Expressive Birds in Watercolor Class | Bianca Rayala | Skillshare
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Expressive Birds in Watercolor Class

teacher avatar Bianca Rayala, Top Teacher | Watercolor Artist

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      About The Class

      1:22

    • 2.

      Preparing For The Class

      3:36

    • 3.

      Peacock Pencil Sketch

      4:07

    • 4.

      Peacock First Wash

      16:01

    • 5.

      Peacock Adding Details and Contrast

      12:37

    • 6.

      Flamingo: Pencil Sketch

      8:19

    • 7.

      Flamingo: First Wash

      12:56

    • 8.

      Painting The Water

      8:44

    • 9.

      Flamingo: Final Details

      32:39

    • 10.

      Parrot: Pencil Sketch

      7:19

    • 11.

      Parrot: First Wash

      14:23

    • 12.

      Parrot: Final Details

      10:51

    • 13.

      Key Learnings and Class Project

      1:05

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About This Class

Welcome to my Expressive Birds in Watercolor Class!

I love the vibrancy and spontaneity of watercolor! The beautiful flow of watercolor on splashes, splatters and bleeds. It has a special way of allowing us to freely express our emotions with every stroke.

In this course, we will embrace the freedom in watercolors as we paint bird artworks. In your final project, you will create a panorama painting of flamingos on water and a vibrant Macaw Parrot using liberating watercolor techniques.

To achieve that I will guide you through sketching, color mixing, and step by step painting process in a way that you will fully understand the mind of watercolor. I will teach you how to be fearless in using water to make watercolor work for you to have a life changing painting experience!

Art has a power to make life more colorful and alive! I cant wait to share the same thing with you. I'll See you in class! 

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Bianca Rayala

Top Teacher | Watercolor Artist

Top Teacher

Hi friends! I'm Bianca and I'm a watercolor artist. My purpose is to inspire people to discover and pursue their creative passion. See full profile

Level: All Levels

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Transcripts

1. About The Class: Hi, I'm Bianca Arayala, and I'm a watercolor artist. My purpose is to inspire people to discover and pursue their creative fashion. I love the vibrancy and spontaneity of watercolor. The beautiful flow of water and pigment on splashes, splatters, and leads simply amazes me. It has a special way of allowing me to freely express my emotions in every stroke. In this course, we will embrace the freedom in watercolor as we paint beautiful bird artworks. In your final project, you will create a panorama painting of flamingos on water and a vibrant Macau parrot, using liberating and modern watercolor techniques. To achieve that, I will guide you through sketching, color mixing, and step-by-step painting process in a way that you will fully understand the mind of watercolor. I will teach you how to be fearless in using water to make watercolor work for you to have a life-changing painting experience. Art has a power to make life more colorful and alive. That's why I can't wait to share the same thing, the same experience with you through this class. 2. Preparing For The Class: In this course, I'm going to teach you how to paint birds using a variety of different watercolor techniques. We will start with learning how to portray beautiful flamingos and incorporate water in the plot. On our second project, we will do a much liberating painting experience, focusing on color bleeds and color connection as we paint a vibrant macaw parrot. Since I've seen from my previous courses how you appreciate breaking the lessons into small practice exercises before diving into the main painting, I will be showing you how to plan the composition of your painting, how to easily sketch, how to choose colors and maximize limited color palette, how to keep the painting loose, hairy and expressive. We will learn how to lose control of watercolor by taking away the fear of using lots of water and pigment. I'm excited to guide you on each area so you can enjoy and fully maximize the learning experience from this course. Let's start with the materials that I will be using. First is watercolor paper. This one is an A4 size watercolor sketchbook from Etchr. It is made of 100 percent cotton cold press paper. The good thing about using cotton paper is its ability to absorb good amount of paint and water. It also doesn't dry as quickly as irregular paper, which allows us to work without feeling so hurried. Next is watercolor paints. This particular palette I'm using is from Paul Rubens. One is the glitter set while the other one is a regular watercolor set. We will also use an opaque white paint. For the flamingo painting, I found it very interesting to use these glitter paints on white paper because of the pastor-like shade and gentle shimmer the colors possess. I will use few pinks, blues, and purple from this set to paint mostly everything. Since it is impossible to create really dark tones using the metallic set, I will just use few dark colors from my regular palette to paint dark tones like flamingo legs, beaks, and some highlights. It is not a big problem if you don't have a glitter paint, you can definitely use regular watercolors for this project. I will be sharing some alternative color mixing recipe using a regular watercolor as your guide. For the macaw parrot, I will be using the regular set as I wanted to create very bright and bold colors. Now, for the brushes, I have here two kinds of front brushes, both from Silver Brush. First is renaissance brush, which is made of pure red sable hair for my washes and second is silver silk 88 synthetic brush for defining the painting. You can also prepare a small flat brush to paint the water fragment, but it is completely optional since you can use your own brushes for that fragment. I want you to prepare also pencil, eraser, two cups of water, and tissue paper. 3. Peacock Pencil Sketch: Welcome to our class where we will be painting a beautiful peacock. Let's start with a pencil sketch. On a landscape format paper, I will position the head of the peacock in the first third part of the paper. I don't put it in the center as I want to have more space to portray the expressive feathers on the right. I start sketching the general shape of the head and the beak. Next, I draw the crown-like taft then proceed on drawing the body. Keep your strokes too light so you won't damage the paper when you need to erase mistakes. Next, I draw the tail feathers, just copying the outline and not diving in too much details. I draw some outlines for the feathers and draw random-eyed feathers around. I go back to the head and draw some details on the beak and eye. Let's finalize the sketch by defining some lines and comparing it once more to the reference photo. This is our pencil sketch. 4. Peacock First Wash: The painting process is simple. First, we place the tonal values on the initial wash and then we add the contrast and details on the second part. We will still paint in a very loose and expressive style, so expect that we will play with a lot of water freely flowing on our paper. I encourage you to play and enjoy the process, to let go off control so you could experience the joy of letting water paint for you. Here I'm getting a saturated mix of sea blue and some partisan blue colors to give the color some shimmer. Sea blue is quite similar with pale blue. I start painting this lower part of the body since it is the part with a dark tone. Then using a watery brush, I spread the color to create a change in tone from dark to light. I load my brush with some paint again and splatter going to this direction. I splatter by tapping the handle of my brush. I continue lightening the inner part of the body to create dimension. I also got a thicker paint to darken the outer fragment as well, and the portion connecting the body and the tail feather. Now I get a very light mix of blue to paint the upper part of the body. I also get a green shade by mixing sea blue and lemon yellow to paint the area below the head. The important thing on painting the body is to make sure we apply correct tonal values, so we can give the body a form and dimension. I do the same process on painting the head. I start with a dark part, then spread the color by diluting it with water. I leave the white portions on the face unpainted. For the beak, I just get a very watery mix of violet muted with a bit of black. Let's move on to painting the tail feather. I create the green mix using lemon yellow and sea blue. My mix is very creamy and saturated. I let the colors connect by adding the next color while the first color is still wet. I try not to copy the details exactly as I see them in the reference photo. So what I do is I play with color transitions to portray this fragment. I use the same colors and mix and match them to create different shades. In this way, we also avoid getting muddy color mixtures. I carefully paint the portion near the body so the colors won't get mixed up. Using a synthetic brush with a creamy mix of paint. I create some loose strokes to add texture. I also mix a bright turquoise color to add a little splatter. Now let's mix colors for the eyed feathers. I use sea blue and hookers green to create this blue-green color. With a creamy mix of paint, I dab my brush on the paper to paint the eyed feathers and I paint mostly on the right side and limit the strokes on the left. Next I add Indian yellow color on the eyed feathers. Last layer of color is sea blue. Now that all of the eyed feathers are done, I will create a watery mix of sea blue mixed with a bit of this leftover greens. I paint the area with a tea mixture and I let the paint for the eyed feathers to bleed and flow to the watery paint. This is the part where I want you to enjoy watching the paint bleed on the watery surface and let go of control. It looks scary to have a pool of water on your paper, but trust me, the watercolor movement feels like magic. I paint just a small portion on the left side as I want the feathers to be concentrated on the right. I soften the edge. We're just adding a lot of water and also splatter some paints. The tricky part here is to know when to stop. I suggest you stop before you think it's enough. Try to step back and stop yourself from adding some more strokes to avoid overdoing the colors, especially on the left side. Our aim is to put more weight on the right side and keep the left side very light. Now that I'm done painting the background feathers, I create a very thick mix of blue-green to darken the eyed feathers. Your brush must not contain water at all for the paint to stand out from the moist surface. Next, I get my fan brush and get a thick mix of burnt sienna and yellow okra mixed with my leftover paints to paint the texture of the feathers. I make a very light round strokes with a fan brush. I use my liner brush to paint very light random strokes around. This process should be done while the background layer is still moist so the strokes would look soft and would blend in smoothly on the base layer. While waiting for this layer to dry, you can use your natural hair brush to sip in the extra puddles of water on your paper. I suggest doing it this way or using the tip of the tissue to sip the paddle, rather than wiping them off to preserve the natural effect of the splatter. Let this layer dry completely then we will paint the contrast in details on the next video. 5. Peacock Adding Details and Contrast: Let's finalize our peacock by enhancing contrast and adding details. I use my synthetic brush and a mix of dark blue color with sea blue and Payne's gray. I start painting the dark portions on the face. Then using the same brush, I soften the edge so it will blend smoothly on the first layer. I do the same thing on the other dark fragments on the face. I keep the top part of the head, the lightest parts so it would look rounded. Next, I paint the crown also with a creamy paint. It has to be thick, so it will stand out against the background. I darken this part below the head. I still use Payne's gray and sea blue. I simply look for the dark tones on the reference photo and adjust the tones on my painting. I finish off the head by painting the eyes with black. I left a small white dot on the eye part to give life on this eye. Lastly, I get a violet color to enhance the beak. We are done with the head. Now let's paint the texture of the body. I get my natural Red Sable brush, flatten the hair and do some dry strokes on some portion of the body to portray its feather. Make the strokes light and dry to create this effect. Next, let's add details on the tail feather by adding some dry semicircular strokes too. I just use a darker shade of green to paint the lower part and yellow orange on the upper part. I noticed that the eye feathers have lighten so much after drying, so I will repeat painting over them again. Using the synthetic brush, I dab thick paint on each eye feather. Notice that I don't outline each completely. I still keep my stroke loose and not uniform. One thing is consistent, and that is I'm using thick opaque layer of colors. Next, I create a brown mix using burnt sienna and ocher and paint some diagonal lines. Since I don't want this stroke to look this strong and distracting, I use my fine brush to spread the color from the diagonal stroke. See how the brown strokes have lightened and faded using the fine brush. As for our last step, I use my liner brush to create the extra thin, fine strokes for added texture. Let's finalize the painting by adding some dark spots here in the tail feather to separate it from the background. This is our final painting. 6. Flamingo: Pencil Sketch: In this lesson, let's look at how to plan your composition and why it is so important to consider this before doing your painting. How we arrange the elements in our painting will determine where we want to direct our viewers attention. With that, it is essential to identify the correct positioning and the horizon line to prevent our work from looking chaotic, but rather united. Regardless of paper size or format that you will be using, the first thing you must decide on is where to put the horizon line. It should not be at the center, but rather on the upper or lower third of your paper depending on what you want to focus on. For an instance, if this is my sketchbook spread, I will be painting on the entire spread as I wanted to have a panorama of flamingos enjoying the water. First, is to identify the horizon line. I position it on the lower third of the paper as I want to have a bigger space on top to paint the full body of the birds. Second step, is to decide the number of flamingos you'll be placing, and of course their position. We should position them in a way that they look connected. That's why if you would notice everything, these two flamingos overlapping each other. Notice also this one flamingo at center of my page, so that it occupies both pages of my sketchbook. Doing this connects the flamingos on one side and the flamingos on the other side. I encourage you to look beyond what you see on your reference photo. Feel free to add or eliminate things that you feel would enhance your picture. Now, let me share a practical tip to make sketching a lot easier. Using this reference photo, let's draw one flamingo. When I sketch regardless of the subject, I also look at the general shape of the object. I refrain from drawing the details because I don't want to overcommit on one area only to find out later on that the overall shape is wrong and I need to do it all over again. I start from the head. Again, focus on the general shape. Make light strokes first and then we will define the shape later on once we have established the general shape. Draw lightly the big shapes that you see on the body. Then lastly, sketch the legs. When you see that the proportion of the neck and body is alright, you can proceed on finalizing your lines or shape of the head and adding some guidelines when painting the wings. That is how we sketch the bird. We start from top to bottom, focusing on the general shape of the flamingo. I provided a copy of the pencil sketch for this class project in the resource section. You can also download on the resource section the reference photo and the final painting. The resource section can be found in the project and resources tab below this video. Now, let's move on to color mixing. I mentioned earlier that we will be using just a handful color to paint the entire piece. [NOISE] You would notice on my painting that the flamingos have some cool and warm shades. Cool blue shades to paint the reflected light on their body from the sky and the reflect of water under belly. Also, warm pink shades to show their pretty blush pink color. For the cool blue tones, I used symphony blue and symphony purple. I diluted with good amount of water to create the watery and light tone mixed like this. As an alternative, you may use any light blue and purple color like horizon blue and amethyst genuine and create a mix similar to this. Next, for the blush pink tone, I use pink and deep interference red to create a shade like this one. As an alternative, you can use any pink or light red paint like acrylon rose and then dilute it with lots of water. Now for the water, I will use sky blue, a bit of yellow green, some symphony blue to create a nice vibrant shade for the water fragment. Feel free to mix the blue colors that you have in your palate to create a nice vibrant blue shade. An alternative that I can suggest is horizon blue, a bit of amethyst genuine, olive green and indigo. That's all we need to prepare before we start painting. I'll see you in the next video for first wash. 7. Flamingo: First Wash: Welcome to our first class project. In this lesson, we will paint a panoramic view of flamingos over water. Before I proceed painting, I'll just lighten my sketch by raising some strokes using a kneaded eraser. The lighter the sketch, the better our work will be since watercolor is a transparent medium. We will paint our picture using one layer technique. We start on building the colors of the flamingos, then move on to the waters, then finalize the painting by adding details, contrast and highlights. Let's start with the reflected light on the flamingos from the head to the body. I use the light purplish blue mix from my glitter palette for this fragment. [MUSIC] While this layer is still moist. I blend in the light pink color to paint the flamingos body, the belly part of the flamingo. I painted it again using the purplish blue color to show the reflects of water. Notice that I leave a portion of the body here on top and paint that to create volume. There are also some parts under the wings that I've painted with a slightly darker pink shade to create dimension on its body. Keep your strokes light in order to achieve a soft blend of colors, I still use the same colors that I mentioned earlier. I just vary the consistency to create light and dark tones. [MUSIC] Let's move to the next bird. I do the same thing of painting the headfirst with a bluish mix, then softly transition to pink color. [MUSIC] You would not see a hard edge between the blue color and the pink color because I made sure to connect this to colors while the first one is still wet. I still leave the top parts slightly unpainted. [MUSIC] By this time I'm sure you're getting the rhythm on painting flamingos. We start again from the head and then slowly transitions to the body. I always refer to my reference photo to look for the spots that should be light and spots that should be dark in tone. You often hear me mention about tone. Tone is the lightness or darkness of a color. Tonal value gives an object depth and dimension. If you paint the birds with a single tone the image will be flat. We change the tone of the color by either adding or eliminating water from the mixture. Light tone is achieved with the pigment mixed with lots of water. While dark tone is achieved with pigment with less amount of water. [MUSIC] Going back to our work, we give dimension to the body of the flamingos and we're placing very light tonal values on the upper part of the body since they are lightened by the sun. Then place a slightly darker tonal values by the wing area and under the wings. [MUSIC] At this stage, you may feel that the birds look pale or plain. Don't worry or doubt the process. This stage of painting is the sign to place the tonal values. Later on, we will already apply more contrast, and then you would see that the image will be more defined and formed. [MUSIC] I encourage you to keep your strokes light and avoid over dabbing your brush. By doing so, you can create a soft blend of colors. Most importantly, you will avoid muddy colors. [MUSIC] Now that we are done with the base colors of the birds, we will let this layer dry before adding contrast. I will see you in the next video and let's paint the water fragment. 8. Painting The Water: To paint and water fragment, we prepare the area first with clean water using a flat brush. I only provide the area below the horizon line. [MUSIC] Next I get a watery mix of pink color to paint the reflection of flamingos on the water. I don't paint the entire area with pink, but just those right underneath the flamingos. [MUSIC] Next I create my blue mix for the water, and it is made of sky blue, a bit of yellow-green, and symphony blue. Using my flat brush, I gently paint the water with soft strokes and I let the paint to bleed naturally on the wet surface. You can see a soft bleed on the surface because my paper is still wet during this time. [MUSIC] I create a creamier and darker mix up the same colors and paint a darker tone underneath the flamingos. [MUSIC] Again, the water fragment is still wet, that's why I don't create hard edges as I paint this dark blue color on top. [MUSIC] When your paper is turning dry already, I suggest to let it dry completely then pre-wet with water before proceeding with adding darker tones. [MUSIC] Now, let's paint an airy background. I started the horizon line using a very light wash of yellow ocher. The surface is dry, so I need to work fast to avoid unwanted hard edges. [MUSIC] I slightly tilt my paper, so the paint will flow down. [MUSIC] Then a transition to a pale blue color and let the two colors blend naturally. [MUSIC] Since I don't touch or manually blend the yellow ocher and blue color with my brush, I tend to avoid the green mix on my background. I gave the background very light and transparent so it will not overpower the lightness of the flamingos. [MUSIC] I spray some water at the edges to create some soft edges. [MUSIC] I let this layer dry before I go back to painting the flamingos. While waiting, I want to add some more depth on my water fragments using the blue mix that I initially have. I add some pink gray to it to create this deep blue. [MUSIC] I do some strokes and also some splatters to create interesting effect in the water fragment. [MUSIC] Now, let's proceed on defining the flamingos on the next video. 9. Flamingo: Final Details: I want to mix of very darker color rather than simply using black. Using pink, gray, violet, some browns from my palette, I create this rich-dark color. Notice how thick, creamy and opaque my mixture is. We need the mix to be this thick so it would stand out. Next, I enhance the shadows on the face and neck of the bird using a mix of violet and scarlet. I use one brush to apply the pigment and another brush to soften the edges. I intentionally didn't paint too many details on the face like the eyes. I continue doing the process of enhancing the shadows on the neck. Now, using the same dark, pink-violet mix, I paint some spots to portray the wings. Don't need to outline the entire wing. Suggestive lines are sufficient to portray this. Now you can see that the flamingo is slowly coming into life. I just add some dark spots here and there to enhance the contrast and to emphasize the light pink color of the flamingo. I constantly look at the reference photo, squint my eyes to see which area has dark tones and which area should be kept light. It is a good technique to properly apply correct tonal values. Now, let's go to the next bird. We will basically do the same process. We enhance the shadows starting from the head, neck, and then wings. I recommend that you use a synthetic brush in applying a hint of colors, so there is only a controlled amount of water in the brush. Then use a soft brush to soften or blend the edges. Also, don't be afraid to use dark colors since we need to use dark tones to make the light tones shine. I paint the small visible portion of the beak with my dark green mix. As we paint this broods, it is sometimes tempting to overdo the strokes. To avoid this common mistake, I advice you to look at your work using a camera view or you can also face your work on a mirror so in that way, it gives our brain a different perspective and allows our brain to identify if it is time to stop already. We are almost halfway through. I've painted this [inaudible] first since my paper is still a bit wet in the center. I look at my reference photo, identify the dark spots I see when I squint my eye and translate it to my painting. Again, as you do this step, your brush needs to have a very minimal amount of water in order for you to layer a rich vibrant color. Then using a dump brush, slightly soften the layer to create a nice blend. Do the same process on the shadowed areas to define the form of the body and the neck. Another tip I want to share is to keep the wash as transparent as possible so you won't lose the freshness of your work. We are down to the last two flamingos. I'm pretty sure that you already know well the rhythm of what we are doing. However, for these last two birds, since the other one is partially covered with the bird in front, we need to create a contrast to separate the two birds from each other. I set the first as shadows on each of their wings, and as the last step, I will outline lightly the intersecting fragments of the birds to control the shape of the one in front. Lastly, I will also paint their beaks and add up on the shape of their heads. Don't worry or don't feel discouraged if ever you don't get everything right in the first try. Remember that everything can be learned through practice and observation. We learn by not just watching how the instructors paint, but also by observing how they hold the brush, how they mix colors, the consistency of mixtures, the timing of application, and more. Try to analyze everything you have observed and put them into practice. As we practice, we understand the medium even more. We understand by experience how watercolor behaves. Let's finish the painting by painting the legs. Again, we need the legs to really stand out. Using a very thick mixture with an almost dry brush I paint the legs with a dry brush stroke. I paint them with one or two quick strokes to make it look natural and not shaky. I add a few highlights on the water by adding some more dark strokes right underneath their feet. Now, we need to unify the entire picture by building connection between the sky and the water. I do so by adding splatters. Using the scarlet and violet mix that I have, I create a milking mixture of paint and splatter around the area. I load my brush with lots of pigment and gently tap my brush to create this small splatters. Lastly let's add some white accents on the beak and some spots using this opaque white paint. I also splatter some paint on the water fragment. This is our final painting. I'll see you in the next video for our second project. 10. Parrot: Pencil Sketch: Welcome to our second project which is painting this gorgeous Macaw parrot. In this lesson, we will learn to appreciate the spontaneity and controllability of watercolor. We will embrace the natural beauty of bleeds, blooms, and color connection. Let's start first with a pencil sketch. In drawing any subject, I use the same principle that I keep on sharing on all my classes. It is focusing on the general shape of the object from top to bottom and finalizing the details in the latter part. When we say general shape, we look at the outline of the parrot and identify the big shapes that we see. Notice that I start from the top part of the head, the next is the beak, and then move on to painting the outline of the body. I just look for the big dominant shapes on his wings and body and avoid going much into so many details. Our painting approach is very loose so our objective is to ensure that the general shape is correct and in proportion and all the details and textures will be shown through watercolor. Now as I finalize my sketch, I make sure that the eye is in correct alignment with the beak. I also check if the head is in proportion with the size of the body to prevent having a very small or a very big head. Again, the small fine details will be shown with the help of watercolors. There is no need to draw in detail the feathers on the head and the wings. When you're happy with your sketch, slightly erase your sketch, the light and the strokes before proceeding to painting. I provided a copy of the pencil sketch in the resource section together with their reference photo and final painting. The resource section can be found in the projects and resources tab below this video. 11. Parrot: First Wash: As we paint this Macaw parrot, I want you to challenge yourself to lose your control over watercolor. You see, watercolor needs water to work. With less water, it is easy to control watercolor. But as we loosen up and let water take over, believe me, the whole painting experience will be so liberating. Don't be afraid of water. Don't be afraid to mess your drawing. If it didn't work on the first try, then try again. Remember, it is just a piece of paper and we don't want a tiny piece of paper hinder us from discovering more about this beautiful medium. Let's start painting. I will paint from top going down. I get a nice vibrant lemon yellow and a mix of little cadmium yellow to add some depth here. I load my brush with a very saturated mix of color. I make sure also that the belly of my brush is really full so I can achieve bright bold color application. I do splatter some paints on the side to create a nice loose effect. Next, I transition to green by mixing the greens on my pallet, like hooker's green, tree green, sky blue, and my leftover yellows. I add a tint of blue because later on, we will transition to blue and I want the colors of the entire piece to be united. Again, I create a very saturated yet fluid mix of paint. As I lay the colors on the paper, I just let them bleed and flow naturally. Notice the puddles of blue paint on my paper. You would see how watery my mix is and how loose the strokes are. There's actually no detailed and tight strokes done to paint the feathers. I let the natural splash of paint portray the form of the bird. Now I need a darker blue color, so I add Payne's gray to my sky blue to add depth and dimension to this part. We need to vary the tones to achieve this. As I paint the blue fragment, I create big bold strokes using my brush to cover large areas. The lesser stroke you do, the cleaner and fresher the artwork will be. Now let's paint the yellow orange feathers on the bird's face and body. I create a rich yellow-orange mix using lemon yellow, cadmium yellow and Indian yellow. Again, my mix is very creamy and saturated. As I apply it, I connect it to the blue fragment on the head. You will see natural color bleeds between blue and yellow. I avoid blending them manually using my brush, so I will not create a harsh green mix. I let the two colors blend naturally to create a beautiful natural green blend. Since the consistency of paint that I use for both blues and yellows are really thick, the color bleeds are not too explosive. I continue painting the body with the same yellow mix, but I add a bit of cadmium red light to alter the tone. It also makes the overall image more interesting if there is a play of colors and tones. Now, I want you to notice how I dab my brush to apply my paint and how I maintain a bright and thick consistency. As they reach the edge, I make this loser by splashing my brush. Now let's paint the wing with the vibrant blue mix, which is the same with the one that I used earlier. Again, I let the blue and yellow blend naturally. Now for the outer parts of the wing, I create dark purplish brown mix using violet, branchana, and a bit of brown. For the dark feathers below this beak, I use the same dark brown mix, but I add some paints gray to change the U. I maintain a thick consistency so I can layer it easily on top of the yellow. I use the same color to paint the dark spots on the face. To create this small strokes, I remove the excess water from my brush. Now, I've changed my brush to a synthetic one to paint some illusions of feathers on the wings. I use a synthetic brush, so the brush doesn't contain much water, and I can create this defined strokes while the fragment is still moist. Remember that we are aiming for a loose in impressionist type of painting. Don't get lost in painting every feather that you see on your reference photo. Some suggested strokes are enough to portray the image that we want. I scratch the paper using my nail to lift some colors, and add texture on the wing area. I try to work or add darker thorns while the layer is still moist. Doing so will help me create define strokes with soft edges. If your work turns completely dry already, the hard edges may look distracting. The key here on this step is to learn to work fast so you can maximize the time that your paper is still moist. I will see you in the next video, and let's paint the face and the final details. 12. Parrot: Final Details: Let's finalize the painting by adding some contrast in painting the face. Using my dark blue color, I add some strokes on the head to show the dark tones on the feathers. Now let's paint the beak. I make my mix extra darker and thicker to create an opaque color for the beak. I drop a small amount of yellow to show the reflex of the yellow feathers on its beak. Then I darken the outer part to show the form and shape of the beak. The same thing is done on the upper beak. I mainly use paint spray to paint this. I adjust the darkness depending on how it should be based on the reference photo. [MUSIC] Now let's paint the portion of his face with the lavender color. Let's mix violet and sky blue and make it really transparent and watery. Make sure that the beak has already dried so it won't bleed once you paint this particular area of the face. [MUSIC] Using a very thick color, I paint the small details around the eyes and also the outline of his eye. Carefully paint the outline of the eye with a thick paint. This will help you make the eye look more alive. [MUSIC] I'm now adding some highlights of this dark color on areas that I want to strengthen. You can do dry brush stroke to paint the texture on his face. I will also use an opaque white paint straight from the tube, to add final accents and highlights. I will use it first for this dark feather here below the beak and next on the texture of the beak itself. You may use your finger to blend it in. Lastly, I use it for some random spots and of course on the eye. This is our final painting. 13. Key Learnings and Class Project: We have come to the end of our course and I hope you got inspired to paint and enjoyed watercolors like never before. If you follow the lessons and trust yourself, I'm sure you can easily create your bird paintings. Doing the two class projects will open yourself to understanding the mind of watercolor through different painting approach. I want to see your final paintings in the project section, so I can personally witness your creative journey. As you do your final projects, don't be afraid to use water and pigment, and feel free to experiment and create expressive strokes. Step out of your comfort zone and try something you've never done before. But most importantly, don't forget to have fun. Thank you so much again for joining me in this class and I look forward to seeing you in my other classes.