Transcripts
1. Expressive Little Animals Class: No more tricky lights and darks. If you paint in watercolor, you know exactly what I mean. It can be tricky to work in
both really light colors, and in really dark. Let's take the
bull by the horns. Let's take this project, this mission head-on and do
black and white animals. I'm Amarilys Henderson, a watercolor artist focusing
on surface design. You will see my classes here. You may have read my books. One of them being
Drawing and Painting Expressive Little Animals
published with query books. In this class, we will
not only do one or two, but half a dozen
different animals, and you will see how
black and white animals are quite endearing, and the breadth of different
skills that you can use when applying to any of the animals that
you'd like to paint. Before we get started, download the PDF of
supplemental helps. It's a guide that
includes colors, photo references,
more information, and links and things
that I say out loud. Now you can capture
here much more easily. This class is actually pretty comprehensive because we're
going to paint white animals, black animals, and black
and white animals. I'm also going to show you how I do backgrounds with what I think is the best compliment to black and white metallics. Also, I'm going to
briefly show you in a very quick and
comprehensive way how to scan your animal, take it into Photoshop, clean it up real
fast and actually create a repeating
pattern with it. This is actually
a class that I'm really proud of and
happy to deliver to you because I think you
can take so much from it and so many people can
take different parts of it.
2. What We'll Cover: I'm so excited that
you're going to join me. Now, let me tell you exactly what we're going to
learn in this class. Just a very quick overview, so it's nice and clear for everybody watching.
Let's do this. As you'll hear me mention, maybe later on to, a lot of these lessons were
based on the book that I published called Drawing and Painting Expressive
Little Animals. Where I teach how to draw
and paint step-by-step, then create a little twist at the end of these
different animals. These animals are not found in the book,
so feel special. These are special just
for you in this class, so you want to have
both if possible. To get this book, go to my website,
watercolordevo.com/book. I am really thrilled
that this class also includes a
downloadable PDF. All the supplies
are listed there. You won't need to
worry about trying to take notes about
things like that. If you would also like the drying tips, the
photo references, and you like to see things written out step-by-step
with the painting methods, I invite you to go
to my website to find this very PDF download, and it's there for the taking. Now, let's dig into the content. When I talk about technicolor
black and white animals, I am not joking. We will learn how to mix
our light colors just so, so that we can have an
array of different ways to approach light
colors in animals. We're going to start with the
airy cotton candy approach, which is my personal favorite. Starting off strong
with the polar bear, a very common favorite. Then go to a very masculine
maybe monotone approach. Let's tone it down a little bit. It's still very a
marvelous colorful, but this is me toning it down and showing
you how to approach your monochromatic animal in a monochromatic way
that's not boring. We'll move into the dark side, making rich blacks with watercolor and
understanding what it means to have
different levels of dark with different
tones to them. In the animals I'll
teach in this segment, we will learn how to paint the narwhal who
is just adorable. Also, a more
stunning approach of the muted colors within
a dark black jaguar. Then we'll combine
both black and white and play with a penguin, who has a little bit
of both and be able to combine all the
things that we've learned in this one animal. But we won't stop
there because we're going to keep working
on this penguin, not just in layers, but also in creating metallic backgrounds for
him and his buddies. We'll also clean up our penguin very quickly and
I'm really excited. The simplest way to create
a pattern without much, if any, technical help. That's part of this class too. I hope you enjoy the class, and we'll get to this last closing segment
before you know it. Let's get started. [MUSIC].
3. Technicolor White: [MUSIC] The trick to a cotton candy white is to
use cotton candy colors. I'm going to be using
small sheets of paper to show you different
palettes that are possible. I'm using a lot of
paints that I have already squirted out in advance or have used
at other times, and I'll show you how
I go about selecting which ones to use
for which palette. Always look for the side of the paper that's a
little textured, then you know that you're
painting on the right side. This is quite flat. There is a little
bit of texture, but it is not the right side, and the way that I know is that the grain is really uniform. I like to use the side of the
paper that has a texture, but it's not uniform. That is the right side. When you have your paper
right in front of you, you'll know exactly what I mean. I got a lot of brushes out here. I'm probably not going
to use them all. It really doesn't matter
which brush you use, just use a brush that you're comfortable with and
that's a little large because all we're going to be doing is I'm going
to be showing you four different color
swatches and then how they blend together to
create a white. Now, if you're dealing
with an animal that is an Arctic
animal like most of the ones that we will be
doing today in this class, I like to use what I'm calling the cotton candy
look because there's something about the glow
of a watercolor sky. In the Arctic, there's a
bit of a different flavor on golden hour, let's say. Right now I'm just creating some bubbles with the
colors that I'm using. I do tend to, as an artist, gravitate to the primary
colors and variations thereof. These colors are not
a shocker at all. This Ecola in pink is
nice and bubblegummy, but it's very light. If you noticed, I tried to add more and more color to it, it wasn't happening, while a very little bit of the Dr. Ph. Martin's ice yellow created a punchy yellow for me already. I'm letting my bubbles just
delve into each other. Hopefully, we'll be
able to create a bit of a Venn diagram of
these types of colors. Now something important
to remember, of course, with Arctic animals is
that they are cool. They're in a cool environment. I'm using cool colors
and warm colors and I always want to have
a blue, a violet. This is ice blue from Dr. Ph. Martin's, and so obviously
it's going to work nicely for an icy look. These will blend
nicely over time, but just to make this
happen a little faster, I'm going to go ahead and
drop in more color so that these colors can meet. Now when these colors blend, since they are a
triad color scheme, meaning that they make a nice little triangle
on the color wheel, they are going to
blend into a neutral. You can start seeing
that our neutral is looking like a muted gray, maybe hinting at a bit of green. Whenever you come to the place
where you see these colors blending and you get a feel for the color
that's becoming, if you don't like the
color that you see, use the opposite color
on the color wheel. Here is my color wheel. Like I said, I did a triad
color scheme where I just tend to do the typical primary
colors: red, blue, yellow. They make a nice little
triangle formation. Now, I obviously did
not use a bright red, a bright blue and bright yellow. The yellow is pretty bright, it's a nature of yellow,
it's an ice yellow. But the blue, it has a little bit of green in it and the red is
very light pink. This is probably a better
view to understand that. You can see how we have a triad scheme right
here with a triangle. You do not need a color wheel
to create these pieces. I'm just using this
as an illustration to help you understand the
color theory behind this. To be totally honest, I just bought this
color wheel last week. I've gotten this
long with that one. Actually, I've
created my own with my own paints just for fun. As we have this three and
we're looking at our neutral, I'm feeling that it's looking
a little too yellowish, so I will add more
of the other colors. You can do this in your palette. I just want you to see also how this shows up in your work. Blue being our
darkest one is going to be overpowering pretty fast. But you get the picture
as I add more colors and my neutral color in
the middle as they meet becomes just a
little different. Now it's getting a
little more violet. If you look at violet on the opposite side
of the color wheel, we could add yellow if it's looking greenish
because the blue and the yellow are mixing, opposite from the
green is in red, so then I'd add that. You can keep playing to
create your perfect hue. You would create
this on a pallet. You would just squirt into a
large pallet and you'll see me do that as I paint
in the tutorials. I wanted to create a little bit of a
reference so you can see the different ways that we
can go about a light white. For our wolf, we'll be doing
a more monochromatic white, which is not really
hard to understand. We're just going to be
using varying gradations of the same color, the
same monochromatic. We've got a very dark blue, we've got a medium blue, and as we get
lighter and lighter, we add more water and we
have some very light colors. Let's unify those just for fun. There's really no need to. Again, if I'm feeling
like this blue is looking too cartoony, or I want to have something
that's a little more muted, a little more natural, then I'm going to
think about what's the opposite of blue and
that would be orange. I can add pink and yellow, or I can add orange. I don't have an orange
out, I'll use my palette. That's why I keep my palette
out always as a backup. Now it's looking a
little too green, but I still don't want this
to become very colorful. I'm going to use a brown. It still got a little bit too
much yellow for my taste. We can always add a little more neutral being brown or a black. Now, I want to show you my
favorite neutral colors, neutral browns, because
they are colorful. You guys know that I like color. Those are mahogany and
saddle brown from Dr. Ph. Martin's. You'll hear me use them a lot
throughout my classes, and my exercises,
and my membership. This is mahogany. It's a violet brown. Could just be called a violet, but it's a neutralish brown, and here's saddle brown. Now, saddle brown might look
like your average brown, but when it breaks down, it has a little bit of
green and pink in it. I have no idea why. I could talk to
the manufacturers and get to know that
a little better. I'm just assuming that in
order to make this color, they use several colors mixed together to create this hue. But if you're able
to see up close, and I can show
examples of past work, it's already breaking
down into a little more of a violet color. Now, you might wonder, "Why don't you use black?" I don't use black straight up, but I might use black to
darken an existing color. That way I always know that it has a base that's a
little more interesting, and the black just
adds to the value, not to the quality
of the color itself. I feel like we've done a fair
amount of violet lights. Whenever you're using
any of these whites, obviously we're
going to be using a lot more water with it. That'll determine
the lightness of it, so it'll look a lot
more like a white. I'm going to add a little
water just for now, just so that when it dries we
can have a little contrast. I'm already seeing
the variety of those neutral colors
bleed into each other, and we have ourselves,
I don't know, it's like a dusty, muted rose, little
bit of a gray. It looks lovely, I think. If you just close that in right there
and consider that this might be a white leopard or some other animal
that's white, a jackrabbit, an Arctic fox. These colors make
it so much more interesting and
always feel like you can combine. That's
what we'll do here. Finally, combine your neutral
with your colorful colors. Let's do one more light white. This time I'm going to
use some tube paints. These are Mijello Mission Gold. Just to show you a
little more variety. If you have these
altogether on your palette, you'll find that you'll use one more than another
at different stages in the painting because
you'll want to have your different colors peek
through at different times. Here I've simply combined
just blue and a peach, and I've already gotten to a muted color because
they are complimentary. This is an orange, this is a blue. Then, if I want to add
a little more neutral, let's try a different brown. This is tobacco brown, so it's more of a
yellowish brown. It's a little bit dingy, not really the Arctic fun color. Let me bring in a little bit
of the saddle brown so you can compare that
to, isn't that fun? Much more interesting
than plain old, white of the page
and Chinese white, and much more
interesting then black. [MUSIC]
4. Airy Cotton Candy Lights: [MUSIC] All right, we're starting off easy
with the polar bear. I included a reference picture, so draw very lightly
on your page because when we paint lightly, we need very light
pencil lines as well. I'm starting off with
the wet-on-wet method. With a wet brush
mine's a little dirty, it's actually for your benefit so you can see
where the water is. I am placing bits of water, just a little
puddles of water on the inside edges
of the polar bear. I'm going to gently
drop in some color. This is ice pink, it's a really light
pink going in easy. It's good to also have water
that isn't slightly tinted, so it's got something
to bleed into. I've got a very light yellow and a very light
pink blending into that. I'm feeling confident and
let's bring in the blue. This is my favorite
blue of Dr. Ph. Martin's it is slate blue. It's nice and muted, it's got that very on trend indigo color and just
really easy on the eyes. Going to the darkest
parts drop in some blue. Now these colors are all
going to blend on their own. In other segments, we
will blend them first, but I wanted you to
see how creating this cotton candy feel is
really just a matter of choosing the right colors
that'll blend together in such a way where in some pockets it'll look
like a muted gray. In some areas you'll
get to see peaks of the colors that
actually are there. Now that my brush has a little bit of blue,
a little bit of pink, I'm coming in on some
slightly darker areas. This little polar bear
has some dirty paws. [LAUGHTER] We'll go a little
more yellow on the tips. I wouldn't recommend
going very pink, on the tip it might
look injured. That is one thing that we need to keep in
mind when we go too strong on colors like
pink or even brown, sometimes a green can look
just a little jarring. The key with this
method is to use a lot of water so that you're keeping everything pretty light. If you regret anything, pick up a brush that is clean
and dry and come in and dab the very wet areas to suck up the water and with the
water will come the paint. That's a way to lighten what you've already
got on the page. It's a form of
erasing, not perfect, but it comes in very
handy and you'll see me do it quite a lot. Another thing that
you'll see me do is to collect color from some areas
and place them in other. Right now, looking
at our polar bear, I've got some yellowish
green on the feet, and I'm bringing it up
to the top as well. Otherwise it'll look
it's there for a reason. Our minds are wondering
why is this yellow there? Is the bear dirty there, is there some marking like on a penguin or
something like that? As we're looking
for those reasons, if it's just sticking out too much and there's no going back, place a little bit
of that same color or emphasis in another area, and it'll harmonize with
the rest of the piece. I'm ready to give everything
just a little bit of a wash, spreading the colors
that we already have to make things feel
a little more harmonized. Looking at my polar bear, where are the shadows? My darkest value is going
to be this slate blue. I'm placing it in the areas that are the
darkest on the polar bear. Obviously in my photo reference, our polar bear is not
cotton candy colors. If you find it difficult to
consider where values are, a trick that I share in another class is
to repeat it here, is to take a snapshot of your image and turn it to
black and white on your phone. Then you'll be able to see
where the darkest values are. You'll be able to
judge values without all the color in the
way distracting you. [MUSIC].
5. Monotone Lights: [MUSIC] Now with
the Arctic wolf, we are still going
to start wet on wet. But the difference
here is that I want to focus a lot more on the blue, so this is for you guys
that aren't really excited about doing a lot
[LAUGHTER] of colors lot, a little more toned down. But this tone down is
I'm accustomed to doing. I'm using ice blue this time, beginning with my wet
puddles of water, just like we did
with the polar bear. But this time I'm creating them in a
lot of short strokes. The difference in texture
comes down to not just at the end when you
are about to be done and you're adding
in these little details, texture is something that you consider throughout the
whole time of painting. While the polar bear had big, watery petals that were just large and placed in
a single stroke. I'm wanting to create
texture right from the get-go with these
shorter brushstrokes, even when creating
my watery petals. It might not seem like it
makes a big difference, but it really does
as the paint dries, and especially if I happen
to miss a few spots, it'll be completely intentional. If I miss a few light spots, you will see little
pocket of white in the fur that goes along with
the texture of the fur. Even this edge over here
that I'm working on now, I don't like how rounded out it looks on the
right-hand side, so I pull out a few
dots of texture. What's wonderful is that
then I can drop in paint to create a little texture within those puddles and it
won't bleed consistently. Do you see how the paint bleeds into some of those
lines and then just avoids a few
little streams? I think that's really something unique and fascinating
about watercolor and something that I
really try to do is to take the best of watercolor and showcase it in my paintings rather than trying to make the medium be
something that is not. Now that my first layer is dry, l'm so ready to go straight to these tiny little
details of texture. Again, the paint that
I'm using is ice blue. At times I'll use a darker
blue like an ultra blue. If you want to have a
more natural application, then go for a less
saturated color. You don't have to use blue, but this is that class for
some colorful creatures. Now, I'm using a brush
that is very small with a very pointed edge and
I'm not only using that, but I'm also using very small
brushstrokes, very short. I am not touching the paper as much as I was
before with the polar bear. When I want a more
smudged, furry look, let's say the fur is blending together and I don't need
a very specific line, then I will press my brush
down so that the middle of the brush is melding with the middle of whatever
the last brushstroke was. When I want a more defined line, I will only use the
tip of the brush. This Size 2 brush
comes in very handy because it's got a
very thick body, but a very thin head and so
it's got a nice script to it. A lot of times you'll find that with these smaller brushes, the entire body of the
brush is very thin and it can be hard to
keep your hand on it. I don't know if you have ever lost your brush while painting, but the fear of it, splattering and creating
lines that you did not intend to create right on top of
your painting, is very real. I really enjoy this brush
because it's made to have this nicer grip to it
just by the bevel, the expansion there of
the actual brush handle. I'm varying the amount
of paint on my brush. When there's not
very much of it, I'll create a larger area of texture and when there is a
lot of paint on my brush, then I'll just create very
strategic pockets or lines, focusing on the darkest places first and then extending
out from there, so that way I know that I'm
not using too much paint. I'm putting it in the
very darkest spots and going from there
rather than trying to work lightly when I'm got
a dirt color on my brush. Within this bigger puddle
of this light blue, I can bring in a bit of this darker blue on top
and so what's shining through is the light-blue and also
a few pockets of white. This layering is a nice
and semi unpredictable, and when we work in a way that's just a little unexpected it brings our viewer in to take a longer look to figure out
what is different here. What is a little unexpected? What does this surprise? Then they're able
to distinguish, oh, there's a variety of blues used here and
they're layering on top of each other and not
necessarily in a patterned way. Whenever you are in
love with nature, [LAUGHTER] with something
that you find in nature, it's usually your brain trying to figure out how
does this work. That's the effect
that we want to have in our paintings as well. Now l'm marking over
my pencil lines with the blue so that it looks totally intentional and you can't see
my pencil lines, but also, since this will ultimately be scanned at
least from my applications, I want to have a
nice clean edge, so it's a lot easier to clean it up after our post-production, after it's been painted. This is a hind legs, so I want to show a much darker blue to tuck it in
behind those front legs. I don't want it to
run into the tail, so I left just a little bit
of paper shining through. Then I'll go even darker
into the recesses of where these two legs
overlap and where it's really under the belly
of the Arctic wolf. l want you to notice
that I'm still using very short brushstrokes
on the very furry places. I could've easily
outline that tail with one zigzaggy line, but instead, l'd rather pull with a lot of short brushstrokes, again, to play on that
texture to not abandon the fact that this
is very short fur. Depicting short fur is going
to feel different than depicting long fur
or fluffy fur, and so we did fluffy fur
with our polar bear. This short for, for the wolf, is something that I want to show a little bit of a
difference between not just with line work and not just with the fact that you already
know this is a wolf, but with every time that I use my brush that it
might be relaying, communicating even better what it is that we are painting here. I'm outlining the face with
a slightly lighter blue. This is slight blue. Then the very dark ultra
blue that's on his belly. Because even though I'm
creating an outline, I still want to honor the
fact that we are creating different values and
there's a lot more light on his face than there
is underneath him. When you're creating
a dark area, like I am here within the mouth, go ahead and do it in
a middle grade value. Something that doesn't have
to be terribly dark because we can always add in more color. Just as I did with a tail, it was a light blue
and the whole body of it and then I came in
with a darker blue. Even if I cover the entire area and
you feel like there is no point [LAUGHTER] in working
in layers, it does help. For one, you feel safer in
creating those areas, two, you're actually
layering a light blue on a dark blue and guess
what you're going to get? An even darker blue. The darkness will be
even richer by layering, even if it's layering
the complete silhouette, the whole outline of that mouth even if you're layering the entire
filling of that mouth. [MUSIC] I'm noticing a few more areas
to add some light shadows and it's totally okay to add in a few light shadows at the end. Don't feel like your ship has sailed and you can't go back in and add a little bit more of something that you
were building up to. I also like being able to layer slightly different
blues together. We have the cool blue and the purplish blue combining at the same time and doing the same job but in
different places. It's really fun to use a
little bit of a dry brush, even to add just a few
details here at the end. We already have our Arctic wolf in and at this point
we want to add those tiny little details that just made us be enamored
with this subject. Maybe it's the snout, the details in the eye, a few little dots here and
there to add darkness, to add some differentiation
between the toes. It's those little things
that we're really focusing on and it's fun here at
the end to focus on those. The color that I'm
using is mahogany. Try and add just a touch of a slightly different
colors so that he's not completely
monochromatic, making the viewer have to find the tiny little pieces where this color that came
out of nowhere is. Now we're at the
final stretch of the very darkest pockets
with the mahogany and maybe a little bit of the blue
that underneath combine to create a really rich
black dark area. Differentiate the legs from the tail and a few finishing
touches for our Arctic wolf. [MUSIC]
6. Technicolor Black: [MUSIC] Far more fun, I think than mixing a light
white is mixing a rich dark. The reason is because we
don't have to be careful. We can just keep mixing and mixing and the
worst thing that can happen is that we
have black on our hands, and that's actually
what we want to do. It totally works out. Obviously, if we're wanting
to get to a rich black, we're going to start
with darker colors. These are obviously already
used and heavily loved. I can tell you that
we have here ultra blue that I'm
wedding here again, we have crimson and
we have Alpine rose. This green is ice green. This green is from
Mijello Viridian. This green, we're probably
not going to use anyway. [LAUGHTER] It's a
very true green, I don't tend to
gravitate towards those. Here we have mahogany
and saddle brown. I'm just going to start
painting and we will see a variety of dark colors. On my palette you'll often
see this color, slate blue. Boy, do I like slate
blue. Look at that. It's a lovely little indigo. Now, I'm obviously going to
try to get a rich black. So what am I going
to add to our blue? I'm actually going
to add some red. I added red and I got
a beautiful violet. Now instead of going to yellow, that's going to keep me
a little too light yet, I'm going to use a
yellowish brown. Quite honestly
with these colors, you can add whatever you want. You just really are adding more and more as the
color progresses. But you'll see that adding different colors
is obviously going to yield different results. When you watch the
black leopard, you will see a different value of dark that's more
of a green tone. When you watch the penguin
and paint the penguin, if you follow along with
the same color schemes, you will find that it's
more of a violet tone. Some mahogany here.
It' so pretty. I'm getting all sorts of dark browns and it's getting dark but it's not
quite dark enough. The easiest way to resolve
that is I'm going to add more colors that
are dark by nature. For reference, what I added
was not black, it was this. But you see how quickly
we can get to our dark when we're adding other
darks to the equation. I'm going to do this again
slightly differently. I haven't done a lot
of, let's say orange. What's great about
creating these rich blacks is you can really
just use whatever you have on your palette and just add more and
more. It's a great way. It's actually how I oftentimes
clean out my palette; I use all of them to
create a rich black. I get the black that I like
and then I also have used the paints that I didn't get to finish using in a
previous piece. Boy, that got us
there real fast. That was mixing red. This blue is actually
from Artesia. Brand dabbling with a lot
of brands here for you. Mijello Mission with orange. It's the yellow orange. Here I've got so
many pretty dark, so I don't even
want to touch this. But I do want to show you one more thing and we'll
touch on this a little later. This white is old, but I refresh it until it's
just so chalky and gross. I don't want to use it
anymore. It's Dr. Ph. Martin's Pen-White. Once I have my dark, when I add this white, it will give me a range
of not just highlights, but they're also the kind
of colors that you see in a little bit of its
sheen in an under glow. When you look at things
as the sun is setting, you will see a
little bit of a line masking through the outline, just one side of a subject. Picking up on those
beautiful details really adds to your piece. Let's say you also want to
use the complimentary colors. Let's say you are doing a panther that's erring
more on the blue side, then that little line on the
side of his face might be a neutral brown that hints more towards
orange, that's warmer. It's a really cool effect. If you start looking around, you'll notice that that
is pretty commonly used, particularly by oil painters and particularly when they
do an underpainting first. Nerding out a little
bit with you guys about color theory and painting ideas. But just in case all of this
is really basic for you, I want you to walk
away with something that you might have
picked up, learned, or was reminded of to try
out in your own work. It's like I don't even
want to stop now. I didn't want to stop
now. Look at how pretty these darks are, so rich. Stunting and of
course, colorful. As we did before,
and I won't dedicate a lot of paper to this, we can always add black. So if you feel that
your animal is, trying to think of a dark
animal, a brown bear. If your animal is a brown bear and it's going to
be fairly dark, consider which color you
want to hint towards. If I want to hint
towards a red orange, and I don't want to go
through the trouble of creating a rich black, just always start with something that's a little
bit of a color and yes, you can absolutely
just add black. Let's add black in
little spurts here. You can see that the
brown bear can be brown and yet have these
pockets of red in them. Now why not use a brown that is, let's say a burnt umber? That's a little bit like that. That's got a reddish
hue to the black, to a dark color.
I totally could. I find it more interesting
once this is all dry, to use colors that you mix together because they will
break down a little bit as it dries and your
viewer gets to see little pockets of areas that are a little
more of this color, a little more of that color, rather than pockets
of just light and dark of the same color. [MUSIC]
7. Vibrant Darks: I'm really going to enjoy
this, I have a feeling. I've got a loaded brush with my mix of these three colors. Then adding water to
lighten that out, to thin it just a little bit. At the very top, we've got some very dark colors. Then we add a little water
to create this gradient. Now it's not a pure gradient. There is definitely a division
in the narwhal's body. Does it go from very
dark to a very light? There are some speckles
that go along the way and I want to show those already
even within the dark area. Right now, our first concern
is to make sure that the body feels a little
different from the head, which is peering
out in front of it. I'm really trying to
create that division, that line between the two. One thing that I'm
doing is if we make the head lighter and
the rest of the body darker, it's already going
to stand out as other as the eye looks at it. I am totally okay with the
colors bleeding a little bit, but only when I
say it's allowed. Here at the top, I do want to show that
they are connected, that the head of the
narwhal is connected with the rest of the body
and it's not just, I don't know, two parts
next to each other. Again, starting with a
lot of color at the top, and then adding water
as I work my way down. Now my page is pretty wet. It's making me a little nervous, but I also just need
to consider what's my next move as I pick up my brush and consider
where to put it in next. The great thing
about working wet on wet is that you can work fast because you are needing to work while the
paint is still wet. But each stroke
makes a difference. Because you're not being fussy and creating lots of paint
strokes to create the effect. You are using a
few strokes within a limited amount of time
with a lot of heat. You'll want to be really
intentional about each stroke that
you put on a page. I think that's it from
my darkest areas, making sure I've
got the flippers, the tail, which is dark, extending up to the body. I press down on my
brush when I want to use the body of the brush. Then when I want it to dissipate
into something lighter, all I need to do is to dip my brush in water
and it's already got so much paint on
it that I'll get a very light application
of the paint itself. Once I get this little
outline of the narwhal down, I think I'll have my bearings on what exactly I
want to do next. What's great about
having this brush that's clean now and a
little dry is I can lift. Right now I'm
pressing up against the edge of where
there's already a puddle of paint and letting it
dissipate by pressing down a little firmer so
that the body of the brush is picking
up the rest of the paint as it collects. I create this perfect
little gradient without trying too hard. Now all I need to do is connect these two lines
here and we've got the full outline of our narwhal and we're
off to the races. Can you believe it? This is already the first stage of our beautiful
little narwhal piece. While things are drying
before I can go into doing a second layer
on top of the face, I'll go ahead and spend
a little time doodling these little spots
that turn into, no designer, just white on
the belly of the narwhal. This is something that I really appreciate about
painting in watercolor. When you've got your
first wet washes down, you can then focus on
little mark-making, little details to distract you, loosen you up before
you need to get back to the concentrated
work in other areas. I'm always working on several areas at a time which can make it
a little harder to teach because we have to
work where the paint is wet and take turns in letting the paint
dry in certain areas. Now I'm working on the belly and later I'll come
back to the face and wait for the face to dry and then I'll come
back to these designs. But at the end of the day, what we're really
focused on is not really what part of the
painting we're working on. But where our wetness levels, where our finish
feel values are, and working with what
we've got on the brush. Right now, my brush
is losing some color. Well, it's a little
lighter so let me do some of these
lighter spots that are further down in the
body of the narwhal. Then when I gain too much paint, then I'm ready to work
on some darker details. Using a brush that
has a great point to it and yet has a full body of hair is really handy because
the very tip of it you can do for very fine lines. Let's work on this eye, darkening it in and leaving a little bit of a twinkle there. I could not do that with a round brush that just
has a curved edge. It needs to be one that has
a nice point to it so that the tip of the brush can be used on these
lovely little details. I also love to do these
lines with a brush because you get what
we call line quality, which means that your line is playing between thick and
thin and you can have different widths to your line according to just where
the shadows are falling. I think he's dry enough to start working in some
definition and details. I'm using a little bit
of straight up black. I'm adding a little bit of
a shadow under his head. Adding a little definition
around the eyes. Super cute. Even with this very dark black, I'm able to add more
spots on top of the violet type of rich black that we created
for the body of the narwhal. I'm getting a little more
granular with my dots, with my spots giving them a
variety of shapes and sizes. It's a nod to more
of a realistic take. If you want to have a more
cutesy take on your animals, make all their spots the
same size and width. Because that does not
happen in nature, but it is something that
it's cute to look at. I feel like the mouth
needs a little softening. I just wiped it on the bottom
edge with a clean brush. Bringing in my
opaque white medium. I'm going to mix it
to knock it back just a little bit and mix it
with a little bit of the black so that it's not
a really bright white. This is the clincher. It's time for the
unicorn [LAUGHTER] horn, I think is what it's
called, to the narwhal. As much as I can, I'm going to do things
with one brushstroke so that they're nice and
long and unified. Using the same white, I'm going to do a
few highlights. I could do it maybe on the
top and the upper lip, on the sheen of his fins. Because our narwhal has a
very slick texture to him. We want to show that
that's different than, say the furry panther,
that we did before. I'm still lifting
from the mouth, trying to get it just right. I want it to be a lighter color, almost like it's just
highlighted with his little lip. Just crease. It's not
like he has lips, it's just like a little bit
of a crease that stands out. If you make something
lighter and then put it up against something
nice and dark, it's going to look very
crisp and stand out nicely. He looks a little cuter, I think with the
mouth higher up. You guys, I'm totally
going off script here. But it's fun to watch. His mouth moved up, and all I need to do to make
sure that it looks like the white of his chin is up
further than it was before, is to create the same spots that we did with the dark color, in the light color and mask
some of those darker areas. He looks like he needs to shave, [LAUGHTER] I'm digging it. Giving him a nice crisp white
on top of the dark mouth. He's cute. He's good to go.
Give it a little highlight. Let's put a little
highlight on the unicorn. There we go. That's
the most special part. [MUSIC]
8. Muted Darks: Shortly we're going to
paint a black jaguar. I'm going to really
quickly show you why I don't just paint
it in straight black. Here I am just using
water and black, and some yellow for
the eyes so that he looks comparable to
how our black jaguar. But I hope you can see that while it's a fun
little painting, it's not as interesting as
this colorful jaguar will be. Real quick, I wanted
to put these side by side for you so you see the
difference in the color and the variation of using a rich black versus
a straight black. Let's dive into working
on our black jaguar. Now, I'm using a yellow gouache. You could use
watercolor, totally. I just want to start with
the very lightest color. You should always
strive to do that. If you've ever painted
in watercolor, you already know that
this is really important, because it's so
much more difficult to avoid those dark edges later. I like to use this color
of mahogany as a dark, but I'm going to mix it to
make it even more complex. I'm adding in some other
colors, some sky blue. I will list all of
these for you to see. No worries and
needing to listen to my voice and know each
color that I'm using. It's a little on the green side, so I'm adding some red
to offset the green, always considering how
on the color wheel these colors are placed
against each other, therefore I know
which color to add to make it the rich black
that I'm wanting to make. Now I'm going for some
really dark spots first to help give my eye
a little guidance, a little suggestion
on which way to go. What I really like about this method and using
a rich black is as I add water it's going
to break down this color. If I put in some areas
that are really dark, then when I added some
water I'll be able to know exactly where
I can go light on, and where are these colors
are going to start to break down and we can enjoy the
colors for what they are, and not as much bearing on
how they are as values. Being really careful to go
around the spots that I've already painted that are
now dry in this yellow. Part of the reason I
used gouache instead of watercolor is that though you can use watercolor in
those lighter areas, the gouache is going
to be thicker, so it's going to be harder
for water to reactivate it. It's just going to take a
little more water for it to come alive again. I honestly don't
want to wake it. I want it to stay
asleep, so to speak. If you notice I am moving
outward from the center out, and that way I have the darkest concentrations
where I need them to be. As I push them out, what watercolor does is that
when you create a puddle, if you'd consider
any puddle that has some substance to it, be it some dirt, a muddy puddle. As it dries, it's going to
extend to the outer edges. The outer edges are going
to naturally look darker. If you have noticed, maybe in watercolor paintings, the edges, it's
almost like it has a little tiny bit of an outline
without you even trying. That's the great thing
about watercolor, especially if you're
working at really wet, the water will push
the color out, and the inside of that
bubble, so to speak, is going to be lighter
because that's where it was running off to. Feeling pretty good
about this face. Now that I have it
completely blocked out, then I can go to some
medium-grade values. I put a little more paint on my brush and in the areas
that are already wet, I'm just dabbing in, dropping in a little more color. Sometimes a lot,
sometimes a little depending on how dark
I want it to go there. Now the face is getting a little too wet to keep working, so I'm going to work
on a different area. This is where this pencil
drawing comes in handy, because then I can just fill in the color as needed as I would like any
other coloring book, and work on the areas throughout the page in concentrated ways. I can now work on
this bigger one. I went darker on the back paw because
I want it to recede, I want it to sit back
a little bit more. It should be shaded, if it's under the belly, and it's behind another pot, and behind the head
that's hanging over it, it's going to be
a little darker. Depending on how much paint
you have on your brush, you can decide where
you want to work first. If you didn't have very
much paint on your brush, you can start with this paw, this arm that's on top, which is going to be a
lighter application of color, but heavier on the water. The more water the lighter
your color is going to be. You guys know, and
you will learn, if not by now, by the end of this class
you will know that I love to work in wet on wet. Now wet on wet gets a bad reputation because
you do lose control. When you paint your first layer in water and then drop in color, that is essentially the
method of wet on wet, you are letting the
water play into the role of dispersing
the color on the page. That can feel like
a little bit of a loss of control, for sure. But where you lose control you gain creative punch
in your painting. Where you lose control you see your paints flow in a way
that you can't manipulate, and that's what makes watercolor painting
so much more dynamic, because it is a dynamic play
of the medium and your hand. Now the way that you push
around this water at this paint to know exactly
how to go about that, is that even up here on
the back of this black, I want to call it a panther. I guess technically it's not supposed to be that,
it's a jaguar. But that's essentially
what a black panther is. Little fact for you is that you also understand
the pressure of your brush. That can be a little scary. But I know that if I push my brush down more I can
disperse the paint more. If I'm lighter on my brush, then I'm letting the paint just ooze wherever it wants to. It just makes sense. It's
just like modeling clay. When you're pushing into clay, you're using more force, you're going to
manipulate it more, you're going to make it move
the way you want it to. Same thing with the
brush in your hand. The more pressure you apply, the more you're going to
move that paint around, and the more control
you're going to have about where
that paint goes. As much as possible
though I want to drop paint in without
pushing it very much, because in those areas where values might
not be as important, I want to see that vibrant bleed of color that I love so much. Now that vibrant bleed of color cannot be happening
right here on the jawline. That's a little concerning. What I'm going to do is
I'm going to work on this tail here, I'm pushing this back. There we go, guiding it through. Then coming back to that
jawline every so often. I need it to be a little
drier before I come back and make sure that what's dark up against the
right hand side of his face is the paw, or the arm, really, and what's lighter and coming forward is actually the jaw, the face of our jaguar. Painting the nose,
a few details. Most of my painting right
now is on the scale of wet. I'm going to give
some areas a chance to take a break while
I massage the edges. While I was bragging
about how lovely it is that the paint
extends to the edges, sometimes that can mean
that the edge that it created all on its own is not
going to be really smooth. Again, going back to the idea of a puddle, if you have a puddle, you don't have a
lot of control over how clean those edges around
the puddle are going to be. It's going to bleed. At some point in that
stage of the first layer, I'm going to be massaging the
outer corners of it to make sure that those corners
are very smooth. This little guy, he is all dry. I'm going to go to some
backup neutrals using a little sepia because now I really need to
get nice and dark. It's hard to get
really dark and really precise with such a dark color
already that I premixed. In this instance, I'm going
to go to my tube paints, which are squirted here
in my palette rather than my fluid paints because being
of a thicker consistency, it's going to be easier to
get darker with less paint. I always like to work on the eyes right away
at this stage, at this second layer after
the first initial bleeds, it just really encourages me to be looking back at somebody. I like them to be looking up at me and keeping me accountable to finish them and
make them look good, gives them a little
bit of a soul and I naturally go to the
nose, the nostrils, and just identifying
a few facial features in this really dark
application of black. That jawline that
was bothering me, we're going to define it now. Pressing down on my brush. When I press down on my brush, a lot of the paint ends
up on the tip of it. Then as I apply pressure, the body of the brush pushes it down so that we're using
less paint on the body. The body is basically
the middle part of the brush where there's
a lot of hairs and the tip would obviously be the very edge of
it, that's pointy. It has a few hairs at the end. I'm really just
darkening up that back paw so that the chin
can stick out nicely. I did go over just a little
bit, but no worries. We'll get back to it. What I'm doing is
just lifting up. What I took was too much paint, and by lifting that basically
just means that I'm using my brush to wipe
up the excess paint. A very technical talk for something that's
pretty darn simple. I'm looking for my shadows. Where are my shadows? How can I make him
look less flat? He's got this protruding snout and that's something that's just so distinctive about
this animal that I want to be sure
to carry through. Now, there are lots
of shadows going on, but I just prioritize them. First, let's start with what makes this person,
in this creature, this subject, really itself, and then we'll move on to
less important shadows. Right now I need to
be sure to define this head from the
rest of the body. The head is what
we connect with. The head is what we identify as that animal in
the first place. I mixed my black with
a little bit of white. It's the Chinese white as it's called right in
the set of paints. All it does, more than
anything, I mean, I know that it does lighten
the black a little bit, but it really just creates
more of an opaque feel. It's almost like painting
with gouache again. I like being able
to use a medium that's a little thicker
than what I'm used to. As I've been painting, I've painted in very
fluid ways and I get tighter and tighter as we work
on more and more details. This is all part
of that as well. Having more control, getting tighter and tighter means also that I want my paint to be thicker so that I can
control it even better. I really don't need
to do much to add dimension to this panther. I want to show you
how making marks can do a lot of the same
work that we do with shading and doing washes. Adding a little bit
of texture may be all you need to apply to a flat-painted
colored animal. When we have all this
fur to deal with, it's really fun to
play with texture. Instead of filling
in this entire spot, this entire arm, that keeps
getting away from me, tucked behind the
rest of the body. I can do a lot of little dabs. Those movements, the way that you use your
brush, it shows through. Even if you end up filling
up the entire page with dabs when you really
could have just painted the entire page
with one fell swoop, you're going to end up
with a slightly different texture on your painting, and we're all about just
giving the viewer a little more to chomp on when they're
looking at our painting. We want to prize them for taking a little extra time
to look at our work. Going for some big shadows, just kind of in a big puddle. Not really worrying about
making them too smooth, but then going in a little
darker into the areas that need slightly
more darkness. It's fun to be able to work on these shadows
little by little, I think so often we
look at paintings and we get overwhelmed with needing to address
all the colors and all the shadows and values
going on at the same time, but when you work on those
middle-grade shades, we first put in all
the color and then we put in the
middle-grade shadows, you can easily add
on just a touch more darkness within those
middle-grade shadows, and you're pretty much there. Unless you're wanting
to be hyperrealistic and deal with a lot of
different intermittent values, you don't need to worry about each step of the value charts. You can really convey a lot of subjects form with
the base color, a medium grade value, and then adding in a few darks. If you're like me,
I like to add in some white at the end. Just add a little more
fun, what I tell you. I'm using a Pen-White, which is by Dr. Ph. Martin's. You could
use white acrylic ink. You can use white acrylic
paint or white gouache. I find that this stuff is
nice and in the middle, a lot of those mediums
end up being plasticky, and then they have a different texture than
the rest of the painting. I like that Pen-White
is a little chalky. As you know, I'm a
fan of the Dr. Ph. Martin's brand. I really liked the quality of their materials and it's
a nice opaque white. Sometimes it can be mixed with
the paint if I wanted to, and it's flexible enough
also to stay white. Now the areas that
I'm going to focus this white on are going to be the ones that are bright
white like the whiskers. It would've been a colossal
pain to go around each one of these areas or the whiskers are and maintain the
white of the paper. When it's something
so small like that, it's just better to either use a masking fluid or to come
in with white afterwards, rather than trying to meticulously
go around each one of the little crevices that are
left not white with paint. Another thing that I'd
like to do with white is really portray the texture. I'm looking at my photo
reference and looking at where there are furry spots, where there are
these highlights. On darker animals, you're going to have a
lot more highlights, a lot more little
bits that you need to pick up on because
you don't get to see, let's say on a black cat, a lot of intermittent values, but you do see those
bright highlights that the moon is
casting on their fur, and be looking at your photo in which direction
this fur is going. It can be easy to lose track, but these little marks of fur, particularly in the
middle of the body, are helping to
highlight the folds of the skin as he's crouching. It's also showing the direction in which his paw is going. These little nuisances
are so fun to pick up on interest and also just to relay
what the figure is doing. Now it's really easy to go crazy with these white details. I could outline
this whole thing. I can cover them completely in little bits of
twinkling white fur, but then he wouldn't
look black anymore. You need to be careful
how much you use. If you feel like
you are the type that could go a
little overboard, go ahead and stop, put your hand behind your back, give it a good look, and then decide if you want
to move forward or not. That can be a good
challenge for you. I'm always careful to
not forget any areas. I don't want to
cover it completely, but I also want to address that. Yeah, it's not like I
forgot his back paw. There's some highlights
on that too, but be careful to
just not do too much. Finally, I'm going to add
a few blades of grass. I'm not sure I'm crazy about it, but I felt like we
really needed it with this really bizarre
posture he's got. Nice bright green to pull
out the greens in his body.
9. Black & White Part 1: Here's my penguin. He is all drawn out on
Canson watercolor paper. I like this inexpensive
brand of paper. It's 140 pounds and you can get it for under $10 at most
big-box stores. Pretty amazing. Now, I like to work wet on wet, which means that I load up
my brush and then put in little pools into where I'm
going to place my paint. What makes this so wonderful
and amazing is that then I drop in the paint and
it just bleeds in. If you have ever been taken by watercolor painting
on Instagram, it was probably using this method where you
create this cool, this beautiful area where
you can drop your paint in, especially if it's
a fluid paint, it's definitely going to
move around beautifully, and that way you have more of a natural blend on
that big belly of his. Now I'm only using
a touch of yellow because it's really easy
for it to get out of hand. If you haven't noticed, I really actually like saturated colors. If you feel like these
colors are too bright, you can use a more muted tone and that would be just
taking a little bit of the yellow with your
watery brush and then combining it with
something a little tone down. It could be a very
little bit of blue. It could be a very little
bit of violet so that you're really
counteracting the yellow and it becomes a gray. The reason that
we're starting with the yellow and then letting
this dry completely, which is really difficult to do, is that once this dries and we're going to
put in the dark, if we put in the dark first, the black of the penguin, it would end up bleeding once we touched it with
any other color. With watercolor, you're always working from light to dark. Big brush to a little brush, big areas to smaller areas, big masses, big swooshes, to small little details.
10. Black & White Part 2: [MUSIC] At this point, the penguin is dry, so I feel totally confident
bringing in my black. Now, I don't like to
use straight black. What I typically do is mix all of the colors
that I have on my palette and create a
rich black that actually, when it's watery in some areas, you can see hints of different colors
and it's pretty cool. If you are trying to create
a rich black like this, instead of going
to straight black, combine your cool colors,
your warm colors. For instance, if we're
starting with yellow, violet is a great way to go. As I was saying,
those counteract each other on the color wheel. I'm using a lot of blue
because that's what I had. It's also got more of
a cool feeling to it. The brush that I'm using
is a nice, round brush. It has a nice thin tip, but a lot of body to it. Meaning that I've got
a lot of hairs to load up with water and paint. I always like to start in whatever area makes me feel
like I need some progress. At this point, my penguin
is feeling really messy, and so I'm more attracted to creating a little
bit of order, which is why I'm starting
with the beak and the eye, being careful to leave some white area for a
little bit of a glimmer, a little bit of a shine to
define that beak from the eye. By far, the hardest
thing to do with birds of any sort is the eye, because when you think about it, there's not much to their faces except an eye or some
eyes and a beak, so in this case, just one eye. [LAUGHTER] We want to be very careful about
working around that area, so it's nice and
clearly defined, and also once we get to the eye, you'll see me work
a little more, give it a little
extra attention. I missed a little yellow spot, so that's what I'm
working on there. But it's really fun
that this penguin is so color-blocked and the shapes
are really well-defined. It's almost like putting a
little jigsaw puzzle together. Back with the dark color, you can see how my so-called black is
becoming ultraviolet, and I'm totally down for it. If you feel like
your color palette is more muted, do use black. If you feel like your
colors are getting too wild, add brown. Just anything that will
knock it back a little bit, but brown is going to
be the easiest way to neutralize any colors
that are getting too wild. I paint my way, you
paint your way. I'm only going to teach you the way that I do
it, the way I know how, the way I love to paint
because that's my passion, but that doesn't mean
that you need to paint it exactly the way I do. As I fill in all
these dark areas, and I have a little bit of a dry area coming
up to a wet area. I need to be careful to blend
them just a little bit. If you feel like you
have an area that's dry and it's coming
up to a wet area and you can really
see that ridge of where those are connecting
and it doesn't look natural, all you need to do is to
load up your brush with a little bit more
water and it will reactivate the
paint that is dry. Something wonderful
about watercolor and it tends to be a little
bit of a misnomer, it is not a one-shot deal. You can rework watercolor, you can fix mistakes
and you can layer. It just takes a
little re-wetting, it takes good quality paper, and a little control over
the pressure of your brush. Now, I feel like I'm throwing
a lot of lessons at you. It's just that I could spew watercolor talk all
day [LAUGHTER] long. But pressure when it comes to painting is really important. It's basically, your
brush is an extension of your hand and so
as your hand moves, so your brush should. The more that you paint, the more you'll be able to
control your brush strokes and feel this brush is truly
an extension of your hand. When we apply it gently
to that middle part, the tip will just follow nicely and it's a little
play on control. If you paint with
watercolor at all, you totally understand
that to some extent, this is a partnership
between artist and medium, and what the paint brings to
the table is all its own. Sometimes you'll be surprised with what you end up
having [LAUGHTER] as a final product
and that's okay. If you love watercolor
as much as I do, you'll be all right
with the final result, but do realize that, yeah, sometimes it has a
mind of its own and to accept that and enjoy it. I'm going to finish up these dark areas
including the feet. The feet are really funny. To be quite honest, I've done a lot of birds and you can see them in a book that I compiled from my challenge to myself to paint a bird
in each of the Dr. Ph. Martin's paint colors of
the radiant saturated line and the feet are definitely
something that fall behind. I later created a class. If you'd like to head over
to Skillshare to my profile, you'll see it, it's
called color birds. I show you how to paint
a few different birds. But I ask that you not diss me for glazing over the
feet, quite quickly. [LAUGHTER] All right. Now that my dark areas are dry, I've loaded my brush
up with even more of that dark paint to bring
in even darker areas. If you went too
rich on your black and you really don't have anywhere to push
further, that's okay. You can add a little water
and lift the paint up with your brush or you can
leave it as a flat dark, and really when you
look at a penguin, you just see dark and
some light glares of the sheen of their coat and
we can bring that in later. I have a watered-down
application of my dark at this point to create just
a little bit of texture. At this point, I'm
really enjoying the little things that I
notice in the penguin's coat, bringing a little bit of
patterning in the texture. The way that I approach texture is in a structured pattern way. That's probably just
the influence of design in my work
as an illustrator. A fine artist might
be more attuned to looking at the actual texture on the penguin and
bringing in some of that realism or even hyper
realism into their painting. We're almost done
with this little guy. You can see all the
parts are filled in. I darkened his eye
just a little bit. I'm trying to push that
line between the beak, just as I did with
the flipper that has a little bit of
extra dark underneath, working really gingerly
around the eye [LAUGHTER] because
it is difficult. I came in with a slightly
bluer tint on the eye so that it would feel
a little different from the body that's mostly violet and I'm using
a very small brush, a size 2 round so
that I can really define some of those areas. Always, I like to
leave a little gap, a little glimmer in
the eye to twinkle, to bring in some of
that personality. Now that I have
this small brush, I can do a few touch-ups. Anything that I feel
is needed and now the smaller brush
can even create lines within the bigger lines. Not entirely, I like to
just leave some areas on their own so that there's this hierarchy that's
visually coming together. [MUSIC]
11. Black & White Part 3: My final step is with
the bright white. This Copic White
comes in kind of a nail polish container. I have gotten a bigger container
and it has dried on me, so I find it better
to actually buy small ones and replace
them as needed, plus give myself the freedom to just use the applicator as it is without pouring it
out into a palette. It's like a very
small brush, I mean, sometimes it gets a little goopy like any nail polish where the paint is running down
from the base of the wand. But all in all, it works pretty well, and then when I see that
little glop coming down in a little bubble then
I know I've got a bigger white area to touch. Then I use this like another
palette right on my page. The feet were very dark, creating just that little
highlight of a line over the tops of the feet really does a lot to show
a bit of definition. Then I'm just going
to focus on the face. Now, I go a little
overboard on the white, and like I said, it's not true, you can work on whatever you see as
mistakes in your painting. Sometimes you still
need to embrace them, but sometimes you can fix them. You can use a small brush that is clean with no paint
on it and just moist, so not wet, and use that as kind of
an eraser to collect a little excess of whatever you put on your page, wash it off. After you dab and wipe off, wash off your brush, dry it and you can use it again. So another white that
I really like to use is Pen White, that's Dr. Ph. Martin's brand as well. Pen White is a little chalkier so you can actually mix it with your paints and it has a little bit more
flexibility in that respect. But the brightest
white I have found to be this Copic White. I'm going to let our
penguin dry and scan him, put him into Photoshop and
clean him up real fast. I can't wait to show you how
easy this design will come together so that
you can use it for a variety of applications.
12. Metallic Backgrounds: This is my favorite part
because it's adding the icing to the cake
that gets all the credit. Of course, it's going
to be my favorite part. As you can see a
few samples here. Adding a metallic background really makes a huge difference. I challenged myself to create a rose gold with
this polar bear. I found that mixing the paints wasn't
really the sweet spot. It created a bronze, which I'm not against bronze, but I did not want a bronze. I wanted a rose gold. The way that I
achieve that was by first painting a pink layer, a coral layer, and then adding another layer once
it was dry of gold. After that, a few white
dots and it was perfect. Really simple background,
really easy to do. Simple art makes great
for hanging wall art. By creating the shapes in
the background that are like puzzle pieces to this art., it looks so different from the subject that it makes it
a little more interesting. I'm going to show
you how to paint the background on
the black panther. I'm going to show you
a different medium. I added some green grass
here. Didn't really like it. We're going to work with ink since I mentioned it
before with the polar bear, you didn't get to see it, but now we're going to go
with a more cool application as far as the color choices go. I'm going to do that
for two reasons. One, like I said, to show you a slightly different method, but also because I
want to cover up this green grass and
using watercolor, although we can clean up some
mistakes with watercolor, it's not true that
you can't change, but those are more like left
turns and slight stairs. Not really a complete
masking most of the time. I'm going to use ink which
will completely mask those little blades of grass that I'm not
that crazy about. I'm excited to dig in to
this panther background. I am going to use lots of
supplies just because I can. I've got my watercolor, metallic paints,
layer by MozArt. I like the range of the
different colors that are here. We have some really warm
and some very cool. A lot of other sets have
more variety in gold. If I know that I
want to do gold, then I might use that, but that's what I
appreciate about this set. Keep my options open. I'm going to use ink. These iridescent inks by Dr. Ph. Martin's are something that
I don't use very often, but they're like the
beacon to my piece. It's just fun. I'm using a really deep
blue and this violet, the names of these
colors are deep blue and violet. Can't miss them. I'm going to make a
really dark background to our panther while
leaving little pockets for, I don't know, maybe the moon. Let's do that. Let
me work in layers. First, I'm going to start
with the watercolor. The inks will not allow me
to work on top of it later. Right now I'm going to do
these different bubbles. They're not the moon. That's too similar to our
elbow shape. There we go. What's great about creating these different shapes is I can choose to not
use them later. These are going to be masked. They are not going to be the
final shapes that we'll see. I just want to keep
my options open so I will just add a little
color here and there. Let this dry. Later, we can add
more on top of it. I'm going nuts, I'm just
using all the colors. Let's use all the colors.
I'm in the mood now. Going to let that dry and
then I'll come back with ink. My watercolor stage
is almost dry, I'll be honest, it's
not completely dry, but I'm just not that patient. There's a part of it that is
dry, so I'll start there. I like to use bottle
caps to contain my ink. When you put ink on a palette, unlike watercolor, you won't be able to take it out
again once it's dry. I reuse bottle caps and that way I can feel okay throwing
them out afterwards. I'm starting with the violet
on this side and actually, we're going to use a lot of it because it's going to
cover a lot of ground. I'm first going to
start with masking, where I want to show
bits of this yellow. I could even show
bits of the white. This is going to look like snow. Now that I think of it, I don't think I want that so I'm not going to
do too many of these. That's okay because
we're just going to mask right over it with the ink. Now, I'm going to layer
these inks like I did the rose gold
for the polar bear. Because I find that, one, it just creates a
more richer color, just like I've been
teaching you throughout this class when it comes
to creating darks. Layering color is always a
truer way of looking at dark. Also that way, I can see
these colors blend and have a little bit more
of a night sky look. I'm being careful
with my brushstrokes because they are going
to show through. When you're working
with a metallic paint, it can easily show where your brushstrokes
are because you have these
shimmery textures. Like I said, you have more
blenders in your paint. Those blenders show brushstrokes because we're not just
dealing with full-on color, we're dealing with the glue
that holds it together. I'm imagining myself
as a Van Gogh doing brushstrokes around in swirls because I want my brushstrokes to
look intentional. I think we've all
seen a piece where the brushstrokes are visible. It's obvious they
were just timidly going around certain
areas and coming up to corners and edges that dictated the way that their brush worked,
but I don't want that. I want what dictates
the way my brush moves to be part of what tells
the story of my painting. Getting into the parts
that aren't quite dry yet, which is fine because I'm
running low on this violet. I'm going to shift gears
and bring in the deep blue. You may have noticed that
I put a sheet of paper underneath my painting
because again, inks will not go away. I do not want to paint
my desk with them. Not quite going for that really busy artsy
splattered desktop just yet. I'll surrender to
it when I have to. Let's try the deep
blue on top of especially the dry areas. I'm going to use
some gold flakes. It's a loose gold
powder called bronze. Look at how decadent that is. This guy is going to
be well decked out. I actually like to use
it randomly like this. But in order to
cover this ground, I'm going to put
it right in here. Since this is loose, it needs to be mixed in
with another medium, an agent, to carry it
through onto the paper. So delicious. Have I done this before? No. Doesn't stop me though. I honestly thought
I was just going to use watercolor metallics, but I'm feeling a little
adventurous today. At the end of the day, you
know what I'm going to do? I think what we need
here is not blue. I think we need black. Let's bring in black sparkle. That's literally the name. Sometimes these get
really clogged with inks. I tell you I was
feeling gutsy or what? Let's do this. Golly,
it looks so good to me. I mean, I know what it's
going to look like. Right now it does
not look that great, but [LAUGHTER] my mind's eye. Oh, buddy, I covered
your other paw. My mind's eye knows what's
going to happen here. It looks great in my mind's eye. I'm not using a lot of mediums, so you feel that you need them. I just think that it's
fun and it's an advantage within these online
classes to be able to see how things pan
out for someone else before I go out and
buy the materials myself. If you like what you see, you know what you want
to buy to recreate it to a moody little cloud. I don't know. We're
just playing in here. Clean your brush off. I like to twirl it up against
the edge of the glass. You might still need to use a brush cleaner to
clean it thoroughly. Since ink can be well, pretty damaging to a brush. That was fun, I think what's
left is to let it dry. If you do use these
loose bronze particles, just spray it afterwards with a clear coat to keep
them stuck to the page. [MUSIC]
13. Quick Polish in Photoshop: [MUSIC] I have my penguin scanned and he's
looking pretty dapper. Now, when you scan, you'll realize that you have some extra little marks
of dirt around here. Instead of worrying about those, I typically just don't. I'm going to do
this very quickly, so pause me if you need to. The first thing
that I always do, I hit Command L, hit levels, choose the white
marker, white dropper, and drop it on the widest area that automatically
color corrects. Then I take out the magic wand. I changed the tolerance to 25, the only two times the two
numbers that you're going to use for tolerance 25 or 255. So it's really convenient. Now with 25, I select
the white area and you can see how the scanner
picked up some dirt around. Now I'm just going to
look for the selection. Picking up on anything
that doesn't need to be as part of the selection. That typically happens right
on the corner, on the edges. If you are working with something that is
much higher contrast, you can increase the tolerance
to be a bigger number. But for the purposes
of simplicity and to keep it to 25 and 255, I'm going to double click on my layer so that I can delete. Just to show you what might
have been left behind, even though it looks so pristine and I put a stroke
on that just to show you you don't need to do that
with the Magic Wand again and change the tolerance to 255 and I make sure that
contiguous is clicked. Now that contiguous
is clicked and I clicked on just my penguin, this is all I want. Right now I can either select the inverse and delete that and basically delete everything
that's not selected. Or I can just hit Cut command X and paste and there
I have my penguin. This layer is now all
the other dust and things that we really
don't need can hit Delete and delete that. Now I'm going to crop my penguin into just
be the penguin. It's nice and easy for us
to make a pattern with him. Something that I
like to do to make sure that I crop
it just right and don't like crop off
a little bit of his beak or whatever is. I hit Command and then
click on the layer. Now my penguin is selected, I hit C for crop. Right now it's at V for arrows, c for crop, and it'll come in just right there. It's perfect. It returned and we've
got our penguin. Create a background layer. Just added a quick layer and put it underneath
the penguin. Double click on your
colors and select whatever color you might
like for your penguin. I'm going to give
him a green screen. That weird, reason
is that then I know that in Spoonflower I can
change the background color. If it's a gaudy color
that's not part of my art, then I can select it on the Spoonflower
but what have you, can select it much easier. I chose that green. Now, I'm going to hit Alt, Delete to fill that
layer with that green. Now he's ready to
go to Spoonflower. I can save them as a
Photoshop file or as a JPEG just for flexibility and he's ready
to go into Spoonflower. [MUSIC]
14. Fabric Repeat in Spoonflower: I am on spoonflower.com where I can
upload my design so easily. On my JPEG, I hit terms and conditions without
reading it and upload. Now what's absolutely
wonderful about Spoonflower is that
you don't need to know all the things on
how to create or repeat, the website will do it for you. It automatically goes
to a grid format. You can see how they're tiled. You can do a half-drop,
you can do a brick, you can do these different
types of repeats. It's basically how you're
going to set your tile apart. Now I chose half-drop because it has a fun flow to
our cool penguin. You can rename it, you can set it up for sale
if you would like to. But what I really want to do is, I just want it for myself. All I want to do is to change that background color to
be what I want it to be. Then I can have it printed and sent to my house to make whatever
I want to make out of it. My first step is going to be to change the background color, go up here to change colors. What it'll do is, it'll show you your existing art and you select which color
you want to replace. I definitely want to
replace the green. Again, it's very different, so it's not going to
select any of my penguin. I'm going to try a couple
of different colors. Yellow, didn't like that. I ended up with a nice cool aqua because we are
doing a cool penguin, and I have my
fabric ready to go. You can play with scale if
you want your penguin to be this big or this big and
repeat over and over again, that's up to you. Order your fabric
and you're done. You can also make it wallpaper. This is not an advertisement
for Spoonflower, I'm just that excited about all the ways
that I can tell you. You can just do it today and have your penguin
fabric shipped to you. It's so fun.
15. Technicolor Show & Tell: It is 100 percent true
that I enjoy teaching. It's something that
brings my creativity into full circle when I can go from creating things that I like and enjoy to sharing
what I've learned, solidifying it in my brain and inspiring others in some way. I really feel privileged that
you want to watch my class, that you chose to paint expressive little
animals with me here, and I want to see what you do. I want to see your animals. You don't have to
post all of them. If you didn't do all of them, you can just post
your exercises. I would love to see what different combinations
you come up with. I have enjoyed the ones
I've come up with, but I'm always surprised
to see what others do. So surprise me, it'll be fun. I want to see your animals, and I want to see if
any of you care to repeat them and create
fabric with them because I find that
so fun and exciting. I hope you've
enjoyed this class. Do tell me what you
enjoyed about it, and let me know in your
review what that was. You can always find me at my
website, watercolordevo.com. Watercolor is felt the
American way, devo, D-E-V-O, stands short
for devotional, the way that I started
painting again, especially where I started painting in a way
that's free and fun, full of life, and full of
the things that I value. My website can also be
amarilyshenderson.com and you can find me on
Instagram as watercolordevo. Reach out and subscribe
to my Tip Tuesdays, I think you'll like them
if you're into painting. Weekly I send out tips and tutorials right in your inbox
every week on Tip Tuesdays. Then something that
I'm pretty proud of because I've heard a
lot of great feedback from you guys about how much you enjoy receiving
your Tip Tuesdays. Until next time, I've really enjoyed getting to
teach you again black and white animals that
are expressive and colorful. Let me know if you
actually went through all the wonderful trouble to create your own
repeating design. I want to see it
and keep in touch right here on Skillshare
and on my website.
Amarilys Henderson, Watercolor Illustrator, Design Thinker
