Easy & Relaxing Watercolor Floral: Rose on hot pressed paper

1. welcome: Welcome to this floral illustration class. While a guide you through the steps on how I paint a rose on hot press watercolor paper. My name is Catherine graph. I'm a designer and mother of two from southern Germany. My passion is painting with watercolor, and I love to share this beautiful medium with you. Why arose and why hot press paper? Well, a rose is always a good idea, isn't it? And I press paper is especially good if you want to turn your illustrations into clip arts, fine art prints, or illustrations for books. Because it doesn't have this typical grainy watercolor paper texture. The surface is really smooth. This mixed easy and great for details. But it can also be very tricky and hard for beginners. But don't worry, you don't have hot press paper or you're not that advanced in watercolors, you can just as well join this class and follow along with their preferred paper that you already use. Let's get started. 2. class project: Class Project is fairly simple. Follow along with me and paint this beautiful rose. I will provide you with a drawing template and a reference image so you can get started very quickly. You can find both under Project and Resources area down below. Then take a picture of your finished illustration and upload it to the class gallery. In the next lesson, I'll show you which materials I'll be using in this class. 3. material: The materials that I'll be using today in this class, or my hot pressed paper by honeymoon. It's called Harmony. And you can get this as well in cold press and rough than two, couple of round brushes, a medium and a smaller one, and then a fine liner brush for details. At the end. My main color will be this Alizarin crimson, which is a nice pinkish color, but you can use whatever color you like for the blossom. Then I only use one jar of water. My palette. I didn't clean it out because I don't want to waste my pigments. And then just one or two greens, but you can really choose whatever green you have. So it doesn't really matter which exact color you'll be using. And then a little bit of blue for the shaded areas. Besides that, I have a linen cloth to wipe off excess water from my brush and clean it in-between. And to just quickly show you the difference of the paper. I got some example papers here, and this first one is Arches paper in rough. The second one is, I think it's Anna Mueller, expression paper. So it already has a fine grain. But there's still some texture to it. And the last one is hot pressed watercolor paper, which is really, really smooth. So I'll just quickly show you how it looks when I apply some color to it. The key can see the edges that are really grainy. And here it's already a bit better, like there are some edges. And this hot press paper is really smooth. 4. first layer: Sketch, keep in mind, just keep the lines that you actually want to see. First, I will apply a really light wash to the whole of the blossom, the whole area. And I will go petal for petal. In some areas. The paper doesn't really soak up the, the colored that good. It's on the hot pressed. You really have this puddle of water that stays on the paper and doesn't soak in as quickly. So I already want this. Yeah, the shapes of the petals to come up here. First, I'm using my bigger brush for the larger areas. I'm just trying to follow the the leaf shapes while the petal shape and just tried to get a half halfway a smooth surface. But as I said, it already like the papers known for, for drying and making pools and splashes and something like that. Which can be really nice because it has more character. So because I, I think like a lot of beginners pieces look really flat and a little bit dull. So this hot press paper already gives you a little bit of advantage here. Or you're not just plays its own thing with the colors. So like on any watercolor piece, start with the lightest color and then later on in a second, wash cloth, go over it with a darker shade, a little bit of layering. And this will give me more depth. If you start really light, then you can go over it later. Over the darker areas in a second wash. So I think right now I already leave it like this. While the blossom in the middle might be still a little bit wet. So I'll still leave it to dry a little bit more. I'm going to color in the leaves as well. I tried to make it fairly light and then I add in the darker areas later. When you look at the reference image, see that some of the leaves have a like a red spot, the end or brownish look brownish dot. I will just in a little bit of my lesson, crimson because it works together nicely with a centerpiece. And just do the same thing with all the other leaves. There was just a drop running off my brush. The paper was too wet and I cleaned my brush so that I got rid of all the excess water and then just lifted the color. That was too much on the paper. And for the corners here, just use really high pigmented color. So if it comes from a tubule, don't even really need to add any water, can just take the color right of the tube and it's, it will be quite dark and not that runny. 5. second layer: Now with my smaller round brush, it's a size four. In this case, I'm using a little bit of more pigment it wash for the darker areas. Just have a look at the reference image and tried to see where it's, where it's going. Lighter and the dark parts are. As I've said, if it helps you, you can make a pencil sketch upfront. Either paint on that with watercolors or just have it to the side so that it's easier for you to decide which areas are shaded and which ones to keep fairly light. So now we're kind of in the middle of painting our rows. And this can be the ugly stage where you think I just doesn't look that good. But once you've finished adding a little bit of details, I think it will come out really fine. Now you can see that if you apply a second layer, it gives you a really nice details that you can play with. If you go in the direction of the leaf. We want to simulate some veins. So this is the perfect time you can do that. And make some really nice contrast. Now I'm going to speed up the video a little bit. And you can just paint in your own time and then come back to the video. Once we are done. Here, I'm adding a little bit of fluid because the dark part and I really want the hair to come out, to stand out a little bit more. Now as well, add a second layer to the leaves. I make the center part a bit darker and leave it lighter line outside. On the outside. I apply that to all of my leaves. 6. details: So now squint your eyes a little bit and see where there needs to be a little bit more depth. And then you can apply a more pigmented wash and even add some blue for my shadow areas. I'm just gone ahead and these are my wash to whether a really dark shaded areas. Sometimes I might blend it out a little bit. But it does well, has a really nice effect if you leave it with a hard edge. I think that makes a nice contrast between the hot pressed and cold pressed watercolor paper. If you are ready, you can already applied some really fine details. This one, a little bit more shading, I think that looks too flat. And add a little bit of detail to my leaves as well. Come out a little bit better. Then I switch to my fine liner brush and get really high pigmented color. Like a colored pencil. I draw some lines. I used the lines that are already there from the pencils and then I just kind of stress the shadow areas, the lines that are wanting to have the two separate petals. Just really defining and giving some character. This is a very personal note, and depending on how you sketch and draw, this is where you can apply a cure certain style. I think you can already see how it gets more dimension and character. You have to be real careful where to set your, your marks. Now some of the roses have really nice spots and this is like, you can make little dots like this to really, um, you know, play with the character of the rows and the like, the nature that every rose is different and At some splotches, this kind of gives them a bit more, even a more realistic look. I think. Even still there, they seem kinda random. They just give more character. And I as well, it can do that with the leaves, of course. Let's give it a little bit more edge. And on the leaves you can see there are some kinda little hairs. And this is the time we can apply this texture to the road and to the leave. This as well. We'll give it a more finished, more professional touch. I think. Here's all the, that the character of the hot press paper comes out better. Because you can really make these fine details and are not distracted by their texture of a cold press paper. So your brush slides smoothly over the surface. So add as many or few details as you like. What's your periphery? Preferred method and look. I would describe my illustration. Style is semi realistic. Semilunars. That's not that blues as I sometimes would like it to have. But even as well, it's not that detailed and not that realistic. So I think if I look at it, it has nice difference in values. So it has light and dark parts, and I'm quite happy with the result. The last step you could do now is either sign your painting and then frame it, or you could scan it and clean it up. This is really like a good paper for it. And then you can print it on watercolor paper, which is as well available from Hannah ruler. And you will have a pretty smooth watercolor look to it. So I really like this paper for professed not professional usage. 7. final thought: Congratulations. You made it to the end. Thank you for taking the time and joining me in this class. I hope you enjoyed it and you're happy with your result. Don't forget to share your rows and the gallery section. I can't wait to see it. If you like, hit the Follow button on top here on Skillshare, that means that you get a notification when I published my next class, or come visit me on Instagram. Thanks again. Have a great day.