Transcripts
1. Introduction: The practice of
decorating eggshells is a very popular tradition
in many cultures. From pagan symbolism
to Christianity, the ornaments are always
full of beauty and meaning. Ukrainian Easter eggs or pysankas offer us a wonderful
opportunity to master a traditional folk art
techniques and open up an entire world of
decorative illustration. Hi everyone. My name
is Anna Bucciarelli. I'm a professional illustrator. Some of you may know me as a
designer of Canadian money. I illustrate book covers and lots of other beautiful things. I also teach watercolor
and gouache on my Skillshare channel and on my Patreon, and
YouTube channels. The most common question I
get from my students is, how did you learn how to paint? The secret is folk art. Most of my commercial
work features elements of Ukrainian folk art
which I studied as a child in Kiev and continue to incorporate in all of my
design work to this day. I truly believe folk art
is the most accessible, enjoyable, and fun
way to get into art, get comfortable with the medium, learn how to paint and develop
your own unique style, which is why I decided to make an entire Skillshare class to introduce you to my favorite
folk art techniques. In this class, I will share the basic foundational
techniques, a drop shaped stroke and a dot and teach you how to
combine them into an endless variety
of compositions using these three Easter
eggs as an example. Then we'll dive into our
Easter egg painting, starting with a simple
crisscross composition on this golden egg. There will be plenty of opportunities to review
close-up shots of my brushstrokes and
learn how to combine repeated elements into a
beautiful organic design. We'll progress to a more
complex botanical design, my favorite
composition featuring a traditional border motif, again, using the same drop
shape stroke and some dots. To wrap this up, we'll try a modern twist on
the folk art technique with a more intricate design playing around with the same
traditional elements, but with a bit of
a modern flavor and a fresh color scheme. The visual language of
the trickiest folk art is striking but easy to
master and practice. By the end of this class, you will have a beautiful
Easter postcard and a good grasp of the foundational
folk art techniques so you can create
your own designs, including Easter, Christmas, and any other decorative
applications. As part of this class, I will share the
list of materials, black and white outlines,
and design templates. For my beginner students, we'll do a quick review of how to work with gouache medium. You will hear lots of tips on working with gouache
throughout the class, things that I actually
use in my own practice, and of course, I will talk about the symbolic meaning behind some of the design arrangements we're going to create on our eggs. For your class project, you can choose to do just one egg or paint
all three with me. Whatever you choose,
enjoy the process, have fun with your brushstrokes, and I hope to see you in class.
2. Materials: Welcome to the class. Let's talk about the materials
that we need to paint our Easter eggs,
starting with paper. The good news is
that we don't need anything special or expensive. Gouache is a very easy
and forgiving medium suitable for lots and
lots of surfaces, including most types of
paper and even wood. As long as your paper
is not too thin, you can use anything you
like from professional, smooth watercolor paper
to cheaper student grate, or even multimedia paper. You can paint directly on colored paper if you want a color background
for your eggs, I often just use a thick
colored card stock. Because gouache is opaque, it's really easy to paint
on colored surface. Today I decided to show you my favorite cost-effective
way to paint. I will be painting on a
thick white cardboard, which is actually just a back of this old watercolor paper pad. So let me remove the last sheet I used
for watercolor flower. You may have seen this
tutorial here on Skillshare, the pink peony, and the paper pad
is called arches. It's quite expensive. But when I'm done with my
watercolor sheets, usually, as you can see, what's left is this beautiful white board
that I can paint on. It's super smooth,
bright white and sturdy. The size is 12 by 16 inches. It's just enough
to fit three eggs. But if you're only
working on one egg, maybe making a postcard, then you can go with
something smaller here. For example, I used
more expensive, bright, white professional
watercolor paper. It's hot pressed,
meaning very smooth, and it's a pleasure to paint on. But again, you don't
need anything expensive, any thick paper or
card stock would do. In terms of the brushes, we don't need
anything expensive. Again, but I do have some
recommendations in terms of the shape and size that you may already have in
your collection. The easiest thing is to
use synthetic brushes. For larger surfaces, I'm going to use an old
round synthetic brush from *** Germany. It's in size six, so big enough to load
it up with paint and cover some larger areas
of the background. Any brush flat or round in sizes 4-8 will do for this task. So use what you have on hand. For smaller white
decorative details, we will need something
more precise. I would recommend two
types of brushes. One can be in size zero or
even double or triple zero. The smaller the better. We will use it to paint
the edges when applying background color and also paint some white
decorative lines. It's better if this small
brush is round and short. The shorter it is, the more control you will have for when painting the edges. But both links will work. So these two are super old, almost 10-year-old
synthetic sable brushes. You can find this size
in your local art store. Any round synthetic would do. For the second type
of decorations, we will need a
larger round brush, maybe size two or three. We will use it to create these particular
drop shape strokes that Petrykivka folk
art is famous for. I find that natural squirrel
brushes work best for this, but you could also use sable
or synthetic squirrel. The key is to have a round not a flat brush with a
very precise tip. Again, I'm using this old brush that I picked up on
my trip to Ukraine, but it still has a good tip. You can use really any
brand, for example, Escoda makes beautiful
synthetic squirrel brushes called Perla that
are very affordable. I reviewed them on
my YouTube channel. So don't worry about getting a particular brand as long
as you have something with a very good tip and soft enough to curve your
strokes when you need to. In terms of additional
supplies, of course, we will need some water, a palette for your paint. A plastic palette
would work really well because gouache
is opaque and you don't need something more
expensive like porcelain to see the exact color
that you're mixing. We'll need a pencil to draw
the outlines and we'll also use the tip of the pencil to
leave some decorative dots. What you may want to do, and this is entirely optional, is grab a white pencil
if you have one. That way you won't risk
leaving any marks on your beautiful eggs and
the white will simply disappear into the
white gouache paint that we're going to be using. You may find having
an eraser useful, but this is optional. We're going to be painting with opaque gouache and you
may not need to erase anything but just to show
you the ones I prefer are these retractable ones that can really get into all
the small details. You may also need
something to draw little circles inside our eggs, and I just found a roll of
tape that I will be using. So you may find something different among your
household items or of course, a more professional
way of doing it would be using a compass tool. In terms of optional supplies, you may want to use a glove like the one
I'm using here just to protect your painting from
any potential smudges. These can be found on Amazon and I left the link
in the class handout.
3. Working with Gouache : [MUSIC] We will be using
gouache paint for our eggs, and I wanted to quickly go
over the pigments and show you the basic technique
as a reminder of how to work with
gouache medium. For the background color, I'm going to use a combination of light and dark turquoise. I'm going to use orange and
red here and perylene violet, which is like this
chocolate, violet-brown. You can pick any of
your favorite colors as long as they're dark enough to create good contrast
with the white details. I often use blues and
reds as a background, but you may like to
try something else. So I encourage you to use your favorite colors
and experiment. The only color I would
recommend strongly is white, and I'm using Winsor
& Newton Professional gouache, permanent white. The white will be used
on the second layer to create all these tiny details. If you can get your hands on professional white,
that's great. But for all the other colors, use any brand you have on hand. In order to work with gouache, you will need to squeeze a
little bit on your palette. They typically come in the tube. Add two to three
drops of clear water. Then use something like a wooden stick or even
a back of your brush, which is what I'm doing
to activate your paint, mixing it slowly
with water until it reaches the consistency
of drinkable yogurt. So depending on which brand of gouache you're using
and how old it is, your initial mixture may be
too thick or too watery. So add more paint or
more water as you need until you reach this stage. Basically, you want your
paint to be watery enough so you can load the brush
and paint a few lines, but not too watery. You want the lines
you're leaving on paper to be completely opaque, so full of pigment. Gouache is essentially
an opaque watercolor, but unlike watercolor, they
can be diluted many times. We want to really maintain the concentrated gouache
pigment as much as possible, as long as you can load the brush and move
the paint around. So try it out before
you start painting the eggs experiment
and you will land on the consistency that
you're most comfortable with. Now if you're ready and have
your favorite colors picked, let's get started
on the first egg.
4. Folk Art Techniques: In this quick lesson, I will introduce you to
the foundational strokes of Ukrainian Petrykivka
folk art technique. I promise you will be amazed
by how easy it is to create beautiful compositions
simply by combining a few simple strokes into
more complex shapes. I'm going to be using
white gouache on black paper simply
for convenience, so you can see the
results better. I'm going to show you different angles up-close
and from the top, so you can really get a feel for how to work these strokes, combining them into more
complex flower and leaf shapes, so different organic shapes. This stroke is called
drop shape stroke, and it is the one
that we need to master before painting anything
else. It's quite simple. You get a round brush
loaded up with color. Start with the tip of the brush and then
drag it down while simultaneously pressing
it a little bit so you get a thicker base. It looks like a teardrop or a raindrop and that's why
it's called a drop stroke. You can use the
same technique and start creating variations
of your drop shapes. For example, here I'm curving it to the left while
pressing it down. Here I'm curving it to the
right while pressing it down. Note that combining this
left and right stroke, you can create the
semicircle shape. That becomes the foundation for all the different flowers
that you can paint. Let me show you how the
stroke becomes a petal. Draw a circle, put a dot in the center and then
paint your drop shape, curving it to the left, and then paint another one
curving it to the right. Fill it in with smaller
drop shapes strokes. Now turn your canvas
around and let's do the same thing on
the opposite side. First, the left stroke, starting with the tip, press it down, then do the
other side of the petal, connect the two
strokes, fill it in. Let's practice it one more time. Left, then right,
then fill it in. They won't look
exactly the same. Every time you paint a petal, it will look different. That is the beauty of folk art. This hand painted look that's not a 100
percent accurate, is what gives a charm and really reflects the Individual
style of every artist. You can create endless
combinations of these drop shape
strokes and petals to paint a whole set
of different flowers. So let me show you
a different one. You can also put a
simple drop shape stroke in between the petals
we just painted. This one, we're going to use much shorter strokes to
create much smaller petals. Left, then right, then one on the other side, then one in the middle of
the two we just painted. Let's fill it in with two
additional petals on each side. Let's do the same thing. On the other side of
the flower working around the small dot in
the center of our flower. Here Here have a slightly
different looking flower, but using the same strokes
and the same shape. In just a few minutes, you will practice with me
and we will use these drop shapes strokes to come up with beautiful compositions
on our eggs. Now let me show you how the
same stroke can be used to create beautiful
organic leaf shapes. Let's do a straight line
for a basic leaf and a curved one for something a little bit more
visually interesting. Reload your brush and let's apply our drop shape
strokes along the line. Moving down, I'm
going to start very small and then press my brush to create a thicker base for my drops and then repeat the same process on
the left-hand side. Notice that it's
not a 100 percent symmetrical and that
is totally okay. Let's try the same thing
on this curved line, a set of drop shapes strokes
on the right-hand side. Then I'm going to rotate my canvas and do the
same on the left. They don't need
to be 100 percent symmetrical and super accurate. It's the unique shapes
that you're creating that will add the charm and
beauty to your work. We will use these leaves in every egg design that
we're going to work on today. Another way to use our
drop shaped stroke is creating this
little trident symbol. The way you do it is you start at the bottom with the tip
of your brush, drag it out, then paint two smaller drop
shaped strokes on each side, and use the back of your
brush or a pencil to create a dot at the
base of the stride. When you paint your eggs or any other designs
using this technique, you can repeat this
design element, creating beautiful ornaments. It's very simple. The beauty of it is in
repetition and symmetry. The stroke is the same
throughout, but the result, as you will see in
just a few minutes, is really beautiful decorative
border type design. Now the second technique I wanted to introduce
you to is dots, and that's pretty
self-explanatory. There are many different ways we can use this design element. The technique that
we're going to follow every time is this. We're going to mix a little
bit of white gouache and then use any pointy tool. I find it the easiest
to use a white pencil, dip it into our paint
and create small dots. Again, endless possibilities. You can add them around your
flowers inside your leaves, create small stamp in details. The key is choosing
the right diameter, so in this case I'm
using very small dots, but you can use the back of
your brush or something else, a larger stick to create
larger dots if you want. We're going to use it
in many different ways. But as you can see, it's a foolproof method for creating small round
elements on paper. Last thing I wanted to mention
is as you practice this, you will find it easier
and easier to work without any outlines simply by repeating the strokes in
a symmetrical manner. As you can see here, I'm going to put a dot down and create a very quick
flower around it. Practice these strokes
for a few minutes. Find the brush that works best. Sometimes I find that
shorter brushes work better. Sometimes it's longer ones. Every brush will give
you a unique look. Once you feel comfortable
with this application, going from thin to thick with starting with
the tip of your brush, dragging it out, pressing it, creating a thicker base for
your drop shape stroke, curving them around as
you feel comfortable. Then let's move on to our eggs. [MUSIC]
5. Egg Outlines: [MUSIC] To get started, we will need to create
egg shaped outlines. The easiest thing I find is
to print off an outline, cut it out, and then use my pencil to make
the egg shapes. You will find the
outline of the egg in the class handouts
on Skillshare website. You can also use other methods. You can draw your own shape, use whatever you're
comfortable with, and don't worry about
leaving pencil marks because we will cover everything with a
peak gouache paint. Just make sure to access them from your browser
and not from an app, because Skillshare app will not show you those downloads, only the website will. What I did is I printed
off just an egg shape, I cut it out and created three outlines just
like this on my board. I then sketched out some
rough outlines of my design by hand using a tape roll to make an accurate
circle shape.
6. Golden Egg: Now we're ready to
start painting. I wanted to show you
the orange egg first, classic Ukrainian Easter
egg composition with a flower in the center and a cross going through the flower, good way to learn and practice the
foundational technique. We're going to do the
background first and then do the white details on
top in the second layer. Grab your favorite color, I'm using my orange, and let's paint the background. Because our composition is
divided into four sections, I'm going to make it a
little bit more interesting and paint the top and
the bottom with orange. But the left and right, I'm going to use a
little bit more red, just for visual interest. If you're only using one color, then simply follow
along with that color, and as you can see, I grabbed my larger brush just because we have a
lot of surface to cover. Just make sure that you're
leaving a little bit of white space in-between
the for background sections. Those will eventually
become the stems for our little designs
in the second layer. We want to make sure that we
preserve the pencil marks. You don't need to leave all the details visible,
just the stems. Let's cover the top section. Another little detail that
you may want to preserve is the center of the
flower up on top, just so we know how to
organize our strokes later on. The rest can be
covered with orange. As you can see, I'm
also painting around the flower inside of the egg. The top section is finished, and after I clean up the edges around the flower
with the tip of my brush, I'm going to move down and
work on the bottom section. Our process is exactly the same, we're going to cover everything
with a thin layer of paint and leave a
few pencil outlines. The ones that are separating the four different
sections of the background, I'm going to paint around them, so we have them as a guide for our second and
last layer of details. We're also going
to leave just to center the smaller
flower at the bottom, so we have it as a guide for painting the
petals later on. Notice that my mixture is drying out and
becoming a lot thicker. I can still load up my brush, but when I noticed that
it's becoming too thick and my brush is
not loaded fully, my strokes are maybe
leaving some white space. I'm going to reapply a few drops of water
into my mixture, mix it all up so that
it's consistent, and continue covering the
surface with my orange color. Notice too, when you're
working with gouache, as it dries out, it becomes a little bit darker. As your water evaporates, the opaque color starts
looking a little bit darker. As you're painting and
you're moving along, the value, meaning how
dark your background is, is changing slowly and
you can judge which parts are completely dry by
how dark the surface is. With watercolors, of course, it's the opposite; when watercolors dry out, they usually look lighter. That's one of the
main differences between gouache and watercolor. I just finished the
bottom section. I'm going to maybe put down a few more strokes just to make sure I have even coverage, and we will be ready to move on to the left and
right side of the egg. I want a slightly
different shade of orange here, maybe
approaching red. If you're using a different
color combination, just clean your brush
in clear water, maybe even change
your jar of water and make a new mixture. What I'm going to do is add
just a little bit of red, squeeze it from the tube, add a little bit of water, mix it with my orange. When I'm happy with the
new shade of orange, I will start painting the
left and the right-hand side. You can see I'm using the
back of my brush making sure that my mixture
is even watery enough, the consistency I'm
going after is like a runny yogurt and
I'm going to load up my brush, start painting again. There is another pigment that's very close to the
mixture I just made, it's called scarlet lake. But in this case I'm
just going to use my flame red mix it
with cadmium orange, going to start with
the right-hand side. Here, I'm not going
to leave any details. I simply want to preserve those two lines that separate
my orange from my red. We're going to use them as stems for our white decorations. For now, I'm just going to cover everything with my
new red mixture, paint carefully
around the flower, and also focus on
the edge of the egg. Working very slowly
to make sure that my outline is clean and clear. You may want to slow down
for this stage of the work. If you do make a mistake
and accidentally paint outside of the
egg shape, don't worry, simply wait until
your paint is dry and use white
gouache to cover it. You can do that later on. Sometimes I find
that it's easier to turn your canvas just to get the angle of your brush in the
most comfortable position. Here, I'm going
to turn my canvas upside down, clean the edge, and then do the same thing
on the right-hand side. Cover that section with
my reddish orange, leaving the borders without
any color so I can see my red background ends
and where we're going to paint the white stem
and some leaves. Join the canvas back into
its original position, finish up the edge. The only thing we have left to do in terms of the background is paint the center of the egg
with a little bit of orange, leaving the flower
outline blank. Here again, don't worry about the accuracy of the white
outlines that you're leaving. We're going to cover
them with white. They're going to be
clean and crisp. This is the beauty of folk art; everything is very
simple and stress-free. You don't need to worry too much about your lines and
how accurate they are. Just simply cover as
much as you can while leaving the white outline
around the flower, and you may also want to cover
the center, and that's it. Now the main thing at this point is to make sure
that this layer is completely dry before we start working with white
gouache up on top. I would give it an hour or two. For now, I'm just going to
use my smaller brush to clean up the edges as my paint is drying out
and I will be back, so join me for the second layer where we're going to
paint the white details, and all we will need is white gouache and a tiny
brush to work with. Welcome back. If
your first layer of color is completely dry, you're ready to start
working on the details. This is the most enjoyable and the most fun part
of this exercise. Let's squeeze a little bit of
white paint on our palate, add a little bit of water. I'm going to use the
back of my brush to make an even mixture. I'm going to use the back
of my brush right away to cover the two dots that
we left without any paint. These will be the center of the two flowers
that we're going to paint on top and at the bottom. Now grab your medium brush. I'm using an old squirrel round brush and size 3,
loaded with color. As long as you have
a very precise tip, any type of brush will do here, Let's start working on
the center of the flower. Recall in the earlier
lesson where I showed you the foundational techniques
of Petrykivka folk art. We're going to paint the petals by using the drop shapes stroke. The basic technique is to
start with the left side, create a curved shape, pressing your brush down
as you outline the petal, then outline the petal on the other side using
the same stroke, connect the two and then
fill the petal in with your drop shapes strokes as many as you can
fit in in the center. Again, it's a simple
drop shape stroke that starts very thin
and then continues down. You're pressing the brush and your stroke becomes
a little bit thicker. What you have in the end is this white petal
with a little bit of orange visible and those are the statements
of the flower. I'm going to finish this off the four petals
on the bottom right. Now while we have our
canvas in this position, it's convenient to start working on the leaves and the stems. First thing I'm
going to do is paint a thin line where we left a
little bit of blank paper. Then I'm going to
reload my brush and start working on the leaves. Again, the drop-shape
stroke is the same, in the sense that
you're starting with just a tip of your brush and then drag it out away from your stem and
press it a little bit. Your drop shape may look different from mine in terms of the thickness
and the length, and that would depend on
the size of your brush and also your own unique way
of applying the stroke. There's no right or
wrong way of doing this, as long as you keep the direction of the brush
going along the stem, starting close to
the stem and then curving your drop shapes out. This is what it looks
like in the end. Now, let's do it again. On this side, first align, covering
the blank space. You don't have to get
it all right in one go, you can do it slowly and
with several strokes. When you have the line, start painting your
drop shaped strokes, starting with the tip
of your brush closer to the stem and then out
pressing a little bit. While I have my egg
canvas in this position, I can comfortably do the side of the stem and
I'm going to show you up close so you can see my strokes and note the
position of the brush. You may find it more or
less difficult depending on whether you're
right-handed or left-handed, I usually find that one side
is easier than the other, regardless of how I
rotate the canvas. Also, while I still have my
canvas position this way, I can easily do the
other side of this stem. Don't worry about getting your
strokes even and precise. It's really not about the
symmetry or accuracy, but more about your
own personal style, and your strokes
might be super thin, and you may get a lot more in, depending on the size of
your brush or what you find more appealing visually, just use your best
judgment and play around with it to see
which way you prefer. Now, I'm going to turn
my canvas upside down. Following the same process
and the same logic, I'm going to paint the
details on the other side. Let's do the petals first, the two main outlines. You can see here I'm not even able to do it in one stroke, which is totally fine. I'll double down in some
areas, clean it up. Then the inside drop
shape strokes are usually very easy to get in once you have
the petal outline. We have two more
petals to finish. I feel like my paint is getting
a little bit too thick, so I may need to add a
little bit of water soon. For now, I'm just going to
keep reloading my brush, and I'm going to fill
in the last petal. Notice that the center is
still a little bit messy, but that's okay because
we're going to come back and make the center of the flower super intricate and beautiful
in just a few minutes, no mistakes and folk art. If we don't cover
something fully, we can always come back and
add a little bit more color. Let's just finish
off the last stem. A thin line, as thin as you can, it doesn't have
to be super thin. It can be thicker than mine. It's what you're
comfortable with and what the tip of your
brush allows you to do. Then just a few drop shapes strokes on the left
and then on the right. I find it easier to do the
ones on the right-hand side just because of the
way my hand is moving. But it's all your style and whatever is easier and looks
more beautiful to you. You don't have to make
them as curvy as mine. Just practice and do what's most comfortable for you based on the shape
of your brush. Just like that, we have a beautiful design
around our flower, but we're not done yet. We still have a little bit
of space to work with. Let me show you what
I'm going to do. But first, I'm going to
clean up the center of the flower and add a little bit of orange on those areas that don't look
really clean right now, making sure that the
center of the flower, the dot in the center
is nice and round. What we're going to do now is
paint four smaller flowers. Much more simple compared
to the one in the center. Each flower will only
have four petals. In Eastern European designs, you will often find
elements repeating three times or four times. Everything has a
symbolic meaning. The fourth, the ones that look like a bit of a
cross are of course, references to post pagan
more Christian tradition, and the technique we're going to use is the same
drop-shaped strokes. We're simply not going
to fill them in. Two strokes outlining each
petal and we're done. In a more Pagan
pre-Christian tradition, they would represent
four directions, so north, south, east, and west. There are many more
additional interpretations. The point is, we have this
set of four that also echoes the larger lines that are crossing our
egg in the middle. Repetition and echoing
design elements are the essence of folk art, not just Ukrainian folk art. It's very harmonious. There's a lot of repeating of the same elements and building from smaller to larger compositions
using similar strokes. For the one on the left, so you can see I've
put the dot down. Because we're only
supposed to see the half, because we're painting on paper, but we're trying to represent
a three-dimensional egg, so only three petals. Then I'm going to
turn my canvas and work on the flower up on top. Notice that my strokes are symmetrical but not
100 percent accurate. It actually adds a little bit of a charm, this
hand-painted look. Not perfect, just the general
symmetries being followed, but the strokes definitely have that hand-painted look that is actually very approachable, and accessible, and
it looks beautiful. This is the difference
between the digital art, where everything can be 100
percent accurate and the hand painted folk art with
more of a human touch. Here we go. The smaller
four-petaled flowers are done. All we have left is
the dot details. Hands down, my favorite
part of the whole process. It is super simple. All you need is a
little stick with a tip that you can use to
dip into your white paint. As I mentioned in the
earlier lesson on supplies, I find it the most
convenient to use a tip of a white pencil because that way I'm not gonna
leave any marks. You can also use a thin stick. All I'm going to
do is, once again, repeat the four and put the dots in-between the petals of the flowers we just painted. Another thing you can do
if you have some room is put some dots around the
center of the middle flower. Here, just use your judgment. If you have some room
there, then add those. You may not depending on
how close your petals are. We're done. Join me
in the next lesson. We're going to paint something
a little bit more complex. Thank you for watching
and painting with me.
7. Chocolate Egg (part 1): [MUSIC] Welcome back. In this lesson, I will show you the second egg. We're going to do a
somewhat different design and we're not going to
use an outline at all so that you have a chance to practice a different
way of painting. You may also be painting
directly on colored paper, in which case just skip forward and work with me with white gouache to
create the details. But if you're working
on white paper, let's create the
background first, and this will be really
straightforward. We only need one color. I'm using perylene violet
from Winsor and Newton. I like it because
it reminds me of the chocolate brown
that I use to apply to wooden eggs and it's a very common background color for Eastern European
Easter eggs. I'm going to squeeze
a little bit of this color on my palette, mix it with water and use a larger brush to
cover the surface. The main thing is to slow down as you reach the
edges and make sure that we follow the outline closely in the center
as you can see, we can work a lot faster. Just be mindful of the way it looks when
your color is drying out. Gouache is supposed
to be opaque, so not too watery. Aim for even coverage
as much as you can. If you need to, you can do a second layer just
to clean it up. Gouache tends to look a little bit lighter
as it dries out, so just wait until the
initial strokes are dry and double down with
another layer if you need to. I'm following along and
watching my paint consistency. When it becomes too
thin and too watery, I'm going to add a
little bit more pigment, mix it again with a little
bit of water, and continue. This entire egg took
me about 30 minutes, not including the drying time
in-between the two layers, but move at the speed that
you're comfortable with. You don't need to rush. With gouache, we are
not concerned about our water drying out too fast or working with several layers. It's all one stroke at a time, so you don't need
to watch your time, just simply take as much
time as you need to get all the details right
right at this point, I'm almost done with
the background. I find that it's a little bit too light
on the right-hand side, so I may just double
down a little bit on my perylene violet, my chocolate color, and when I'm happy with the overall outline
and the background, I might clean up the
edges a little bit, but at this point, the background is almost ready. Let's let this layer dry and
come back for the fun part. The white details. I'm going to give it a full
hour to dry completely. We're back. Our background
is completely dry. As you can see, it looks a lot lighter now that the
water has evaporated. I see a little bit
of my strokes on the right-hand side
where I've added more concentrated
pigment, but that's okay. I'm not going to try to
achieve a perfect coverage. It actually has some charm, leaving a little bit of
visible strokes is okay. It gives it that
hand-painted look, and let's start by
creating a border design. This is something very
common that you will find on a lot of Ukrainian and
Eastern European Easter eggs. It's a border made with
repeated elements. The elements can
be made with dots, strokes, different
types of shapes. I'm going to be using
the Petrikivca, Ukrainian folk art stroke, and we're going to use a trio of strokes repeating
all around the egg. Let's start by
placing a dot up on top with the back of
your brush or a pencil. Then load up your smaller
brush and drag one stroke out. Then put two on each side. We have our first element, and all we have to do now is
repeat it all the way down. Let's do another drop-shaped
stroke and two on each side. Make sure you leave a little
bit of space in-between each three stroke
elements so we can add the white dots
in the next stage. Just leaving maybe two
millimeters in-between, let's continue down creating this three stroke or
three-leaf element. It also looks a little bit
like a chicken leg to me, which is appropriate since
we're painting on an egg. As you move down, we have a lot more
room to work with. You can make your
strokes a little bit longer and press your
brush a little bit more to make the overall
element a little bit bigger. Now I'm going to turn my
canvas around so that it's easier for me to continue painting while
holding my hand this way. You may find it easier to turn it consistently as you're moving along the
edge of the egg, but don't worry too much about the size of your
strokes whether or not, each one is similar
to the previous one. Just play around with it, more or less just aim for my middle stroke
to be the longest, and then I put two on each side, maybe curving them just a bit. When you start
running out of paint, you may want to add a little bit more white
gouache into your mixture. Just watch out. When the paint is fresh, your brush may be too
overloaded and the beginning of the stroke may not be thin enough as it
just happened here. Maybe just get rid of the excess pigment on a scrap sheet of paper
and continue on. I find that I can do about nine strokes before I
need to reload the brush. Depending on the type
of brush you have, you may be able to
do less or more, but you can see not
every stroke is even. What's more important
is following the overall logic of our design, and just doing three
strokes at a time, following along the edge. When we're done, it's the overall
composition that will matter more than the
precision of your strokes. You're creating this
repeated pattern of trio of strokes and we're going to add some
dots in the middle, as long as you're able to follow along and finish
off where you started. It's going to look lovely, and if you feel like
your strokes are not precise or not
accurate enough, you can always just use
the tip of your brush to fix whatever is not working
for you like I did here, and I'm going to measure
how much space I have left. Just eyeball it and add
the last trio of strokes. Maybe make this one a little bit longer just so that it makes sense and everything connects. We have the first part of our border and the
only thing left to do is add a tiny dot at
the base of each trio. Here I'm going to
use my white pencil, and just like we did
with the first one, I'm just going to put a
little dot and I can put about two dots before I
have to reload my pencil. You may be able to do
just one at a time, just use the technique that
you're most comfortable with. It also depends on how watery
your gouache mixture is. If it's more watery, you may be able to do more
just by loading up your pencil once or if your paint is
thicker one at a time, it doesn't really matter
as long as you're happy with the size of the
stroke and this one, let's keep it small, so that's why I'm using
the tip of my pencil and not say the
back of my brush. We will use the back
of the brush for larger dots later on
and our border is done. Let's leave it to dry, maybe for 10 minutes or so just because we're
going to be working on the inside elements
and we don't want any smudges especially I find the dots sometimes contain
quite a bit of pigment, and so it's a good idea to give it a few
minutes, recharge, maybe have a coffee
and let's come back to the second part where
we're going to create some flowers inside our egg. [MUSIC]
8. Chocolate Egg (part 2): [MUSIC] Let's use
something round, you can either cut out a
piece of paper or I found this little tape that
fits really well and what we want to do
is create an outline of three circles that will become flowers and just like
in the first egg, we're playing a little bit
with numbers and symbolism. We use the three stroke
technique for our border, now we're going
to echo the three with the three flowers
in the center. I'm using white pencil so that you can see my
outlines better, you don't need to
use white pencil. A regular graphite pencil will
do and actually will work even better because it's not
going to be as visible but for the purposes of this class, I'm using white so you
can see it clearly and let's use the
back of our brush. Find the one that has a nice
wooden tip on the back, dip it in white, and put the three dots in the center of each
flower, just like this. Now, let's grab our
main medium-size brush that we're using
for our drop shapes stroke and let's create the flower petals and you can
eventually with practice, do this even without the
outline but I'm going to show you with an outline what
that will look like. There are different
ways of painting, it's starting on one
side draw a petal, then turn it around. Paint one directly opposite then let's do one in the
center and on the other side. If you have a little
bit of space left, let's fill this flower in with smaller petals
and the technique is just like what I showed
you in the earlier lesson. We do an outline of the petal by starting with the
tip of your brush and then curving it around, pressing a little
bit more and then fill it in with
drop shape strokes. What we have in the
end is a flower like this and you can see it's not entirely symmetrical,
which is fine. You can help clean up those outlines with
the tip of your brush. Make the back of your petals
a little bit rounder and make the overall shape
a little bit more accurate following
the circle outline. It looks a little bit messy as it always does in the beginning, but I promise you we will add a few more elements to clean
it up in the next stage, and it's going to
look just lovely. Let's work on the second flower, the principle is the same, put one little petal then one directly opposite and this time I'm going to try
something different. I'm going to keep my
petals a lot smaller, the only strokes I can fill on the inside once I have the outline on the
left and on the right, I can maybe fit in
one, maximum two. Once you have the cross shape, one on top, one at the bottom, and then two on each side. Let's fill it in but you
can see here I'm trying a slightly different look where my petals
are not touching. This is just to show you all
the different variations that you can come up with
using the same strokes. Just a slightly different look, my strokes are further
away from the center. The petals are a little bit smaller and what
we have in the end is just a slightly
different flower. Each one you paint has a different character in
the end and once again, I'm going to clean up the edges, move on to the next flower and by now you're familiar
with the technique and hopefully you can
see how this can be done simply by putting a dot and painting
the petals around it. You don't necessarily need to have an outline because you're using symmetrical approach by
painting one little petal, then another one
directly opposite, and then filling it in
according to the first two. Directly at a 90 degree angle, we can paint another little
petal and another one directly opposite and notice
that in this last flower, I'm only outlining the petals by putting two drop shape strokes
connected at the base. I'm not going to fill them
in because I want to show you yet another look. All we have left is just to put a few more petals in-between the ones
we've already painted, and the third flower is done, you can see how
different each one looks using the same strokes and the same approach,
the same technique. We have three different flowers
going from the larger one with thicker petals
to a smaller one, a lot more basic, up on top. As we're moving forward, the hardest part is done. Now, all we need to
do is connect to the flowers in a
visually appealing way. At this point, I usually
don't even have an outline, but feel free to draw
some with your pencil. If you need to, I'm
just improvising using just the white space and the three flowers
that we painted. I'm going to do the first stem
and then paint two smaller stems coming out of it to create base for what's going
to be our leaves. The leaves just like we
did in the first egg, is simply a series of
drop shape strokes going around and
down along the stem. I'm going to turn
my page around, start from the bottom this time. In the center, you can make your drop shapes a
little bit bigger and thicker and then make them smaller as you move
towards the tip. There's a little bit of a
shape and volume to your leaf. We'll do the same
thing on this side. I'm going to start from
the tip because it's easier for me to move that way and make my strokes a little bit thicker and
longer in the center, and then make them smaller as I move to the base of the leaf. Another side. Here I'm going to start from the base and move
towards the tip. I'm reloading my brush as I move along and as I'm
running out of paint so that I have a lot of fresh
paint and flexibility to make many strokes before
reloading the brush. Here I'm going to
do another stem, it may be ended with a curve. Again, you can see I'm not using any pencil lines at this
point, but rather improvising. If you feel more comfortable, just draw an outline first with your pencil and
then put down the paint. I feel like here there's
enough space for another leaf, let's do the line and follow
with strokes from thick to thin and then the other side, notice how often I'm rotating my canvas to make sure
that I'm completely comfortable and I'm
wearing my glove to prevent the smudges on paper. We have about three
minutes left, this last phase
moves really fast and just one more curved stem, I'm going to make it end with curved drop shape
just to mimic again the style that we've used on every other element in
our design and maybe add the same drop shape for
the tip of this one and the only thing we have
left is maybe room for one small leaf. Let's do the stem and
add a few small drops. If you feel like you don't have enough room at this point, just do a couple of smaller
drops to decorate that area. You don't need to try
to fit in everything, but I feel like I still can using just the
tip of my brush. I'm not pressing all the way down and we're done
with our leaves. It already looks full and
quite beautiful to me. You may choose to add a couple of longer
drop shapes strokes, you can let them drag on
just like I'm doing here. I press a little bit
and then lift my brush, it's entirely up to you. These are called grass strokes, they're like modified drop shapes strokes where you'll just continue dragging your brush out until you lift it completely. As you can see all it does, it just helps you
fill up the space, but it's entirely up to you. This is a stylistic choice
and you may choose to leave a lot of that rich brown background
color without filling it in, the main elements are finished. Now, you may feel
like pure white, maybe a little bit too boring and that's how I feel
sometimes in the end it's really easy to add a little bit of visual interests
with a different color. I'm going to use
whatever is left from my first egg and add
a few rich orange, reddish dots in those areas
where I still have some room, you may choose to only add them in the center of
our three flowers, and this egg is done. I will see you in
the third egg lesson where we're going
to create something a little bit more complex. Thank you for watching
and painting with me.
9. Turquoise Egg (part 1): Let's start by painting the middle
section of our egg and I'm going to go with
my darker color first. With this turquoise, I'm going to cover everything
in the center of the egg, but leave a couple
of details blank, mainly the three
flowers and the stem. I'm going to paint
around them just so I can preserve my pencil marks and know where I need to put my decorations later
on with white gouache. Follow along. I'm
going to start on the right-hand side
with my smaller brush. Actually, I'm going to
go down a size and use the smallest tiniest
one just as I'm painting around some
of the details and I want my lines to
be more precise. But don't worry if
you accidentally paint over any of the lines. It's simply a reminder of where our white decorations
are going to go. They're going to look a little
bit crooked at this stage. It's our "ugly stage,"
but it's going to look beautiful in the end when we cover these areas
with white gouache. For now let's just continue
and cover this section. With our turquoise,
so follow along, paint around the central
flower and I'm going to continue going up
around the flower. Now as I move closer
to that stem, notice that I'm also going to leave the stem outline blank, so paint around it. Not overly concerned if I cover a portion of the stem even a little bit
because later on we're going to come back and paint that stem with white
gouache and I'm going to carry my color down all the way to the
right along the stem. Just gently covering
that entire area with my brush following the shape that we've outlined
with our pencil. Gouache is such a
wonderful forgiving medium , unlike say, watercolor, where it's very important
to get your layers and water to paint ratio
correctly the first time around. Here, as you can see, I'm covering certain
areas more than once, just making sure that everything
has that solid color. If something looks a little
bit too transparent, I'm not afraid to double down. It's all going to
dry out and look really beautiful and opaque. Here I'm going to move up. As I mentioned, I'm
going to paint around the other side of the
stem just leaving enough for myself to see
where the outline used to be. Then we're going to come
back in the second layer and make that stem
a little bit more pronounced and accurate with white gouache and adds
additional details. For now just the outline of
the stem will be enough. Here I'm going to start
moving to the left. Once again, just
leaving a little bit of my pencil mark visible, but I'm not too worried
about the accuracy. There are some places
where I accidentally covered the little curvy
detail with my brush. It's okay because we're going to come back and paint over it. It's going to look much nicer. This is an ugly stage
of the process, but you can see in the final version everything
looks very clean. For now, just make sure you're leaving a little
bit for yourself to see where the little white
details are going to go by painting around them, but don't worry about
how accurate or consistent those white
details are just yet. We're going to work
on them later. Now I'm going to move
to the left and cover that side of the egg using
exactly the same logic, painting around the
central flower, around the stem, and all other details
being especially careful when I move
to that top area. That's going to feature a
different shade of turquoise. But again, even if I
accidentally cover it, we can always fix
it with gouache. It's an opaque medium and
even when mistakes happen, it's rather simple to just paint over them
with another layer. Here we have quite a
large area of color with no details and I'm
going to switch to a larger brush just to
speed up the process. As you can see, with this size, I'm covering a lot
more just with one stroke and then as I need to get into
smaller details, I'm going to go back
to my smaller brush. Take your time around the edges. It's probably the
most important thing where we need to slow down because you
don't want to go outside the boundaries
of the egg shape. Everything else on
the inside can be fixed and painted over, but I'm really being
careful around the edges and when I'm painting inside the flower I
can move a lot faster. But take your time, we're not concerned
about our paint drying out too quickly
like with watercolor. Here it's all opaque, so you can paint different
sections at a time. You may actually
find it easier to start on the left
versus the right. It all depends on whether you're right-handed
or left-handed. You can even rotate
your paper just to simplify the process. I'm going to keep it in the same position
just so that it's easier for you to see
and follow along. Once again, you can switch
to a larger brush for those areas that have a lot more color and
a lot less detail, just do what's
comfortable for you. If your paint on the
palette is drying out, just add a few
drops of water and refresh your supply and just continue on until you
reach the other side. At this point, we're done with the
middle section. No need to take a break. We can continue straight away. While the middle
section is drying, we can paint the
top and the bottom. I'm going to go with my lighter. The logic here is the same. We want to cover
most of the areas, just leaving some whitespace
on those outlines, those pencil marks that
we drew in the beginning. So just leaving a few signs for ourselves, like breadcrumbs, that would allow us to
come back and paint accurate white decorations
with white gouache later on. Here again, I'm going to
work with my smallest brush. This is called archival length. They're super short. They're round
brushes but shorter than your average brushes. Because of the length, you have a lot more control, but you can also just go
with the regular length. It's only making a
slight difference in terms of how accurate I am, but it does require me
loading the brush more often because obviously there's
less hair to hold the paint. This color is one of my
favorites for decorative art. It goes really
well with oranges, deep reds; it's a wonderful pigment
from Winsor and Newton. But as I mentioned
in the beginning, you can experiment and really apply any of your favorite color
combinations such as I wanted to show you
one of my go-to duels with this darker
and lighter turquoise. I'm going to move down
and work on the flower. We already have a
pretty good outline. I'm going to make sure
that I'm going to paint with my light
turquoise inside the flower. Now I'm not going to
leave any dry outlines, any white outlines
because there's enough contrast between
the lighter and the darker turquoise to show me the boundaries of
our central flower. We're going to come
back later on and add lots of intricate details. For now, just to cover
everything with solid color, maybe leaving the inside blank so we can add some
stamens later on. If you see a little
bit of pencil marks showing through this lighter
turquoise, don't worry, because we're going
to have another go on that area with
our white gouache and cover those
areas on each petal so the pencil marks
won't be very visible. I do think that one
layer here is enough as long as your paint mixture
is not too watery. We're going to use those P [inaudible]
strokes for the petals, those drop shape strokes
and create those petals. Just using the drop shape
brushstroke curved, and it's going to
look really neat. Let's finish this and move
down to the bottom of the egg where we have these upside-down
drop shape details. All I'm going to do is paint the outer outline and then
the inside with turquoise. That's enough. That would be
the end of our first layer. The most exciting part is
coming up with white details. For now, let's just carefully finish
painting this section. Just like in the first part, try to slow down and paint very carefully
around the edges of the egg. Anything on the inside, we can always fix and
cover with paint later on. But the outer edge of
the egg is where we need to stay more precise
and more accurate. Once again, I wanted to
remind you that you can rotate your paper if you are more comfortable
working that way, depending on which side of
the egg you're working on. I'm trying to keep it straight, but it's not the
most comfortable way to paint or may not be for you. Just rotate your paper and
focus on one area at a time, depending on whether you're
left-handed or right-handed, you may find that it's easier to just
turn it upside down. At this point. I'm trying to get
it all correctly while keeping my paper
in the same spot. But I'm also being very
conscious about not accidentally smudging the paint with
the back of my hand. Do what's most
comfortable for you. I find that when I'm not
videotaping myself paint, I always rotate my paper or my canvas in
different directions depending on which
side I'm painting. Again, if your paint
mixture is becoming too thick and you feel like you need to add a
little bit of water, then by all means
just a few drops. Make it that runny, yogurt consistency,
and continue on. You have to be able to load the brush fully so that when
you put the paint down, there are no dry areas left. Just watch for your paint and adjust the water to
paint ratio as you go. I'm almost done here. You can see just a few
outlines at the bottom give us an idea of the overall design
that we're going to work on in the second layer. But it does look a little
bit messy right now. Not to worry, everything's
going to look super crisp once we go over these white outlines
with our white gouache. What we need to do
is just make sure that our turquoise
is completely dry. We're going to work with white gouache right on top of
these shades of turquoise. At times, you will notice
that your brush will pick up the turquoise paint
from underneath. The more drying time you
can allow, the better. I'm going to give it an hour, but you may choose
to start even later. The dryer your underpainting
your background layer is, the cleaner your white
details will look. Join me in the next layer
and we're going to finish our Easter egg with
beautiful white details.
10. Turquoise Egg (part 2): Welcome back. In this chapter, we're going to finish
our Easter egg and this is the most fun
part of the process. We're only working
with white gouache, our smallest brush and
we're going to start by painting over those
whitespaces that we left, the main outlines of our design. You can see I'm starting on the left-hand side
with the flower. Then once we have all
the main outlines, like the skeleton
of our composition, we're going to add
a lot more detail. Just remember there are
no mistakes in folk art. Your lines don't have
to be super precise. It's going to look
beautiful either way. Now that we're moving past
that first background stage. Your strokes, even if
they're not super crisp, will have a certain
charm and character. They will reflect
your unique way of painting and they may look
thicker or thinner than mine, just enjoy the process. As I've mentioned in
the previous layer, you may find occasionally
that your brush is picking up a little bit of turquoise from the first layer. Don't worry, just
reload it maybe add a little bit more paint into your mixture
and continue on. This time around, I'm
going to work from left to right because I want to be particularly careful about not smudging any of
the fresh paint. I painted the left
flower outlines and now I'm going to move to
the larger outline up on top separating the darker turquoise from the
lighter cobalt turquoise. Just doing a simple line for now and then we're
going to move into some beautiful drop shaped strokes that I
showed you earlier, and our egg is going
to come alive. Let's do the stem, just the first portion of it, the left-hand side, and of
course, rotate your paper. If you're more comfortable
in certain areas, you might find it easier
if you rotate it. But I'm going to
keep it straight for now as much as I can and show you how we're going to do the drop stroke
around the stamps. I'm going to start with
the tip of my brush near the stem and then drag
the brush out and down, pressing it a little
bit more so we get that thicker base of our drop. If one stroke is
not working out, you can always paint over it. Just reload your brush
with fresh paint. Notice too that you will have to reload your brush anyway
after a couple of drops, so they might look
a little bit more bold and white when
the paint is fresh. As you're painting more
and more drop shapes, it's becoming a little bit lighter and the turquoise
is showing through. Don't worry about that. I find it nice to have
that variation in value, but you can always add a little bit more color on
top because it's white. Even if you paint one one
two strokes up on top, it's still going to look nice. Now I'm going to reload my
brush and do the other side, which for me is
actually a lot more difficult to do because
I'm right-handed. But you may find it easier depending on how you're holding the brush and
what you're used to. Here I have to slow
down a lot more, but the logic is the same. I start just with
the tip of my brush, and then as I move it out
and away from the stem, I press it a little
bit and then I get that thick, rounded base. Here you can see a
little bit better, hopefully up-close and you can note the position of my brush
and how much I press it. I don't press all the way, just maybe 2/3 of the way to
get that thicker round base. But when I start, it's
just the very tip, the few hairs and
that's how I get that thin start
to my drop shape. I'm going to continue
moving along all the way across the egg and down. In some cases, my drop shapes strokes
are a little bit longer. In other cases they're shorter
and that's totally okay. You can vary it. Again, it's going to
really be up to you. There's no right and wrong here. You can make your
drops really tiny or more full of volume, but have fun with it. As I mentioned, I want to paint finish the left side first. I'm going to leave the stem for now until I'm ready to move to the right and finish
the bottom-left first, just filling in
those whitespaces that we left when we were
painting the background. Here up on top, I think I'm going to make the outline a little bit thicker just for
visual interest. The drop shapes are a lot thicker and have more
volume up on top, so I'm going to mimic
that in my outline. You can see I'm
going to double down and keep them thin
at the bottom, but much thicker up on top. Then I'm going to do the two little details
in the center, those things that
look like horns. Let's make sure
that the gold horns have a little bit
of a thicker stem as we move up to
the top and then finish them off with
a rounded shape, just like a curved
drop shape stroke, but can really get
it all in one go. I'm going to paint that shape
with the tip of my brush. These horns can
often be found on Eastern European
Easter egg designs, particularly Ukrainian
pysankas and they essentially represent wisdom and sense
of triumph and an ability. A very common symbol
and on its own, quite beautiful and
interesting and you can combine it into
different shapes. But we're just going to use the two at the bottom of our flower. Let's move up, finish
the top of the egg. This is the symbol of the
sun shining down on Earth. We're using very thin strokes, just outline those rays or it may remind you
of another flower. Maybe add some thin details
between the two outlines. They call it a ladder. You will find it very often in Eastern European
Easter egg designs. Sometimes they're
curved ladders, sometimes they're straight. It's very common symbol. Essentially, it means searching or rising above and more
of a Christian tradition, it can mean rising to
heaven, closer to God. You can also interpret
it in many other ways, but that's generally
what it means. Now we're ready to do the central flower and
here we're going to combine our drop shape strokes into small semicircle petals. Just like I showed you
in the very beginning, I'm going to create an
outline of the petal, keeping it open as I move closer to the stamens and
then I'm going to fill it in. So that it looks like there's
a little bit of volume, not just a solid petal
shape covered with white. I'm going to move around my
flower and add more petals. I think I can get four
in at this angle. I might need to turn my
paper around after all. For now, I'm just going
to finish the bottom, a mirror image of the left. I'm painting on the
right-hand side now and my paint is drying out, so I'm going to add
a little bit of water and continue on again. Up on top, I want my strokes to be a little bit thicker just to create some variation
and some visual interest. Another flower on
the right-hand side. Again here I'm just
going to outline the petals painting over the whitespace that we've left in the first background layer. You can see here my
brush was picking up quite a bit of turquoise
for some reason. I'm going to clean it up, reload it, and continue down. Now we're ready to
finish that stem. Here I'm going to
move down and you can see as I'm getting all the way closer to
the right-hand side, I don't have a lot of space. I'm going to try
to keep my strokes shorter where I need to and where I have a
little bit more room, I'm going to make them
a little bit longer, curving them just a bit. See, it doesn't have to
be super symmetrical. It actually adds a
little bit of a charm, that hand-painted look when your strokes are a
bit uneven maybe. There are no mistakes
in folk art, it's all correct, no
matter what you do. I'm going to finish the stem, the last stroke on this side. Let's do the center of our
main flower just solid white, but this time I'm going
to make sure that my circle is as accurate
as I can make it. Now, I think I will
turn my paper around just because it would
be really difficult for me to paint on the
left-hand side, we need to finish our petals. Once again, here I'm going
to do my drop shapes stroke, one on the left,
one on the right, creating an outline
of the petal, and then filling it in
with a few more strokes, leaving just a little bit of
space closer to the stamens. Two more petals left, and I'm going to turn my
canvas one more time, just to make it
easier for myself and we're very close
to being done. You can see how much
more festive it looks now and all the white
space is covered. We already have some detail. We're going to add some
dots in the last phase. For now, let's just
finish our sun. I'm doing the reverse
drop shape stroke creating Sun rays with
a tip of my brush. But this time I'm
going to drag it a little bit longer
because I have more room. I'm happy with how
this turned out. The only thing I feel like
we need to do with our brush before we move to working
on little dots is, I feel like adding
a little bit of details around the
bull horn symbol. I'm going to do another
one in reverse. Follow along only if you feel like adding some
details in that space. Again, it's mostly improvised. Now it looks like a
little bit of a tree or maybe the leaves that hold
up the flower in the center. I'm going to add a
few drops as details and that's it for
the brush work. We're almost done and
what we have left is the dots which is the
easiest and most fun part of this exercise. I'm going to refresh my
supply of white gouache, add a little bit of water, mix it up so I have enough to load up the
back of my brush. You can be using a
stick or pencil, I just like the back of
this particular brush because it's nice and
round and I'm going to put dots in the center, just like this at the bottom, and then switch to
the smaller size. Here's where having
a white pencil helps because it won't leave any
other marks other than white. The pencil itself has
a very small tip. Now, we can add
these smaller dots, but don't worry if you
don't have a white pencil, just use maybe a smaller stick or even a regular
pencil will do. Just be careful and
make sure you reload it as you're running out
of paint on the tip. I'm going to put tiny dots around our flower
to decorate it. I'm going to also
add a little bit of the same pattern in
the center of the flower, but only do it if you
have enough space. I feel like I did, so I went around
there and now we have that border between our
light and dark turquoise. We didn't paint around
it with white gouache, but now we can create that border just
using smaller dots. That's what I'm going to do. Dots can mean so many things. Again, they're such
a common element in Easter egg designs. Sometimes you see them positioned along a line like
the way we're doing here. Sometimes they're in clusters and they can mean
seeds or stars, depending on the interpretation. I'm going to add
a few more up on top to add a little bit of visual interest on our Sun
symbol and if you want, you can also add some
drop shape strokes inside the petals
of our two flowers, the two that are framing our
larger flower in the center. This is entirely up to you. I just feel I'm
having too much fun, and I feel like adding a little bit more of
the white details, but you can see it's
practically done. We've covered most of
the space we had with white details and our egg
is looking beautiful. The last two things
I'm going to do is, two dots on the right and on the left to complete
our composition, to echo the larger
dots at the bottom. Our egg is done.
11. Class Project + Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] Well done. You've reached the
end of the class. I hope you enjoyed
the project and feel inspired to explore
the world of folk art. In this class, we just
focused on Easter eggs, but the strokes we used can
be applied to anything, from festive postcards to more complex children
book illustrations. If you follow me on Skillshare or on any other social
media channels, you can look forward to more folk art classes
coming up very soon. If you have any questions, please leave them in the Discussion section
of this class. Leave a class
review if you want, I would really appreciate it. I look forward to seeing your beautiful
Easter egg projects in the Projects & Resources
section of this class. Thank you for watching
and painting with me. I will see you soon. [MUSIC]
Anna Bucciarelli, Professional Illustrator
