Explore Mixed-media Mushrooms - Discovering Techniques to Create Magical Illustrations

1. Welcome to Explore Mixed-Media Mushrooms: Are you like me fascinated with all things funding? There's such a variety of mushrooms in all shapes, colors, and sizes. As artists, we too can create gorgeous paintings using different mixed media effects. Specifically in this class, I'd like to share and paint with you three unique approaches using mixed media and watercolor techniques. Hello there, My name is Sarah and I'm a watercolor artist and teacher. Mushroom summer all-time favorite motif of mine to paint. It's not only that they have such personalities or subject, it's a feeling machines or bug. And the symbolism behind them. Assurance to me have a magical quality which transports me when I'm painting to a different state of flow. Because of their unique shape and distinctive silhouette, I thought it'd be fun to create a set of three lessons and approaches. If you're a beginner and don't really feel competent drawing. I think this class is an opportunity to explore mixed media in watercolor painting, using the simple mushroom shape as a template to get started. First, we'll be using a brush pen with watercolor. Next we'll be creating a nocturne painting, followed by our final project, miniature mushroom. A little treasure was sparkling additions. All of these projects are simple, easy-to-follow with a beautiful result. Come join me with my class. Mixed media mushrooms, discovering techniques to create magical illustrations. Let's get started. 2. Mixed-Media Mushroom Project: Let's talk about our plan. Together. We'll be painting three different mixed media mushrooms. Our first project will be a taxonomy of mushrooms, will be creating simple silhouettes in granulating watercolors. Also talk about creating watermarks to create natural textures. Our second project will be creating a moody nighttime scene with jelly cap mushrooms on black watercolor paper. We'll explore just how we can create vibrant watercolors using watercolor ground. In our final painting, we'll be exploring a minute, your mushroom. It will be our little Trisha using watercolors, pencil and gold. I can't wait to get started painting. So let's move on to the next lesson where we'll look over our materials. 3. Materials: Let's talk about the materials. Again. I would like to say these are optional. If you have something that's close to or can substitute what I'm using, Please don't go out and buy new things. Because I find that without us, we tend to have a lot of supplies once we start digging around in our cupboards, I've used a mouth, the paper for our smaller project, but I'm also using hot press watercolor paper this time. But any other professional grade will suffice. Stonehenge Aqua cold press paper is being used for around that time project. And for the ground. I'm using golden watercolor ground, but I have also used Daniel Smith. And that's really effective too with the ink that we're using. Try and get a primary color. Again, doesn't matter what brand it is. You can use white gouache. I think I'm using this zig opaque one just because it's a favorite of mine and I find it works really well. Washi tape, a variety of earth colored neutral pencils. Again, it's just what appeals to you. And you have in your art supply arsenal. I'm using a sheer monkey gold. But again, if you have a gold ink or gold grass, use that too. I'm using a shaper to apply some of the paint. But you could also use an old brush. You definitely will need an old brush to apply the ground. Just because if you do have nice brushes, it's best to care for them and take the ones like this advertisement. I'll be using a rigger brush and also some sable synthetic mix brushes ranging from about four to ten depending on how large or small that you'd be working. I love my sketching, light wash, water-soluble pencil. This is terrific just because you can map things out and are washed away in water. I think that's covered. Let's go on to the lesson and get started on our project. See you there. 4. Taxonomy : Line Weight and Drawing: Hello there. I am really excited to get started on this lesson. Mushrooms, fungi, lichen. They're really one of my favorite motives to paint. And I hope you get as much enjoyment from it as me. A first lesson, we'll be painting this mushroom taxonomy. It's a wonderful way to familiarize ourselves with the different shapes and forms of the mushroom. I have created a photo reference for us to get started with within this lesson, because of the time constraints, I thought I will just focus on two or three mushrooms. And by the end of the lesson, I hope that you-all will familiarize yourself with them and I would love to see what you create. First of all, let's talk about the brush pens that we'll be using. I have a variety here. This pen tool, one. I really enjoy because it's small, lightweight, and it just fits my hand. It feels quite comfortable. And I can draw that for a long time. And it really has a beautiful flexible point to use. Another popular brand. And again, it has a really lovely fine point. And it has these wonderful expressive lines which are unique to the brush pen. I have tried using more traditional ink pens that give the one, that just give the one line. And I can't say I enjoy them as much because there's not as much line variation. If you don't have a brush pen, you can just get a normal water pen as I've done here. This one, I filled it up with walnut ink. Now, walnut ink is a great favorite of mine because it has such a beautiful natural, warm brown color. And if you do make a mistake, because it's water-soluble, it's quite forgiving. And in this way, you can always blend it out with the illustration. And it's quite attractive. However, with these ones, it's not water-soluble. So what you draw down, you live with. But for this lesson, I'd like to work with the more permanent ink just because it gives a different feel, something that's quite clean, graphic and nice to look at. I'm using a do what? Sketching water-soluble pen in light wash. Just to map out the shapes that I want. The lovely thing about drawing taxonomies is that you can explore the different features and characters of the mushrooms. Just lightly map these out. Also the wonderful thing about drawing mushrooms is that even though you may not feel confident drawing, I think you'd be hard pressed. Not to feel, at least you can take a project on like this on, because basically what we're drawing is just circles and sticks. It's just a lollipop, pretty much in varying shape and form. So your drawing skills don't have to be necessarily on point. Of course, the more you practice, the better they become. But you can still get something really charming just by utilizing the shapes and the, it's really the textures and the colors that will make the mushrooms look really lovely. So with the first one, I'm putting in some gold, a coordinate grid, and gold are the mushrooms. I think what's really nice to do is make a variegated wash, which basically means dropping in different colors. Same wash. But it does give a lovely effect. And if it dries in a mottled effect or drives with watermarks, it only just adds to the charm of the mushroom because it will give you some lovely textures. Now I'm getting a thicker Naples yellow, which I'm pulling down into the stripe. I'm now going to introduce a brown. This one is a granulating. Brown, I think it might be good. And different brands do different versions of this. There's so many beautiful granulating paints available that I'd be hard pressed to go through them all. But again, I just advise to go with what's accessible, available, and affordable to. I know that because I'm using a hot press paper that this is going to dry with some really interesting watermarks. I'll probably be only doing two passes of watercolor with these particular mushrooms. Because we're going to have that lovely brushwork defining the form and some of the textures. For those of you who make a mess like me, it really is as simple as blotting it up to get some clean water and lifted up. And if you get in soon enough and it's not a terribly staining color, no one will ever know. Now, we're going to draw this mushroom. I think he's a really cute little character and he just has that blush of pink underneath it. The mushrooms have such a distinctive silhouette. So we're really fortunate in that without taxonomy, we can just focus on color and texture. Now going in with a little bit of sepia. And I'll just drop it in on the underneath. And here, just to add some texture. This section here is starting to dry at the base. So if I want to get some interesting watermarks, now would be the time to go in with more water. And this will make a nice watermark when it's left on its own to dry. I'm just softening some areas here because there'll be coming in later with my brush pen to create the base. Looking at this particular mushroom, I think just to add some variety, I might come in and drop some warm brown orange on the top. I'm going over the lines just because I think it's nice to add some irregularity to the silhouette. So it doesn't look like a cookie cutter. I think we're at the stage now where I can come back in and do a second pass, but let it dry and just see what works and what doesn't. At this stage, it's very wet. And I can already see some interesting things happening with the drawing cycles of the different plates bending into one another, which is really lovely. So what I'll do is let it dry, come back and we'll have a look at what we can do next. 5. Taxonomy : Let's Add Colour: Looking at the way the mushrooms have dried, you can already see these fabulous watermarks. And particularly with these two, I think they're my favorite because they have an almost ethereal quality about them. Particularly this one. I almost don't want to go back and touch it. I think with this one probably needs a little bit of work. And I'm just going to add that traditional red of the mushroom cap on top. And already, I think I've given this little guy and Lyft, they really do have characters of their own. And I think we probably all get attracted to different kinds. I know I love the fly, agaric. It's such a beautiful and mythical mushroom. It really is a delight to paint. This one is very nice because I'm now getting a deeper red. You could use an alizarin or a violet just to come in on some of the edges. So it turns the corners now, just drag a little bit of that red down to create harmony within the mushroom. And also it creates a nice transparent reddish glow on this type, which is quite effective when you create your own. Just use a photo reference as a guide only if you feel like dropping in a color. That's not on the photograph or putting in some little moss. Feel free. This is a very whimsical project and I'd like you to follow your whimsy. As you can see here. That watermark has dried really, really conveniently giving it the edge. So I don't actually want to do anything really with that cap. So I'll come in with a light gray color and just put in a little shadow. As I said, I think a lot of the times with a sort of painting that I like less is more. And when you get these beautiful little accidents, it really is nice just to take advantage of them and keep them. Even though this is a simple exercise in itself, I'm looking at these two and thinking. I'd like to revisit that idea of having some ghostly mushrooms because I love the simplicity and just beautiful way that these little watermarks I created. So I'm going to leave that alone. Let's look at the top one. What could we do here? Well, I'll come in with some creamy, opaque paint. It could be a give the way I pronounce is John Brilliant, which is a very creamy, off-white. Or you could use some Naples yellow or even some gouache and just pop it in to add some visual difference. And just pop in a little bit here. I think with watercolor, it's nice sometimes to have that contrast of opaque and transparent. But as I said, I'm happy with the way that this has turned out, so I'll leave it, let it dry. And in the next installment of this lesson, let's use our brush pen just to take out some of the forms and define them. 6. Taxonomy : Using the Brush Pen: We're now at the end part of this particular project. So again, I'm looking at the mushroom. And what I'm going to do is just play around with some thick and thin lines. Because the beauty of the brush pen is that it just does give us that flexibility and that variation of line. I'm not going to draw my lines flush to the watercolor paint. And I'm also going to have some broken lines just to give some visual interest. I don't want it looking like a coloring book with closed lines. I think it just looks a lot more naturalistic. If we just break it up and just inventing some little debris that this particular one might be living in because of the nature of this pen. I think it's really nice to, again, like the dip pen to draw very slowly and mindfully. Being aware of where you're pushing down. Getting that flexibility. Again, I'm just inventing a little bit of foliage, something for my mushroom to sit on. I think this particular exercise, it's quite a whimsical one. So I would advise you just to follow your wing, see, see what happens. I think this particular project, we're focusing on the shapes and the forms of the mushrooms. And because the mushroom itself is such an identifiable silhouette, we can afford to play around and be a little whimsical when we're drawing and invent things with this particular one. I love the subtlety and the suggestive way that the watercolor is dried. So I'm just going to work with that. As you can see. I'm not drawing within the lines. I don't think that's necessary. I like to be able to see the hand of the artist. So if you have a little wonky line or you go out of the lines, it just gives to the character of the illustration. Here. I'm just adding a little ruffled edge with broken lines. I think it's quite sweet. The way that this granulating Brown has dried has already given me some instant texture. We just helped with that lovely organic feel of the mushroom. Down this type. We have some lovely little textures and indents, which is nice to draw. It gives it a little bit of a feel because I don't want to do too much with the top. Just traveling down the stem. We can kinda play. One of the advantages of working in a taxonomy is that you're working with a variety of different mushrooms. And you can move around, not get stuck in one particular drawing to help give that freedom and escape that labored look. I think this mushroom is my favorite. That's why I've been saving it to last. I love the way the watercolor has dried. And because of that, I don't really want to draw that much on it because I think it's perfect just the way it is. In fact, when I see something like that, I think I'd love to be able to do that on a huge scale because it looks so effective. The reason why I keep coming back to watercolor is that you just get these wonderful surprises and organic mixes. I think combining them with mixed media, like we'll be doing in this class. Just helps show up that personality of watercolor even more. So we're using this pen, which definitely has a distinct look of his own. But it just, that graphic fill the graphic line against the softness of the watercolor is really appealing, I think. Now we're coming to the end of my little favorite. And I would really encourage you to do this at home. Fill a page, filled two pages. That's what I do. I've drawn a lot of mushrooms and it really is a satisfying and meditative practice. And again, I really encourage you to share it with me in the project section or on social media, because I would love to see what you do is get inspired by other people's art. And I would love to be inspired by your own. These two, I'm really happy with the way that they are. Just looking at this one. He's probably my least favorite. And because he's my least favorite, I'm not going to get precious with him. I'm just going to just add some more lines, some more shapes and form just to see whether I can love him again. With the top of the cap. I might just add some little texture lines just to show the form of the cap. And also in I'm also going to just put a little bit more plant matter in between. That's already making me like this particular one a bit more. I'm not sure if you can hear the rain outside my window. But doing an exercise like this, when the house is still, the rain is outside. It really is an absolute delight and I hope that you enjoyed. And we'll do this exercise. And I would love to see your stuff. So now, thank you, and let's move on to our next lesson. 7. Putting in the Groundwork: Using an art journal or sketchbook is a wonderful place to get some ideas, explore with collage and different elements. Things that may give me ideas for paintings later. As you can see, it's a bit haphazard. But one thing I was exploring with was nighttime scenes on black paper. And here I have the fly agaric on the white watercolor paper and the black. With this one, I use gouache. And even though I was happy with the muted tones, I really wanted to get that feeling of high white or translucency that watercolor can give you, as it does with the washes on the white paper. I started exploring with the watercolor ground. And the one that I'll be using now is golden. But you could also use Daniel Smith, That's another really nice one that I've used. And for this one, rather than just putting the white ground directly on the background, I decided I might just tinted with some inks. The ink that I'm using is a really bright primary yellow. And I'll probably use a little bit of oranges. Well, just to bring a bit of warmth in. Here, I'm using two synthetic brushes. They're old, they're dilapidated, and I'm bringing them out of retirement so I can use them and not worry about destroying my beautiful new brushes. A charcoal pencil. This will be good because it is easy to be rubbed off afterwards. And I'm using white just so I can lightly use a guide of drawing a semicircle. And some jelly cap mushrooms I think we'll be using. The wonderful thing about mushrooms is you don't even have to feel that confident being a terribly good drawer. Because basically all we're doing is painting lollipops with mushrooms. It's the textures that we use, the colors that we bring to the table that are really going to make for an effective design. So I'm just going to mix up that color. A little bit of orange on this side to tint it and get rid of when we're painting the white showing through, because this same will be a nocturnal scene. I'm placing this down in a fairly haphazard way. I'm quite a messy worker. In that way. I'm putting down this texture in a random haphazard way. Just so we get some interesting marks as a base for when we're going to paint our watercolor over the top. Now I'm getting the yellow tinted ground, which will work as a wonderful backlighting. When we're imagining these mushrooms sitting in eternity in the night sky. I was actually thinking of my son's French book, The Little Prince when I was doing this. And for those of you who can remember the cover, the little prince is just sitting in a world. And I thought it just gave me the inspiration to do that with our mushrooms. That's part of the reason why I do like and keep coming back to these motives is because there is something about mushrooms that does make us think of the storybooks and fairy tales that we used to read as a kid. And even finding them on our walks in nature. It really is a gift. I think. I'm in imagining them just floating in our night scene, the moon behind. Now, I've just got a piece of paper and old, it looks like a discarded watercolor. And I'm going to dip that in the ink, ink and watercolor ground. And just print. Add a little bit of texture. For our night world. Again, when you're creating yours, don't really overthink it. Just let the textures do their work. As you can see, it has that beautiful. It almost looks like Karl. The way the print is taking to the paper. It's a good thing to remember the more ground that one puts on, the longer you have to leave it to dry. So I quite like this buildup of texture that I'm creating in this little mini world. So I'll leave it overnight. I love this effect. Even just doing this. I'm thinking it has very much those coral vibes. And I think it would be really lovely to do an underwater scene or some jellyfish tentacles coming in the background. Again. It was like a teacher once said to me, each painting is a possibility of another one. And so the more you paint, the more ideas you get, It's almost like we don't have enough time to do everything that we want to or that inspires us. So I'll let this dry and we'll come back to the next stage in the next lesson. 8. Creating a Nocturne Colour Palette: Now our Nocturne world has dried overnight. And as you can see, there's some beautiful underlying textures that will only be enhanced by our layers. I'm going to work from the top-down with at first a fluorescent yellow. This one is a nickel as a yellow. And it's really bright, clean, cool yellow, which will help give that feeling of a nighttime scene, will be using predominantly cool colors. As we want to create a very atmospheric galactic scene with our mushrooms. I'm now using a mixture of cobalt teal and a bit of yellow. And I'm dropping it in our little mushroom world that's bobbing around in the universe, will be using a mixture of cool blues like cobalt teal, the radian. You could also use a phthalo blue and green. They are quite clean and I'm calling nature. At this stage, we're keeping the layers quite thin and light. Because if you look at this closely, you've had these really wonderful textures that have happened organically overnight. So I don't want to paint very thick over the top of them. We can be quite loose and free at this stage because we're working on black paper. We don't have to be too precious. I'm now getting a darker version of the green and just dropping it in here and there. I'm putting the darker color on the base of our little mushroom world just to give it some weight while keeping the top quite light as if it was being hit with Moonlight. I'm now dropping in some Luna blue, which is lovely as it has a nice granulating effect. I'm just going to put a little bit of shadow on the right-hand side. If we're imagining that the moon is hitting from the top-left, I'm mindful that I want to keep some of these underlying, um, textures from the ground being seen. So I think I'll leave that. I'm now coming in with a mixture of a light brown ocher color and green. Just at the base of our mushrooms. To add a little bit of contrast with the cool colors. I also want to keep some of the original texture as a highlight at the top. So I'll leave that. Now I'm going to come in with that nice clean teal. Drop it in on the caps. Just to add a little bit of texture. I'm coming in with a paper towel and just lightly dabbing so we get that porous feel of the mushrooms. This is looking pretty good. So what I will do now is let it dry and we'll come back in and create some detail. We're at the final stage of adding a bit more depth in our magical little mushroom world. What I have here is an old brush. And what I've done is I've cut into it just to make the ends very jagged and irregular. And this will help us when we want to make texture. It looks quite Nice around the base of our little jelly cap mushrooms. It really is a nice way of creating an organic look. I'm mixing some Luna blue and green at the base. If you don't have lunar blue, indigo, a dark ultra marine blue works nicely as well. Also, if you like, that granulating effect, a little bit of lamp black or mask black added to any color will give that granulation effect. I can go quite dark at the base just to add some weight. And I think it's quite effective. I've gone in with some quiet, heavy and opaque, light yellow. Just to add a little bit of highlight here and there at the top with a moon light would be hitting it. I've actually left this lichen as 0s. I haven't really gone over it because I think those natural textures that we created look pretty fabulous just as the way they are. We haven't really had to do a lot to it to get those nice effects. I'm going to revisit our top mutterings. I don't want them looking all the same at the moment. They're pretty much triplets, identical triplets. So I'm just going to make one or two darker and so that they are differing from the rest of the rest of the family. This one, I'm introducing a warmer green. Now. I'm getting some viridian, a little bit of teal, and I'm having more of a moonlit field on this one. As this one is closer to the moon, I'll just do a smaller crescent shape using a brown, green color. I'll invent a shadow here and down there along this side as well. Now, at this stage, we're just doing a little bit of noodling. I'm really happy with the way that it's turned out. If you love detail, you could come back in and maybe invent some more lichen. Like for example, some little shapes here and there. Not too much. Just around the jelly cap area. It really is up to you whether or not you love detail or you like a little bit of suggestion. And let the viewer just fill in. What's not there. Here is the version I had done previously to this lesson where I was just experimenting with the ground. I've introduced some gouache elements to highlight here in there. It's a little more complex and more of a jelly kept jungle than the one that we've created when you see the difference. So I think I quite like this one. I think it's sweet and I like the simplicity of it. I think we could get really clever and maybe add in some stars. Maybe we'll try that for something different. I've mixed up some thick creamy paint and I'm just going to make a top, a little stars. Nice spray, square up. I'm squirting up because I just want some of them to diffuse, but I don't want to go directly on them. Getting a dry brush. We can slightly buffered some of them. So they look like stars. Just has a stylized effect. This is a bit of a mess here. So I'll go in and just lifted up altogether. Okay. I'm going to try again here. That's better. A little further away. There we go. The thing is with watercolor. There is still room to course check. So I can lift things off or scrub them out because it's black paper. It will tend to blend in. But I do like those little TikTok stars. I think they're really lovely. Maybe you prefer it plain. It really is a personal preference. It's one of those things where I'm looking at it and think, Oh, I can sprinkle some silver Micah flakes or a little bit of gold. It depends on your personal taste. And I would love to see your version in the project gallery. Thanks for joining me and let's move on to our next lesson. 9. Mini-Mushroom Block In: For our final project, we are going to be making a little treasure. And what we'll be doing is creating a traditional red mushroom that really conjures up that storybook and fable look. I'm using some washi tape. Just to create a square. Washi tapes hand. Quite handy when using delicate paper because it's not as sticky as masking tape or painter's tape. So I quite like it when I'm using a hot press paper like this, like I am now. Otherwise, you can find with a stronger tape, it just ends up tearing the paper surface. And that is pretty disappointing if you've created something that you're really happy with. I have my water soluble pencil. And now I'm going to likely mapping with a water-soluble pencil. Just a little mushroom. I'm putting it on an angle just to give it a bit more visual. Interest, it as a diagonal. And again, a very simple shape. With this traditional mushroom, you don't even really need photographic reference. I think you could just do it out of your head really, because the silhouette is so defining. Now if you hear any snot, some noises in the background, I promise it's not me. My two dogs have been scratching at the door. I have to let them in. The first thing I'm going to do is get a mixture of reds and oranges and drop them in the red cap. Just dropping it in, in a mottled way, making our variegated wash, which just adds a little more visual interest. I'm using a combination of oranges, warm reds, whatever on picking up from my palette. At this stage, it's just a foundation and we'll be using it more just to provide some undergo. Another thing I like to do is just drag some of that red very lightly with a clean brush. Because when we put that background in, we're going to have that initial base color as an undergrad. And I think that works really nicely just to make your painting a bit more cohesive. Not everywhere, but just here and there. I'm going in with a stronger purpley red. And I'm just going to lightly drop some splashes of color. I'll drag a little bit of that down. Leave a section of unpainted white just underneath. Because I want to drop a creamy color. I'm mixing up just a little bit of brown and Naples yellow. Just very, very lightly. To drop in. You could use a Buff Titanium or a Naples yellow color, a convenience color like that. But it's nice to make your own too. And then now, now I'm dropping in just a very, very faint it all the red at the base. I'm going to let that dry now and come back and add in some more detail. 10. Painting Little Treasure's Colours: For the next stage of our little mushroom, I'm going to create a little more form in the cap and the base and dropping the background. With a clean brush with clean water. I'm going to lightly go over the top of this cap and come in and add a little bit more detail. The wonderful thing about these red mushrooms is there so identifiable but so synonymous with storybooks, fables. The fly agaric is one of my favorite mushrooms to paint. And it really was until recently that I discovered that here in the Adelaide Hills they grow. A friend of mine lives out that way. And she told me and I was shocked. And ever since I found out every cold season, I'm there. And to paint them in the wild is really something special. When you're painting from life. Even if it's the kitchen mushroom, you get a real sense of the texture of the mastering and just how much it's not really white per se, it's more of a milky color. And, um, when you're drawing from your imagination or from a photograph, it really helps your muscle memory of what it looks like. This area is all my starting to lose at which Shane and when it does, I'm just going to drop some clean water in there so I can get that lovely mottled effect that the cap of mushrooms do have, getting a strong sepia color. And now I'm dropping in at the base of the mushroom just to wait it. And also maybe to give that little speckled just plucked from the earth look. I'm just dropping some clean water in here just so I can get that nice, mottled fit. It'll only work if it's I'm just drawing. Otherwise it just kinda blends in. Just lifting a little bit of color. So I'll have that shadow effect later on. Now that this has started to dry, I'm going to brush with clean water all around the edges of our mushroom. I'm making a mixture of ultramarine blue and a cool red and just mixing that in. And I'm just going to drop this in. That's a beautiful color. And as you can see, are underneath, red is showing through and it just looks really, really lovely and it pulls the mushroom and the background together. The thing is when you're drawing and painting this small, There's something very precious about making a miniature. I remember my niece. She used to love to collect little things. And I think of her when I paint, like paint these things because she would love anything that was in miniature bottles, just tiny things. And I think maybe psychologically, we have to take care of things that are small and it makes it precious. Now, I'm mixing a little bit of the red, a cool red, and the blue. And I'm just going to paint the side in shadow. You can see here we're getting some watermarks. So that's lovely. And that basically the watermarks are creating the texture for you. I'm bringing a little bit of dark here. So it looks like the curve of the mushroom is turning away from us. I now have a smaller brush and it's very fine. And I'm just going to bring in some little random strokes down to add some detail. Blend it out with a clean brush. I'd like this to be a bit darker in the corner. So it frames the shapes I'm going to go in and get some darker blue and just drop it in the corner. The surface is still wet, so it gives us a little bit of extra time to work with. But I think that makes it a lot more dramatic. I'm going to let this dry. And then we're going to add. 11. Create Instant Sparkle and Glow: Our surface is completely dry and I've just got a variety of muted and dial reads. That is really because I like to gravitate towards more earthy natural tones. But if your color palette is more bright and bold or you like pastels and soft colors. I think just true something that feels right for you. When I'm working this small. I find that colored pencil can be a really effective way of just quickly putting in a few little details or highlights that may be a brush can do. And also, it just gives, again, a nice visual contrast. So this is a task and red. And I'm just going around the edges in a curved way to emulate the way that the mushroom is curved, curling around. The paper is, I'm a Melfi paper, which is a handmade paper. And it's very soft and receptive. But I think with a good-quality hot press paper like our shore Fabriano. You can also get the same sort of effects. Because those papers are really lovely and soft. I'm getting a blue and I'm just doing it just around the edge very, very lightly. So it looks like this reflected light coming from the background. It just makes more of that natural form. I'm now doing a little shadow. Just slightly underneath the cap. Maybe a bit of a shadow here just to indicate the annular, the little skirt of the mushroom and falling. What's nice about using soft pencils as well is they give a nice textural effect as well to the mushroom. Here I'm making just random, very soft strokes to give a little bit of texture. This one is a little more orange. So I'll just bump up some of the color here. So what I would like to do now is it's cute, but it needs something and gold metallic sparkles. They always add such a beautiful element when you're dealing with a really simplistic design like this. So this is, um, a gold gouache. I'm using a shape or to put it in just because I don't want to ruin a brush. And also when I was playing around, I thought it just gives an interesting mark, like a print. And I'm just inventing some leaves or lichen or just a pattern. Basically it's a contrast to that deep blue behind it. And I think dealing with these classic colors, like red, royal blue, gold really offsets it beautifully. You could use a brush, you could draw in some leaf shapes. But as I said, I quite like the idea of just stamping these elements in. The wonderful thing as well about working so small is just you can experiment. And you haven't invested in a large size painting. And also with a miniature. And unless you're a professional militarist, you don't need as much detail. You basically looking at more of a design of what you're creating. I mean, I do know some incredibly talented artists who worked very, very small. So you can see that's giving it a nice lift. It's a little playful. What I'm going to do now is add some little white dots. You can use. Gouache is opaque white ink by zig and I like it because it's very white and very, very opaque. So let's just put a couple of little white dots on the edges. Just to give that traditional book of how we perceive mushrooms when we're kids. I think also, I'll just bring in a little highlight here and there and some texture marks. You can see this ink is fantastic. I really like it. I mean, I do like gouache as well. But this is just very thick and it's quite easy to get fine lines with. I'm now coming in with some watercolor, just a deep, uh, reddish shadow color just to go behind some of them. So it gives that feeling of these little dots breaking through the membrane. There we go. And now I'll just draw some little random lines here and there. Just to add some movement. And I think we're done. Let's do the peel and reveal. This makes lovely little gifts for friends or people in your life. Especially in the frame. He very much for creating these. Come with me. Again, please. Let me see your versions downstairs. Downstairs. I guess it is a virtual downstairs in the project gallery. And let's meet up again in the next lesson. 12. Final Thoughts: Hello again. We're now at the end of our class. And I hope you enjoyed exploring different ways of the mushroom world. I feel like we've dipped our toe into the proverbial mushroom pool and explored some ways as we, as artists can approach this subject. The more we paint, explore, makes a mess, the more possibilities there are for creating our own magic within our mushroom painting. Using one subject with a variety of different meetings really is the best way to grow as an artist and discover our own style. If you learned or discovered something new. Questions, share with me in the discussion panel underneath this class on so looking forward to seeing your creations. I've never met a mushroom. I didn't find fascinating. So please share yours with me. I would love to see your creations in the project gallery below, where you can also find access to the materials list and photo reference all the best and take care.