tigers eye. I don't want it too heavy. I'm going to go a little bit stronger. My brush isn't particularly wet. I'm just going to go underneath a little bit and then bring that line down a little bit, it so it became slump a bit more. Get closer underneath the eye. This is where [inaudible] I can always just soften any bits so you can still put lines in. If I wanted to paint this in a little bit more, you can either soften under any lines, use your finger to double it out. It's always quite nice. It softens it without taking color out. Again, that gives us a little bit more texture. Yes, that looks better. Often it's a case of putting it like I always say. If you've first-time with me, I always suggest you look at these the next day because it's amazing how you see things slightly differently. I think now that feels better to me. Just a tiny little things. They can be minute. It's a little bit of paint and it suddenly transform something. Just down that, put that away. I'm going to go round and just take little bits of color out, I think to start with. First of all, a little bit too much color here still, it doesn't actually need to be eradicated brushy almost too much, but could have a little slightly softer brush. If it's eradicated brush, its very good at taking color out, but always too good. Whereas this is a softer brush, it'll just take out a little softer. Again, I can squish rather than actually dabbing it with the kitchen roll. Actually what I'm going to do, when we incorporated this yellow, I think I've almost washed out, so I'm actually going to put a little bit of yellow in. I'm just going to paint that in to soften it all out. Say, at this stage so like I say, it's all little tweaks that maybe you don't need doing. But hopefully this will give you a slow guide to how I would go about finishing off a painting. That's better. I think I can just squish just so I get a hint of color. That feels better. It's funny sometimes you just do something, and you're like yes, that's what it needed. Just a little bit more. Sorry, that was a tiny bit of burnt tigers eye. I am just extending that out a bit more. Yes, that's better. I'm just going to put some feather marks. Actually before I start taking color out, I'm jumping the gun with that, so lots of water sitting on top of that tube. I'm sure if there was. We're just going to do, I've done often to do any marks, but I feel it just helps with this brush. I've just tapped the color along the bristles. Just tap a little few, keeping the direction those feathers are going. For that obviously on the top of the head they're coming down. Then long because we've done quite a lot of work to try and get that sense of flow. Make sure you put the feathers in the direction they're going. Just a few up here. Just the tiniest of hint. And again, just squish them if you feel they've got a bit exaggerated just to soften down a bit. But that gives a little bit more texture, doesn't it as well? I'm just going to add a little bit more color here in a minute, so I'm not going to add any here. So let's do that now and then we can do. This is a little bit light, just where we've had that gap, where we were adding color at different stages. It's gone quite pale there. Yours again, might be fine, but you may have a similar thing to me. So why don't we doing wetting this underneath the chin? Let's go with a little bit of tiger's eye. I don't want it too strong. Blue is quite strong, the Payne's gray, so tiger's eye is lovely and soft. I'm just popping that down, cleaning my brush and we're going to just add slightly at the waist. I'm stopping my wrist from moving. I'm just going to pull some of that down. Brushes is damp and you can see it's going to lead me to be some obvious dry marks and that's giving me similar to what we're doing with the edge of the brush really, it's just giving me a little bit of texture, add a little bit more color. Let's add a bit of, and go for it. I can just do the same. Everything is nice and light. Try not to press too hard because you know that that's true. In theory, we've done three layers there. Lift your head up or lift your painting up should I say, step away from it a little bit if you're sitting quite close to it, see what it looks like. I think that looks okay. What I want to do while I'm here to say we're going to be going around taking color out. Almost lost some of that light there, so damp brush just pulling some of that color away. Trying to do with the kitchen roll because you find it might just take too much. I'm pulling right out. I really wanted to try and keep all that movement. We've tried really hard to create by tilting the board so still want to keep it in that faint of movement. A little bit here, not too much, and just again, just pull my finger a little bit. Almost good thing is to exaggerate it if you're not careful. Sometimes you look at a piece and you can do a little thing in it and it just makes it light in your eyes. Now I'm going to go round now and just take little bits of color out. I like taking a little bit off the top here, just on that edge on top of his head. Clean bit of kitchen roll. I can just dab , taking the color out. So I'm still working a little way and I've got a bit machine here of light, where the light is hitting. I'm making excuses, aren't I? So take a photo so you can see my funny pole that I have that sits in front of the work so I don't accidentally get my head underneath. I'm just getting rid of that hard edge just a little bit and you don't want to do too much or something disappears. Again, we're going to try and go round and let's take a little bit again at the beak. And say if yours is very light already, don't do this. But if it's like mine, it just takes a little bit of color out, gives you a little bit of light. Get rid of that very hard edge that's there. Work our way down, tiny bit here to the dilly bit. I quite like what's there? We'll try to do tiny bit out here. I'm sure that wing is exaggerated already just to find that nice line again. If you've lost it, put that there. Coming further down, this is where the magic sponge, if you haven't come across a magic sponge before, they are brilliant. I think a cleaning product, so these can be found on Amazon. I've put the link in the Projects and Resources pages. So you wet it down, wring it out and then you can just get rid of these hard edges. So very gently dampen them, which in a way, look at that, magic. It's great for any level, I tend not to use a huge amount apart from obviously very obvious, little splurges that you get when you're painting, which is really hard not to when you're doing watercolor. They're amazing for taking those out and cleaning your work out per the end. Occasionally I use them like this and this is a good case, just to get rid of any hard waterline that you'd been left with. You can see little bits here, a little bit there, just where we've tilted it. Let's run a little bit. I like what's happened here. It's a very hard tool to use or a bit of a blunt tool to use. I wouldn't take any color out in the body or anything major. It's a little bit of a blunt tool where I think the way we would say a bit harsh. So right here, I'm going to swap that and I'm going to take a little bit of color out of his, a few flicks out of his tufty bit. Great little brush this. Not too many, don't do too much because again, it's very easy to do too many. That's probably enough. I'm just going to flick back my iPad from a closer up to his face. I would take a little bit of light out this mouth area, so the low, what would be his lower lip I suppose, I'm going to just take a little bit of a color out. We need to color in as well to do those lips. Certainly looks better. I'm just waiting, making sure that all this area is dry before I tackle the eye for some, if you wonder why I've diverted away from the eye again. Better, I want to make sure that it's dry. So I thought we could continue fiddling along here. Lower beak. What we're going to do, we're going to wet it down again. I just want to get a little bit more depth in there. Say, if yours is dark enough, you don't need to do this. I'm going to color a bit color there just to bring us a little bit of strength. Actually what we will do, it would be helpful actually, even if you're happy with your strength is to just to wet it down and then what we will do, let's pick up the bird tiger's eye again. Very carefully, if you say, once it's wet down, I'm just going to put a little bit of color underneath. We're going to try and make that mouth line. We can also do this with the liner pen as well. So I'm going to do a little bit of both and hopefully where that's where I've wet this to take that color out should be a little bit soft and damp stuff. That line should soften. Really want a very hard line, lip under there and make that a little bit stronger and we can shape it if need be. If you've lost some of your shape, you can shape it now. It's a silence of concentration here. A little bit darker at the end as well, so it's quite dark there. Where the lips joins the bottom of the beak, the little line there as well, isn't it? Only tiny little things. That's enough actually. Put that down. I should be dry now. What I'm going to do, firstly, I'm just going to take a little bit of color out. The bottom of the eye it's almost already there. But where we've on that second layer when we wet the whole head down and we covered the eyeball game, we've lost some of that light zone. Small brush, I'm just gently wiping away. Again, you can reshape the eye if you're black color a little bit muddy, got a little miss shapes. You can shape that now. A little bit of that brown out. It's also quite nice. Got a little. It's like I started going into my yellow when I was doing the eye. Just guess trying to reclaim that. Also it's nice just to get a little sense of light as well, just a little bit of color out there in that corner edge. Say these are just a tiny tweaks that make all the difference. Just say keep flicking your eye to your painting and then back to the reference photo. They almost super-impose. You can see suddenly what need to doing. Hey minds got quite a frown actually but I'm going to leave that. [LAUGHTER]. It's either obviously concentrating. It's probably because I'm concentrating. I've made him concentrate, giving them a concentrated expression to. Sometimes where he's finishing off bits is probably advisable and before you get too carried away with doing lots of little tiny fiddly bits is to actually look at it the next day. You may find actually you don't need to do anything. What I'm going to do? I'm going to just going to add a few more of those little. I'll touch it on sides in the way my wrist movement. Just add a few more of those little bits of colored detail. It's just squeaking. Or if you've got panty just running along the edge of the brush. Will put some down here. Though we went that down, I'd hoped, they've giving a little bit more color and actually that she's almost washed out. While I drag that down, Let's put a few in for say. Make sure you go in the line of the feathers, so follow that line. Think I'm in danger of over-fitting if I'm not careful. [LAUGHTER] Just last tool, I am just going to blast it with a hairdryer very quickly just to make sure it's really dry before I do any either fine lining. [NOISE] With the fine liner, this is where you can really crispen up that eyeball. Just look your reference photo and really crisp it up. That gives you that real ping. Again, go around that crescent of that. I'm really sharpen up that detail. You might need to scrap a paper here might need to give it a little bit of a scribble clip runs out as it's going over the paint. Hope you get the gist you can. You might look at the eye, you want that eyeball to be lovely and round. This is where I say you can just be sit down, get really nice and close to it. I get that I eyeball really lovely around. Any other detail. It's got nice to do just the nostril to run out. To do nostril and go around that sharpen that up. Again, you can do a little bit, just bits, don't draw a long line because it will look a little bit too much personally. I would just do a little section of it. Just a really crisp up. Any of edges. Because the rest of this is ever so loosened flowing. What I'm trying to get is some very sharp detail in the eye. Should pull that back. That's enough for me. Just see I quite like take a little bit more color out that eyeball. Just trying really make that shine. That's better. The pierce the resistance as they say, little bit of the white paint and white gush get it really loving, creamy with your small brush. I know he hasn't got one on there, but I still like putting them on and I would put it towards the you want to see looking up here. Put it towards the front of that pupil to a tiny little dot. Think it makes all the difference. [LAUGHTER]. There's also, the minutest little. Just a little bit of white here, isn't it? Just where the eyeballs rolling around to look forward. Just pop that in as well. We're almost there. Any other thing is to take a little bit of color out of that frown if you think you need it. You lost a little bit of yellow here personally, it was me trying to paint from a distance. Excuses. I'm there with him. But if you were wanting to do the bald eagle and you found this was a little bit too light here still for you. He's not. [LAUGHTER]. It looks a little bit weird now this one's. I was quite pleasure with them. He's my first prototype amongst many. But what I've done, I've done another layer over him. You can see the paint gray here. Like we did and we did this second layer of the body. We did a little stripe along there. Did very similar little dots. Quickly wet it down. Had it up a little bit of a tilt and then let it all run down. It's exactly as we did with the second layer. If you go back to doing the second layer over the body, it's exactly the same technique really. We're just doing it with some paints gray. Then again, once you've done those dots very quickly, pull it upwards, but be mindful not to go too far up because I think the bald eagle, do they have quite a chunk of white head and the white feathers run further down their neck. I wouldn't go any higher than this. That's almost a touch too high and said, so it's better maybe to start a little bit lower. Don't start at that line when we did the second layer. Don't add the paint where we started go further down because you can always do pull it up like we did. Then I would let it dry, tilt it again, and I would let to dry quite a tilt. Again same rules apply watch out for there any paddling that might appear down here. But bear in mind, it's just an impression. Say we're not trying to do a bird observers guide. It's something that's pleasing from a distant in some ways. Don't get over technical better detail. I think the nice thing is just to get that I really love in crisp and the beak really lovely crisp. I would take my time over doing those and leave the rest of it quite loose and flowing and loose. [LAUGHTER]. I hope you enjoyed painting along with me for this class he's been numb. He's been a learning curve for me as well. I've really enjoyed the challenge of painting him. If for any reason, when I look at him the next day and I find this is other things I feel I could alter and will be helpful for you to see the alter I will do another chapter. If there isn't another chapter I've considered, he's okay the next day. Yes I would do likewise, popping away for the overnight and then, as I say, in the finishing of bits. Just looking it in the next day and tinker if need be. Thank you very much for joining me. 12. Next Day Tweaks: I came back into my studio and looked at him with a fresh pair of eyes as you do. I can see little bits that need adjusting. They're not obviously going to be exactly pieces that you would need to adjust on your own piece, but I hope this is helpful for you to see how I go about finishing off my pieces to a more of a crisper, higher standard, I suppose. Mainly, what did I see that really stuck out? It's silly, isn't it? We spent an hour and a half, I suppose, to get the painting and you look at a piece for so long you almost don't see what you're looking at. I think it's why it's so helpful to reassess your piece the next day before you go, it's done. Because quite often you come back and go, that could have been a little bit different. I can see lots of little bits. The biggest issue I would say, he looked a bit small and cramped. When I actually looked at my reference photo and this template is me telling you to be really careful about sketching them out. I haven't done a particularly good job myself. The wing needs to be a bit wider. I'm going to show you how I'm going to make this a little bit bigger. I eel like he can maybe do a couple of more cliffs at the back here, which is where those feathers are sort on the top of his head. Tiny little adjustments around here in the nostrils just to crisp it up. I think, again, because this is so loose pieces, so crisp details and that lovely contrast, which I think are nice. I'm also quite aware, I've done a bit of a hybrid probably because this is the actual sea eagle with brown or mainly brown and I've obviously gone quite blue, hoping to incorporate the elements of the bald eagle for you. I'm going to add another layer and it's obviously not going to cover up the blue, but just to give it some more of a warmer brown tones over the top. Also I can demonstrate how I go about doing another layer, which would be helpful if you're wanting to do the bald eagle and add more dark blue, I hope that makes sense. Adjust this wing a bit. Let's get started before I waffle on wet all my tiny little adjustments. First, I'm going to try and work from top to bottom just so I don't put my hand in it and I don't want to really have the dry bits, so I probably need to put that down and pick up my tiny little brush. Little things around the nostril, there it is. The minute shadow, let's say this is getting a little bit pedantic, I suppose. I just want to put a tiny little shadow there. It's just with a very bit of graphite. Just put in that little line there and just softening down. I can just do a little bit more strength under here. He's got quite an exaggerated dark areas so I've lost that somewhere along the line. I think I didn't have it one point, but somewhere between the washes, it's washed out. I'm picking up a little bit of sepia, tiny bit of graphite, and I'm just literally going to paint it in. Just a little hint. I don't want to get too, I'm also having to walk away from it again, because when I was closer up to it, I can see it quite clearly. Now I'm a little away from it. I'm trying to judge. Yeah, that's better. Just this color got a little bit lumpy. Again, I just want to soften that white line where I put the white gouache. It's gone a little bit clumpy. I'm just smoothing that out a little bit. Yeah, that's enough. Don't think there were any other issues higher up. I think his head was okay. I just wanted to see if I can do some more flicks and without making it look like they're stuck on because I know there's a few people of comedy going, you need to do it while it's still wet. Let's see if we could do this without them looking stuck on it. I can show you how to soften them if you want to do them later. I got tiger's eye, which is nice soft color and I got the graphite. I just want to keep all your wrist nice and loose. Let's see if we're obviously going in that direction. See what they look like. This is that one there. Yeah, that's better. No more. Then you can just very gently clean your brush again, Find where the you started with that brush smoke, and then brush a stroke, not moat. Then just gently soften with your other finger or something just so you don't get that hard line where it started from. I think that's helped. I'm going to do the wing next, so I'm just going to literally really wet the whole thing and incorporate a slightly larger wing. Making it bigger. I don't know how it got so dwarfed, I'm honest. Just going to use my eradicated brush. I'm just going to try and get that existing line off. Give it a little bit of a rustle. Left with two lines. Then with the tiger's eyes, I pick up the Goethite again. I don't want to do too much. It's just did the minute little line, I suppose, so your eye can see that that wing is larger than it actually was a few minutes ago. Say I've got some nice markings on there. I don't really want to mess up but don't mess any other pop, particularly, we'll put a little bit more gold because I'm aware I've started making it quite dark. As I said, I was doing sea eagle. It's probably not a great representation of him. That's enough. Again, I can potentially be left with some watermarks. I'm just going to just gently drag it down a little bit of kitchen roll. Just gently soften that waterline. I think that's making it better. This side is where we just got one layer. It's a little dull, hasn't really got any interest. So I'll keep the tiger's eye down. I'm going to grab a little bit of sepia. I'm just going to put quite a dark mark there. I'm just going to put that in, just literally painting that in. Cleaning my brush without sticking my hand in the other side of the wing. This is why I always have to dry things in-between because I'm likely to do this. So I'm just going to drag that into the wing. Make sure I got the shape right. Soften the top. If I just start dragging, I'm going to end up with a suitable drag marks. Just need pressure to the top of the wing, although it's very like the top of the wing. You have to interpret these reference photos to make them almost work for your piece as well. This is knowing what to put in and what not to add. What's going to make the picture an improvement and what's not. I'm not convinced this is working either at the moment. We never dragged down. Sure, I've got the smoothness of that wing. Tiny bit, it goes right there. That looks better actually. I lost some of these nice drag marks, but I think that looks all right. I'll take a little bit out of the kitchen roll. That looks okay. Let's put those down. Now, I'm going to start this little body bit. I'm just a little bit cautious. Both wings are a little bit wet. They will leave a little line. I'm try not to incorporate it too much. I'm not going to use any of the Payne's gray. Obviously, if you're following this and you're wanting some help with doing that third layer now to make the bald eagle darker, then obviously use your darker blue or black or whatever you decided to do for the dark colors. I'm going to use a brown because I want to make him a little warmer tones, and give him a little bit more impression he's a seagull, not a bald eagle. So as we did with that second layer, and when we put little dots down of paint, I'd say go lower because again, with the bald eagle, it's quite a lot of white. It's just not his head, it also goes down to his neck. Sorry, I've got tigers eye. I don't want to add sepia. It's a little bit dark and I haven't got any other colors. When you dotting these down, once you put them down, you need to work quite quickly because you don't want to be left with any dots. Put a nice light amount. Clean your brush and I'm just going to drag again, keeping everything very light. Let's try not to knock right wing. I also want to drag up fairly quickly. I don't mind it'll dry patches, but just make sure the runners is the feather. You're following any feather marks or feather lines, that's it. This would apply exactly. If you'll turn to add the dark, just the same. You don't need to. Can you see that's giving a little bit of just warming up a little bit, isn't it? Pull it down again. Also we've got our magic sponge. We can take little bits out if it looks a little hard on the edges. But my main concern was just to add a little bit more strength and a little bit more warmth, a little bit more brown for me. Again, you may be wanting to add a little bit of dark giving him more of a bald eagle attempt. I like that. I don't think I want to fill it much more. Just making sure I haven't gotten any obvious dots there. Let's put a little bit right more there. Squinting your eyes is always great. Really helps to see where you think you need some dark on your painting. I sit on the redundant or his fatal. If I say I'm nearly done, normally means I'm going to continue fiddling. Sometimes you just can't resist, can you? It's very hard. I am definitely at that stage. If I carry on, I am going to ruin what I've got. I like that little liner there. I'm going to allow that to dry. I look and allow that to dry and I'm going to soften any. Once that's completely dried, I can use that magic sponge out. We didn't clean any edge it up. If you haven't gotten a magic sponge, just keep an eye on it as it dries. You can use a clean piece of kitchen roll and just gently soften those edges as they dry. Very gently like that so you're left with that nice lost and found where it's very soft and it disappears. Wonderful. I hope this little extra class is been a help. As I say, these aren't necessarily covering any of your particular issues because yours might be perfect and you may not have the same issues as I've got, so I hope this has helped. So please don't forget to put any of your work on the projects and resources pages. I'm so looking forward to seeing these eagles appear. I know you're going to do an amazing job and it's going to be nice to see the difference between the sea eagles and the bald eagles, whichever you decide to do. Well, you may have a hybrid, a little like mine, but whatever you do, please do share them because it's very rewarding to see your pieces appear. So again, thank you for joining me. 13. Final Thoughts: I hope you enjoyed the class. Which bird did you paint? Whichever one it was, I hope you had fun allowing all that wonderful paint to flow. Isn't it exciting and liberating? Hope you enjoyed painting that beautiful eye and beak. It's worth taking the time to get it wonderfully crisp. Did you add the third layer to give you a little more depth? Or had you been bold enough on the first two? As I always say, it's worth stepping away and coming back and looking at him with a fresh pair of eyes and tweak if necessary. We look forward to seeing you in the next class.