Effortless Watercolor Flowers: Paint Easy Loose Florals Using Filbert Brushes

1. Welcome to Class!: The allure of Loose Watercolor florals is simply undeniable with the whimsical, expressive strokes. There's so much to love about the seemingly effortless look of Loose Florals. But just how effortless is it really? This style of painting requires a delicate balance of spontaneity and control that takes time and practice. But in this class will unlock a tool that adds an unexpected touch of ease to our loose watercolor paintings. Priya from petals by Priya Watercolor Designs. And I am a full-time artist and Floral fanatic. If you've taken my classes before, you know, I am a huge fan of painting Loose Florals Using round brushes. I use round brushes for anything and everything and they've become my comfort zone over the years. But I recently started exploring filbert brushes, and I must say it was love at first sight. Filbert brushes are flat with a rounded oval edge and there's nothing quite like the soft, loose effect that these brushes provide. Not to mention the incredible versatility, depending on how you hold the brush and the amount of pressure that you apply down onto the paper, you can still achieve those thin, dainty lines that we typically use round brushes for, while also getting the fluffy, expressive look to our Loose Florals that we've been searching for. In this class, you'll learn the primary differences between filbert and round brushes and how you can utilize their distinct qualities to create beautiful dynamic florals. We'll work through several practice exercises for painting flowers and leaves, and we'll get comfortable holding the brush in different ways. Then it will practice painting individual loose style botanical elements like peonies, roses, leaf stems, and a range of other flowers. Once we get all of that practice done, we'll get started on the class project, which is a beautiful floral composition. This will give us the perfect chance to explore all that our brushes have to offer and put our new skills into practice. Throughout the class, I'll encourage experimentation and creative freedom. Watercolor is a medium that embraces spontaneous expression. So I want you to trust your artistic intuition and let your creativity bloom as we paint together. By the end of this course, you'll not only gain confidence in handling the filbert brush, you'll also develop a deeper understanding of the unique qualities that make watercolor florals so captivating. Whether you're a complete beginner or someone looking to refine your skills. This class is designed for artists of all levels. If you're like me and you love painting Florals, you'll enjoy this class and you'll leave with a newfound confidence using a less common and underrated paintbrush. Before we jump in, feel free to connect with me on Instagram at petals by Priya, on my website, petals by priya.com, or on YouTube app petals by Priya Watercolor. I also have some other resources for you on my website, including my Watercolor Supply Guide and color mixing guide. If you'd like to check those out. When you're ready, grab your favorite filbert brushes, and let's start painting. 2. Art Supplies: Let's talk about the supplies you'll need for this class for your convenience, I included a downloadable PDF with all the links to those supplies down below. First step is watercolor paper. I'll be using cold press, 100% cotton paper, but whichever paper you have available to you is perfectly fine. Next step is the most important for this class, your brushes. This class is focused solely on creating Loose Florals Using Filbert Brushes. But I'm also going to use a one-inch oval brush as well. But in my experience, this oval brush is very similar to the shape of Filbert Brushes. If you have one similar to this as well, feel free to use it for the filbert. So I'll be using sizes 46,810.12. You definitely don't need to have this many, but I wanted to be able to show you how to use different sizes to your advantage. I'll mainly use size 10.12 for the Florals because I wanted to achieve those big fluffy petals. So if you can only get one brush, I'd recommend getting a bigger one like these. For watercolor paint, you are welcome to choose any colors you like to work with. I'll be using a range of colors throughout class that'll share with you as we go. You are welcome to select colors that are similar to mine, or you can choose your own color palette as well. The emphasis of this class is all about the techniques and the brush strokes. So I don't want you to worry too much about color selection. Additional supplies you'll need include a jar or bowl of clean water and mixing palette and a paper towel. And again, you can find a list with links to all of these supplies down below. Once you have everything ready, we'll talk about the class project up next. 3. Class Project: For our class project, we'll be painting a beautiful loose floral composition using the new filbert brush techniques we learned in class. I'll be painting everything in real time. So you're welcome to follow along with me step-by-step. Or you can make it your own by choosing your own color palette or adding your own flair to the piece using the skills we practice in class. One thing I just want to mention before we get started is I don't want you to take yourself too seriously in this class. Quite honestly, my favorite part of Using Filbert Brushes for Loose Florals is you can just plop the brush down onto the paper and get a pretty decent looking Flower nine times out of ten. So don't be afraid to be Loose. Try new things and let your Florals form organically. If you've taken some of my other classes before, you know that one of my biggest pieces of advice is to try not to control the watercolors too much. Watercolor truly has a mind of its own. So let it do its thing, you do your thing, and most importantly, just enjoy the process. By the time we're done, you'll have a beautiful floral piece that you can be proud of. 4. Filbert vs. Round Brushes: Before we dive into painting, it's important to understand the basic qualities of the filbert brush and how they differ from the more popular round brush. Knowing this will help us make sure we utilize the brush effectively it during class. And it will also help us understand when to use a round brush versus the filbert brush when you work on your own Art pieces in the future. Let's start with the basics. Round brushes have full round bellies with usually a pretty sharp tapered tip at the end. This makes it great for painting leaves and flower petals that come to a point like this. The sharper tip on round Brushes also allows you to create very dainty lines and details because of that fine point at the end. In contrast, filbert brushes have flat bellies with a rounded curve at the edge. This makes it incredibly easy to paint fluffy florals because the shape of the brush is already pretty similar to the shape of a pedal. So it's an easy shortcut because the belly is flat, it also makes the brush very versatile because you can create different shapes and marks depending on the angle that you hold your brush. Another key difference here for leaves and florals specifically is the direction that you'll paint your petals with round brushes. I typically start at the stamen or the center of the flower and paint the petal outwards. Same goes for Leaves. I start at the stem and then paint the leaf outwards or away from the stem. However, filbert brushes it's the opposite because the rounded edge is where you want the outer part of the petal. We'll paint each petal towards the stamen. And with the leaves, we'll paint each leaf toward the stem. If you're used to painting with round Brushes like I was, this can definitely be a little tricky to get the hang of in the beginning. But don't worry, we'll get plenty of practice and the upcoming lessons 5. Practice Strokes: Let's start with a few practice Strokes to get comfortable using our brush, I'll demonstrate using a mix of large and small filbert brushes so you can follow along no matter what size brush you have and feel free to use any colors you'd like. This is all just for practice. First, let's use the edge to create thin, dainty lines. When you're doing this, you'll want to hold the brush on its side so that the sharp edge is making contact with the paper. Try doing this exercise while applying different amounts of pressure to the paper to make lines with different thicknesses. See how even with this very large size 12 brush, I can still get nice and thin lines just by using the edge. And same goes for the smaller filbert brushes. You can use the edge of these to get even thinner lines, just like what you can do with the fine tip of a round brush. And this is what makes the filbert brush so valuable. It's truly a jack of all trades. Now, let's try using the belly of the brush, which is what will mainly use for the flower petals. So for those very expressive petals, I just plot my brush down onto the page like this and drag it down quickly. This method gives you very organic looking petals. And I've personally found that the quicker and Loose or you do this, the better the petals look. So again, don't try to control it too much. Now let's see how it looks with my one-inch oval brush. Very similar. I'm getting those large, beautiful petals. You can even do this with your smaller filbert brushes to, of course, you'll just get smaller petals. But this is great for painting things like daisies, lavender flower buds are other smaller Filler Flowers that's still have that softer rounded edge. When you want more control or a sharper point towards the center. You can also twist the brush slightly at the bottom to get a more refined point of attachment like this. In the upcoming lessons, we'll talk more about when to use each of these techniques. But for now, just keep practicing and seeing all the different types of strokes your brush can make. I'll show you this with a smaller filbert as well. So I'm applying my pressure down onto the paper and then twisting at the end to get a finer tip. The last way to use your brush for Flower Petals is by using the side edge of the brush. And this is one of my favorites. This still gives you the soft rounded edge of the flower petal, but with a much thinner wispy or look. I like to use this stroke a lot for adding inside petals. And I also use the side for leaves and leaf stems. Again, I'm being sure just to make very quick loose strokes here, do your best to not overthink things. I highly encourage you to keep experimenting with these methods on your own. Muscle memory is a vital part of improving your watercolor skills. So get comfortable doing this and then we'll apply these strokes to some flowers and leaves and the upcoming lessons 6. Loose Flower: Let's start with some flowers because let's be honest, those are the most one to paint. As I briefly mentioned earlier, the most effective way to utilize your filbert brush is by painting your flower petals towards the stamen or the center of the flower. Because of this, I typically like to pencil in a basic circle shape, so I know where to aim my petals. You certainly don't have to do this part, but it just helps me stay on track and not get too wild with my Strokes. Alright, so let's go ahead and get started with a basic loose Flower. I'm going to start with my size two brush, but any of these techniques can be done with any of your brushes. And I'll just kinda switch up which brushes I'm using throughout so you can see all the different brushes in action. So I started with my circle here. And again, you don't have to do that part, but it just helps me stay on track and I'm just going to use one of those first pull down strokes to create my first flower petal. Again, don't overthink it. It can be a little intimidating to put those first strokes down on the paper, but just plop it down just like that. Alright, I'm gonna load up a little more color. And I'm gonna do another one using the side hold. So I'm using that side edge of the brush. And I'm going to paint another flower petal right next to it. Now I want to have a little bit wispy or of one right next to it. So I'm going to use the very edge. Remember when we did that to draw the lines. And I'm just going to quickly make a stroke and bring it all together. And I'm just going to work my way around the flower and making sure to switch up the way that I hold my brush as I worked my way around and just adding in some petals. So see how I turned it there at the end to create the sharper point. Now I'm going to grab a little bit of yellow into my mixture just to help make this flower look a little more unique. And I'll just add another little side stroke. Again. You don't have to follow these exact strokes that I'm making. But just remember to experiment by holding your brush in different ways, different angles, applying different amounts of pressure. And nine times out of ten, you'll end up with a good flower. I want this perspective to be not just straight on. So for this bottom petal, I'm going to use the side hold. And I'm just going to paint a sideways pedal like that. Now, while these petals are still wet, I'm gonna go in with a little bit of a darker color and just tap in just a little additional color just to make it pop a little bit more. And remember, we're just practicing here. So if you don't like the way that your Flower turns out the first time, that is totally fine. I'm going to just go over this one more time with a slightly darker value of the color. Tapping in some of that peach color along the bottom. And I'm really liking how this one is turning out. And that's what's so great about the filbert brush as you can make all these different looking petals from one brush just by the way that you hold it. So the side hold the belly of the brush, the side angle, they all create such different strokes. So now that I have the main parts done, I'm going to go in with a smaller filbert brush just so I can control that center part a little more. And I'm just going to grab a green color and mix it with the yellow. Feel free to use any colors you'd like. And I'm just going to place down some color here. So just kinda filling it in over where I put the pencil outline. Sometimes they also like to go back in and just tap in a little additional color with a smaller brush, just like this. Just to have a little bit more control. I love the size 12 brush for the fluffiness that it gives to your petals. But for smaller details, It's a little harder to control. So that's where I like to add in just some of these details with a smaller brush. Now, I want to add just slightly more detail. So the center of the flower here, but since it's still wet, if I go in and tap in some dots or extra details is just going to bleed. So I'm gonna give this just a couple of minutes to dry. Alright, so I think it's mostly dry. So I'm gonna go in with a darker green. It might still be slightly wet, but that's okay. Nope, it looks like it's pretty good. I'm just going to use the very side of my brush almost as if I'm using a round brush. And I'm just going to add some dots here in the middle. Just to make that center just a little bit more refined. Alright, there we have it. So this is kinda my go-to and I'm Using Filbert Brushes. Just a very nice basic but still very interesting Flower. So we have different shapes and different angles for each of the Petals. We have a variety of colors that look really nice together. And it's also not a straight on perspective because this bottom petal is a little bit different, so it gives you just a very interesting look to your Loose Floral 7. Dainty Wildflowers: The next one we're going to do is a little dainty Wildflower. And I love to do these ones for fillers when I'm doing my compositions. And I'm gonna be using my size six filbert brush because I really want this to be dainty and it's a little bit harder to get that sort of control with the bigger brushes. So just using a size six and I'm going to use my yellow color from the first flower. And this will just have a couple of Petals to it. So it won't be as tricky as this one. And we're going to be using the method where you place down your Flower and then twist at the end to give it more of a refined attachment. So I'm going to start with this first petal. Apply some pressure down to a step, the end, and then you get a nice-looking petal. Now, I'm going to rinse off some of that pigment so I can get a lighter value. And I'm gonna do another petal right next to it and bring that attachment in that same area. And I'll do one or two more petals here. So this one is right next to it, and I'm gonna do one more here on this side, a droopy little petal that is very light values. So I'm just going to add a little bit more color to it. There we go. These types of flowers look a little bit strange without the leaf stems. So we'll go way more in-depth into stems and leaves and the following lessons, but I'm also just going to add one here just so you can see what the end result will look like. I'm going to grab some of my deep sap green. I'm using the same brush. And I'm just going to use the very edge of it like we did to make the thin dainty lines. And I'm just going to very gently add a little stem. And we'll add a couple of leaves here again, like I said, I'll go more in-depth than this and the upcoming lessons, but very similar to making the petals just applying some pressure down and twisting at the edge to get a nice little leaf. Now while these petals are still wet, I'm going to tap in some additional color just to give it some more vibrancy. So I went straight into my paint palette. It's very pigmented. I'm just tapping in some additional color here at the bottom. Like I said, these are really great for if you're painting bouquets or compositions like we'll do at the end of class when you have some extra white space that needs to be filled in or you just want to add some movement. These types of Fillers are really great for that. Let's do another one. I'm going to start with a very light value of my yellow. And I'm going to place my first petal down. Once that's in there, I'm going to play some additional ones on either side of it. Remember, you don't have to do these exact same strokes. Feel free to experiment. You just want the edges of each of them to be roughly in the same place so that you can add a nice stem to bring it altogether. And another droopy pedal. It's up to you how many petals you want to add. And then I'm going in with my green using the flat edge of the brush and just painting in a little stem. So you can see a little bit of streakiness there. That just means that I don't have enough water in my mixture, so just re-wetting my brush. In continuing on. This time, I'm gonna go back in to tap in some additional of that peachy color. Because I really liked that color mixture in the first flower. So I want to get a little bit of that same effect. So I'm just tapping that in. And since those initial petals are still wet, you'll see them just gently bleeding together. So it doesn't make a huge difference, but it just makes it a little more interesting. Alright, I'm gonna show some more examples of Filler Flowers like these just because they're so easy to do with Filbert Brushes. And we'll be doing a lot of these when we get to our class project. So I'm gonna move on to my lavender color. And I'm just going to plop down some brush strokes just like that. And this is where I'm really twisting at the edge to get those fine tips. While those are still wet, I'm going to grab a darker value and tap it in at the bottom. I'm going to use the side hold here. So it'll be a slightly more dainty stroke. Feel free to experiment here. We are just kinda getting comfortable with our brushes, seeing what they can do. Seeing what shapes of flowers we like to paint. No pressure at all. We are just experimenting here. So go easy on yourself. And I'm liking how this one is curving. So now I've loaded up a light green and I'm just going to add a little stem and attaching some of these petals here. And painting in some dainty leaves that have the rounded edge. I'm really liking how these are all looking together and they're so different, they're all so different, but I use the same brush. So that's what I'm talking about and that's why I love the filbert brush so much. It's just so versatile and you get a lot of different looking flowers. 8. Expressive Florals: Let's do another big flower. So these ones are great for practicing our control and using smaller strokes and smaller brushes. So now I'm gonna go ahead and pencil in the center of my flower. I'm going to use my bigger brush here. So I'm going to use the size 12 filbert blooms brush. Here's the center. And I'm just going to use the side hold of my brush and start painting in some petals. So this will be similar to the first one that we did. But I'm going to do just a straight on perspective. I'm going to get a little bit more pigment so you can see this demonstration better. And I'm just going to start dropping down petals, making sure to vary the thickness. So some of these are thicker. You can even do two strokes per petals. So sometimes I attach it like that. And then you get a bigger petal. That's really the great part about painting loose florals is you don't have to have a perfect representation of a flower. So I wouldn't even know what you call this specific flower, but I like the way that it looks. And I'm varying the petal shapes and it looks really beautiful. I'm going to throw in some yellow here, getting an orange mixture together and just adding in my petals. And I'm making sure to keep my risks nice and loose throughout the process. I'm going to add some more yellow to these initial petals. And then when I have these white spaces, That's what I'm using the edge just to kinda fill in those spaces with some smaller Strokes. Alright, now I'm going to move to my size ten. And these are still wet. So that's a great opportunity to get a little bit of color bleeding. So I'm going to grab a darker pigment. I'm just going to use the edge, the side edge to just tap in some very dainty strokes at the bottom and just watch that paint bleed out into the petal. I'm not applying very much pressure here. Just adding in these delicate little attachments. If it's easier for you to just focus on one color at a time that is perfectly fine too. I just like to mix it up just to make the flowers a little bit more dynamic. So I'm just barely touching the page to get very dainty attachments. Alright, now, using that same brush, I'm just going to work on the center. I'm gonna make it very similar to the one we did up there using a yellow-green mixture that's a little too yellow for me. So I'm adding just a little bit more green. And I'm just kind of tapping it down there in the center. I'm gonna give it just a little bit of time to dry. And then I'll go in and add my final details with my darker sap green is mostly it's still wet but I'm just going to start tapping in that darker green using the side of my size four filbert brush. It doesn't matter which size you have as long as you use the corner angle of it, you can still get a pretty fine stroke. And I'm just going to tap in some color here. And there we go. So I'm really liking how all of these flowers are looking. Let's try one more style. So just like the others, I'm going to start just with penciling in where I want the center to be. And then I'm going to use my size ten. But again, feel free to use any color and any size you want. I'm going to hold my brush at an angle for this first petal. And I'm just going to press it down and release. I want that pedal to be just a little bit bigger, so I'm doing my second stroke attached to it. Now I can start varying the strokes here. I'm gonna do some with the side, some a little bit with severe. And I'm gonna make this first petal even bigger, just kinda wiggling my brush while it's attached. There's just so many different ways you can do petals with these brushes. And that's why I love it so much. So really just get creative here, have FUN. Experiment, see what you're comfortable with, see what styles you like best. And while it's still wet, I'm just grabbing a darker pigment and just tapping it in there at the bottom, you'll start to see a pattern here. Or if you've taken any of my other floral classes, you know, I absolutely love some good contrast and just tapping in darker pigment. Then the final step will just be taking some black on my smaller brush and filling in the center. I want you to remember that these flowers are just starting points to help you feel inspired by everything your brush can do. Your, the Artist you're in charge here and you never know what you can create until you try. And then the next lesson we'll do some slightly more refined Flowers, including peonies and roses. 9. Peonies: Alright, we've gotten the hang of our basic loose florals, and now we can move on to some more refined flours, including a peonies and roses. These are still very loose style, but they do require just a little bit more control. Alright, let's go ahead and get started with the peony. Now, I've always struggled with painting peonies with round brushes. It's always been something I really would love to paint, but it's just been very difficult for me. But once I found the filbert brush, everything becomes so much easier. I'm excited to share my technique. So I'm starting with my size eight. And I'm just going to create my center petal here. And I want this one to be a little bit wider. So you'll notice that I'm doing a few more strokes here to make it nice and wide. Alright, now I'm going to start creating my petals around it. So first I'm just going to tap in a little more pigment down at the bottom, load up some more color and start filling in these petals and peonies have a very round, bulbous shape. I want to make sure that I'm curving petals so that all of the tips of them meet here in the middle. So using this side hold. And then finishing off with a nice pointed tip here. I'm going to do the same thing on the other side. Just kinda pulling in those petals. And while those petals are still wet, I'm just darkening the center a little bit. Now comes the best part. And this is kinda the secret weapon of the filbert brush. We want to create some petals in the back to give it a little bit more depth. And the shape of the filbert brush perfectly outlines what I want those back petals to look like. So what I'm going to do is just tap down my brush like that and you'll see it creates a nice arch. And this really is the secret weapon to peony is because it's a lot harder to replicate that arch with round brushes. But with filbert, you just have to tap it in. So I'm adding in some little further back. And just placing the brush down. Just like that. You'll see me go back in and just tap in additional color at random points. That's just what I like to do before the petals dry. Because watercolor pigment tends to lighten and get a bit duller as it dries. I just go back in and add some more pigment. Now I'm going to paint the petals on the underside. So they're a little bit wider and then twisting at the end to meet the rest of them. I'm getting a little bit darker value here. Using the side hold and always attaching right there in the center. Now before those dry up, like I said before, I'm just going in with a little darker value and adding a touch of vibrancy. And now I'm gonna do the same thing with the back petals. So just adding in a slightly darker value. And once you like how that's looking, I'm going in with my golden yellow and I'm just going to start to fill in the steam and the center of the peony. So peonies are a little trickier to do with the smaller brushes. Again, that was a size eight. So now I'll show you how to do it with the size 12. So again, I'm going to start with that front petal. And I want it to be nice and wide. So I'll do a couple of strokes here. You can see this blooms brush is really easy to get those big fluffy petals. You still can do it with the smaller ones. That's why I wanted to show you that. But it's just a little bit easier with the bigger size 12 brush. And once I have that initial pedal, that's just what I like to start with, and then I build around it. So initial pedal is down. Now I'll start adding the side petals and everything's coming to the center point. So just keep that in mind. I'm just keeping my wrist nice and loose here. And now I'm going to take a slightly smaller brush to tap in some of that color down at the bottom and you can start to see it just bloom into the petal. And that's what I like to see. So now we can start adding those back petals again. And I want to give a little bit more room to do the center. This one was a little bit smaller, but again, we're just going to tap the brush down and it creates a nice arch way. I just absolutely love that for peonies. I'm just tapping it down and creating those outer petals. Some of them can be a little bit longer just by pulling them down. Then the ones in the back are further away. So they're just nice and small. And just like what I did with the other petals, I'm just going to tap in some darker value while it's still wet. And now those are done. We can get started on the bottom petals. So I'm going to mirror this big one. So I'm just applying lots of pressure down and pulling up. And I'm gonna get a slightly lighter values. So I'm just adding water to my mixture and finishing off those petals. So I use the side hold as you can see to just add in some of those little filler strokes. Then applying more pressure on the bigger petals. So I'm just going to add a little bit more color here. And even though I do find this easier to do peonies with filbert brushes, peonies are still really tricky. So if you're not getting it on your first try, that is perfectly fine. It does take a little bit of practice. I'm just tapping in a little bit more color here. And I'm pretty happy with how that one looks. So now we can go and add the yellow part for the stamen. And I'm going to move down to my size ten brush just because it gives me more control. So I'm loading it up with a yellow. And since this one we have a little more room. I'm going to do two layers. So the first one will be slightly lighter. So a more watery mixture. So you can see a little bit of bleeding there because my petals aren't dry up, but that's totally fine. I'm just adding in this first layer. And then I'll give it a little bit of time to dry before I add in the final details. Alright, so this is mostly dry, so I've moved down to my size four and I'm just going to add some wispy lines using the very edge. Just to give it those final little stamen details. I'm not applying very much pressure here, just using a very light hand. And I'm just adding in some dots and some lions. Again, the style of painting is a very delicate balance between that detail and looseness. So we're not trying to make this look hyper-realistic, but we do just want to add a nice touch of detail. And there we go, two very different brushes. So size eight versus size 12. But you can really achieve a nice full, fluffy peony, which I just absolutely love. 10. Roses: Now we're going to do a rose. So if you know my style of painting, I've always loved Loose Watercolor roses, but I've always used round brushes. But I found some FUN techniques to be able to utilize the filbert brush as well. So let's get to it. I'm going to use a size eight to start. And I mentioned this briefly before, but I'm going to be using the side of this brush to create the center Petals. Now, this rose is a little bit trickier than the other flowers. So just give yourself some grace if it's tricky for you. And I'm going to start with the center of the flower by just making very dainty lines using the very edge. So creating some lines in the shape of a circle and just using a very concentrated pigment. Alright, so I'm going to start with that and now I'm going to rinse off my brush, but make sure it's nice and wet still. And I'm just going to apply somewhere pressure using the side hold and just make these nice little C curves along the edge. I'm using a mix of pressure. I'm still using the side of it, but these bigger petals, I'm just pressing down harder and the smaller ones, I'm just easing up. Now while it's still wet, I'm going to tap in some darker value because I want the center of the rows to really be dark because it's tightly wound. And then we get lighter as we work our way outward. And now I'm going to move up to my size ten, and I'm just going to grab barely any of that color. I want it to be very watery. And I'm working kinda quickly because I want this to remain wet. And I'm going to use a side hold and just add some big a little too late. So I'm going to add some big petals here coming off of it. Holding it at the side angle and just pulling it down to create those really beautiful big petals. Again, tapping in a little more color while these ones are still wet. This is what I mean when I say intuitive painting, I mentioned that in some of my classes. That's just where you get in the flow of things and you know, when to go back in and tap in more color when you can go out more Petals, it just kinda becomes an intuitive process. That's really when painting becomes just so much FUN. When you don't have to think about it too much. So I'm just going to continue adding in some petals around this side. Some of them are using the side hold like this. Some of them I'm using the belly of the brush in it just creates this really beautiful rose that I just absolutely love. It's definitely a different style than my roses when I use round brushes. But it is still absolutely beautiful. I've been painting roses for a very long time now. So it's just really nice to have a new way to do it. And to just change up the style a little bit. Rinsing off some of that pigment and just filling in some fluffier petals around the edge. There we go. So it's kinda hard to know when to stop. I could go and add in more details, more petals, but I'm really liking how this is looking. So let's go ahead and practice one more time. This time I'm going to show you a FUN way to use multiple colors in your rows. So I'm actually going to start with yellow and then we'll tap in some of that peachy pink later on. So again, I'm starting with my size eight. If you don't have these exact sizes, it's perfectly fine. Just using a smaller one for the center strokes and just kinda turn your brush in different directions. Because we wanted to get these thin dainty lines around the center because the center of the rose is tightly wound up. Those petals will be darker. And now I'm rinsing off some of that pigment and just pressing my brush down and creating slightly bigger petals. So it's the same hole that's the side hold. I'm just deferring the amounts of pressure. So some of them are thinner strokes, some of them are thicker. And now I'm going to move to my size ten and create the bigger petals. Again, I'm using not a lot of pigment. I want this to be very light value and doing a side hold and pulling down to create big petals. I always start a little bit too light, so I'm going to add a little more color to that. It's better to start to light though and then add more than to try to subtract color because that's really hard to do. I'm just going to add some of those big fluffy petals around the edge. And these are the petals that are really blooming and opening up nice and wide. So I'm not thinking about it too much, just letting my brush dance around the edge and create these nice Petals. Now comes the Fun part, which is tapping in some of our peachy pink color. So if you're not using the exact same colors as I am, that's totally fine just to experiment with using a darker color here. So moving back to my small brush and tapping it into the center and you can start to see that color just bleed out into the rest of the yellow and it's just so beautiful. So I'm not adding too much, just tapping it in and letting those colors bleed. And there we go. I'm going to start to sound like a broken record here, but my best advice is to keep practicing these techniques over and over again until it starts to feel natural and intuitive to you 11. Leaves & Greenery: We've mastered our flowers, so now we can move on to some leaves and Greenery to help complement the flowers and make our compositions look more dynamic and full. We'll be using a lot of the same techniques that we've already practiced. This lesson should start to feel a little bit easier. I'm going to use a size eight brush here, and I'll be using a mixture of deep sap green. First I'm gonna show you how you can achieve a similar effect to round brushes. When you're painting leaves with round brushes, you typically end up with a fine pointed tip. So to do that, you'll start with the side hold and then do light pressure, heavier pressure, and light pressure again. And then you get that nice fine tip. And with filbert brushes, the nice thing is you can get both. So you can still get that nice fine tip or you can get a rounded tip like that. So really there's a lot of options here. So the easiest to just to pull it down and twist like we did with the flower petals. Or you can do it like this. There are lots of ways to do it. One of my favorites to get a very loose, organic, wispy look is to start out with a side hold, apply some pressure down, and then just twist my brush at the end and you get that nice wispy tip. So let's do that again, starting with the side hold, light pressure, heavier pressure and then twisting at the end. And that gets you that nice organic look. You know, I always say muscle memory is important, so make sure you do these practice drills. I've higher pressure down onto the paper and twist. Something else I like to do, especially when I'm painting compositions, is to create very wispy little fillers. So again, I use the side edge and just barely graze the paper and create these little wispy strokes. And that's great for attaching things like flower buds or just having some Greenery come off the edge of your leaves like this. Again, just very wispy light hand, also a tips to help make your leaves look more dynamic is I know you saw me tapping in additional color in the flower petals. So you can do the same thing with your leaves. So start with a nice light layer like this and there's a little pooling, so just make sure your first layers nice. And even. Then, you can go in with some darker green and just tap it in and let the wet on wet technique do its thing. So you can see the color just gently bleeding in here. So as you can see, there are lots of different ways you can use your filbert brush to create very beautiful leaves. And we'll get more practice once we paint our composition. Once you're feeling more confident with all of your botanical elements, I'll meet you in the next lesson to start our class project, the loose floral composition 12. Composition Basics: Before we start actually painting, I wanted to review some of the key elements that help make up a beautiful, well-balanced floral composition, like the one we'll paint together and the next section. Now when I'm painting loose floral pieces, I never released sketch out any detailed plans or anything like that. But there are a few key things that I like to keep in mind when I'm planning out how I want the overall piece to look. The first thing is having a dedicated focal point. You want to draw the eyes to a main element of your piece, which is typically the biggest fluffy just Flower. And this allows the viewer to see the standout element first. Then move on to the additional flowers, leaves, and fillers. So it just helps turn the piece into a viewing journey rather than just being overwhelmed with all the elements at once. Next step is contrast, and there are a lot of parts of your composition and that should have contrast, such as contrasting colors, size of elements and perspectives. This all helps to make your piece look more dynamic and interesting. We also have to think about balance, which is another critical part of painting, a floral composition. Now this doesn't mean having a perfectly symmetrical painting. What it means, it's making sure your painting isn't lopsided with all the heavy elements on one side. Wanna make sure those big pieces are complemented and balanced by smaller fillers and leaves. And this really helps to make your piece more pleasing to the eye. And the last thing I want to mention encompasses all things and movement. I mentioned this when I talked about having a focal point. But you really want the viewers eyes to go on a journey and move along the paper as they look at your flowers. You don't just want their eyes to plop down into the center of the page and then move on to something else. So the easiest way that I've found to compose flowers in a dynamic way is to place them in either an S shape or a zigzag shape. So you can see in our piece here we'll have the tallest part on the top right and the lowest part on the bottom left. So it's following a nice S curve and your eyes move along that curve as you view it. Also related to movement is the use of your whitespace. Don't underestimate the power of whitespace. Your floral elements need room to breathe, so try your best not to stuff in your fillers and leaves and every possible whitespace. Take a step back every now and then to view your composition from afar and then fill in the space only where it's really needed. Alright, Enough, talking with all those things in mind. Let's start the painting 13. Project: Primary Peony: We're gonna start with a focal point of our piece, and we want this to be the showstopper. So I'm gonna be using my bigger brushes here. So I'm gonna go ahead and start with the Peony. And I'm going to put that in the middle left section. So I'm using my size 12 and I'm going to make a peachy pink peony. So again, I'm going to start with that first center petal. And I'm just going to place my brush down and pull down to the center there. And remember it's always best to start light. Then you can add more color as you go. And I want this just to come to a little bit more of a point. So I'm just going to twist my brush just like that. And that's looking pretty good. So now that we have that center petal all in place, we can start adding our additional petals. So remember we want to keep a nice rounded, bulbous shape. I'm going to use the side hold and play some pressure down and bring it right together in the center. I'll do the same thing on the other side as well, using the side hold and bringing down the petal. Now I'll just start to work my way around. So I'll do another petal here, make it a little bigger. Make sure you're remembering to use different amounts of pressure and holding your brush at different angles. Because we want to keep this Flower looking very interesting and dynamic. So those petals are still wet. So I'm just going to grab a little bit of a darker value. Hold my brush at the angle and just tap that in there. This is really my favorite way to get that Loose effect on your Florals is to just real utilize the wet on wet technique and just don't be afraid to tap in more color. Especially on petals that are still wet. So this is looking good so far. And now I'm going to use that same technique of just tapping my brush down to create the back petals. So I wanted just to be a little archway, but I want to leave enough white space for the stamen. Just going to gently tap some of those petals down. And I want some of them to be just a little bit thicker so I'll pull them down. And others to be nice and thin, especially the ones in the back. You don't want them to all be exactly uniform because that wouldn't look very realistic. So just keep your wrist nice and loose and just go ahead and tap those. And I'm also going to tap in just a little more color at the bottom. Like I said, this is getting into intuitive painting. So I'm not following an exact step-by-step for any of these. I'm just filling it out and seeing where I need to add our color. Make sure I take advantage of the petals that are still wet. So it makes sure you're doing that at your own discretion. Look at your painting. You don't need to feel pressure to do exactly what I'm doing. Just assessors as you go, figure out what's working, what's not where you want to add in more color? If you want to keep things super light, you don't have to add any more color. It is totally up to you. As I said before, I really want you to just learn how to trust your artistic intuition. If you want to work with multiple colors like we did in our rows, you can do that as well and just happened some yellow. It is up to you. I'm just going to stick with this peach color. Okay, So this is looking good so far now I'm going to add the bottom petals. So I'm holding my brush this way, so my curved edge is angling down. That's where I want the outer edge of the pedal to be. And I'm just going to mirror this first petal. So applying some pressure down and twisting in making this first petal the biggest. And I'm just filling in the rest as we go. So you want to keep your whitespace in mind, like I mentioned in the previous video, you don't want to fill in this whole thing and just have it be a blob of color. So that's why I want to keep those little gaps of whitespace. So I'm going to tap in some more color. And I'm just holding my brush at an angle and adding in some wispy little Strokes. And this is also where you can fill in the form of your flower. So if any of it, like you can see that stroke I just made with a little bit to horizontal for my liking, I want to maintain the curve to it. So that's where you can use these little strokes to correct anything like that and just add that shape back into it. So this is looking good, and I'm just going to make some final little additions of color. Always remember to check in with your wrist and your hand. Do you wanna make sure you're not gripping the brush too tight or being too rigid. You wanted to just keep your hand and your wrist nice and loose. Just remember, we're still just practicing here and having FUN and being with so no pressure at all. Now I wanna do just a little bit more of some finer details with control. So I am going to grab my smaller brush, this size six, and just tapping in some very pigmented color where I want it to be the darkest. And this is where I really recommend using 100% cotton paper because even these strokes in the back that we made quite awhile ago, they're still wet. So that allows you to utilize the wet on wet technique. If you use student grade paper, which is totally fine, just have to make some changes and work a little faster because the paper doesn't stay wet as long the paint just soaks into the paper. It's a lot harder actually to be able to utilize the wet on wet technique like I'm doing here. So the petals are looking good now and I want to get started on the stamen, so we have plenty of room here. So I'm going to start with a lighter value that's a little too dark, so I'm going to add some more water to my mixture. And I'm just kind of loosely placing this in because what we putting more finer details over the top. So just placing in some color here and blocking it in. And now I'm going to give it just a little bit of time to dry, so then I can go back in and add in the final details. This is mostly dry. Now I'm switching to my size four filbert brush and I'm using a darker value of my yellow, just like we did with the practice lesson. I'm just going to start adding some little details here. Making very light wispy strokes, adding some dots and some just a filler lines. So you don't want to overthink it. You don't want your lines to be uniform. Just keep it nice and random. And their rehab it for our Peony 14. Project: Primary Florals: So now that that's done, I'm going to move on to the second flower that all put in this top right-hand corner. I want to leave a little bit of whitespace in-between the Peony and this next one. This is going to be similar to the very first flower that we practiced with a side perspective, big loose petals and then like a side petal underneath it. I'm going to use a mixture of the peachy pink and yellow, so we get a nice soft pink. Now once again, I'm just going to start by lightly penciling in the center of the flower. And again, this just helps me to stay on track. And I'm going to mix together my peach and yellow, keeping it nice and light. I want it to be watery at the start so I can tap in darker value and still using my size 12 brush. And I'm just going to pull it down. And I'm going to make this one nice and big. So I'm doing to strokes. You can see it's very light. That will allow me to tap in more color as we go. So as I worked my way around adding these petals, sometimes there'll be a little more yellow, sometimes they'll be more peachy pink. And that just really helps to make these flowers look more dynamic and interesting. And I'm using the side angle hold. Some strokes will be whisper than others. It is all up to you. And this type of flower you can really just get loose with. So get creative. Vary the strokes that you're making. Feel free to tap in more color like that. And as I work on that bottom petal, It's going to be that flat side petals. So I'm just shaping it sideways like that. If you would rather do a different perspective Flower, you can totally do that too. You don't have to follow my exact formula. So I'm just tapping into my yellow and just adding in these strokes wherever I want, keeping my wrist nice and loose and they're all meeting there in the center area. So feel free to experiment with different colors. Tap in some darker values there at the center. And just let it bleed into the petals. Again, it's a lot easier to do if you're using 100% cotton paper. You'll just have to work a little bit faster if you're using student grade paper. Make sure to leave some of that whitespace there in the middle. You don't want it to turn into a blob of color. And now I will be moving to the size ten brush, just so I have a little bit more control. And I'm just going to add a little bit more of these wispy details. Making sure to use the various side of my brush to keep it nice and light. Again, typically this is something that I would reach for my round brush to do. But as I said, filbert brushes are very versatile and I can achieve the same effect. So this is a size ten brush. It's not a tiny brush, but I can get very tiny strokes, which is amazing. So just kinda finishing up and tapping into more color here. I don't want to overdo it, but you just want to have FUN and experiments. I'm pretty happy with how this looks now. So I'm going to grab my yellow green mixture, and I'm just going to place some of that in the center. And now I'll just let this dry and then we can add the final details on our second flower. Alright, the center is mostly dry, so now I'm grabbing my darker, deep sap green mixture. It's still a little bit wet so you can see it just bleed a little bit, but I'm just going to keep tapping that in. Gives it some nice contrast. I don't want to fill in the whole space. I want to make sure it has a little bit of texture. So I'm just kinda randomly placing these marks down. So now we've blocked out two of our main flowers. So I'm going to do one more big flower right down here. So now you can start to see some great movement there. And once we start adding in the Filler Flowers, you'll really start to see it all come together. Once again, I'm going to use my pencil. I'm just going to mark where I want the center to be. Then this flower is going to be yellow. So our Peony is that darker peach. Our second flower is a mixture of the pH and the yellow. So this one's going to be mostly yellow I'm still going to use this is 12 brush, but I'm just going to be using my yellow color. And I'm going to add the smaller petals around that left side and then the bigger petals coming down. Just to throw another perspective into our composition. So I'm just going to start loosely adding these petals. Starting with the bottom. This is really your chance to make this piece your own. So don't be afraid to use some very expressive strokes. And just start adding these petals in. Again, I always like to start with lighter values. And then you can always tap and darker values as you go. But it is a little bit more difficult to do that the opposite way. So I always suggest starting lighter and then going darker. So there we go. This is why this is one of my favorite flowers to paint because it just took a few random strokes. And now I have this beautiful flower blooming. Again just using the darker, warmer orange. And just happening not in, in the center. I'm just gonna go back in and darken some of these petals to just holding my brush at different angles, making it a little bit more vibrant. Now, I will switch to my size ten brush so that I can have more control again for these final little wispy strokes. And this is why I really liked to work with different color values, which means lightness and darkness of a color. Because if this was all one flat value, it would look very dull. But because we have some light values, some dark values, and do the same thing with our other flowers. It really adds some dynamic interests to our piece. Now, before I start doing the middle, I'm going to wait for this to completely dry because I want the middle of this to be black and I don't want any of that black color to bleed into the yellow petals. So I'll give it plenty of time to dry. Now I'm going to use my size four and I'll just use the very edge of it. And I'll just start tapping in some of this black pigment. I don't want it to be fully black. I want to avoid any blobs of color. So just make sure to leave a little bit of whitespace in there. Alright, and now we have our main three elements in place. So now we can start working on our secondary flowers. I don't want to jump right to the fillers yet because I want to save those for the end. But we'll do some midsize flowers next. 15. Project: Secondary Florals: Now that our main elements are in place, we can start filling in the rest with our Leaves, Filler Flowers and greenery. As I mentioned, we have our three primary flowers already in place. So now we can start on the secondary flowers, the fillers and the greenery. So I don't just want to go from these big main flowers to some really small dainty fillers. I want to add some kind of in-between. Now, I also want to mention that we want to start incorporating some other colors too, because these are all in that same peachy yellow family. So now I'm going to add some of that lavender color. And I'm going to do a smaller mid-size Flower right here and also one down below. These are the spaces that I see quite a bit of whitespace. So first I'm going to place where I want in the center of that flower to be. Now I'll use my size ten brush and I'll start grabbing some of that lavender. I want this flower to be very loose and organic, so I'll just start dragging these petals down. And again, you want to keep your whitespace in mind so you don't just want them all to blend together. You want to be mindful of where you're placing them. And so I'm just pulling some of these petals down. You can also paint your flowers and whichever perspective you'd like. I'm just going to do this one a little bit more straight on, but it is up to you. Here. I just wanted to make sure all the edges of the petals are meeting up in the middle. And again, that's why I like to start by penciling in where I want the center to be just to help me stay on track and make sure all of those petals are coming into the same place. And I'm also making sure to vary the angle and the way that I'm holding my brush. So I get these different looking strokes because I don't want all the petals to look too uniform. And you can probably guess what might next step will be, which is tapping in the darker value of lavender. I am just using the very edge of my brush here with a darker value of purple. And just adding those very dainty strokes. So I don't want to overwhelm the petals with color and water. I just want to have enough to where it can gently bleed out into the pedal. And that really just helps give it a Loose looked. So again, you're finding balance between spontaneity and control. That is what Loose Florals are all about. Now I have to wait again because I want the center of that sweet black, so I'll wait for that to dry. But in the meantime, I'm going to add my other little flower down here at the bottom. It's going to be the same technique and the same style as it did for the other one. So penciling in the center and now just starting to add in those very loose style, very light value petals, making sure to change the angle. You want some of them to be thicker, some of them to be nice and thin and wispy. So you use your creative intuition here. And just plop down some petals. I mentioned this earlier, but watercolor does get a little bit lighter and more UDL as it dries. So this is still wet, so I'm going to tap into some even darker value of purple just to help keep that purple contrast. So just gently adding that darker value. And now I can grab some black on my size four brush. I always use the size for when I want more control because it's very small. So I'll just start adding a little bit of black here in the center. You'll notice I'm not waiting for it to dry completely, but I'm just being a little more careful of where I'm tapping in the black. And I'll do the same thing down here. The petals are still wet so it might bleed into them just a little bit, which is okay, is up to you. If you want a super loose look, you can encourage it to blend together. If you want it to be more tighter and more controlled, then you can wait until the purple is completely dry. Or you can just be a little more careful with your brush strokes like I'm doing. So we added those secondary flowers and here's where I really liked to assess where we're at so far. You can still see a lot of good movement coming already. And once we add the real Filler Flowers, that's where we can really start to plan out how we want the rest of this to look 16. Project: Filler Flowers: Now moving on to the real Filler Flowers, I'm going to continue on with the lavender theme here. And I'm going to start to fill in this space because this is where I noticed the most whitespace. If you'd like, you can add another midsize Flower like that. I'm just going to go ahead and get started on the fillers. These will look very similar to the Wildflowers that we did in that lesson. And I am going to start with my pencil here and just kind of plan where I want these to go. So I'd like to have some coming off in this direction. And this is where you can really use your creative freedom. So don't feel like you have to follow the exact same direction that I'm going with these. Feel free to just take a look at your piece and see what it needs. So I'm going to have some coming off here. And I'm also going to have a little bit coming up there. So now I'm just going to start creating those dainty petals and pulling down and twisting. You can see I have a little bit of pooling there, so I'll just dry off my brush and let those bristles soak up that excess water. And I'll just continue on loosely placing these petals here. And I am not worrying too much about how each element looks. Morisot thinking about the direction of each of them. So the point of these fillers really is to help add movement and direction to your overall composition. So I want to make sure that they're all aiming and the direction that will help me achieve that movement. So I'm just adding some of these petals in here. And it's up to you. You can add as many or as little as you'd like. And just making sure you're to change up how big and how small each pedal is. But you can see it's really giving some good movement to this piece already. And that's what I like to see. Once again, I'm going to take some darker value and just tapping it in at the bottom. Just giving a little bit more contrast to each of these elements. I'm not going to add the greener yet because I want to do that at the end. But if you remember from the wildflower lesson, we'll just kinda be connecting them. So again, these types of flowers look a little bit wonky when they're just on their own, but it'll start to really fill out and come together once we add the Greenery. So that is going off into the right direction. And now I'm going to add a couple more coming up as well. So you can have some with a lot of Petals, some can just have a couple. And that's looking pretty good. I don't think I'd also like to have some coming down. So I'm going to flip my paper upside down just so I can make sure I'm doing my strokes the correct direction. And I'll just start doing the same thing. I'll remind you this is your own piece, so I don't want you to feel like you have to do exactly what I'm doing if you don't want to. Now, this is where I really want the top elements to be to help me stay in that S shape. So I'm going to place some stems there. Now I'm using my peach color and just very gently adding in some more petals. This is where it's really FUN to get creative. So I know I've said this before already, but feel free here to just add fillers wherever you'd like. See what your piece needs. See what areas need some more movements, some more color. And don't be afraid. I want you to experiment and really put your new skills into practice here. So I'm now going to add in some yellow fillers as well, just kind of coming up on this side. Just applying some pressure down to create those wispy petals. You can also use different sizes of brushes here. So you want some to be bigger, some to be smaller. You can really play around with different brush sizes and angles. And I'm really just starting to fill in the whitespaces. Again, it looks a little bit weird without the Greenery, but once we start adding in the leaves and the foliage, it really starts to help bring it together. So just kinda taking stock of what could use a little bit more Filler and placing that in. So this is why I like to do it with the pencil first. Because if I don't end up liking the direction, I can always just erase it. I'm going to speed up some of this process because it'll just be a lot of repetition. But feel free to go at your own pace and just kinda fill in those areas that you think need a little bit of shaping, a little bit of movement, and just have FUN with it. 17. Project: Composition Check-in: Okay, So we have our primary flowers, we have our secondary flowers, and we have our fillers in place. So now is when I really like to take a step back again, look at it from afar and just make sure everything's feeling pretty balanced before we go in and add in the leaves and the greenery. As I said, I want this to be in an S shape to give the composition some movement. Now I feel like we're in a good spot there. We have our upper right-hand corner, we have our lower left-hand corner. We have good movement in between lots of fillers to help give the middle areas and movement. And I'm feeling pretty good about where we're at now. If you're looking at your ears and you see some space that maybe needs a little bit more or maybe it's feeling a little bit too symmetrical or rigid. Then you can always go in and pencil and some more fillers to help give it more movements. But I'm feeling pretty good with where we're at now. So now I'll start adding in the leaves and the greenery and final details 18. Project: First Layer Leaves: Now, when I'm working with my greenery, I usually like to have two different layers of Greenery. So I start with a very light value of green and then I do a darker value on top for the final little wispy strokes. And I'm gonna go ahead and load up my size ten brush with a very light value of green. And I'll just start placing some of these kind of background Leaves. I don't want to place too many of them. I just want them to be in the background. And I will just start placing some leaves like this. It's very similar to the strokes that we do for our Peony petals. And I will just start finding those spaces that need a little bit more. And just placing those in gently. You can see it's a very light value of green, so you can barely see it, but it does help just add some fullness. So feel free to just figure out where your piece needs it. And I don't wanna go too crazy with it. And because we're doing loose style and not everything is planned out, it can be a little hard to not overdo it. So I think it's better to start out with less and then you can add more as needed. So try your best not to just go too crazy with these leaves. Just kinda be picky, figure out what needs it, and then add in some little subtle petals. I think this is looking pretty good so far. I'm just going to add a few more little leaves here. I don't want to take away from the movement that we've already created. You just want to compliment it and just kinda filling in that space where it's needed 19. Project: Second Layer Leaves: Now I'm going to go in with a very dark value of green. So this is deep sap green. And I'm going to start with a smaller brush. So I will be using my size four. And I want to start by just connecting everything that needs to be connected first because it can start to feel a little bit busy. So I want to make sure all the wildflowers and fillers are connected. And then I can start adding in the leaves and the greenery. So I will just work my way around using just the very edge. Again, this is typically where I would use a fine tip of a round brush, but because I want this all to Visa and with a filbert brush, I'm just going to use the very fine tip edge with my dark green. And I'm just going to start adding in these very dainty stems. I don't wanna go too crazy with it, but just filling in and connecting those petals. And it makes sure when you do stems like this, that you give it plenty of movement. You don't want a straight line because that'll just make your piece feel a little bit too strict and rigid. So you wanna make sure you're giving some nice curve to these. And that will help convey movement in your flowers and the overall piece. So you can see I'm just kind of giving that stem a bit of movement and giving it just a little bit of a curve. And that really makes a big difference. So I'll speed up the rest of this part, but for now I'm just adding these stems. And then I'll go back to real time when we start adding in the rest of the leaves and the Greenery. Alright, so now all of the fillers are attached. Things are looking good, we have good movement. And so now is my favorite part. Honestly. I'm just gonna go in and add some final touches and details using that dark green. And this is where I want I leaves to be pointed. So I'll use the light pressure, heavy pressure, light pressure technique. And then that will give these leaves a sharper edge similar to what you would get with a round brush. So feel free to not do that method if you'd like. You can continue on with the rounded leaves. But usually when I go with my final round of fillers, I like to have just a little bit more of an edge to it. So I'm just adding some of this greenery on top of that first light layer and getting a nice sharp edge. And that's just my preference for these final touches of Greenery. Again, if you don't like it, you can continue on with your softer edge leaves. So completely up to you here. I don't really have a plan when I do this. I'm just going in and assessing what could use a little bit more. So you can do leaf stems on top of the first layer like that. You can also add it to the Filler Flowers as well. So just being careful here and attaching a little leaf like that. You can have one going down. You can add some of those wispy strokes as well like that. So we're really just putting all of these new skills into practice here. And it just start filling in those spaces. Again, you don't want to go too crazy to where it starts to look too busy. But you certainly want enough to really give it character and make it look nice and fall. So I'm just kind of working my way around here. Again. You don't want all of your leaves to just be straight, so you want to give it some character. So for example, on this one I want to have it moving down. So I am twisting there at the edge and you have some nice movement coming on top. And you start to see some really nice contrast of the light green. The dark green majority of this composition is really light colors. And so I really like the bold look of the dark green for the final little touch of foliage. I also added a little touch of indigo to my green mixture because that helps it look more bold and dramatic. So no matter what green you're working with, you can always add a touch of indigo to make it darker and bolder if you like that route. And I am just going to continue on adding some leaves. When I get to this point, I'm feeling pretty good about it. This is, again, when I like to step back and really look at it from afar, I'm really liking hollow movement that we have going on. The only part that I'm not super happy with is the way that I connected these leaves. It looks a little bit too straight there. But I can mitigate that by adding some of the side leaves and I'm just going to add a little bit more Greenery going in opposite directions to detract from that connection here. So if you notice any of those connections on your piece where it just looks a little bit too rigid than just go ahead and keep adding some more foliage in different directions to detract from that a little bit more. So even just adding that one leaf really helps pull the eye in that direction and focus less on that. I don't want this to get to jammed up with Greenery. So I'm pretty happy just by adding these couple of sideways leaves. And I might just add one more here, coming off to the side. And I think I am going to leave it up that. So feel free to keep working on more leaves on your piece. If you're happy with how it looks, then you're totally welcome to stop there. That just takes some practice to not only planning where to place everything, but also when to stop. You can keep adding 1 million leaves if you wanted to. But sometimes it's best to just take it step back and view it overall and just appreciate it for what it is. 20. Resources & Final Thoughts: I want to sincerely thank you for joining me in this exploration of painting effortless Florals Using the filbert brush. I had so much Fine creating these loose, expressive flowers and I hope you did too. We learned so much in this class. So be sure to take a moment to just appreciate all of the new techniques and the skills that you've honed in this class, we learn to the differences between round and filbert brushes. We completed practice drills to get comfortable using the brush in different ways. We learned how to paint a variety of florals and greenery, and we put it altogether to create our stunning composition. I'm curious, did you have any favorite flowers to paint throughout the class? I personally loved painting the basic free hand Florals when I'm using my filbert. But it's hard to choose a clear favorite because they're also fund to paint. If you do have any favorites, be sure to let me know. With your new found understanding of the filbert brush, you can be confident continuing on in your creative journey. And if you'd like to learn more, I have a variety of other classes that I'd love to have you join from seasonal watercolor projects to intermediate painting techniques, to digitizing your artwork and even learning how to turn your paintings into greeting cards. I'd love to have you join me again. Thanks again for painting alongside me today and as always, happy creating for me to you