Adler-Eule. Ein Free-Flow-Aquarell-Meisterkurs mit Jane Davies

1. Introduction: Welcome to this intermediate watercolor class. Today I'm going to be showing you how to create this amazing Eagle Owl. I have loved putting this class together for you. There's a few new techniques along with the familiar favorites. Now if you feel your work has tightened up recently, this is a great class for loosening things up. 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 see today. Not having been to art school, finding my own way has been fun and sometimes daunting, but 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 where I can guide you to keeping your work loose and fresh without over fussing. I have over 20 classes available on skill share. Now if you're just starting out, my three beginner classes will guide you. Then you'll find over 20 master classes 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'll share a few of my tips and tricks along the way to, as ever, I provided you with a wonderful reference photo of him along with a downloadable template for you to print out. The template will give you a stress free drawing, so you can just enjoy the painting. I'll be showing you how to create that beautiful loose textured body and how careful layering can add depth and form. I also want to show you how to section area is off and explain the whys, hows and when I'll be guiding you through creating those magnificent eyes. Surely the centerpiece to this painting. Of course, I 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 Jane Daviswardcolors.com.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. Well, I love sharing my art, especially on stories with many ideas, Works in progress, and tales of studio life. I really hope you will share all your paintings on the projects and resources pages, as I love seeing your master pages. And 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 and wet loose style. Come and join me. 2. Materials: So welcome along to this lovely owl class. I think you're going to love this one. Just look at him. He is quite handsome. Now, I'm going to run through all the materials I'm using today. And don't forget, they're all listed in the projects and resources pages too. No need to have to memorize them. There's also a lovely reference photo, and there's your template there as well. If you're not confident of drawing them out, then make the use of the template. There's also a useful swatch, little guide of the colors I'm using. We don't all share these exactly the same shades or even makes so have a look at that. Choose the colors you have in your disposal and use those. Don't be too tied to these. I'm going to run from the top. I have a quad acrodoecburnt orange and the cadmin yellow deep hue, and I'll just use those for the eyes. I've got great titanium, so light genuine. A long term favorite of mine and it appears in most of my classes along with the P actually, and the lavender do like a bit of lavender of light as well. I got Light, which is a favorite and one I always seem to bodge the name on. However I try and remember the correct pronunciation, I seem to find the correct way to pronounce it. Anyway, there's a little bit of white grush as well there, which is just for doing the eyes, nothing else. The paper I'm using is Bockingford, and that's been stretched onto a perfect paper stretcher. I shall put the links again in the projects and resources pages for you. I've got my little pot of water, I've got a little bit of salt, which isn't very obvious on here, but I use a lot of granulating paints and it doesn't tend to work that well on the granulating paints. But it may work for you if you haven't got those exact paints. I have a little wooden heart that's been slightly mauled by my youngest dog that's about an inch high. I just used that to tilt my board. I also actually use my salt pot which is two 3 " high. Again, for the exactly same purpose, find something that you can pop your board on. That said, got a little more tilt. I've got my rubber, rather scruffy looking rubber, but it does work. A paper towel, kitchen roll, depending where you are in the world and what you call it. I have obviously a pencil and I four brushes. I have my number two and number six, and a number 16, And a little eradicated brush, which is great for taking just a tiny little bits of color out. Useful brush. And let's say again, they're all listed on the projects and resources pages. What else do I have a hair dryer which is off camera, useful but not essential. And that's just for drying bits in between layers. Don't think there's anything else to mention, let's go and sketch them out and get started. 3. Sketching Out: Obviously before we get painting, we need to sketch them out. I'm just going to give you just a few little hints that will hopefully help you when you come to sketch yours out as well. Now don't be afraid to use that template that's in the projects and resources pages. There's also some helpful guidelines. And they're marked in orange because we little areas of the on there, hopefully a little bit clearer for you. But they're worth sketching in, such as this rather odd line halfway down the body. And these are ear lines. Again, just make sure your overall drawing is right because if your drawing isn't right when you come to paint it, you're never going to rescue it. If you're not happy with your sketch, you're unlikely to say making an improvement when you paint eyes as ever are really important. Get those in the right place. And I've actually put the eyeballs in as well, the little beak, make sure that's a nice shape. And there's some really subtle curves here on the side of the head. They're worth getting in and getting right again. Just make sure you get all those lines in there. I would say this is quite heavy. You can probably see that. But I want you to obviously be able to see my work. But ideally, you want to keep your pencil marks as light as you can. That way when we finished, you can rub them out and you won't see them. Say, just take your time. If I'm doing a commission piece and I sketch it out, I always step away, come back and just look at it again just to make sure I say, I've got everything spot on. Take your time. 4. Ears: Okay to the fun bit. As they say, I'm going to be kind to you. We're going to start with the ears. It's I often start with ears because they're generally smaller areas to paint. And we get going then because a intimidating, isn't it? That expanse of white paper, you know, you have to cover. Get your brush nice and we we're just literally going to wet down those two ears. Make sure you stay within those nicely sketched out lines that you've taken the time to do. It doesn't matter so much within the body, but the outside is quite important. Make sure we're nice and tidy and you don't want any little white dry patches. You want it all covered. I'm actually going to switch brushes. I'm going to pick up my number six, just feel I have is a bit of a crusty end to it. I must admit this is the second time of filming this class because the first attempt, sadly the audio got corrupted. I obviously didn't clean my brushes afterwards. As I was saying smaller brushes, I feel I have a little bit more control. Big brushes are nice, obviously big expanses of paper, but the ear is not very big. Going to pick up my go fight first and the spa. I think I start with these two. We're just going to painting. Just tap dibbling and dabbling. Just placing paint down and allowing do the top edge Ear on the right ear. And then we'll go over to the left. I think I've got that the right way round. My lefts and rights are awful. I tell myself it's an artistic trait, surely. Okay. In brush, take the excess of moisture off on your kitchen roll or paper towel. It's depending where you are in the world. And then we're just going to add that dark just at the end Well, edge and just allow, make sure you've got plenty in your brush. The more paint you have, the more it will spread, the less you will have to sort of fiddle and keep tinkering because there'll be enough there. Just going to pick up a tiny little bit, so light genuine as well. Just get a little bit more depth this back here. In theory we won't do another layer over it, the front one. We will just make sure that's nice and heavy and you've got enough color on that. While I'm here going to do some tiny little flicks, you see on the reference vote, just a few don't go crazy. Flicks are always worth doing when the paint is lovely and wet, then you get some really lovely natural flicks. Rather than waiting till it's dried and they look like they're a little bit stuck on. Okay, same on the other side. Start with this, EPA, put that on, you can see where the darker areas are on that reference vote. Just following right down to the top of that eyes. Got some amazing eyebrows. We're just going to the top of those. I'm just a tiny little bit light on that one. Again, with that further ear, we're just going to do a few flicks. Make sure your brush is dry. When you're doing flicks, be adding too much water. It all gets a bit puddly then. Okay. That as they say is that, so don't try not to fiddle, put your paints down, and just allow that to dry. Now if you have a hair dryer at to hand, just minus, you may not be able to see this on the camera, but it's quite wet. And if I was to put a hair dry over that, now I would blow it all. There's a risk of blowing it off this area onto my paper out here. And also it sort of mingles all, all the paint, so you end up with it looking a little bit monotone and a bit naf, allow it to dry until it just starts to go tacky. Then you can put the hair dryer over it. 5. Body: Right. I'm actually doing something mildly risky for me. These ears are still a little bit damp. But because we're working all on lower parts and I'm not going to be touching that, it's actually quite high in theory, no risk of me doing that, then it should be all right. Okay. This is quite a fun layer where we add lots of paint and the water run. And the paints run. We need to be brave, starting with a slight tilt. So I'm going to use this heart, and it's just going to give me an inch high. I'm going to pick up a big bush, I'm going to wet to this line down here. We're starting underneath and I'll tell you what I will do. I think this is quite helpful. This is just for you to be able to see were wet down, so don't add color at the moment. You just want to have it nice and wet. We're going under's going to be a little white area in the finished piece. Then we're going to come go into that little bit of a wing down to that line, just make sure everything is wet in between. You don't want any dry patches. If you get a little dry patch say there, the paint will just run round it. Not necessarily a bad thing with this because it's all very loosened. We just have to texture really. But sometimes it's just simpler. Again, make sure it's plenty wet. Hopefully you can see that. Put enough color on there for you. Okay, I'm going to plunk that one down. I'm going to pick up the Gothite Pia and so light genuine. All we're going to do literally put color right at the very top right where we wet what I'm going to call that white area and allow got tap and allow you put color over top of one another. That's absolutely fine. Have a bit of Pia you can add. If it begins to dry a little bit, you can always add water. But be careful if you add water just to be mindful of it down here. It doesn't matter so much because we're going to be re, wetting that down, but we don't really want it escaping at the moment. Just grab a at bit my little kitchen roll to suck some of that up. By sucking some of that up, that's going to allow that paint to carry on running as well more color. Now what we're going to do is to do wet down the sides here to start at the very top. Try not to touch that ear, she says. Be confident that I'm not going to touch it. Then join and just allow that to run up because we've got this at a tilt at the moment, your paints not going to go too far up because of just gravity. And the same with the other side. Wet that down and allow. Touch that and allow and if you get runs that run in, that's absolutely fine. I can pick up my lavender as well actually. So, I'm going to pop a little bit of lavender in there, a little bit of gothite with it on top. And just allow, allow it all to run. Lots of water. Don't be frightened of the water, just be mindful, say of it puddling at the bottom. And the same, the other side as well. So just a little bit of lavender, a bit of gothite. Right. We're going to do now is to wet further down. Nice clean brush. Lots of water. And we're going to touch that line we made and that's just allow that paint to run further down the body. And we're going to have to add a bit more paint as well. Where we're up here, I quite like a little bit of a stagger down here. It's up to you really almost down to here. You can see that now I need just to carry on adding some more paint. What I will do actually now put those down for a second. I'm going to use my little salt pot, which is about two or 3 " high. I'm going to give it a little bit more of the tilt. That's going to encourage you run, obviously more, And give us more of the exaggerated run as well. I can put water on splash a bit more, to be mindful. I can see I've got a good old bottle of water there. We will be doing a second layer over this body. If you feel it's a little bit weak, don't panic too much. If you've got something you're pleased with and it's starting to run in looking nice, then leave it just because I'm carrying on. If you have something you're pleased with, just leave it just a tiny hint of lavender. Put lavender in there. All we're after is texture and interest, not putting those individual feathers on. Trying to create anything more than just texture and interest. Those bubbles managed to do a splat there so that we're going to run into that got a bit sticky there. With that one, if you feel the side of the head has got a little washed out, you can just put some more water on and just allow it to run. I catch at the bottom here, if it runs out, if you feel that it's too exaggerated, it's running too quickly and it's looking a little bit to always fast, then we can obviously then lower it back down again. Right lower mine down, sizing quite a lot. So let's just give it an inch high tilt. Now I think I quite like what's happening here at the moment. Might just leave it in a minute before I start to over fiddle, which is often so easy done, isn't it? Because you enjoy doing it as well and it's fun. A little bit more color down there. It's almost stopped for me at that line we put into. I'm just going to encourage it down a little bit more. You can always tilt it at a different direction. That will obviously give you a sent to it moving in a different direction. If it was tilting down to this corner here, you obviously get a flow that flows down into that corner. It can be quite nice. Can you get a different direction? It's probably enough going on to not worry with that today, but it's another option if you were ever to do this one again, Okay. I'm going to leave that there because I know it's going to continue moving and changing. I'm going after I finished playing around arranging my paint, I'm going to stand here and watch it for a minute. It's a little boring. I probably won't won't film it, but just keep an eye on it. There is some salt which I want to put down, but it needs to get to the stage where it's just starting to go off for the salt to work. At the moment it's too wet. But I will as it's bobbling because we've still got on a tilt, it's going to obviously still gather here. I'll probably just often, just to make sure I don't get some very hard water marks. I'll leave this one, leave anything you like. If it's looking nice and giving you some nice patterning, then just leave it. But yeah, it's just worth holding and watching and seeing how it looks. I'm going to do exactly that there. Don't forget to put your salt on just as it goes off. 6. Face: Okay. I hope you're pleased with what you have so far. And you've got some lovely patterning and your salt has worked a little better than mine. I think if you have a lot of granulating paints, the salt tends not to work as well. Hey, right, I need to lay this flat again. Put the salt to one side, and we're going to be working around the face and then incorporating a bit another second layer onto this body. Before we start, let's make sure it's really lovely and dry before you brush off any salt. Going to get rid of that, just brush off onto the carpet. Right, The kitchen roll there. Okay. So I'm going to use a bigger brush to start with. I'm going to wet down. Let me do this again. I'm going to show you my notes. I've got a very scary looking out. It makes sense to me. Okay? So I'm going to be wetting down. And this, a little bit of color here is just for you to have to see where I've wet down. We're going to go around the eyes up to the ear, down to this section here. When we wet the body, we left this line, didn't we, then wet the cheek. You just want to go cheek the side of the headline. The line I'm wetting down. There's too many lines going on a little bit with this painting. All helps to be able to add to the flow and to be able to control we're going with it, it's really a useful thing to section areas off. Okay. Underneath the eye, again, underneath that little crisscrossy line, there's a cris crossytle section here between the eyes. And there's going to be a crisscrossy section underneath what I call that is the mustache, which is underneath a little white area underneath the peak. Sure, it's not a technical term for an owl, but I'm going to call it a mustache. We've wet that area down toch little bit. I'm wetting down now. The mustache needs to be kept dry. Okay. Once it's in wet, you can if you're in a warmer climate or you've put a hair dry over this before you started, the paper can be quite warm, water can then, or your paper will dry out. If it looks a little dry, just add a little bit more water. Because if your paper is too dry, that paint won't flow. You don't want it puddling. If it's sitting in puddles, the paint will just sit on top of it, but not wet enough. If it's too dry, the paint also stit as well but won't move. Right. I'm going to down that bigger brush and pick up the number six. I'm going to pick up the gray titanium and the Go. Now I only want a hint of color here really because we will do some subtle other layers over this. It's just getting a little bit of something down. Let's start with the, this gray is a really pretty color, actually, ideal for this owl underneath there. Just make sure you go right up against that ice. You haven't got any white paper exposed. Do you want that nicely covered now? Just because I've wet this section down the edge of the head doesn't mean to say we need to add color. It just stops any rather hard lines between sections. That's the reason why I wet this one down. It may not necessarily even need any color. Just judge your own piece. As we slowly work our way along these classes, our pieces will start to differ. So I can only paint my own piece at certain stages and hopefully guide you how I'm doing it. Always be a judge of your own piece. What we'll do, we'll put a little bit of a go through there and just do a couple of those little flicks. A nice flick there, isn't it? Again, they're always best done when it's nice and wet. The paper is nice and wet. Keep eye that reference photo and just look for the darker areas. I would probably say I'd like to keep the left hand side a little bit lighter. There's not any obvious light source on the reference photo, but it's quite nice to bear in mind a light direction if there's not an obvious one. It just gives a nice bit of contrast really. Let's put a little bit heavier underneath those ears. I know owls don't have ears, but they're just feathers. It's just, add a little bit of strength there, give an idea of sort of shadow. Okay, I don't think I want to do much to that side that's looking nice. You just want something that's pleasing. Really doesn't have to be exactly what you see in the front of you. As long as you're happy and you like something which maybe produce a nice pattern for you, then just just leave it right. I'm going to down the gray, going to hang on to the Go, I'm going to pick up the spa and we're going to do some crissy marks which will hopefully give an impression of those. Love is rough underneath he's mustache. A little bit of paint on your brush. I'm going to start where it's a little bit where it's wet and you're just do I know this looks a little violent to start with. We can soften it down. You're just criss crossing. I'm keeping my hand on the piece of paper and just doing a, an arc, you can wet your brush a little bit. So if it's got a little bit heavy, just soften your brush. So wet your brush and just soften, do a few more lines. But be careful, it's very easy to suddenly lose what we want. Clear pieces of paper, white bits of paper. I'm actually going to pick up my light, just put a little bit of darkness. Just tapping a little bit in there, touching the wet paper, the other side of that rough come down mind to go a little bit, a bit lower. We're going to wet this area down as well in a minute. Okay. That's that's probably enough like she put those down for a sick I'm going to use my heart, raise the board, have gray paint on my arm. And we're just going to do this almost sort of second layer over the body. So I'm going to pick up my bigger brush, pick up the colors I had which was the CPR. So, like genuine and the gothitet's a little bit of two colors on my brush. At the same time, I'm starting at the edge of where those Chris Cosy mark is and I'm going to run down exactly where we put the paint for the first layer. Just going to dot a little bit along along that edge, exactly the same place, say as we did that first layer. Now with my big brush, really light because you've probably got some lovely patterning. You don't want to press too hard and we're just going to tickle some paint down. There's no right or wrong where this really goes really just after some interesting patterns. If you were maybe a bit heavy on the first layer, don't do too much, or vice versa, Then now you can add some more color if you felt you needed a bit more strength. But if you were a little bit heavy handed and it's bold enough for you, then don't add too much color. The water alone will give you some markings. That's all we're after. Just a little bit more interest. Really, mine is quite heavy, so I'm not going to do too much. But what I will do quite quickly is to wet this little area down here. We're just touching that crisscrossy mark. I'm just filling that in again because we've got it on the tilt, it's just going to gently fill in that white area but not not cover it completely. Say because it's on a tilt and gravity is working on our favor. A keep an eye on any bubbles down there. If you've got a little bit of a line, you can always give us a little bit of a rustle. The beauty with these Daniel Smith paints is they're very forgiving. They lift out beautifully. Sometimes almost too well. Okay, so step away. If you're sitting, just stand up for a second and get above your work because you'll be able to see a slightly different perspective over it. Going to put a little bit more color just there because there's an impression add Heavy's a little bit more water. Allow that to run. There's an impression of those feathers falling, Isn't it? Off that, Chris? Crotty mark? Yeah, I like how that's going at the moment. Add a bit more water. I just have to be careful. I don't we're running off the bottom. Looking back at my reference photo, just give a little bit of guide. Sneaking down there, isn't it? Let's capture some of that. I don't really want a very strong why it's a little bit too much of a line. Let's get rid of that a little bit. So I'll just put my brush in the middle of it and break it. Broke it up, right? I think that is done for that layer. Now. Again, a little like the first layer we did over the body. You can just stand here or sit and just watch it for a minute. Just make sure it doesn't say because you've got that on the tilt. It's going to continue running and then collecting in little puddles. It's worth just sucking those up as they make their way down. Just watch it. But once it begins to try not to intervene too my, and add to more color as it begins to dry. Almost watching it and just collecting any water. Really, you're not adding more color. Because the thing is to allow these beautiful paints to, as they say, work their magic. You're just having a watch, really, and then allow it to fully dry before we head to the next lesson. 7. Head: Right. They're coming along nicely, aren't they? So let's lay the ball flat again, or your paper flat again, put to one side. Now we're going to wet the front here. We're going to do this little criscssy part in front of the eyes or between the eyes, say. Then we're going to wet some other little sections down and start to pull it all together. We I'm going to use my number six brush and I'm going to, if you're ever doing the second layer, go really gentle, you don't want to upset any layers that you might have underneath. Probably got some nice patterning underneath there. If you push too hard, you disrupt it again. Just because I've wet this down doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to add any more color. It's just going to allow me to pull this part together. Really. I can also use a little bit of paint that's existing from the ear. That makes sense. If I start the criss cross, you can see I've already got some paint there. But I will pick up sepia and goite again exactly what we did before. And this is where you want to make sure your paper painting nice and dry and we're just going to crisscross and then just add going to put sepa down quite seper issues, isn't it? So I'm just going to pick up the keep my go sit. Just join up with those ears. It's only a little bit, you don't need to do too much. Yeah, that's nice. If I wanted to, I can add a little bit of color. I don't think I necessarily needed to, but just to be able to show you really, I can add a little bit of Spa. There's a little line going up there, isn't it? So I can add a little bit more color. Each layer you do, you'll find the paint doesn't move as much as it would have done on the very first layer. So you can start to get some control there because it won't flow as much. Give me more depth there. From here, I can use this color to do that lovely eyebrow coming out here. And same the other side. Just keep an eye on that reference photo. Say, look for the darker areas. We'll soften this all down in a minute. Don't worry, it looks a little hard at the moment, but Okay. What we're going to do, clean your brush and we're going to wet touching that crisscrossy line. We're going to come down and into that mustache, round the beak, underneath the eye. And we're just going to sort of strengthen some of this area up underneath here, soften that eyebrow down, and you work your way out to that first. It wasn't the first, was it? But this area here, you can see it's still quite obvious that line there. So we're wetting out to the, into the mustache and checking it all, nice. And by wetting this down, those eyebrow lines should have softened nicely. Now we're going to start adding just a little bit of strength around this beak, really? So I'm going to have the CPA and the gray see quite a nice bit of strength there, isn't it? Let's pop a little bit of color in there. Again, that will bleed gently into your mustache area. And keep it nice and soft but it shouldn't run too much. Look you way along, if it has run like that, might run a little bit too much into that and just gently drag it out. Come down a little bit. The thicker you put your paint, the more paint you have on your brush. If it's quite gluey, then it again won't move as much either, so you get a nice creamy consistency. You can see how that's starting to build up, just blended into the mustache area and giving it a little bit of softness, but has retained the white as well. Again, we're looking for darkness. We've got a nice patch there, haven't we? All around? A little bit of. So light genuine as well. It's quite dark round here, right down around the front of that eye, you get to a nice stage where it's just beginning to go off. It's a little bit tacky, but it's still wet if you find it's all damp, but this is beginning to dry and as long as it's still a little bit damp, you can just add a little bit more water then you can allow you to carry on playing. But if it has completely dried it a little bit more difficult because it will leave you with, if you start wetting an area down. While this is a dry, you'll end up with some water marks. But as long as everything's damp, you can carry on just adding a little bit more water. Then you go a little bit more time to keep playing the how are we doing? Okay, it's a nice little bit on top of that beak. Just make sure you keep that beak shape. Nice, a nice shape. Don't go into the beak too much. That's also squinting my eyes back and forth to that reference photo, there's a nice little bit of a patterning probably a little bit wet there. Actually, I probably popped a little bit too much water there I was showing you because my paper was actually the right amount. It wasn't, it hadn't dried while I was putting it down there to show you saturated it. Okay. There's a nice little wiggly line kind of run from the eye, isn't just pop that in again, there's a little bit outside as well. Yeah, that's looking quite sweet. Just that comes running a little bit into the top. So I can just gently clean brush. Just gently wipe it up. Or you can put a bubble of water. And again, that will push the paint out again. Now what we need to be mindful of, we need to do this forehead before these ear is completely dry back up to your forehead. Let's put hold, put the gray down so I've got the so light genuine in the. And we're just going to wet that forehead down. Touching those front ears, touching the cris, crotty bit, touching anything that's wet. And you should get a nice blend of bleed again, add a little bit more water so it's nice and wet. And we're just going to put a little cris, cosy cross downward crisscrosses, make sure we get that head shape. Nice. Let's have a little bit of, a little bit of go fight in there as well because I can see it's a nice bit of go fight there as well, under the leaf, just where that quiz crossy bit starts as ever. If you have something you like, leave it. But there is a nice bit of white either side of those ears as well, isn't it? Try and keep some of that. Take your brush away. See what you think down there? I think that's coming along nicely. What I will do before this all dries and me telling you to do your while the paper is nice and wet, we have some nice flicks off underneath the ear. Number six down. Let's pick up my number two. Wake the brush up, clinging onto all these paints. Let's put those down. Just keep the go and we're just going to flick, popped a little bit of paint on my brush. I'm going right to the edge but a little bit way in and just doing a few little flicks because I like those, I like any flicks. The same, the other side as well, If there actually isn't any there on the left hand side is there. But we've already done the right hand side. Once We don't need to do those, make sure I haven't got to go right around the eye. I can see I've left a little tiny white patch. You'll probably be fine. You probably haven't done that. I'm going to use my old excuse. So I always work a little way away from my painting because of the camera angles. It's sometimes hard to see what I'm painting, especially when I'm doing close up bits. Okay, that's looking really nice. Just again, before it completely dry. If it has, don't worry too much. It's looking a little bit dry. We're going to put that eye make up on very carefully. Go round the eye. Now if you're painting or your paper is quite wet around the eye, just hold fire. You want it just to be a little bit tacky or almost completely dry. It wouldn't matter if you've let it dry, but what you don't want is it wet? Because this won't stick as it will just run even using. So we're just putting that eye make up on, you can see the dark areas. And we're just literally painting it on. Going to the other side and doing exactly the same really carefully. Take your time. Mind looking a little bit wonky. Hard for me to see that's looking okay, excuses. Now I've actually that nice line off there which is put that back in again. Sometimes you keep adding little bits of color. Some bits get lost, it's all coming together down. I call it a little bit high. There was actually a really nice little flick here trying to replicate. I did the class, I did film when the audio didn't quite work. I was really pleased with my owl and it was a lovely slick off the bottom eye. The car went up, You can kind of see the little join, but it'll look quite sweet. Okay, I'm just taking my brush away. See you when I'm thinking it's going okay. I'm liking what I'm seeing. Now it's getting to that slightly tricky stage where it's beginning to dry. But what I can do as it just begins to dry is to take a little bit of color out. We can do this again in the phi bits and we will do, but I might try to take a little bit out. Now, clean your brush and make sure you've taken the excess moisture off on your paper towel because what you don't really don't want to do is add water now at this stage, but I can take color out, it comes out a little bit easier. And it will also soften because as I take the color out, obviously because it's a little bit damp, the paint will close up around it and give you a slightly softer look, nice bit underneath the eyes. So you're almost sculpting at this stage as well. If you are completely dry, your paint is completely dry, then this can be done. You can still do it or you can just hang on and we can do those little bits in the finishing off. Right. Let me fiddling my own piece now and not helping you, that really needs to do. Yeah, just make sure it is completely dry before the next lesson is. To the beak and then the eye, and then it all starts coming together. 8. Beak: Okey doke. Nice, easy bit the beaks. Fairly straightforward. It's just a case of probably tinkering afterwards. But we need just to get the color down to start with little brush that's wet and we're going to go a bottle of water. Going to be do stay within your line. Especially a lovely sharp bit at the end. And we're going to pick up the gray and soda light genuine. We're just going to add the gray, just almost painting it in as close as I get to painting, brush excess moisture off. Then nice double of light genuine. Now when you look at the photo, there's a nice line that runs through the center and then it switches almost and it goes dark to the side. We just want to get the main bulk of that idea and say, well, sculpt a little bit later. So concentrating trying to get that nice tip nice and pronounced. That is almost it really to say it will bleed and blend and we'll sort it out. Once it's dried, let's just try and move it a little bit too much. Let's just wipe a bit of that away. Okay, well, I am just going to allow that to dry and then we will give it a little bit of tinker in a minute. So even with a head dry over, I can see that's almost beginning to dry on me. But say once it's beginning to go off, you can with that head dry over. Okay. You can probably see that looks pretty scruffy at the moment, but we'll get it there. Say it a little bit of patience and a bit of time, and a bit of sometimes tinkering work. Very small details such as this. It's worth having a little bit of a time and spent on it. All right. I'll re wet it down again. I've got my P this time because the CP doesn't move so much, I'm going to put a bit of warmth on the top here and try and see if I can get that strength the side there. A little bit of sepia. Oh, that's sorry. Too much sepia. Sorry, big lump of it line down the middle. Again, as I say, because we're now on the second layer, those paints aren't moving as much and you can probably see that, hopefully, quite a thin line down the center. Let's close that dark in a bit. It's already beginning to look better. What we will do on this little bit is just to pull some of that out. Let's put that PA down for a minute, some of it out, and very gently put some little fluffy bits into the mustache. Hopefully that makes sense. You can see what I mean. If you look at that reference photo, you can see you're just trying to create just a bit of, I know it's not fluff it's feather, isn't it? But it looks fluffy to me, the best way to explain it, just tiny little flicks, you don't want to do lots, just a little bit. That will just stop the beak looking too stuck on because it's always the risk. If you paint something solo like that on its own, it can look like you've actually stuck the beacons by doing this and you can always use your finger. That's always a nice way of just softening the edges so you're not actually sucking paint up, you're just squidging it around. That's looking nice. I can see that coming together. That's what I'm going to do. Run my dry brush down the middle. You can see beginning to get that light of that beak. I can take a little bit more color out of the side then obviously, yours is going to look different to mine now. So just take your time. This is a nice sitting down job. If you can sit down. I'm hovering still above my work, trying to get a little bit closer. I think I'm going to leave it there for the time being. But please stay with this for a little minute. If you're nowhere near ready and you think, oh no, I need a little bit more time still playing with this, then do it will come together. Now, we'll actually let me show you this. Try not to squeech that. This was my piece I did on the first take of the out class, because I sat down and played with a little bit more. You can see that that's got a nice feel to it now, but it was just a case of tinkering. I shall leave you to tinker and play with it. We can always do a little bit more. I might let this dry and see how it looks and then get back to, you see is something else I can add that will help you. Okay, now that's completely dry, You can then carry on doing a little bit of more sculpting. It will then get to a really nice, crisp edge, then take a little bit more color out of here. I think I'm there with mine. But hopefully that will give you an idea of how to progress, really, that little eradicated brush, if you found you can't get the color out. This is a great little brush for taking sharp edges of color. You see that's green, quite bold. That's almost got back to the white paper there. Once you've tinkered completely with that, we can do the eyes. 9. Eyes: Okay, let's do these eyes now. I had a bit of camel trouble here by editing magic, I'm going to swap the owl for the one I did yesterday. Are you ready? Don't worry if you see some tiny differences outside of the eye, we'll be back to the main owl in a few minutes. The bit we're doing now is exactly the same on both. Okay, let's get started. I'm going to pick up my number two brush. I'm going to pick up my yellow, nice and easy to start with, so we're just going to wet the whole eye down. You want to drip running down my brush. You want to touch the make up. It may well not very gently blend, but you don't want to leave a white line. You want to go right up against that make up line all the way around with the yellow. Very simple a painting, you just want to get a yellow base such as the same nick. Thi, make sure if you've hair dried it just before you started the eyes. Just make sure they're wet. You don't want it, you want nice wet at this stage, not that tacky stage we were talking about and doing the makeup and the beak, but just a little bit wetter because we're going to add the orange at the top, and if it's not wet enough, you'll find it just sticks at the top, which isn't ideal. Then for the orange, we're going to tap along the top and allow that to lead down. You can always encourage it if it feels like it's sticking a little bit. Just seem to carry you down little bit but predominantly want to be working at the top. Same along with the other eye. Keep an eye on that reference photo. You can see there's a darker area inside socket on that left hand eye. Again, if it moves, just just keep an eye on it. It'll probably carry on blending down. So you might want to add a little bit more color to the top again. See that's already captured that, hasn't it? And we see that in the intensity, shadowing unneath the ice just by adding that orange. Now we are going to allow that to dry. It might be worth, it's always nice to allow them to dry naturally as much as you can. While it does, you can just watch it just to make sure that orange doesn't crowd out the yellow, because it's the yellow that will give you that really nice in stare, that contrast of those colors. Just watch it say once it, once it starts to go off, you can then blast it with a hair dry. But if it's a little bit wet still, it will merge too much and it will push the colors into one another. Just allow that to dry. Okay. Once that layer is fully dry, make sure it isn't nice and dry. Pick up. I'm just going to use my slightly bigger brush, although I've been using the small one to put the detail in. If I use very little one, it's easy to rustle that lovely layer. We've got already. The bigger the brush, the less you are to scrub at it. We're just really gently adding water. We're wetting the whole eye down again. But let your brush almost fall, it may result in little puddles of water. What you want to do is just gently suck them back up again. You don't want it puddling because the paint will just sit on top. I've hair dry these off so I can see that's almost starting to dry already. I'm going to pick up medical brush again. I just feel I have a little more control with it. I'm going to pick up light genuine. So we'll have burnt orange in there hand too. Just wanting to add a little bit more shadow underneath that eye. Now, if yours looks dark enough for any reason and you're happy with it, you don't have to do this, but I want to make that a little bit darker. You may found as you wet that down on the first layer and you touched the Pa, I make up it was just enough to give you a dark that c shadowing. Just gently adding in a little bit of both colors. Actually, I don't want it to be too blue. You're too dark by adding a little bit of the orange. And I'm sort of mixing them up, really again, just teasing it over, taking the time. Look, in that reference photo, take your brush away. See what we think a little bit more, little lighter area at the top. That's just me and my piece. Be guided by your own piece and what you feel you need tapping. Okay, I think that's looking all right. I'll brush away again. A little bit too dark, maybe on that edge. I had a little bit more orange. I'm sure my brush is nice and clean. Squat your eye as well and then, yeah, it's seems such an arty thing to do. Is it squat your eyes? But it does help. You can get a just a blurred look, can't you at it? Okay. I think I'm done there. Again, I'm going to need to allow that to again, a hair dryer is helpful. I can see it's just almost going off now quick with a hair dryer, and then we can add those scary pupils. Okay. Once fully dry, then I'm going to pick up the soda light genuine and we're going to get those pupils in. It's always a bit scary part, especially in dogs. Eyes are very soft so you can allow things to blend. But as you can see with its owl's quite precise, aren't they? It's the best thing to do. Start in the middle, little dot and work your way out. Hopefully you can just see the line underneath where you put the pupil in. You penciled it in, take your brush away, and keep adding. It's hard to take color out. Go gentle, gently increase it. Take your brush away. And you can always start on the other one. Then you can increase the size of both as you go, take your brush away. See what you think? He looks a little scary at the moment. A little bit bigger. That's looking okay. The minute you have something, you please. We've stop. Just step away for a minute because we have been working on this for an hour, so haven't we. So you can get a little bit mind boggled by looking at it so much, but sometimes if you want to take a little break now, it's not a bad time if you're unsure whether these are quite right. Sure. Carry on because I'm sure you don't want to me to disappear right more into that corner there. It's better to go small and slowly because we're just painting. There's not having to chase time making sure the paper is wet or dry. All we're doing is painting so we can be really mindful and quiet. I think, I think when I put those catch lights on, that's going to be about right. Get a bit too big if I'm not careful. Right, I'm going to stop. I'm going to allow those to dry and then I'm going to put those little catch lights on. We can always tinker if need be and put yeah, I can show you in the finishing off bits if need be, allow that to dry, and then we can put those catch lights on and see where we are. Okay. Once fully dry, we can then put those little catch lights in. All important catch lights, pick up a little bit of white, go to wake mine up a bit. Been sitting away for a little bit, you want it a really nice, thick, creamy consistency little brush. We're just going to put it on top of the. Just like that. The difference that makes is amazing, isn't it? Suddenly he's like, there I am. Hello. Right? This little bits we will tinker with in the finishing off bits, but we're almost there, so I'm hoping you're pleased with what you've got so far. But let's do the last little bits and we're almost done. Magically, we're back to the main owl from here. 10. Finishing Off: Okay, we are now on the finishing off bits. This is a really lovely bit where you can take your time if you love to tinker and fiddle. This is right up your street. The first bit is obviously lots of paper paint flowing. Lots of water flowing. We're being very loose. As the class progresses in the subjects begins to be finished. We then crisp up the details and a little bit picity on getting the Christmas. Just right now I have just a altered, I've just made my eyes a little bit round if you like I said, if it looks a little bit different, it's just because I could actually get a bit closer to it. Okay. First thing first, just check, you haven't got any salt left to make sure any that's wiped off and we're now going to jus use the rubber and rub out any of those pencil marks. But a word of caution. Make sure your picture really is dry because it's very upsetting. I have done that. You rub and you found you've got a little wet patch somewhere, if in doubt with a hair dry over it. Or just give it a minute to dry however long to make sure it's completely dry. Any of the marks in the center out, even just that alone. Just getting rid of those pencil marks to me makes a huge difference. Sure. I'm going to paint on my hand. Before I do that, the square, lovely. Okay. I think to start with, I want to finish those eyes off, so I'm going to show you just how to crisp everything up and make sure that the make up is in the right place and we can take a little bit of light out if need be. A really nice thing to do. Pick up your you want this to get rid of that because I won't be using the big brush. Keep that. You don't want to be adding too much water at this stage. So you just want your brush damp. What we can do, we can crisp up any edges here. If I have some paint on my brush, just to reshape that, if you feel like it's gone a little shape, the orange shape isn't quite right, then you can close it down. We're using the pallet bits. You can do some little flicks if you feel you need to do too carried away with actually doing too much painting and such, but just closing that, making eye really crisp probably see the difference between the two. Same other eye, if it looks crisp enough and you're happy. Again, these tinkering bits, I'm working through my own piece and hopefully giving you some little tips. But if it doesn't apply to your piece, then please don't feel you have to follow along, become say as we work our way for the class, our paintings will become a little different. How does that look? Really makes those eyes pop a little bit more, doesn't it? And also what we can do, swap to the medium brush. Okay, get it wet and then take the excess and wish you off. If you feel your eyes have got one colored, you've lost some of that light. You can always take a little bit of light out very gently by brushing away very gently. Just keep wiping until you can see you cold. A little bit of white paper, come down to the yellow, even gentle. Say if you feel you have enough light, you may not need to do it. I don't think I particularly needed to, but obviously wanted to able to show you that gives it a nice sense of light and really makes those eyes again, just another way to make those eyes ping, lovely. Now what will I do? Try to be methodical and go round. So we're going to try and take little bits of light out, I think at this stage. So I'm going to go round, I want to tell you what I will do actually. There was a nice little layer, sorry, skipping away that we could add. I found it was quite pretty actually, I just want to try and give you as much information as I can on this class. What we're going to do, what I'm going to do, again, these are a little bit individual so you may be just want to watch. So I'm going to wet that we had this divide was the outside of the head and the inside I've wet the outside which was the first. Layer, we can just gently soften but we don't want to avoid any water marks. But with my lavender and maybe a little bit ago, almost want to bring back a little sense of a line. You can see there's a, you can see an obvious line, can't you? Between the feathers and the back or the side. Just running a little bit right along that edge. Ever so soft. I haven't got a lot of paint on my brush. I can also I want to put a little bit of just to give an idea of some of those markings. I don't want to do it too Pacific, but just a little tease out of some of the color. Let's do it on this side as well. The same again, actually by doing this, just by wetting an area down. Sometimes that will give you just enough that you what I mean, it's just giving you enough idea. There's a slight separation word. Changing the feather patterning again, I just gently soften this edge down here because I don't want to water mark. But once we build up the layers, the watermarks don't become quite so obvious. I'm going to step away and look at it. Yeah, I like that. It's tiny. It's a very subtle, it's a very subtle thing we've done. It just builds up and helps to add to the interest and depth. And actually what I could have done is just wet that down a little bit more. You may have enough strength underneath the ear, Mine can be done with a little bit more. So I've just wet that, that lovely eyebrow line just popped a little bit more color in where is that gray? A little bit more light genuine. It's quite heavy underneath there. Just to say just after interest and depth allow that to mingle with that color. We've just put down a couple of extra flicks just so it doesn't, those flicks don't look like they have been stuck on. Yeah, that's nice. Say it all becomes quite individual. Run that down a little bit there. Okay. What do I do with this side? So I sort, I had in mind to keep this side a little bit darker, so I'm just going to keep it to that one side. Okay. I'm trying to think else I was going to do. I want to take some color out, but I want that to completely dry before we start taking bits of color out for any of these crisscrossy lines. If they feel a little stark to you or a bit bright when you're looking at it, you can always just very gently wet those lines down. Just by doing that, that will soften that paintment that's existing there will just gently blend into that white area. You don't have to do much more than that. Just again, going to soften again. You can do that with the bottom again. I can wet that. Bring that up a little bit. What are you going to do? I got my Goth height on the sepia. I'm just going to do a few flicks it. I think you can see the feathers almost again, they're coming down. We did some impression of that with the flowing paint. We're just going to do some marks now, just to try and keep that impression. You can get some paint on her bush little marks. You don't have to do lots a bit lower, pop a little bit of lavender in there, I like a bit. Okay, that's probably enough. While that's still damp with my little brush, I'm just going to use some of that patents there and just flick up into that mustache again just to give that impression. It's a little bit hairy, feathery. It's a nice, just do a few, you don't have to do a lot. Soft on that a little bit there. I take my brush away, so king. All right. Dip. But my finger there, a little bit of an exaggerated line there. Squeeze that down a little bit. Oki doki. Let me check my little list of other bits and pieces we were going to look at. Okay, I do know what were, what I had in mind. Again, I've lost a little bit. Let me back to my number six brush. I've lost that lovely line coming down here. You can see it on that reference photos. I'm actually going to just paint it in, but I can show you how I can do it really quite softly. So this is painting onto dry paper. You know me, I don't particularly like very strong lines, but I can paint it in, actually get confident enough to put some paint on my back. Then I can just soften one side of that line just so it softens. And again, I can squeech, I can move that in. I love that little line that I managed to get off, managed to put in for my, my last piece. I'm going to let me show you. So I love this line. It just made it. I don't know. It just just did something. Sometimes you do the little things, you're like, oh I love that. I'll see if I can recreate that a little bit. Squiched that taking my brush away. Just having a little look at. Do, let's do a little bit more painting. A little bit of seep around that beak. Remember my little brush? Just pull some of that out just to give an idea there. The sort of feathers, a little bit of strength I can do. A little bit of a squeech. I take my brush away. See what I think it's looking nice. Yeah, I'm pleased with that. I can see either I've dropped a dribble or I put a lot of water here going suck that up. Okay. I'm gonna give it a little bloss for the hair dryer and then we can take some color out. Okey doke. So I'm going to use my little eradicator brush and I need to find myself a bit of clean paper towel. Okay. All right. So I'm just going to go round and take a little bit of the color out so I can do a little bit on top of the ear. I just I like sort of almost releasing things. It just gives a little bit of relief. Touch up here just a little bit. Get a little bit down. You can even do it with a kitchen roll where you can squeak it with the finger. This front ear, for some reason, has lost some of its strength. Let me show you how I would do this. I don't know why your probably absolutely fine, but hopefully little bits help you finish off, I suppose a little bit more strength. Now obviously that's going to leave me with a little bit of a line which I'm not that keen on, but I can brush some of that into the, the forehead area and that will almost give an impression of those little feathers. That's for this particular subject. Not a bad thing that's helped there. Now as I go round, I took this out on one of the previous layers, so I've got a nice amount of white up there. That's good and same with this, but actually beside the ears, it's a little bit of light isness, we can take it out. So I might switch my brushes. The eradicator is lovely, but it will leave quite hard marks. So I don't want it too hard here. I'm just taking that color out there a little bit here, a little bit too heavy with the dark here. It's almost like it is very much like sculpting, where you're taking color out, switch with a kitchen roll. Looking around here, what I will do is take a little bit out of the side of the head again. It just feels like I'm releasing something. It's just allowing that light to look like it's really falling on the side. These brushes are ever so soft, so if you've got some synthetic, well, I'm not sure what that word is. A sympathetic. A brush, they always better for taking color out. I'm going to actually switch brushes again. I'm going to go back to my little eradicated brush, because what I'm going to do is do a couple of flicks out here to take a little bit of color out. You can see it's, it's a little white tufts of feather again, it sort of comes down as well so we can take a little bit of color out. Keep that movements as a swing of the wrist. I just have one crossing across. It doesn't all look like it's in one direction. That's probably enough there. I want to do too much. Again, I can take some tiny little bits here just to break that line up. Squeezing my finger squid with your fingers. It doesn't take, it doesn't take as much color out. It squedges it around a bit. Again, I can do a couple here as well. Too many, quite bold on that side, so I don't want to do too much. Come in here, just retrieve a bit more of that mustache disappeared a little bit, so I can scrub some of that out and pull back some of that white. Also, if you've lost some of your white aligned here when we criss crossed here, you can take those out as well. Or it's just nice to have a, a variation in the strength of those cris, crosses go across a little bit, just to break that up. It's very, it really swings it in a banana shape, doesn't it? Just breaking up with a different angle. Are we looking coming? Okay. Sometimes the finishing off bits can be done at a later date. So when you finished off with the eye, you could then down the tools for a little bit and had to come back and had another look at it with a fresh pair of eyes. Because sometimes you start doing these little tinkery bits and you're tired and we've been painting for a little while together now that you almost not seen the painting properly, somehow. A little bit out there. A bit of squech there. Take my brush away again. You can sculpt that beak a little bit, but I'm happy with the shape of that, or at least the shape of the light. But what I will do, I think it's got a little blunt. I'm not sure if I've made it quite long enough, so I'm actually just literally going to paint it in just a little bit sharper. Yeah, that looks better. I know why I've given him me telling you to make sure you get your drawing right. Yes. That's a little bit sharper, isn't it? Okay. Feather marks. Now, I'm never sure if I like this or not, but it's quite a, it's a nice idea and you can choose to use it or not. But obviously when you look at the reference photo, there's some very obvious dark patches, markings so you could squeeze out back in the in. Get your large brush, got a little bit of Sp here, it's just damp this brush and you can try this on a spare piece of paper which I actually don't have to hand. I don't looking to use a blanket piece of note paper, but it's quite strong. Just wipe that. If I keep going, probably the paper will start disappear. That's probably about right. And obviously try to get the angle. So those, if you move them out to this direction, it will give a sense of a puffy chest puffed out. If you come straight down, it will make them look a little narrow and mean. Come out this way a little bit, just a few. Again, you can do a couple here on the side. If you don't like them, you can almost squeeze your finger and squeeze them out a bit. I think that's enough for me personally. Again, do what you like. I don't mean it quite like that. Do what you like, what pleases you. You may like that sort of look, I'm here to guide you and if there's an aspect you particularly like then, yeah, go for it. You don't have to follow me. Exactly. Sorry, I've just picked up the CP and I'm just going to just want to make this a few little marks, just coming down again. It's all gone a little horizontal. But I'm at this stage where to say I've been filming this round for a little while, we've been painting together, I'm not going to be viewing this probably as I should do. I'm actually going to down to leave it. If when I come back in an hour or so, there's lots of obvious little bits I feel you would benefit from seeing, then I'll film another little chapter. If not, then I'm pretty pleased with it. I can't see anything glaringly obvious. I might soften that a little bit. Do that now. That little line there that we painted as a separate layer, just going to take a tiny bit of that edge away. That's it. That's enough. It's just stopped it being such a strong line. Tiny little thing, wasn't it? U Yes, I'm looking at I can't foresee much changing. I'm quite happy with that. But yes. Right. I'm going to start waffling away, aren't I? If I'm not careful, I hope you enjoyed this class. And as like I always say, please please share these in the projects and resources pages on your project. Sorry, It's amazing to see your work. If there's any aspect you're not sure on or there's a little bit you're stuck on, Just put in the class discussions help. I'm a bit stuck with this or what do you think about this? I'm there and I'm hopefully quite prompt on my replies. Yes. Thank you for joining me as ever, and I look forward to seeing your work. 11. Final Thoughts: So I hope you enjoyed this class and you've added a few new ideas to your arsenal. There was one thing I didn't mention in the class, and that is their amazing call. It's really worth searching for it on the Internet. Well, how did your body go? Isn't it a joyful thing, allowing the paint to work its magic? What about the eyes? Remember to take your time. Don't panic. And if it gets muddled, give yourself five or 10 minutes. Break away from them. As I always say, it's worth stepping away and coming back and looking at your painting with a fresh pair of eyes and tweak if necessary. So we look forward to seeing you in the next bus.