Transcripts
1. Introduction: I found a way to
fill a sketchbook, fast banished the fear of the blank page and
stay inspired. In my latest sketchbooks, I've pre prepared backgrounds
and then worked on top with mixed media including
color, pencil and watercolor. These pages really fill my heart with joy as they're
so expressive, vibrant, and energetic. Hi, I'm Omar. I am a sketchbook artist, illustrator for food
packaging, giftware and books. I've worked with
the BBC and Unicef. And I'm also the author of Go The Flow Painting for Spontaneous
watercolor techniques. I'm a top teacher here on skill share with
over 30 classes. In my most recent sketch books, I've been working
on a technique that allows me to play with loads of texture work super quick and improve my understanding
of light and shadow. I'll share all the
materials that I use and how to keep those backgrounds
fresh and expressive. There will be three full
length demonstrations where I'll offer insights
into the process to give you a deeper understanding
of how to harmoniously combine the inky backgrounds as you layer on various mediums. Discover how to observe, focus on shapes and contrasts, and achieve a
balanced composition, which is compelling
and evocative. I feel using watercolor and pencil with these
basic techniques, reduce the worry about
color and breathe life into your sketches as you
embrace the happy accidents. Whether you're a
seasoned creator looking to expand your horizons, or a beginner excited
to explore mixed media, this class is
designed to nurture your creativity with
fresh exploration. By the end of this class, you'll be able to infuse your sketches with
captivating textures, which will add depth
and visual interest. Please join me for a simple class that will
give stunning results.
2. Your Project: Thank you so much for
joining me today. Let's create art that's not
only visually stunning, but also deeply expressive. We'll begin by exploring various techniques to create captivating textured
backgrounds. These backgrounds will
serve as the foundation for your butterfly flower
and landscape projects. By layering the
different mediums, you'll infuse your sketches with depth and texture
right from the start. Your project is to create one expressive sketch with
a textured background, then work into it with water
color and colored pencil. Using the techniques I'll
demonstrate in the demo videos, I would love to see
one expressive sketch. Your thoughts on
the process with lessons learned and any
challenges you had, the brand of water
color color pencils and paper you used, and also the
backgrounds that you created before you
painted over them. So be sure to take a photo
as soon as they're dry. For this class,
you can use any of the three high resolution images that I've used for the
demos in this class. There's a PDF download
available called References for Omar's
Expressive Sketches class. And they include the butterfly, flower and landscape images. This PDF can be found under the Projects
and Resources tab. Just click on
Download Resources. Of course, you can
choose your own images, but be sure to include your reference photo
in your project too. This is particularly
important if you would like some constructive
feedback on your sketches, so I can see what you
were working from. When you're ready to
upload your class project, head over to the Projects
and Resources tab and hit Create Project button. First, give your
project a cover photo and a title to make
it really stand out. Here you can add the
contents of your project, adding your photos and texts to reflect on the process and
what you found interesting. When you've finished adding
your content, hit Publish. Once you're done,
you can come back anytime to edit or add
more to your project. I know it can be really scary putting your
work into the world, particularly when
you're starting out with a new way of working. But I would encourage
you to be bold and share so I can
give you feedback. Please take a look around
the project gallery and drop a few likes and comments on some of the other
student projects too. It would really help me out
if you could leave a review. And it also helps other students
find this class as well. Please access Skillshare
through their website. In the next video, we're
going to go through the tools and materials
you'll need for this class. When you're ready,
join me there.
3. Materials Guide: Let's have a quick
run through of materials you'll be
needing for this class. For this class, I
will be showing you the demos in a Hanna
Mull sketchbook. Similar to these, of course, you can use any other watercolor sketchbook you might have. This first one is
by Hanna Muller. It's pressed 100% cotton
and five size 250 GSM. And also the
HanamullAix which is 200 GSM and this isn't cotton. I wanted to take these out to my next painting on location, which will be in Italy, and then later on in France. If you've taken my other
classes, you know, I love to work in
Sketchbooks and I've got quite a few on the
girl at the moment. If you don't want
to use Sketchbooks, just use water color paper. This is the Windsor and Newton, and it's cold pressed
300 GSM with 25% cotton. You're going to need
a variety of brushes. This is for applying the
inky textured background or your acrylic
paint background. And they're pretty stiff
and old and manky, they're not in the
best condition. But that's okay
'cause we're only going to be applying
ink with these. I think this one I've probably had since I was like an art student or something, It's pretty, you know, mangled and these fan brushes are something that I've had in my collection
for absolutely ages. And it's not until
I started creating these texted backgrounds
that I realized, oh, they can create
some nice effects. Same again, with this awkward
looking brush by rent. These were really, really cheap. I mean, you can pick
them up on Amazon for like $1 or a pound. One thing I will say
is the stiffness makes it a lot easier to create the textures
within that background. So that's something
to be mindful of. Otherwise, you can use
softer brushes like this. You'll also need
watercolor brushes. This is the Jackson's
Art Quill brush. This is the Derwent
Dagger brush. This is a brush that I've
started to use only recently. It's able to give me
a variety of strokes. If I do that, I will show you in the demos and also thin lines. If I position the head
of the brush like that, you will also need
some watercolors. This is my Windsor and
Newton professional pan set. It's pretty manky, but
that's absolutely fine. As long as you have a
student grade watercolor set, you're going to be fine. You'll also need a selection
of colored pencils. These are my preferred choice. They are by Karen Dash and
they are the Luminant. I like these because
they're really soft and easy to blend. But I also have this set, a few that I bought
by Faber cast, and these are the polychromos. And I like these for the actual sketching because
they're just that little bit harder and you can create lines better for
the initial sketch. One thing I will say about
color pencils is I tend to use dark neutrals to do a lot of my negative space filling
in and also the sketching. We've got a variety of dark
greens and dark browns here. Let's move on to the inks. I've got quite a selection here. I've got a few by
Windsor and Newton. These are normal inks. The Windsor and Newton
website says these are high quality dyes
in a shellac binder. And they're waterproof,
which means that they won't be reactivated with water, which is important
for the method that I'm going to show you. I also have inks by drown. These are acrylic inks. These are also acrylic
inks and thereby Liquitex. These acrylic inks are basically an extremely fluid version of acrylic paint and they're
really, really flowy. I'm going to show
you in a minute. It's a pigmented ink that's water resistant
on most surfaces. Again, they won't
reactivate once. If you don't have
any acrylic inks, what you can actually do
is use acrylic paint just. Basic acrylics and
you'll have to water these down so that
they're very liquid. And you can still create some brilliant transparencies
and textures with these. It's also worth having
some white ink. I've got two by Dr. PH Martin
and also one by Cuota. If you don't have white ink you can use a white Posca pen. That's absolutely fine. You're going to need
is just a palette. A cheap plastic one will do
just to mix the inks on. One last thing is kitchen roll. It could get messy, and kitchen roll
can be really good for creating some of
those textures as well. I want to just create three quick swatches using the different inks
that I've got so that you can see how they might react when you add water
color once they are dry. First of all, let's use
this Windsor and Newton. I'm going to get a bit of water in there and then add the ink. Now, that is just going
to be too intense. I'm going to add a bit
more water to that. That's the first one.
Okay. Now, let's try this liquid text. It is incredibly intense. If you look at that color, that's just, you know, if
you put that straight on, actually I'm going
to show you what happens if you were to
put that straight on, and I'm going to water it down. Oh my God, it's gone
a little bit purple 'cause I've still got a
bit of blue on that brush. But it's fine. It's fine. So that's the other version. And now let's try the Dal Roni. It's Terra Rossa. It's kind of a
reddy brown color. Now, something that I've noticed myself
with acrylic inks, especially I think
the Dali ones, is when you put them
quite thickly like that, you might have
difficulty later on when you apply watercolor
or pencil on top. So let's do a thin down version. Okay, I'm just going to
mix up a indigo here. It's merged in a little bit of that green that's
already on the palette, But that's absolutely fine. And I'm going to show you how this behaves on Windsor Newton. The Liquitex that's
not so diluted One that's been diluted a
bit and this is the Drowni. You can see a bit of a
difference already there. But if we were to add
more pigment to this low, more pigment because we are going to have to vary the
pigments when we do our demos, you can see the difference
that makes as well. I'm going to use pains gray. I think that's 50%
luminance color pencil and I'm just going
to pop this on top. That does go on so well, the Dalla Rowdy,
that's behaving. All right. Actually,
if you're able to just test out your inks or your watered down
acrylic paints, then it's worth doing a
little test like this. Just spend a few
minutes getting to know your inks and how
they could behave, Even the paper that you
use or how hot it is wherever your painting is going to have a
difference on outcomes.
4. Pre-Prepared Backgrounds: How I Started & Examples: It's only been in the last
four or five sketchbooks that I've really been able to dive deep into incorporating this technique
as part of my practice. I'm not the only artist
out there who under paints or creates textured
backgrounds for her sketches. There is actually a
lot of artists who's been doing it far
longer than me. It's just a phase that I'm
going through right now. There's one moment that I
call the red paint incident. When a red acrylic marker
basically exploded all over my table and floor and brand new 100%
cotton sketchbook. After the initial
shock died down, I decided to spread
some of this red paint across some of the pages
of this new sketchbook. Rather than wasting this paint, I used this village
to my advantage. I just got a paper towel, dabbed it in the
pools of red paint, and just scraped them
across various pages. They were completely accidental. I didn't have any thought
behind what I was creating. And I even filled up another smaller sketch book
using the same technique. I'm going to show
you both sketch book 37 is the infamous red
incident sketchbook. And you can see, even though I have tried to paint over some
of the red areas, you can see it showing
through there in the houses. And I used acrylic to
try and cover this. And you can see the splatters. Now this landscape, you can see a whole load
of that red ink. It's probably a
little bit too much, but I tried to do the
best that I could. And you can see some of the
red in the fields here. Now this is another piece
where I thought, wow, I'm really glad that I
had that red acrylic in the background because
it made these flowers, I don't know, retro feel. I just love seeing the
texture come through. And again, I had to start using acrylic markers just because nothing else was going
to cover them up. Well, this is very
nice, isn't it? I used a whole load of
negative painting so that I could block out the
shape of the poppies. I think that's
worked really well. Actually, same again. You can see the red showing
through where I've got the goldfish and also part
of the water lilies as well. Finally, the last red page, I was able to incorporate it within a coral with
the tropical fish. I would have outlined
these in water color, but most of this is
acrylic because it's just really difficult to paint over when the red
was that thick. These are the rest of my
sketch books where I've been using this
textured background. I'm not going to go
through all of them because it's going
to take forever. But I will say is look out for these as flip throughs
on my Youtube channel. I'll give you a link in the class description and I'm just having fun
with these actually. This one here is one of
my favorites where I just used a color brush pen
and color pencil on top. This was actually done live on location at a music festival. Oh, this is very nice as well. There was a lovely day
at a garden center. I like that pink showing
through, and you saw me. All the rest of the
sketches are this way up, but I thought that this
sh here would work much better this way up.
I'm glad I did that. What we got here, number 36. This was my first on location sketchbook that
I did earlier this year. And I was using te brush
pens is actually I sat in a coffee shop and just had the brush pen and the Posco
pen in these areas here. And I think that looks
really effective actually. That's my local high street. This is, oh, that's St. Paul's. I don't live in London. This is the view
from the Te modern. This is actually in France. In Paris. You may
recognize Nick Squirrel. I went to France with her. And this is another artist called Betsy who was living
out there at the time. Being able to depict a scene quickly just by
using brush pen because you've already got
that background is such an advantage when
you are on location. This is along the river. I just stood there for about 20 minutes with
my brush pen and I used Posca just to bring out the highlights and I think
that's a really lovely result. That's one of my favorites. Again, this is Nick Squirrel. We sat in a cafe in
Cambridge Wells. Very much a technique
where you look out for the lightest areas and the darkest areas and
that's what's going to make a bold and
interesting piece. Now I keep a separate
sketchbook just for animals because this
is something that I want to do more of. They're okay. I need to probably study animal anatomy
a little bit more. Exactly the same techniques. We've got a mixture of white
ink and colored pencil. Most of this is
water color here, although I think some
of the details in the feathers of
this is brush pen, this is a water color
with white posca, this is a very nice piece. I do love octopus in general. I love seeing all that
texture that I created with the ink and then
the Posca pen on top. These areas here are colored pencil and the
rest is water color. That's a lovely opera Rose. Oh, this is one of my
favorites as well. The manatees, that bold
orange in the background. It is watercolor. And the white posca here, the highlight on its back. There's beautiful sea grass that I use using the dagger brush. I have got to fill
the rest of this up, but you can see I've
got my textures ready. So I just need to
make time to do that. This is the Provence
sketchbook that I took out with me in the
summer when I was teaching. Had a lovely week. Some of this one was a sunset that I did
while I was there, that was on location. And these were on
location as well. You can see that
texture coming through here in the boats and up
through there as well. I often get the textures to go right over the
two sets of pages. You can see it coming
through there as well. This was just a study
that I wanted to do because the light in the South of France
is just so amazing. And it's great for
doing these type of shape and color studies
under here as well. This is color pencil,
a market scene. This was actually done once
I got back from France, and I was trying to incorporate a better use of contrast
here in the shadows. This one could have
done a bit more work, but I like this here. It was very dark. Underneath that archway, you can see in amongst the tomatoes, these beef tomatoes, how
I use negative space to pick out the shape
of those tomatoes. This is one of my favorites from this particular sketchbook. I'm really leaning into the exploration of
negative space. I'm using the dark to create
the outline of the tree. This is ever her white top against the background is
contrasted really nicely. And I love exploring space
and shape like that. This is my Singapore
sketch book and I actually started using
it while I was out there. We got stuck in Dubai
Airport for 5 hours, so I didn't actually have time to create any
textured backgrounds. I tried to do something
similar using colored pencil, but I don't think
it's very successful. These were done at
my hotel where I was staying and I love
all the lushness. I was really, really
attracted to that. From this page onwards, I was working at
home once I got back and I was able to add
texture in the background. And at the National
Museum of Singapore, they had items from their history and I took lows
and lows of photographs. And I'm really glad I was
able to incorporate this. This is just water color with a tiny bit
of white acrylic. The little India area
that's the Sultan Mosque. Beautiful, beautiful. And I'm really glad
that I was able to capture some of the people
that were milling around. This is a lady called Hannah who was wonderful
while I was out there. She showed me around
and help me out to find some of the places
that I wanted to visit. I created this texture
after I got back, but I drew those kids at the airport when we were
waiting for our flight back. These butterflies
were actually in a garden at the
Singapore airport. So I took closer photos and that's one of the demos
we're going to do later. All worked from photos, beautiful, intricate
patterns here. And I'm really glad that I
kept the sticker because that echoes that massive pink swash I've put in the background. And oh, this is one of my favorite double page spreads in this particular sketchbook. This was so complex, this was the jewel
at Changi Airport. This was gardens by the bay going towards the
super tree grove. This is this bamboo
in the background, and I love creating that, just using negative space
and water color On top. This was in Chinatown. I spotted these monks
drinking some smoothies. This was inside the dome. It was the rainforest dome
in gardens by the bay, it was so lush. This is something
that I loved about Singapore where there
was greenery everywhere. And I'm originally from
a tropical climate, so something in my
soul was just happy to be there are these yellow flowers were
absolutely everywhere. This is on the roof garden where I stayed the apartment
in Singapore. And again, I think as this
sketch book progressed, I realized that I could just
really pick out shapes. These are my kids in inside
the rainforest dome, and these are some wonderful
artists that I met out there and we had lunch together on their
national holiday. Most of these are urban sketches and they are phenomenal artists. The nicest nicest people. And I met them
through Paul ****, who is this artist on the right. My kids, I might do a separate class on figure work because I do really
enjoy doing them. Now coming to these pages
here, I have not filled them. I also have a few
spare pages and so I think it is time to
create our textures.
5. Pre-Prepared Backgrounds: Advantages : Incorporating pre prepared,
textured backgrounds into your sketching process opens up so many creative
possibilities. Since I started
creating like this, I find myself exploring experimenting and
crafting sketches that are more
visually appealing. Painting on pre
prepared texted pages, like the examples
I've shown you, offers many
advantages that makes this practice valuable
and enjoyable. I want to talk you through
some of the main points. I think this method
significantly speeds up the sketching process. With the backgrounds and
textures already in place, it provides an instant
foundation for your artwork. This saves time and enables you to complete more sketches in a shorter period where
the focus can be on the line work or other
aspects of your piece. The unique textures can lead
to unexpected outcomes, often referred to
as happy accidents. And these spontaneous
elements can add a sense of playfulness
to your sketches, giving them a lively
and dynamic quality such as unpredictable
textures and shapes, which can inspire new ideas and directions for your artwork. With the foundational
textures in place, you can focus more on the
interplay of shape and line. You can give your attention to aspects such as composition. I think this approach encourages more focus on fundamental
elements of art, including form and structure. Painting on a pre
prepared background alleviates some of the worry
about color selection. Because you've already got mid range values acting
as a neutral base, it relieves some of the pressure of making too many
color choices. And I always use a pretty limited color
palette when I work this way. The texture has already provided the basis that can guide some of your
other color choices. Which makes that decision
making process a lot more intuitive
rather than realistic, which can actually
be very freeing. The pre prepared
texture page invites experimentation and
lots of exploration. You can add different
mediums and techniques to create a
huge variety of effects. This freedom to experiment
fosters creativity and allows you to develop your own unique style and
approach to painting. And finally, the layering of the textures and
mediums creates a visually complex piece which adds depth and
richness to your sketches. This complexity contributes to the overall visual interest of your artwork and draws
in the viewer's eye. As you can see, creating
textured backgrounds is crucial step in
this process because it sets the stage for your creative journey and adds a whole new dimension
to your sketches. I encourage you to spend time experimenting with
different brushes or inks, or acrylic paints, and each of these will lead to different textures
for your backgrounds. This is where your artistic
intuition comes alive. Embrace this opportunity with an open mind and allow
yourself to step beyond your comfort zone
and welcome some of these new ideas
and techniques. It's about being receptive
to the unexpected and being willing to take risks in
your artistic journey. Being brave in your explorations
means not being afraid of making mistakes or
encountering challenges. It's about pushing those
boundaries, trying new things, and venturing into uncharted
territory for some of you. So get your materials ready and let's dive into creating
those backgrounds.
6. Creating Your Backgrounds and Best Practices: For me, creating the
textures themselves is the most fun and one
of my favorite parts. So let's get started. I've got a few pages
left of this sketchbook, so I'm just going to
choose a few inks, maybe some beiges and neutrals, and cover the last pages of my particular
Singapore sketchbook. This one is rose, peach. So let's put some
of this on there. Maybe add, I think this
is a bit of burnt sienna. I'll put that there. Let's add a bit of crimson, maybe a tiny drop there. Okay, I'm not going to wash
this brush out completely. I will wet it and there might
just be enough on there. Oh, wow. It has a bit of a rainbow there, but I think that's
going to be too harsh. I'm gonna work into it a little bit before the ink
starts to sort of set. Might have to add a
tiny bit more yellow. I think this side is
going to be fine. I might just leave that
as is a tiny bit there. I'm going to dry off this
brush completely and just try to use it dry with what ink that is on there
and just drag it across. And there should just be enough, because it's dry, to create this texture
that you're seeing. I think I just want to add
a bit of texture just here. Maybe some of that I burnt sienna too much this time because it was a
little bit too much. I think just there. Okay, let's turn over the page. And using what is on my
I'm just going to carry on over to the
next page as well. Let's mix it up a
little bit more. Maybe a tiny bit of
this crimson here. I love this dry
technique very much. It's something that I've just
discovered in recent times. I think I get the most joy out of using just the tip
of this fan brush. Just add a little bit more here. I've just got a
really dry brush. Now that this particular acrylic is the Dalla stuff
at the bottom, it does congeal and really
I should have shaken it up a little bit more so I'm just going to have
to work that in A B. That's fine. One more page, let's add some of
this pink here. I think I need an
actual brown as well. This is the burnt sienna. I might that straight onto
the page and work it in. That's not too bad. Let's
what we've got here. Just to extend it out
some of that red. I didn't really use much
of that red last time. I might just drag
it across there. Looks nice. Okay, that sorry,
where's that brown gone? Let's just feel like just
need to extend it out. At this stage, I have no idea what I'm going to be
painting on this. I've just created them with
no thoughts about that. I think I might like a little
bit of purple on this one. I'm gonna have to water
that down quite a lot because it's a very
strong pigment. I've got the brush going
in several directions now. Oh, I might use a burnt umber. Probably a bit too
much on that brush. Great. What I think
that will do. Brilliant. At the time of
filming. I'm getting ready for a trip to Italy. I'll be sketching on location. So I'm going to be taking
fairly small sketch books. This one's a five, and this is a square one, which is only 14,
14 centimeters. I want to prepare the
pages for these as well, because I forgot to do that in Singapore when I
was kicking myself. I'm going to talk a little
bit more about points to consider when creating
your textured backgrounds. I would recommend
selecting any type of ink that isn't water
soluble when it's dry. This ensures that
the background will not be reactivated and prevent unintended smudging or blending applying water colors
at a later time. An alternative is to experiment with highly
diluted acrylic paints, which I have done before. The fluidity can still create
stunning textured effects. I would be cautious when using traditional gouache or
watercolor in the background, because these mediums
will probably reactivate when applying another layer
of watercolor on top. Alternatively, you could
use only dry media on top, such as pastels or
colored pencils over that watercolor layer to
avoid that reactivation. When creating a
textured background, it's advisable to opt for lighter shades to
maintain clarity. A background with lighter
tones will enhance visibility and make it easier to work with
other media on top. So avoid overly dark
backgrounds for better results. Try to create energetic
brush movements using large sweeps of your hand. I find that the visible
brush marks can add something really organic and
expressive to your textures. Strive for a
combination of speed and boldness when creating
these backgrounds. Overworking can lead to
muddied textures and colors. So use confident and
swift brushstrokes, let the pigments
interact naturally, allowing them to blend
and mingle can create really captivating variations
in colors and textures. Whenever possible, use
a large stiff brush. This choice will help you cover the surface of your paper a lot more efficiently and achieve
more noticeable texture. Ensure that around
a third to half of the white paper
remains visible. This variation in values will
add depth and dimension and will give you more scope to work with in the sketching
process later on. By keeping these tips in mind, you'll be better equipped
to create captivating, textured backgrounds that set the stage for your
mixed media sketches. One of the reasons
why I like to pre prepare my pages before I go off on holiday or trip
for sketching on location is putting
inks in my bag. There's a risk that
they could leak. That's happened before and also it's time that I
could be spent sketching. I find It always really
helps when I've got these ready made and I
can just sketch on top.
7. Butterfly Demo Part 1: This is a photo that I took at Singapore Airport,
Changi Airport. They do have their own
butterfly garden there. I love that dark background, although the butterfly itself is a little bit on
the neutral side. I've decided to use textures that I've got
in the background. And I'm going to show
you which page now. This page is the next one along from the
sketches of my kids. I was thinking if I put
the butterfly here, you can almost see a bit of a formation of a
wing just there. I will be able to use the texture that I've got
there for the butterfly. And this green here is going to be perfect
for the leaves. I'm going to outline
my butterfly and leaves using this
luminance pencil. It's light abogine. Just going to give it
a little sharpened. First, I'm going to start
off with that butterfly, which you can download as a PDF. There's this natural curve here already which I want
to utilize this. You know, I created these
textures three weeks ago, but one of those wonderful, happy accidents and
you got the body here. I'm not pressing very hard on the pencil because I don't
want it to show up too much. Let's just get the main parts of this butterfly in the body. Goes down to about here, it looks like a bit of
its wing is missing. Poor thing fluttering
about in Changi Airport. The basic shape, it
goes out and dips in. All right, we've got that.
I'm not going to add any more details to that
butterfly just yet, but looking at proportion, about halfway along the wing is the beginning of the first leaf. All this section is going
to be dark, that's fine. First leaf goes in and just
where the tip of the wing is, there's another
tiny little leaf. I might just add that in. Then there's a leaf that shoots
off at an angle like so. Maybe the angle is
a little bit wrong, maybe more towards
01:00 There's a leaf about here and it touches this
one that we just drew in. Okay? And now we're just
looking at the relationships. Now there's a leaf happening
behind there already. I'm thinking, what am I going to include as negative space? So we're going to
go in really dark. I'm only going to concentrate
really on the leaves that are immediately surrounding
this butterfly's body. While I remember that, we've got these lovely
little buds happening there, coming off like so here. I'm just going to quickly
outline it like that just to remind me that I'm
going to have to use white ink to fill those in, not to paint in those areas. That the rest of the bud sort of comes off at an angle like that and we've got
actual whole flowers. I hope the camera's
picking up on that. There's one, there's
quite a few there. There's about five. And I'm just going to simplify it there. I'm just going to pretend
that they're in a clump, they're a little
bit more scattered. But that's enough to sort of remind me not to
paint in those areas. And there's a leaf
that the petals are placed upon that
curves around like that. I'm going to draw in the other white flowers blossoms
before I forget, there's a leaf comes off there. Now I've just realized, proportionally I'm a
bit of, it's fine. I'm just going to make up
a few leaves, basically. Pretend there's one
coming off here, and pretend there's one coming off like so
that's absolutely fine. My proportions are
a little bit off, but I've got the main
elements in this line was to denote the line of those
blossoms roughly around there. Pretend there's a leaf
there instead. Right? I think that's enough to get
on with the actual painting. Right. I'm using
my dagger brush. You can use number eight. Number ten, round brush. First of all, I'm going
to mix up pines gray. This is a color that
I use so often. If you don't have a pines gray, you can use an indigo
and I'm going to mix it up with a tiny
drop of the sap green. And you have to include
quite a lot of pigment in this because we're going
to add the darkest areas. First, try to use bold strokes to get the area around this
leaf established. That's why I use a
dagger brush to create broad or thin strokes
at different angles. And don't worry
about the antenna, because we're going to have
to use a white gel pen, I think to add that
in, or white ink, I've just realized that there is actually a leaf poking
out behind that, so I can change my
mind afterwards. I might just fill
it in like that, and it might seem like quite
a bold move to begin with, but it will give you sort of an indication of how the rest of the values
should be placed. If this is your darkest value, you can then work
out the next values. A long, this edge of
the butterfly's wing, it is also pretty dark. And I'm going to start
using negative space. Although in the reference, the butterfly merges in
with those blossoms. Because I still want
it to stand out, I'm going to add the
pains gray around it. I'm going right up to
the edge of some of these blossoms.
That's a good start. Now, the rest of the dark
areas are probably here. I can see a stalk
in the background. So I'm just going to create an area there to
leave unpainted. And that goes up to
the line of blossoms. The flowers that
haven't opened up yet, They're just buds. Okay, good. Now the other dark areas
that I can see is here, and there's a tiny triangle of darkness goes up against this leaf and defines the edge of that
leaf, which is great. There's another leaf here. There's a leaf here as well, but this section is
going to be dark. I think I need more
pigment in that. Just a little bit too
water down there. That's something that you
need to be mindful of. Even though you think, oh,
I'm using quite a dark color. There still has to be a fair
bit of pigment in it to make sure that you've got it at a value where it's
going to be effective. Now let's define
some of the areas. Here I can see other sort
stems and other leaves. Keep on looking for
the darkest areas. It sounds like a trick
but it's going to improve your understanding just just looking what you think, not what your brain says. All that leaf should be light. Actually look at the
reference because sometimes your brain does too much when you're
creating art. Apart from telling you, are you sure you've
got that right? Just dial down what
it's telling you. Sometimes it thinks it's
protecting you, but it isn't. It's actually probably
hindering you. Sorry, I went off at a
tangent there, didn't I? So these are actually
probably more of a mid green because the white blossoms are
against the leaves, but here it is, dark again around this general
area, against this leaf. Let's get that. I've drew in that shape,
slightly skew with. I just cannot seem to mix up enough of this
dark kiss color. I'm using so much
of it right now, Just looking at the reference and looking at the image
that I'm creating here. Everything seems to be on track. I'm going to leave that for now. I know it looks a
bit like a hot mess and we're going to
need to a mid green. Now for that we've got some of the sap green and we're going to need some
of the lemon yellow. The mid greens are going on. Now I might add a bit of quin
gold or quin green as well. I do like a bit of quin green. It just makes everything
pop a little bit more. That's merging in a bit,
don't worry about it. Probably that is a mid green. Actually, while I'm here, I'm going to draw in
some of the other leaves using this color we've
got on the brush. That's why I find the dagger brush so handy
because you can turn it around. I'll show, you can use
this flat section, fill in a leaf like so, but you can also use
the pointy section. Where is I up to about here? There's another very
big leaf behind it. This is coming up against
the white blossoms here. It probably extends
to about there. It's merging because the
water color is translucent. It's merging in with that
pink in the background, which is really nice effect. This is a mid green
to you can see how the ink is coming through,
that's really lovely. Where else are we
going to add some of these mid greens here, up against the edge of this
butterfly wing here as well. I'm just to merge in what
we've got down there already. I'm going to add a
few leafy shapes that I can see emerging. Just to give an indication
without having to fill in the entire page that this was what was happening.
Well, I remember. I'm going to fill in this
area here which was dark. Goes right up to about there to define these two leaves here. I'm going to add the
pains gray green mix. Great, let's have a little rest here and think through
what we've done. It's always a really, really good idea to get
up from wherever you're working and just leave
your piece to dry. And also, it gives you a chance to consider your next move. You have to do it
for like 2 minutes. I'm thinking the butterfly
needs to be filled in. Next, I think I'm going to go in with some white ink
to define those flowers.
8. Butterfly Demo Part 2: There are two ways that
you can add the white. You can either use
a white ink and just a small acrylic brush or you can use a
white Posca pen. They do have a tendency to splurge out if
you're not careful. So what I normally do is use
a scrap piece of paper on the side and let some of that white paint flow
onto that first. And I will use sort of that as a reservoir and go back
to it if I need to. Oh, can you see how that's made a huge
difference already to the white petals against some of that dark background that we introduced right
at the beginning. Oh, it's gonna look gorgeous. Oh, really, really nice. While I was having my
little sort of break, I was looking at the reference. I was looking at a
thumbnail of the reference, and I realized that
almost everything up here is really, really dark. But I don't want to make that dark because I love
this texture coming through. So I'm going to have
to think of some sort of some other device. I haven't worked it
out yet, but I will. That's often how I work. I have a vague plan. I do not have a step by step. I just think, well, if I need to do this, how do I get there? If I need that to happen, how do I achieve it? And then we need to think, look at the unopened buds. They work well, don't they? Oh, they do look good. All right, let's just, you know, you don't have to do this
thing with the scrap paper. It just saves a lot of heartache in case it all
comes splurging out. And you've just spent, you know, 15 minutes creating this
piece and you could try and incorporate accidental paint in like I have done in the past. It's really great to have that back up and some of
that white goes here. One thing that I forgot to
mention is you've noticed that I've only used like the dark paints gray and
one shade of green so far. And to keep that
harmonious aspect, I often use a very
limited color palette. It just means that
your eyes isn't distracted too much
with everything that's going on because you've got
all that texture happening in the background and
I kind of want to keep the emphasis on that. Where the lower wing of this butterfly meets
the white petals, it was going to be tricky. And I think the best
way to deal with that is to use some pencil
and also to add, start adding the patterns
that you see on the wing. I'm just going to
add a few more dots there because I wanted
to break that up. And we've got these
blossoms here, coming off the top edge. They fading off because of the values that's happening
in the background. So I might have to
introduce the slightly darker green just
to offset them. What I need to do is fill in the background with
negative green. By the way, I'm just carry
on using my card pencil, the light Abe to add
some of the patterns. I'm going to have to
simplify it right down. There's just too much. It does that. And it continues, There's several layers of this. Okay. This side as well. Gone a bit skew with there. Ah, now I've just realized the edge of the butterfly's
wing is quite dark. I might go back in, I might just go back in there with a little
bit of the pains, gray. The while I'm thinking about it, we've got these sort of
ovals happening here. It's not showing up
so much on there, but it shows up a
lot more there. Well, that's nice, isn't it? There's a line that
goes all the way to, extends down to its body. If I'm doing it on
this side, let's do it on this side as well. I do find this difficult
after these first two ovals. It's very confusing for my poor eyes to work
out what's going on. There's two dark patches and
then you can see the lines that extend back towards its body and there's a
few other lines here. And there's more markings. Okay. Okay. So if we've done it on that side,
they're still on this side. It's gonna be fine going towards the edge of the ring. Does does this uh,
what does it do? Oh, right. There's
orange in there as well, but I don't think
I'll use orange. I want to use pink since we've got pink
coming through here. And if I look closely, it's got this little
scalloped edge, which I'm going to try and
introduce a little bit. Okay, that's not bad. So let's go in with
a bit more posca, I think I figured it out. What's going on past this,
this scalloped line? There's more white and
then it goes dark again. I'm just kind of
blending it in with the color pencil
there now. Okay? Oh, this is tricky, right? Let's use tinie brush and
a bit of this opera Rose, or if you've got some
sort of a magenta, and as I mentioned, the colorings are
actually orange. But oh God, that is so
bright, but I love it. And also, there's a
big old patch here, almost does that really. I don't want to copy
it exactly because I quite like seeing
these pops of pink. That's quite nice, isn't it? Okay. So if I do
it on this side, I have to do it on
the other side. Okay. Right. So we also
have to define this wing. Let's pick up some of that. Pines gray and I should
have filled that, There's a leaf popping
out from underneath that, the wing, that should
have been a mid green. But we've got that. I might just define it
tiny bit more there. Oh, that's made a huge
difference already. Looking at this reference, I can see a tiny line of white. So I could probably add that
I might have the problem that the Posco pen is going
to merge what I've just done. Yeah, kind of did because
I'm a little bit impatient. Well, I think we're almost
there with the butterfly. You just need to define this area on this
side of the wing, and I don't want to cover
up the whole thing. You have to find
the balance between how much detail you put in, how much water color
you put on top. Because you don't
want to cover up that gorgeous texture
that you've created. But you need enough information to tell the viewer
what's going on. And if you're new to
working like this, it might sound tricky. The more you do this, the
more you'll get an idea. Oh gosh, I not sure about those. This stage is just adding the final touches such as
the body of this butterfly, which I've done with
colored pencil and also a few more of the
veins in the wings. Then it's time to add the
antenna using the white posca, just two marks like
that is all we need and just a few dots here and there to pick out highlights
on the body. I'm going in with a mid green in this upper
section and it's quite rough because I don't want to detract from the central story
which is the butterfly. The negative shaped background is a little bit less defined. To help the area around the
lower right butterfly wing, I decided to go in with
some mid green so that the contrast was a
bit better and it was telling the story a
lot more clearly. The blossoms on the
top of this piece, I decided to use an
outline rather than white posca because the
contrast just wasn't there. So the line still told the story and adds a really
nice graphic element. I must, hey, I am jolly
pleased with this. I have still been able to retain that lovely texture underneath
as I hoped I would, especially on that
butterfly's wings. And also that pink showing
through in the leaves as well. I think it creates for
quite a harmonious piece.
9. Flower Demo Part 1: For this next demo. I have these Uraniums which
are out in my garden. I quite like the
fact that I can see the stems of this one
in the background, even though it's
the page that I've chosen is one that I
created in earlier demo. So let's fill this space up. I'm just going to sharpen
one of my pencils. It is the purplish
red luminance. I want to make the most of these beautiful pinks and
oranges I've got here. I want to position
the flowers so that they take up
this area here. I'm going to have to
edit a few things out, starting with the bloom, that's towards the back. I'm just going to define
the edge of that. And I'm not going to try and draw in each individual petal. I'm really just concerned
about the shape because I want to make sure that I make the most of this lovely swish. No, I can go back in and
define it a little bit better when I get to
the painting stage. But I just want to
make sure that I block off an area reserved just
for the floral petal. So that's probably
that one here, the one next to it. I might use a bit of artistic
license and move it along just a little bit
so that I can use this lovely luminous
area as well. I'm going in quite faint,
my reference photo, which I hope you will
download as one of the resources for this class
or you can use your own. It comes around about
here and then about here is where you get the
third set of uranium heads, overlaps here and you've got a, the Petunias set of blooms. And the petunias
roughly one here. Actually, I think
that's probably a bit big, more like that. Okay. And there's
a third one here, which I can just looking at
my other reference photo, I don't have the
whole photo for that. I know what geraniums,
how they're formed. You know, this is a really
great excuse for me to use Opera Rose again,
which I love to do. If we take a moment to look
at this initial sketch, you can see that I've only included the really
basic outlines, the actual shape of the
flower heads rather than including any
individual petals. Right, let's go in with the pains gray I'm going to add because pains
gray is for me. I think it's quite cool color. So I'm going to add a little
bit of brown since we've got this terracotta pot that I've
planted the geraniums in, and that will just
bring the warmth up a tiny bit that is dark again, we just going round trying to
pick out the darkest bits. And I can see this
is the edge of the pot had a bit
of purple actually, just to make it tiny bit richer. And where else is
it dark about here, where one of the is one of
the edges of the leaves. Even though it's up against actually saying that
I can see a stem. If I look carefully,
I can see a stem. So I'm going to create that so that I
can paint around it. I can start defining the
edges a bit better now. And there's actually
a petal just there, so I'm using my
brush like a pencil. I, I've been told on many occasions that I
draw with watercolor, which I actually like that
term, drawing with watercolor. And around here is the outer
edge of the flower pot. Outside of it is
where it's darkest. The more I squint, the
more I see that it is under here as well. That's fine. The petunia here, remember
I move things around a bit. That was the edge
of the flower pot and the bit above
it, there we go. We got a good definition
there as well. In between the flower petals, I can see dark patches are
I'm going to add those in. Just placeholders
before I forget, I'm Time to define this stem. The rest of that is
probably a mid green. Okay, right? That's a
good start actually. No, I was going to say, do I want to add the
petals next or do I want to add the mid green? So let's go in with
the mid greens using some of that sap green again, because I can define the edges of the uranium flowers
still using this green. Oh, this is looking
good already. I'm very happy about this, this mid green, even though
it's all foliage up here, There's patches of pink
geranium there and also here. So I might be able to add that. I can bring it up to the petals, and within that I can
add some darker areas to denote the different sort of leaves that are overlapping
each other and everything. But we'll come back to that. Once this green layer is dry, the rest of it is
in amongst here. Actually, just put
a little bit there, that's the edge of the pot, and all this area
is green as well. The foliage extends all
the way up to about here. I'm just going to fill that
in really, really quickly. And then we can go
in again and use some negative space
to define shapes. I think this is too harsh and I've covered up a
really nice swish, so what I might do is
wet this edge here and remove some of that water color with kitchen roll. I'm just
going to grab some.
10. Flower Demo Part 2: All right, Let me just
gently rub that off, and that softens the
edge a little bit. I do find, I must say, I'm finding this just a
little bit on the cool side, and I want this
piece to stay warm, so I might have
to just introduce a little bit of orange and
some of that Opera Rose, which that's the next bit that
I'm going to do just here. That's great, actually. Well, I've got some of
that mixture on my brush. I can define this flower pot. Yes, that's about right. Actually, you can see it coming through about here as well. Which is fine. I haven't created a perfect circle.
So let's go in. We have some of that Opera Rose, which is one of my
absolute favorites. I'm gonna have to
make a bit of room on my palette 'cause it's a little bit mucky and this is all I do. Please excuse the police sirens or whatever it is
happening outside. Let's get some of
this opera Rose in. Oh, I love it. Gorgeous.
Isn't that gorgeous? I'm not going to be sort of
outlining petals and such. I'm really after the shape, the shapes that you can see, because your brain is
going to make up the rest. Actually I can see that
there's a gap there where I need to add a
bit of negative space. I might need a tiny bit of red, sort of a warm red just to help things along, to add contrast. Because this area here is
just that little bit darker. And let's go around
this quickly. Just filling them in, but not massive detail. Just literally almost like the shapes shape of a
petal here and there. Just going to mix up some of this paints gray
with the Opera Rose, because I can see a gap where I can utilize some
negative space painting. Just to define that, all
that works really well. Actually, let's
just do one wall, which Yeah, is coming up here. Now I'm going to
leave it like that. I know it looks a
little bit unfinished, but we can go in again. So think of this as
your first pass. I need to spend a bit of
time putting the rest in because you don't want to be overworking it at this stage. I always say that your brain is trying
to figure things out. As you paint it
will come up with a solution. You know what? I think they're a
little bit defined. If I really squint, they're not that defined. They probably merge
in a little bit more. So I'm going to take away
some of that preciseness, then I'm going to have
to come back to it. This area here of this
particular bloom is the darkest. So let's mix up that
with a bit of violet. Oh yes, that works really well. The green behind it
is actually sort of an acid green almost. It's really bright. I think
I'm going to add some of this new opera rose that I've mixed up with the purple
just here. Oh yes. That's immediately helped give some dimensionality to that,
those particular blooms. And these here are darker still. Oh, I think this is working
out really, really well. This is a really
great place to stop. Walk away from your piece, come back to assess it
with some fresh eyes, and work out what this
next stage is going to be. I'll probably need
to work into it with colored pencil
for contrast. The two pencils that
I'm using are the purplish red and
also dark indigo. Remember to keep a
limited color palette. That's why I'm only
using two pencils. First of all, I thought
I'd start with the petals, but then I realized I
needed to define the edges of them in order to
give them more shape. The leaves of
uraniums are really distinctive and in order to give some form to that
massive green paint that we added originally, I needed to outline them. And this is enough information
for me personally, to give the viewer an indication that there were leaves
in the foreground. I'm adding some coloration on some of the leaves using
that purplish pink, which I'm not going to add it to all the leaves because I think
it would just be a little bit too much and it
would distract from the actual flower heads
in the reference photo. It just looks like a mass
of green and I can't really figure out
all the leaf shape. So I'm just giving
an indication of what I think was happening
in the background. I am being very intentional about where I'm
adding the lines. I want to use an economy of line so that it doesn't
become too complicated. I still want to simplify
things as much as possible. So at this stage, I decided to add some
white Posca pens so that it could help me differentiate
what was going on. I was using the method of squinting and just trying
to find the lightest areas. And it would be very easy to just scatter the
posca everywhere. But I am trying to be
really intentional and very much observing what I
see in the reference photo. In order to achieve this effect, I love using colored
pencil for the precision. And I can change the
pressure on the lead so it can give something that's a very intense but also lighter. But most of the time,
I am pressing really hard because I'm trying to find the darkest contrasts here in
order to define the petals. And this is where I'm adding the individual petals so that
some of them do stand out, but I don't have to
do it to all of them. The more I look at
the reference photo and the more I can decipher and evaluate what needs to happen to make this
piece make sense. There could be two
ways of doing this. You can either
concentrate on one area at a time and make sure you
build up the layers that way. But what I tend to do is
just go all over the place, shifting from one bloom
to another bloom. And that's purely
because I can't work out in one sitting. What on Earth is going on. I have to take my eyes
away from a certain area. And in the meantime, my brain's still trying
to figure out how you're going to add the
petals in this area. You can still use the techniques
that I'm showing you, but you might have
a different order, a different methodology
for applying the Posca and the colored pencils,
whatever works for you. It's very tempting to try to outline every
leaf or every petal, but I would suggest
that you under work a piece like this
rather than overwork it. I know it's easier
said than done, but think of it as a
crazy trust exercise. What would happen if you
didn't outline every leaf? Wouldn't you still
be able to recognise this as a bunch of
geraniums growing in a pot? I'm really happy with
how these uranium turned out using the pink texture
that was already on the page. I was able to enhance
the uranium petals. In fact, I probably didn't need to add so much opera rose. I think there would
have been enough there, and I could have just used
colored pencil to add little pops of contrast where
some of the petals met. But that's something that I
can consider in the future. But overall, I love the
energy of this piece and I love that swish that you can
still see in the background. The addition of the
color pencil line means you can be as graphic or as organic and free flowing with the line
work as you wish. And that's so versatile and
I love incorporating it.
11. Landscape Demo Part 1: For this demo, we have a
view of La Poco in Provence. It's an island that I
visited earlier this summer. I was teaching an art retreat
there and I love this sweep of the blue and the
silhouette of the trees here. But you can also see greenery. And this is actually a path
that we were cycling on. To get to, I'm going to pop my reference
just here on the side. Do you remember that
it's available as a high rose download
as part of this class? As we've done with
the other demos, I'm going to create a really
rough sketchy outline of this landscape using
the dark sap green. That trunk on the far left
does something like that. I want to incorporate
this patch of green. It is there in the reference, but maybe not exactly there
in that particular area. So I'm going to make that
up slightly just so that I can utilize this lovely sweep
of green. And that's fine. I'm the one who's in
charge of this piece. Nobody says it. You have
to make it look realistic. You pick and choose
what suits you. And I think this
is something that a lot of people
enters their mind, that a piece has to look exactly like whatever they
see in front of them. And I just want to say
you've got choices. I'm already getting a
bit bogged down because these trees very, quite
complicated, right? I'm just going to leave that and the branch of this second
tree intersects it. About this is really dark
against that vivid blue. I'm not entirely
sure how I'm going to recreate that blue, but I'll figure it
out in a moment. Now, the bay is a gentle
roughly like that, Maybe not quite that far, but the edge of a slope there. Yeah, there's a tree there. There's a tree coming
off the edge here. Okay. That will do. And there's a little
tree just here. You've got the bay. When we got down there, the strip of sand
was just so thin. But it was a gorgeous beach, though I went for a
lovely swim there. There's a layer of trees here. This landscape is in front. There's a tree at the edge of
the path, that's that one. There's another tree here, and there's a part
of a tree here, must be snaking
around like that. I love this bit here. I think it's almost like
I don't hardly have to do anything because I'm just
going to leave it like that. This landscape or this
greenery continues going back to the background behind
the first row of trees, you've got these hills, these bumpy hills and
a bit of a mountain. Okay. I think that's
enough to get started. Right. I'm going to add the blue first. I'm going to be using
turquoise or a cobalt. You can mix up sort of, actually, you know what, I'm going to go over this
whole section in blue because these trees are
in silhouette anyway, and if that continued, you'd probably see
the water behind it. Mm, I've just
realized these trees, I could have left
them unpainted. Right. Let me just
take that off there, because that's actually
quite a bright green. So this green is lighter
than one in front, but these trees
are the brightest. As the trees move here, they just seem to get
brighter and brighter. So let's add that, add more yellow to this. Until it gets to the path, we'll be able to add texture
and shape a bit more. Shape, bit more form, and we need to add some sky as well. I'm going to use like a Windsor Green.
Windsor Blue for that. Well, how dry is that? I might get away with adding the silhouette
of the tree trunks. Now you can see how really rough and
ready these shapes are. I've just added them
really quickly. You need to define
certain areas to let me know what's
going on within this scene so that they can
guide me in this next stage. As soon as this bad
color layer is dry, this is dry to the touch now. So I can add my
silhouetted trees. My favorite paints, gray. I'm going to add a little
bit of brown to it, make it a bit warmer. So let's start with
this tree here. I think I need more
pigment in that, trying to keep the strokes
fluid and natural. I don't want to get too bogged down in the details
at this stage. Let's just call
this the first pass where I'm just getting the basics down and I'll be
working from left to right. This branch actually comes all the way down and then goes back up and there's just a mass of leaves and branches in there. Yeah, it extends all the way across to this tree here and there's these
tiny little strands. All right, I've gotta
stop knocking about. I said not to get caught up in the details and
I'm doing it right. Let's move on to the next tree. Actually, there's another I can see there's the branches of another tree coming through
on the very far left. And I'm going to add that now. If I squint, the sea is lighter and the trees are
darker than the sea, so it's not exactly
silhouetted against the sea. It's okay to keep assessing
what is going on and then change your mind because the more you
look at something, the more you realize that
there's a lot more to a scene. Often it's not like
you glance at it once and then you've got to
feel for it straight away. Well, it doesn't work
like that for me. Anyway, now we can add the silhouette
of those trees here. This actual tree rises above that landscape and
merges into the branch. I think this tree canopies is a lot higher up than my original
sketch, but that's okay. I'm mindful when I'm creating the branches that are
going off that page, not to make it too dense, I want that sky to show
through and that will add a lot of context to what's happening in
that general area. I'm using the side
of that dagger brush just to add large shapes. I could add a lot more detail, but it's something
I can introduce. We have colored pencil because I know that I'm
going to be doing that. I feel like I can be a lot
more loose at this stage. This hedge row area, it was incredibly rough. It was like filled
with dried grass and I was trying to recreate the texture just using the
edge of my dagger brush. That's why, again, it looks like I'm drawing with this
dagger brush just to imitate some of the grasses that were growing
up against that path. Although I was enjoying
doing this landscape, it was really complicated
for me to simplify. And this was just a
little easy option before I took a break.
12. Landscape Demo Part 2: Getting a few colored
pencils ready. I have crys color blue by luminance and also
the dark sap green. Oh, that's nice. I like it up against that tree. There are actually little
boats here and we can add them using Posca pen. I think it would
probably work better if I'd left the paper to
dry a little bit more, but I'll come back to
that in a little bit. But let's add some of
this texture in the trees and I'm using that
dark sap green again, actually, do I want to use that green in terms of color pencils? I don't have the best greens. I need to buy some more. That's a good excuse. This is chrome oxide green. You know what I know
in the reference photo that this branch
does not extend up. But because I wanted to incorporate this
patch of green here, I think I might just have
to add a pretend branch. It just doesn't make sense
that there's this patch of green all up there by itself. I want to get a
move on with this. Ideally, I should let this
dry a little bit more, but I'm sure like many of you very impatient and
I'm exactly the same, I think many artists are. Yeah. If I add this blue to
the sky as well as the sea, it'll help to harmonize it. But also it brings the edges, I can see the edges better, which is really great. And again, I don't have many
blues in my collection. I do tend to stick to neutrals. I might have to
invest in more blues. Where's that green? So
this is the green ochre. And this green, I can see
it emerging here as well. I am mindful of
limiting my palette so that the eye can move around the page easily
and it doesn't get too confused because
once it understands, oh, this green is the
pine trees, let's say. It makes that connection
and it's a lot easier to decipher. That's
what I think. Anyway, I'm just trying to
give an impression. I often, that's the challenges. When I turned over to this page, there wasn't any blue on here. There was this patch of
green which I thought, well, that's going to be nice. And one of the happy challenges
is trying to work out, how can I make this piece look understandable
so it tells a story. But this texture, this
pink is coming through. There's no pink in this piece. Well, there's a, I
would say, you know, the path is warm, but I
want to keep all this. So now we want to add a bit of green to this two
sets of hillside. And if I squint this
group of trees, if I squint really hard,
is actually darker. Actually I need to do the posts. There were actually trees
here, chop down trees. I'm going to add this now. These were posts, you can't see it very
well in this photo, but there was like metal wire to make sure you
didn't stray off the path. Dead grass area starts here and there's a whole pile
up against this tree. I'm keeping the movements quick, I'm thinking about it at
all and I'm trying to describe the texture of the
grasses that's going on. I can't add the whole lot. I just want to work with patches where I see that it's very dark and this is dark
against this area here. So let's use a bit of green
pencil to give an edge. Looks a bit van go
off, doesn't it? With all this movement
in the grass. Oh, but I do like it very much. We have some pretty
big boats lined up and I'm not really going to make too much of a big fuss in terms of getting
the boat shapes right. What I'm doing now is
probably going to be enough. You don't have to add
too much detail for the human mind to comprehend
and recognize what it is. I think these are going to
need a little bit of pencil. I'm going to use
the indigo just to describe the shadow
underneath each boat. Yeah, maybe I'll do a sail or
mast, I think it's called. I don't know anything
about boats. A white jail pen would look
quite good there as well. Right. And I said I
would add a bit of sand. Just an indication here
because it would just draw the eye around this curve. Having taken a look
from a little distance, I think I need extra blue here just to bring it through
here a little bit more. The bay where it's
shallower here, it needs to be paler against this hill here where the grass is
actually pretty pale. So I'm going to use white. It's the where's
that green pencil? And the white actually
goes right up against these areas here
and against that trunk. The reason I'm using
white ink rather than Posca for this is I just want something a
little bit more expressive. See I can do things like
that with my brush. The Posca probably gives something that's a
little bit more uniform. Actually, you know
what, I might mix this ink with some of that blue. Um, I don't often do it, but I think oh, that, you know, that almost
behaves like Guash. Oh, that's jolly nice. Might do that a little
bit more here as well. That's looking really good. I said I was going to
add some blue, didn't I? Across this patch here. Let's add some blue
texture just around. I think this tree trunk, maybe a bit of white ink here just to define
the edge of that hill. Just to balance out
this entire piece, I decided to add blue to extend the sky
towards that corner. Upon reflection,
something that does need a little bit more
attention is this patch here. When I looked at it from, let's say a meter
two metres away, it doesn't read as being
in front of this tree, which is obviously in the distance that tree is
meant to be behind it. I think what I need to
do is darken up and add similar textures to
what I've done here, just so that the reader understands what was in
front and what was behind. So I'm going to
use this device of just pine needle type texture here also that I talked a lot about,
the massive branches. I'm just going to
darken this area here and there were
branches coming down. I'm going in pretty
darn heavy handedly. I didn't understand values
as much as I do now. This is just so incredibly dark and I need to make it
a bit more obvious. That's all. That's working
much, much better. And up here as well, I'm really delighted with this version of this
island in Provence. At some points, I didn't know if I could
pull it together, although I was quite
intentional about where I was placing that loose
watercolor layer underneath. I think the color pencil and the fact that
I was only using a few colors really helped to bring all the different
elements together. If you do decide to use
this reference image, then please interpret
it how you want. It's up to you. I'm not looking for a photographic
reproduction. I'm looking for something
is unique and expressive.
13. Final Thoughts: I really hope you've
embraced the spontaneity and enjoyed working on your
sketches as much as I do. Hopefully the demos
have given you an authentic and
unhindered perspective on what's achievable
for many of you. It may be the first
time working like this, so think of this as
your first step. It's definitely worth practicing with a few more
sketches to deepen your understanding
of incorporating aspects such as negative space. Remember to upload your
projects to the class gallery, adding a few words about how you felt about your
expressive sketches. For more inspiration
and insights, please watch my skill share. Class ink and toned paper,
create beautiful flowers, and that will tell
you a lot more about creating negative space. Just a quick note to say, I am a working artist
and although I freely share my art on
Instagram and Youtube, I also make my living from
illustration and tutorials. Feel free to use the methods that I show you in this class, but if your final
artwork looks like mine, please do not sell it. You can still post
it on social media. But do tag me at
own, underscore, underscore win and make it clear that it's something
that you've done as a result of this
class and please use the hashtag omar expressive so I can find your
art, amongst others. Lastly, I want to stress that
these are only sketches, they are not meant to be completely thought
out, finished images, think of them as works in progress in my art student days, these might be termed as roughs, where we can experiment, make mistakes, and
push boundaries. This type of experimentation is essential for creative growth. When we acknowledge sketches
are not meant to be final, fully realized
creations, we can reduce the fear of failure that
often stifles creativity. This freedom to fail
encourages risk taking and fosters an environment where innovative ideas can flourish. The demos I've presented
are just a starting point. They are relatively
straightforward, but you can have layers
and layers of complexity. For example, the dual waterfall in Changi Airport
might be one of my most complex
sketches as there was so much greenery inside
that airport interior. So I had to simplify
it right down. And it really took me a long time to get
my head round it. Seeing art on Instagram land and making art in the real world are two different things
for me to even get to this stage where I can
create a class and share. What I've learned has involved many hours of trial and error, which has been spread across four different sketch books
as you saw at the beginning. So this is your reminder
to not beat yourself up. If you find this way of
working challenging, please be gentle with yourself. Creativity can be a
demanding pursuit. And it's so easy to
become overly critical of our own work and weigh ourselves
down with self judgment. Some of you might
know I used to be an editor illustrator and I wanted to make these sketches of artists I met out in
Singapore look good. I put myself under
a lot of pressure, but I realized that the background was actually
a little bit too much. It was more of a mid range, that's why I had to
apply white ink. And I went through a time when I didn't like
these sketches. But now looking back
upon reflection, they're really good and I'm
really pleased with them. This is your reminder that
every artist, inventor, or innovator faces moments of
uncertainty and difficulty. It's all part of the process of refining ideas and skills and making the journey itself rewarding regardless
of the final outcome.
Ohn Mar Win, Illustrator Artist Educator
