Expressive Modern Watercolor: Painting Natural Items

1. Introduction: Hi, my name is Molly Parker. And today we're going to use watercolor to illustrate milkweed seed pods. Will study these pods, sketch several of them in various stages of ripening, and paint them with watercolor in a loose and expressive way. During this class, you'll learn about drawing techniques that help you to sketch natural items using masking fluid in a deliberate way that allows for peace of mind while painting in a loose, expressive way. Various watercolor techniques in layering. Wet on wet, wet on dry, and dry on dry. Take you from large fake shapes at the beginning to smaller and finer details towards the end. And finally, how to use a white ink pen to pick out incredibly small and fine highlights and details. That'll be very difficult to accomplish with masking fluid and watercolor alone. I hope that you join me in the next lesson where we'll start the journey of illustrating this wispy, intricate seed pod with expressive watercolor techniques. 2. Class Project: In this lesson, we're going to cover your class project will be going from a blank page to a sketch, to a beautiful expressive watercolor illustration of milkweed seed pods. In my previous floral watercolor class, we painted this showy milkweed. I mentioned how beautiful and wonderful their seed pods are. These pods are from that very same bush. They had been forming and ripening all summer. And while on a walk, I saw a wonderful cloud of the silky seeds floating on the wind. And knew that I had walked by at just the right time. I was able to harvest a few pods at different stages of opening. And they are what we're going to be using as our subject today. The project for this class will be to take a sheet of watercolor paper, sketch one or all of the milkweed seed pods, and paint it with a watercolor techniques that you'll see in this class. In the next lesson, we'll be going over all of the materials that I recommend you use and what will be needed to complete this project. I'll see you there. 3. Initial Sketches: In this lesson, we're going to briefly study all of our found milkweed seed pods. Think about how we want to organize them on the page and then lay down our sketches. These sketches are going to be the foundation for our watercolors. So there's no need to go into extreme detail. Think about these sketches as notes to yourself about the look and positioning of the pods, as well as any texture that you really want to include. In this lesson, we're going to be starting out by doing our sketches. One of the first and most important things that you should be doing if you are drawing anything natural, is to study the thing that you're going to be drawing. Here we have these milkweed seed pods. And the first thing that we're doing is looking at them. So we just looked at this one. This one was completely opened and you're going to set it down in front of you and you'll be looking at it the whole time. And you can either use a milkweed seed pod of your own or some of the pictures which I've included. So as you can see here, I'm drawing the shape of the seed pod itself. And it's very vague at first, right now all you're trying to get down is sort of the major lines of the seed pod itself. And you can see I've done the outside of it. And right now I'm drawing sort of notes for myself later on as we're going to be doing painting. But right now we're just drawing the outlines. Very vague details, some ideas of the texture. Like right now you can see I'm putting in some of the sort of spiky, fuzzy texture that you can see. I'm also drawing the lip there that is a different color and a different texture. And these are all going to be covered up by watercolor. One of the things that you want to do is just try to replicate the actual shape of the item that you're seeing in front of you. Because this is more the essence of what it will look like. And if you don't have the basic shape down, then it won't really look like this thing that you're trying to draw. And I found that to be completely true with all natural materials that you draw. Mushrooms, acorns leaves, anything with these seed pods even more so because it's this interesting yet somewhat abstract looking object. Make sure that you have it down so that people that have seen it before will know what it is. You've see, you can see here I've drawn a little bit of notes for myself for shading, and we'll take that on for watercolor. And the next seed pod that we have is a completely open. It's actually just starting to open and you can see the texture, you can see the color. You can actually see the opening with the seeds inside. And so we're really examining it. Think about how you want to place it in front of you and what side you'd like to draw. So okay, so we've looked at it. Let's go ahead and find a good place for it. We'll go ahead and start sketching. I'll go ahead and speed this process up a little bit just so that we can get through all of them. We have five seed pods and we're going to be drawing all five. So you can see the first thing I did was I am putting down the major lines, the outside shape and now the shape of the opening. I'm going to put the lip down. And then once we get this texture and these notes of where to shade it, we're going to add the seeds on the inside. And one of the things about the seed pod is just how beautiful and detailed and meticulous it is. And so though I think that watercolor is very good and as an expressive kind of painting with these seed pods, you really need to have that very detailed, very organized seat structure. And you can see as I'm drawing it in right now, you can't really just expressively put it in. It wouldn't, it wouldn't capture how a milkweed seed pod is. And so what we'll do is we'll add quite a bit of shading and different colors. Did he seeds to show how they're overlapping? So we'll be doing that when we go into the watercolor section of it. But you can see I am doing quite a bit of detailed drawing here just to, just to tell myself, later on while I'm painting how to put these seeds and where the shadows are and where the highlights are. So that looks pretty good. And the next seed pod that we're going to do is actually open and most of the seeds have deployed. As you can see here, the inside part of the seed pod is very beautiful. It's almost like a, like a gill shaped our envelope, I think is what I think of when I see it. I have these seeds and you can see just how beautiful they are. The filaments of the silk is just a joy to behold with the eyes. And so we're going to be doing this part with the seed pods are with the seeds and the filaments are going to be, we're going to use masking fluid on that later to preserve the white of the page because you just can't get white with watercolor. So the white that you get with watercolor is pristine page. And so that's what we'll use masking fluid for. And as you can see, we're going to go right into it, the outside shape, just so that we get the idea of where everything's going to be laid out. And we'll get the things which are seemingly most important. After that, we get the texture. This gill shaped envelope on the inside where the seeds are held before they're deployed was what I thought was absolutely beautiful with this particular seed pod. You can see just how they are so intricately packed in there. And so I went ahead and I found this one for that specifically. So let's go ahead and draw that. And you can see I've got just the idea of how there are slats there, where the seeds are held. So let's go ahead and draw in some of those seeds. And you can see I'm doing just an idea of the directionality of the silk filaments coming off of the seeds and how they're moving away from the seed pod itself. It's interesting because the seed pod actually opens at the base and then it curls backward to have so that the seeds come out in that direction. I think where you place the seed pod is actually really important because you get to see how they're deployed in real life. And so we have the seed heads towards the base of it. And then you can see the filaments going backwards. And that's how they come out. And since these are mostly gone, you can kinda see how they're held in there and then how they leave the pot itself. If you've never held a milkweed seed pod, it is wonderful. It is so pretty to see them all fly away. It's like a dandy lion except way better. So let's go ahead and finish. We're still doing notes on this drawing. The inside is a very interesting, sort of shiny texture. So we're making notes of where the shade is going to be. And then let's go ahead and put in some of this silk filament from the seeds. And these will be partially covered by masking fluid, as I said before. So we'll have a lot of the white page showing through. And you can see where the silk filaments are starting to curl outward, kind of like arms on a ladies dress or something. And so we'll go ahead and draw in the directionality of where the seed pods are going to be, where the seeds are going to be, and where the silk filament is going to be. And we'll add masking fluid in the next lesson. And what we have here is the silk filament has sort of comes across the seed pod. And so what I wanted to do was get away, get some of this, this edge of the seed pod away from it just so that you can see that the really bright white of the page. And so this is again a note for myself. This is where the masking fluid needs to be. And that will change how I painted later. We're going to have masking fluid in this painting, which allows for the white of the page to show through. And then at the end, we're also going to be using a white Jelly Roll pen to highlight some of the really fine strands that are coming away from the silk of the seeds. So we're going to have two different kinds of white, will have the white of the page. And then we'll have the white, very delicate lines on top of the watercolor. And it'll add a lot of dimension. You'll see at the end when we get to use the Jelly Roll pen. Okay, So here's the next seed pod that we're going to do. And you can see it's completely closed except for this slide is crack on the front. But what I want you to notice is this really interesting. The stock that's coming off of it. And you can see how it's sort of curls backward. And the seed pod is attached to that. It points downward, kind of like a like an upside-down bunch of bananas on the, on the milkweed bush itself. So that's the one that we're going to draw next. So I have it laid out right in front of me. And let's go ahead and start drawing it. Again. The first thing that we're going to lay down is the external shape of it. So what does the outside shape look like? One of the things that I wanted to get is the stem, the stem of this one. Since this is the only one that I got with a long stem. You can see I've got the shape of the pod on the outside. And then the next thing that we're going to do is add in that long beautiful stem and how it looks, how it would attach to the bush. So this is the slit of where the pod is just starting to open. You can see there's just a hint of the seeds within. And so we're going to draw this just that we know where exactly it is on the seed pod itself. And you can see the direction that I'm looking at the seed pod. You can see one side of the lip of the interior of the pod and not the other. So take note of that as you go on, as you paint your own, make sure that your, that your perspective is correct. And so I'm going to add a little bit of texture here. You can see there are some spikes. Then this here is the stem that's coming off of it. The stem curls around behind it. And then it sort of curls a little bit at the end because of how he pulled it off of the bush. But you can see this interesting bend here. And they all were like this on the bush. And so again, we're making notes to ourselves later for where shadows are going to be. Where the highlights will be. Just the directionality of the flow of the paint that we wanted to go in. So we have all of it nice and drawn. Let's go ahead and add a little bit more texture here. And we'll also add a shadow underneath the pod itself that it's sitting upon. Each one of these will have a shadow underneath it when we paint it. But this one specifically had a really interesting shadow on the table in front of me. So I think it's really important that we include it in the drawing, just that we make a note of how it how it was when we paint it. So you can see how it's right underneath it sort of sits. It looks like it's almost on top of a floating on top of the paper because how it was resting on the stem. So that one looks pretty good. That's probably all the information I'll need for painting it. And then let's see, go ahead and just take off a little bit of this. A little bit too dark there. Alright, let's go to the next seed pod. This one's a lot of fun because the seed pod itself is completely opened, but not all of the seeds are diploid. And so it's sort of just started fluffing open. And you can see just like I mentioned before, the directionality of the seeds as they unfurl. And you can see how they're all nicely packed in there. Just so delicate and almost like Dragon scales is what I thought of when I saw the seeds in here. But the most interesting part is just the fluffy silk filaments opening up, opening up in the back of it. So let's set that down in front of us and we'll go ahead and start our drawing. One of the things that we want to make sure of this time around is to take really careful note of where the silk filaments are so that we can have highlights there. We want to make sure that we get all of the highlights that we need with the masking fluid. Because once the masking fluid is dry and you go onto the watercolor stage, there's no getting white page back. So you have to plan that out at the very beginning. So you can see here again, I'm drawing the shape of the pod as the first thing. I've drawn one side and we'll kind of go to the other side here. I went ahead and did the opening of the pod first instead of the outside of the pod. Just because that seems more, more important with this one because of how all of the seeds are deploying. And you can see how it sort of flux outward at this interesting angle. And I think it's really important that you draw these. So I went ahead and drew pretty much, pretty much all of the ones that I saw. I left a few out just because they were far away from the pot itself. You can see the the curl and the directionality of the silk filaments. And we'll go ahead and meticulously add in each of the seeds as well. And it's a little bit of a process, but it really adds something to the final painting. When you have these hints of interesting, intriguing detail, like the seeds surrounded by this really expressive brushwork of watercolor that isn't necessarily detailed, but it's very interesting. It just is this really wonderful juxtaposition between intricate and sort of letting go of details. And I really like that in paintings. So though this part is a little bit meticulous and time-consuming, it is well-worth it for what the final painting will be. In the next lesson, we will be doing the masking fluid. So we're going to be laying it down on the silk filaments. And I'll show you some tips and tricks on how to get masking fluid to behave and how we're going to make it seem so delicate. Because one of the things with masking fluid is that it dries so quickly that sometimes it's difficult to have very fine brush strokes. And what you see instead is sort of large globules of white. And we don't necessarily want that with this painting because the silk is so fine and so beautiful. So I'll show you what we're going to do and I will see you in that lesson. 4. Adding Masking Fluid: In this lesson, we're going to be laying down our masking fluid. This will allow us to preserve the pristine white of the page even as we paint larger areas of wash. This allows us to paint with expression without the fear of accidentally covering some areas that must remain white. Masking fluid is a little tricky to work with, but peeling it off at the end and seeing that white page makes it so worth the effort and planning. In this lesson, we're going to be doing the masking fluid on the silk filaments. So really quick, Let's re-familiarize ourselves with the seed pod itself and where the silk is. What portions do want to keep completely white? And what portions do you want to have color coming through? You can see that there are a lot of places that are white and a lot of places that you can still see the seed pod and the background. So this is the masking fluid that will use. It's the Winsor and Newton art masking fluid. This is my favorite. I've used a few and I like this one the most. So this is what we'll be using. One of my first tips with masking fluid is don't treat it like a paint, try to treat it more like an ink. So what I have here is just a bamboo quill pen. And normally you'd use this for India ink. But if you use this for the masking fluid, you can get these very fine almost pen strokes. And I've found that that is the best look for, for this type of painting. So you can see I'm touching down and very delicately brushing upward and outward for these strokes. And these are going to be some of the filaments that are sort of flying away. And then we'll add a little bit more more masking fluid to have more white paper showing through towards the inside of the pod or of the seed. And so you can see, I'm dipping regularly because this stuff dries really quickly. And so even if you lay down a small stroke on the page and then you can go back and you try and go over that section. Sometimes the outside portion will have already started to dry and so you'll start peeling off the masking fluid from before. And so just be very careful as you brush this on the page because it's just masking fluid. I think it's one of those things that everyone is sort of hates but loves. And so we're going to be doing all of these. And then we'll move on to the other seed pods that need highlights as well. As you can see, I'm dipping straight into the tub of masking fluid itself. I'm not going to be doing this for very long. And so I felt like it was okay to just dip directly in there. But if you're going to be using masking fluid for a long time, Let's say you have a lot of details to cover. Pour a little bit of masking fluid into a separate container instead of having your masking fluid jar open. Because it will form sort of a dry film on top because it starts to dry right out of the jar. And sometimes you'll get big lobbies of chunks of rubber inside there and that doesn't work out well. So we're just stepping straight into the jar because we're just going to have it open for a little while. And you can see I'm adding some really fine brushstrokes even to the inside here where there are a few seeds remaining. And just sort of give the hint of the shape of the seed and the silk that's coming off of it. Because if you look at the seat itself and you look at the filaments, There's a really pretty sheen to them. There are really only some highlights. So it's not like the entire fluff ball is going to be white because that's not actually what you're seeing. That's not what it looks like. So you can see here, I'm doing the same thing with this other one. But you can see the lines are starting to get a bit thicker. So I want to show you a trick. These masking fluids will dry on the tip of your quill. And so you'll have this little ball and it'll make your brush strokes much larger. And so periodically as you're putting down masking fluid, pull those little balls off and it'll allow you to have fine strokes again. So one thing that I noticed while I was using masking fluid, as you can see, I'm doing fine strokes, sort of quick strokes as you lay it down. Because you want it to look wispy. You want it to be sort of fatter towards the seed and then finer as it goes away because that's how the silk actually looks in real life. It's sort of a fly away look. And we're going to add a little bit of highlights within the pod to the seeds that are inside and not yet deployed because you could see there was a bit of shine surrounding some of the dark brown seeds. I thought that was just so pretty to see the dark brown of the seed and the intricate details there. And then see these wonderful white highlights, this shiny material underneath. So we're almost done here. We might need a few more. Let's add some highlights inside of the seed pod again, just to have enough. And that looks pretty good. Alright, I think that's done. So let's go ahead and get our caps onto our masking fluid jars. And the final thing to do is to wait until it's dried completely. So I'm going to enjoy my tea. And you guys have fun waiting for yours to dry. I'll see you in the next lesson. 5. Initial Base Wash: In this lesson, we're going to be laying down an initial light base wash. This will allow us to have contrast between the white silk filaments are the seeds and the paper. You don't have to use the same colors as I do for the background. So choose what you'd like. Coming back. We're going to make sure that all of our masking fluid is completely dry. So make sure that there are no pockets of masking fluid that are dry on top for wet underneath. Because one of the problems with masking fluid is if you use a natural fiber brush like this Kolinsky brush and you get masking fluid on it, it will completely destroyed. And so be very cautious and make sure that your masking fluid is completely dry before adding watercolor. So we're going to use this lesson to put a base wash down. So we're going to put some nice color behind the seed pods just to allow them to really pop. I think that having them on white would be nice if it wasn't for the silk filaments being white. And so we're going to lay down some nice color underneath there just so that the white pops even more. So I've mixed some Payne's gray and a little bit of sepia, and we're going to add this color underneath the seed pod here. And you can see I'm going to of the pod but not on it because we don't necessarily want this blue to be on the pod. And you'll want to work somewhat quickly so that you don't have too many blooms. I think that watercolor blooms are absolutely gorgeous. But sometimes you want it to be more consistently smooth. You can see I'm laying it down rather quickly, not super precisely. What I want to have is expressive strokes here. So you can see the, you can still see the stroke of the paintbrush. You don't want to have it to be perfect, but you want it to be covering all of the white that you need it to be covering. So we could do white on the entire pay or we could do blue on the entire white of the page. But I wanted to add some different colors to have the different seed pods pop in a different way. And so I thought it would be nice for a couple. And then we can also try brownish and more of a gray color. So you can see we'll add slightly different colors underneath each of the pods. So this next one is very interesting because we need to depict these seeds as they fly out. So we have the masking fluid in place, but we're still going to leave some additional whitespace open. So as you can see as I paint over where the masking fluid, as you can see there, how it just pushes the paint away. So beautiful. But we're also not going to be painting completely inside where there is no masking fluid. So we have these wonderful brushstrokes. And you'll see as we go more towards the interior. So you can see the shape of the silk filaments as they push out and they make that nice bell-shaped look around the around the body of the seat. And so we're gonna go ahead and do all of it all around the seed pod. That looks nice. And you can see here, we're going to fill in some of these areas and you can see these more expressive brush strokes. So I want to leave some of the areas white, and I want some of them to be white because of the masking fluid. So that looks that looks pretty good. I like that. Okay, so let's go ahead and move on to the next seed pod. Let's add a little bit more sepia to this one. Have more of a gray instead of a blue. And we'll add some more water just to make sure that we have enough of this paint as we put it down. And since these are so close, let's go ahead and include these as the same area. So we'll add some here and we'll also add some to the, to the top middle part as well. And you can see how I'm going completely around the pod. We want to have a nice consistent back color. And then later on we're going to be adding a bit of a shadow underneath each of the seed pods. So this is going to be just a color to have to allow the silk filaments to pop. And then later on we're going to add the shadow. So this one I wanted to really focus on making sure again that all of your masking, it is completely dry. And I'm adding a little bit more of a cool gray color as a backdrop. And as you can see, I'm brushing outward and being quite meticulous about this one. I really liked the seed pods. I wanted to make sure that I put a little bit of extra effort into it. So we're going to go around and you can see how it's sort of moving around where the spikes are going to be. And what we're going to do here is allow some of the paint to pool, to allow for some nice blooms to happen. Then you can see I'm going around where each of the seeds are r. And then you can see the masking fluid push away the paint. And we're going to have some more, more curved line painting inside of where the silk is. So let's go ahead and finish the outside of where we need to paint first. And let's have some good pools of paint leftover and have some blooms around the pod. And then we're going to move on to the interior where the silk is. And so you can see, I need a little bit more color here. And here we go. We're going to move this way and just sort of brush around it. Because as the silk opens up, it allows more color to be seen from behind it. So I'm really contouring the exterior shape of it. And then we're going to have these nice fine brushstrokes on the interior just to show where the colors coming through would be. Okay, so this is almost done. And in the next lesson, we'll be laying down our first wash on the pots themselves. And so I will see you in that lesson. 6. First Wash - Pods: In this lesson, we're going to be laying down the base wash of the pods. Keep in mind while you're putting this wash down, that this is what is going to be your highlight color. So don't go too dark. We will be adding depth with darker and more saturated paints as our painting progresses. So one of the first things that I want to do in this lesson is go back and really look at Our seed pods again. I want you to look at the texture, look at the different colors of it. You can see how some of it is this very vibrant green still, but some has changed mostly to brown or almost a grayish brown. And you can see on this one specifically as this nice long stem still. And there's a slit that is beginning to open where the seeds will come out. But really look at this texture, look at the spikes. And then you can see also beneath the spikes, the skin itself is quite fuzzy looking and it feels fuzzy. So let's go ahead and right now we're going to mix that nice, vibrant green color. So we'll go ahead and get some sap green. And you can see, I'm going to get quite a lot of it because what's really nice about painting natural materials that are all the same. So multiple seed pods is that I'll be using this sap green for this seed pod, but also for some of the other ones. So you get to mix color and use it multiple times. So let's make sure that we have plenty of this color. So I got some nice sap green and a lot of water. And let's go ahead and get a little bit more of a bluish green. That looks nice. And you can see that, that really brightens it up a little bit. We want it to be a very light wash. We don't want it to be dark or super vibrant because this is going to be the highlight color that's going to show through at the very end. So as you begin, what you want to do when you start is have very large washes of light, not very much pigment paint on the page. And this is going to cover a lot of space. And then as you progress through the painting, what you'll do is the pigment itself will become more saturated. So you'll add more watercolor paint to the water, and you'll be doing smaller and smaller sections of the paper. So it will start out as these large, vague shapes. And then as you progress, there'll be more and more detail. Smaller and smaller areas will be painted. And you'll have a much darker paint, so much more pigment in the water that you're using. So as you can see here, we're going to be doing a wet on wet. So the page is wet with this nice vibrant, the nice light green. And we're adding this dark grayish sepia toned paint. And we're going to add this to the RD Web page and you can see bleeding, you can see how blooms very nicely. So let's go ahead and add a little bit more of this green to the stem. We're going to need some to cover up this white of the page here. And let's mix a little bit more. Oh, that looks very nice. And you can see how the paint just sort of spreads out on the page where it's wet. And that is exactly what you want at the beginning. So you want to have these nice very fluid strokes. And you can see it does look a lot like how the seed pod is in real life. So again, let's go ahead and move on. Touch your page. Make sure that there is no masking fluid that's still wet. It needs to be completely dry. So let's go back and let's look at the seed pod. Just sort of look at the colors, look at the texture, look at the positioning of things. We're going to be working on the interior gill that holds the seat. So you can see the color is quite orange, very nice, and it has sort of ridges in it where the seeds are held. So let's go ahead and mix a paint color for that one. What we're going to do is, let's see, let's grab some of this sienna. And you want it to be quite a bit more vibrant. We'll add a little bit of red to it and mix it together. That looks really nice. A little bit more yellow, that looks nice. Okay, so again, this is going to be the base wash, so this will be the highlight color that'll peek through at the end. So let's put it down on the entire portion of this interior. I call it a seed envelope. So let's put it down on that. And this area is going to be wet. So let's leave the color and let it dry. And you can see that's a really nice shade for that. And let's add just a little bit more just to make it a bit more even and be careful of dog hairs. If anyone out there has a dog. You know what I mean? And let's move on to this next seed pod. And I really liked this one. It really shows how beautiful the inside is. And also the outside. The outside is very spiky and fuzzy. But the inside has this beautiful smooth sheen. Go ahead and admire the colors and think about the colors because that's what we're going to be painting. This nice green is great. And then you can see the brown where it started to try out. And the inside is almost a greenish gold you can see. And there's this highlight that you can see from the light on the inside. I really like the seed pod. Okay, so let's go ahead and mix an inside color. I want it to be pretty, pretty light-colored because again, this is going to be the base. This is the highlight that will show through at the end. That's looking pretty good. Let's make it a little bit more golden. And that's just right. So go ahead and coat the entire interior of the seed pod. And you can see the water is pulling a little bit. That's fine. Later on we're actually going to take out some of it with a dry brush. But just let the pigment spread on the page and you can deal with anything else later. Let's add some green. That's really nice. Because you can see some of the inside still has a little bit of green, not quite completely dried out. That's really nice. And a little bit of dark because of the shadow there. All that looks great. Don't you love it when watercolor just works out well? Alright, I'm liking that. I think that's gonna be just right. So let's try off our brush and we'll move on to the next one. Let's look at it. So you can see here, this one is not completely opened, but it's more open than the first one that we painted. You can see on the outside it's still kind of green. But you can see almost all of the seeds are packed in there just so perfectly. And you can see the texture. You can see the green and the blue, the dusky gray color. Then on the inside you can see the shiny silk filaments of the seeds Not quite ready to come out yet. But it's wonderful to see how perfectly the seeds are just packed in there. I thought they looked like a dragon scales or snake skin or something. Okay, so let's mix the colors for that. Let's get some more of this good sap green mixture here. And let's see, maybe a little more water. That's better. Alright? And you can see we're just going to lay down again. We're going to lay down the whole wash and we'll add a little bit of color after the page is wet. So you can see the water will pull slightly but don't be too concerned. It'll dry and it'll leave really beautiful blooms on the page. It's exactly what we want for this kind of painting. So make sure that there is water on all of the page so that we can do a little bit of wet on wet with this nice gray. That looks really nice. That's great. And sort of play with it. If you think that it looks nice. Maybe add a little bit more. If you think there's not enough color or if it's too light, just just add a little more It's nice to play with. And then now that we've done that, let's go back and the center portion of this pod is dry. So let's go ahead and add just a little bit of this gray to the outside of the pod here. It doesn't have to be exact. We are avoiding some of the white area where the seed filaments are. Just to have that white page show through. And let's add a bit of green. That's really nice, I like that. And add it to the top portion here. You want to make sure that you can see all of the exterior of the parties has some color. Okay. Let's take up some of these little pools of paint. Sometimes it's just a little bit too much. And if you don't want major blooms, just take off some of the excess water pools, take a dry brush and it'll just suck it up. That looks really nice. Yeah, that looks just right. Alright, so let's move on to this last one. And now this one is really my favorite. You can see all of the seeds and how they're deployed. You can see that the directionality of them, how they sort of fluff downward. And as you see them on with my hand behind it, you can see the color coming through, so it's not completely opaque, it's, it has some transparency as well. But then inside there where the seed pods, where the seeds are still packed in, you can see how shiny and white it is and how thick they look. So beautiful. You should definitely be looking at your subject as much as you can while you're painting and natural item. So I feel it's very important to go back and really reference what it is that you're painting or drawing. If it's a photo, that's fine. But if you have the actual item in front of you, that is the absolute best because you can turn it and rotate it in a way that you wouldn't be able to if you didn't have the physical item in your hand. So let's go ahead and we're going to add some of this sepia, grayish, brownish color to the outside of this pod. And that looks really nice. Make sure that you add it to where the spikes are going to be as well. You want to cover all of the page. You don't want to have white showing through where it isn't necessarily supposed to be. And if you have a base layer that is consistent, then it really helps when you're adding more details later on. Alright, let's add a little bit more color here on this pod since it's dry on the inside now, you need to be careful when one place is dry and the other place isn't. If you make contact with the wet area, your new paint will flow onto that just like a wet on wet paint will. That is looking really nice. Let's add a little bit to the interior of this seed pods since the middle portion is dry. And you can see I'm just dabbing it on. It's a much lighter wash, will be adding some more darker, more vibrant colors later on. But this part, I think looks just really nice. We've got almost all of it covered. And this is a very good starting point, a good base for moving on from here. So I look forward to doing more painting with you guys. I'll see you in the next lesson. 7. Adding Color to Silk: In this lesson, we'll be adding a hint of color to the silica, the seeds. In real life, they're very bright with not much shadow. So don't go overboard. Start by mixing a nice sort of yellowish color for the interior portion of the silk filaments. And you can see that this wash is incredibly light. We're just going to put down some very, very fake shadows in this. If you look at the seed pod itself, you can see that in the interior portion where the silk filaments are still together because sort of bunching together. There's sort of a creamy yellow color in there. And so that's what we're adding. We're going to add these slight shadows, these sort of warmish shadow undertones. So let's go ahead and we're going to add a little bit of this, this Payne's gray. And we'll add some of this to the silk filaments here on this top one. And you can see just sort of make these smaller brushstrokes that really accentuate the curves of the silk filaments as they plume out and don't completely coat everything, just some small, slight shadows as you go. And this will really add dimension as we move on. If everything were to be completely white, it would look rather flat when we were done. But by adding this, this yellow and the gray shadows to the silk will make it really pop at the end. Especially when we get to pull off the masking fluid and reveal that white underneath it will be absolutely beautiful. So you can see I'm adding some of this creamy color and we're going to put it just, just where the shadows would be in the seed pod. And we'll avoid the seeds, the seeds themselves, those will be brown later on, but sort of work around. And again, don't be too cautious because we do have that masking fluid lay down. So there will be white page leftover even if you paint the whole thing. So let's also add some color to this last one. And there wasn't a lot of silk filament showing inside of the seed pod because it wasn't open very far. So let's go ahead and just put some of this color around the seeds. And just to add some dimension to it. I think that looks really nice. We don't wanna go too overboard. I think that looks great. All right, Let's go ahead and move on to the next lesson. 8. Texture to Pods: In this lesson, we'll be adding our initial texture to the outside of the seed pods. What we paint here will be the spikes and that fuzziness that you see on the exterior of the pods. This is where everything starts to get really fun. So what we're going to do is let's mix a nice, a more vibrant golden yellow color. And we're going to use our finer size three round brush. And let's add some of this really nice color to the opening edge of the seed pod. So we're going to have this sort of, It's a dry feeling colors. So let's add that to the whole edge there. And you can see, I'm leaving a lot of pigment on the page. It's quite yellow. And what we're going to be doing in this lesson is, like I mentioned before, we're going to be adding that spiky texture to the outside of the pods. So let's mix a little bit of a darker color. I mixed this nice Payne's gray with our sap green and sort of just create small short lines. So don't be too exacting as to where the spikes are going to be. Right now we're just adding the hint of texture and color. And then later on we're going to be putting in more, more dimension, will be adding more of a shadow and more of a highlight to these. And so you don't want to completely cover the page with this spike look. But you do want to have this very noticeable texture just like the outside of the seed pods in real life. So I added some, some more sepia to this Payne's gray and we're adding it. The outside of this seed pod. This seed pod here was a bit darker on this edge. So we're going to be making the spikes quite a bit darker. And make sure that you use the spikes to sort of break up that really sharp edge that we have between the base wash and then the side of the seed pod itself. So you can see it's going slightly outside of the lines. And let's make a nice dark green color. We're using again the sap green and a little bit of sepia. And we're going to use that for these pods up here. You should wait until the page is completely dry, otherwise you won't have that nice sharp line. You'll have more of a soft, fuzzy line because it will bleed with the rest of the webpage. And you can see sort of hold your brush farther away from the tip. And it'll allow you to have more of a fluid motion. You can more easily do these kinds of lines. It's also difficult because you're painting on multiple areas of the page so you want to keep your hand away from the wet paint. I say sort of have to hold your whole hand above the paper. But just make these textural marks all over the seed pod. And this will be again the initial portion of the texture of the outside of the pod. And we'll add a lot more later on. But you can see already how just those several mark making on the outside. It is really looking more like a seed pod. You can see the the feeling of it, this spikiness. If you've never held a milkweed seed pod, by the way, you should, you should try and find what they are very interesting to feel when they're, when they're not ripe, they're actually very soft and pillory. And then when they start to open, they become harder. And then as the seeds deploy, like this one in the top-left corner, no seeds. It is very spiky, very hard, very crispy, feeling like like dried leaves in the fall. It's very interesting to go from the beginning where they're soft and then seeing them at the end when they're very spiky. And let's go ahead and add some more texture here. We're going to add a little bit more of a shadow here because we're going to need that later on. So let's add an initial layer and then you can see me making this spiky motions here. You want to cover the whole area. You don't you don't want to be too concerned about it. Just make fluid motions. That is looking really nice. I'm liking that a lot. And again, we're just going to add a little bit of shadow. And this will give depth later on. We're going to add the shadow to the surface of the underneath the pods. And it will really make the pods themselves pop off of the page. So let's add a few more. Let's add some details here in this, this crack actually it's a sort of blending in. So let's add a little bit more. Oh, that's great. I like that. Just a few darker lines and it really changes it. That looks really nice. Yeah, and we're just going to be adding a little bit more shadow here. We'll be adding a lot more shadow to the other pods as well later, but that is looking really nice. Okay. All right. I think it's about time to move on. So I will see you in the next lesson. 9. Layer to Seeds: In this lesson, we'll be laying down the first layer of color for the seats. This color is going to peek through as the highlight color later on. So you'll want to err on the side of a lighter wash. The first thing that we're going to do is we're going to mix a slightly darker color. And we'll be using this for adding those sort of rich lines to the interior of the open seed pod. So you can see it's a, I'm using a bit of burnt umber and some more sienna. We're going to use this to just make these sort of rich lines here. And you can see it's not very precise or exacting. But as you do this, you can see how those light wash from before, shows through and makes it look like a highlight. And that is exactly what we're looking for. So we're going to just from one end all the way to the other. We're going to be adding in this color. And you can see it adds a lot of depth. We have this interior of the seed pod showing through on both of these as well. So let's add just a little tiny bit, a hint of this seed envelope. I think that's all that we need. And so the next thing that we're going to be doing is adding color to the seeds. And so I'm going to add a little bit more water to all my browns over here. I have some sienna, some umber or some burnt umber. And let's go ahead and add a little bit of sepia as well. And you can see it's a nice, rich color, not too dark. We want to have the brown to be light enough so that you can see it as a highlight color. We're going to take this and we'll use, again, we're going to use our small size three brush. And we'll be adding it Just to all of the seed heads. And we're going to be covering all of them. And later on we'll be adding more depth and dimension with a darker browns and almost a black towards the end that will really make it look like it's in shadow and we'll give sort of three-dimensional shape to the seeds. But as it stands right now, we're just laying down the base wash for the seeds themselves. And so you can see I'm sort of awkwardly holding my brush here because some of the page is still wet. So again, you want to be very careful not to smear wet paint all over the page. You can see I'm just adding and down this color. And it doesn't have to be super exact. There's going to be a lot more detail going on later. So this is where it starts getting really fun to paint is these little details that just add so much to the final painting. And this one quite a bit more meticulous because there are so many seeds showing. So you can see, I'm not, I'm not spending a lot of time at each seed head, just coloring it in. Even if you were to miss a few spots, it doesn't matter too much because we're going to be going in later with a darker color and just lay it down. You want to have something to work with later. So again, this is the highlight color and the depth will come later. So don't be too concerned about it. And you can see as you look at it on the page, it looks rather washed out. That is exactly what we want. We don't want it to be super dark, super shadow color. We want it to look like a light brown, like the sun would be hitting it. And we're almost done here. You can see how I'm very quickly just brushing over everything. Don't take too much time and don't be too concerned about this stage. Because again, this is just the base wash. Alright, I will see you guys in the next lesson. 10. Interior of Pods: This will be a very brief lesson. We're going to add a slightly darker wash onto the inside of the seed pods by allowing the base wash to peek through as a highlight, the painting of the pods will look more like it has a shine and more adequately look like the pods in real life. Let's go back and re-examine the interior of the seed pod. So you can see the highlight color here. And you can see the darker gold color on the outside ridge lines. So that is what we're going to be painting right now. So let's go ahead and mix a more vibrant, more saturated to more pigment and less water paint. And we have some raw sienna. And I went ahead and mixed it with that. There was a little bit of sap green and a little bit of sepia in that pan. So all of that sort of mixed together and you can see how rich and gold that color is. And it looks very nice, much more like the seed pod and real life. And you can see how in the center I'm leaving the wash from the previous layer visible. I'm going to add a little bit of stippling so that you can see that texture that the seed pod has on the inside. That sort of bumpy texture, even though it's smooth. And we're going to do the same thing over here with this second seed pod, which is open. And we're going to do the same thing where you can see the previous layer, the previous wash layer is visible still. If you look at it, it is sort of visible more towards the center and it's mostly blocked with the seed envelope in the center. And so we're going to leave the previous wash visible right around where the seed pod is. And you can see by doing that, it really allows the little interior seed envelope to poke through to really look like it's three-dimensional. 11. Darker Shadow Under Pods: In this lesson, we're going to be laying down the shadow cast by the pods. This will really add depth to your painting. Also, this painting is supposed to be more expressive. So don't attempt to completely control the water. Allow it to be more fluid. If it looks too constrained, helped along by wetting your paper right next to the still wet paint. This will allow the pigment to flow and bloom. Let's begin. I'm mixing up a shadow color. So we're going to start off with a little bit of lamp black. And I added a little bit of Payne's gray. And we'll add some sepia in there as well. And you can see, I know a lot of people say don't use black in watercolor, but somehow, just by adding this nice dark, neutral color, it really adds depth. In this case. I've mixed up a lot of it because we're going to be using this as the shadow color for all of the seed pods. Let's lay it down and you can see it's not as not as dark as you would expect it to be. When you look at it in the pan, it looks so much darker. And then when you put it on the paper, you can see that a nice cool gray. And so we're going to put this on. We'll be adding a little bit more saturated color underneath later, but right now we're going to be adding this just to have the page be wet. So you can see, I'm going around and I'm going to add this just where the shadow would be cast with the seed pods. You can see already how the darkness around the seed pod is allowing the color of the pod to pop off the page before it looks flat. And now it really is starting to have some nice dimension to it. So let's go ahead and add this to each one of the seed pods. Again here we're going to be avoiding some portions of where the silk filaments are of the seeds. And we're just going to lay it down just like a cast shadow. And don't be too exacting or precise, precise with this, it's just going to be where the shadow is. And you can see it's just to give it a little bit of a hint of how it sits on the surface of my desk. And you can see how I'm avoiding putting this dark wash on where the spikes are. And so we'll be having more shadow later. But that looks good. What we're going to do now is we're going to add a little bit more of that lamp black. And we're going to just drop it in here. And you can see already that adds just a little bit more. If you were to examine the shadow of things, oftentimes there's a darker shadow right underneath it and then there's the shadow sort of softens as it gets farther out from where the object is. And so that's what we're doing. We're just adding that little bit of extra depth to the shadow will be doing this with all of these. And you can see some of the pigment is starting to pull a little bit, a little bit too much water. And so we're going to let this bloom a little bit and then will come in later with a dry brush. And we'll pick out a few pools of these other paint that's left behind. And you want to have, like I'm doing here, we're going to add just a little bit more darkness just so that you can see really you can differentiate between the pot itself and the surface of the desk that it's sitting on. You can see how nice that looks already. Alright, I like that. Let's go ahead and move on to our next lesson. 12. Darker Details: In this lesson, we'll be adding our first round of details. We'll be adding some small details, line work on the pots and tiny cast shadows on the spikes of the pod. All of these little details really add up when the painting is complete. The first details that we're going to add are going to be the lips of the seed pod as its opening. So as you can see, I have here this nice yellow and I'm going to mix a little bit of a shadow color in it. And it gives this nice sort of warm gray color. And we'll use that here because this portion of the seed pod would be in shadow. And you can see that little extra color really adds a lot. And I like that. Let's go ahead and add a bit more of this raw sienna to the mix, a little bit of sap green, and we'll add all of this to the next seed pod. And we're going to be adding this color. This won't be the final color that we add down on the lips, but we want to have some kind of washed down. So you can see that I've covered it completely and let's go ahead and add a little bit more detail to this seed pod. You want to make sure that all of the areas that have any white remaining are covered. Before we move on to the final details section. So you can see I'm sort of going over all of the areas that have yet to have something laid down. The next thing we're going to do is we're going to pick up some of these little puddles. And as you can see, I didn't really like that really extreme line there. So just sort of lay down a light wash of clean water right next to it. And the water will flow with the pigment into the new area. And so we'd picked up some of those puddles so it doesn't bloom too much and it's not too dark. And I think that looks much better. It gives just enough shadows so that the seed pods themselves can pop without allowing too much of an extreme between the light and the darkness. So the next thing we'll do is we're going to add a little bit of detail to the seed pod. We're going to add this line work here. And as you can see, there was this nice long crack where the seats will be coming out when it's completely dry. You can really see that on the seed pod itself. So I think it's important that we include that kind of detail here in the painting. So we're going to do just a little bit of line work here to really show where the seed pod is going to be opening. And you can see just that little bit of a darker line. And you can really see where it'll open. Here. We're just adding really small shadows to some of the spikes. And we'll add a little bit of a shadow inside of the seed pod. And by doing this, just these small details really make the painting when it's finished. So that looks nice. Let's go ahead and move on to the next one. And I'm going to do the same thing here. I'm just going to darken up some of these lines, some things that look a little bit too faded. And so we have a little bit of line work here. And we also have some shadows cast by these spikes. And by giving the spikes their own shadow, you can really see how it adds dimension to the whole painting. We're going to outline the opening portion here. We're not going to go overboard just enough to add a hint of detail. And the same here we're going to add a little bit of some line work to the seed pod. And we'll add it to the underside here for some shadow. And you want to make sure that you have the shadow underneath just to make it really make the highlights appear, appear brighter. So we're going to do the same thing again with this next seed pod. We're going to do it a little bit darker. I have some sienna. And let's just add a bit more of this shadow here. I think this detail will really add it to the thickness of the seed pod and this one that's opened. So let's move on to the next seed pod. And you can see I'm mixing a little bit of the raw sienna in there as well, just to give it more of a greenish tone as well. And again, we're just going to be doing a little bit of this line work. And you can see right away how this line work just adds the dimension and the texture to the painting. Whereas before it looks sort of washed out, this is where you start adding the details that make a painting come to life. And it's one of the best parts about a painting or these final details that really bring everything together. So we're going to do that with each one of these, like I said. And just look around and see look at your seed pods in front of you and examine them, see what you've left out, see if there's anything you'd like to include that you can't really see any more like the spikes. I thought really needed a little bit more just to emphasize how many they were and how long they are in real life. Just sort of look, look at what you have versus your painting and see what you do. What you'd really like to add as, as you move forward. And this is starting to look really nice. I think we need a bit more shadow here though, so let's get some of that nice paint. You can roll your paintbrush backward as you pull. That will allow the tip to become very sharp and you can get really, really fine lines with a round brush by doing this technique. So again, we're just going to add a little bit of line work so that you can see the edges, the dimension of the the seed pod itself. So let's get a little bit more of this nice orange color. Let's darken it up though. This didn't seem quite dark enough, so we're just going to add just a hint of some more detail in it. And you can see by adding just these little tiny bits of detail, it really adds to the overall painting. That is looking much nicer and you can see it adds a bit of shadow and it just makes it look fuller. Alright, that's looking nice. Alright, I will see you in the next lesson. 13. Finer Details: In this lesson, we'll be creating depth by adding darker details to the seeds, a darker layer to the interior of the pods, and more vibrant color on the outside of the pods, including more shadow. So the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to take some more browns and some more sepia. And we're going to go ahead and darken up this color that we're using for the seeds. And you can see it is quite a bit darker than what we were using before. And so I have my nice sharp tip. And what we're going to do is just add a little bit more darkness to the seeds. And I'm adding this darkness closer to the portion of the seed that's connected to the silk. And as you can see there, it just really makes the seed have a little bit more dimension right now as they are, they look very flat, very set up on the page. By adding this little bit more shadow color, a little bit more darker, it gives it some really nice dimension. And so that's exactly what we're doing here. And we're going to do to each one of these seeds. And it's quite a meticulous tasks. But I feel like with this kind of thing, once you get into it, it's sort of a relaxing process. And so just adding a little bit of this darker color to the seeds. And we're going to move on to this one with the exploding Cs. And just again, a little dab to each seed. And we're actually going to go back a little bit later and add, not just to the base portion of the seats, we're going to add just a little bit of a hint of a shadow, a roundness around the edge of each individual seed. And I feel like that really gives it even more dimension. This is actually not the final later layer with the seeds will be adding one other darker layer on top of it. So it doesn't take that long, Don't be bogged down by, it's actually a really nice, really nice to get into. So we're almost done with the seeds. And then we're going to go on and we'll be adding a little bit more color to the interior of the seed pods. Just have a hint, more vibrancy, a little bit more depth. And what we'll do is we'll mix a shadow color. And again, you can see as I'm going here with the seeds, I'm just adding a hint of exterior of each seat, just giving it an individual look instead of a homogenous brown thing inside of a seed pods. So you can see each individual seed inside of the pod. And so here we go. We're gonna go ahead and take some of this nice orange and some more raw sienna. And we're going to just add it to the interior of those seed pods. You can see here I'm starting on this section because due to the directionality of the light and all of these seed pods, my light source is going to be coming from the top left. And so the inside portion here would be in shadow. And it just, it wasn't quite this really dark shadow. It was actually a nice rich golden color. And so we're doing that with each one of the seed pods that are open. And right here I felt that this envelope was just too bright. So I went over that with another wash of the orange color. And then we're going to add in some more of this shadow just to have some more really accentuate the curvature of the seed pod. I think that looks good. Let's go ahead and move on. What we're going to do now is mix up a slightly more vibrant green. And we're going to add this to the exterior of the seed pods. Right now. I feel like it's a bit washed out still. So this is where we get to add some of those really nice details that make the watercolor seemed finalized. And I always love watercolor for the fact that it, it always looks really bad at the beginning. And it just looks very vague. And then as you get towards the end, it all comes together. Once you get all of the details and you'll get to see the final outcome. And it just looks, it's nice how quickly things sort of come together at the end. So again, we add a little bit of shadow to that closed seed pod. And we're adding a little bit more of that vibrant green to the outside of the central seed pod. And now we're going to mix an even darker. We're just going to grab, when watercolor paints sits on the pan as it starts to dry out. If you use a little bit less water, then automatically it's going to be more saturated. So we're just going to use that to outline these, these seeds. And you can see just by having that little line on the outside of it, just a tiny bit of line work. It really individualized as the seed makes it look more like an actual seat as opposed to just a slot on a, on a page. We're going to do this which with each one. And you can see as I, as I do the line work you can see just gives it a little something extra, looks more dimensional, which is exactly what you want here. And we're gonna do that with this one as well. And as you, as you look at the seed and you see these little, these little lines coming out, you can really see it pop. As you look at a seed pod. If you look at the individual seeds, you can see, like I said before, they look like dragons scales. So you want to have that feeling of them overlapping. But they're not quite all touching. The edges are starting to come up. So that's where we're getting the darker shadows. So as you can see, I'm putting the line work down. And what you want to do is have the shadow appear as though it's underneath the previous seed. And we'll add a little bit more shadow coming up. But right now we're just adding the first hint of these details to the seeds. And the next thing we get to do is take off the masking fluid, which is so much fun. I'll see you in that lesson. 14. Removing Masking Fluid: In this lesson, we'll be removing the masking fluid. This step is so satisfying. Being able to reveal the beautiful clean white surface of the paper underneath is worth all of the effort of laying it down and the patient's required to let it dry completely. Removing masking fluid is one of the most satisfying steps in the watercolor painting process. There are several different techniques that you can use in this step. First, you can use your finger. This works just fine when you're removing a large block of masking fluid. And you can pick up an edge and peel it away. Unfortunately, if you have to remove little tiny lines like we're doing here, you will often need to rub it the paper to get the masking fluid off. This creates a whole new issue as rubbing can smear paint around the page and ruin all of your hard work of putting the masking fluid on. To begin with, what I found to be the best way to remove really fine lines of masking fluid is to rub it with something small made of glass. I have seen other artists use the backside of a glass dip pen. They rub the glass on the page and the dry masking fluid seems to stick to it in peels away. The thing that I use most often is actually a little glass eye dropper, which I use for dripping water into my paints before starting painting for the day. It has a little curved tip with a very small contact point when placed on a flat surface. So you have a lot of control of where the glass is touching the page. This way, you're not accidentally rubbing the painted portion of the page and smearing it onto your newly revealed clean white surface. Another way to remove masking fluid, which I don't show here, is to use the tip of a rubbery block, which is used specifically for removing masking fluid and simply rub it gently on the paper. I've had varying success with this, but if you're having issues with the other means to remove masking fluid, this one is definitely worth a shot. You can see now that I've removed most of the masking fluid, how white and fluffy the silk looks. It is really nice-looking and in my opinion, it's totally worth the effort. One of my main tips after removing the masking fluid, go back and very much you're asleep, feel your paper and get every little rubbery bit up and completely remove it from your workstation. It is really easy to miss some pieces and it can mess up your brushes if you accidentally collects them. And it remains too long in the bristles. Also, if it gets painted over, it can get stuck on the page permanently or caused the paint pool around a lot like using salt. 15. White Ink Highlights: If you've taken any of my other watercolor classes, you'll know that I'm really fond of my weight Jelly Roll pen. Since we've removed the masking fluid, we can now use this pen to create more wispy and delicate lines on top of the darker washes that are around the silk. Okay, if you've taken any of my other watercolor classes, you know that I am incredibly fond of my white Jelly Roll pen. I think that masking fluid is a really great tool to use in order to preserve the white of the paper, allowing it to show through as a highlight. But I also feel like sometimes you just won't know exactly where you'll want a highlight until the painting is almost completely finished. Sometimes things just turn out differently than you imagined. And sometimes the water has a mind of its own making something beautiful by accident. This is where the white ink pens steps in. It allows you to have a solid white over the top of watercolor, which white watercolor paint just can't quite accomplish. I also like to use the white pen to pick out incredibly fine details that would have been nearly impossible to envision at the beginning of the painting. An example of adding details is the silk on these seeds. There is a lot of white here where the masking fluid was just removed. But we also have some really great dark areas right next to the white, where the water and the pigment was pushed aside by the masking fluid. This is a perfect place to add some very feasible fine silk lines. That won't be the main portion of the silk. But we'll definitely accentuate the beautiful bell shaped curve of them. And all of their little flyaway wisps that are starting to unfurl. A good example of those small details that you couldn't envision at. One thing is the highlights of the spikes on this bottom seed pod. We didn't meticulously sketch out this part of the pod, but added them in while we were painting. So we'll take our pens and add the tiniest of highlights to the spikes. Also. Take your white pen and look around at your painting. Where could use just a little more highlight. I've put some on the spikes, the silk, the little seed envelope, and on the interior and exterior of the pods themselves. So let's just take a moment and look around at our painting and just try and pick out those fine highlights that you want to include. The last thing we're going to do in this lesson is good kneaded eraser and work at really well so that it's nice and soft. We'll use this to pick up any fine pencil lines that were hiding under the masking fluid. All of the pencil lines that were on the page where we painted with watercolor. Those are fixed and permanent now. So we're only erasing the portions that are on the page without watercolor. Makes sure to be very gentle to avoid smearing any portions of your painting. 16. Final Details: In this lesson, we'll be adding the final details to the seeds to make them really appear as though they pop out of the page, signing our painting and removing the tape. This is the lesson where we get to finish up all of the smallest details. We're going to sign it right now, which is one of the most gratifying things. Next, we're going to be removing the tape from the edges of our paper. I have a few tips for this. First, once you start peeling the tape off, keep it as flat to the paper as possible. And next, keep the tape at a 90 degree angle as you pull. I found that this is the best way to prevent the paper from tearing. The last thing that we're going to do, I really feel like there just isn't enough contrast on the seeds. So let's pick up our white pen one more time. And we're going to just add the tiniest hint, white highlight to the edges of the seeds. This really makes the seeds POP. And we're done. I'll see you in my final lesson where we'll talk about the key takeaways from this class. I'll see you there. 17. Final Thoughts: Here we are. You have completed the whole class. And now we have a final watercolor illustration of our milkweed seed pods. Let's go over some of the things that we covered in this class. We learned about drawing techniques that help you to sketch natural items. We used masking fluid in a deliberate way that allowed us to paint in a way that is loose and expressive without the worry of accidentally painting over an area that we want to remain white. We used various watercolor technique, such as layering, wet on wet, wet on dry, and dry on dry. That went from large, vague shapes at the beginning to smaller and finer details at the end. And finally, we'll learn how to use a weighting tend to pick out incredibly small and fine highlights and details that would have been very difficult to accomplish with masking fluid and watercolor alone. I am really pleased with my painting and I hope that you are as well. Thank you so much for spending your time with me. And I really hope that you've found a new level of watercolor will learn something new and now feel more confident while painting. I really look forward to seeing your class project. I absolutely love seeing how creatively you interpret it. And I'll always offer feedback on your post. If you're feeling stuck, I encourage you to publish what progress you've made in the project gallery. I will be more than happy to answer any questions you have or concerns about the outcome of your project. Also, don't forget to head over to the discussion section of this class and join in the discussions of your fellow students. Please don't forget to leave a review before you go and follow along so that you can be notified if my future classes. Thank you again for joining me and I hope to see you in my next class.