Festive Ducks: A Free-Flow Watercolour Masterclass with Jane Davies

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to this intimated watercolor class. Today, we're going to be painting these fabulous pair of ducks. [MUSIC] Now these two should get you into the Christmas spirit with these easy but effective techniques. Now don't be put off by the theme. You can easily switch out the hat and mistletoe. I'd love to see something else creative. I'm Jane Davis. I live, paint, teach, and walk my lovely spaniels in the beautiful South Downs National Park, England. Over the last fifteen years, I've taught myself the free flow technique that you see today. Not having been to art school, finding my own way has been fun and sometimes daunting, but it has allowed me to develop my own style. This has led me to teach the others, either on a one-to-one basis or as part of a group in a wonderful studio in the heart of the South Downs. I also run a successful commission-based business, painting pet portraits and wildlife art in my own home studio. In all my classes, you will follow along in real time where I can guide you to keeping your work loose and fresh without over fussing. I have over twenty classes available on Skillshare now. If you're just starting out, my three beginner classes will guide you. Then you'll find over twenty masterclasses covering a wide range of beautiful subjects. In each one, I shared the techniques that I use in my own professional work. We'll have a lot of fun together and you'll gain the understanding and confidence to incorporate everything you learned into your own work. Plus I'll share a few of my tips and tricks along the way too. [MUSIC] As ever, I have provided you with some lovely reference photos of these two, along with downloadable templates for you to print out. The templates give you a stress-free drawing so you can just enjoy painting. I'll be showing you the joy and simplicity of placing paint onto wet paper and allowing it to work its magic. I'll be guiding you through sectioning areas off and adding colored layers to create depth. Of course, I will share many of my professional tips, tricks and musings as we work our way through this class. If you'd like to learn more about me or my work, please pop over to my website at Jane Davis watercolors.com.uk. This can be found on my profile page, along with links to my Instagram and Facebook pages. I'm very active on my social media pages where I love sharing my art, especially on stories with many ideas, or works in progress and tales of studio life. I really hope you will share all your paintings on the projects and resources pages as I love seeing your most pieces. Don't forget, I'm here to help if you get stuck or have any questions. I want you to experience that buzz of painting in his liberating wet on wet, loose style. Come and join me. [MUSIC] 2. Materials: Welcome along to this really little light-hearted subject we're going to be painting together. Explains a nice way of building up white subjects using color. As we're talking colors, let me run through my materials. Starting with my colors, these are a lovely selection of, as usual, my Daniel Smith paint. I've got lavender, and I've got a rich gold green. I've got ultramarine violet, quinacridone burnt orange. Nice color, I like that. I've got a cadmium yellow deep hue, Potter's Pink, and I've got a scarlet. Lastly, here just a little bit of white gouache. That's just for doing the tiny little dots, catch lights on the eyes. Now, I don't think there's any particular color that you couldn't swap out for the colors I've chosen. It's a very light-hearted subject. Again, choose the colors you like. These, they're not specific, so have a rummage, choose the ones that you're drawn to and you enjoy using and go with that. Somebody suggested, I will do a little color swatch in the projects and resources page, so that is going to be a little extra for you because rightly so, if I'm using these colors, it's not always obvious what they actually look like, and it will give you an opportunity to find colors that are similar if that's what you want to do. I think I've covered that. [LAUGHTER] I've got a hot press paper actually today and that's an arches. That's actually been stretched. I've got my pot of water, a little bit of salt, and I've ground that up, it's quite a fine ground. Paper towel, my rather small rubber. [LAUGHTER] I've a pencil, and I've got, how many? Four brushes today. I mainly use the large eight. I've got a very, very tired flat brush. It's not something I use. It's a very old one, my dad's actually, and that's just to do the ribbon, the only time I use it. If you've got a flat brush, which you will likely have, probably will look slightly [LAUGHTER] nicer than mine. I've got, again, my little eradicated brush which I always use, and that's great for taking color out. I've got a number size naught, maybe a touch too small, but it was nice for doing the details on the eyes. [NOISE] Then I have used a hairdryer, again, that's just for drawing the very last stages and it allows us to move on a little bit quicker. As ever, there's downloadable templates of these two ducks. I'll pop on a little template of the mistletoe if that's any help to you. But I should do that. What else was there to explain to you? No. I think that's it. Let's go and sketch these guys out. 3. Sketching Out: As you can see, I've already sketched my little ducks out, but I shall give you just a few hopefully helpful tips on how best to replace your templates and arrange your ducks. Obviously, this is a Christmasy time of year, I'm actually filming this, so I put a Santa hat but obviously, if you're painting this in July, you may not want the Santa hats. You can swap all these elements out and leave out what you don't want. Obviously, the mistletoe is quite a seasonal thing and the Santa hat. You may want to do one duck, you may want to incorporate something else. Pick and choose and use the elements that you want. But as ever, the little templates are there for you to use and download and go around and, as I say, I know I repeat this in all the classes if you follow me, so bear with me if I sound like I'm just going over the same things. But for you that maybe haven't joined me before, I'm just going to run through all the things I normally say. But if you put a template down and you draw around, you will find you get some blunt end. Once you lift that template away, have a look at your reference photo and just check you've got the lines right, and they're not too rounded off because all my work is quite loose and it depends quite heavily on having the sketch right in the first place. If your sketch is a little off or you haven't taken the time to get nice crisp details, you'll find all that looseness of the watercolor and the fact maybe your sketch isn't quite right, you'll find your overall piece will look a little messy. Again, you can place those how you wish, mistletoe you can do the same. I probably don't need to tell you much more about it other than just yeah, take your time and get a nice sketch you're happy with. 4. Duck One Body: It's onto the painting. Pick up your bigger brush, and we're going to get your brush nice and wet, wake it up and we're going to wet down. I'm going to call this number 1 duck and number 2 duck. Not trying to sex them or give them names, entirely up to you how you do it. I will probably default into calling one a he or a her, but for time being, this is number 1 duck and number 2 duck. We want to wet down number 1 duck, and you don't want to go too close. You can see where these little tail feathers flick up. We don't want to go into the tail area. We just want to round it off. That makes sense. A little bit helpful, more helpful to actually sketch out that little bit in. I didn't, sorry. All around. We're not doing the feet. Meeting them out, we're just doing the body really and then we're going to go round the bill over the top of the head. Make sure you get that nice V wet. This one goes into the bill. Sweet round, stay within your lines, and probably what I should have said in the sketching out part, make sure your pencil marks are fairly light because this is a white subject. You ideally want to be able to rub them out. So if they're very heavy, they will be hard to move and hard to get out. I can already see my lovely stretched paper is bracketing a little bit, but never mind. That's nice and wet. Note it's sitting in a puddle, but almost because we really going to rely on that paper being lovely and wet and pushing so the paint has lots of water to move into. It's sitting in a puddle, you'll find the paint it won't allow it to move. It's getting the timing right, but we want it nice and wet. Within down to duck your head up and down. Oh, there's a pun there, isn't it? With duck. Make sure it's really nice and wet. Make myself enough. We're going to pick up the orange and a little bit of the lavender. Make sure my brushes through. It's wet, just made sure probably habit, but I make sure it's clean. Then I'll take a little bit of excess moisture up just by tapping on the kitchen roll. Because what you don't want to do is to add too much water or it's just a balance of getting that right. But if you keep cleaning your brush and not taking the excess moisture, you'll find you're adding too much water then. We're going to simply just underneath, obviously it's a white subjects. We don't want to get to bold, go lightly. Don't add too much. Worried a little bit more water if it's not moving, add a little bit more. That's probably enough color. Don't want it too bulk because obviously, we're working on a white subject using just a little bit of lavender just to break up that orange. Just be guided. Have a look, see what she looks like. She's told you a default back to giving them a six and see what it looks like and what you're happy with. We just wanted to, just allow that to move up. I'm going to put a little bit more lavender over here. Say go easy with your colors. If you're bold person, use a lot of color. Try num, rain yourself back a little bit because we don't want too much color on this. Let's have a little bit of pink as well. All about just adding a little bit of extra, just some different colors. Something pretty little bit along the back here. If you find that it's moving too much and give it a little tilt to actually give them put my little, follow me regularly. You know, I have a little wooden heart but didn't think I needed much of a tilt. But what I'm going to do is just put my rubber underneath there and just allow that to move back down. I don't want that coming too far up the page. You can always control your paint by tilting paper around. Because I've got a buckle here you can see it's not helping me particularly flowing back cut me. Before the top of the head dries which it started to if it does and you got little dry patch as long as the majority of your paper is wet, you can just re-wet an area. You see I've got some color on my brush then it's tainted already, hasn't it? Said we just want to put a little bit of lavender. The left-hand side, sorry, concentrating this. Just swing that down there. Take your hand away and see what it looks like. Say look at your reference photo. If you squint your eyes, you can see whether they're a little bit of shadowing. I'm going to put a little bit of pigment underneath this bill here that run down as well. I do want to add some salt, so I'm going to keep mindful of how things dry. It just needs to be popped on at the right stage and that's just when it starts to go tacky. It's not dry obviously pretty and it's obviously not too wet. If you're unsure about salt, it's worth doing a little spreadsheet, popping some paint down and allowing it to dry at different times and popping your salt on. It will give you a good to the eyeball of when's the right time to place your salt. This line here you can see in your reference photos, just a little line down there. We will go over this wing again in another layer. Don't worry too much if you haven't got much color on there. Oh, I think, let's have a little why not one more color. Let's have a little bit of the violet, pop a little bit over there just saying, I just like color. I do tend to add quite a lot. Pop a little bit down there. We're not doing anymore layers over this body so bear in mind if it's something you want a little bit stronger than pop it on now because we won't do another one. Or at least not on this book, parts of the body. I just want to put a little bit of strength down there. If I squint my eyes away, that's given her or giving it a little bit of depth. I think that's probably enough. Actually, I don't want to do too much always we end up with a multi-colored duck, we just need to let that dry but before it dries, we just need to add that salt. Now, mine is a little bit wet because I can see it's taking a bit of a puddle here, a little bit of a puddle here. But actually this is probably okay, so I'm going to sprinkle it on just now. But say, be mindful of your own piece and get that stock down at the right time. Just wanted a little bit over the body. This gives us a marks and that will do me. 5. Duck One Wing: Once your body is really lovely and drawn and to say be really cautious, this soak, because it takes a lot longer to dry. I'm just going to brush a little bit away from my wing area. I want to leave that on there just to make sure it is properly dry. I'm going to pick up my bigger brush and we're going to wet this wing and a little bit of this back of the body. Again, we're just going to, I'll tell you what sure didn't do last time which I think is helpful for you. I'm going to add a little bit of color but this is just for you to see where I'm wetting down. It's not much color there is it? It's not being overly helpful now. Hopefully you get the gist. It's over the wing and down a little bit of the back of the bottom. Should be shaped just nice. All we're going to do is just to strengthen some little bits of areas out. Again, we don't want to add too much color. It's very easy to do. Just going to use a little bit of quinacridone, the orange. Put a little bit down there. It's not moving very well is it? Different paper and I'm not as familiar using hot pressed though I'd give it a go. It's different than I'm used to. Have a little bit of pink. Break that with the pink and get that moving. Sometimes you can use paint for its ability to react with other paints well and then the actual color itself. Let's add a little bit of lavender. No I'm sorry, ultramarine lavender sorry. I just want that you can see the really hard edge along there. I just want to try and get a little bit of that. There's a bit of definition. Again, just wing a little bit down beyond that tail, that's all being feather to strengthen some of the little back of the body. I want to do a few flicks just to get those tail feathers out. I'm actually going to use the lavender as well. Pop a little bit of lavender to give us something to work with. Just like that but it's down. Pick up your little brush. Try and get your right angle. We want to flick some of these out. Again, that's a little bit lighter so it needs to be done at the right time. If it's too dry, it will look like it's been stuck on. Then start a little by in and then flick out. If you flick from the very edge, you're quite likely to make it larger and larger. If you come in into the body a little bit and then flick out, be careful because there's only a little bit of texture here. It's got too much there is there so if we do too much it's going to alter the shape of the body as well. Back to my bigger brush. Now, try and keep everything as loose as you can. Hopefully I can. Don't say you can see another obscure things. We want to flick out. See a little bit of color, stabilize my hand a little bit. Still see, can't you? Working a bit of odd angle here now. Now then color out. Keep an eye on that reference photo. You can see the shape and size. That looks okay. Again, be careful because it is a white subject, we don't want to get too much color. I just want to add a tiny touch of pink just to break up that lavender. That looks okay. Just going to pick up my little brush again. With the roll I just want to strengthen that little area there just along that just to get that line. We have a defined area where the wing is because that's quite a strong line isn't on that reference photo. I think that's about there. A few more flicks with some more of brush should give you a little bit more, some different shape to your flicks. Take your brush away, have a look if you're sitting, just sit up for method to a maybe don't necessarily move your board or your paint paper because you want to leave it flat. But just try and get away from it for a minute just to see from above as it were and see what it looks like. I'm pretty pleased with that so I'm going to put my brush down and I'm going to allow it to dry. 6. Duck One Feet: Again, once this layer is dry, you could carry on with the feet. But I always like little areas to dry just you don't smudge them. Onto the feet. Pick up your picker brush, and then pick up your orange. What we're going to do, we're just going to literally paint the leg in, back and front. This one just goes in a little bit, it doesn't enter the body. You can see that give you a nice perspective about the body is. Clean your brush. It's nice and clean. Again, take a little bit of excess moisture off. You can see that color, and then we're going to just pull using this paint, that's halfway down the leg. We're just going to pull out some feet. I just want this to be loose, so I don't want this to be too defined. I don't want to make too much of these legs, feet, even. That's probably enough. Again, same with the back. Just as a hint to anymore than it is. Being very exact. Just going to pick up my tiny little brush, just to make sure I've got those. Next test. The right shape. If you're very good at feet, make them more awesome, better. Probably my weak part is where with this feet, so I tend not to make too much of them. But if you'd like a big foot, then go for it. I'm going to leave it there because I know I'm not good with feet. Again, let that dry, and then we can move on. 7. Duck One Bill and Eyes: Again, once you're little feet are dry, we're going to pop the bill and the eye in. Pick up your bigger brush [NOISE] and we're going to carefully wet down the bill. Make sure you get right into those little corners. I'm going to actually pick up my little brush and get right up into those corners. Again, you want it nice and wet but not sitting in a big puddle. Take your time. I can see I've got a little bit too much water so I can just gently touch my brush into the puddle and it should suck it up. Perfect. I might stay with my bigger brush, and we're going to pick up the orange. We're just going to run it down this side. The left-hand side, sorry. A little bit round so that we get that nice fin, because I think that's quite important part. We're just going to allow it to run the other side. I'm just going to pop a little bit of wash in there just to see if we could allow that to be a little bit more space to move in. Just by popping it little bit more water, I've just allowed the paint a little bit more area, a little bit more space to go in and find accent. We'll continue to creep. Just keep your eye on it, and you can always just push it back slightly if it feels like you're going over too far. Pop that down. I'm going to pick up my lavender. I just wanted the most tiny little bit right at the very end, right at the tip of the bill. You can see that little mark there, isn't it? Just tidy up. Make sure it's nice and neat. We're back with the orange again. Just want to make sure that's a nice sharp edge. I think that's drawing nicely. Pop it down. Now, the eye is terribly simple. I'm just going to again pick up the orange and your violet. Well, you can mix this on a little. If you're used to mixing, then you can mix these two. You just got to dark color. All we're going to do just a little. It's nothing very complicated too, is there? We will put a tiny little catch light in. I'll do that on the finishing off stage, but just get the nice shape just like that. Clean your brush. Very carefully just touch the corner of the eye, and then we're just going to join up with the bill. It should just give us a nice bit of softness. Of course, if you've done this a lot larger, you could then elaborate a little bit more on the eye and you can put a little bit of brown in, but to this there's just not enough room. It's just a little duck. Actually, if I put those down. We need to do the left hand eye. You could only see again, that is a minute this little dot. Don't try to do too much, just a suggestion. That is actually probably enough. Don't be tempted to overwork those. Actually, I can see this is now moving over. I'm a little unused to this paper and it's not quite for me how I had wished it to. I'm just going to pop a little bit of water in there on the right-hand side, and that will hopefully push that pigment back into the right-hand side or give us some texture as well. We'll leave that to dry. I'm just making sure I'm safe. As ever, I'm a little away behind this painting so you don't get to see my head. I can't always see these very precise more parts. That's better. [NOISE] Again, that needs to dry and we can start on a Number 2 duck. 8. Duck Two Body First Layer: Okey-dokey. Onto Number 2 duck. Now, same again really, we're going to wet all the body down a whole lot, missing out the bill and we're actually going to go around the eye as well. Let's try and remember to do this, this time. This is for me to be able to show you the area of wet down, so don't put the lavender on yet. Yet or not at all, should I say? I'm going to pick up a little brush. [NOISE] Its got a little bit of orange in there. Last one, so I'm going to make sure I've gone around there, underneath the bubble hat. Pop that down again and we're going to run all the way down the body. Stay within your lines. I've put a little bit of lavender on again so you can see [NOISE] [inaudible] scorching everywhere. Nice for a curve, just a slight curve is no [inaudible] Make sure you have all those nice of elements in this too, nice shapes. Hopefully, you would have done obviously with the sketching out. Make sure it's all filled in. Just bubble your head up and down then you could see if you've left any dry patches, it's easy done. Hopefully, you can see that and where I've wet down. I'm just going to leave out the tail little like Number 1 duck. I've left out the tail just so we can do a nice lot of sort of flicks. Again, make sure it's nice and wet. Not puddling, just right [LAUGHTER] We're just going to use it over a combination of sweet colors again, similar to Number 1 duck. Again, I'm going to go underneath that body first. I've picked up my lavender, violet, and the orange. Ducks go mainly with orange. Lavender on the same brush at the same time. I'm again just touching, just allow that to one. We don't want it too heavy because obviously some white subjects. It's always quite tricky of white subject. Just enough color to give some body. Again, be a [inaudible] to your own piece. If you've added too much orange or it's even, put a little bit more violet somewhere else and vice versa. We're just adding just a little hint and just real softness. That's a little bit of the lavender on the chest area, a bit more. Let's have a little bit of violet underneath on top of that orange. Nice wing strength under here. I'm going to allow that to move how almost however it's moved on its own, just allow that to be. I'm going to pop tiny little bit of violet back, probably a little bit too much. I can clean my brush, take the excess. Don't keep adding water to your piece, just clean your brush deeply on your kitchen roll or paper towel. You need to be mindful, we need to hopefully use this paint here to flick out that tail feathers. I've just had a duck my head in it [LAUGHTER] I'm going to use this a lot today, aren't I? Ducking. I've bubbled my head up and I can see that's probably about right actually. This isn't really wet for mine and this is actually starting to dry so you have to juggle it and judge how your pieces are drawing. Again, using my bigger brush, try and keep it loose. Hold it up at the end and we're going to start somewhere here [LAUGHTER] I think it starts to dry too much [NOISE] Let me do that again. It started to dry here. Pop a little bit more color on. It wasn't very successful, was it? As I was saying, just pop it down there and flick. Pop a little bit of [inaudible] underneath there just to give it a little bit of strength. You can always use a little brush. At this stage again, you can do another fill. A nicer little flick around, is in there. That's quite cute. Again, we want just again, just take a tiny little bit of feather. You see this one hasn't really got much, has it on the reference photo. But it's quite nice to do a few little flicks just to break up the line, but be careful you don't go too mad with it. Actually, I'm going to put a little bit of short. I meant to say on this one when I finish this layer, when I actually turn the camera off. It just needed a little bit more humf. Again, its something that I'm going to do now. l just put a little bit more on my brush, just a little bit in there. Just like that. That's probably enough. So just pop your head up, have a look, see what it looks like from a little bit from a far if you're sitting. We can start on the head. Quite nice to get a little bit of strength underneath there. What would be the or will be the hat so let's have a little bit of the violet. A little bit of orange again and then touch that down. Just allow that to run. Again, you can always tell things if you feel you needed a little tilt, if you want something to run. I'm going to keep this flat because I can see I've got a little bit of a dip and that's sitting in there. It's not necessarily going to be a bad thing, it will leave me with some patterns. If you've got something similar, you can always just suck up any water that's sitting in a pool or a reservoir of water. I will have a little bit of pink. I feel I have gone off colors going on. Put a little bit of pink under here. I'm not picking colors for any particular warmth or coolness, I'm just seeing what I like. If I'm honest, I just like the strength underneath there and the orange, I like the pink. I'm not really being mindful of cooler or warmer shades. But you could be, but I'm not. Keep it nice and simple, just what you like. Let's have a little bit of strength under here, starting with the neck. I think I need to be careful because I can see I'm starting to add too much color. I've also got the little bit of a lavender wash. Well, I put the color down so you can see it. Mindful I'm starting on a lavender rebase. Now, I'm just lifting my head up, have a look. Again, I want to put some salt in. This is probably getting to the right stage. I probably need to pop some down. Again, wherever you decide to put your salt. If you do, then just be a judge of where your paper is drawing. Let's put all that down [NOISE] so I add a little bit of salt. This little area isn't having another layer so I'm going to actually stick into my fingers. I'm going to put that salt there. I'm not going to worry anywhere else because actually, I might put that on the second layer. If I do, see if that works. I'm not sure if this paper is quite performing how I had wished it to, so we'll see whether that makes a salt mark on mine. But obviously, if you're familiar with your paper, you'll probably know exactly how it's going to behave. I think that needs to dry. Just allow it to dry, a hairdryer is handy. But if it's at all wet, you'll find the action of the hot air will blow pigment around. It's really only helpful the hairdryer when its just starting to go off and you just want to get on really, don't you? Be cautious with using your hairdryer. 9. Duck Two Body Second Layer: Once this is nice and dried, we're going to do a second layer. Now, just a word of caution, if your first layer has been really nice and strong and you're happy with it and you like the marks you've got and you think, I think I'm done, don't do the second layer. But if you've gone a little light, it's fun to do another one. I'm going to explain, I suppose, and just do another one and we're going to segment the area up a little bit so we can have a little bit of detail. What we're going to do, we're going to wet around the head again, missing the eye. Go in carefully underneath the hat down and we're going to run right down the chest and we're going to, [NOISE] excuse me, miss out the wing. You can see the line here. Run it down to there. We're not going to go into this tail area where we put the salt. We are just going to fill it in. Now if you decided you're not doing another layer and you want to define some of that wing, all we need to do really to put a little line of water here, pop a little bit of paint on, and then just gently soften it out and that will just give you a little bit of wing detail if you feel you've done enough. If not, you can just join along with me as they say. Make sure it's nice and wet throughout underneath that wing. Make sure it's all filled in, no little dry patches. Now, just because I've wet an area down doesn't mean to say we have to put color everywhere. I just want to just give a little bit of definition around here underneath. A little bit of strength may be at the chest area. So it doesn't have to go everywhere, it just allows everything to be soft by wetting the areas down. We're actually going to drag little bits into the wing as well. I quite like my back. I don't think I need anymore, I just want to put a little bit of strength underneath. I like this lavender. I'm going to put a bit of lavender in. At this stage when I'm doing white animals I quite often grab other colors as well. So if you've got other colors you particularly like you can always add those. It's just I try to confine myself to just a few shades but you could have another blue maybe. I did have lapis lazuli at one point. But yes, I didn't want to bombard you with too many colors. Add a little bit of pink. If you squint your eyes you can see where the little bit of strength currently was because strength is needed. Just tap that in. Try not to do any brushstrokes, you're just tapping. It's very delicate and you don't need to be heavy-handed at all. So if you're a light painter and you're quite delicate this will suit you well. If you tend to be a bit more heavy, you'll find this a little more challenging but it's good. It's good to be challenged, isn't it? As they say. Let's have a little bit of violet because I want. Actually, I'm going to put my bigger brush down and pick up my smaller one. Let's say I want to define some of these edges, you don't have to go all the way along. You can just do little segments at just enough for the eye to see that it's been broken up a little. A little bit of lavender to just go along this wing a bit. So it just touches here and there. I don't need any more strength around the head area, but again if you needed that, you can. I'm jumping around as I do. You can put [inaudible]. I'm forgetting I'm not painting just by myself. That's looking nice. What we can do is put it down. [NOISE] Now, with your brush just take the excess moisture off again and we can just pull in some little bits. Just putting some of this slight color into that wing. If you feel you needed any bit of detail. Let's pick this color up. There is a little bit there, isn't there? [NOISE] Just a little mark and then we can soften the edge of that. Terribly delicate. Let's pick up the little brush again. I can use some of this paint here. Just pause just to get that wing lining. Put that down and that down. I'm touching things. I just want to put a little bit of strength over here so we can then push some color up to that wing as well. I'm not sure if I want any more color, particularly. Put a little bit more water in there. Let's have a little bit lavender, just something to work into that wing. Just a few little flicks. Careful not to outline the wing completely because it can then look like you've stuck it on. Just little here and there, just a little hint. Then again as ever just have a look, see what it looks like from a distance. Scoop that out. You have to be a bit of a judge on your own piece but, you can always stuff in and you're always taking marks out if you don't like them. Make sure you've got a nice shape. If you've got any of your shapes looks a bit ragged you can always make sure you just got those nice shapes. Nice and rounded. I think that one's done. I don't think I need to fiddle anymore. I think once it's dried you'll be able to see that there's just a little bit more depth than the one layer. Better. I don't think I need to do anymore then. Again. Just need to let that dry and then we can do the feet. 10. Duck Two Feet: Okie dokie on with the feet. I can barely see my back foot today on this. Let me just pencil my little lines in so I can see what I'm doing. It helps. That's it. Big brush. [NOISE] Always give it a clean, make sure it's not contaminated with previous paint. Take the excess moisture off, then use the orange exactly like we did with number 1 duck. I'm going to paint on. She's actually painting inside the body. It looks like it's stuck on. Then this back one needs to run. It looks like it's behind. It needs to run along that body line. Clean your brush, you can put the orange down. You got a nice point. I'm just going to use that color from the top of the leg and then pull it out. Like I say, we number 1 duck, if you love doing feet, then I know I'm going to see some brilliant projects with some feeting. Probably my weak thing. Gangnam, same in the back. That's way the front, just do the back of the same beam. Join them up. Doesn't matter. I'm just going to do a real hint. It looks he's got some legs. I'm not going to elaborate at all, but please, if you like doing feet, go for it. I'm going to leave it there. 11. Duck Two Bill and Eyes: Make sure your feet are dry because it's so easy to do that and smear to cost your painting. He's on with a big beak. Bigger brush that we'll use my little one just to get into the corners as well but let's start with the big one and we're going to wet it down. I think the bulk of it, the big brush, and then the little brush we can make sure we get. It's got some color in there already right into the, all edges. Make sure that the shapes just spot on. Then we're going to pick up the orange and I have actually just grabs a yellow, so I've got cadmium yellow deep hue. Again, I can't help myself, I just end up picking colors up but we're going to start with the orange. Now we deal with the number 1 duck, and we are good to just put that into the bottom. Then with my yellow, excuse the state of the tube, all these get a little bit cleaned off before I start filming. But as I've grabbed the yellow, it hasn't had its little clean. We're going to pop a little bit of the yellow on the end of that beak. To be mixing them up there's a little bit to yellowy, pop a little bit of orange and vice versa. Let's print a little bit of the yellow up there and I might even go back over her in a minute. Just to be nice and random, shall we bend the editor. My lovely husband does with the editing side of it and he's not a random person like me. Just looking away at it, I think I need to, that shape it's not quite right, and it just needs a little bit of swinging down. You can always adjust the shape a little bit if you haven't. Maybe got that dead right and you're sketching out part, there, that looks nice. I'm going to quick you're going to do, now I'm going to leave that to the finishing off. That's going to make it a bit confusing. Let's pop that down, it's going to be the way and that's done. I don't think I need to do anymore as it say, if you find your page creeping up a little bit too much, you can even give it a little tilt, pop a little bit of water like we did with number 1 duck. You say there's always ways to pull back your colors either by tilting, pushing, or sucking color up, that's fine. Again, I'm just going to use the yellow, orange and the violet for the eyes. But if you've got a nice rich brown, you want to use that, that's fine, or you're painting a little larger then you can make the eye a little bit bigger, and it can be a bit more prominent. For what we're going to do, I'm just going to wet down little circle. I'm just going to pop the two colors on. Again, you could mix these in a little plate or however if you mix paint and get it all nice and mixed, you don't have to straight out the tube like me. I'm desperate trying to squint from a distance and see if that looks right. That looks okay. That's it really, you don't need to do anymore it's the eye at this stage, just that needs to dry. Once it's dried again really get brush, lets use the violet. I just want a little bit of strength if we're ready, I just want it a little bit darker, it's little bit too pale. Also got a nice line and it goes on around, doesn't it? Let's try and get that in, took all my brush at the same time. This would be really helpful. I could get a little bit closer, but it's a lovely thing to be sitting down doing. You can see I've just done a quite an obvious line around that. Then again ways down, I can then just gently soften that line again with the top as well. Lovely. Let's just give it a little bit more character, isn't it? I'm just going to put back down. I'm going to hang on to it for a minute. There's is a lovely line. Always gives it a smile, doesn't it? Just always paint that in and makes more difference, doesn't it? I will take a little bit of color out in a minute. But we can also shape pop on that little nostril. It's only a little hint. Put that down. That needs to dry for a second. I'm going to pick up my lower eradicated brush, give it a little wake up. I don't want these wet. I've just woken it up. I'm going to make sure it's got a nice point to it. Now I want to take the color out from over the top of that line we've just put in. Very carefully, we need a bit of kitchen motor lift it out. Can you see that? You probably can't see that. Can you? I'm just trying to find an angle where you can?. 'm just contorting myself. But I'm just taking that line out. I can't quite do it from that angle. But you can see that, can you? Now I've managed to take the line out. This paper is just not behaving itself like I'm used to. You get the gist. [LAUGHTER] I've just had to put my line back in the game, but you want just to take that little line out above. What we will do, I'm going to pick up my little boy and just put the catch light on, on this one. That she might have to pop the catch light on number 1 duck as well because I just have to. I know it's out of order. It's Christmas. I'm allowed to be naughty. Just a tiny little dot right there. You see you want it at the top and to the point into number 1 duck. Again nice point. Tiny little eye. It's made a difference, isn't it? Again, with number 1 duck, I'd probably go top. There, it makes all the difference. I'm happy now. Put your brushes down, put your paint down and we are done for this layer or this lesson. 12. Santa Hat Part One: On with a Santa hat. So again, pick up your big brush, give it a nice clean, take the excess moisture off, and we're just going to wet down. Let me pick up the violet so you can see. We're just going to wet down the hat, the actual hat part, the red part. I don't think I need to probably explain it any more than that. Put that down. Pick up your red. We're just going to simply put it the bottom part, all the way on the bottom and just allow that to move. We shouldn't need to do much else actually and if you find that's moving up there too quickly, you can again tilt that way or if you find this part not moving, you can tilt it the other way, as it were. I think that's going to work beautifully. I don't think I need to do anymore, but it needs to dry before we can add a little bit of detail to the bubble on the third top. 13. Santa Hat Part Two: Once your red is dry on your hat, then again, pick up your bigger brush, wet down the bubble, and touch the very base of the hat. You'll find it might bleed a little bit depending again, on your paper. I would expect mine to have done that on a different piece. Let's have the lavender and have a little bit of the violet as well. All I'm going do is pop a tiny little bit to the bottom. Just allow that to move up. Again, we'll do exactly the same with the lining of the fur top. Then wet that down, touching the top of the red. [NOISE] I'm just going to use my little brush with a little bit more control. Again I'm just going to use the violet and the lavender. I'm just going to put a little bit to the bottom. Only needs a touch. It should just gently move. In fact, sorry, I've got my board on a little bit of tilt because my red was moving quite quickly to the top. That she's still wet on the tip. In theory, it should be stopping it from climbing too much. The minute you put a little bit of paint down and it looks like, just take your brushes away. Stop, have a look, and you may be surprised. It's probably enough. I'm going to do just type those tiny little bit, just the very top. Just so when we rub the pencil marks out, you can get a suggestion that there's a top. Again, I will do the same with the top of the fur. I don't want to add too much. Just the merest of touches. Because it's a white subject you just don't need a lot. You just need a suggestion. I think that looks good. Let's put those down and let's let that dry. [NOISE] 14. Ribbon and Mistletoe: Making sure all your hat area is dry. We're going to do the ribbon and mistletoe next. I'm going to be using the ventricle obviously, and then pick up the big brush and we're going to wet all this ribbon area down. Let's put a little bit of color. Color is really, that's quite strong, is really just for you to see where I've wet down. This should be nice clean, clear water for you. Making sure you stay within the lines, making sure it's lovely and neat. A little like say the hat. I've laid my board flat at this stage now. It was on a slight tilt doing the hat and it's now flat. We're just going to add color underneath. Sorry mine is already tinted, isn't it? With the colors for others being helpful. I'm not sure if I am actually. It should almost cover the whole thing really. You could have almost painted this in, but I don't think it gives quite the same effect. I'm just trying to square off what would be the middle part of that board. Lovely, and we just need to let that move and dry on its own. [NOISE] I need to clean the brush, put the red down. We can work on these mistletoe foliage now. I don't want to do the stems because we don't really want to join the stems up and get mucky with the bow area so we need to stay clear of touching that bow. We're just going to wet. We'll do one at a time. We're going to wet one piece of the leaf down. I'm going to pick up our green. Do you have a green you've chosen? Again, you can add, and I probably will, add some other colors on top of it, but we're just going to work a bit of a theme in this class. I'm just going to work underneath and then just allow that to blend up on its own. Never looks like it's going to quite make it, but it generally does so give it a little bit of time. If it doesn't, you can always go and do another layer and add the color in. But if it's harder to take it out then needs to add more into. It's nicer if you can just allow that. We're going to actually touch a tiny little bit of that top of that number one part. A little bit too much water here on my brush, stroking that around. Just by touching that first one we've done, it just allow some of that color. It just keep it all nice and soft and stops and you can do the stalk. You're going to add a little bit of color at the bottom. [NOISE] I'm going to use my tiny brush. I think I'm picking up too much water. Let's get rid of the lavender. Have a little bit of orange. Again, you could be mixing all of these on a little pallet somewhere and getting the colors just right. The colors you like. I tend to drop the colors on top of one another on the wet paper. No right or wrong there. You just make sure your shapes are nice. Pick that lavender up again. We might have made a bit orange here. Jumping around again onto this. I think I do. I think a lot so I don't really realize I'm doing when I'm painting for myself, but I'm here guiding you. I've realized how much I do jump around. Hopefully. That will do that, nicely. Obviously I can't do this one because it's touching the number two part. I can do this one. Swap brushes again. [NOISE] This is what I mean about making sure your brush is nice and clean before you start. You want it nice and wet. I'm going to use my little brush again. I just feel I have a little bit more control and I'm more likely to pick up as much water either. Let's go back in with the green. Let's get rid of the lavender. Let's pick up the violet colors together. A little bit of orange. It's definitely different. [NOISE] I think I might be losing the green element to the mistletoe, but you get the gist. A little bit more green. If you've got a lovely green that you like, then the sea green is a lovely green. You've got Daniel Smith's paint. We wait. That all needs to dry because this needs to dry completely because it's very hard working on tacky watercolor paper and paint it. It would just go wrong so you need to let that dry. This is again, that sort, that's too wet. If I try and join this up, it's going to go a bit messy so I just have to be patient, which is always not that easy, is it? And allow that to dry. Once it's beautifully dry, we're going to just put that darker area underneath the bow. I'm going to use again, use my little brush. You got something a tiny bit but bigger than a number note. It might help you, but I'm just sticking with my number note. I'm going to pick up my red and the violet. Again, you could have mixed this. I'm going to actually just wet this down a little bit or we can just paint it straight in, doesn't really matter. I'm just going to get that deeper color to the impression of that bow, the dark shadow underneath the bow. In the other side, I'm going to wet it down or paint it in, doesn't really matter. I always like wetting stuff down and just allowing the paint to be. There's no right or wrong, particularly on that, Let's say the minute you think that it looks nice, then leave it. Let's put that down because that's worked out okay. Now I'm going to just going to do that. So what would need number 3 I suppose? A bit of mistletoe. I'm going to wet it down using my little brush. Right roll up against the edge of that Number 2 piece. I'm actually going to drop color at the top actually allowing that to run down that side. Let's have the green, so I go with the pink. It just moved down. It's not tilted at the moment, but it still should move. I'm going to form a yellow again. I don't want to get too detailed, but just a little flicks in the center there. Perfect. Now we need to just to the ribbons. I'm sure you will have a nicer flat brush. I never use flat brushes and this is actually a really old brush of my dad. But I think he might have liked to shape or to do a sweep. If you've got a lovely flat brush, then use that. I'll show you what we'll do. We'll do two ways of doing it. Using this conventional way, let's wet a strand down. Again you don't want it bubbling, you want it nice and wet but not sitting in a puddle. I'm going to pick up a bit of red. I'm just going to drop that at the top. I'll just guide it a little bit down and clean that. What I'm going to do with this brush, or a very tight brush. I'll get this nice and wet. Then we're going to put some paint on it. Hold it nice and loosely. We're going to put it coming out here. Just a quick sweep like that. Again, you can just fill that in a little bit. Probably better done with my little brush. There's two ways for you to have a little play at. Let's say you probably got a much nicer flat brush than me; that is not a brush I ever use in my work. I think it's done an okay job, bless it. Lovely. It's just a little buried really now. Again, another white subject so we just want to do tiny hint. Sorry, I've got a bottle of water to run off my brush. I do that. We just want to wet them down individually so they're touching. You're going to have to wait for them to dry. Just want a tiny bit of a hint of color at the bottom. It's just dropping color at the bottom and allowing. Really you need to do them one at a time and let's say you've got them spaced but they don't touch one another. Patience Jane. Even it up up a little bit. What we can do while we're waiting for that to dry is actually take a little bit of light out of that top of that bow so where the knot is we can just scrub a little bit of color away. A bit more resistance for the mood, doesn't it? Just about lifted a little bit. Again, want to wet those down. I just drop a little color underneath. You can alternate the color you use to drop underneath, do a bit of cheating here. Ideally, I need to let this dry, but I'm cheating. I want to just draw a little line. It'll be just enough. Just be careful not to add too much color. They're quite small, aren't they? Again, a white subject. But what's quite nice is to put the tiny little dot in the center so I'm actually going to use my green. I'll just put a little dot. I'm just going to use my larger brush. We're running out of all the inks. Let me get to the yellow. A little bit of orange, a little bit of green. Just use my little brush. I just want to do a hint of stem. I haven't got much stem really showing and I haven't done many pieces of mistletoe, but you can put the stems on to join those up. I have the paint. Just a couple have come out since they look like they're actually attached. Really, that's your mistletoe. Done. 15. Finishing Off: Now once everything is really nice and dry, and we can use the rubber and get some of those pencil marks out. But really make sure that's nice and dry. But you can out the salt first, let's get rid of that. I think it's worked overly well. [NOISE] Little disappointed, my paper hasn't performed how I'd hope to do better. Hopefully, you would have got some nice marks on it. I can show you a couple of the practice pieces where it's salty, they're a little bit better. But anyway, I'm going to rub out the pencil marks. If you kept your picture box nice and light, find our dark sort. I'm giving you some noise. [NOISE] He loses the restraint of the pencil marks and you get a little bit lost and found look, so cautious always think I'm going to rub quite a bit of white paint. I was a little bit heavy when my pencil marks mode, so you can see where my sketching is worth. But if you were nice and light, you'd have found. Now, this head done with disappeared side of the head. Then there. [NOISE] Hopefully. Straight. Feminist. Always, I love when the pencil marks go because it's [NOISE], especially on what subjects say blends a little bit heavy here that should have lifted really, but it hasn't quite. We're just going to finish off, do any little tweaks that need doing any light that knee is lifting, any tiding this. I'm going to just color that. Billing was night and add a tiny little bit of color. Again, let's start with number 1 duck as we started with that one first. Wet my brush. I'm going to wet this, [NOISE] slight tinge green on it. Stressing you should have your brush nice and clean. Just, again, I don't want to go onto that right-hand side. I am just going to drop color onto the left-hand side. Just give us a little bit more depth, I think. I think that's nice. [NOISE] That is the way. Now probably when you've taken your pencil mark out, you will still find that neck has almost disappeared. What we're going to do with a little brush, pick up the pink, make a paint, a little line. Then we're just going to clean the brush, make sure it's nice and clean, and we're just going to, soften that edge. You see it just given a little bit of definition there, without too much. You will use your finger which really good fit to just softening edges. Didn't get a watermark. I think had a tiny bit of green on there are brushes [NOISE] that are contaminated with green, pink would be nicer. That should be enough just to give enough definition. Again, we can lead out this one. You can almost do a tiny line in a little place. Right at the very top, again, just soften that top line. Just the tiny little details, isn't it? Paint, moving a little bit too much for my liking across that were inside. Push it back. It's amazing how the different papers change how you work. It's very different though is phonics, but it is really fun playing with different papers. You'll find one that really resonates with you. That's nice, got some nice qualities. Just not what I'm used to. Just working around her, or it. Again, I'd quit that line, although I can see a pencil line, I didn't. I'm going to put a little bit of a line there, using the pink shifting better as pink, use the bigger brush. Just going to soften that again. Just a little bit of definition that just puts her head and the neck into the body, doesn't it? Perfect. Now, I just want to this is a little bit lining here, so I'm just going to gently can keep these so looser. Just wanted to take a little bit of time to take that line out a little bit. Not lifting quite as well as I'd hoped. We go. Welcome again. I'm happy with the feet so that any tiny little bits, this where you've gone over your pencil marks. I have again, you can tidy those up. It's going to get the theory, you just go around and clean them up. This duck. I'm pleased with this one. I don't think there's much that needs doing, you can see the difference in between the two. That's obviously had two layers, is wondering you only had one on, at least on this main part of the body. You can just see there's a little bit more depth there, isn't it? Just where we've purely by wetting it down again, the paint has spread again and giving us a little bit more color without actually adding more color. That makes sense, it's probably nice doing two layers than one on a white subject, but they're not necessarily all depends on or little depends on your paper, and how your paint has performed really. Around here, me taken out you can take little bits of paint out here and on the back of the neck, that's always quite nice. That out. Again, top of the hat, you can take little bits off the top of the hat. If your paint went up a little bit long. Thought that again, if your paint moves a little bit too far, the hat, you can just gently take little bits of color out. We again, we can put a little bit of ground on some of the practice, Pizza did some, I didn't, so I suppose I shoot. You can see what a little bit ground would look, but if you like that look, then obviously you don't have to. I'm going to use a little bit of lavender. Let's use just a tiny bit of the orange, color on my brush at same time, keeping everything loose, making sure that the brush is wet. Just a hint of color. I'm going put this on the number 1 duck and just, that might even be enough just a little bit. Just a ground a little bit, doesn't it? Do that the same with number 2 duck. Just a few, just sweep through the brushes. It's no more than that. Job done as they may say. That's the ground, and they say you can choose taught to or not to add that. [NOISE] Just waiting for that I quite unwanted but there's little nostrils in that number 1 duck sided. Looks it's dry to me, I'm going to pick up my little brush. Just going to paint them on, to be a bit too strongly noise would be squished in the middle of your finger. Put my brushes down and I'm going to have a little look , and I'm pleased. I don't think there's anything else that needs doing for this particular piece. It's just a case of going round your own work, taking the light out, adding any little lines, just thought we did with the around the eye. I'm just softening being aligned down, softening the edge out. No, I don't think there is any more elements. I want to think with this and say, it's always worth looking at your own piece. As I always say, popular way, get it out next day and see what you think. There'll be glaringly obvious bits if they're already, and you go, why did I not see that? Or another tip is to actually take a photo of your work and then look at your piece on your phone or camera. You can often see that through a slightly different idea as well. I quite often finished my pet portraits by taking a picture of my work, looking at it on my phone, and then adjusting, almost looking on my phone and adjusting any bits. That's a little bit looking at the next day I suppose. But anyway, I feel I'm starting to waffle, so I should end that there. I hope you enjoyed these two, and it's got you into their Christmas swing. If you're listening to Christmas, if not, then obviously dispersed to the hat, if you will, doing this in August, and as ever, please do share these on the projects and resources pages, because I think there's going to be a quite a diverse collection of what you add on what you don't add. It times the season you actually painting this though. Yes, please do share them because I loved that part. Thank you for joining me as Eva. 16. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] I hope you enjoyed this class. These two got you into the Christmas spirit. They were lovely bit of fun, and I hope they made you smile. I hope you enjoyed adding the hints of color. You don't need a lot, do you? Did you enjoy painting the mistletoe hat or did you keep it simple? As always, it's worth stepping away for a couple of hours and looking at them with a fresh pair of eyes. It's amazing what you see. We look forward to seeing you in the next class.