Flamingo Watercolour - Retaining the Glow and Using Soft Blends | Nadine Dudek | Skillshare
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Flamingo Watercolour - Retaining the Glow and Using Soft Blends

teacher avatar Nadine Dudek, Professional Watercolour Artist

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      0:58

    • 2.

      Materials

      2:27

    • 3.

      Sketching Up

      1:47

    • 4.

      Starting the Beak

      3:11

    • 5.

      First Black Wash on the Beak

      4:40

    • 6.

      Starting the Neck

      5:23

    • 7.

      Stay Loose in the Body

      7:36

    • 8.

      Legs!

      5:34

    • 9.

      Starting the Darks

      9:06

    • 10.

      Shadow on the The Legs

      4:50

    • 11.

      Finishing the Beak

      12:00

    • 12.

      Strengthening the Undercarriage

      10:27

    • 13.

      Finishing Off

      4:56

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About This Class

In this class you'll be painting a soft, glowing flamingo

The main aims for this class are

  • to simplify the subject
  • to retain the light and maintain a beautiful glow by avoiding the temptation to overpaint and using some well placed darks.

The class is broken down into simple easy to follow sections so that you can pace yourself and enjoy the process. 

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Nadine Dudek

Professional Watercolour Artist

Teacher

Hi, I'm Nadine,

I'm an Australian watercolour artist with a particular interest in wildlife art. I love the spontaneity of watercolour and the wonderful effects that can be achieved with very little input. I strive to keep my paintings loose and love the challenge of drawing the viewer into the work through a well placed shadow or detail.

For me, the quicker the painting and the fewer the strokes the better the result. I endeavour to teach my students to relax and remember - it's just a piece of paper.

To see more of my work head over to my webpage or find me on instagram and facebook


See full profile

Level: Intermediate

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: This one is all about the glow. Hi, I'm Nadine. I'm a watercolor artist from Melbourne, Australia. And today, I want to do a lesson with you where we are really focused on retaining the light, retaining the transparency, and making the painting work by using a small number of darks, not getting too heavy in the subject. Because one of the most enjoyable things about watercolor, I think is the translucency and the real glow that she can get. If you're careful and you don't get too heavy handed. So we'll go through the reference to the sketch, the materials for the class, and we'll go step by step through this painting, and hopefully by the end of it, you haven't over painted, and you've kept a lot of light in the subject. So let's see how we go. 2. Materials: Materials for today's class. First up the reference photo. This is my photo, so it's loaded directly onto the skill share site. You don't have to click a link. You can download that directly. I'm painting on 300 gram Archer's Cal press paper. I'm painting on board and I'm painting flat, but I'm not taping it down because I'm going to move it around a fair bit. Now, I haven't prestretch this paper because I don't tend to prestretch. It does have a little bit of a wobble in it. If that bothers you, then I would wet down the front and back, tape it down and let it dry for a few hours. Prestretch it first if that wobble is going to be a problem. Now in terms of paints, I'm using for the main bit of the bird, I've got some winds in newton permanent rows and some winter in newton yellow ochre, or you could use raw sienna. Now, I've also got winds newton burnt sienna, ceran. So Daniel Smith Indigo. I, I hesitate to say this. I've got some Daniel Smith antsy yellow. You could use yellow. But this I use just a scaric of it for the lime green in the eye. If you don't have this yellow, you could use make it up with the yellow ochre and the cerulean. Don't go and buy this especially for that. I also another one, don't go out and buy. I've put a tiny dot of white gas in the back of the eye. It's not essential, so don't rush out and buy that. Now, did I say regular HB pencil and irregular eraser. Also for the brushes. I've got four that I'm using here. Two little synthetics. This tiny one is just for the pupil and the nostril, so I don't use that very much. This small one is quite handy to get around in the beak and some of the areas in the back here. But I use that in combination with this is a synthetic natural fiber mix, just a little bit bigger, and the details of these are in the material section. Now, I'm telling you not to buy all these things. This is another one I hesitate to say that you need because you don't really. I'm only using this for this particular brush stroke here for the tail, just because it forms, it's just a perfect shape for it, but you could easily do it with a couple of strokes with this brush. So don't go out and grab one of these just for the single stroke. Now, other than that, you'll need your palette, a jar of water, and some tissue or toilet paper. I think we're good to go. 3. Sketching Up: Let's have a look at the sketch. Now, here's a reference photo. Two things to not. Firstly, I'm scaling up. I'm going bigger than the actual reference photo that I printed out. Also, I'm not putting all the background in the water. If you want to do the background absolutely by all means to it, it's not really something that I tend to do, so I'm going to leave it out and I'm going to end my sketch just underneath its knees. Now, this might be a little bit hard to see on the video, my actual sketch. The reason that it's quite light is because we've got a lot of light on the subject, and we're painting there's a bit of yellow in here. It's really hard to get pencil off under particularly yellows. Keep the pencil light, but so you can see what I'm talking about. Here's the actual template. Now, I've put this up. If you don't want to free hand sketch it, I've put this template up for you on the skill share site and I'm a little bit darker here, so you might be able to see a bit better what I'm doing. To scale up, I've given you two A four sheets and they'll fit together on the line there. So keep it really simple. Keep the detail really minimal in the back here. I'm not worrying about all this patterning because we're going to do that all wet and wet and leave some white paper. I have given myself a little bit of an indication of the line here, that cute little tail, which will just be a single stroke. And in the face, just the only thing that's a bit tricky is this little part under this, little extra bit there. It's a bit hard to reconcile what's going on in the photos. So I've simplified that here and just given myself a line underneath and a little bit of a line through this part, and we'll deal with that one we're actually painting. So As always, keep it pretty simple, and I think that's all and we'll get to the painting. 4. Starting the Beak: Okay. See how we go filming around this very awkward shape sheet. Hopefully we get it right with all the filming gear. But I'm going to start in the eye and the beak. Now, for the eye, I'm just going to pop a really light milky wash initially of I've got some cer in here and a little bit of huntsy yellows. I'm just making up a little bit of a lie a lime green in my well, and just come straight onto the dry page. I draw my tissue of brush off a little bit there, bit much water. Just paint in a circle. That's probably a little bit greener than it is, but it's such a small space. It doesn't really matter. So you can put a bit more blue in there if you want. Then I'm going to switch that was with my tiny brush. Now I'm going to switch to a slightly bigger brush. Try and make sure it's clean. What am I going to do? I think I'm going to use some I'm going to start with some milky cerlian. I'm going to paint first with water. I'm going to paint just up to about where the black starts. I'm keeping this dry and just bringing my brush through. I going to keep the top and the bottom separate. No soaking. I'm just dampening it first while I'm working out where I want to go, I'm going to try not to touch to that eye, where I've just been. Then I pick up a little bit of cerliu. I'm just going to it's too much cerium. I'm going to get some water and just flood that and dilute that pigment out. Important not to panic when you do things like that and try and dab and around. You can just take a breath and move around, think about what you actually want to do. I want to keep light on the top initially. I'll probably put some yellow ker something up there a bit later, but for now, I'm just going to get a little bit of that. I'm just working out my shape. When I look in here, there's a lot of almost looks like burnt sienna. I think. I'm going to take a little bit of burnt sienna and while this page is wet, it's going to drop a little bit in there. Nice and wet and wet. Let it bleed, push it around a bit. It doesn't matter what happens on this edge because I'm going to come in and put black in there. I might put just a touch the top as well. I'm just washing my brush. And letting the pigment and the water do the work for me. Just I'm just making sure that I brought the pigment to my pencil edge down the bottom there and also up the top here. And then I'm going to come out of that. And I'm going to let that fully dry. 5. First Black Wash on the Beak: It's been about 10 minutes probably, and I'm fully drying there. I'm going to stick in the beak. And I'm going to pop in a tiny pupil, and then we're going to do start the black on the front of the beak here. Because I'm painting flat, if I go to paint this circle in here for the pupil, while I'm painting flat, I'll probably paint a skew if shape. So when I paint it, I'm going to tilt it up to make sure the shape is right. B this is small, if you're not going to if you're having trouble with your paint brush, because it's such a tiny black shape, you can use a fine liner to put this in if you want chat. So I'm going to go straight for. I've got some indigo in my well here. So milky to creamy wash initially, and then just paint that circle in. Make sure your brush comes to a good tip. I've probably gone a bit bigger. I had the wrong glasses on, so I've probably gone a bit bigger than I wanted to, but that's okay. It's a little bit untidy on the side here, but I don't want to deal with if I try and deal with that now, all that's going to happen is I'm going to push pigment around, so I need to let that dry and I'll come back and tidy that up later. Now I'm going to go to the front of the beak. Now, there's a nice highlight on the top of the beak. I reckon I'm going to lift that when I'm finished with a stiff brush, so I'm not going to stress too much about that at the moment. I do want a little bit of a soft edge. I don't want the black to just finish hard. So to do that, which brush, I might go up one. I'll go back to the slightly bigger brush. I'm going to take a little bit of water and just paint it along that pencil edge and into the front of the beak. This line here is very dark. We'll do that towards the end. I'm going to paint the top of the beak as well. Coming up. It's quite messy in there, isn't it? Really, I'm just going to damp and down to the join, and we'll see how we go. Damp not saturated. Picking up miky wash initially of my indigo and just dropping that in. Pay attention to my pencil edge down the bottom here. But when I'm coming to this join, I want to let the water wicket up to that burnt s. I'm trying to not paint. I think I've got a little bit further here. I'm just going to soften that. I don't want to really hard edge there. I'm going to just tease a little bit of that paint just to help my eye see when I go to put this dark line in where I'm going to go. Come back to the front here. Now, it's got a tiny little point there. Make sure you've got a brush that has got a sharp enough point that you can get that in. Everything is still, so I've got time to play in here. I'm going to wash my brush and then I'm just going to tease up to, I went outside my pencil edge. Don't do that. You try to stay within your pencil edge. Now I'm washing my brush and I'm just running my brushes dri than my page because I don't want to introduce a whole lot more water here. But I'm softly transition that black back into this first wash. But to do that, I have to keep washing my brush. Otherwise, I'll just end up pulling all that pigment, chasing my tail. Keep washing the bruh, brush dry then the page, until you set back. Now, this is just the first wash. There are more ducks and I've got more mucking in there to go, but I'm just trying to get the shape in, get my eye in and see what's happening. I want to come out of that and let that fully dry before I muck with anything else in there. 6. Starting the Neck: We're going to start the um bit now. We're going to come into the neck and into the body. Now, if I was painting this for myself and not trying to take you through step by step, I would do all of this in one hit. I don't want to do that to you today. We're going to break it up into two. I'm going to move to now, I've got a slightly bigger brush. Make sure it's clean. We're going to paint down first up with water. I'm just it's not really clean, but make sure yours is clean. I'm going to my beak is fully dry. I'm going to try and come to my pencil edge. Now if it takes you a while to get this water on because you're concentrating on getting to your pencil edge, just keep dropping more water in as you go. I'll see if I can lift it up and show you how damp I am. I've got a slight indigo tinge to my water, but that possibly might help you see where I'm going. Now as I come up to back here because I'm going to do this in two bits, I'm just going to Patally put some water in just so that the pigments got somewhere to go. If I try and show you, see if I can catch. I'm not absolutely saturated. Now I'm going to start with I just ran when I hold it up. I just watch. I've got a spot there where I've leaked out of my pencil edge. Don't do that. I'm going to pick up some yellow first, really milky, and just touch that on. If it doesn't run, whack in some more water. You want this all really wet and wet. Coming over the top. Now I can see now because I've got a bit of pigment, so I'll come around that eye and join up. This is where because I'm using this yellow ac, how was saying if you've got too much, really heavy pencil and my pencil is a bit heavy, it will be hard to get off when you finish. Really splotchy yellow ac. Now I'm going to come in with some permanent rows and just whack that on top. I'm after a really soft feel here. Both painting with the water first and then dropping that pigment in, that's more likely what you're going to get. Now that's going to be a slight problem for me where I've come out of the line. I if I was doing this for myself and I just come out of there and gone over my line with the water, I would have just waited until it dried fully and then done the whole process again. I'm just wing in a bit of paint. I am trying now to pay attention to my pencil edge. And you can see I've been a bit untidy here as well. Some of those will just look like feathers. Sometimes you might have to scuffle them back a bit at the end. I'm starting to dry. I don't have long now. Down here, there's a bit more pigment. It's going to be a darker down the bottom here. I'm happy I can wap a bit more pink in down the bottom. Again, trying to make sure I come to my pencil edge. Now, this brush is pretty tatty, so that's why I'm ending up going out of the line because it doesn't have a very nice point on it anymore. I am going to because I want to do this in two parts, I'm just going to let that pigment just bleed a little bit, but I'm not going to be too heavy there. It doesn't matter if this isn't pink enough yet. We can have another go, but I do want it mixing on the page. I re I want a little bit more pink there. It's going to add a bit more. Pink there. Sitting back. That's my first layer of pink. It is really soft. One thing I can just see that's happening at the top here. You see, I've been dry there and I've got this hard line, so I need to deal with that before that sets in, so really dry brush. You might be able to see I've just got my pigments run up and dried on the edge, so I get a hard transition there, which I don't want. I'm softening that in. But I can't at this point, if I introduce more water here, it's going to cause a cauliflower a bloom, which sometimes you want to put in. Right now, I don't want to do that, but I want all this mixing on the page. I need to now be patient and come out of that and let that completely dry before I do anything else. 7. Stay Loose in the Body: It's not quite been 10 minutes. I'm I'm dry enough. I think. Let's risk it. Now we're going to come in to the body here. I'm going to use two brushes. The one that I just used on the neck and I've got this really nice big one. I want to do that because I quite like the idea of that tail feather being in this brush. Have a play and see what shape your brushes make. I'm stalling because this is a tricky bit. Well, not tricky, but you really only get one shot. What I'm going to do, I'm going to patchly wet down here. I want a little light on the back here. I want to keep some white paper, and I want a mix of strokes in the back here. I'm going to start with my smaller brush and just throw a bit of water on. Coming onto this bit where we left off last time because I want those washers to sit into each other. I'm going to come down. I'm going to leave some dry paper where that darker feather is here. Come down. Not patchy wet here. Here underneath, where I don't want light, I'm just painting it the whole lot with water. I'll come down a little bit into the top of that leg. Okay. And then a little bit over the top. Can you see where I am at? That's where I've gone. I'm going to be really loose now. Bit of yellow acre into where I've just wet, just throwing it on and water move it around, bit of permanent rose, milky. All this is milky. The only difficult part really is not painting the whole audien because you want to just cover the whole area. I don't want you to do that. Then I'm going to get a few harder strokes in where there are these feather shapes. I'm just going to soften that one a bit. I'm going to pick up now on my brush, little bit of permanent rose, little bit of yellow acre. I'm going to start with my tip down and pull in to that wet page. Soften that. I'm starting to get the idea of feathers. I'm near a little bit more pigment. I didn't quite come to my edge there. Is going to chuck a bit more in there. Just softening off there and I want all these bleeds and messiness. Now, I might have to bring. I in my pencil age, I might have to reconcile that one. I'm going to put one more in. Never good putting in a stroke after. It's always nice if you can get it first time. Now, I want a bit more pigment under here. I wet down under there, so I'm going to whack a bit of pigment on. Let it run. I've got darks to go underneath there, so I don't have to be too careful. I'm just going to I've got dry paper here, so I'm just going to clean my brush and soften that edge. Bit more pigment now under here. I'll get some pink as well. I left that dry paper, and I'm going to that pigment run just a bit down into the bottom of the leg. I keep drying my tissue so I've not got too water on my brush. Now, if up here, you covered everything in and you haven't left any light. As this is drying, here you can force some coli flowers. I'm not sure if I'm dry enough yet. Might have to wait. But if you pop on some water, you keep testing it to see when it's dry enough. If you're not quite dry, it will push the pigment out and it will give you a few interesting blooms. If you have covered it all in, you can do that. Now, I think I'm going to do this. I'm only going to use this once. Normally, I paint bigger than this and this brush would be perfect. I'm not quite sure how we'll go on here. Let's see, shall we? A little. I'm picking up a little bit of permanent rose and a little bit of yellow och and I'm going to do one stroke. I'm going to do two. There we go. That's my tail feather. I probably could have done it with this. But I want the shape of the brush. That's hard to do by just painting it in. It's more nicer if you use the shape of the tip of the brush. Now, I might leave that bit until the rest of this is dry. I'm going to sit back and look and think, that there's dark under here. I'm going to pick up a bit more of my pink while this is drying and just throw that into the wet page because I know that I'm going to want to be darker underneath there. Then I just want to again watch this transition because I'm not ready to start there yet. Sitting back, I'm going to put more of that pink right under here. Again, I can test out. I'm dry again. Can I force any If you put the water on if you try to force blooms before it's dry enough, you just get a hole the wash will just all become one. You've got to keep testing it out. I don't mind that. I think I'm going to stop fiddling. The thing that's bothering me. This, I think is going to bother me. I've got this chink here. I'm just going to soften that back because when I come to the end, I'm going to decide that I don't like that shape. I'm just going to soften that while I'm still wet. I'm at the danger point now where things are starting to dry in places, so I probably need to get out. I am just going to keep teasing this. Just make sure that this doesn't give me a really hard edge. My brush is always dry than my page when you're doing this. I've got shadows to go on there, so I don't have to be too fussy, but I just don't want to have too much of an edge to deal with. I think I'm going to sit back, keep drinking my coffee and wait for that to dry before we come in and do this and then start the legs. Then we get to start the shading and the shadows and working up the three dimensions. Come out and let that dry. 8. Legs!: Fully drag in now. I think I might pop in this under here, and then we'll come and do the legs. I'm going to wet down. I normally, I probably rub out that pencil. I'm not going to bother now, but I'm going to stick without wetting down before we paint. Now, I want to transition here from. I want some sharp edges here. I'm not going to paint onto those feathers. I'm just chiseling out that shape. I'll decide later whether there's a little flash of dark under there of black. I'll see how I feel about that. Now this is quite orange. I'm going to come on with yellow och first, then a bit of my permanent rose. Then I might chuck in a bit more. I'm leaning a little bit more towards more yellow och, and slightly more pigment. I've just wiped my brush on the tissue. Now I'm going to reconcile come a bit closer to that feather. Chiseling out the shape a bit more. Now this will dilute the pigment a bit because my brush is quite dry. Once I've done that, I'll just drop a little bit more pigment in take up a bit of both. Quite strong under there. Then I need to keep an eye again on this transition. I wash my brush, paint my tissue, and just soften that edge. I can blotch that edge because I want this pigment to run, but I don't want it to finish hard. I'm just going to keep an eye on that, see what it does. It's quite dark at the moment, which looks a little bit out of place because we haven't put any of the other darts on there yet. But again, remember, it'll dry lighter and we'll deal with that later. I I might bring that I might just make that gap just to touch smaller. I'm just teasing the pigment that's already out just to give myself a little bit of a final line to deal with at the end. Then I'm going to look at the legs. Let's look at my p. Maybe I'm going to use a bit of indigo, maybe a bit of permanent. Move it up so you can see the legs. What I'm going to do here, I'm going to paint down with a bit of water using my middle size brush. Well, preferably clean brush doesn't really. Little bit loose in the knee. I haven't necessarily painted everything on and then I'm going to just drop a bit of indigo. Tidy up that edge. Maybe a little bit of the pink. I might put a little bit of permanent rose in wet and wet. I want it to be a bit loose. I need it to be soft when it finishes down the bottom here, or it will look like I cut it off with a knife, which I don't want just softening that. Now, when you're doing this, it's really easy to start, put the first wash and leave it. I'm just going to bring that up. I say don't fuss and I start fussing. Now, you can wait until this fully dries, or you can come and do the next one. I'm just putting a couple of blooms. On there. That's a good example of the bloom. I just dropped a little bit of water in here. Must set up a bit and you can see hopefully a little bit more clearly what I'm talking about with the cauliflowers. Then I'm going to do the same thing on the other leg. The reason I'm doing this at the same time is because I want these to be the same color. Often what I do is I if I paint one, then I go away. When I come back, I forget what I've used or I don't use the same amount. I do like to do them pretty close together so that they look like they match. But the only trick here is to not touch that first leg. I come down. What does it a bit of a gap. Again, I just want it to disappear. A bit of indigo in I think I may have just touched to that. Yeah, I don't do that. It doesn't really matter, but I just touch bit the leg that I didn't really want to. It's not too bad and a bit more down here. Then so that I match, I need a little bit of permanent rows in here too. That's more permanent rows than I gave the other one. I'll just in. Now, they'll be more dark on this back leg. That's now base wash is done. Let that dry, I'm actually going to rub off my pencil, most of it to see where I mash, and then we'll start to to build the shape a bit more. Come out of that and let that dry. 9. Starting the Darks: All right. I've waited a bit longer this time, probably 20 minutes because I want to make sure this is really dry before I start doing these shadows. I've gone back to my little brush, not the tiny one, but still smaller than what I have been using. We're going to start to add some of the darks in. I'm going to do this wet and wet. I'm going to take some clean water and wet down base of the neck there. And coming into the chest. Now, I want to wet a little bit further than I want my dark to go again so that we're looking for that transition from dark to light and I come around. I do need to be careful to come to the edges of the first wash. Again, I'm damp, not soaking. Right into that tip. Now, what I'm going to do, I'm actually going to mix a little bit of my permanent rose and a little bit of my indigo together. I'm going to come and drop that into the area that I've just wet. Again, if it doesn't move, whack on a bit more water. Making sure I come right to edge of that first wash. You can see the difference. Here it's wicking up into the water into the wet area of the page. Here, it's hit dry. You can see the difference where the pigment hits either dry or wet paper. I'm just going to soften that back a bit. That that into the front. You want to work reasonably quickly and just keep dropping in pigment. I'm cleaning my brush and just softening that edge. Now, I need to be darker back here, so I go to grab a little bit stronger indigo. You just got to keep watching the edges and make sure you haven't got flashes of light that don't make sense. Softening my edge. Now coming over into the neck. I'm wetting down now because I quite warm in my room. That water that I put there before is already dried. Because I want to do the same thing now. If I look at the reference, I went outside my pencil edge there again. If I look at my reference, there's quite a bit of dark underneath the neck here. Now, you don't have to get all of this in go. You can put someone, let it dry, go again. It doesn't have to be all at once, and you don't have to get at the right intensity first time. Washing my brush, softening edge. Because I want to be careful not to lose all the lovely lights that I retained in the first place. Sometimes you have to cover them up because they just don't make sense, but I would rather go bit by bit here than go too hard first. All right. I stronger under here. I've got this I don't really mind that hard line. There I might leave that one. But now because I'm picking up permanent rows and indigo and letting them mix a bit in the page. My colors I need more permanent rows here. Now I've got more pink here than I do here, so I'm just going to drop a bit more pigment in. I've just go to watch these hard edges. Rush should have been a bit cleaner then. Clean brush and soften that edge. I don't want to introduce water, but I want to soften that transition. As I'm getting up to that bit where I'm really dry, I'm just going to use my tissue to help soften that back and then I'm just going to maybe mess this up. I don't want it too smooth. I'm dropping a little bit of water in here and just messing that up. Just a touch. Sitting back and seeing whether the darts make sense. Now, You can see when I come on now, the amount of water I've got on the page now. I'm getting cauliflowers, I'm getting blooms. I don't mind them there, but that's saying to me I'm really close to needing to get out now. That's probably not enough yet, but I need to come out of that because I've been in there for a while and things are starting to move a bit. I will let that wash dry. But I'm going to do the same thing now up in the face. Now you can let this fully dry before you do this so that you don't put your sleeve in it. I'm going to just see how I go. We're going to do exactly the same thing up here, and now I'm going to paint underneath the chin here. Now, I did rub off most of my pencil lines. I've still left the nostril and a couple of lines in the beak, but I have gotten rid of most of the other pencil lines. I'm going to let it come all the way to the back of the head there. Da not soaking. Probably midway down the neck, I reckon. We'll see how we go. Now I'm doing the same thing of the mix of permanent rose and indigo, which is probably I might put a bit more yellow ochre in there. It's actually a bit more orange than I'm doing. We'll see how we go. Nice, wet and wet. I reckon I want so I'm going to put in a little bit of yew ochre as well because I want some of the yellow that I have in here, the orange that I have in here to be in the face as well. I'm just going to drop in a bit of yellow ochre at the same time. Wash my brush, can see my water is dried there, so I've got to pop a bit more water on. Be a bit careful around the eye. I need to come all the way out to that edge. I need a bit more yellow och under here. I'm going to keep the light for now on the top of the head, bring that down. Again, I want this wash to have settled into the one underneath and I don't want to see the join. I'm going to pop a bit stronger indigo and permanent rose just underneath. Thinking about rounding up that cheek there. You will find that as you're teasing it out, it starts to dilute too much and you need to add more pigment and that's fine. You just keep dropping it in. This isn't dark enough yet, but I've been in here a while, and I probably need to get out and let it dry before I start messing things up, knowing that I'm going to have to put on at least one more layer, possibly, sometimes even three, but you're better off going slow at this stage. I'm just looking at the reference and just seeing I want a little bit more light, just before I dry. Before my page is fully dry, my brush is dryer than my page. Cleaning my brush putting my brush on a tissue and just lifting just a touch of light into that face. I'm just moving the pigment, lifting a tiny bit off. Just to give me the idea that there's a cheek there. But I don't want to introduce, I can't introduce water here now. That would be bad. I'm just using my damp brush and pushing the pigment around a bit. I've got a few little hard edges in there, but I absolutely have to get out of this now or things are going to go badly. I'm stepping away and letting this dry, probably another 15 minutes. 10. Shadow on the The Legs: I'm completely dry now. Before I do more work in the body and the neck, I want to do the shadow on the leg and finish the bag. I'm going to start on the leg first. I'm going to paint a little bit of water over that indigo wash. I'm going to bring it all the way down to the join where the legs cross over there. I'm just trying to come to the edge of my first wash. Then I'm going to drop. Again, I'm damp, not soaking, and I'm going to drop a bit of my indigo into the top here. I've got a bit of permanent rose in there. That's fine as well. Now, I didn't actually there are actually some feathers on the top of that leg. I didn't notice them, I didn't put them in, it doesn't matter. I want this pigment to wick down. Wash my brush. I'm going to come from I'm wet here, but I'm going to come up and just tease that edge because I want nice transition. I'm going to tase down. Now I can already see. That's not going to be dark enough. I'm going to pick up some more pigment, and drop it into the top. Tease that down, all wet in wet. Sit back. Yeah, I reckon I can probably go just a touch more up the top there. I can have multiple goes at this. I just want to get that round in. Then I want to put a bit on this side of the leg. I am going to have to tidy out. I can see I didn't quite get to my pencil line there. Just going to drag that out a bit further. The reason I did that is because this line has to reconcile with the shape of the knee coming through here. It was just a little bit too shallow there. Now, a little bit on this leg, I meant to go with clean water. I went with pigment. I'm just going to pop. Remembering again because I'm letting these legs disappear, I don't want to get too heavy here. Don't want a huge amount of pigment, but just to help these legs show that they're crossing over. I just need a touch of pigment down here. Pick up the same wash and now just carefully drop a little bit of pigment in. Indigo doesn't matter if it's got a permanent rose in it. We may go a little stronger when that's dry, but I don't want to go too strong just yet. I also want to get a little bit of that color on this leg. What I'm also going to do, while that's drying, let's see if I'm still just dropping a little bit of water in I'm too dry. I was going to see if I could get a bit of cool flat, just a bit of interest. We even that putting those few different strokes. It was so flat that wash. I'm just putting in a few little marks here to just give an indication they've got fairly n looking skin on the legs. This side, I'm not going to come down quite as far because this legs in the front. Maybe halfway down. P and then drop a little bit of pigment in. Got the indigo and the permanent rows in there. Painting my tissue to drive off my brush and then just teasing that down. Maybe when I look at the reference, I can see little marks and maybe I actually I've just picked up a bit more pigment and just that suggestion of a few brush marks. There's a little bit of texture in the leg. Coming out of the legs, I get that 5 minutes to dry and then I'm going to come back into the beak. A 11. Finishing the Beak: We need to build up the face now. I'm going to start. I think I'm going to wet down the bottom half of the beak, clean water with not my tiny synthetic. Fix up my join here. You can see that indigo is still bleeding a little bit and that's fine. I'm just hiding up the shape in there. I need to now strengthen the dark underneath this. Picking up a bit of Im going to stick with the indigo. Now into that area where I've just wet down, I'm going to drop that. Paint in. That whole area, I want to back off the light. You can see my burnt sienna disappears a bit, we might restate that. All wet and wet. Nice and soft, wash my brush. Smooth this off as I come around. I'm hitting dry paper up there now. I'm going to clean my brush and just tease that wash up to the eye and onto the top of the beak there. But now that that's all a bit gammy, I'm going to pick up more paint, and I'm going to strengthen the dark. While the page is still wet, dropping into the bottom part of that beak. And now leaving a little bit more light here. Again, I need to strengthen up underneath here. The idea is we're dropping in wet and wet, so we get all these little bleeds and interesting things happening rather than painting directly on to dry paper. Now again, thicker pigment now. I really want to mean it, and I've got to be careful to come to the edge of that wash. So each time, just slowly building up, washing my brush, drying it, and just smoothing that in. That's nearly dark enough underneath there. I don't mind. I might put a touch more burnt sienna. Just a page is a bit wobbly. I didn't pre stretch. That is one of the hazards of not pre stretching. I've just dropped that burnt sienna in, I think probably it needs a little bit of the pink in there as well. Now that I've got that in when I look, I reckon I can see just a touch of that. Pink in there too, or wet and wet starting to dry now. I reckon. I'm probably at the point now where I can strengthen the black in here and let it bleed a little bit into this edge without getting into strife. I don't want much water now in my indigo, really toothpaste you paint. I'm going to come and paint that bottom beak, really solid now. Paint my brush. I don't have too much paint my tissue, sorry. Then why I always get that wrong. Paint my brush, paint my tissue. All right. What I'm trying to do now is come to meet that join there. That area that when we initially, I just wanted it to bleed out a bit. I didn't want a really hard line. It's looking. I think on the reference, if I look at the reference, that dark comes up that way a little bit. I tease that up. Just a touch. I really want that solid black, dry my brush and just working it along that edge. I'm going to just drag that over the top. Now, I've got a little flash of light down there that I will fill in, but I have to have less water on my brush than in the page to do that. Now we're going to work on the top part. Going to do the same thing. Quite like, I like some of the light in there. I don't necessarily want at all. I meant to clean my brush. What was the idea. I don't want to touch that bottom part of the beak. I'm going to try and a bit of dry paper. There. Just looking at the reference, trying to see where that comes over the top. I need a bit more color on the top of that beak because because I'm not painting the background, I'll probably pop a bit of yellow ocher in there to chisel out that shape a bit more. I'm now teasing onto the dry paper. Now that that's all nice and wet, damp. It's not saturated. I want a bit of a hard dark wet and wet. Coming up the beak. I might do it a bit wider. This is the point I don't actually have to get this exactly like the reference. I can do what works for my painting because you can see all those funny little teeth that's got in there. I'm not putting those in. Blending it. This dark. What I'm going for is I've got a little flash of light there. I want this dark here and I want a little bit of light on the top, which I think initially, I said, I'd probably lift with a stiff brush and I may, but if I get it now, I may not have to do that. We'll see what it looks like. Not that tooth ba but thick paint. I'm still, I can still get one more line in there. Tidy up. I reckon that high light might actually be enough. Now, while that's drying, because I want to put that really dark strike through there. I don't want to do that yet. I'm going to come to the eye and give a bit of a dark around the eye. I might go back to my tiny synthetic now. With my small synthetic, I'm picking up really dry indigo. I'm going to have to put my page up a little bit. I just want to now, all I'm doing is putting a bit of a circle around that colored part of the eye, really thin. Then what I'm going to do is I'm going to darken off the top half of that. I just clean my brush. I've just got a bit of water, and I'm just seeing if any of that indigo will move and tidy up. I said I had a little bit of indigo sticking out that way when I first put that pupil in. I can touch to that now and tidy that up. And make that pupil a bit tighter because it's dry enough for me to work in there, whereas if I tried to do that when I first put it in, I would have got myself into a whole world of pain. I'm drying my brush. I want to transition, so I want to smooth that blended indigo so that I go from indigo to the lime green without there being a really hard line. Now that that paper is all a bit damp, I'm going to take a little bit more indigo. And just drop it in the top bit that's wet. Now I need a bit of something else in the top of that beak. I'm going to go with some yellow oa. Then I'm going to put in the nostrils. I'm going to go straight onto dry paper with my small brush. I'm dry up here now. I'm just going to put a little bit of yellow o on, wash my brush, and move that around just a little bit, blending it in because I need a bit of warmth on the top there. And I can let that drag into the bottom part of the beak there. While this is not simple wet. It's just a little bit damp. What I'm going to do is suggest maybe we going to take a tiny bit of indigo and a tiny bit of my permanent rose and just drag that on that wet edge, so I get a little bit of a hint of the feathers coming over the top of the beak there. Then I'm going to do the same thing on this part here. I'm going to just dampen that down, make sure because I'm drying pretty quickly in here because I went down and put my heat on. Again, permanent rose and indigo. Just restating the line between the beak and the feathers here. It's subtle but it's there. Because I've been mucking around, this is dry, I can put that dark in I'm going to pick up straight indigo with my small brush. Paint my tissue a bit first, I think. Make sure I'm not too heavy. Then I'm just going to pop my brush on, push down, lift off. Don't mind that I've got a few broken straightes in there. Now, this bit, I'm going to do the same thing, and probably I need to sit over the top of the. I'm going to come down to about there. We need to start this stripe. Now, here you need to look and decide where you're going to go before you start painting because once you start, you can't stop. So can't talk and do that at the same time. Now I'm going to wash my brush and just tease this n bit out. I quite like those broken strokes. I'm not going to mess with those. I'm going to leave those in there. Possibly needs to come a little bit further. I don't want to muck with that. I probably need some strengthening up in the eye, mucking around maybe some darker shadows, but because I've been in there for so long, I need to come out of that. When that's fully dry, I'm going to work on the other darks, probably the last round of darks and see if we need any more stuff in the back. But I need to come out and let that dry and decide what we're going to do next. 12. Strengthening the Undercarriage: We're on the home with stretch now. What I want to do is work on the darks at the bottom of the body here before we make any decisions about what needs to happen at the top here. I think this is where you can get into strike that you want to add more and you go all at once without sitting back and taking it step by step and just seeing how much difference a little bit of dark can make. We're going to start underneath here. Now, where's my synthetic? I'm going to start with this brush. I'm going to get a bit of tissue. There's this nice little dark underneath here. What I'm going to do, I want to go onto dry paper, paint a bit of a dark up here and then going to run some water underneath it to let it bleed, keep it hard on this edge. We'll see if that works. Hopefully it works. My smallish, not my tiny synthetic. I got to get some indigo up. I'm going to come and I'm going to put my brush straight down on the page and lift my hand up and follow that curve. I'm going to come down. And up there. Then I'm going to get my brush, wash it, and then I'm going to run water. I didn't mean to go into that bit there. Don't do that. I'm a little chink. Run water underneath here and let that softly come out. I went the opposite way to because I wanted this hard stroke. I want that feather to stay hard and then I want it to blend from there. I'm not sure about I might have to close in a few of those lights. We'll see how they look as we go. I've got to chase this wash now. This is why normally I would normally wet first, but here I wanted to actually get that hard edge in. Coming to the edge of that first wash. Now, it's drying off to light still. I'm going to bring that water all the way over here so that I keep washing my brush and I'm ending up painting with clean water so that that indigo doesn't dry in a hard line. So on here. Chasing the edge. I just want to keep an eye on where that we edge ends, that I don't get a sharp line. Now I need more pigment. I'm going to come back in here. Drop a bit more in. Wash my brush. Again, this isn't exactly the same as a reference, but the reference is just a guide. I want to work with what's in front of me. No freaking out about this doesn't match the reference. Reference is just to get your eye in. I need more dark here because now I want to think about rounding here underneath es. I came out of my lines there. I'm not going to worry about it. Tie up later if I want. And that bleed that way. That there is going to annoy me, but I'll probably get that off with a scalpel blade because if I start trying to lift that now, I'm going to chase that wash further and further down, so I would rather just leave it. I need more down here. I probably should that was a bit harder than I meant to go. I'll just flood that. I probably need a bit more of the orange and a bit more yellow ochre and permanent rose in here as well. Not that anyone's going to have the reference next to your painting to say that's not orange enough. But just to balance off that. Oh, I keep. I haven't changed to my better glasses, so I'm doing a little bit hit and miss here. I'm chasing that up and then I'm going to get the tissue, get a clean tissue, and just soften that so that I don't have to spend all my time chasing that edge. I re I'm going to put a a bit more of the orange. I'm going to take a bit more yellow acre and a bit more permanent rose and just strengthen up in here. It's quite messy in here. All those feathers in there. So I can get away with doesn't matter if I form colflowers, blooms. That's fine in here. I just need slightly more Slightly darker tone and a bit more orange. I want it to bleed like this. That's how I want my color to sit. I don't want it to be a sharp edge like that. I want it to be nice and soft. Don't do that. That was a dirty tissue. I had a big lump of indigo on there. I'll just soften that back stuff there. I think probably a bit more orange. Now that that's all damp. I'm quite plain in my wash here. It did come together a little bit. What I can do while I'm mucking in here because I just wet all that down, just clean water, wet that. I'm going to put a little bit of a little bit yew, a little bit of pink. Just to mess that up a bit more interest just in there. But I don't want to close up all that light. I've got that beautiful glow, so I don't want to over paint here. Probably the light there is a bit much. You better off putting a little bit on stopping and then putting more on if you need it than going too hard. I want a little bit more pink probably in here, but I can't do that just yet. What I am going to do. I'm going to make a harder shadow on this leg. Now, because this time I want it to be pretty solid, I'm going to go straight onto dry paper. Try not to touch. I'm going to be a bit careful. Not sure how much water I've got there. I don't want the indigo to shoot all the way up into the tummy. But darker paint. Creamy consistency, creamy more so than milk. Wash my brush and just tease that down. I'm going to pop a bit more pigment up the top there. Remembering that it's going to dry lighter. Although it's a really small thing, it's amazing what a difference little stuff like this makes in your painting. Then I'm going to do similar things. When I sit back and look, I'm looking for the balance I've got the dark on the beak. Now I've got the dark there on the leg. I'm going to put a little bit more dark in there. I'm looking to see where things are balanced, and I know I need to finish just a little bit stronger under the chin there. But I'm also going to put just a touch. I'm going to dry paper. I've picked up indigo. I'm going to put a line on, clean my brush, drag that clean wet brush behind it, so that just leads out a little bit. I need just a fraction, I think I'm going to put on this one, just because I didn't come to my full washer, but this little flash of light there, which I don't really want. I'm just going to actually, if I use my slightly dirty brush, I can probably back that off a bit. That's when I keep saying that you need to come all the way to your wash, your first wash, or your second wash, whichever you're trying to cover up. Because that's what happens, you end up with these little flashes of light that don't necessarily make sense. I put that in. I'm damp there now. I've softened that back. Now I'm just going to take a tiny bit of indigo and just touch that into the wet page. Just a touch and then washing my brush and softening that, chasing that wet edge down. I'm pretty happy with that. Now, I want this dark. I want a little bit more little black possibly didn't go far enough. Now, I don't like doing this, but I want that to be a bit stronger. I'm going to just take this out. Depends what your stroke was like, but mine just disappeared a bit too much. I didn't make the right shape. I just I don't like doing this because it's hard to get. It's much nicer if you just do it with the brush first time. Now, I want to strengthen the dark just underneath this little bit. I want that to stay hard, I'm leaving a little gap and because I want this to be dark, I'm going on to dry paper because I don't want to have to do this fourth time. Now I'm going to get my brush. Clean brush, and now I'm going to tease that edge out. 13. Finishing Off: Now, my colors are different to the reference. I'm happy with my dark from my beak to the leg to the back here. But what I want now is this is very purple. I want that to balance the shadow underneath here. I want this color up and then just about finished, nearly done. But what I want to do, I'm going to wash my brush. I want to strengthen the shadow underneath the chin here. I'm going to paint just a little bit further than I want to go. Again, because I'm worried about those hard edges. I will depend it will depend what colors you use here will depend on what your shadow how much what your balance has been in your colors here. I'm going to take nice and damp. I'm going to take a little bit of indigo and a little bit of permanent rose, and I'm going to drop that in. That color needs to be the same as that. Coming. I've going to come all the way to the edge of that wash. Okay. Clean my brush, work out where I want that to be. I'm just running it along the edge. I quite like that, but I need to soften this edge. Still, I need a little bit more. I'm just chasing that edge. I just touch more. It's quite strong in here. Probably as I'm coming down, I probably need a bit more pink and yellow in here. Wash my brush. Drag that down. Fever, when you're doing this, you're overasing the wet edge, but it's worth being patient. I am just going to pop a little bit more dark in the join between the beak and the feathers here. I'm still picked up the same colors. I've got permanent and my indigo. Touching that. In in there. I'm going to soften this around a bit. Very nearly need to get out of here. Just rounding that up. I think probably I'm going to stop there. I'm just going to pop a tiny highlight in the back of the eye there with some. I'm take a t bit glass. I'm just going to pop a little highlight, which you probably won't be able to see on the video. Just in there. These two little bits that we're bugging me. I'm just going to take a blade and just depends what paper you're on as to how successful this is. Actually, I'm I probably should wait. I'm not quite dry here, it works better if you wait until your paper is fully dry. I say that as I'm about to do this one, just because I ready to be finished. There you go. That tidies up. Also, this can be quite good because I've had a lot of water there, you can see it running to the edge. Now, the way that so we end up with a very hard line here, sometimes you can back that off a bit just by scratching back a tiny layer there, or you can add a little bit more pigment when it's really dry to blend it out. I'm going to leave that now because I've been in there a little bit long and I need to stop. Fiddling. So that's where I'm going to end this one. If you're happy with your painting, or if you want some advice on your painting, take a photo of it and pop it up on the project section on the Skillshare site. Always happy to give feedback. And really for this one, what I'm aiming for you to do, I want you to keep the glow and see that you just need some well placed starks so that you can retain lots of light and still get a little bit of a punch in the subject. So thanks for joining me.