Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Emily Armstrong
and welcome to this quick and easy tutorial on painting Autumn
Leaves in watercolor. It's a really beginner
friendly class with simple tips for learning
watercolor painting. We'll start by
practicing painting, dark and light values of
each color we'll be using. Then we'll test out
some leaf shapes and colors using the
wet and wet technique before we take everything
that we've learned into a final project
in this class, I'm going to be using
a simplified process with just three main steps, shape, weight and
weight in detail. The project shouldn't
take you very long, but you will need to allow for your painting to dry
between each step. So you could plan
it around lunch or a tea break,
fits, get started.
2. Materials: The paint colors
I'll be using for this project are burnt umber, cadmium, yellow, cadmium red, burnt sienna, and yellow ocher. I'll be using three
different brushes, medium, small, and then at
tiny brush for details. I've also got water
jar and I've got just the kitchen
cloth that I can use to get rid of any
excess water in my brushes. I'm using a student
grade watercolor paper with a texture on the surface. To be honest, if you're
using a good quality paper, you're going to get
much better results. And that's just because
a paper that is made of cotton will absorb the water better and it will stay
damped for longer. Preferably 200 to 300 GSE.
3. Mixing Up Paint - Create A Swatch Sheet: To start with, I'm
just going to create a sheet of swatches. And this is a really
good exercise to do if you're
new to watercolor. What we're going to create
is a color that is bright, a color that is light, and in a color that is lighter out of each one
of our paint colors. So I've mixed up some
yellow paint and I've kept it quite a strong mix. And what you're looking for
is the consistency of milk. It shouldn't be as
running is water, it should be just a
little bit thicker. And to apply it, I'm
loading up the brush, which means filling it with
paint and I'm just pushing down and dragging in
doing a few even strokes. That way you'll get a
nice flat layer of color. When we come to do
the light version, I'm adding some more
water to the mix. Or I should say, putting
down some water and then bringing it a little bit
of my paint mixed into it. And this is going to give
me a lighter yellow. If you want to, you could paint
the outline of your shape first and then color it
in with your paintbrush. But try not to fiddle
too much with this. You're just pushing down and dragging the brush rather than using the tip of the brush. Once you've painted a swatch of bright yellow and light yellow, then you're also going to paint a swatch of lighter yellow or maybe lightest yellow might be another way of
thinking about it. What's the lightest
color that you can get? Again, starting with
some water and then adding the previous
mixed into the water, we're going to create
a bright light in lighter swatch
for each color. So you can see what
the capacity of your calories really
good practice for mixing and in for anticipating
the amount of water you need to get a particular
value of the color. Quite often, students
will use a color that is way too bright or way too thick and using
it more like in acrylic paint or the
mixing water to it. And it looks really
bright on the palette. But when they put
it on the paper, it dries really lively. You can test out the
colors first or the values first on a small piece
of paper, if you like. Moving on to the burnt sienna, put the water down first
and then I'm getting a little bit of
paint, mixing it in, and then just increasing
the amount of paint until I think I've got a
nice solid color. Painting, a square shape
and then filling it in with those long brushstrokes pushing down in trying not to
fiddle too much with it. The light version, adding some
more water to the palette, bringing some of
the paint into it, and then laying it down. In the lighter version,
even more water. Another thing that's
going to determine how large your paint dries is, how much of the paint mix
you put onto the paper. And what I mean by that is if you mix a color that is maybe a light color and you put it on the paper and you put it on really thick or
big puddles of it, it's going to look quite bright. But once it dries in
the water evaporates, it's going to be a lot
lighter so you don't want to paint a big
puddle on the page. Try to use just enough paint to spread around that shape
that you're painting. If there's too much water
or paint on your brush, just use your cloth to
squeeze out the excess. You can see my water's getting a little bit
duty here and it's no problem when you're mixing up a darker paint like
this burnt umber. But if you are going to mix up a lighter color
like a yellow, you'd want to go
in, you'd want to go and replace your water. Hopefully you have all these
colors, but if you don't, you can still do this project, even if you just
have a warm yellow, a warm red, and
some other kind of muted color like a
black or gray or brown. And depending on
the ratio of yellow and red you mix to make
different kinds of orange. You'll be able to add a little
bit of that muted color like the black or
the brown to mix up some earth tones like yellow, ocher and burnt sienna. You can even mix a warm
orange, a warm brown, with a warm blue to get a
variety of autumn colors.
4. Drawing Leaves For Wet In Wet Exercise: Before we move on to
the final project, we're going to have a little
bit of a practice run in. This is to experiment with the wet and wet
watercolor technique, which is really fun. Start by drawing some simple
leaf shapes with a pencil. If you want the pencil
lines to show through, then you could use maybe a to B pencil or
even a six B pencil. And I quite like having
the pencil show through. It goes a little bit of
structure to the painting. I'm going to draw a
variety of leaves in different shapes and
sizes and include a few that I can identify like
oak leaves in Maple Leafs. Now the great thing
about drawing leaves is they don't have
to be perfect. You feel like you're not
very good at drawing note, you can download the
resources I've got for you, which will just give you
a guide to work from. But feel free to play around
with different shapes, even making some up if you like. This is just an
experiment to see what happens when we use colors, a wet and wet drill five
to six leaves and make sure they're not
too small so that there's some room to
paint inside them easily.
5. Wet In Wet Practice: When we use this wet
on wet technique, we're going to be
using two colors. You can think about what two colors might go
well together to mix and mingle and create an interesting
autumn leaf effect. So if you think about
the colors of water, some reds and yellows
and sometimes there's some dark browns
around the edge where the leaves are
starting to decay. It's a good idea to have a
small test sheet of paper to see how light or dark you'll painters before you put it down. One rule to keep
in mind here is to start with a lighter color. That could be a color that
you've mixed with more water. So read it becomes a
pink or it could be just a lighter color like
yellow or yellow ocher. And then we're going to
drop in the darker color. And you can see how the
darker paint will start to blend with the wet
paint underneath. I'm using a bigger brush. And my aim here
is to get a nice, smooth, even covering of paint. Before I drop in any color. I'm loading the
brush with paint, making sure it's full of paint. And then I should
be able to paint this whole leaf in one go. Nice smooth strokes
pushing down on the brush. Once you've covered the shape, we want to move quickly and drop in that other
color that we're using. I'm switching back to a
smaller brush here because I only want to add a little
bit of paint at a time. Make sure it's a nice
bright blend of paint. And also make sure
you don't have any extra water on your
brush because it's going to dilute it and drop it
into the wet color. You can see I'm
just dabbing around rather than using
painting strokes. This is going to keep the paint in the areas
that I want it to be. Rather than blending all of
the paint colors into one. I'm going to add a little
bit of burnt umber as well, right at the tip and
maybe just a few little dots around the place. Once we've done that,
we're just going to leave it and see what happens. So let the paint to react. Moving on to the second leaf, we're going to do
the same thing. And I'm going to start with
a yellow for this one. Paint the shape and you want to commit to
that shape as well. Don't fiddle around with it. Once it's down there. You could fill in just a couple of little spaces if you need to, but don't miss around painting back-and-forth over the shape. What's really important
here is making sure that that layer is wet. And that's going
to vary depending on what climates you're in. You can tilt your
page up a little bit, or you can just turn your head to the side
and make sure you've got a sheen on the paper
with the paint is wet. If there is no sheen, then the paint is dried already. And you're not going
to get this weight and weight effect. At the same time. You don't want a big
puddle of paint down there because then it's going to
dry really, really light. And you're also probably get some strange marks where
the paint has pulled. And you'll also get
really wrinkly paper. So think about having a sheen
on the paper, not a shine. I think it's nice to drop in a couple of different colors. The first one to control what
color the leaf actually is. In the second one, I'm using burnt umber
to create a little bit of contrast and just a
little bit of detail. Moving on to this
next leaf here, I'm going to think
about the colors I use. And you can look at your
sheet of swatch colors and think about a
color combination that you haven't used yet. And you can also mix
colors together. So I could mix this red in this burnt sienna
to get something that's maybe a little bit more natural than just a
really bright red. Really important that you
make sure you mix all of the paint app completely when
you're mixing two colors. When you go to apply the paint, make sure you load the brush. Really good at full of paint. And then that
should be enough to paint most of that shape. You see any puddles of water. Use your brush to
spread those out. Whenever I drop in
the second color, I'm switching to
my smaller brush because it holds least paint. I don't want to release a
whole lot of paint onto their already wet leaf
because it's going to flood. It was going to add
some brown there. But I think instead of a brighter blend of red
paint to the edges, the more weight that
bottom layer is, the more the paint
is going to spread. And we want to be
able to control that process just a little bit. And that's where having
the sheen of paint rather than the
shiny pool of paint, makes a big difference. When the paper is damp, any color you put
down is going to spread a little bit
and blend nicely. When the paper has
pools of water on it, the paint is just going
to go all over the place. But then at the same time, he need to make sure that
your paper is which. If it's not, then you're not going to get
this effect at all. So it's a fine balance and
it takes a bit of practice. And it also depends
on the climates, urine depends on the paper
that you're using to. You can try adding
in some of the lines for the stems and ribs, the leaf at this point
while it's still wet. Just to see what happens. For this oak leaf, I'm going to go with some
browns rather than red. Mixing up both the colors
that I need first. That's important too,
because it's going to allow you to work
really quickly. Every time you wash
off your brush, It's a good idea to squeeze
the excess water out of it. Otherwise, you're going to
change the color that you've mixed up by adding
too much water to it. Mixing a little bit
of the burnt umber into the yellow ocher to
get a more muted brown. And I'm actually going to use this light yellow
for my first layer. This one I'm painting
a little bit more with some strokes rather than
just dotting it around. Because I want the
yellow in this brown that I've mixed
to blend a bit more. For this leaf, I want to
use a really bright yellow in a bright red and let
those blend into each other. Now here's a prime example
of what not to do it you can see how dirty my
water is getting now. And if I want a nice
clean yellow color, that water is going to affect it and make it
more of an orange. But I'm not too worried for this leaf because I'm going to be adding red into
the leaf anyway, mixing up both my colors first so that they
are ready to go. I get all the water out of
my brush loaded with paint. And when I apply
it to the paper, I'm pushing down
on the brush and that's going to release the
paint out of the brush. And I can spread it around. You can see I filled
up the whole leaf with just one load of paint. I'm dropping in the
bright cadmium red. It's very bright. So I'm just going to add a
little bit of burnt sienna. Bring something a little bit
more natural to it in a, in a bit of detail around
the edges in the steam. We can wait and see
what's going to happen with that yellow and
red once it dries? If you want to, you can move the paint
around a little bit. But you have to be
really careful that some areas of the painting
heaven already dried. Because then you're going
to get weird bloom effects, which I might end
up getting here. Where the paint meets a
dry area of paper and just stops and creates a pattern that can be
a bit unpredictable. But a watercolor is also about having fun
and experimenting. So feel free to just
see what happens. Just make sure that you're
not fiddling to match. The worst thing you can do is try to change something
that you're not happy with and brush at the paper too much or just ruin those really
nice fresh effects that might be
happening naturally. I've used two bright
colors for this one, quite concentrated
mixes of paint. And you can really
see the texture of the paper coming
through in this one. This was a little bit like a test run of what we're
going to do for the project. We're going to start
by painting a shape. And then we're going to
add some wet and wet. And then once it's
completely dry, we will get a small brush
and we can add some details. Or we could add another
layer of glazing. If you feel like you want to change a little bit
of your painting or add to it and then do the fine
details over top of that.
6. Project: Drawing The Composition: Moving on to the final project, I'm going to type in my piece
of paper down to my desk. And I'm using a long life tape. And that means that I
can peel it off easily after I think it's
14 days or so. And I'm taping it down
because it's going to give me a nice white border around
the edges when I take it off. And it's also going to
help keep the paper flat. So we're going to end up pretty much wetting this
whole piece of paper. And sometimes it makes
it a little bit wrinkly. 300 GSM paper, heavyweight paper is best to avoid getting a
wrinkly painting at the end. But if you do, you
can also just put it inside a book for a few days. This type is a horrible color. I know. And I can't find any other colored tapes
of equal quality. So this is what I'm stuck
with it at the moment. If you need to clean
off your paint palette and easy way to do it is to just wet the plastic and then use a kitchen cloth to
mop up the paint. But you can see I've still
got all my pure paint colors. The composition that you use for your final project is up to you. You could have, say, just one leaf in a row, maybe different
sizes, or you could use a whole variety of leaves. And I'm going to have three different leaves
across the page. And then I'm going to add a few smaller leaves around them. You could also have overlapping
leaves if you want to. You just got to really think about the process of painting. Because if you paint
one and then you go to paint the second
one and the first one is still wet and
they're overlapping, then you'll get some bleed through between the
two different colors. I've got these three larger
leaves and then I'm adding the smaller leaf
sort of scattered around to fill in some
of the whitespaces.
7. Painting Shapes & Wet In Wet: We're going to paint
this leaf by leaf, painting in that first layer with a light color
and then working quickly to add one
or two other colors to get the wet and wet effect. And then once everything is dry, we can come back in and
add some other layers over top and add some fine details. So this first layer is just
getting the shapes down and creating some interesting
weight and weight of x. For the oak leaf,
I'm going to use a lighter yellow in dropping this brown that I've mixed out of yellow ocher and burnt umber. I'm using the same colors that I did in that previous exercise. So you can look at that
and see what worked really well and replicate that. Or you might find that
there's some things and it previous exercise you didn't like and you can avoid those. Once you've dropped
in the color, really resist the urge to fiddle around with
what's happening. Just, just let it do its thing. We can edit it later by adding
some more layers over top. Make sure you mix
up enough color to cover the whole leaf. You don't want to be
stopping and mixing colors when you've
got the shape half painted because
it's going to dry and you're not going to get
a nice even flat layer. And you're gonna get
some strange effects when you put in
your second color. Remember that the
goal is to have a nice sheen of
water on the paper, not a puddle of water. That means when we drop
in our second color, it's not going to just
go all over the place. It's going to stay in the
place where we put it. But you'll get some nice
smooth blurry edges where it's mixing into
the layer underneath. If it's not blending
as much as you want, you can play around
just a little bit around those areas
where it's not blending. But again, try not to fiddle. We want this to be nice
and fresh and expressive. Even if you get something
you don't like. Now, we can do a few things later to
change it a little bit. The main thing is to
make sure you are getting some weight
and weight effects. If you're dropping
in your second color in it's not blending, then think about
what you need to do to maybe add a little
bit more paint to your first layer or to work more quickly so that it's still wet when you put your
second color in. You might be looking at
photographs and copying the colors that you
see in the leaves and where those
different colors are. But generally, I
think if you have one color down
first and then you add in your second color or
colors around the edges. That can be really
nice or in the center, so that you have
your first color is around the edges by the time you put your
seat and coloring. Remember, you can use that
burnt umber or some kind of darker color to just bring it a little bit
of contrast as well. Some small details. These are Bu to cower
leaves and the bootcamp, our tree has these beautiful
bright red flowers. Normally has green
leaves, but in autumn, they go really lovely
red, dark red color. And there's also some
yellows and some, usually some browns
in here as well. I'm just going to use a
really similar process for each one of these
boyhood cower leaves, starting with yellow
and then dropping in red or maybe burnt sienna. And I'm just letting it do its thing leaving a little
bit of yellow showing. Make sure you're using the
right brush for the job. These leaves are quite small so I can get away with
using a small brush. But if I was using this brush to paint some of the bigger leaves, I'm going to run out of paint in my brush more
quickly and I'm going to end up with brushstrokes
and probably it will start to dry by the time you get all the paint
onto the shape. So that's step finished. We've done our shape
with our waste and wet, and now we're going to
let this dry completely. And we could come up with
a medium-sized brush once it's dry and just maybe add a few
more layers using some glazing and then
let it dry again. And then we can add some detail. And then we can
add a background.
8. Editing With Glazing: In a moment we're going
to go into details. But what you can do first is just have a look
and see if there's anything that you're
not happy with or that you're feeling is
a little bit too harsh. Maybe it doesn't feel right. I really like this one. I'm quite happy with this one and I like this one as well. Maybe these ones, this one here, I just feel like it needs
one more layer on this side. Here again, on this one, maybe I could just
add a little bit more of a color on one side to
make it more interesting. It's maybe so it looks like it's sort of cooling
up and over. This one I'm happy
with, but I think it needs a little bit
more texture on it. All of the leaves
need to be completely dry before we add
in this next layer. If you don't have time to
wait around for them to dry, you can use a hairdryer. What we're gonna be doing
is just glazing over top. And because watercolor
paint is transparent, you're going to be out to see what's happening underneath. We can change the
color slightly. We can change the
value slightly. That's all I'm gonna do
for this one, just that. And then this one here. I'm going to use a sienna with maybe a little bit
of red mixed into it. And it's really good
idea to test out how dark your painters
first before you put it on. We want to be able to see
everything underneath. I'm going to start from the
center and just drag out towards the outside
and maybe take back a little bit of
that yellow edge. A bit harsh. There's a really
strong divide between the yellow edge and they
read that I put in before. Even within this layer you can work wet on wet if you want to. I'm going to add
just a little bit of texture around this leaf. So remember you're looking
at your own painting and finding any areas that you want to eat it
just a little bit. Maybe pushback some color or
change the color slightly. And this oak leaf just needs a little bit more texture to it. I'm using the same mix of
yellow ocher and burnt umber, the same light mix and just layering it over top of
what's already there. But creating a texture
with my brush strokes. If you've got a taste sheet
of paper with some dry paint, then this would be a good
opportunity to just lay some colors or some mixes of color over top and
see what happens. When you're working over
top like this in glazing, you do have to be careful
that you don't rub too much on the
layer underneath. So it is a really quick process. If you're rubbing too much
against the paint underneath, is actually going
to reactivate it and start to lift it
up out of the paper. So try to keep it nice
and light and quick. You can always add more
layers later if you want to. Once it's dry. This leaf here, I feel like it's just a
little bit too pink. On the left-hand side, I'm going to mix up a
glaze of yellow ocher. So the glaze just means that
it's a nice thin layer. And you can see here when I
lay it over some red paint, it's going to change
the color to orange. If you're not sure what
to do in this stage, thin, maybe just try that. Try putting a very thin layer of color over one of your leaves
and seeing what happens. Now we need to let this
layer completely dry. And then we can come back with a really fine
paintbrush in ed and some very fine details
like the stem of the leaves and the ribs that go out to the
sides of the leaves.
9. Adding Fine Detail: This is dry and I'm
going to mix up some burnt umber paint here to add in some
of the details. There's two things
to consider here. And the first one is how
thick you make those lines. You can do a solid line
or you can do it a kind of a broken line which looks
a little bit more natural. You could also try mixing up a lighter variety of the paint. Be a good idea to do a few little tests to see
what this looks like. If the paint is too dark, It's going to look a
little bit unnatural, a little bit jarring. And that's where you can add a little bit more
water to it and create just a light mix
of detail color. If you want very fine lines. Sometimes what you can
do when you've put down that center rib is to
just take a clean, reasonably dry brush and move the paint out from the center
with small little flicks. I'm starting right
down at the steam in, bringing that line up through
the center of the leaf, trying to let it fade out
a little bit in some parts and also get thinner as it comes towards the
top of the leaf. Now I'm going to
add in some ribs, going out to each side, got a little bit too much paint. And I'm just adding
a little bit of variation to that
center line again. What I don't want is
a really even line all the way up the leaf because it's just going
to look unnatural. Now I'm taking a darker mix of burnt umber to add a
little bit of contrast. This is going to help make
the stem look like it's a cylindrical shape and bringing a little bit more depth to the leaf itself as well. And then I'm going
to use this mix of, I think this was the
burnt sienna and just a light mix using it to add a little bit of
texture to the leaf. Maybe where it's
starting to decay or something's been
nibbling at it. What you can do as well as you can create some splatters by loading your brush
with paint and then holding it above the leaf
and tapping the top. This is a really good way to get some natural-looking spots. Sometimes we need to
add them in one by one. They can look a little
bit like polka dots. I'll probably use the same mix
of burnt sienna or the mix of burnt umber to add my details because it's
going to give some contrast. I can control how much contrast, by how much water I
add to that paint, how light is going to be. You might have a very
different style to me. My style is usually quite bright and also a little bit
messy. I would say. You might have a really
nice clean edges and flat layers and very
pale colors and that's okay. That may just be a
particular style that comes with your mark making and your experience in sometimes the mood that
you're in at the time as well. For these leaves, I'm adding dark details to the
steam around the edges, to the tip, and then adding in a few little dots
here and there. When you're using this darker burnt amber
for your detailed, do make sure you're adding
it with a little bit of water and not just
straight from the tube. I'm using a flicking motion
to try and get those nice. Then ribs going out towards each edge of the leaf
from that center stem. If there's something
you don't like or if it's looking a bit too regular, you can just get a clean, damp brush and erase it
while it's still wet. Again, make sure you have a very gentle touch and you're not scrubbing away at the
colors underneath. Adding a little bit
of each to those one is if it started
to go brown around the entire each on that side and then softening it off just
a little bit with a damp brush and adding a little bit of
yellow ocher just to give it some more
color variation. Moving on to this
big leaf here in the middle, some maple leaf. And again, using burnt umber. This time, I might mix a
little bit of red with it so that it suits the leaf. And really what I've mixed up here as some kind
of burnt sienna. You can think about one side of the steam or the stalk
as being a little bit darker than the other side because the light will be
coming from one direction. So there'll be a shadow
cast on one side. The main ribs on
these leaves all come from the base of the leaf here. Starting thick in
the scene to end in bringing my paintbrush
right up until this point so I can get that
nice fine in to the line. And now I'm just going
to go through and add a little bit more
detail to the leaf. Some splashes. You can see how it's gone
across the rest of my page, but I'm not too worried
about that because the whole painting itself
is the same colors. I've just checked my
reference photo in. There are some more ribs that come off these main ribs here. I'm going to use a
slightly lighter mix of paint for these ones. Same color, just
more water Edit. And I'm adding them using
that flicking motion, which gives you a
nice thin line, just using the tip of the brush.
10. Adding Fine Detail Continued: Moving on to this
brown leaf up here. So I'm using a brown mix. It's quite a bright
mix of paint. Not so much water added to it, but you still need a
little bit of water added to make sure
it flows nicely. Especially if you're
wanting to get these lovely fine lines. If there are areas that
you want to push back a little bit like we did
in the glazing stage. You can do that here as well. Just be aware that if you
are, details are weird, they're going to blend into any other areas of
paint that you had. Moving onto this leaf. I really liked the blend
of weight and weight. And this one, I'm not going
to do too much to it, but just add a bit of structure. With that seemed to
steam and the ribs. And I'm using burnt
sienna mixed for this so that it matches the colors that
are already there. Then I'm adding just
a really small amount of burnt umber to
that center line, giving it some variation and adding a bit of contrast
to the steam as well. All I'm doing for this leaf is enhancing what's already there. So I'm adding some more
dark to those dark areas. Once I've added them,
I'm cleaning my brush, getting all the water out of it, and just using my brush
to soften off some of the edges and blend it into
the layers underneath. I'm adding a little
bit of a round shape to the bottom of the
steams of the leaf. So it looks like you
can see the part or the surface where the leaf
is broken off the branch. Something different
on this leaf, I'm going to create a lighter steam going through
the center of the leaf. And I'm doing that
with a damp brush, making sure there's
no water in it. And then using the brush to
pick up some of the paint, the dry paint underneath. So you can see when I use the
damp brush and brush quite firmly along that center steam is becoming lighter as it
picks up the red paint. Another way you can do
this is by painting around the areas that
you want to leave light. So I can darken up this leaf. But paint around the steams are the ribs that go along
each side of the leaf, leaving the lighter
color to show through. I'm going to do that
on this one as well. So I'm actually painting the areas in between
the ribs with a mix of paint that's slightly darker than the red
on the layer beneath. And it's got a little
bit of brown in it. We don't use white
paint with watercolor. And I guess this is
one way that you can bring some lights back or
not really bring them back, but you can make some
areas appear lives by layering up some darker
paint and other areas. In finally, using some burnt
umber to add some contrast. Remember if you end up with something that's
a little bit too harsh or it's too hard edged. You can use a clean, damp brush to soften it
off while it's still wet.
11. Splatters: Finally, I'm going to
add some splatters over all of the leaves and into
the background as well. And I'm using burnt sienna with quite a bit of water in it, loading the brush and then holding the brush
close to the paper and just tapping with my
finger on top of the brush. I find this as a way to minimize how far
the paint spreads. If you've ended up with any
dots that you don't like, just use it clean, damp
brush to mop them up. Or you could use
your cloth as well. Now we need to let
all of this dry and then we can come in with
a background color. We'll use a broad brush and
we'll width the whole paper, and then we'll just
drop in some color. I think I'll use a blue. So we have a really
nice soft wash of color in the background.
12. Adding The Background: I'd like to do a blue
background for this one. I've got a couple
of warm blues here, a cobalt blue and
ultramarine blue. And both of those warm blues are going to look
really good with the orange because
the warm blue, it's a complimentary
color to the orange. It's going to make those autumn
colors really stand out. You can decide what
color you like. It doesn't have to be a blue, doesn't have to be a
complimentary color. It could be an analogous color, which is a calibrates similar
to what you've got there. So it could be a light yellow
or pink or light orange, or it could be a green. Sap green might be nice to
start how thick the paint is. We don't want it
to be too bright, but we are going to put
some water down first on the paper in any paint we put into that is going
to be diluted. I'm using this big thick
brush because I can put down a lot of water at once and
then spread it all around. And I can use the chisel of
it to go between the leaves. And I'm going to
leave some white around the leaves as well, just to, again, bring
some more contrast to it. When you're ready, go
ahead and add water to all of the white
areas of the paper. Spreading the water
out as you go. If you want to, you can go right up to the edge of the leaf. You may end up going slightly over the leaf and that's okay. But I think if you're
worried about that, then leaving a bit of whitespace around each leaf is a safe bet. What we want to achieve
here is a nice even layer of water and there should
be a sheen on the paper, not shine on the paper, and they shouldn't
be any puddles. If you do have puddles, then you need to go
in with a cloth and just mop some of those
up a little bit. And you also need to make
sure the whole paper is wet and it's going to
dry pretty quickly. So you may need to go back over some of the areas
you've already done. The way you tell
whether it's wet or dry is to have a look at the
surface from an angle, you'll be able to see
that the wet areas have a sheen on them and
the dry areas are met. Then when you think you've
got a nice even sheen of water across the paper, you're going to pick
up your color and very quickly drop it in to those wet areas so you can
spread it around a little bit. But if the paper is wet, then it should go its
own spreading as well. If the paper has dried, then you'll get some areas where the brushstrokes
are quite defined. I want to have this nice and
smooth in the background. You can see how quickly I did that and then I'm
just gonna leave it. If you do want to go
and correct anything, you can do that. But just be aware that if the paint is already
started to dry, you're still going
to see that edge. You can kinda see it
a little bit here. When I go over some
of those white areas, you can see the edge of
the blue underneath. The other thing you
can do is just tilt the paper up a little
bit on an angle, maybe on a 45-degree angle
as long as your paint is not too wet and it's just going to help it
blend a little bit. So now we need to
leave this to dry completely and then we
can take the tape off. I'm typing it back down
to the table because the tape is also
going to help keep the paper nice and taut while it dries and it should
stay pretty flat.
13. Taking Off The Tape: Here's the finished painting. I'm happy with this
oak leaf here. In this leaf I like as well. There's a few areas
I think I could improve in the next painting. Time to take the tape off. This is the most satisfying
part of painting. I think. If you have used tape, make
sure you peel it off slowly and at an angle that's
really close to the table, I find that helps it
to come off little more easily without
ripping the paper.
14. Critiquing Your Work: I hope you enjoyed this
tutorial. Thanks for joining me. Remeber practice is
the key to improving. In now that you've
completed the project, you could repeat it on your own using a different
composition or even create small individual postcard
size paintings or cards of each leaf is a good idea to
critique your project. Once you've finished,
you can ask yourself what you
really like about it and try to recreate
those things in your next version
or Unix painting. And you can also
look for areas that you think you might
be able to improve on and see if you can
identify the changes you need to make in your
technique to improve, for example, you might need to add more paint to your mix. You might need to
work more quickly to get better wet and wet effects. I'd love to see your paintings, so I hope you share
them with me in the project section
on Skillshare. And thanks very much again for joining me in this tutorial.
Emily Armstrong, The Pencil Room Online
