Transcripts
1. Welcome To The Class!: Hello, everyone. My
name is Will Elston, and I'm really excited for today's class because we're
going to jump right into the season and create
a lovely painting featuring a warm cup of hot
chocolate with whipped cream, festive cookies, and
a classic candy cane. It's all about capturing that warm inviting feeling
of the holiday season. I'll show you how to create rich and reflective surfaces
on the mug of hot chocolate, giving it depth and that
beautiful, glossy finish. It's a great technique
to learn if you want to add realism to
your watercolor work. The background is soft,
colorful and expressive, allowing you to loosen up, making the best of the
watercolor medium. We'll be exploring a nice
range of textures from the fluffy whipped cream with the sprinkles to the sugary
sparkle on the cookies. I'll guide you through
all the techniques that make each element
look inviting. I've been a professional
artist for many years, exploring lots of different
subjects from wildlife and portraits to cityscapes
and countryside scenes. 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 everything you post. Don't forget to follow
me on Skill Share 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
create your own festive painting
that conjures up feeling of comfort and Christmas while this
is the class for you.
2. Your Project: Thank you so much for
choosing this class. So in this painting, we're going to look at lots of
different elements of still life and how to capture realism as well as feeling
that comes along with it. Looking into the
painting, we've got nice smooth textures
for the background, a lot of freedom and
dream like atmosphere. And that contrasts lovely with the rich
reflections of the mug. And we've included a candy
cane to make it Christmassy, but you don't have to include
that if you don't want to. You can avoid that and
then it can just be a wintry hot cup of
coffee or hot chocolate, cocoa, tea, whatever your
beverage or comfort drink is. 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: Before we start this painting, let's go over all the materials and supplies you'll
need to paint along. 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. Let'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 colours in my palette that I
fill up from tubes. They are cadmium
yellow, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, cadmium
red, Alizarin crimson, Opramarne blue, cobalt blue,
serlean blue, lavender, purple, viridian, black, and
at the end of the painting, I often use white gouache
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 and Newton,
or Holbein paints. So let's move on to brushes. The brush I use the most is
a synthetic round brush like this scodaPurl 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
washers 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 criinkles 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 use
to clean my brush. Cleaning off the paint
before dipping 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 encourage you
to experiment and explore with different
materials and supplies to see how you feel with them and what
works best for you. Now, let's get on and
start this painting.
4. How to Sketch It Out: So as always, you can go to the resource section to find the template if you don't
want to draw along. But if you do want to
draw along, as always, we have to think about
how we can break down this complexity
into simple shapes. And for me, that usually
starts with circles. So I'm just thinking about where the center
is and how big I want this cup of cocoa to be I think I'll add the
cream on top there. We can add many different lines so that we can find
the right perspective when we refine it later on. And, of course, the
handle, another circle. The saucer, you guessed it another circle. Just like that. Now, adding the candy cane, the sugar cane is
completely optional. I'm going to add it
as I'm uploading this class during
Christmas time. But you don't just have to
have cocoa at Christmas. So if you don't want to add that candy
cane, you don't have to. Because we're using
light strokes, we don't have to commit
to anything yet. You can make the sauce
bigger if you want. We can make the mug bigger. If you prefer a bigger mug of cocoa, that's perfectly fine. The reflection of
the candy cane, the reflection of
the cookies there. Roughly drawing up the cookies. I think we can start changing
to the mechanical pencil. And now we're committing
to these lines. Now that we've all got
the underlayer in, we can think about the
perspective of this cup. I got my rubber
here for if I want to lightly rub away there and you see there's
a bit of residue. I want to make sure the residue is not on the paper when
it comes to painting. The whipped cream on top. It's very suggestive. You don't have to be so
specific with a whipped cream. Trying to be symmetrical on both sides, meeting
in the middle. Now, it might take a
bit of time to do this. If you like drawing, you can take your time and
enjoy it and get it right. But again, if you want a nice little shortcut to get you straight to
the painting stage, then there's no problem
with that at all. Of course it's a painting lesson at the end of the day,
not a drawing lesson. Now, there's some corrections
I need to do, actually. This putty rubber and
the cotton base paper, if you rub hard enough, you can still get rid
of those pencil lines. So it comes out here from here. And this is how I
do my refinements. I'm looking at measurements
in my mind's eye. I'm thinking there's
a bit of a gap there. Then there's a bit
of a gap there, and we have to meet. So it comes out here
about that much. Maybe we can go higher. So
there's all these refinements, and I'm going to
take my time to make sure it's all very
correct for the template. And I'll rub out all these light lines
so that template has a nice clean line for
you to follow along with and see you in the next lesson where
we'll be painting it.
5. Painting The Saucer: We're going to start by
painting the saucer. And like I usually do, I'm going to pre wet the paper because it gives
us more control, and we're using a
gray to begin with, a neutral gray, and then I'm adding a bit of
coolness into it. That's ultramarine and
a bit of burnt sienna. And that's a nice way to mix your own grays
using ultramarine, burnt sienna, and maybe a bit of a lizard and
crimson, as well. Now, you can see that the
footage is slightly sped up because this painting took longer than an hour and
a half for me to do. So it was either speeding it up or cutting
some sections out, and I thought it would be
best to just do a voice over explaining everything whilst
you see the whole process. So I have gray as my main
base color for this saucer, but you can see I'm adding
bits of coolness in there in some sections and
some warmth in other sections. So even as a gray tone, we're keeping it interesting. And the red that I use, the Lazar and crimson and
the ultramarine blue, they actually, when
mixed together, tone down each other. They mute each other out a bit. Usually red and blue make
a very strong purple. But when it comes to pigments, especially of watercolor, very often they tone themselves down. So the purple that I have when mixing them
isn't so vibrant, which is perfect for this use. But I still add a bit of black
in there to keep it Gray. So I'm being quite cautious. I'm not really adding dark
thick pigment at this stage. I'm building up lightly. And if you've used
the stencils to make sure your drawings correct, you'll be able to see which
lines you should paint. But really, the details, although they seem important, you just have to convey the
gist of what this texture is. It doesn't matter if these
lines are exactly perfect. Just as long as you
leave some white gaps, and you convey the
circular motion of this saucer and some edges
you need to protect, you can see the star shaped
cookies on the left. I'm only painting up into the edge because I'm not
painting the cookies yet, of course, so being careful
with that edge there. And if you want, you can just use pure gray. But I'm deciding to add
a bit of coolness in some sections like here and
warmness in other sections. So I started off from right
to left funnly enough. I usually go from left to right. And this area that we pre wetted before
has already dried. So I'm actually wetting it
again with a bit of tone. And it's a bit of a
transition in this section. It's not just a
pure block of gray. So on this right hand side of this shape,
it's a bit darker. And then we're going
to kind of blend it upwards and outwards, add a bit more water to
allow that to happen. Now there's a bit of refining, taking away some pigment with a brush and
adding a bit more. Leaving those white gaps. So thin lines, you can see there's some thin
lines in some places, and then some larger
brush strokes in other places. O.
6. Starting The Background: Now you could, if you want, use the hair dryer
to dry it out, but we're painting a completely
different section now. I'm not too concerned about
using the hair dryer. In fact, what we're doing now is mixing the colors
of the background. You can be as
adventurous as you want and think about what you want to convey for
your personal painting. I'm using cadu red
at the top here. I've got cadmium
yellow next down. But I've added a bit of red to that to make
it a bit more orange. Now I'm mixing in a
nice serlean blue. This is all personal tastes. I'm mixing the colors before
I do the wash because I want the whole of
the background to be one big block of color
with no hard edges, and there's no way I can prepare the colors
whilst I've started. So I have to prepare these colors like
I have just done now, and then I'm starting to wet the whole of the background
into one single wash, pure water at the moment, just because I'm
using this brush to very carefully go up to the edges and
not go over them. And of course, by pre
wetting the paper, it gives us more
control over where we want the pigment
to go when we start. You can see the little
stars in the background that I'm leaving dry as well. So when it comes to
applying these colors, we're not just going to
blend them into each other. We're going to equate a
little bit of space in between so that they
have soft edges, but they don't blur together into one single color because then it'll just
get gray and muddy. So that means that we have
to time it just perfectly. It can't be too wet and
it can't be too dry. So I'm just testing it at
the moment with this yellow. And I can see and you
can see at the moment that it's not completely
spreading out. And that's the
perfect consistency of dampness that we want. And I'm going right
up to the edge. And this is a very
expressive part. We don't want it to be too dark, actually, this background. And this is where a bit of
color theory is handy because we want to be aware of what colors are going
next to each other because this blue and yellow, if it were to blend together,
it would make it green, which is not something I want, so we have to be very
careful about that edge. We can't let them interact. We can't brush over them. We have to allow them to
create their own boundary. And with the red and the purple, they're quite safe together. And the red and the yellow, of course, is safe
together as well. We don't need to worry
about them blending together because they're next to each other on
the color wheel. Likewise, with the
blue and purple, those are comfortable
colors to mix together because they're next to each other on the
color wheel as well. Unlike yellow and blue
and yellow and purple, in particular, they're opposite each other on the color wheel. So that would turn into a
very gray, muddy color. So you have to have a
little bit of faith with this medium because
you can see that there are soft edges there
and they're not blending the colors
aren't mixing. They're smoothly gradulating
into each other.
7. Finishing The Background: Now, we've pretty much
painted the left hand side. And whilst it's still wet, we're going to move over
onto the right hand side. But you can see how
I've just faded out those edges in white, into
the white of the paper. Because, again, we don't want any hard edges except
where we want them. So I've just smoothed
out those edges. Darkening around the hard edges that I do want where it meets
the saucer and the cup, because we want that
edge very defined. So I'm rewetting some of
this area where it's dried, especially where it
reaches the edge. And I'm going to go
in with that yellow, and it's the exact same
process as before, dabbing little blots of color in random places and
filling in the gaps. You'll notice, if
you look carefully, I'm not painting all
the way next to them. Sometimes I'm in
fact, overlapping. I'm aware of the
movement of the pigment. I can almost predict what
is going to happen with it. So especially when
I add this blue, I don't paint all
the way to the edge. I dab it and I know
it's going to move out. And actually, when you
see it in time lapse, you can actually see the
watercolor move much faster. And you can see how it connects, which you might not have acknowledged if
you're watching it on a slow, regular speed. Of course, a lot of
it is guesswork. I'm trying to guess where
the water will blend out to, but through hours and hours of practice and experience
with the medium, you kind of have the ability to guess correctly to estimate
where it's going to go. I'm going to start adding some richer warm colors
down in this bottom corner. A lot of reds,
oranges and yellows. Of course, you don't
have to follow along. If you've already gone ahead with what you want
to do, that's fine. You haven't made a
mistake if you want to discover your own path
and your own intuitions. With the yellows in particular because it's
such a vibrant color. When they're wet, they
look quite overwhelming. But once it's all dried up, that vibrancy gets a bit muted. It falls back a bit, so don't be too red if it
looks a bit too vibrant. Again, it's all about
judgment as well. So if it is definitely
over vibrant, then you can use the brush
to draw out that pigment. But maybe you want
it overly vibrant. It's completely your choice, how you want to explore, how you want to use this class
to express what you feel.
8. Painting The Stars: Now, we've covered
all this area, and this is all one big wash. The biggest portion of
the painting, actually. But if you'll notice
there's a little hole inside this mug
where the handle is, so I'm just going to
have to wet this out. I'm going to start off with
a little orange and then use water to fill
out the rest of the hole and try and match the same color that's outside it with the same tonal value, so the same lightness
of darkness. So that it looks like it's connected, even though it's not. Obviously wouldn't want to
paint it blue or purple inside this section because there's
no blue directly next to it. In some areas, you might want to experiment with splatting
pure water like I am, maybe where the stars
are because this water, whilst the paper
is still wet will disband a lot of the pigment and create nice little
magical textures. So I've dried it up
completely, as you can see, and now filling in
these little stars, these are like, abstract stars, not so defined, barely
noticeable, actually, by the end, but it just adds to that little subtle feeling
of sparkling magic. I'll do the same with
these bottom stars. I'm using burnt sienna
for these ones. I used yellow ochre for
the faint one on the left, and these ones I'm
using burnt sienna. I fill them out at a few
lines with the pure pigment. Actually it's not pure pigment. It's slightly diluted, but it's thick pigment and then
I'm using pure water to spread out that pigment
to make it soft again. These little stars, they're
nothing in particular. These are just little add ons. They're not cookies or anything. If you're going to
add these stars, it's definitely easier
to draw them first. You have a nice guideline.
9. Starting The Cookies: Now I'm going to paint
the actual cookies. Using a similar color, I'm mixing yellow
ochre as my main color because that has a natural
cookie color, the beige color. But I'm going to add a bit of burnt sienna into that
to add a bit of brown, a nice vibrant brown so
that it's not a flat color. And I'm painting the
top part of the cookie, the top plane, the
bit that's above, not quite going
to the edges yet. And there's little
abstract stars. Again, I'm not trying to be super detailed
with the stars, conveying a the idea of a star. So people understand
that there's a star, but in reality,
nothing is perfect. So for example,
when if you want to add the feeling of these
cookies being homemade, they're not going to have
that pristine icing on there, at least when I do
them, when I make them, they're quite messy trying to
be precise with that icing. So it's actually quite realistic to have
them a bit uneven. If they're all pristine
and geometrically correct, it wouldn't actually
look so realistic. So already, you can see how this what seems like
a complex painting, when you look at the thumbnail or the painting in
the resource section, it looks or could
look to you very overwhelming with all the
different details and textures. But you can see how
I'm breaking these down into understandable steps. If you even if I'm not directly sometimes saying
every single step, you can visually see the
consistency of the water, how thin it is or how
thick the pigment is, and the wetness of the paper. So you can see we've
basically added a thin layer of brown to those stars and a
slight bit of texture, and now we're moving
on for a bit. So I'm doing something very
subtle with this sugar cane. Of course, you don't have to add the sugar cane if
you don't want to. If it's not actually a Christmas
scene you're painting, maybe you want to take
that sugar cane out. I just pre wetted it with
water and I'm adding a slight red glow in the middle following the
direction of those lines. Bit of wet on wet. Of course, we're just
painting the underlayer. And it's the combination
of these layers that gives it the illusion of detail
because we're taking our time, we're contrasting
different things together, which would be
impossible in one take. But the power of watercolor
is the fact that we can layer and use the transparency of the medium to our advantage. So that was actually all I did with the sugar cane
for the time being. I added that red line, and then I decided,
I'm not going to add any more of
those quite yet, but I did add this blue wet on wet tonal value that's
very faint on the eye, but you can see on
that sugar cane how it does add a little
bit of illusion of form, which will be useful
for later on. By itself, it's not
that impressive, but it all adds together. So I've moved back
to the cookies now. This is with burnt sienna, which is, again, a
kind of orange brown. And I'm starting from the
bottom and blending it up. I'm combining soft
edges with hard edges, specifically on that star
that I'm painting now, you can see the middle has a hard edge when it connects
to the lighter brown, but the other corners on the left and right
have softer edges. You can experiment with
soft edges and hard edges. Again, I'm painting hard
edges at the moment, especially when it connects that blue and the
shade of the saucer.
10. Finishing The Cookies: M. And now I'm getting a bit of water to
soften some of those edges. This burnt sienna is also
one of those mediums that looks quite vibrant when it's
wet, but when it's dried, it'll look more muted, more brown and slightly
a bit more muddy, which is what I want, actually, because I don't want these
cookies to look too vibrant. I want them to look like
they're actual cookies that have been baked rather
than glowing embers. So that's another thing you
have to have in consideration is how colors vary from when they're wet
to when they're dry. And a lot of these things just have to be learned intuitively
over time and practice. And I'm sure many of you
are already aware of how these colors are affected
when they're wet on the dry. I'm adding a few
W it's still wet, slightly wet, slightly damp, I'm going over it with
a bit of thick pigment, thicker and darker
pigment so that again, it'll be a soft line, but the shape of that
line will be held. It won't be completely lost. Because as much as possible, what we're aiming for is for the water and
the pigment to blend itself rather than manually
blending it with the brush, because usually if we're blending these things
with the brush, it just looks amateur, no matter if it's a
professional master doing it, it just doesn't look as magical as allowing the
watercolor to do it. No. Remember how we always want to make the most
of different edges, whether it's soft
edges or hard edges. So we can move from
one element to the other as the other dries
to make it more dynamic. I certainly haven't finished
with these cookies left yet. I can add a few more having an awareness of how
wet the paper is really helps the process. Okay. And now we can move on to some other aspects while
that area is drying. I might just start painting
a few underlayers, and I'm going to use
this cobalt blue. Maybe add a bit of purple
into that. Just a tad. Just feel what color moves you. And that is the color
you should use. That's the right color
for your expression. So I'm applying the strokes
and then just softening them out. And that's all it is.
11. Reflection Underlayer: Lot of line work in there, but the line work is just a guide. We don't have to
be so loyal to it. It just maps everything out. When it comes to painting, we're still going to observe how
we want the paint to be. We're not going to be fully
committed to the lines. So even though it might look overwhelming seeing the lines, that's not necessarily what
we're following all the time. So I'm going to start
painting parts of the cup. Using a sarin crimson. All the way up to
the rim up there. I'm not going too dark. We can start incorporating
other colors. Maybe some areas can
be a bit pinker. I have my pink in the
same pan as my zar and crimson because it doesn't
need a separate pan. It's quite a potent color. And it's not always there.
I don't always need. I just need subtle touches
every now and again. And again, that's just
a preference of mine. You don't have to do the
same if you don't want to. Bit of blue there, with
a soft edge like that. We can even blend a bit of red into it
like that at the bottom. Let's make it a
bit browner there. It's a bit too heavy, so
I'm just going to draw some liquid out like
that. There we go. I don't want it to be pure red. So I'm going to add
a bit of brown to that mix. Like that. Like I said, this is
just a underlayer. With reflections, there's often soft light reflections
contrasted with bold, sharp reflections. And that's exactly
what we were doing. An off white color. All this will be underneath. There's a little bit of a If you have chosen to paint
the candy cane, you got to think about the
reflections for that, too. Of course, the reflections
for the cookies, too. Using a bit of yellow ochre.
12. The Whipped Cream: They're quite abstract shapes. They don't need to be
perfect reflections because the reflections
distort the shapes anyway. So I'll leave the
rim pure white. Even these subtle
little tones can make quite a big impact. Maybe we can think about
moving back to the cookies. I think I need to add a bit
more brightness to them. They look a bit
dull at the moment, so a bit of pure
yellow winter there. Using the same light creamy, almost yellow ochre
mix here. Very light. I'm going to that's too yellow, that is too yellow. Let's dull it down. And to do that, I'm going to add a little bit of
purple because that's the complimentary color of yellow opposite on
the color wheel, and you can see how that
just dulls it down a bit, makes it a little less vibrant. Because I don't want
this whipped cream to look too yellow. Using the pencil
lines as a guide to create that illusion
of form of volume. A few gray ones. You want a range of
thick brush strokes and thin brush strokes. And you don't need
to overdo it because we're gonna be painting
around the outside of these. A few dabs of red because
we're going to add some sprinkles on later. And
13. The Hot Chocolate: When we paint the actual cocoa around it, the hot chocolate, well negatively paint the
edge of the whipped cream, and the shape of it
will be more obvious. There we go. Bit of purple here. And transition it
to a bit of blue. Because it's a very
warm painting. So adding touches of cool
colors like purple and blue makes a lovely balance. Few dry brush marks,
on the edges. Painting a tone down, a neutral colour just to add a bit of shadow to the
icing sugar on these cookies. H Unfortunately, the camera cut off
while I was painting this shadow section
under the plate. But basically, what I did was lay a few strokes of
thick dark pigment, black, in fact, right at
the edge of the plate, and I used a very wet diluted
mix of burnt sienna to agitate that dark pigment
so that it blends smoothly into that
nice burnt sienna. Now, if you want to see
me do the similar thing, exact same technique,
painting the shadow of the sugar cane to get an
idea of how to paint it, then you can look at the
finishing touches class at the end as a reference
to how to paint this shadow under the plate because it's the same technique. Also, I noticed when
the camera cut out, it missed me painting
this light brown just underneath where I'm painting of the hot chocolate itself, which connects to the cream. But it's a very light burnt
sienna that I used for that, and I'm going over it anyway. So as long as you
match what you see as best you can on the screen,
you should be safe. So I apologize for that
camera cutting out. I'm using burnt sienna and a sarin crimson and
just going along the edge.
14. Starting The Reflections: Because if you
think the shadow of this cream darkens the tone
on top of the hot chocolate. So that's basically
what we're doing here. We're adding a colorful shadow. In particular, I think
it's very nice having this purple contrasted
with the orange there. It really does a nice
trick on the eye. Adding a bit of water and
softening some of the edges. And I'm taking a
very diluted mix and putting fine lines onto this whipped cream
to add to the form. I need to change my brush
because it doesn't have a nice, fine point that I
want it to have. Tiny little areas like that that I mis painted very obvious. Painting the outskirts
of that rim. And this pit is one of the
most important bits, actually. So make sure you create that nice even line that curves around and
leaves that white gap. Because having this white line and then dark shadow
line underneath it creates a nice
little sharpness to the painting which exactly what attractive
reflections look like. I'm adding this nice
vibrant cadmium red and I'm blending it with
burnt sienna again. And I'm following the curvature
of the mug on one side, and then I'm
imagining in my mind, the three D shape
of this curvature, and I'm kind of roughly painting those shapes
down that line down. Of course, they're not perfect
because the things that they're reflecting are abstract
shapes like these stars. But it's important to keep
that white line on the left, the highlight that curves down. Using a tissue to take out some pigment
if it's too heavy.
15. Negative Painting: Now I'm taking the cadmium red again and starting to
paint the candy cane, painting the stripes in the distorted
curvature of the mug. If you're deciding not
to paint the candy cane, you can just leave
this part blank or at least leave the
underlayer as it is. So I'm not trying to
be too precise again. The convenient thing about reflections is that
it's distorted. Just making sure I leave a
few gaps so that the viewer, the audience understands that's what I'm trying to convey. So I've started off
with light pigments, as you can see, now, I've build it up to
mid tone colors. And I'm just assessing where we are before we add
some real darks now. I've even used a bit of
opera pink in there, too, and some purple as well. Starting to drop in
some dark pigment. And now I'm really
scooping some of this purple, some burnt sienna. I'm just making a
very dark pigment, very thick as well, using a very thin brush
with a nice point. Starting to create some of
the contrast in tone now to achieve that illusion
of the reflection, following that black line
down it's an abstract line. It's nothing in particular. Thickening it up a bit. Always going back to my pigments to make
sure my brush is full. And now I'm using that
vibrant red again, agitating it into that dark black pigment
and lifting it up. I don't want to
paint over the star, so I'm painting around
the corners, the outline. Now we can move to the
other side of that star. Again, painting
the outline of it, and then filling in the
areas after connecting The good thing with
this thick pigment is that we can take our time almost because we're not painting
wet on wet really. Tick pigment is
easier to control because we can re wet it
and blend it a lot easier. We can take a few
more breaks so we can take our time and
have fun with it. It's only when we use thin paint when it gets a bit
more stressful.
16. Continuing The Reflections: Now we can start dropping some
thick pigment at the top, so it blends down a bit and start painting the
outline of this sugar cane. This is one of those things where we allow the watercolor, the black and the red to blend in and create its
own interesting shapes. Moving to the other side of
this sugar cane, candy cane. Creating a nice clean line. When I painted the stripes
on that candy cane, I made sure I overlapped it
because I knew I was going to come back
with a darker pigment. Agitating that a bit, allowing it to blend a bit more. These reflections, this part that we're painting
now is probably the most fiddly part because it's the most
abstract part, really. We're painting something
that's quite hard to define. So we have to use our intuition and work on the more
elusive side of watercolor. I decided to use a small
brush for this section because I keep on going back and forth,
collecting different pigments. And I don't need
a lot of pigment like I would in a
background or a large area. So with the fact that I'm changing the colors all the time and I need precision, it makes sense for me
to use a small brush. Adding another dark line there. I start off with a line, a flowing line that
has a lot of rhythm. And then like I have
mentioned before, I fill in the gaps
afterwards bit by bit. So when you observe this and
try to paint it yourself, you go to think both
about the color. And it's good practice for you to work out the color yourself sometimes because
it helps train you. It helps add to your intuition. If I say which color I'm
using every single time, you won't necessarily
grow because of it. But pretty much for the
whole of this painting, I'm using the same
limited palette, really, except for the little touches of blue and the blue
in the background. We're using these
copperish colors, the burnt Sienas,
the sarin crimson, camion red, yellow ochres, and we're only using
the other colors to counterpoint it to contrast
it every now and again.
17. The Handle Reflections: Now I can start
working on the bottom, where the cup meets the saucer. And a lot like we did
with the rim at the top, we're going to add a
few lines curving lines to add to that feeling of
reflection and sharpness. Because really, these
different areas of tone of light and dark, they imply form. So having these thin
little lines that go across talus as viewers, that light is blocked
from that section. So it adds a feeling
of free dimensiality. So we're adding
that curved shape with the thin lines and mixing up with different
thicknesses every now and again, different tones,
exploring the variety of what we can do with a brush. I'm just going to go over the candy cane and soften it up. It there's too much contrast between the white and the red, so I just softened it up again and scrubbed it
a bit with a brush. And now we can start
thinking about the handle because I think we're pretty much done
with the reflection. We might come back later
at the end with gouache, some white paint to just
add some white highlights, but I think we're ready
to paint the handle. And the handle is
quite a fun part because We're basically
just painting in numbers. We're coloring in the
different sections. There's not much
tonal variation. We're creating a
sharp contrast in the form using lines
and solid color. So it's actually easier to paint than the main
reflections on the cup, but also more powerful, too. So I start off as ever with the lines using black
and Alizarin crimson. And now I'm going over with the Caban red and just lifting off some of the
darkness and blending it in but Again, I'll repeat that. I start off with
a dark line using thick pigment and I go in with the camm red like I am now, and then I agitate the original dark pigment
that we first put on and then blend it into that to create a bit of
variety and merging. It's like we go back and
forth and eventually we meet in the middle.
That makes sense.
18. Warm & Cool Red: So yes, there are a few
gradients going on, a few transitions, but
for the most part, this handle is quite solid. So if you observe the shapes and try to paint those shapes
the way you see them, then it should be
quite effective. Again, mixing that
alizarin crimson with cadmium red because cadmium
red is a very warm red. First of all, red is, of course, the warmest color
in the color wheel. But within reds, you can get
warm reds and cool reds. Alizarin crimson is a
cool red and cadmium red is a warm red. Cadmium red is a warm red because it has light
orange undertones, while Salisuan crimson is a cooler red because it leans
slightly towards purple. So combining them, I can create a balanced red that
isn't too warm or too cool, or at least it gives
a bit more depth and vibrancy and contrast and interest to a normal red rather than just
doing a pure red, we're mixing up the different
reds that we're using. This concept of warm and
cool variations extends to all colors and
understanding it is powerful because for example, blues can range from the
cooler greenish tones of thalo blue to the warmish
purple tones of ultramarine. Similarly, yellows can be
warm like camium yellow with its orange undertones
or cooler like lemon yellow, which has a very
slight greenish tint. If you look at my palette, I have two variations of
all those primary colors. I have a warm and cool yellow, a warm and cool blue, and a warm and cool red. Thinking about these
color temperatures and variations helps you make intentional choices
to create contrast, harmony, and depth in your work.
19. The Candy Cane: Now we're moving on to painting the sugar cane, the candy cane. And this is a good
example about what I just spoke about the warm
reds and the cool reds. I'm using basically pure cadmium red to paint this
because it's nice and vibrant and it has that warmth that contrasts against the white
that I really like. And you can see how it does contrast with the Azarin
crimson on the cup itself, which is a cooler kind of red. Also, camiumRd is lighter. If you again, look
at my palette, you can see how dark
the liar and crimson is compared to the Camm red. And if you can't distinguish it as you just starting
out on watercolor, then you can look
at your own tubes. You can train yourself to kind of memorize
what colors look like. That's what I did
when I was learning. I looked at my favorite
painter's palettes and I just tried to work
out myself what those colors were to
retain it as a memory. On the left hand side, I tend to have the more opaqu colors. So that's where
my camium red is. And then on the
right hand side are my more transparent colors
which are a lot darker because the pigments block out all the light and absorb the
light rather than reflect. So when I'm painting
this sugar cane, you can see I'm using a very small brush because
they're very fine lines, and I'm painting these red
lines in the curvature of the cane to give that
illusion of form and depth. And I really enjoy painting this sugarcane might
be my favorite part of this painting because
it's fairly easy to do. We've drawn out exactly
where we need to paint, so it's not technically
that difficult. But creating these
little sharp lines that are well executed
with a bit of furnes just has such
a powerful feeling. It's very attractive
to the eye to have these fine lines that
are curved and well placed. And in the middle
of the curvature, I'm leaving little white gaps that work as highlights
on the reflections. Also, what's nice about
painting this cane is that we're just using one
pure color of cadmium red. We're not really mixing it with a sarin crimson and we're not
really changing the tone. It's just a solid tone. So it's just filling
in those lines. Using the point of the brush. Of course, if you're
painting this outside of the festive season, you can just skip
this candy cane. When it comes to the drawing, you can just leave it out and then paint it as if
it doesn't exist. Then in the reflection
of the mug, you can just leave
it blank or keep that brown wash going over the candy cane
where it is now. One of the main
things to consider when painting this cane is the distinctive
shape and the pattern. You got to have in
mind that it is a smooth rounded cylinder and those curved
stripes wrap around it. The main thing to keep
in mind is to capture that sense of dimension
and curvature. And using vibrant paint against the white
really makes them pop. And notice how that white
isn't actually a pure white. There's a subtle bit of
underlay we did before, which adds to that
feeling of form.
20. The Sprinkles: Going back to balancing
the temperature of colors, you can see in the
background of this painting, I've used the soft
interplay of warm yellows and cool blues to create that
sense of a glowing light, maybe a wintry ambience. When I'm painting,
I'm asking myself certain questions and you should try asking yourself
these questions too, like what feeling or effect
am I trying to achieve? Things like that,
warm variations of color can bring
energy and focus while cooler variations can introduce calmness or distance. By considering the
temperature of your colors, you can build more
intentional contrasts, of course, guide the
viewer's eye and create a more captivating painting
that draws the viewer in. So now we've moved on to the sprinkles on top
of the whipped cream, and it's one of those delightful finishing
touches that makes the painting come
a bit more alive. We're adding a different
kind of feeling and texture, and it's fairly easy to do small little dots with the
smallest brush I have. I'm trying to think about the
form of the whipped cream and where those
sprinkles would land. I'm starting off with red. This is pure cadmium red again. I don't want to
overdo it because I'm going to come back
with the green later. I'm making sure I have
enough my brush just so that I can dab, dab, dab. And although it looks like a lot of sprinkles,
it doesn't take much time. Just a dab, dab dab. They add a lot of
charm and personality, and they add to
the festive feel. But like I said, they also
give a good opportunity to play with that
contrast and texture. I'm resting my hand against the paper very
lightly to anchor it, and then using a
light loose touch. I'm not trying to overthink
the placement actually. I'm just trying to
imagine someone joyfully sprinkling lots of these and they wouldn't fall
on a perfect pattern. Some sprinkles cluster together while others land randomly, and that's the look
we want to capture. I'm starting off
with red greens, maybe a hint of gold
or pink, if you want. I'm just going to stick
with red and greens. But I know some of you
have special pigments with gold in them or
iridescent silver, and you can experiment
with these reflections, especially with
painting in real life. I know a lot of the gold
glittery paints don't come across on digital
photos on the Internet, but for your painting yourself
when you see it in person, seeing that glittery
pigment is fantastic. So you can see how some areas
are more dense than others. I don't want them to feel like they're floating in midair. They should follow the
curves and peaks of the whipped cream resting naturally where
they'd like to land. When it comes to painting the green, I'll do less of them. I prefer the red because that's the main
color of the scene. The green is a bit
too off putting, so I'm going to keep it
a little bit subtle. I'm mixing green and taking camium yellow into
that to make it a bit warmer because Varidian
is a very cool green and that camium yellow
will really make it pop. So I just want to indicate this green in a few places
because like I said, I don't want to overstate it, especially as it
is a vivid green.
21. Finishing Touches: Most importantly,
have fun with them. This is your chance to
embrace the playful, joyful essence of
this still life and you can let that energy
shine through your work. Adding a bit more form
to the composition now. As we're going to start
tying the painting together, seeing any odd details
that need to be fixed. When it comes to this stage, I'm thinking in my mind, what else can add to the painting, add to
the vision I have. If there's nothing else,
then the painting is done. But if I'm looking around and I see something that needs to be done and it just
feels essential, then of course, I'll do it. But when it comes to that stage when
there's nothing left, then that is the painting done. It doesn't have to feel
complete necessarily. I just needs to convey
what you want to convey. If adding extra
things, extra details, for example, take away
from the painting, and that sometimes
means realism, too. If adding more details
or realism actually takes away from the feeling
that you want to convey, then you should
leave it unfinished. So now we're adding that shadow underneath the sugar cane. And I wetted the edges around so that there's a
nice soft edge to them. Don't want a hard edge
for this sugar cane, unlike the shadow
underneath the plate. And that's the only
difference is that this sugar cane has a soft edge, and under the plate, the shadow has a hard edge. So that's a nice
little contrast. But you can see we started
off with thick black pigment, and now we're going in with more diluted camium red and right now I'm
going back with dark being right at the
edge so that it creates that transition of
dark shadow to light shadow. Because of course, the
shadow is going to be darker the closer it
is to the object. Using pure water on
my brush to spread it out a bit to draw
out that pigment. And when you allow the
watercolor to blend for you, you have to be quite patient. You have to wait
a bit to see how it reacts because
you can't force it because it always moves in
the future. That makes sense. If you paint it exactly as
you want it as you see it, then it will change
in 5 minutes time. So you could always
consider how it will end up rather than painting it directly
as you see it. So I'm quite happy with the
feeling of this painting because the feeling
is really what's more important to me rather than
the technical ability. And one of the things I'm mostly happy about or the thing
that I've been trying to concentrate on is the
texture, of course, the range of texture, because that's obviously what
invokes a lot of feeling the silky reflections or the sharp patterns
on the candy cane. But also the color palette, which I touched on before. There's a combination
of rich reds, deep browns and crisp
whites and that really evokes a cozy
holiday feeling. Of course, green and red are the classic
Christmas colors, but I didn't use green
in this because well, apart from the sprinkles, a few sprinkles of green. I didn't use green
because I thought it breaks the harmony
of the color palette. Green is a complimentary
color too red, but with such a warm
based painting, adding some green in there
would be too disjointed, a bit too jarring. So the colors that I
try to choose naturally remind us of seasonal treats like hot chocolate, candy canes, gingerbread, something
that we have a kind of connection to mentally that immediately transport
us to that warm, comforting atmosphere of
Christmas celebrations. So using a limited
palette like this, balance is really the key, and you can see how the red
accents and the sprinkles and the candy cane add pops of vibrancy without
overwhelming the scene. And they're balanced by soft earthy tones of
the cup and cookies, which act as kind of
grounding elements. So I've gone over
the painting with a few touches of white gouache, just for those few
accents of highlights, and I think we can call
this painting done. But
22. Final Thoughts: Well, welcome back.
And I hope you enjoyed watching now is your time to give the painting
a go yourself. I encourage you to have the
final image as referenced as you paint along and maybe
even rewatch the video, pausing it, and take your time to look at every single
step of the process. Because looking at the painting, we explored many
different things, and it doesn't necessarily have to be painted
in the same order, but there's certain things, there's certain corrections and alterations that I
made along the way, because the nature of watercolor is nothing
goes as planned. So that's what
makes it exciting. By controlling where we put
hard edges and soft edges, the reflections can
have a striking effect. 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 projects
gallery down below, and I'll be sure to respond. If you prefer, you can
share it on Instagram, tagging me at Will Elliston, as I would love to see it. Skillshare also loves
seeing my students work, so tag them as well
at Skill Share. 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
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or post giveaways. I hope you enjoyed this class, and it's inspired
you to paint more in this glorious medium until
next time, bye for now.
Will Elliston, Award-Winning Watercolour Artist
