Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hey guys, I'm Peggy. This is Lucy the peg. She has nothing to do with this class. Let us talk about style. This is something that comes up a lot. The thing about style for me is that I do not believe that there needs to be a particular unique, perfect "you" style, but if there is, awesome. How do you form a style? How do you accept that you don't necessarily have one and that you want to be able to roam the earth; Jack of all trades, master of none. This class is targeted toward allowing you to do just that and experiment with different options, taking the same object and utilizing different techniques to create the same thing differently. It is going to help you expand and think a little bit differently when you are creating your own styles. Chances are that even if it is something that you would not necessarily usually go for, you might be able to take something from that technique and apply it to another. She is an old lady senile, she gets very upset. I am really excited about this class and let us jump on it , shall we?
2. Part 1: Lesson 1 - Colors & Shapes: If you've ever created watercolor swatches, then you probably, hopefully [LAUGHTER] have that sense of satisfaction when you create them. And another way to explore style is similar to swatches. It's where you pick an object, and it can be anything but something fairly simple, like teapots, lanterns, things like that. But I'm going to choose just vases for this exercise because it will be the most streamline as far as simplicity. But what we're going for is we're going to choose some color schemes and you can do something muted, you can do something super bright, you can choose complimentary colors and stick with something like blues and oranges together. But what I want you to do is take some, it can be any paint, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, and fill up a page with nothing but that single object. And then what we're going to do is take a white pen, so it can be a white paint pen or a Gelly Roll or a uniball white pen, and then we are going to draw designs over it. So right now, all we're doing is focusing on shape, and then filling that shape with color. I'm just dipping my paintbrush in water, coming out and grabbing a color, making sure that my brush is saturated in that color, and then I'm going to draw my first vase. So I'm just focusing on the outline, and you don't need these to be perfect because we're just playing with character. This is just a style we are exploring. And then once you have one done, move on to the next one, and try to make these as different as you can, so I'm going to go and I'm going to make this one rounder. There's not a lot to it. And then I'm going to come up like this to create a top. And then what I want to do is go in and make these handles. But notice how I'm not taking too much care to be careful in my outline or anything like that. This is just a, I don't want to call it a rush job, but it's definitely meant to be imperfect, so I'm making this one skinnier. And if you want, if it's easier, you can use a reference of some kind. Pinterest is really great for this. I did a lantern painting not too long ago that was based off of this style, and I used Pinterest for inspiration. Also, reference definitely helps get you on the page that you're going for. At this point, I'm just kind of coming up with whatever shape pops up in my head. This one's going to be more square. But notice how I'm just creating a line and then I'm going to do another, and another, and another, and I would try to go with different colors and make this bright. You can really experiment that way. If you're going for a finished piece where it's like a taxonomy of some kind, then that's a different story, because then you can control it better, but I just digitize these, and then from there, change the color or the hue, which is helpful. But we're just trying to play here and get from, I don't know what is on my paper. We're just trying to play here and get your brush on the paper and into that exploration mode. So I'm bringing this one in narrower in the middle, rounded at the bottom. And then I will add those handles, but I'm going to do them small and just toward the bottom. So see, even though this is only one exercise, you can see that the entire time, I'm experimenting with different shapes, I'm experimenting with different colors. So this is a really fun exercise to explore more. You can do something much more round, maybe add a bottom pedestal thing, and then fill this in, and then I'm creating the top of this too, round this out just a little bit. Then I'm going to do just like a basic square that's a little more long and in the height than it is on the sides, and then go back in and create a platform. You can even bring this out on the bottom like so. Play with mixing colors too if you don't have a color in your palette, but you want to try something new. I'm going to mix kind of a teal with some green and see what we get from there. It's really pretty. Now I'm wishing that I actually have this color, but we know I can make it. And then filling it in. You can add handles right here. It's almost kind of like those baskets. That might be my favorite. That's another thing that's fun about doing these exercises is that as you go, you're kind of more drawn to some rather than others, but it's all about the experimenting. Like I made this more rectangular, but then I'm deciding last minute I want to round the bottom out. That is the idea, is to play with things like that and kind of see where you can take them. I'm leaving a little bit of space in between because I want to add some flowers. You're noticing that your colors are getting murky. It's probably because you're washing your brush in the wrong jar, do not do what I am doing. Make sure that you wash your warm colors in your warm color jar and your cool colors in your cool color jar. It will save you. I'm going to make one that's a lot taller here,even taller. I will give this one little tiny handles right here at the top. Then this one, I'm just going to make round and then add a couple more round shapes that connect to it and then you have more of those bubble looking vases. This one, I'm going to make wider at the top, but then come in real close like so. You can even make these skinnier at the bottom than I did. Then I grab this green color again, because i really liked it. I'm trying to stagger these, so I probably don't want to put it here so I will skip this part and to put one here and then come back to that. I'm just going to do something rectangular, there we go and then I will come back to where I was. I'm just going to do another pretty standard one, like the first one that we did, but I'm going to add a huge handle to it. Make the top part thicker and then the bottom part skinny like so. Then finishing this off, we will just do a couple of smaller guys. I'm going to now mix some yellow and green together because I want to do something more of like apple greener even closer to lime. I already love this color going to stand out, but it's all about experimenting. It's so pretty. It's a green gold. See, but I think that in doing this, it's like I'm seeing color combinations in this set that I think would look really cool together like this green with this green, maybe with this mustard color, with an accent like the blue or an accent like even the darker blue, but just going through this type of exercise, playing around with the different colors, experimenting can show you like what stands out to you and what looks most interesting to you and then that's where you form organically, form a color palette. Like these first four that I did, I really liked that color combination. Even if it isn't like, oh these are your go-to colors the idea is that we can create a cohesive piece or collection or something that is unique to you. I'm going to go in with some of these bigger handles again on both sides and let's do one more, what color? This doesn't have to be hard, but it's always the hardest because you're at the end, what's going to balance it, really anything. We're just going to dive in and grab something and then you're like,"Well, what shape should I do?" I'm just going to do another one of these,but maybe taller. There we go. Once you have your vases place now we can add some flowers to them.
3. Part 1: Lesson 2 - Unlikely Combos: I would probably use a smaller brush for this. Well, we were just using, or what I was just using was an eight, so grabbing a six now. You could even grab a four. Actually, I will do that. Instead I am going to use a four. It's got a tip that's definitely much smaller and skinnier, so it's going to be able to handle those thin lines really well. So there is no rule in art that you have to keep your stems brown or green. Feel free to get playful here. This first one, I'm going to bring my stems up and they're going to be hot pink. Then what I'm going to do while I have this pink on my brush, rather than to have to keep switching every single time. I'm just going to add some threw out here with the same color. I'm doing this blindly. I'm not planning it out. I encourage you to do the same things. Don't plan it out, just point and shoot. I'm not really looking at what, see like you wouldn't think to put, pretend that didn't happen. If it does happen, you can always wear a brush and get that area really wet and then take a paper towel and dab it. Then it takes up most of that color. I love opsies, not really, okay, see I just did or as there too. You wouldn't think to add pink on pink, but it might be really cool. So explore this and find out because you're not going to find out unless you try it. I'm going to put a few more like a single stem here, maybe through a single stem, or maybe even two coming out of here. Then I'm going to switch my color now. I'll go to this turquoise tool color, which is fun coming out of blue. That's going to be fun coming out of pink or yellow. Let's do yellow and orange and do some tollens. Then this mustard color. How about green? Just a really short one because it's pretty tall. Maybe blue. Now I'm going to switch the color again. I'm going to actually go with green and come out of this orange one. Then how about, we'll do green out this teal. See I think that these color combinations are really interesting because this is a mucky, all of the brown, dirty green, which is my favorite. But I also really like this color that we created, which is like that blue-green, really bright colors. So putting two unlikely colors together can be really fun. I really encourage that too. Then maybe throwing one out of this pink guy. We'll switch colors, I'll go orange, come out here. Then these are done. I'll throw one in the blue just a single one, those are done and then they have the green here. It might help to wait until your watercolor or your paint tie is gouache but is dry. You don't keep putting your hand in it and spreading it around like I am doing. It's salvageable, but you don't want to keep doing that. Then I'll throw in this color like a yellow right here. Then that's it. You can also mix and match colors. So just because I put only pink in here doesn't mean I can't throw in a couple of yellow stems. I'll do that a couple of different places. So mixing is really fun as well. Now we're just going to add flowers. To do this, we're not going to get crazy. We're just going to add little circles or like paintbrush scribbles if you will. So look at these colors, what's complimentary. Think about the color wheel. If you're not familiar with the color wheel, I have a downloadable one attached to this class and it shows you basically the primary colors and what's on the opposite side. The opposite side of blue on the color wheel is orange. You can see that next to each other, they compliment each other very well. FYI, if these were mixed together, they would get mucky and turn brown because they are opposite on the color wheel so they neutralize, but next to each other they look really pretty. I'm going to do some orange and see all I'm doing is just setting my brush down several times and over and over to make like a circular shape. I'm actually going to carry the orange and do some more. I'll go dropped down to this yellow one. For this one, I'm just going to do some curved like C shapes with my brush and see how that creates that PC tip to where it looks like a different type of flower. Then I'll do something like that over here, but even smaller. Just use the tip of your brush for this. That's it. They look like more like wild flowers. You can really, just by using these different techniques, make it seem like these are totally different flowers. You got to more of a rough wildflower type of raw situation over here. Looks really natural. This one looks more like, you still have some of that personality and texture, but it's a little more polished, whereas this one looks like it's more of a classic flower, that presents beautifully. We'll go into like a pinky color and we can create like round C shapes around each other but keep the whitespace in between like that. Then like that. See how that makes it look like you have, you're actually drawing a flower with a paintbrush, but then it looks even more formed. That's another way of doing it. I'm going to actually put the same color on top of the same color because why not? For this one, I'm just going to do a couple of little balls next to each other. Then I'm going to go in with a darker color and just set it down in the middle and that will naturally bleed. So this is another fun experimental way to do this where it's going to be more of a pop color versus a formed flower. Then we'll do, I'm going to go to the C yellow one. I'm just going to do those little balls again, see how if I just move it around rather than making a perfect circle, it has some form to it. Then I'm just going to do really light this one I'm going to mix up, light little balls and then I'm going to switch off to a different color into something that stands up just a bit more. These are just straight marks I'm making with my paintbrush. Try not to get these colors to bleed together, at least not the blue and red. Because it will turn a little bit murky. If it does a little bit, it's not the biggest deal, but so that creates more fun there. Then you can also make some of these leaves and they don't have to be green. I'm just picking green. To do that, let's do some leaves out of this guy. Let's make sure none of this is wet [inaudible]. Just press on your brush and then release, press on your brush and then release, creating some leaves like so. Then you can even come down and have some coming out of the pot itself. So it's not just on those stems. I'm going to choose a more of a blue green and do the same thing with this line. So just a few leaves coming up. Then one more, let's do this guy, well this one I'm just going to do really small ones. Coming off of the stem, like so. So just continue doing some mark making like this until your page is filled up. Then once you're done with your flowers, just make sure that you let it, everything dry completely and we will go in and add some line work.
4. Part 1: Lesson 3 - Patterns & Detail: Once your paint has dried, we can go in and start adding some designs and different patterns, may be some shape across one part. I am going to take a jelly roll, this is just opaque white. It might take a second to start flowing, so you can use the scratch piece of paper. There we go. You can see that it's opaque. If it's not showing up exactly perfectly opaque when you first lay it down, let it dry completely and then you can go over it again. If you go over it again while it's still wet, then it actually ends up getting even more transparent, so we don't want that. I'm just going to go ahead and put some little designs. These are just long, narrow rectangles which might also be considered as just lines. You can see I'm going to need to go over these again, and then it will go to this guy, and then I'm just going to add to the area right here some lines that go horizontal. Then I'll show you how the uni-ball will work, it might be a little clear. The white can be a little tricky sometimes, but overall it can create a really cool effect when we're done. I'm just going to go through, I'm going to add some dots right here. You can do this too with the jelly roll, it's called souffle the palette, it's actually opaque but shows up with different neon colors. Get creative with these and see how many patterns, shapes and different accentuations you can come up with, because it's nothing else, it just adds a little bit of depth to them, which is fine. It will definitely show up better on these darker ones. You can see how that's definitely showing up more. I like the scratchy look, so some of these I'll go over again just to emphasize but some of them I actually really like the way that that looks.
5. Part 1: Lesson 4 - Intentionally Imperfect Outlines: So this will be really fun finished product, but you also have the option to go over that with a heart outline and ink, which is also a really fun way to enhance watercolor, or you could add just little bits here and there, same with what we did with the white but in different areas. So with black, but for this, I'm just going to show you how it changes when you add just ink in comparison to leaving it as is. So I'm not going to outline these perfectly. I actually like the ink to be a little bit offset from the object, because I think that it looks really cool that way. I'm also not going to make these smooth. I think that it looks really cool when illustrations are more loose and kind of crooked lines and things like that that I'd character. So I'm going to show you that. You see how it's loose, it's kind of misshapen a little bit. So it's just loose outlines here, like so, you can come outside or inside the lines a little bit, just to enhance that. Then you can do this to the flowers too if you want to. They don't even have to be the same shape. So you could do something like this, but then it just has that color black. Then do something just a couple quick shapes just to give that color some definition. I Don't think that these have to be anything spectacular. I noticed that sometimes when I'm moving along, and I've gotten through most of my go-to shapes, especially when they're loose shapes, I start thinking I need to do something more and more and more. But you definitely do not have to. They are super simple, you could do the same flower throughout. Then to outline this pot, see how I'm going inside the lines, outside the lines, and then it shows that definition more. You can add a little bit of enhancing lines here, and then see this is a good example of having it not match up with the actual illustration. So there's some white space in there. May not be your thing, but it doesn't hurt to explore it. So there you can see you did. You see I'm just moving pretty fast. I'm not even actually lining these up with things that I did earlier, or going over all of them even. This one is definitely more wonky. It lost the shape when I drew it but that's actually something that I'm very used to doing because I think that that is adding character also. But again these are things to explore so that you can actually get the feel for the different ways that you can alter your illustrations to what they look. They maybe more playful, or maybe more unfinished, or more finished, because we're not out to win awards for the most realistic like art is art. So not spending too much time in here, I want to point out on this one I just did the lines. I didn't even touch the leaves. This one I'm not touching the stems, I'm only touching the flowers. This one I'll probably just do the center part of the leaf, where the stem is, which is really cool too, and then you don't have to touch the outline at all. Then you can even do something like this, where it's outside of the center dots. White space is your friend. Then if you have something happen like this, if you're moving too fast, there's nothing that says you can't go over it a couple of times. That's just another way to form an illustration like this. You would want to do that to the rest of them also, but it's actually one of my favorite ways because I like to move really first. I get this more from urban sketching. Those really loose movements have a lot of energy. Actually, mine I'll show you If you were to do that to the rest of them without ending up looking like because it's pretty cool. I could see this whole paper turning out really neat if we did that. So I'm just going over this very quickly, like even less form than I had before and it's quick. It's not in its boundaries. It doesn't make as much sense as the initial shape. This is just a type of sketching. But I mean, when I got into art, this isn't something that I thought that I would ever care about or want to do this type. Well, that's not true, but it's not something that I saw myself necessarily doing. But when I saw this style I fell in love. So you might find that you really like it because there's a lot of beauty in the imperfections like that. So you see how it kind of just brings all these? They have so much character now, those like scribbly lines that still form together to make this cohesive taxonomy of pots, super fun.
6. Part 2: Lesson 1 - Drawing: Size Matters: Before we get into actual drawing techniques themselves, I want to introduce an idea to you which you may already know, but it is something that can oftentimes go missed or unnoticed because we grab what we have. Have you ever seen there are many different sizes of pen tips and I have three different sizes here. They vary from, this is an 01, they have even smaller 003. What this is, is the size of the tip of the pen, so this one is actually 0.25 millimeter, also known as 01, which you'll see across the board with drawing pens. Then, we have our 05 or 0.45 millimeter and then the 08, which is a 0.5. The thickness changes you're drawing. The reason this is important is, when you are, let's say you want to fill this entire page, if you grab an 01, your line is going to be very thin and unless you're doing a ton of layers and detail, it's probably not going to look like what you want. Like, if you're doing a simple flower, it just looks a little unfinished, whereas if you grab an 08 and you're doing something that doesn't have a ton of detail, and you want to fill a big area, it just looks a little bit more on purpose. I'm going to show you what these lines look like just on their own, so you can see that one's pretty thin, that is the 01, and then we're going to move over to the 05, a bit thicker, and then an 08, nice and bold. We're going to draw the same thing three different ways. It's just going to be a simple filler flower. Just create a petal. I'm just doing these real quick, so I want you to see the difference of the almost exact same thing with different tip sizes. See, that's like more wispy. Then we go to this guy, this is the 05. We're going to do the same thing or something similar, so you can see we're getting bolder. For this size of illustration, the 05 probably fits the best and then 08, which also would be a good choice, but you want to be careful because it could be a little too bold. Depending on the style you're going for, see how the lines that you're making are going to be a lot bolder, which can take away from any delicacy that you might be trying to put in. You have your 01, 05, and 08. Typically, I stay with an 05, also an 03. It's right in between these two, so it allows for a little more detail. Another thing that you can do is if we make this a little bit larger, the 08 is a good, nice, bold line for this, but then what you can do is rather than using that bold line for those details, you can switch over to an 05 and then those details, those lines in your petals are a little more wispy. That's where you can blend those together and use these sizes to your advantage.
7. Part 2: Lesson 2 - Get Your Doodle On (Drawing Forward Facing Flowers): When we're kids, we were used to drawing flowers face forward. It's probably going to look something like where you have your center, and then you have petals that come off of the center. Then you have a stem coming straight from the middle down, like so. There's nothing wrong with this illustration style. Similar to how we did with our color painting type things, those were very simplified illustrations. You can take this and run with it. We're actually going to do a whole page of these, and we're going to experiment with different ways that we can do face forward flowers. Like for instance, this center is pretty small, so let's experiment with doing one that's really large. Then from here we can add some smaller petals. Instead of doing the skinny loops, I am doing some that come, they arch out and then come back in. Then I'm going to layer them just a little bit, like this where they're pekabooing from behind until it looks pretty like it makes sense. Then I'll add a couple of dots throughout the center. Just to add a little definition. This can be focused on one side or it can be the whole way through. You can leave the center open, you can make the center darker, and then boom. We are going to continue, and let's do something maybe with more of a textured center. Then we'll make our petals, how about just going straight out like this? Then we will add little, round ends to each of those. Then add some smaller ones, in between each of the longer ones and add circles there. Then I think I'll add some dots on the middle here and then stem down. You see, we're still experimenting with lots of style, face forward flowers, but you're getting a lot out of it. Let's try doing something a little more abstract and do some scribbles as our center. Like so, and then we'll go in and add some petals. Let's do, how about some curves that are shorter? Then maybe some pekabooing behind, to all that makes sense. Then straight down stem. Continuing on, we could do more of one that has a burst like this, but even smaller together. Draw our center and then, just for no reason in particular, I'm drawing these lines,. Split up, at just one point. Going out, stopping and then continuing, hitting the different spots because I was noticing that my flow is getting a little uncentered. This helps me balance, to pop into the middle of two areas, so it doesn't get all lopsided. You noticed that happening, this is a good way to save it. There we go. Like this line can come a little longer. Then we'll come straight down, so it's more like a burst. Then you can go in and do something like this that have a little wider petals, little uneven and then go through with just some lines that are squiggly, wobbly. Bring it through for, that one's fun. Here's fun to like intentionally put scribbles in like wobbly lines. Because you never know how imperfect they'll show up, and that's the idea it. Yeah, there we go. Then straight down. Then we could do something that is looping, so like that and then just builds off of it. Obviously that can get bigger and bigger, but I'm actually going to come up from about right here for the stem. Bring that straight down. Then you can always add little patterns inside of any of these, so I'm going to go, straight out. This one looks similar to this one, it's just longer and skinnier. I'm just going to add in where it makes sense. But then as far as like patterns and things, you can always go in like this and I'm just adding some dots too. I'm not going to do every petal, I'm just going to do some random ones. Give it dimension, but also makes it more interesting I think. Not that filling the whole thing it wouldn't be interesting. I just tend to like things looking a little half finished more than anything. Then we'll go to the next row. Let's try something with a flattened center, and then just a round shape. Then I'm just going to do a few dots right here, and then a few dots around the edges of the larger circle. You wouldn't look at this and think like, that's a flower. But that's the thing about art is that it doesn't have to look like, oh that's a flower, we're playing with different ideas. That's the idea of this exercise is you're getting to see different flowers face forward. Obviously none of these have to have stems. You can take this idea and use it without a stem. But with it, it'll just show you what you can do and how you can expand off of doing something like that. Same idea as this one only I'm going to show you, with smoother lines. That they were just to mirror the edges, of the petals. See how like this is curving, so I'm curving here. Then not curving as much in the very center, just to keep consistency. Then straight down. See how this is similar to this one only, they're clearly very different. I am smearing this all over the place. [inaudible] a really smooth paper which is great for drawing, but not if you're somebody that jumps around with your hand gets smearing everywhere. I tend to like things to look a little bit more imperfect. I think that it sparks interest and energy in a different way than this one might. To me when I look at this, it's just a little more polished even though it is still unique and not necessarily something that you'd expect. There's just different ways of going about doing it. Drawing this in both of these ways will help you grasp what the differences feel like, and then what you like better. How you can take this and more fit and add color, and maybe fill in lines in between. You could do something, where a couple of these lines are a lot thicker and the areas filled in a little bit. Things like that, that will enhance where you want to take it. Different things like that. Just play around with both of these. Well with all of them really, and see different ways that you can do them. This next one I'm going to do, if you've drawn a cloud, you will be able to do this. It's basically like a cloud, like that. The center is just squiggly lines and then it's just an arch around. Then it starts from the center, comes around and they're just very loose curves working into themselves, and then straight down. Super sample flower, and then let's do one more. This one let's go, like more of a layered one like this, but more intentional, so we'll do a center, and then just little v shapes. Then just keep building off of it and then make the center darker so we can differentiate it. Keep building. Find the areas that look like they have holes. Like, this looks pretty balanced, but you can see that it has some areas down here that could use a little more balance, if they were filled in. Then just keep going until the flower is the size that you want it to be. Because you could stop at any point now. I think I'll leave it there. But this can easily get a lot bigger like this guy. Although this exercise may seem a little bit silly, it will help you open and expand your mind to do things just a little bit differently. With a little less structure, and open your mind a little bit more. But, we're going to move into flowers in a different facing direction, but in a similar sense in the next video.
8. Part 2: Lesson 3 - Doodle a Wee Bit More : Okay. Now we're going to draw flowers on their side, and this is still going to be in a doodle like sense. The first one we're going to do is similar to the first one that we did before. Only instead of having it be facing outward toward us, it's going to be on its side. So here's the middle, it's a little flatter on the bottom. Then I'm going to have the petals reach wider on the outsides and shorter toward us because if we're looking at it from the side, then we're basically flattening a 3D image to make it 2D. So it's just going to be pretty simple, like so, then you can do little ones here for the reaching like that. Pretty simple doodle on its side. Normally I would spend a little more time on it, but we are focusing on doodles, so don't worry too much about this. Let's go into a rose. Typically, let's see, like the doodle rose that I always learned was to come around down and back up and just do a little swirl right here and then down, but you could also do something where you have a petal that comes up and then it dips down and then another one that attaches to that, and then you have a couple of layered petals just inside of that. So these are basically just curved lines, curved line, curved line, curved line, and then down. You can also have this where one of them starts to open up, like so and then you have it getting even more open towards the back. So you can see how you can just evolve off of that basic shape. Another fun one from the side, you can come up and then back in and then do the same thing on the other side and then just straight down. Super simple again, the one like we did with like the clouds from the side and then have it come down like this. I'm just going to do a couple more of these before we move into the next segment, so you can get another idea of how the doodling part can go. Let's just do a curve and then straight across, come down with some simple lines. Put a center in and then straight down, and then you can add the stamens like this. See that totally looks unrealistic, but it makes a really fun doodle. Depending on what you do with something like this, it can be a really cool art, a finished piece. You can also go up, stagger some lines that go outward, and then put little small circles at the ends, layer that a little bit more and it'll just look even more. Then if you want to do something like this that even quicker, just draw the center and then literally all you do is this, and that works as a doodle too. It's basically doing a center and just doing only the bottom half of what you would do if you're going to go the whole way around. Another one, you could do a quick circle and down. Just very simple stuff guys and then it can take in a really cool way, like if you had color behind this and have it kind of offset. The color would come through here and then out, then you'd have some white space in here, that kind of stuff looks really cool. Next segment we're going to get a little more realistic.
9. Part 2: Lesson 4 - Get Real(istic): Let's say you love drawing flowers and you want make them just a little bit more realistic. You want to have some more detail in there. You want some folds. You want it to look like a beautiful flower and not a doodle. I'm just going to go over a couple of these with you. If you want to learn more, I do have a botanical line drawing class that's really helpful for stuff like this. But I just, I'm showing you a different type of techniques so that you can play around with that as well to include in your style. I will draw, I'll show you a peony. The main thing to think about when you're thinking about petals is how they're going to lie. So peonies have really imperfect petals in the best way. They're going to come up and then have a lot of breaks in them. But you don't want it to look jagged like this. I want to draw this for you fast so that you can really see. You have this soft intro and then just a couple bends, soft little bend like so. You can also do it to where it flows like this. This is typically where I stick in my style just because, to be honest, its because I move fast and that's how it ends up being drawn. It's because it is faster, but we'll show you that. If I start off, I have a C curve and then I come in, do a couple little dips and then down. Then I'm going to build off of this one as if there was another petal just right here. I'm going to curl up and then come in like so. From here all I'm doing is building. I'm doing another petal on the inside here. But if you look at a peony, you know that they're in their bulb right here. You can picture a circle that's basically what we're drawing. But then we're going to expand and have it open as if it's like an orange being peeled. I'm going to come in like this here and then see how now and making these petals where they are layered right on top of each other. Because now I'm going to expand it again. These ones are really close to each other, but now I'm getting further away. Like so. What this is doing is it's showing that this part is on the side toward me, the centers here. Then when I have added that space, it now looks like those are on the backside. It's an easy trick to do that. Then I'm going to have my peony open-up by having the petals move outwards. I came up, did the same imperfect edge, but then brought it down like this. I have that opening. I'm going to do it right here. Then I'm going to have one open here. But then you can see that you are creating that big billowly peony. I'm still drawing. Once you're here, what you can start and get. I'm going to do one more, sorry, this all happens. When you get to this point, you can start adding details. What I want to see is these lines at the base, they're not all the same size. Some are longer than others. They are more like where you've set your pen down and then flick it up. I'm using an 0.8. Oh, yeah, that's why. This lines are a little thicker than I would normally go for it, but for the sake of showing you, I add some details in here. Then I'm going to come to the back and just do some, something I want to point out is if you see this dip right here, whenever you see a dip that goes down on the tip of a petal, What that is doing is it's showing movement and the petal, but without the lines, although you can make it out, with the lines you can actually see. If I put some on each side of that, suddenly I see movement in the petal as if it's going out, in, out in a bend. It looks like there's actual movement in the sky. Toward the back and doing that, and I'm leaving that space and that space alone to show that movement. Gives that illusion. Illustration is all about illusion. I'm going to do it to right here to where you can see that dip. You see that when you really see how just adding a couple of lines creates the movement. Those are things that you can play with. Then I would probably keep layering a little bit more, bring some down here and then maybe some out right here. Another one that I want to show you is really could pass as a lot of different flowers. A couple different ways to do this. One of them is the way that I showed you when I was showing you pen tips. I know that was really fast, so I'll go over it one more time. If you were to do a C curve and then bring it together, but still at a slight curve, create the middle of a flower. I'm just using tiny little C curves and then I'm going to bring a petal out and back in. Add a little dip towards the top there. I'm going to come out back in. This one I intentionally came down. If you draw a petal up and then have a line come down rather than out. Technically it should be here, but I did it down before it came all the way down. This is going to allow me to put a fold in. Before I do that, I'm going to finish off another petal and then maybe add one. Let's go right here from behind and then one right here. Then maybe here. To do that fold. You don't want a fold to be. I mean, you can, because this is all, open to your interpretation, but I want to avoid doing this. What I want to do instead is have a fold connect so it's flowing and it naturally breaks and then comes back in. But because this is bent and then it curves. I going to come out and back in, down here. Let's see how that just makes it look a little more realistic. I'm going to do the same thing right here, even though I didn't leave unintentional band, if I do it just slightly, it just acts as if the petal is just tucked a little bit. You can do things like that and then I'm just going to do the same thing where I flicked my pen off. The centers here. Try to keep these varying lengths. You don't want to overdo it. Then I'll do one right here. See how that dips inward. I'm just going to bring one there. Now it looks like it's curling up. Then I'm going to add some right here. Then probably fill that. That's a way to do this. Another way to do this flower is instead of having one main petal as your C curve, you can break it up, come up, down and back, down. Like up, slant, back, down and then build off of that, maybe a larger one. Up, out, around and back, down. Then you're starting off with two as your base. Then you can draw the center of your flower inside of that. Then I usually just create a little depth in there. Then you're going to come up around here. Your petals. You can see like instead of this one's more on its side, this one's more facing upward, but you can see inside of it still. Then you can add your details. If I were to add a fold to this line would it would end up looking like as the petal is folding outward, which wouldn't necessarily make sense. I'm not going to do that there, whereas this one is facing, like it's inside is facing toward us. I could easily put one right there and have it make more sense because now it looks like it's folding inward rather than outward. Not that petals don't fall out or it's just that this type of flower, it wouldn't necessarily make the most sense. I definitely don't want to draw a flower that is confusing or not intentional. That's what that would look like. Daisies and things like that. Those petals are going to be skinnier like this. Then you add your line work in. If you were to do a whole flower that's going to be like this hallway. Then layers, and then do your mark making in the center. That's another style.
10. Part 2: Lesson 5: What's in a Leaf?: The varying styles that we can get out of drawing leaves are vast. I'm super excited to go into it. We're not going to spend a lot of time here because we don't need to, but I just want to show you how really simple tweaks can change the entire appearance and feel of what we're going for. The first leaf I'll show you is, if we were to come straight up on a curve and then do out and back in, out and back in. That's like a typical leaf. Another version of this, see how this is looking playful, it's looking full, you're thinking of the park and whatnot, well, if you draw one like this it's the same line and you're coming out and back in only way sooner. Suddenly this has a little more sophistication to it and it's looking like it could be on a branch that have a whole bunch of these types of leaves or it's looking like it's at entirely different plant, and all that you've done is change the width in between this center stem and the outside edges. Another way to change this up is to draw the same line. So having the point here, switch them up and have the point here, so you're coming out and around, and then stopping out and around and stopping. Then you're looking at more of a playful leaf that might be tropical and the same thing goes for width. You can play with this one. I did it in the middle of these two sizes so you can get another fill. Where these can now go, let's do a branch of each one. I'm going to draw a line here, and then I'm just going to draw a couple of lines coming off of the center, I guess, sixish lines or so. Then I'm going to draw this exact leaf throughout and see how that ends up looking. Typical branch and then do another one but much skinnier. That looks like a more sophisticated branch, a little less playful, maybe the leaves are facing on their side a little more. Then this last one, you come out and back in, almost looks like little bulbs. It's getting into that playful feel again but a different type. Oops, pretend that that alone is not pointed, but a different type. Going from this, I want to also show you I do a couple of different ways to change the leaves orientation to us. If I want to take this leaf, I'm going to draw this main stem but they rather than coming up and out, I'm actually just going to stick toward the top and then come way down toward the bottom. See how now this leaf looks like here's the face and here's the stem. Rather than looking like this, it's now more like this and you have it more on its side. You can also do it where this part doesn't even exist and you have more of that shape in here and then you can definitely see like okay, this is on its side. This can happen in any direction. But all that you're really doing is just shifting where the center is and then drawing it accordingly so you know that this one is going to be toward the top. So this isn't going to come out, is going to stick pretty close to the bottom and this is going to be the regular size. Now, these are pretty simple we're just going over different leaf shapes, but you can also do something where suddenly you decide that you want to get in a lot more of a sketch mode, if you will. You can come out and then do something where you have these quick movements. Although, this isn't the same thing that we're doing, it almost looks like a pine branch or far branch or something like that. These types of things can make for really interesting illustrations especially when you're doing more of a loose sketch form. Work really well even just at the end, where it's branching around like this. I do that a lot and larger illustrations where there are a lot smaller just because I think it can look like weed in a field or definitely more of a messy type of leaf. It can look like a palm leaf. Those loose sketches really come in handy and they look really interesting because there's a lot of movement and energy into them. Very different styles next to each other and you can see how quickly and easy it is to switch it up. The same can happen with painting these types of leaves and I'll show you that real quick. This is not the type of paper to paints on, so don't do it. If you're going to do it, just grab some watercolor paper. I'm just showing you this real fast for demo sake. If you come out and then you press down and come back up, that can be a leaf in itself. Or you can come in and add onto it right there where it's a lot fuller, it's got more of that center area and then you can extend length. So you can come out down and really get a lot further out and then same thing with that extra part. These are things to experiment with. One thing that I also like doing is rather than going out and out where that white space is right dead center, it's fun to bring it out and round and then just on the side. So play with those types of things too. Then this green is like that happy fun green, but look at the difference when you add a different color like this olive. Suddenly we're getting a little serious, suddenly we're jumping into the forest. When we add some blue to our green, it's a little softer. So color plays a big part too.
11. Part 3: Color and Details: So let's say that you love playing with color a lot and you don't necessarily know where to add your details with your color. So we went over before with our pots, we did detail on the inside and the outside so let's just do a simple flower here in the beginning and will come up to some little ripples and come back down, and then fill that and now we have a blob of a flower. Where are we going to add detail to this? Well, there are several areas that we can do it. I'm going to duplicate this layer a couple of times to show you some different ways that this can be completed. So any color that you want, I'm just going to go with black because it's easy. Obviously, go to is like, "Okay, well I've got this flower that I want to outline" so you outline it. Then you might want to add some lines. Like so. That's fine, nothing wrong with that. Another option though, what if you were to get rid of the outline altogether? Now, all you have are these detail lines, maybe with the stem. Suddenly, this looks really unique and definitely a different type of piece. Another option would be to add an outline that is more offset, it's not mirroring it exactly, it just gives you the idea and then you have a couple of random lines throughout here, and then you have something else that looks really unique. Another way, let's just choose a different color, you can do a circle and then I'm going to duplicate this so I can show you a couple of different ways. Choosing, let's go with white this time. Now, I can choose to do an outline, I have white so it's not going to make as much sense but if I wanted to, I could do something like that or I could only stick to the inside. When I only restrict it to the inside, I have the option of creating the center and coming straight out like this or I could do something like creating actual petals off of the sun and then seeing where that takes me so I can do wavy lines. I could do poke at odds, I could do stripes, but this is just one way to make that look more unique and then choose a random color and have a stem. Let's do some leaves, so let's say you're working with so simple leaf-like so, I'll duplicate this a few times so we can look at it a few different options for details. I will grab, let's do like a light yellow. So I could do just the center stem and that's perfect, that's a line you do, a lot of times less is more. Another option I could do is a center stem and then I can have those lines drawn off the center. Notice that because I have it more towards the right, it's on its side a little more so the details on the left are longer than the details on the right. You can also do something where you go in and make it your own and then adding just these hollow circles. They don't have to go all the way up or they could start to dissipate the higher up they get so like this. So these are things that you can play with, especially when it's primarily color so if I were to grab a lighter green and then I was to make this black, here we go. See how that looks really cool, especially if it's an illustration, like I'm going to just show you this real quick. So if I pick a green that's really bright, and I'm going to do something like this. It's like primarily green, I have a mostly colorful illustration but I do want some details in there just to give it the personality that I want it to have and the field that I want it to have, then I can come in with just one extra color. Let's go with black. Even, you can use a regular pen. Obviously, this doesn't have to be on the iPad. This can be with paint or with markers, or anything like that but then I like the way that pens actually look when they have some more texture to them. Let's see how big this, okay, perfect. So I'm going to go in here and create some hand-drawn lines and then colligate. So if I have that and then I have this, I'm just going to grab this one, there we go. See, if I have these two things next to each other, like so and then I'm going to move this to the front of that. Getting ahead of myself so I'm going to put this in the front and then it makes for a fine illustration, just those elements. So you don't need to do a whole lot to make an impact but like I said, you could also do something like this guy. I bring that to the front and move it on over to right here. That makes for something really interesting, I can also go into where my leaf is and do the same thing with my outline. I realized that these are two different brushes but you get the idea. See, how you're leaving some white space, just enough. See how that totally changes it so this is the stuff that can be way too fine so these are things that I really encourage you to experiment with especially when you're using color.
12. Let's get this party started.: Hope you guys enjoyed the class? Lucy is making her tap dancing sounds with her nails and she's making her snout sounds with a face. I'm sorry. But what I want to see from this class, from you guys, is your progress. Upload your progress, upload the things that you experimented with. I really want to see your finished, product or products, five, six. I don't care how many, but I want to see the progress of how you guys expanded throughout this process. Just what you were able to come up with differently and maybe where that took your brain because a lot of times that I'm seeing from these classes is a little twist of view in there and that's what I want. I want to be able to see how you interpret this information, change it, make it yours, build on top of it, on top of that, and really get creative. Make sure you share that in the project gallery and I really can't wait to see what you all come up with. Thanks again.
Peggy Dean, Top Teacher | The Pigeon Letters
