Enso: Create Japanese Meditative Watercolor

1. Intro: Hi, everybody. This is Mel, and welcome to my other Skillshare class. Now, if you're stuck somehow with creating art or you want to know your state of mind before you create your art or something doesn't quite feel right and you want to get into artistic meditative process. This is exactly the class for you. Now, we are going to create s with watercolor paint. Normally, Ensl uses Sumi, but we will be using watercolor paint because that's what I have in hand. And if you don't know what a s is, I'll be explaining that in the next couple of classes. It comes from Zen Buddhism, and it represents enlightenment, strength, beauty, and the universe. The act of drawing an s is also considered a meditative practice to understand and reflect the artist's state of mind at the moment. So I just think this is such a beautiful thing to do, and maybe even integrate it into your daily practice before you even start your creation of the day. So I hope I can give some tips and tricks along the way. I have been brought up in Japan for plus 26 years and Japanese Colligraphy. We've learned it back in Japanese school, and I thought I could share some of my knowledge here and there. So I hope you enjoy the class. Your final project would be to post your sL of the day. It could be one. It could be two. I love to look at what you can create. It's so beautiful to see other artists work on something. And this is a community, right. So I'd like to see what you can create. If you'd like to learn more about me, I have a website, ule garner.com. If you're on Instagram, my Instagram is Mu Gardner underscore art, and you can also hash tag your art with my Ns watercolor. Yeah. Let's dive into the class. 2. What is Enso?: So before we start painting an sol, I want to look into Wikipedia, what exactly an sul is. So since I'm a very visual person, I hope this helps to just kind of let you know what an insult is. So it says Zen circular form is a circle hand drawn in one or two inhibited brush strokes to express a moment when the mind is free to let the body create. So this is so important to understand. It's one or two inhibited brush strokes. And don't you think it's such a lovely way to start your daily creative practice? I mean, it's basically meditation in itself, and I think it's really good if you start off your day creating painting, any kind of art form with this. Let's look into the description. It says the s symbolizes absolute enlightenment, strength, elegance, the universe, and the void. I love that word. It is characterized by a minimalism born of Japanese aesthetics. Drying ens is a discipline, creative practice of Japanese ink painting, Sumi. The tools and mechanics of drying the ensl are the same as those used in traditional Japanese calligraphy. One uses an ink brush to apply ink Twahi. So we have to keep in mind that Typically, they use Sumi. We are not going to be using this, which means that the pigments need to be more dense. Meaning it has to be less water and more pigmented. It gets that strong effect when you create an insul. Let's keep that in mind and move forward. 3. Materials: Let's go over the materials that you will need in this class. You'll need a big glass of water. Now, I strongly recommend you to get a very big one as we'll be using very heavy loaded brush with pigments, and you need to clean your brushes every time. Get something quite big bigger the better. You'll need pencil, eraser, a spray bottle with water to activate your paint if you're using a palette like I am here and you'll need some watercolor paint. You need some watercolor brushes. I have my brushhlder right here. With the brushes, I strongly recommend you to use something like a cliigraphy brush. I'm using the silver black velvet jumbo round because it's very big and it works like a cliigraphy brush and I love the gentle strokes that it can create. Okay. And then you'll need paper towel to clean your brushes. And this compass is here for guiding me. If you want to create a perfect circle, it's better to use a compass just to guide you. But really with creating insults, you're really not supposed to be doing it because you just have to love all those imperfections that happen as well. Then I'll be using this fabriano sketching pad for the sketching process because it's cheaper. But for the final project, I'll be using this ball hog hot press paper. If you do have a square paper, that'll be better because I believe with circles, the composition wise, it works better if it's a square. I'll be cutting this off at the end of my painting. Okay, that's it. Let's dive into the class. 4. Warm Up: Let's get into creating some encys. I know you're not supposed to be quite doing these warm ups, you're supposed to be just let your body create this circular form, but I want you to know the brushes you have, which brushes create a certain strokes. You have to understand your brushes in order to be able to use it, and this comes with a few practices and warm ups. I'm planning to create some strokes with different brushes just to see what I can create, but also keeping in mind, What watercolor paints react in kind of way? Because if you use a yellow, let's say, it really needs to be heavily pigmented because it's not going to be looking like a ens because in ens they use the Japanese calligraphy inks, the Sums. The darker colors like pink gray, black, even some brands like transparent red oxide would be good. But you can always mix those blacks to create a Japanese calligraphy looking aches, if you know what I mean. I'm going to use first this Devin sano, I think it's called, it's a mtrush. I'm going to get some paint here. The paints gray. And getting that paints gray. You can start off with any bit of the circle. If you're left handed, there's a certain area that would be easier for you. But I'm just going to start from maybe the top because that's how I feel it's easier for me. You have to press on that brush. Trying to create that circle. And that's my insult. I like how it's looking. That would be quite different from say, let me try to use a yellow. A yellow is very light in its nature. It's going to look really different. But I'm going to heavy load that yellow in my brush. I have to clean my brush a bit because mixing this paints gray with the yellow is not working. This is a very strong opaque yellow within the yellows that I have, but let's see I'm pushing on it here, and then let it go. Okay. So I mean, that is quite pretty. I really like it, but it doesn't give a feel of say an ens that you normally see in classical enzs. But you could even a splash mark to this, so I'm just going to splatter. Because it could be two hibited brush strokes. Then next, I want to show you another mixture. Say you really wanted to use that yellow, but you want to make it more ink looking like polygraphy summing. I would go with I have this black right here. I will get that and put it right there and then clean my brush real good and get that yellow that I've used and just mix it in with the black. Just create your You calligraphy, Japanese Cographying Inc? I don't think I I have quite enough. Okay. I think I'm ready. So I'm going to start with the top now and see how that looks pushing pushing down, pushing down and left. That didn't go very well. I'm just so used to starting off from the bottom, going around clockwise. Now it almost looks like yellow ocher is Sumi a bit. But you need to get more pigment as possible. Now I'm going to use this jumbo round brush and it's going to make my life easier using this. I'm just going to play with colors right now. Because I'm a big fan of colors. I'm going to use that red right here. You need a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of watercolor paint. So again, starting from the bottom and turning it around. That's one. And I might even like, Hey, I want to add a bit of strokes, go in with maybe a block. Going on my second stroke. That was enough pigment of the neutral tint, going in again. I don't quite like it, but it's okay. Okay, let's stick with darker colors. I'm going in with moon glow or maybe it could be shadow violet on second thought. On second thought. So I'm going to press on that. And let go. Even more pigment next. Yeah, I quite like that. Okay. Now I'm going to use just neutral tint. Oops. I dropped a bit of paint there, but I'm just expressing my state of mind. Oh, I love that. That's really pretty. Just try to experiment and see what style speaks to you the most. You'll need to change your water here and there. Quite a lot of times actually. Next pigment I'm going to use is called the heme genuine. It's from the Daniel Smith Primate series and it's very light. But let's see what we can create. Still like it. Maybe I can even add a bit of neutral tint. Okay. We've done some warm ups. I want to create one and some of the day. Let's dive into the final project. 5. Final Project: Enso: Okay. Now that we've cleaned her water, as well as understood the characteristics of the watercolor brushes that we have, the breast strokes that it can create, as well as the pigment to water ratio that you need and how to create more Sumi Japanese calligraphy ink colors, we'll dive into actually creating a s for your day. I've decided I'm going to use moon glue. I'll just go in with it. I just love this oops. Love this color. And you can go twice. I am going to add a bit of neutral tent. And then I'm only going to comment a bit, and that is my ends of today. I think I really love it actually. Yeah, I've cut the paper, so the composition wise, I think circles fit into a square better, and I really love it. If you want to take it up a notch, there's a class that I explain how to create your own Japanese sealing signature on the side of the artwork. Now, there's a few There's no right or wrong way, basically, but there's some people who would put their seal right there right there or even sometimes inside. But me personally, I just like it to have it in that area. That's exactly what I'm going to do. You could check out that class for more details if you want to create this, but I'm going to use cadmium red color and basically write my name right there in Japanese characters. And then I'm going to create. Okay. Okay, so that's the ens that I've created today. Now let's move on to the next class. 6. Final Thoughts: Well done on making it this far. Give yourself a pat on the back. I hope you enjoy the class. We've covered basically what is ns looking over the brush strokes that you can create with your watercolor brushes and learning well, kind of understanding the pigment to water ratio, that's best when creating an s and some color palette choices, like how to mix your paint. So it looks it has that Japanese flair to it. So I hope you enjoy the class, and don't forget to post your project. This is my final project, and I really love it. But if I am honest, this class was supposed to be, create one ensl and then we'll create another one, take a step further and create an ensl that incorporates the classical elements that comes from Western world. Like that one right here is a sign, the water sign. And I've created four of those, but it didn't turn out right. I think it also depends on the s of the day, and this I can't force it with recording videos. So I didn't turn out nice. This one did kind, but I didn't like the other ones. I don't know. Maybe I'll create it again in another time. If you're interested in extending it further to the classical elements, then leave a comment or put a review and let me know. Okay. Thank you so much. Hope you enjoyed it. Bye bye.