Fearless Watercolor: Simplifying Complex Street Scenes with Confidence

1. Welcome To The Class!: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's class on painting a rainy street scene. And I'm so excited about today's class because we're going to learn how to break down the fundamental principles of watercolor and work out how we can take a complex scene and actually break it down into a very captivating image. When you look at this painting, it looks like it's full of lots of little details. But actually, when you zoom in, you just see that it's abstract shapes. And the principles that we'll be using demonstrate and show us how we can break down complexity and use the spontaneity of the medium to create truly enchanting and captivating effects. One of the most important things about watercolor is letting go and allowing the watercolor to speak for itself and let that magic shine. And if we focus too much on controlling technique and forcing the image, then we lose that magic. So this is a perfect class for getting us to loosen up and trust the process. It really doesn't matter about your end result. All that matters is allowing yourself to see how the pigment moves and not be scared of where it might lead you. I've been a professional artist for many years, exploring lots of different subjects, from wildlife and portraits to cityscapes and countryside scames. I've always been entranced by the possibilities of watercolor. But when I started, I had no idea where to begin or how to improve. I didn't know what supplies I needed, how to create the effects I wanted, or which colors to mix. Now I've taken part in many worldwide exhibitions, been featured in magazines, and been lucky enough to win awards from well respected organizations, such as the International Watercolor Society, the Masters of Watercolor Alliance, Windsor and Newton, and the SAA. Watercolor can be overwhelming for those starting out, which is why my goal is to help you feel relaxed and enjoy this medium in a step by step manner. Today, I'll be guiding you through a complete painting, demonstrating a variety of techniques and explaining how I use all my supplies and materials. Whether you're just starting out or already have some experience, you'll be able to follow along at your own pace and improve your watercolor skills. If this class is too challenging or too easy for you, I have a variety of classes available at different skill levels. I like to start off with a free expressive approach with no fear of making mistakes as we create exciting textures for the underlayer. As the painting progresses, we'll add more details to bring it to life and make it stand out. I strive to simplify complex subjects into easier shapes that encourage playfulness. Throughout this class, I'll be sharing plenty of tips and tricks. I'll show you how to turn mistakes into opportunities, taking the stress out of painting in order to have fun. I'll also provide you with my watercolor mixing charts, which are an invaluable tool when it comes to choosing and mixing colors. If you have any questions, you can post them in the discussion thread down below. I'll be sure to read and respond to every think you post. Don't forget to follow me on Skillshare by clicking the Follow button at the top. This means you'll be the first to know when I launch a new class or post giveaways. You can also follow me on Instagram at Will Elliston to see my latest works. So if you want to take your watercolor painting to the next level, this is the class for you, because I'll show you how you can be loose and expressive whilst also ending up with a very captivating result. 2. Your Project: Thank you so much for choosing this class. I really appreciate it as always. I really think you're going to find this class very useful because we're going to be practicing techniques that might feel scary, and you really got to dive into this process to make it work. And it's through this letting go and allowing the watercolor to speak for itself that really makes the magic shine. Now, don't be concerned if your en resolve isn't quite like mine. I could never paint same painting again because I'm allowing the watercolor to do a lot of the work for me. So the way we follow the painting is by using principles of contrast and warm colors and dark colors and contrast of tone or light and dark and texture. So when we think about what's missing or how to construct composition, this leads our way. We don't need to think about detail, so to speak. Because if you zoom into the painting, you can see that it's actually quite abstract apart from a few things that anchor it together, they're all suggestions of details rather than details themselves. So Trust the process, and hopefully at the end, your painting will tie together, and it'll be a unique piece that has feeling, which is the most important. In the resource section, I've added a high resolution image of my finished painting to help guide you. You're welcome to follow my painting exactly or experiment with your own composition. As we're going to be focusing on the painting aspect of watercolor, I've provided templates you can use to help transfer or trace the sketch before you paint. It's fine to trace when using it as a guide for learning how to paint. It's important to have the underdrawing correct so that you can relax and have fun learning the watercolor medium itself. Whichever direction you take this class, it would be great to see your results and the paintings you create through it. I love giving my students feedback. So please take a photo afterwards and share it in the student project gallery under the project and Resource tab. I'm always intrigued to see how many students have different approaches and how they progress with each class. I'd love to hear about your process and what you learned along the way, or if you had any difficulties. I strongly recommend that you take a look at each other's work in the student project gallery. It's so inspiring to see each other's work and extremely comforting to get the support of your fellow students. So don't forget to like and comment on each other's work. 3. Materials & Supplies: So let's go over all the materials and supplies I'll be using in today's lesson. Having the right materials can greatly impact the outcome of your artwork. So I'll go over all the supplies I use for this class and beyond. They're very useful to have at your disposal, and will make it easier for you to follow along. L et's start with the paints themselves. And like most of the materials we'll be using today, it's a lot to do with preference. I have 12 stable colors in my palette that I fill up from tubes. They are cadmium yellow, yellow cha, burnt sienna, Cadmium red, sarin crimson, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, cerliu blue, lavender, purple, Vidu black, and at the end of the painting, I often use white guash for tiny highlights. I don't use any particular brand. These colors you can get from any brand. Although I personally use Daniel Smith, Windsor Newton, or Holbein paints. So let's move on to brushes. The brush I use the most is a synthetic round brush like this ascoda pla brush or this Van Gogh brush. They're very versatile, because not only can you use them for detailed work with their fine tip. But as they can hold a lot of water, they are good for washes as well. They're also quite affordable, so I have quite a few in different sizes. Next are the mop brushes. Mop brushes are good for broad brush strokes, filling in large areas and creating smooth transitions or washes. They also have a nice tip that can be used for smaller details. But for really small details, highlights or anything that needs more precision, I use a synthetic size zero brush. All brands have them and they're super cheap. Another useful brush to have is a Chinese calligraphy brush. They tend to have long bristles and a very pointy tip. They're perfect for adding texture or creating dynamic lines in your paintings. You can even fan them out like this to achieve fur or feather textures as well. And that's it for brushes, onto paper. The better quality of your paper, the easier it will be to paint. Cheap paper crinkles easily and is very unforgiving, not allowing you to rework mistakes. It's harder to create appealing effects and apply useful techniques like rubbing away pigment. Good quality paper, however, such as cotton based paper, not only allows you to rework mistakes multiple times, but because the pigment reacts much better on it, the chances of mistakes are a lot lower, and you'll be more likely to create better paintings. I use arches paper because that's what's available in my local art shop. A water spray is absolutely essential. By using this, it gives you more time to paint the areas you want before it dries. It also allows you to reactivate the paint if you want to add a smooth line or remove some paint. I also have an old rag or t shirt, which I used to clean my brush. Cleaning off the paint before divving it in the water will make the water last a lot longer. It's always useful to have a tissue at hand whilst painting to lift off excess paint. Also, you never know when an unwanted splash or drip might occur that needs wiping away quickly. I also have a water dropper to keep the paints wet. When you paint, it's important to have them a similar consistency to what they're like in the tubes. This way, it's easier to pick up sufficient pigment. A hair dryer is useful to have for speeding up the drying time and controlling the dampness of the paper. And lastly, masking tape. And this, of course, is just to hold the paper down still onto the surface to stop it sliding around whilst painting. Also, if you plan on painting to the edge, we'll allow you to create a very crisp clean border. And that's everything you need to paint along. I suggest you experiment and explore all different kinds of materials to see what suits you. But let's carry on and start the painting. 4. How to Sketch It Out: In this class, I've included two tracing templates, one with simple forms, and another one with the full details of the scene such as the buildings, the windows, the cars, and the lights. The first thing you want to do if you're drawing this by yourself is to mark out horizon line and then put a point right where all the perspective lines lead to, known as the vanishing point. I'm just going to rotate the paper drawing very straight lines, and this will help guide us throughout the painting, not just the drawing, for the depth that we want to create. This will be a very useful way to guide us when it comes to brush strokes or finishing off the drawing. And I always start off with big shapes to begin with, so I'm marking out a circle there for one of the cars, and As we go through this class today during the painting process, I'll explain a bit more about the composition. At the moment, we're just sketching out, and you can see that I'm not putting any details in to begin with. I'm just blocking out shapes because that's the core of a good composition is simplification. We don't want to fuss it out with details. We want to get the main image, the main message, the main shapes accurate first. If we can create a powerful image just with a few strong shapes, then we can add details after that, just as a bonus. But it's not the details that make a painting, it's the larger shapes and their interactions. I've put lines for the building, outlines, very simple blocks, and now I'm just putting these circles, trying to get a spatial awareness of where I want to put the cars. There's four cars. One of them, it's so small in the distance, it's barely conceivable as a car really. You can see, I'm trying to make my verticals very strong. Se having the balance of verticals with strong horizontals is a pleasant compositional trick as well. When it comes to drawing these cars, we'll use that vanishing point and these diagonal lines to make the perspective right. Now, using the fine tip of my pencil, just to define the buildings will have a little bit more details now that we've blocked them out. And we can take as much time as we want to get the painting as detailed as we want it to be because it's the backbone. It's really what makes more comfortable we are with the drawing, the clearer it is, the more likely our painting will be a success because we'll know the plan, the idea of it. So you can take your time looking to see how I'm drawing these cars and you can pause it and slow it down just to see which lines I do it. I usually do the window first at the top and then the car lights, and then the bonnet on the wheels at the bottom, so I work from top to bottom. If you think about it, it's very simple shapes altogether. They're quite a simple thing to draw. If you've never drawn it before, it might be a bit of a learning curve, but it's always the same thing when you draw cars. We don't need to be so specific about different details. It's really, these cars are the only thing in the painting that has a lot of detail. Maybe we'll do a few dry brush marks for the windows, but it's very generalized. The drawing stage, of course, is just line. We can't demonstrate where different tones will be. We have to leave that for our imagination. But you can see there's a lot of empty space going on on either side of the road. Putting in a guidelines for the windows, I'll paint on later. But other than that, it's just empty space. I'm always trying to be conscious of where that vanishing point is, and I won't rub that out because I want to see where that is when I'm painting as well. Eventually, the paint will cover it, so we don't need to rub it out. Now, it's going to take a bit more time for me to refine the drawing, so I'll come back when it's fully done. 5. Applying Masking Fluid: The first step of the painting procedure actually before we even get the paint of the paper is to apply some masking fluid. And you can see, I'm not actually applying the masking fluid directly onto the paper. I've got a little old palette here, and I'm using a little stick just to dab it in into the specific areas. And although this might seem a bit fiddly, The result at the end will be very impactful because we're going to use heavy use of tone and take advantage of strong contrasts to make this very captivating. So preserving this white of the paper will look so bold at the end, and the scene that we're painting today is a rainy scene at sunset, really. There's not going to be light. A lot of the light will be artificial lights and street lights and things like that. So that's what these little marks of masking fluid are going to convey at the end, or the street, the sign posts, the shop fronts. That's a good example of what I mean in this lesson. It's going to be a repeating point is that I'm not going to be so specific with details. There's just suggestions of details, and we leave the imagination of the viewer to fill in the gaps, whether it's conscious or not that we don't need to be so direct with our details. So you can be experimental as you want when applying this masking fluid. I will say, don't leave too many large marks. Even these small little dots that I'm putting on there will be very obvious because of the high contrast between the white and the dark tones. So if you put your marks or preserve too much of the white of the paper, it will be overwhelming, will be distracting from the vocal point. Even when I'm applying this, you can see I'm rotating this stick, this point so that marks that I'm preserving those dots, they're facing towards that vanishing point. I'm rotating the stick around so that there's it's drawing you in towards the center. I'm not trying to make it too obvious. They're not all in line with each other, but you can feel that as they're coming towards that vanishing point, they're getting closer together and more dense, and as they're spread out towards the edges of the paper, they are are a bit more space around. 6. Painting the Sky: Now, I made sure I used a hair dryer to completely dry the masking fluid. I want you to take a look at the final image to see where these preserved areas of white have ended up. I don't expect you to follow along with the painting without first watching this whole way through just to see how it works because a lot of water color is preparation for things towards the end. You might be doing things without context, it's always useful to look at the full process before you attempt it yourself. I'm starting off of a sky using cadmium yellow and a bit of blue, and I'm doing it so faint that it's not actually going to mix into a green like yellow and blue usually would do. I want to have strong contrast ins painting, so I don't want the sky to be so dark. I want it to exist, but be very subtle. I'm using a big brush for this because if you use a small brush, it won't be a smooth gradient sky. I will be too distracting. If there's too much going on in the sky, it just needs to be subtle. I have my painting on a slight tilt. So that the water gradually falls down, and we're using this gravity to help control where the water cooler goes. Because if the paper is flat on the surface, then you won't know where the water will spill to if there's too much water or where you create your washes. But if you have a slight tilt, you always know it's going downwards and there'll be a unity to the painting because all the pigment will have this feeling to it, this vertical essence to it. So I've done a light wash for the sky, but it's a little bit too pale at the bottom. I want it to be a bit more vivid at the bottom whilst it's still wet. I'm adding a bit more yellow into there to give it that glow. This first stage of the painting is actually the easiest because we're painting the less obvious things. We're painting the underlayer. So we can be a bit more expressive. We don't need to think about details at all at this stage. And I want to apply, I want to increase this wash onto the buildings actually to give some warmth to the buildings, like there is artificial light glowing. And again, look at the final image to see what I'm talking about with the yellow on the left hand side building. Because when we begin a painting like this, it's easy to get caught up in thinking, we need to be precise and exact with every single brush stroke. But really the beauty of this piece and water general lies in its spontaneity, its energy. And the main idea for this class is not to get bogged down in technical perfection, but to embrace the fluidity of watercolor. And the way we handle the brush, the flow of the water, and the unpredictability of the pigments, all of this breaths life into the work. It's about capturing a moment or a feeling rather than reproducing every tiny detail. Because if you try and replicate it as close as possible without allowing the watercolor to do its own thing, then a lot of the magic is lost. For example, when you paint this yellow glow of the building on the left, the water might not spill into the exact same areas as it does with me just because of the spontaneity of the medium. 7. The First Wash: So I'm bringing this yellow down onto the road beyond the cars. And I'm doing this because I'm trying to mimic the reflection of a wet road. So these buildings are going to have yellow light. The sky will be somewhat yellow, and it'll just give that feeling of light. We're using wet on wet technique at the moment. So not many hard edges for the time being. So as we work for this painting, remember that we're aiming to convey the vibrancy and the movement of the scene. And our strokes don't need to be precise. In fact, the looser they are, the more we invite the viewers imagination to fill the gaps. The expressive quality of this medium is what makes it so powerful. We're not painting a photograph, of course, we're creating a dynamic evocative interpretation that leaves room for imagination. Of course, I know this scene does seem overwhelming at first. There's lots going on. We've got cars, buildings, street lights, reflections, et cetera. But I want to reassure you that it's not as complex as it appears. And even for me, sometimes I make it more complicated than it needs to be. Often, when I finish the painting, I think I could have done that much quicker if I just allowed the watercolor to do its magic, not interfering. A lot of the times when I interfere, I actually make it more complicated than it needs to be. It doesn't add to the painting, it takes away. There's a natural incarnation to want to overdo it to control the medium. And of course, technique is a part of that. You do have to know technique, but it's not technique that makes the painting in the end. When we break it down, it's actually really just about layers of color, shapes, and light. And we're not trying to render every single car window, every brick of the building, every street light, every text of the road. We're focusing on the overall mood and atmosphere. And we're doing that by simplifying the forms. A few well placed strokes can suggest something without fully defining it. And that's, if anything, the most difficult thing is to find those well placed strokes. And that comes through exploring and being fearless, which is exactly what this class is about. Once we understand that, the whole painting process becomes much more approachable. So try not to feel intimidated because by working loosely, we're freeing ourselves from the pressure of perfection. And you can see in this painting that for 75% of the time, it's a mess. And it's just in the last few strokes of details at the end that just hold it together. Every painting starts off messy. That's just part of the journey. It's in those rough abstract beginnings that we start to build the energy into the final piece. At the moment, I'm still working on that glow of the buildings, but I'm making sure not to paint over the cars. I'm bringing it down just to the roofs of the cars, and apart from the middle of the road, this orange isn't going past the horizon line. You can see the vanishing point. It's barely going underneath that at the moment. Again, you can look at the final image to see where I'm taking this orange. Another thing is not to be put off by ugly results because at the beginning, when you're a student, they are going to be ugly. But this ugly duckling will eventually turn into a glorious swan. If you keep this habit of respecting the watercolor medium and allowing it to do its thing without forcing it, it will grow and you'll mature as an artist. 8. Suggestion Over Exactness: Now I'm going to extend this wash to the right hand side, and I want to use some bold red for this, and I'm going to be quite expressive using my mop brush, maybe even achieve some dry brush marks, and you can see using vertical lines and also lines that point toward the vanishing point. Just to get that glow. This red glow is at the bottom where the street lights will be, or the signposts, or the shop fronts, where that artificial light will be coming out of the windows and signs and glowing the bottoms of the buildings rather than the top. I'm just going to clean my brush and flick a bit of water on the bottom left of the road just to add a bit more texture and a feeling of wet drops. I think what makes watercolor so special is that it invites suggestion over exactness. If we zoom into any part of this painting, if you look at the reference, you'll notice that what looks like detail from afar is actually just a few splashes or abstract gestural marks, and that's the magic. We're suggesting detail without actually painstakingly painting little thing. When we imply rather than define, we allow this interaction with the viewer and their imagination. It makes a painting more interactive and engaging. We're guiding the eye, but we're leaving space for interpretation. And the viewer might look at the scene and immediately feel the bustling energy of the street, the glistening of light on the wet pavement without needing to see every individual car or person. In fact, I don't think there is a person at all in the scene, just a suggestion maybe in the shadows. It's the mood, it's the atmosphere hereafter. And the approach of suggesting rather than rendering is one of the main elements to really take hold of when it comes to watercolor specifically. I relates to other mediums as well, but it helps create a painting that feels alive. I'm starting to paint one of the buildings in the distance there and I'm keeping it light and tone because I want to add to the atmosphere. Realism is, of course, very impressive, the talent and technique that they've spent years working on. But it doesn't allow for the viewer to fill in the gaps. It makes a painting more personal but more evocative, and that's where the real power of Watercolor lies in its ability to hint at something and let it unfold in the viewer's mind. 9. Chaos & Control: Now, I've dried it completely with the hair dryer, and I'm going to start painting the main wash on the buildings now. I'm going to mix quite a dark tone, but keeping it quite watery, it's not going to be a thick pigment. I'm going to keep it quite neutral, quite brown and muted. Using the tip of my brush, my ascoda perla brush. Another thing to add is that although we're working with spontaneity, we still need a strong underlying composition, an idea in our mind that guides us throughout the whole of the painting. This will also help guide the viewer's eye through the painting too. That's where balance between chaos and control comes into play. We use composition and contrast to bring order to the fluidity. Think about where we place the darkest values or the brightest highlights, and these points of contrast, not only create depth, but also direct attention to the focal areas of the painting, which would basically the horizon line or the vanishing point is where everything comes together. It gives its structure and purpose despite the abstract nature of the piece in general. This structure or composition of a painting can be boiled down to a few simple principles, and there are principles that interact with each other, so it's quite dynamic. But in general, these principles anyone can follow, no matter what your skill level is. We're not relying on advanced techniques. Instead of we're focusing on the principles of composition and the elements of design, which are the building blocks for any strong painting. And all the masters and professional artists use these principles of composition and elements of design to make their artworks stand out and what makes their artwork so special. To put it very simply, when we talk about composition, we're talking about how we arrange the elements of our painting to create balance, movement, and focus. For example, we use contrast to direct the viewer's attention to the areas that matter most. We think about balance, not necessarily symmetry, but a visual balance that makes the piece feel cohesive and harmonious. We guide the eye through the painting with movement using lines, shapes, or even color transitions. At the same time, the elements of design, things like line, shape, color, texture, and space, help us bring the composition to life. The line can create direction and rhythm while contrast between light and dark gives depth and mood. All of these things come together to form a painting that feels intentional and also expressive. 10. Contre-jour: So I'm just dabbing out some of this orange here because it's a bit too dark. I in the center here. I just want to bring back that yellow. So I'm just rewetting it with my brush to get that yellow back. So we've laid down the under layer, and we're starting to work on top of it with darker tones now. As I was saying before, contrast is one of the most powerful elements and principles of design and composition. And one of the most popular lighting schemes you can use for a painting is something called contrade. And this scene is a good example of that. It's a French term that translates to against daylight. And this technique involves placing a light source behind the subjects, in this case, the buildings, creating a striking contrast between light and shadow. It's a powerful method that can evoke emotion and drama in our paintings, making it particularly relevant to this piece. You can see how it plays a vital role because it shapes the overall atmosphere. It also actually makes it easier to paint because by positioning the light source behind buildings and street elements, we create silhouettes that stand out against the illuminated backdrop. This approach not only enhances the visual interest, but also contributes to the paintings sense of depth and dimensionality. When we observe the glowing street lights and the warm hues reflecting off the wet pavement, it becomes clear how contradue allows us to explore the interplay of light and shadow. The bright areas draw our eye while the dark regions create contrast in tension, making the scene feel alive and dynamic. This contrast adds to the emotional impact of the painting. You can see a lot of these contradu examples in very famous works of art or even photography. William Turner or Mone masterfully use this technique in their work. You can see Turner with his atmospheric landscapes, often painted scenes where the light of the sun spills across the canvas, creating dramatic silhouettes against bright skies. And I Monet's paintings, we can see how he used contrad to enhance the vibrancy of nature, allowing sunlight to filter through trees or illuminate fields with many dazzling colors. So when working on your own paintings, try not to shy away from experimenting with contrade. Play with the positioning of your light source and observe how it transforms your subject. Notice how shadows can actually define shapes and create a sense of mystery that invites the viewer to look closer and to engage. So Contradur is more than just a technique. It's a way to express the relationship between light and dark energy and tranquility. It allows us to explore the emotional depth of our subjects and convey a story through our brush strokes. So as we continue on with this painting, let's keep in mind the power of light and shadow, and how contradur can guide us to create more exciting and inviting images. So I've started the main shapes on the left, and I'm just using the tip of my brush to bring the wash down to the very edges of these cars. Try not to paint over the cars yet. Now I'm using a dark pigment just to create that contrast between the car and the bottom of the road. And you can see how the masking fluid is still preserving that paper, and we need this contrast for that white of the paper to pop. 11. The Principles of Composition: Now let's talk a bit more about the principles and elements of composition because it's these things that can help develop your own compositions and your own paintings. By getting to know these principles, you'll have a better understanding about what I'm trying to achieve and what other artists are trying to achieve. You can notice these things in other artworks that you might like, and you can integrate them into your own. As I go through them, you'll see that there's actually a lot of crossover because it's all very dynamic and they relate to each other even though they're not technically the same. The first one we're going to talk about is balance or symmetry and asymmetry. Balance in composition is all about creating a sense of stability and harmony within a painting. It's one of the key principles we can use to guide the viewer's eye and create a cohesive feeling in our work. In watercolor, balance doesn't mean everything has to be symmetrical or equally weighted on both sides. It's about how we distribute visual elements, whether colors, shapes, or values achieve a sense of equilibrium as a whole. Symmetry refers to creating a balance by mirroring elements on either side of the composition. Think of a reflection in water or a perfectly centered building in a landscape. Symmetry often evokes a sense of calm or order and stability. For example, in a street scene, by placing a large object like a building in the middle of the composition with equal visual elements both sides, it can create a balanced and harmonious feeling. Symmetrical compositions can be formed or structured, which gives them a timeless classic quality. However, we need to be careful with symmetry because if everything is too perfectly balanced, it can sometimes feel a little contrived, a little static or predictable. It's excellent for certain effects, but over using it might make the feeling of the composition less dynamic. Another example could be in a landscape. If you have symmetrical trees on both sides, while balance is maintained, the scam might feel a bit too structured and it lacks movement or energy. That's where asymmetry comes in. Asymmetry brings a sense of energy, movement and interest to a painting. It's about creating balance using different elements on either side of the composition. But they aren't mirrored images. Instead, we might place a larger shape on one side and balance it out we have a group of smaller elements on the other. It's still balanced, but in a way that feels more spontaneous and dynamic. With this street scene, for example, you can tell that it's not symmetrical on both sides, but it's pretty well balanced. On the left hand side, we have big buildings, and on the right hand side, we also have buildings, but they're not symmetrical, but they're weighted the same. Likewise with the cars, even though we haven't painted the cars yet even, we can see there's two cars on one side and two cars on the other. But you've got a smaller car with a bigger car, and it evens out, if you can imagine them on a scale. It balances out because the bigger car is further away from the center and the two bigger, other cars are not so far out, they're closer to the center. But there's other ways to distribute the visual weight as well. We can use the street lights. We can use figures possibly. So the painting remains balanced, but it feels more lively and less predictable than strict symmetry. 12. Balance: Now I feel like gang a bit bolder, so I'm going to use very thick pigment and I'm continuing on with this purple mix that I have mixed on my palette. And I want it to be thick because It's going to integrate when we add more water later, and it's going to create some spontaneous effects. Again, we're allowing watercolor to do its magic. So I'm not being afraid to really pile on the thick pigment here. It's very dry brush effects at the moment. I'm also planning for the future. So you can see in the final image, again, that we've got purple here. We've got orange, and I'm going to add turquoise green on there too. And those are tertiary colors. If you had primary if you look at the color wheel at the primary colors and then rotated the color wheel across, you'd see that they line up like primary colors do, purple, turquoise green and orange. They work together in a beautiful way, a bit like complimentary colors, but three ways rather than two ways. So I know we're covering up a lot of this red, but that red is quite a nice pigment because it stains the paper, and later on, we're going to use a palette knife or you can use a regular knife or that you want a ruler to scratch some of the pigment away and expose some of that vibrant color underneath. But you'll see as we get to that later. I'm just explaining what my intentions are for the future. Watercolor is particularly suited to asymmetry because of its spontaneous nature. We can let a wash flow unevenly across the paper or allow one area to remain light and airy while the other is filled with bold, darker tones and textures. Asymmetrical compositions often feel more organic, like the natural world itself, where things are rarely perfectly balanced in a mirrored image, but still maintains a sense of harmony. It's also important to think about visual weight when considering balance because visual ight refers to how much attention different elements in the composition draw. So a large dark object will naturally draw the eye more than a small light object. So we can play with these relationships to achieve balance. A small but brightly colored car might balance out a much larger neutral tone building because the color draws attention. Likewise, a dark, heavily detailed tree could be balanced by a light open sky on the other side of the painting. It's not always about size. Sometimes it's about color, texture, or even how busy or quiet an area in the painting is. One of the exciting things about asymmetry is how it creates a sense of movement. We don't want to have perfect balance, obviously, because the eye naturally moves around the painting, exploring different elements. This movement keeps the viewer engaged, encouraging them to linger and discover new details. It also gives us the chance to play with direction, perhaps leading the eye towards a focal point or guiding it along a path of the street or the river or the roads, up the pavement, wherever. So the best way to get comfortable with balance, whether it's symmetrical or asymmetrical is to experiment, play with different compositions in your thumbnail sketches. Try placing a focal point dead center for symmetrical composition, almost like this one, really. Then shift it off to one side for asymmetry, and notice how the energy of the painting changes by doing things like that. 13. Using Contrast: And always remember that balance doesn't mean everything is equal. It means that everything feels right together. Whether you're using symmetry for calm and order or asymmetry for energy and movement. We want our compositions to feel like they're working in harmony, even when we're embracing the beautiful unpredictability of watercolor. I know there's lots of things going on in the painting that I'm doing, and I'm not necessarily explaining every single step of the way, what specific colors I'm using, etc, et. But if you've seen my other classes, you can see my palette there and you can know what colors I've got and you can see me mixing them and you can and rewind at any section. I actually think it's more important and you'll find more growth in your paintings when you hear these principles. And concepts about art in general. And on that note, let's move on to the next principle, which is, of course, contrast, and it's one of the most powerful tools we have to create visual interest, depth, and focus in our watercolor paintings. It's essentially about opposites. Light versus dark, soft versus hard, smooth versus rough, warm, versus cool, et cetera, et cetera, and how these oppositions can work together to guide the viewer's eye, create a sense of drama and bring certain areas of our painting into focus. Usually, the first thing we think about when it comes to contrast is light and dark. And this is known as value contrast. By placing light values next to dark values, we create a striking visual difference that draws attention. Light against dark is how we make certain areas of a painting stand out. For example, in this painting, at the vanishing point where all those lights come together, where it's very dense with masking fluid. We've got a concentrated patch of contrasted areas that really draws the focus into that area. And you can see as we expand out, that contrast almost dissipates because it's not so dense or close together. Let's say we wanted to add figures into this scene. You know, we're painting a street scene at sunset. If we wanted the viewer to focus on a particular figure or a particular building, we could place it against a contrasting background. Imagine a figure in a white shirt standing in front of one of these dark buildings, shadowed walls, for example, the bright shirt will immediately grab the viewer's attention because of the strong contrast between the light and dark values. And on the other side, if the same figure were wearing a dark jacket and standing against a similarly dark wall, they would blend into the background, and the contrast would be much weaker and the figure much less noticeable. The contrast between light and dark values is key in creating depth. In watercolor, we tend to use light washes to push areas back into the distance and darker washes to pull elements forward. And you can see that in the foreground on the edges of the paper, our use of pigment here is very thick, very black, and in the center in the distance, that's the lightest building we have, that purply kind of tone we've got there. But this goes beyond a city scene. This could be a landscape with distant mountains that might be painted in soft light blues and grays while the trees in the foreground are dark grays and browns. So it's the contrast between the light and dark that creates a sense of depth and freedimentality. 14. Lost & Found Edges: And then there's hard and soft edges or as it's sometimes known lost and found edges. Of course, hard edges are where one shape or color sharply ends and another begins, creating a defined boundary. Then we have soft edges, where of course, two areas gently blend into each other. And in some cases, it's so gradual that you can't even see the edge at all. It's a lost edge, as it's known because there's no clear separation. In watercolor, we have a lot of control over edges and how much water we use and how we apply the paint. Hard edges can be created using less water and by letting one layer of paint completely dry before adding the next. Whereas soft edges, in contrast, can be achieved by using wet into wet techniques, allowing colors to blend and bleed into one another. A lot of this painting is wet and wet. And by looking at the screen now you can see where the hard edges are and the soft edges are At the moment, there are a lot of soft edges, a lot of undefined areas. But as we draw the painting to a close, later on, you'll see more hard edges coming in because we're focusing on the wet on wet at the moment, so that's where the soft edges really excel. Hard edges are great for drawing attention to specific areas of the painting, like the focal point. For example, when we paint all those street lamps, which again, at the vanishing point, we might use hard edges. When we take away that masking fluid, they'll be very hard edges because masking fluid has that hard edges, not a gradual edge. We might want to soften some of them out, but for example, with what I'll do later, you can look at the final reference image. The lights on the cars, even though we've used masking tape, and it's got a hard edge. Actually soften them out of it because I don't want them to take so much of the attention because they're not the focal point. I don't want them distracting from the central drawer of the composition. That's what hard edges do. Soft edges can be used to create a sense of atmosphere or distance. In this scene, you can see the distant buildings have softer edges, suggesting that they are further away, of course, and we're seeing them through the smog of the city or the mist or the visibility that goes at twilight. This contrast between hard edged foreground and soft edged background as depth and interest. It's a lot of things to consider because we have to think of ways to integrate them into your composition. But through repetition, you can retain these concepts and you'll find them coming through in your work through intuition. You don't even need to think about them. They have a sense of what feels right eventually. But like I think, it's repetition. Then you've got smooth and rough textures. Texture contrast is another powerful tool, especially in watercolor, where we can create textures by varying how we apply the paint and the type of brush strokes we use. Smooth textures are obviously achieved with even controlled washes, while rough textures can be created with dry brush techniques or splattering or lifting the paint off with a sponge or scraping. 15. Smooth & Rough: Imagine we're painting a cobbled stone street. We might use rough or broken brush strokes to suggest the texture of the stones, contrasting with the smooth wash of the sky above. This contrast between smooth and rough texture adds tactile interest to the painting, and it invites the viewer to imagine the feel of the different surfaces. Contrast in texture can also create a sense of variety and visual excitement. If everything in the painting has the same texture, whether it's all smooth or all rough, the composition can start to feel monotonous. By varying the textures and placing smooth areas next to rough ones and sa, we can keep the viewer's eye moving around the painting, making it more engaging. Now let's talk about contrast of color, especially between warm and cool colors. It's another effective way to add dynamism to your painting. Warm colors like reds, oranges, and yellows tend to advance in the composition. They feel closer to the viewer. While cool colors like blues, greens, and purples tend to recede, creating a sense of distance. We can use this temperature contrast to create depth or highlight certain areas. Looking at this scene we're painting today, I've actually pretty much broken that rule because I've got cool colors in the foreground and I have that glowing orange yellow going all the way into the distance. I might have those distant buildings of purple, which can be considered a cool color, but it goes to show you can sometimes break the rules. But maybe if I were to redo this painting and I were to think about all aspects of it, maybe the composition would be improved if I kept the warm colors to the foreground and only had cool colors in the distance. There's also an emotional aspect when it comes to colors. Usually warm colors, evoke feelings of warmth, of course, energy and light, while cool colors evoke calm serenity and even sometimes melancholy. So in a more abstract sense, we might want to use warm and cool colors to create movement and focus in the composition, a warm splash of red in otherwise cool area. In fact, we're going to do that on the left. You can see those little red highlights. I have splattered on at the last stage of the painting. That contrast of the red on the blue composition immediately grabs the attention because of that strong contrast in color temperature. 16. Guide the Viewer’s Eye: So all these principles of composition in order to help guide the viewer's eyes in different ways, and contrast is no exception to that. By strategically placing areas of high contrast next to areas of low contrast, we can control the flow of the composition and make sure the viewer's eye lands where we want it to. For instance, let's say we are painting a busy market scene. The overall scene might be filled with lots of mid tone values and soft blurred textures. But we could place a figure in the foreground with sharp details and strong value contrast, perhaps a dark figure against a bright background, and this will immediately pull the viewer's attention to that figure because of the contrast, making it the focal point of the painting. And from there, the viewer's eye can explore the surrounding details, but that initial point of high contrast acts as a visual anchor. And contrast can also help create rhythm in a painting, leading the viewer's eye on a journey. So after that initial, that visual anchor, It can explore around the painting in a landscape, we could alternate between areas of light and dark values in order to lead the eye from the foreground to the middle ground, and then the distant horizons. Contrast helps create a sense of movement and flow, as well as making painting feel more dynamic and engaging. And then we can incorporate the idea of balance of contrast. So while contrast is a powerful tool, it's also important to use it thoughtfully, because too much contrast can make a painting feel chaotic or overwhelming, while too little can make it feel flat or lifeless. The key is to find a balance that suits the mood and the message of the piece. What do you want to convey? These are the kind of questions you have to ask yourself before you begin a painting, really. Of course, it's in your mind whilst you're painting, but when you're looking at a subject, you got to ask, what is it that I'm trying to convey? Keep that message and idea firm in your mind. And then you'll be able to structure these ideas of composition around that idea. In watercolor, we have the advantage of working with transparency, which naturally lends itself to subtle contrasts. We don't really need to rely on harsh or stark oppositions to create impact. However, as you can see in this painting, that's exactly what we're doing. We're using intense contrast because that's what this painting, this is what I wanted to convey in this painting. It's a rainy scene at sunset in a city, and maybe people are rushing to get home, so that contrast adds to the feeling of the energy. Now, if it was a countryside scene with no cars at all and not many figures, maybe I wanted to convey that there's tranquility there, so maybe I wouldn't use such harsh oppositions to create impact. Sometimes the gentlest contrast between a soft wash and a slightly darker one is enough to create depth and interest depending on that message that you want to convey. There's a whole spectrum of these contrasts and elements that integrate with that message you want to convey. That's how emotion and feeling can get incorporated into your paintings. 17. Examples of Contrast: You can see I'm starting to use my palette knife to scrape away at the paint, and you've got to do this at a certain level of wetness. It can't be absolutely sodden. The pigment has to be malleable. Owise, you'll see it runs back. You can see, in fact, as I attempt it on my left, you can see that the bright colors underneath, but because it's so wet still, they're immediately covered up afterwards. So I have to be careful not to overdo it or maybe wait a bit later and come back because it's a bit too wet. I can move large sections like this, but I can't do fine lines like I did on the other side quite yet. We can see how that color that stained the paper below is coming through. And amusing excess paint left on this surface of this palette knife to imply details on the building. It's not necessary to do it like that, but I'm thinking, why not? I've got the paint on my palette? It doesn't need to be super detailed. It's just a suggestion of detail rather than highly planned out and thought detail. If you haven't noticed already, you can see I've added lines to the left of the ad, the left side of the road to help direct the viewer's attention into the center. And by now you can start to see around if you go around clockwise, the composition, all the various lines that I've hinted at to kind of suggest a kind of or visual to the of the middle, where the vanishing point is. So let me give you some examples of contrast in watercolor. For example, a city scape, if you want to attempt your own, contrast could be used between hard and angular shapes of the buildings and the soft flowing sky or the water reflections below. The rigid geometric lines of the architecture are contrasted with the fluid unpredictable washes, and it creates a dynamic tension that makes the painting feel alive. In a portrait, contrast can be used to highlight the face by placing light skin tones against a dark background. The contrast between light and dark draws attention to the subject's features, giving the painting a sense of focus and depth. And then you can even relate it to abstract pieces. We might play with contrasts in texture using smooth even washes and some areas of rough text struts and others. There's a lot of that going on here with the buildings at the moment. It's completely abstract. So you really don't have to worry about adding too much detail because they're just a whole mishmash of soft textures and high textures. We just need a few things to anchor it. And these things that I'm mentioning is what does anchor it. So while it seems like an intimidating painting, by trying to remember these things, you can work out how to control the chaos. The contrast keeps the viewer's eyes moving across the painting, creating a sense of energy and excitement, even without a clear subject or narrative sometimes. So the relationship between elements, whether it's through light or dark texture or color is important. 18. Emphasis: So you can start to understand now what these principles are trying to do, and their main purpose is really to guide the viewer's eyes, the audiences eyes. And where do we want to guide these audience sides to? The focal point. Every painting needs a focal point, as well as it's a lost painting. And what are some of the ways we can make the focal point clear. That's the next principle called emphasis, it's one of the most important principles of composition because it really does give us control over where the viewer's attention goes? We don't want every part of the image to demand equal attention. Otherwise, it becomes overwhelming and hard to navigate. Instead, we can use emphasis to direct the viewer's eye to specific areas. Sometimes we can have multiple focal points if they help tell a story of the piece, but usually it's just one. I only has to be a simple little idea, like the banishing point in here. At the end of the day, emphasis is about creating a hierarchy in your painting, a clear visual path for someone to follow. It's like guiding someone through the experience of looking at your work. Usually, the focal point is the area of highest contrast, greatest contrast or interest or importance in the composition. It's where we want the viewer to stop and focus before exploring the rest of the painting. Watercolor with its inherent fluidity and capacity for bold contrast gives us so many opportunities to play with emphasis, whether we're using color, value, texture, or contrast. We can create areas that stand out and draw the eye in. But the focal point doesn't always have to be in the center of a composition. In fact, sometimes placing it slightly off center like we've done here makes the painting feel a bit more dynamic. So there's many ways we can lead the eye towards the focal point. We've already talked about contrast. Which is one of the main straightforward ways to do it. We've talked about color and the contrast of color or the vibrancy of color that creates the emphasis. Perhaps in a landscape, the entire scene is painted in soft rv tones, but there's one figure wearing a bright yellow jacket walking through a field, and that will definitely take the attention to the focal point. Then we have sharpness and detail. I did say that there's limited detail in this. There's a lot of abstraction going on, but one of the ways we can create emphasis is by using detail and sharpness only in one area of the painting and leaving the other parts abstract or blurry. So when we paint a scene, we don't need to render everything equal detail detail. In fact, part of the magic of watercolor is how beautifully it allows us to suggest detail without spelling it all out. If you wish to do your own city scenes or city scapes, you might choose to focus on one building and rendering it with sharp lines and distinct windows while letting the rest of the city blur into soft washes. Gradually, as you go further away from that vocal point, and the contrast between the soft and sharp shapes makes that one building the vocal point capturing the attention. 19. Positioning & Size: And then we have positioning, where we place the vocal point, also affects emphasis. Like I said before, although it's tempting to put the vocal point right in the center, that can sometimes make the painting feel static. Usually, if we place it slightly off center or even better along one of the thirds of the canvas, the rule of thirds, it creates a more engaging composition. Imagine a beach scene where the main focal point is a sailboat. Instead of placing it dead center, you might position it to the top right third of the canvas, and the rest of the composition is flowing towards it. This off center placement still draws the attention, but it feels more organic and less predictable. Lastly, for emphasis is size. Larger elements in the painting tend to naturally demand more attention than smaller ones. By varying the sides of the objects in the composition, we can sometimes emphasize one area over another. A large tree in the foreground of a landscape will naturally become the focal point while smaller less detailed objects in the background serve to support the main element. That said, size doesn't have to be the only factor. Of course, these buildings are very big compared to the focal point, which is the center, sometimes a small, but highly detailed or brightly colored object can stand out even more than the larger muted shapes. It's all about how we balance these elements. And while many compositions have only a single focal point, some paintings benefit from having a secondary focal point or multiple secondary focal points to create a more complex visual pathway. Secondary vocal points can be areas of lesser emphasis that still draw some attention, but don't compete with the main focal point. A bit like the cars. The cars do have some attention, but because they are all in perspective, they're leading the eye closer to the middle. Again, like all these things, their main aim is to help guide the viewer's eye through the painting and to create movement and flow. In a landscape painting, maybe the main focal point might be a mountain in the distance. But you could also have secondary focal points like trees or a ther in the foreground, and these will be positioned in a way that lead the viewer's eye towards the mountain. These secondary elements are supporting actors, so to speak, to the main leading actor. They support the composition and add depth without contrasting from the primary focal point. And something I should emphasize while we're talking about emphasis is that it's important to remember that not every part of the painting should compete for attention. When there's too many areas emphasized, the viewer becomes overwhelmed and doesn't know how or where to look first. That's why it's crucial to create a balance between areas of emphasis and quieter more subdued sections of the painting. In watercolor, this balance is often achieved through washes. A large area of soft, neutral tone wash can serve as a quiet background that makes the focal point stand out even more. For example, a bright red flower will pop if it's surrounded by a soft green field. So by keeping the surrounding elements simple and understated, we ensure that the vocal point remains the star of the composition. You can see now how I've splattered the canvas with water, waited for a bit, and using the tissue to rub away. 20. Removing the Masking Fluid: And whilst I'm rubbing away now, I'm actually using the tissue to take away the rest of the masking fluid that's on there, revealing the white of the paper below. And you need to make sure that the pigments are completely dry. You don't want to be smudging some areas that haven't already dried yet. Now all the masking tape masking fluid is off. You can see the contrast and how powerful that white of the paper is. We're coming towards the end of the painting now. We're just tying it all up together. I'm using pure white pigment in some areas again to help lead the eye into the center of the focal point there. And using a few splats. Now, a lot of these whites are too white. But that's okay. We're going to use the transparency of watercolor. So we needed them white in the first place, but we're going to go over a lot of them with some vibrant yellows and oranges just to slightly bring down the whiteness of them. And also starting to detail a lot of the cars, adding little highlights, a few dots in little places. Not many details at all, a few well positioned strokes and dots gives the illusion of detail. And you can see underneath the cars the bonnets, it's all in shade. It's all in dark, so we didn't need to really paint the wheels or even really make obvious where the car ends and the floor or the ground begins. You can see going in to these whites. This reflection in the very middle is white of the paper, which is very important because that's the very high contrast area. It's the largest area of white on the paper, and it's a vertical leading straight to the focal point. It's interesting that the focal point in this scene doesn't actually have a real subject it's just the center all the perspective leads to. And you can start to see how suddenly there's an illusion of detail now. Now that we've added these whites of the paper, or rather we've taken away the masking fluid to reveal the whites of the paper, and we're starting to do a few details. It just anchors, the painting, and it gives the illusion of detail where we've only got 3 minutes left of the painting, and 90% of it was pretty m abstract. 21. Finishing the Painting: So we've talked about a lot of concepts today, and it might be difficult to think about how you can incorporate them into your paintings. Now, some of the ways you can do this is to just observe your own paintings or your favorite paintings and consider how these elements and principles relate to them. Maybe you can ask yourself questions like, is there a clear vocal point or can I create one? Because without a vocal point, it can feel disjointed or aimless. So you've got to ask yourself each time if there's one strong element that stands out or if you can even manipulate the scene to create some kind of focus. Then you can ask, is there a natural flow or path for the eye to follow? You can look for elements like roads, shadows, rivers, or lines in architecture that can naturally lead the eye through the scene. If the scene feels too chaotic, with no clear flow, it might be challenging to organize it into a strong composition. And then you're going to think, does the scene offer contrast, your subject that you're choosing, can you see contrast in color, value, light and dark or texture? If everything is the same, in color, tone, it'll probably end up being a flat or uninteresting painting. A lot of the time we've got to simplify the scene in order to achieve these things without losing its essence. Busy scenes like this one have to be simplified with abstraction, because with too many competing elements, it can be difficult to paint and difficult for the viewer to connect with. So we have to try and visualize how we might simplify parts of the scene. And that will most likely mean removing details rather than adding details, like we're saying at the beginning, leaving more to the imagination of the audience, rather than actually directly putting in all that detail. This is how we create art full of emotion and expression. Paintings are most compelling when they do express an emotion, and consider if the scene you want to paint makes you feel something, whether it's calm, whether there's tension, or it's or inspiring. If you can get in touch with that feeling, then you can work out how to convey it with these principles in almost a formic manner. 22. Final Thoughts: Well, welcome back. How did it go? If you haven't already done the painting, I suggest you really give it a go because even though it might seem like a more complex painting than usual, really pushing yourself out there and being fearless is what makes watercolor so exciting. When I started, I was creating terrible paintings, but just by keeping on and working out All these unique things that you can do, only through pushing yourself is really what takes it to the next level, and you've got to go through a rough state before you get to that place where you're satisfied. And really that satisfaction is ongoing because once you learn how to do something, you want to do another thing. So even if something seems overwhelming, it's still a good idea when it comes to watercolor to push yourself because the level will improve much faster and your intuition will really improve in the process. Remember, watercolor painting is not just about technical skills, but also about expressing your creativity and personal style. I encourage you to continue exploring, experimenting, and pushing your boundaries to create your own unique watercolor masterpieces. As we come to the end of this class, I hope you feel more confident and comfortable with your watercolor painting abilities. Practice is key when it comes to improving your skills, so keep on painting and experimenting. I want to express my gratitude for each and every one of you. Your passion for watercolor painting is so inspiring, and I'm honored to be your teacher. If you would like feedback on your painting, I'd love to give it. So please share your painting in the student project gallery down below, and I'll be sure to respond. If you prefer, you can share it on Instagram, tagging me at Williston, as I would love to see it. Skillshare also love seeing my students work, so tag them as well at Skillshare. After putting so much effort into it, why not share your creation? If you have any questions or comments about today's class or want any specific advice related to watercolor, please reach out to me in the discussion section. You can also let me know about any subject Wildlife or scene you'd like me to do a class on. If you found this class useful, I'd really appreciate getting your feedback on it. Reading your reviews fills my heart with joy and helps me create the best experience for my students. Lastly, please click the follow button up top so you can follow me on Skillshare. This means that you'll be the first to know when I launch a new class or post giveaways. I hope this class has inspired you, and you're excited to push yourself further with more exciting watercolor techniques until next time bye for now.