Easy Halloween Postcards with Watercolor

1. Welcome To The Class: Holiday season is already there. And with holidays comes the season of gifting. And what can be better than a handmade creative gift for your loved ones? Hi, this is Malicia Chivas from India. I'm an artist, an art educator, and an author. I welcome you to this beautiful class where we will be making some beautiful, cute little bit spooky Halloween themed postcards with watercolor. If you're a beginner, please don't worry because I've got you covered. I'll first tell you what we need for this class. Don't worry, they are just basic supplies that we need. Then I'll take you through the basic tips techniques of watercolor, which you can use in this class for creating the class projects and even for your future projects. Finally, I'll take you through the step by step process of making these Halloween themed postcards. If all of this sounds interesting to you, please join me in the next lesson. 3. Watercolor Techniques: Welcome back. Now it's time to learn some basic watercolor techniques. I'm using this scrap paper. Let's start with wet, dry. As the name suggests, we use dry surface and wet brush here. My brush has water and pigment. And I'm coloring this area which is dry, so you see we get a flat wash here. I'm painting this mushroom using wet on dry technique. That now let's see what we looks like for that. I will make the paper wet before I pigment. As the name suggests. It's the wet surface and the wet brush like that now drop in some colors and watch them flow and blend naturally and organically. For this technique, we can either use water to wet the surface or even a different color to wet the surface. On top of it, we drop in another color. So wet on wet surface. And here's what we get Now let's create a gradient for, for that we will put some color on the paper. As you see the pigment is concentrated. Then we the color just a damp. Now, the brush doesn't have pigment, it only has water. With the help of that, I'm dragging the color down. I'm not going all over the painted area, I'm just touching the edge and dragging the color down like so, and it gives us a smooth gradiation. We also use the gravity by tilting the paper, track the color down like that, we get a gradient wash. Now let's see what's laying as the name suggests. It's the technique where we put different layers on paper, different layers of color on paper. Here, I painted very lightly. Now, I'll let it dry. We will see laying later before that. Let us see another technique. Here I'm painting paper with this vibrant red. I use better and dry technique to color this part. Now using a damp, clean brush, I'm just lifting the color from the desired area like so, to create the school texture or effect. My brush is damp but not very soaked. And it's clean. There's no pigment. And every time I lift some pigment, I wash and dab my brush in order to keep it damp and clean. Now, the previous area has already dried. Let's see, layering on top of the lightly colored area, we put some darker color like that. As you see, I'm leaving some gaps in between to create this effect. Applying color on already colored surface is what we call layering. This is the second layer of color. You can see the layering technique in the mushroom. Also, I'm adding some shadow using wet on dry layering technique. Here I'm creating these veins on the maple leaf. By the same technique, wet on dry layering technique like that. Here's the third layer on this pumpkin like that. So as you see, we are building the layers to create more dimension on this pumpkin. And now let's practice all the techniques we learned on this beautiful autumn leaf. So here we go, wet and dry. We do on that, Now let's lift some color to create the veins using a dam, a damp, clean, flat brush to lift the colors like that. Now I let it dry completely. Now let's use layering technique to draw some prominent veins on this leaf like that. So there we use different watercolor techniques to create beautiful autumn elements. I hope you learned these techniques and I request you to give them a try. And you can click a picture of your project and share it in the project gallery. In the next lesson, we will be making this beautiful painting. See you there. 4. Brush Work: Hi. Let's learn some basic brush work. I'm taking a loaded round brush, there's pigment and water in it. I'm using the belly of the brush to drag the brush on the paper and I get this fat line. Now I've decreased the area that's touching the paper and I get a thinner line. When I just use the tip of the brush to draw a line on the paper, I get this thinnest line. It all depends on the paper pressing and lifting the brush while you draw a line on the paper. And this pattern, you can use the tip of your brush like a pencil to draw different thin lines and curves. Get comfortable with the direction of your brush movement can be either away from you or towards you. Practice drawing lots and lots of different type of lines and curves with your brush. You can also just ab the tip of your brush on the paper and see what marks you get. Different brushes will give you different types of marks. And you have to just understand your brush by practicing this. Look at that. Now let's see some textures by using dry brushing. Dry brushing means when the brush has almost no water and it has fitment. We use brush to create some dry brush texture just so you can see properly. This technique is used to paint grass and give texture to your painting. Like that. Big wins there, but water is almost zero and see what texture we get. Now let's learn to create another cool texture. For that, I will wet the paper with some color like that. In this wet area, I will drop in some water, little amount of water, not too much. So I'm just touching my wet, or damp and clean brush. You see we get the cool blooms. These are called wet on wet blooms. And they are used to create cool textures in watercolor paintings. Now let's learn a fun way of reading texture splattering. All you have to do is just load your brush with some pigment and water and tap your brush over the painting or over the paper to get these beautiful splatters. These are random and organic and they provide movement and texture to your painting. These were some cool brush works and some textures. In the next lesson, we will learn some basic watercolor techniques. See you there. 5. Blood Moon: Well, let's start the class project by taping the paper on a hard surface like so. Here I trace a circle in the center of the paper using a round object, we are aiming to make a blood moon in a dark sky. For that, I'm wetting the area inside the circle, precisely inside the circle with clear water, and I'm making it fairly wet. After that, I will take the lightest color, because we'll go from light to dark here. I'm taking this bright yellow, bright sunny yellow in my palette, dropping the color here and there, leaving a lot of white space like so. Now let's take some deep, bright orange and drop it in here and there, letting the two colors merge and blend into each other. So you see how the two colors are blending into each other. Some areas are lighter and some are darker, so that will provide the texture to our moon. Now, I'm dropping in some yellow on top of orange. Yes, I know I'm trying to put light on top of dark, but let's see what we achieve here. I'm leaving it for drying, just darkening some areas to my liking. Okay, it resembles the pizza. Do you also feel like that? Let's see what we get. It's a playful exercise. It's a playful class project where we are exploring wet on wet techniques. And there are no judgments and no expectations. Okay, now the pizza, I mean the blood moon is dried. I'm now wetting the area around the moon and I'm making sure not to touch the moon with my wet brush because I don't want the color to bleed. Once I'm done wetting the entire background, I will go in with my pines gray and drop the color here and there and see how beautifully it blends with the water. All right? It is so satisfying, this wet on wet plate of water color. Really, really satisfying. Now I'm purposely not making the background flat, I'm putting the color randomly. You can see my brush movements are random. I'm dropping in some color here and there, varying in saturation and value because I don't want it to be a solid black. We'll do another exercise where the background will be solid black. And we'll see and decide what is better because everyone likes different things. I may something and you may like something else. We'll do both the exercises, one where the background is textured and one where the background is solid black. All right, here I'm dropping in color and I'm also dropping in clear water here and there to create the texture. And once I'm happy with the background, I'll just leave it to dry. We'll see what end result we get. Now I want to add a shiny rim around the moon. For that, I'm using the same bright yellow, but you can also use metallic water color. You can use gold. As you can see, the background is still a little bit wet. The yellow is bleeding in to the gray which is pretty. But I think I want to make it even. I'll add some more pines gray around it. Since I'm not bothered by the texture, I don't want it flat. I can still some color. I'll go ahead and drop in some clear water also in the background in order to create some more texture lip, some color drop some because I think that part is becoming flat. So once I'm happy with the background, I will remove the tape. The background is semi dry, but for you I'll suggest wait for it to dry completely and then remove the tape at an angle. All right, Here's the very first postcard. I quite like it. I hope you liked playing with wet and wet. And let's move on to the next lesson. 6. Second Take At Blood Moon: Once again, let's take the paper to the hardboard and let's make another blood moon, not the pizza. This time another blood moon with a background solid black. All right. I start again with drawing the circle in the center of the postcard. And I'm again going to vet the inside of the circle. Here are the colors I'm going to use because I want it to be really saturated, so I'm using a different palette. I'm using shades of orange, yellow, and brown, and pines, gray. I'm not telling you the names of the colors because my brands will from your brand. So the names will differ. You need to know the shades I'm going to use and that's all. Again, let's make the inside of the circle wet nicely. Once done, let's start with the lightest of the colors. In my case, that is the bright, sunny, yellow dropping in some of the yellow inside the circle. Now I start dropping in some orange. As you see, I've taken very saturated colors this time trying to make it look like the moon and not like the pizza. This time, just joking here, I'm blending the colors in with lots of water. Once I'm done with this, I will let this dry. All right here. Happy with this thing, and I'm letting it to dry. The mine is right in the snap. I'm sure you'll have to wait for it to dry Here, I'm retrieving the circle, the outline of the circle. Because the color is too dark and opaque, I can't see the outline. I'm making this outline now, Leaving a thin gap between the moon and the outline. All right. We need to make the rim. And now I'm taking very saturated pines, gray, very saturated. See, it's a creamy consistency water in my brush. And with that I am painting the background. You can see the difference from the previous project like that. I'm painting it black now with some yellow in my brush. I'm going around the moon, basically the space we left around the moon. I'm painting that with yellow, still leaving some white gap like that. Now I will take the same amount of pines, gray in my brush and the same ratio of water, same painting water ratio. With that, I'm filling in the entire white space around the moon like that. Now you can leave it like this, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to add a golden rim around the moon with acrylic gold marker. Paint marker by Sakura. You can use any brand. You can use gold acrylic color. You can use any marker or you can use metallic gauche or metallic water color. You can leave it like this with the white highlight, white rim around the moon. But I just wanted to experiment more by I'll be making the rim with the golden paint marker, but I will do that once the colors are completely, completely dry. All right, now the postcard is completely dry. Let's add the golden, shiny rim around the moon. I'm using my paint marker to do that, and as you can see, after drying, the moon looks mostly orange, though I can see some texture with yellow. In person, if you're painting along with me, you will be able to see that as well. But in camera it does not show properly. It looks mostly orange. Here we are ready with this one also. Let's remove the tape and see, oh my God, such clean border. I get very happy when we get this clean border around my paintings. Here you have two variations of Blood Moon and you can decide which one you like more for the next class project. Meet me in the next lesson. 7. Spooky Tree: Welcome back my friend. Thank you so much for joining back. For the next postcard, we are going to paint a spooky tree in the night. Start with taping the paper on the hard surface, and then at the center of the paper, add some water in an oval shape. A vertical oval, all right. Add lots of water generously, then drop in some yellow ochre along the periphery, leaving a lot of white space towards the center of this wet circle we've created. As you see, I'm dropping in color irregularly here and there, leaving a lot of white space to do that. And then add some orange. Don't take a lot of water in your brush because there's water on the paper and a lot of water on brush will create a pool of water and we don't want that. Now, start adding in some pines, gray along the periphery. Keep the bottom area darker like that. Keep piping the edges of this oval with damp brush so that to avoid hard edges. Again, let's work in the center adding some more color here and there. Don't blend it now. Just provide some movement by touching lightly with your brush. Remove the hard edges with the help of a damp, clean brush. Once you're done, let it dry. This is our night sky, which will act like a canvas for the tree like that. Make the top and the bottom part darker. As you see the central part very flat, just lift some color with a damp, clean brush. Again, add in yellow occur along the sides, leaving the central part that there. Now let it dry completely before you start working on it, check it by touching it with the back of your hand if it's completely dried like that. You can also use hair dryer to make it fast. Now, take your small detailing brush or a small round brush with that, with a lot of pines gray in your brush and little amount of water. Use it like a pencil, pull it in a pencil grip, and draw a tree. That's a very small, simple thing. We have all drawn trees as a kid, and we're doing that only just a tree with jagged, thin, crooked branches coming out from everywhere. You can do that. There's no right or wrong way of doing this. You just can't go wrong in this. I mean, really it's very difficult to go wrong in this tree. Just keep making the branches tell you like it. To know whether it's stop or not, you have to just step back and look at the entire silhouette of the tree if you like the shape of the crown. If you think there are more branches on one side and less on the other side, you have to just balance that. Once you're done, add one or two birds which are very easy to make. Use the tip of your brush and make a shape, just one or two birds flying with the white gah, or you can use white poster color. Just draw a teeny mini crescent moon on top left of your painting, just like that. You can also use a jelly roll and we're ready to remove the tape because the painting was centralized so we don't have to worry about the borders. And that's all. We're done with this. I hope you liked it as much as I did. Now meet me in the next lesson where we will make another beautiful postcard. 8. Witch's Cauldron: Welcome back for the next postcard. Let's draw which is cauldron. For that, I'm starting with a simple sketch of the cauldron. You can change the shape of the cauldron as per your choice. I'm drawing a narrow oval for the mouth and a fatter bulkier oval underneath that for the body of the cauldron like that. And I will be drawing two handles on either side. On top of that, I will be using ton technique to throw in some to make the purple fume. You can choose the color of the fume also according to your liking. I have used crimson and some ultramarine blue and I'm mixing them. First I wet the paper in the shape of the fume, and on top of that, I threw in some wet color, wet pigment. Now I'm blending them and stretching them to form a beautiful artistic galaxy like fumes, like it's satisfying and therapeutic process. Just follow along. Make sure not to take too much water or too less water. You will strike a balance with practice. Don't get overwhelmed with this process. It's just play of colors, enjoy it, and don't be hard on yourself. Speaking of being hard on yourself, make sure not to get the hard edges around the smoky fume we are making for that. Just keep wetting the edges of this shape, this swirly shape with clean brush, dampen clean brush. Just go over the edges and you will avoid having hard edges. You can also sprinkle some color or splatter some color on top of this swirl some colors like so to give it a direction to flow. Once you're done, just let it dry. I'm going ahead with painting the caldron also right now. But if you're an absolute beginner, I would suggest just let the smoke part dry and then move on to the caldron here for the cauldron also, I am wetting the area first and I'm giving it a ton T, with a very light value of pines gray. Then I'm dropping in some to intensify the value here and there. But since it's a round shape and I want it to look three dimensional, I am just leaving some paper white like that to make it look like a high light. Here I finished the mouth of the cauldron. Underneath that I am making it dark to depict the shadows. As you see, I'm shadows on one side and keeping it lighter on the other side, depicting the positioning of light like that. By now the smoke area has dried partly and in some parts it'll be still wet, which is fine. Let's sprinkle some more color, some movement, and sprinkle some white color to depict some stars because this is like a galaxy. Now you're done with this painting. You can also add some shadow underneath the cauldron, which I'm also going to do now. For that, you have to just add some pines gray at one corner like that, then drag it to the other side with a clean, damp brush in case you disturb the outline of the bottom of the caldron. Just you can restore it by adding some more pines gray there. Make sure to keep the shadow the darkest underneath the bottom of the cauldron that you're done with this beautiful Halloweeni painting of a cauldron with the galaxy smoke coming out of it like that. Let's move on to the next lesson where we will make another beautiful Halloween themed artwork with watercolor. I'll see you in the next lesson. 9. Jack O Lanterns: Welcome back my friend. For this class project, we are going to make a bunch of jack o' lanterns hanging from the branch of a tree. I have already taped the paper on the hard surface, and this postcard is going to be in the landscape mode. First of all, I'm going to vet the area in form of circles. I don't have a prior sketch, but if you want, you can draw some random circles to know where you want to place your lanterns. And once you do that, just make them wet with clean water. And then drop in some bright sunny, yellow color and keep wiping the edges of the circles in order to create soft edge and not hard edges. Once done with that, just lift some color with a damp, clean brush around the center of these yellow circles because that's where we're going to place the mouths of the jackal lanterns. Now before these yellow circles dry off, add in some yellow worker in slightly darker value and slightly darker consistency. And try not to cover the entire part of the circles. Try to leave the area around the center unpainted and just add paint along the periphery of these circles like that. As you see they look like they're glowing. And that's the effect we want because we want to depict the Jaco lanterns have candles or some light source inside them and we want them to glow. We are trying to retain the transparency of the watercolor and not overdo this artwork. And now with the same color, using less water and more pigment consistency in your brush. Let's draw the triangular eyes and the crescent mouth of the jaculanterns in each of the circles we just painted. Use the tip of your brush to draw like a pencil. As you see, I'm holding the brush in a pencil grip very close to the hair of the brush. With that, I'm drawing the eyes and the mouth of the Jack O'. Lantern. If you find it difficult, you can also use a light pencil to draw the same, and then you can go over it with your brush. Also, time to time, I'm wiping the edges of the Jack o' lanterns with the clean, damp brush in order to maintain edges. Once I'm done making all the eyes and mouth, now it's time to darken them using the brush the same way. I'm taking some more pigment, a little darker consistency, darker value this time. And with that, I am going over the eyes and the mouth once again to darken them. Also, as you see, I am using the same value and same pigment to create the grooves and the ridges of the pumpkin. Basically, we are adding detail. You can do so with a detailing brush also. But if you're comfortable, you can use the tip of your mop brush to create all these details very easily. We just have to be lose, we don't have to make the grooves from top to the bottom as you see me doing. Just start it on the top and by the time you reach the center, leave it there. And then again, start from the bottom and make the grooves. You're leaving them in the middle to give them more loose and painterly style. Also to depict that the eyes and the mouth are carved in the center. The ridges are not there. Following the similar process, you can finish all the pumpkins and all the Jack o'. Lanterns. At any point you find the speed of the video too fast for you, you can just posit or you can plate at a slower speed. You can totally do that. Watercolor, or any color, any medium for that matter, behaves differently when it's wet versus when it's dried. Your watercolor also can dry lighter or darker. You have to keep maintaining the values as per your liking. My watercolor is and becoming lighter and I'm adding the details little by little, but I'm not just going at once with the darker pigment because I don't want to overdo it. Now, take the darkest brown in your palette, and with that, using the tip of your brush, draw some stems to the top of your jack ankles. Now add the brown with black, or you can add crimson red with black. To create this dark purplish shade, draw some jagged lines to depict the branch of a crooked. You don't have to go for smooth strokes, irregular jagged strokes and some thin branches. Make sure the branch is starting broader. And as it goes towards the other end, it tapers and becomes thin. That's how a natural tree branch looks like. You can make as many branches as you like. Then just the tip of your small round brush or a detailing brush, You can just touch the tip on the paper with the same color, same mix. And you can make some marks which resemble leaves. You don't have to do anything. No strokes required. Just touch the tip of your brush and you'll get the marks which will resemble leaves. And that's how you can fill this entire branch with lots of leaves. Once you're happy with that, take a lighter value of the same mix and attach a string from the pumpkins to the branch so that they hang from the branch and not in the air because that will be super spooky there. Using the tip of my brush, J A pencil angers. Drawing some lines to tap thread or the string which is helping the jackal angers hang by the branch. Now at this point I feel like I need some more branches and leaves on this branch. So I'm just adding some more leaves and some more secondary branches. You can also do that if you like or if you are happy with this composition, you can just leave it here and there. I think this is just fine. But again, while removing the tape, I realized that the features of the has become very light. I can barely see it. Now, let's darken it again. I'm using the same brown I used for the branches and the leaves. I'm adding in the shadow, dilute it a little bit, then I'm using the same color as the shadow over the features of the pumpkin. And see now they stand out the mouth and eyes, the carvings, the corners of the eyes in the mouth in contrast with the rest of the body of the Jaco lanterns. And that's exactly what we wanted. Now let's add some more shadows to the pumpkins. The down part of the pumpkin should be in. Okay, That's too hard, that's too much, too dark. I'll have to lift it up with damp, clean brush or tissue that now in this wet area, I'll add some color that for the next one. Let's try and use the wetter ware technique first, let's fix this one by adding and lifting color for the next one. Let's use the ton ware technique to add the shadows, and let's see how it works. I'm first wetting the part where I need shadow and then dropping in some color to shadow. And yes, that works perfect. This is how, by trial and error, by accidents, we learn and explore the medium. We explore our style, and we really find our own personal style. Because in art there is no right or wrong way. I always keep saying that there is no right or wrong way of making art. It's all about the perspective, it's all about your personal liking or disliking. Don't be judgmental. Don't be hard on yourself. Just have fun and enjoy the process. I'm very sure that you reach where you'll find your style. You'll find your voice, your way of making art. You'll find what you like. You'll learn your medium. You'll learn your paper, You'll learn tools. That's what the purpose of making art is, right? To have fun. Just like that, by talking, talking. We finished this postcard. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Now, meet me in the next lesson where we will be making another postcard for the next class project. See you in the next lesson. 10. Cat On The Tree: Thank you for joining back for this next postcard. We are going to paint a cute cat in the Full Moon. Let's start with taping the paper on the hard surface and drawing a circle in the left top corner with the help of any round object. Once you do that, make the area outside the circle. We are going to use negative painting technique for painting a beautiful full moon. Just make the area outside the circle wet. Now start dropping in some ultramarine blue, different shades of blue with fair amount of water in your brush. And don't aim for a flat wash here. I'm starting with my brush along the periphery of the circle outside. Then I will cover the entire postcard, which is wet with the same blue. Once we've traced the circle with a color, then we will just drop in color here and there. With no particular brush stroke and no particular plan, just create texture, irregular texture. Because what we are going to depict is the sky, sky is not a flat wash here. I am adding some crimson to add the tinge of purple in the blue as you see me going around the circle with some crimson and some ultramarine here to create this blue purply sky of Halloween night there. Now, let it dry. Once it's dried, we will start making the silhouettes of the tree and the ground and the cat. For that, I'm taking black, or you can take dark pine spray on a small round brush or a detailing brush. With that, I'm starting off with a crooked tree. There's no sketch here. I'm just going on directly with the brush. Very thin and crooked jagged branches here and there, some of those inside the moon also. That there is no right or wrong way because we are depicting nature. Nature is filled with all types of shapes and sizes. When it comes to trees or branches, just go on making some jagged branches framing framing the moon from one side. Let's drag it towards the top. Also, I'm using the tip of the brush. There's very little water in my brush and lots of pigment because I want solid black effect because we are painting silhouette. Now let's try and make a branch on which our cat will sit. If you notice the composition, I'm trying to frame the moon from one side. I'm leaving the other side empty. There are no branches. Once I'm happy with the tree, I will start working on the ground below. For that, I'm first starting with the foliage or grass next to the tree, and then I will give it an uneven hilly feel to the ground for the foliage. Here I'm just touching the tip of my brush and dragging it upwards and downwards to make some poke grass. And now I'm drawing the silhouette of the cat. Since we will be painting on the paper white, I'm drawing the silhouette. You can find many silhouettes of cat online which you can use here. Once done with the sketch, I'll fill in the same dark pines, gray, or even black. See, there's very little water in my brush. I'm actually using it as a marker right now like that. We finished the body of the cat, fill in the color. Finally the tail. Now the lower part of the postcard looks empty. So I'm going in with drawing a flying bat because that is also a part of Halloween. Just like that, I drew in a bat here. And I'm filling in the color of the silhouette of the bat there. Now the composition looks nice. We are ready to remove the tape. Remove it at an angle so as to avoid tearing off the paper. Let's see how we got a crisp. Yes, we have just one spill. We can hide this with whitewash or white acrylic, and that's it. We are done with this postcard. Also, I hope you enjoyed making it as much as I did. Meet me in the next lesson. I'll see you there. 11. Bye & Beyond: Congratulations, you made it till the end. I hope you enjoyed this class as much as I did. And if you like it, please leave a constructive review for me so that I get encouraged. And if you didn't like something, please let me know that as well so that I can improve myself in the next class. I can't wait to see what you learned from this class and what you created. Please don't forget to share your creations in the project gallery. In case you have any queries related to this class, I will be happy to help you with them. Please post your questions in the discussion. I will see you in my next class very soon. Till then, happy creating and happy Halloween. Bye. Bye.