Floral Fields : Paint 4 Watercolor Landscapes Inspired by the Spring Season

1. Welcome to my Class!: Spring is the season that represents life, love, hope, and growth. It is the season that marks the beginning of color with bright colored flowers, green trees, and chirping birds. If you're someone who's fascinated by the beauty of spring, then you are in the right place. Hello everyone. My name is Payal. I'm an artist, an art educator, and entrepreneur based in Bahrain. I go by the name, The Simply Aesthetic on Instagram where I share my love for art every single day. Coming from Bahrain, we do not get to experience a lot of season in their extreme state except for extreme summers. That is why I resort to exploring different beautiful landscapes and seasons by painting them. In this class, we are going to do something of that sorts. We are going to explore the beautiful season of spring together by painting these four beautiful landscapes using watercolors. Watercolors are one of my favorite mediums to work with. There is a magic in this medium that all this brings me back. It's all about learning the right techniques and learning how to control your water and your pigments and once you master that, you can never look back. Don't worry if you don't have any prior knowledge about this medium or are still a beginner because I will be walking you through each and every step. We'll start off by learning about the right type of art supplies that you'll need when painting with watercolors. We'll then learn some of the basic watercolor techniques that will help you understand this medium better. Next, we'll move on to learning the elements of springs such as the wildflowers, grass, and the different types of tree strokes that you can make. Then using a combination of our different watercolor techniques and the elements of spring, we'll learn how to paint these four beautiful spring landscape. Everything in this class will be explained in real-time so that you can follow me along. Everything that we learn in this class, such as the watercolor techniques and the elements of spring will not only be useful for the class projects, but you can use them in your own paintings as well. Without wasting any more time, join me in this class and let us explore the season together. 2. Materials Used: [MUSIC] Let us talk about all the supplies that we need for today's class. The first thing that we're going to discuss are the papers. I'm using my arches, 300 GS-M, 100 percent cotton cold press paper. You are free to use any brand of paper that is available with you. Just make sure that it is something that's a 100 percent cotton, and 300 GS-M. Hundred percent cotton papers are really, really, really good, and it works amazing with wet-on-wet techniques, and your overall experience for painting with watercolors just changes, and you actually enjoy the process. Just make sure that you have papers that are good. For the size of the class projects, I'm just going to be cutting this paper into half, and using them individually. You'll have two papers cut in half from this one single sheet. The size of my paper is going to be around 18 by 13 centimeters in length and breadth, but you can choose any size that you want. Next, let's talk about the paints that we need. We are going to be using the watercolor tube paints. I'm using the ones by White Nights, by Netscape olive trunk. Don't worry about the colors because I will mention each of the colors that we need for our class projects in the beginning. You can keep your colors ready according to that. But majorly keep blues, greens, yellows, oranges, browns, something of that sort ready with you. But I'll mention the exact shades in the beginning of our class projects. Next, you need a tube of white gouache as well. If you don't have white gouache, you can switch to your white watercolor that you'll directly squeeze from the tube, and not add any water to it because we want it to be nice, and opaque. Or you can use your white poster colors as well. Basically, we need something that is nice, and opaque because that will help us to add the details in our class project. All these stems that you're seeing, the flowers that we're adding, we're going to mix our watercolors with the white gouache, and this way, those leaves, and those stems, and the flowers will stand on top, and we'll look nice, and opaque. So it's just basically mixing gouache, and watercolors together in our painting. Make sure that you do have a white gouache poster color or white tube of watercolor directly with you, and that is it. Next we're going to talk about the brushes. I am going to be using round brushes, and one liner brush. I'm using different sizes of round brushes. I have size 12, size 8 size 4, and size 2 from the silver black velvet series, which are my absolute favorite to work with. Next I have a liner brush, a size 1 liner brush by Pan art, and that is another of my favorite brands to work with. These are the only brushes that we're using, and I also have a nice flat brush from brand silver as well, and you don't really need this. You can use a large size brush to apply the water. I just like having a bigger brush so that I can apply water on a larger area quickly. Next, we have a mixing palette. I'm using the ceramic mixing palette. It's basically a plate that I like to mix with, and use for my watercolors, but you can use any mixing palette that's available with you, don't worry about getting the same supplies as I'm using. Next, we need two jars of water, as you can see, one is dirty. So, one is the jar in which I clean my brushes, and the next jar is for a clean supply of photos. So anytime I'm mixing new colors, I'll be using water from that jar. Next, you need a paper towel or a cloth rag or anything with you in which you can wipe your brushes, and get rid of any extra water or pigment. So, just have something to wipe your brushes on. Of course, you need a pencil, and a masking tape to tape down your paper from all four sides so that it's nice, and sturdy, and not moving around or buckling. Next, we need a wooden board or a clipboard or something that we're going to tape our paper on. I just like using this clipboard, and you can use absolutely your table as well. You can use that. That's completely on you. I just like having something that's movable, so I can move it around, and I generally like using that clipboard for painting with watercolors. These are all the art supplies that you need for our class projects, and the next thing that I want to mention is this little sketch book that I like to keep for recording all my watercolor techniques, and elements that I use for each of the class. You can practice this on absolutely any paper. But I just thought I'd like to mention it once, and that is it. Once you've gathered all of these little supplies, we're going to directly move on to learning the basic watercolor techniques. 3. Brushing up on Watercolour Techniques: [MUSIC] Let us paint and learn a little bit about the different watercolor techniques that we'll be using for our class projects. Here's a quick overview of our class projects. We have four beautiful paintings and in each of these paintings, we're using different combinations of watercolor techniques. In the first project, we're using wet-on-dry method for blending the sky. In the second one, we're lifting the paint. In the third one, we're using wet-on-wet for the sky. We're all playing around with different techniques. I'm just going to teach you a little bit about each one of them. We have wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, wet-on-wet blending, wet-on-dry blending, lifting techniques, and a little bit about the brush control, which is really important. Let us learn what is wet-on-wet. The first word is the big thing, the consistency of your paint, so your paint is definitely wet. The second word is for your paper. When you wet your paper or basically prime your paper with water before you start painting, you're making the surface wet, which means when you apply the water, it will just nicely blend into the water. It has something to flow with since it's watercolors. Here I'm just going to mix my paint with a bit of water so that's wet and the surface of my paper, which is also wet. When I apply the paper, you see the paint just swishes around. It has a medium to go and slow it. That is why it's wet-on-wet technique. Wet-on-wet technique is really fun, especially when you're blending skies or you want your paint to flow freely and not be sitting on one side when you apply the paint. That's when wet-on-wet is a really fun technique to work with. The amount at which your paint flows with water depends on the amount of water that you have on the paper and also the amount of water that you have in your paint and water mix. If your paint is thicker, the paint will stay there and not spread so much. But if it's a loose paint, it will spread more. Next thing that I wanted to show you is wet-on-dry. Wet again, is the consistency or is the word for my paper basically, so it's wet and dry as a surface. Here you can see the paint just sits there. I'm going to move my paint and give it direction, whereas in wet-on-wet, it just spreads around with water. Wet-on-dry is a more controlled method. Next thing that we're going to learn is the wet-on-wet blending, which is basically like blending two colors together for the sky. Over here, I'm priming my paper with water, just preparing it and at the top, I'm applying the blue color, which is ultramarine blue. I'm just spreading it and bringing it down in the left and right motion. As you can see, it just spreads more. At the bottom, I have a carmine shade. You can use any shade basically just to practice this. I'm moving it left and dry it and mixing it with the blue. Over here, what happens is you have enough time on your hands to do all your blending processes. Whereas in wet-on-dry, your paints will dry faster, whereas in wet-on-wet, until the paper dries, you have the time to move around, blend, mix and do all sorts of blending process, mixing, process, lifting process, whatever. You have some time on your hands. Now, I'll just show you the wet-on-dry method. When I do the wet-on-dry method, you will see my paint is more controlled. If I want to blend my paint, I will have to apply water or move it around and give it direction. See, if I apply it, it just sits there and it's not moving. It's only in the area that I've applied the water to. Again, the carmine shade, I'm bringing it from the bottom moving upwards. It's just sitting there until it mixes with the blue. Now when it mixes with the blue, it becomes like a wet-on-we technique because there's water on my paper. Wet-on-dry method is a more controlled blending process, whereas the wet-on-wet is more free. You have time on your hand that's more free. You can choose any method that you like blending your skies or whatever you're painting, whatever subjects you're painting. It's your choice as to what works for you. In this class projects, we'll be exploring skies in both the methods. We'll also learn about on-dry blending for the sky and we'll also do a wet-on-wet for the sky. You're free to choose whatever you'd like. [MUSIC] Next thing that we're going to learn is the lifting technique using brushes or tissues. You're free to use any method for lifting your paint from your paper. The lifting technique only works when your paper is wet. When your paper is wet and when you use a dry surface, the water gets soaked in, and that's how you have the white of the paper. I'm just applying a bit of the carmine color on the wet surface. That's basically wet-on-wet technique. I wanted it to be a little bit darker, so I went ahead and added the ultramarine blue to it as well. I got this weird purple color in the mix. You can use any color over here to practice this technique. Once you have the wet-on-wet surface ready, you will see that I'm going to lift the paint from the paper while the paper is still wet. I'm going to dry my brush completely. Get rid of any water that's on it. When I swipe it on the surface, it will soak in the water that's on my paper. Each time I make a swipe, I'm going to dry my brush. I don't want the paint to be in there from my swipe. I need to get rid of the water. The next way to lift the paint is by using a tissue. When you just tap in the tissue, you will lift the paint. It's a beautiful technique that actually you can use to create your soft clouds in the sky. I think it's just absolutely gorgeous and so easy all you have to do is tap with your tissues and you'll have beautiful skies ready right in front of you with a quick simple step. Next thing that we're going to learn is brush control, which I think is very important. A lot of times, a lot of people tell me that I'm not able to make branches like you or I am not able to make the brush strokes that you're making. That is because you need to have a good control over your brush. You need to know your brushes well, you need to know their capabilities and you need to hold your brush in the right way. You hold your brush like a pencil. How you would normally hold a pencil. Over here, I'm using my size 12 brush. Now of course, these brushes are really good. They come to a really fine tip so I can make a thick stroke. With a size 12 brush, I can make a huge stroke and at the same time, I can make really thin lines with the same brush. This is a quick little exercise that will help you know your brushes and do not skip this because it's really really helpful. You just have to know the pressure that you're applying on your brush. Let's say it's a size 6 brush and I tap in with maximum pressure, I get a very thick line. When I release the pressure, I get really thin lines. It's basically like barely touching the paper and you get thin lines like this. You can use this brush method or the brush stroke to create different leaves, grass, shape and you are more controlled, you get really thin lines. Remember to hold your brushes like a pencil or a pen that you normally hold and work with different pressures. You need to know the amount of pressure, you need to know your brushes, so just move around, create different brushstrokes, practice different lines, practice different stamps or your leaf stamps, try making different things. When you do that, you understand your brushes, you understand your hands and the pressure that you have in your hands. Once you have that sorted, you just need to know how to get a particular shape done. That makes your process a lot easier and it helps you a lot in your class projects or any painting that you do generally. Just play around with different brushstrokes and work with different brushes. I'm working with size 12, size 8, 4, 2, and the liner brush. I'm really familiar with these brushes. I'm really comfortable with these brushes and I mostly tend to use only these brushes for my watercolor paintings. I've worked with them a lot so I know the pressure that I can apply and thin strokes that I get. But when you are new to your brushes, it takes some time to understand them. Just play around, create different brush strokes and see what works for you. That is it. These are all your watercolor techniques that you need to know before we move on and paint our class projects. We're going to be using a combination of these watercolor techniques in our class projects. When you paint these class projects, you'll be blown away with how different things are done, how we use them in an actual painting, how we interpret a landscape from a picture and put them on a paper, and work our way through it. I think it's super fun. I'm really excited to go ahead and teach you how to paint with them. I'm just showing you a quick overview of how it's done, how you can do the lifting techniques or the wet-on-wet technique to create the skies, and the different elements of our painting. Let us now move on and learn the different elements of spring and then dive into our class projects. [MUSIC] 4. Elements of Spring: For each of our class projects, we're using different elements of spring. I'm just going to show you my class projects. As you can see, we're using different wild flowers, so we are going to be painting daisies, spot bees, and just a few different wildflowers. Then we'll have grass and we also have a bit of trees and different ways of creating trees in our background. We're just going to learn how to create each of these things so that it's easier for you to follow me along when we're painting the class projects. The first thing that we're going to learn are the wildflowers. Let us learn this wildflower first. For this, I'm using my size 1 liner brush. You can use your round brush as well. To depict the flowers that are really far away, you're just making a few dots clustered together. You're just going to tap in dots with your brush and make them together so that they appear to be a bunch of flowers and at a distance. That's how you create the look of these flowers at a distance, but as you come closer, the size of these dots will increase. For the ones that are really close, I'm just going to move my brush around to create these petaled shapes. You can see how I'm moving around. I'm not giving it a definite shape and I'm also not making the dots in the middle. I'm just showing you how the basic shape of the flower is going to look. You're just going to play around with the shapes. You're just going to have fun. For the daisies again over here, the dots for the ones that are really far away, they're just dots. But when they come a little closer, you'll see a more definite shape for the petals. You're just going to make these petals form around and make them join in the middle so,1, 2, 3, 4, then 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. You can make a bunch of 10-12 strokes or 7-8 strokes depending on the type and the size of flower that you want. You're just going to make these flowers look like that. Now you'll also have to give these flowers different directions. Not all the flowers will be facing towards you. You'll have flowers facing different sides. You will have some facing away from the observer, some of them facing directly, some of them turning towards the left and right, so that way you give a different shape. When you give a different shape, you just make it at one side and stop in the middle. I'll just show you, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and you see it's only halfway. Then at the bottom, I release the stem down. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and then, release the stem down. This way you create the basic shape for the flowers and then have the stems. Of course, the same stems are going to be in green color, but we've just gone with carmine, which was on my palette and with them. For the far piece again, it's the same first stroke that we did, so you're just making one whole blob together and then releasing stems because you're not really seeing a lot of details for the flowers as they are still far away from the observer. Next thing that I want to show you are these little wildflowers that I have painted around on the class project. I just want to show you how that's done. I'm switching to my size 2 round brush for this one, and then I'm loading my brush with some paint, so making one line that's curvy in one direction. This is moving towards the right. Then I'm releasing these little strokes which eventually form like a triangular shape, so 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 on the other side. Then I'm releasing some leaves and then also making two or three from the same stem. You're making one line and then tapping in the flowers from the other side. Strokes that you're making are going to be coming from the same place from where they originated from one side so they're together, and they're just going to be in this little conical shapes. If I were to put them in a shape, they would be like a triangle or a [inaudible] fit right in. For these leaves, what you have to do is start with one line, tap and apply pressure on your brush and then release. Here, having a good control of your brush is very important. You see how I start with a thin line and then change the direction, tap in and then release the pressure. The sideway bent leaves are the ones that we're using for our class projects, but you can practice these leaves in different forms as well and that is it for our wildflowers. It's pretty easy if you ask me. The next thing that we're going to practice are the grass shapes. We will have a variation of different grass and stems and all the green stuff in our field. I'm just going to walk you through one-by-one. Most of the times, you're using a simple step and in one of the class projects, we're giving it a little more detail. Let's start with a simple one. Let's start and load our brush with some green paint because the grass is green. I'm starting off and creating these little strokes. Either you can go from the bottom, so like from the ground and then release your grass outside, or come from the top and make them touch the ground, and the size of the grass will again depend on how it is located, like where it is located. Is it closer to the observer? Is it further away from the observer? The closer ones are a lot more thicker and longer. You can see how I'm giving in different directions and not all facing one direction. They have different directions and they're all in different sizes as well. The ones that are closer are made by making a dot and pressing on your brush and then releasing it a little bit. The ones that are still far away are a lot thinner and smaller. Just play around with the shape. Give it different directions, don't forget and you'll be done with it. That is pretty much it. For this class project, we are actually giving a little more detail to the ones that closer to us. I'm just making a dot and changing the direction and applying pressure, and then some of them, I'm ending it right at the direction and giving them a little shape of a bud. These are going to bloom in the future. That is one of the other strokes of the stems and grass that we will be adding in our class project, so just play around with these strokes and see how they are done. They are very much easy. Learning them beforehand will really help you when you're painting these class projects. The next type of grass are the stems that I'm making, actually. Just the same stroke, but here I'm just adding a little bit of details to it. I have the grass shape laid in. In this class, I'm just releasing some of these little leaves and tiny details. It's pretty much like the wildfires that we learned, the third one. But here it is in a different direction. It's an a little bit different directions and they're not even. I wouldn't say I would fit them in a cone. They're all of different sizes and they're just all over the place. This is just to add a little bit more character to your leaves and lot more details to your leaves. You can go ahead and practice this a little bit so that it's easier when you're painting these class projects. As you can see, it's one line and then adding these little strokes, tiny strokes around it and it'll look like a leaf eventually. That is the basic idea for a different cross. It was very simple. You just need to know the control that you have over your brush and once you figure that out, that is why the technique was important. This will be a piece of cake to follow along because it's not that difficult. Then you'll have these other grass around it so it just all comes together, and even if you mess up, it's all going to look beautiful eventually because you'll have the flowers on the top. Everyone's not going to be looking at each of the grass shapes that you've made because the focus is majorly on your flowers and the background and everything. Just all the elements put together, they're all going to fall in place. Go ahead and practice this once again, having a good control of your brush, knowing how much pressure to apply, and also using a brush that'll come to a fine tip is very important. Pick a brush that'll come to a really fine tip, especially for the grass shapes because it really helps and you get thin strokes. The next thing that we're going to learn are how to add these trees near the horizon. Some of them are done using the wet on dry method and some of them using the wet on wet method. Let us learn how we create each one of them. For the first one that we are going to do is this wet on wet silhouette of a tree that I've done. For this, we are going to wet the surface first. Using your biggest size brush, you're just going to prepare the header by applying a layer of water on it. My water is slightly pink and that is why you see a slight hint of pink because I was not using the clean jar of water and this is what happens when you do not use two jars of water. But since it's just a technique lessons or like an elementary lesson, so we don't need to focus on that more. Over here I'm going to show you how the wet on wet technique works like magic. You see here, because I had a lot more water on my paper, the paint just spread a lot more and I couldn't control it. But as soon as I slightly decreased the amount of water that I had, it got a lot more control. When you are painting wet on wet technique and you're adding different elements to it and you want the elements to retain its shape, you have to add very little amount of water to your brush, to your paint mixture as well. It shouldn't be very loose like you generally paint you skies with, it should be really thick. When you do that, the paint blends in the background, but at the same time retains the shape. Over here up just added the paints next to one another and they're just spreading in there creating a look of a bush or a tree clustered together. It was so easy to create this effect. All we had to do was tap. All we had to do was use a thicker consistency of paint and just tap them together. When you use a thick consistency, you can also create different shapes. Let's see, over here I am creating a tree and adding branches and creating that look of the leaves coming out from the branches. The paints are blending in the background, but at the same time they are retaining its shape. You look at it and you know what it is. You know that it's a tree, you know it's a bush. It's very easy to create these bushes and add different thorns as well. The first one, if you think it has gotten lighter when you use a even thicker consistency, you can add different tonal values and over here if you see the branches at the top, they've blended and gotten light in color. When I'm adding more paint around the areas it has gotten darker and it looks a lot more deep. I've just used my green shade, my hookers green shade and that is it, and I was able to create this beautiful effect with the wet-on-wet technique. The next tree that we're making is with the wet on dry technique and these are the trees that we are generally making at the horizon line. These are really far away from the observer, so you don't really see a lot of details, but at the same time, you see that there's something, a bunch of trees there at the horizon. You make the line and you're just making these vertical lines clustered next to one another and you're making them in different heights. When you do that, it gives a nice illusion for these nice bunch of trees and it has different heights and variations. They all look very good together. Make sure that you are adding different variations to your trees, not making them all of the same height because in nature they're not going to be all of the same height. You have to give them different variations and different sizes so that it looks really nice altogether. The next type of tree that I want to show you is this very simple tree full of leaves. Making the branches first, you're making a lining creating a bunch of branches next to it and you're just tapping vertically or perpendicular to the paper. When you do that, this creates a nice little bunch of leaves clustered together and it makes it a tree looks fuller. You're just tapping in these strokes of different sizes together, and when you do that, you get a nice full tree and I think it's a very easy way to create your trees. We're not working a lot on how it's done and not working on the perfection since it's really far away and you're not really seeing all the details. You just need to see a bunch of trees at the horizon, that is all. You just create the stems and add in the leaves. Here's a closer look. You're just creating the stems and then adding in leaves next to it. One stem and then tap, tap, and you create these leaves. They're very imperfect, they're not even. You just need to create that nice illusion of the leaves. For the leaves, the stroke that we're making, are just these dots of different sizes clustered together. Make some of them big, some of them small, play around and we've painted this type of trees in my previous classes. I'm not sure if you've seen that, but if you've seen them, you know how we paint the trees and it's a very simple way to do. Here are all the elements of spring. We have a wildflowers our different grass and stems and the trees that we're using for the class projects. Let us quickly start painting our first-class project. See you there. 5. Project 1 Part 1 : Painting the Background: [MUSIC] Let us paint our first class project, which is this beautiful flower bed with birds in the sky. The colors that I'm using are cadmium red, ultramarine blue, quinacridone violet, sap green and indigo. I've taped down my paper carefully on all four sides, on my wooden writing board or writing pad. The picture that we're taking inspiration from is this beautiful flower meadow. As you can see, we have some mountains in the background and some trees, and we have a beautiful pink sky in the picture, but we're going to make it slightly blue as well. The first thing that we're going to move on and do is just to create a basic sketch. It's very important to have your elements in place. I'm just going to draw a horizon line right at the two-third of my paper. Basically here what we're doing is leaving the sky space to be slightly smaller or lesser as compared to the flower meadow space. Then I'm just going ahead and sketching the mountain shape as I see. The first mountain shape that I sketch was a little lower as compared to what I wanted. I just went ahead and created another one behind it and I'll just erase the one that I sketched out first. Right at the horizon line we have these trees. I'm just roughly making a sketch of it. You don't have to make it look perfect, we're just trying to put in the elements in place and that's pretty much about it for our basic sketch. Now, we're going to go ahead and paint the sky. I'm going to take my ultramarine blue color and my quinacridone purple color on my palate. These are the two colors that we will be using for our sky. Now, the quinacridone violet color is slightly very dark. When you're making the color for the sky, we're going to add very little amount of pigment in our mix, so we need a really nice and light version of the color. I'm just going to show you a quick swatch of the colors that I'm talking about. See how the quinacridone violet is really dark and I don't want it to be that dark in the sky, so I'm just adding a lot of water and pinning down the consistency, and you get a very light version of the color. Now, we're going to use the wet-on-dry method here instead of using the wet-on-wet method that we generally use for our sky. I'm just loading my brush up with some ultramarine blue, and I'm just spreading it out on my paper in the sky region. Then right next to it I'm mixing up some light version of the quinacridone purple and I'm just applying it and adding water to mix these two colors together. Basically eventually this becomes a wet-on-wet method. But when you apply it for the first time since the paper is dry, it's called the wet-on-dry method. As you can see, I'm just leaving some white space, then loading my brush with a lot of water and then blending the colors out so that there are some lighter versions and some darker versions of the colors in the sky. You don't have to worry about making a sky look really perfect here because we're just trying to blend the purple and the blues together to have that little mix in the sky. We're not making any clouds as such, so you don't have to worry about it. Now, I'm just going to go ahead and make the mountains. For that I'm using my sap green color. Then, I'm going to take my indigo color on my palate. Now, when you mix your sap green color with the indigo color, you'd get a really deep green color. If you don't have the indigo color, you can use Payne's gray as well, or you can just use a mixture of your Prussian blue and a bit of black, so you slightly get that indigo color. But the idea here is to just make a darker version of the green. You can use Payne's gray, you can use indigo or you can just mix Prussian blue with black to get that indigo color. You can use that to mix it with a sap green to get a darker version of the color. Here I'm going to load my brush with some sap green, so I'm adding a mix of sap green and the tiniest bit of indigo, and you can see how I've gotten this really nice dark deep green color. That is going to be the color for my mountains. Here again, we're using the wet-on-dry methods. I'm just going to go ahead and load my brush with the paint and just go around the sketch that I made and fill in that area with the green color. Now to blend it further and reach the horizon line, I'm just going to load it with some water and spread the paint out. That's pretty much it. You are just filling up your mountain space with the darker version of the green color. Up to now we were using our Size 8 round brush for creating the sky and even the mountains. You can use your Size 6 brush if you don't have a Size 8 brush. The idea here is to have a bigger size brush, so that we can go ahead and add details to a larger area without having to dip our brush and paint every single time. You can use any size brush really. We're just going to go ahead and fill the mountain shape with the dark green color. We are not going to focus a lot on the details for the mountains because we eventually want it to just dry out as one single color. I have tried to give it a little bit of depth and details, but it's all going to dry out as one single color, and honestly, I'm not going to focus a lot on the details for the mountains. Once that layer has completely dried, we're going to go ahead and switch to a Size 2 brush or really just a brush that can come to a really fine tip. You can use any brush that comes to a really fine tip. Then I'm just going to add more indigo color to the mix with the sap green, because you can see the color is really dark. That is why having an indigo color with you is important because it adds and creates like a really dark green color. Now using this dark green color, I'm going to go ahead and just create a bunch of trees around the horizon line. Now, you have to keep in mind that you're going to vary the sizes. Over here I'm just dapping in the brush to create different strokes, and then ending it up at the horizon line. It's very similar to the elements of the spring that I showed you in the previous lesson. We're just going to go ahead and do the same thing here, create a bunch of strokes together that will depict these far off trees near the horizon line. Make sure that you are varying the size, which is very important, that adds a lot of depth to your painting. If you make all of them look, for same height, it doesn't really look that great. You want to make sure that you are making them in different sizes. Make some of them taller, some of them smaller, and this way you get a lot of details to your paintings. Yeah, it's pretty much it. We're just going to go ahead and fill in the entire horizon line with different strokes and wait for it to dry before we move on to the next step. [MUSIC] Now, once that the trees near the horizon are done, we're going to go ahead and paint our floral medal. For that, I'm going to go ahead and start off with my sap green color as the individual color without adding any indigo to it. I want the flower bed basically to transition from a lighter green, which is right under the horizon line, and it will transition to a really deep dark green at the end. Each time I am adding the next color, I'm going to add a bit of indigo so that I get a darker green color. Then this is again, a wet-on-dry method, so each time I'm just moving it down and then blending in the colors as you can see. You can go ahead and do the same step with wet-on-wet as well, it doesn't really matter. Each time I'm adding more indigo and I'm just bringing it down as you can see. At the very bottom, I want it to be really dark, so I'm just adding a bit of sap green and more indigo. You can see it's a really nice very dark green color, and this is because there's a lot of shadows in our reference picture as well, and also because it's closer to the observer. You can see the flower bed very well, so you have a lot of shadows in that area. That is why this area is really nice dark and green. It needs to be really dark at the end and then as it goes towards the horizon line, it's supposed to be light. That is exactly what I've done, and I'm just going to go ahead and play a little bit with the different green tones that I have. Just keep in mind that the area below the horizon line is really light, so it's just sap green. If you don't have really light version of the sap green, you can just add a bit of yellow and you can make it even lighter in case you feel like your sap green is not as light. But other than that, you can just directly go with the sap green as well and just add your color in the same transition and then just blend everything together. You'll end up with something that looks like a blend of these colors together with the darker ones at the bottom. Don't forget to just blend it right a little bit so that it doesn't look like a seamless blend. We want some other shadows in the areas as well. The only thing to keep in mind here is that you want to wait for it to completely dry. The next step that we will focus on is taking our white quash and creating the details of our stems. I'm going to show you all of that in the next lesson, which is Part 2 of our Project 1. Join me in the next lesson. 6. Project 1 Part 2: Painting the Floral Meadow: All right. Now it is time for us to do the most time-consuming part of the class project, which is adding the details to our floral meadow or our flower bed. The first thing that we're going to focus on is creating the stems, the grass, the leaves, or whatever you want to call it. I'm mixing my white gouache with a bit of sap green and a tiny bit of indigo to get this dark green color. I'm using gouache because it's a more opaque watercolor. It is opaque watercolor basically and stand out more on your paper. I'm going to start off with the area which is slightly below the horizon line, which is not right below but slightly leaving that little gap and I'm just going to make this little grass shape. Now keep in mind that you need to use a brush that comes to a really fine tip. You cannot use a size 2 brush and not have a really fine tip. If you think your brush is not going to a really fine tip, you can switch to a size 0 or size double zero brush. The idea is to make really fine lines in this area and as you transition closer to the observer, you will see more details. That is why you can use a bigger size brush because you'd be making bigger stems and leaves and all that. But when you're further away from the observer, you want really tiny details. I'm just using my size 2 brush because it gives these beautiful lines which are really tiny and I'm just going to make this grass shape like I taught you in the Elements of Spring lesson. I'm just making tiny grass and I'm going to transition from this color as we come closer. Obviously, since our bottom is darker, this color is not going to show up, so over there we'll be using a lighter version of the grass, but don't worry, I'm going to take you step-by-step. We're just creating a layer of this grass first and we're going to work in sections. This is my first section. As you can see, I created this first section. Now, right below that, I'll leave a little bit of space and start off with my second section, as you can see, with the same color but this time I'm making the grass a tiny little bit more bigger than the one I put out before. Each time, each section that I do, I will be increasing the size of the grass. Now you have to be really patient with this step. I know it takes a lot of time because it's time-consuming and it requires lot of detailing and layering and all that, but it's so much fun to do, especially when you're working in sections. If you think it's getting too much for you, you can have little reward breaks in the middle, so you can be like if you finish half of this section, you get to take a break for 10 minutes. Anytime obviously if you are painting, if you're sitting down to paint, I always suggest that you take a bit of breaks in between. Otherwise, you get really stressed out and it's not fun because you're painting to be stress-free and you don't want any added stress. I've just slightly increased the speed because I don't want to take a lot of time. A few guys here, are doing the same thing. The process, like I said, is very repetitive. We are working in sections and increasing the size of the stems each time we are doing the next section or the section below that. If you want to slow down the video, you can definitely do so and take it slow and then follow me along but the process is very repetitive. Anytime that I'm changing the color, I will definitely stop and mention the shade that I'm using. Just follow me along, be patient, take your own sweet time and have fun. Now as I come to this area which is slightly in the middle green section, I'm going to add a bit more white to the mix. As you can see, this is the swatch up my color. It has more white and small green and I'm just going to use this color to create these long stems of grass shape. Now you can go from bottom and then slide your brush upwards but you can also bring it from top to the bottom. Whatever works, whatever makes you feel more comfortable. I'm just going to create more grass shape. Again, the process is repetitive, you're working in sections, and you're just going to add layers and layers of this stem so that there's a lot of depth in your painting. This is the first class project, so don't be so stressed out. I've kept it as simple as I could and made it really nice and easy to follow along. I hope it is all making sense to you guys. I don't want to stress you out even more by talking a lot about it, so I'm just going to let you enjoy the process. Just use this color and fill out all the space that you have on your paper right now before we move on to the next shade. Now, once this layer has dried, I'm going to go ahead and create a darker version of the green because I feel there's a lot of light and there's not a lot of darker colors in the paper so that is why I've just taken my indigo color and I'm adding a bit of gouache to it to make it nice and opaque and a tiny bit of sap green to get this really nice dark green color. Again, I'm just going to go ahead and make the same grass shape that I've been making all this time and don't worry if you're filling out the little greens that you've already laid out before. Picture that you're not laying down the darker green on all of them because then that completely defeats the purpose of you laying the lighter color first. But you can just add them somewhere in the middle, not everywhere so that it doesn't look all very clustered together. You're just adding the darker shadows to your painting and you can mostly focus this color in the area that's closer to the observer. That's at the end of the paper. As you can see, I'm doing that right at the end of the paper. I'm just going ahead and adding the darker colors. Like I mentioned before, since it's closer to the observer, you'll be able to see a lot more detail and that is why you need a bit more of the layering, especially in that area. I've just gone ahead and added that in a couple of spaces to fill out the darker colors. Once that dries, we'll move on to the next shade. Now that I'm happy with how everything looks, I'm going to go ahead with the next shade, which is a lighter version of the green that we laid down before. Here, I've added more white to the mix and as you can see, it's really nice, it's really light. Now you don't have to lay this color everywhere. Now, I want to mention another thing. When you laid out the first layer, you put it everywhere. When you laid out at the second layer, you are filling in the little spaces that you have missed from the previous stroke. Now when you lay out the third layer which is the lighter one, you make even lesser. You don't want to fill out the whole space with this color. I'm just going to make some strokes in the middle and then just leave it right there. As you can see, I'm just making some of them in this color. I'm not making all of them in this color and that is exactly what you need to do, not make all of them in the same color. Just some of them, just add some strokes in the middle in a nicely dangling around, having highlights and lighter versions of the color, which makes it all look nice and pretty. That is the only thing you need to keep in mind. The first layer, it's everywhere. Second layer, filling out the spaces. Third layer to just add more details and highlights to the two layers that you've laid out before. Once you're happy with how everything looks, it's time for us to add the flowers. Now that the paper is completely dry, I'm going to make the mix for the flowers. For that, I'm going to take my cadmium red color, and to this, I will be adding my white gouache to make it nice and opaque because we want our flowers to just stand right there. I'm going to switch to my size one brush. As you can see, I've just added my white gouache to it to make it nice and opaque. Then using this color we'll be adding the flowers. I've just mixed a nice amount of it and I'm just working on the color that I want. Because I want it to be a little more darker, I'm adding a tiny bit of gouache to a little bit of red that I took out, and you can see it has turned out to be a nice vermilion color to be very honest with you. Using the shade, I'm going to start making the flowers. Now for the flowers, we're just going to use a stroke that I've taught you in the elements lesson, which is just like a blob. We are not focusing on the exact shape of our flowers. It's just a blob in simple terms. You're just going to create a bunch of blobs and then vary the sizes of the blobs that you're laying out as simple as that. Let us not make things more complicated. Also, make your blobs to vary in different sizes. Make them in different shapes, make them in different sizes and you're good to go. I'm going to make the shape, this random little shape, which by the way depicts the poppy flowers. I'm just going to make these blobs bigger as they are closer to the observer, and as they move further away, they're going to get smaller. That is why I said we're working in sections. Because the ones which have long contrast and all that are towards to the observer, that is why you see more details. They are bigger, and as they move further away in the fields, they are smaller because they are further away from us or the observer. You're going to vary the sizes like I mentioned. Now as we move further away, as you can see, the shape that I'm making keeps getting smaller. Now, I'm literally making just dots right next to each other, and I'm leaving a little bit of space because we're only working on different colors for our flowers, we just don't want all of them to be red. We want to add some purple in there as well. We're just going to leave a bit of space for us to add different colors in there. I like the area under the horizon line. I'm literally just making dots. You're making them because you can't really see the details of it like I mentioned before. They're really further away from the observer, so you're just going to make dots and leave it right there. Now, I'm going to mix white gouache to my quinacridone purple to get this pretty purple shade, which honestly looks very beautiful. Using this color will be adding more flowers in-between spaces that we have. Now, I want to add a little more white to the mix because it wasn't really popping up on the paper because of the green and wasn't really showing. I just added a bit more of white to make it like a lilac color, and then I'm just adding more dots to create different shapes of the flowers. Now you don't have to worry about the shape like I mentioned before, just create dots. You don't have to work on a lot of details because this is the first class project. I just want to give you a basic idea of how things are and how we work in different layers, and how we work in different sections. Let's take it nice and easy and not worry about the shape of the flowers and the details in the mountains, and just let ourselves loose and have fun. You're just going to fill in all the little spaces that you see between the red that you've already laid out. Again, remember as we move further away from the observer, the size of the flowers decrease. That's the only thing you need to keep in mind, and other than that, you're just free to create any shape of flowers that you like honestly. You want to make them look like a daisy, go for it. If you want to make them like the blobs that I've created, go for it. But yeah, just enjoy the process and lay this color down in your field. Now, once we are done with the purple color, we're going to go ahead and add a bit of details with our white color, and I just quickly shifted to a size zero brush. You can use your size one-liner brush as well as any brush which has really small point to make really small details. I'm just adding a bit of white flowers in there as well because I felt like it wasn't popping out that much. I'm just going to add a bit of white to make it nice and pretty. Since this field, like I mentioned, and like we saw in the reference picture, is a mix of different wildflowers. That is why you can have different color variations, and here that is not a problem at all. Let's go ahead and create a few more dots and blobs with the white color. Here I'm happy with how all the flowers in my field looks and the grass looks great and the stems look great. We're just going to go ahead and add a few little final details to make our flowers pop out a bit so that they don't just look like things floating in the air. I'm just going to add this little black dot in the middle to add a bit of definition and write under these flowers using my dark indigo green color. I'm just going to make a line so that you can see that the flower has a stem and it's not just a flower hanging in air. You're just going to add this little tiny detail to all of your flowers, especially to the ones that are closer to the observer and you can see the shapes a lot more clearer. You're just going to do that and make sure that you're making that little stem because that's really important to just add a little bit of the detail. I'm just going to go ahead and do that to all the flowers that are bigger. That is pretty much it for this process of adding details to the flowers. Now I felt like we need to add a bit of details and make our sky look even better and add some elements in there. I I got a little bit of a smudge of the dark indigo color and I didn't want to leave it right there. I'm just using my indigo color right here. I've decided to add in a few little birds flying in the air and enjoying the spring season. I'm just making an r shape and extending the wings out for the details of the birds flying. You can just go ahead and make an r if that's easier for you. That's totally on you. We are just adding tiny birds, and that's pretty much it. We're just going to wait for our painting to dry, and if you think your painting is dry, just go ahead and peel the tape off. Once the tape is off, everything looks so much better, and I just love how our first-class project has turned out. This class project was a good building foundation for our future class projects because we've learned the basics of adding the stems, the flowers, painting the skies. Using a combination of this along with different techniques, we'll be painting the future projects. Let us quickly move on to our second class project. 7. Project 2 Part 1 : Painting the Background: [MUSIC] Let us paint our second class project, which is this beautiful poppy field. The colors that we're using are cadmium red, carmine, ultramarine blue, sap green, green, and indigo. Don't forget, you need to keep our tube of white gouache with you. I've taped down my paper on all four sides, and this is the picture that we're taking inspiration from. Of course, we are going to alter a few things here and there but I think it's just a beautiful poppy field which we are going to try and recreate today. The first step is to definitely create a basic sketch of our picture, to have all the elements in place. You can find the reference pictures in the project section. Using my pencil, I'm going to divide my paper in almost 1/2. Now again, it does not matter, doesn't have to be the exact half so somewhere roughly at the half of the paper you're going to draw your horizon line. It has to be a really light sketch, do not make it really dark. Just slightly create a horizon line at the half of the paper. Now, as you can see in the area above the horizon line, you have these beautiful trees in the background. They're really far away, right above the horizon line. So you're just going to roughly create that sketch and create a few little branches for the trees that are in the area above the horizon line as well and right under it we'll have our beautiful poppy fields and our beautiful sky at the top. This is just a really rough basic sketch. Now I'm taking my ultramarine blue color on my palette because that's the color we'll be using for our painting. Now, for the sky, I am going to use the wet-on-wet method. I've taken my brush loaded up with some clean water and then I'm applying it in the area where the sky is, which is the area above the horizon line. Don't worry if you get into the sketch of the trees that you've made, it's darker, so it's going to get covered up anyway. That's not a problem. Now here's a quick swatch of the ultramarine blue. If you don't have the ultramarine blue, you can use any blue for that matter. Just a nice blue color for our sky. I'm just using the left and right method and I'm just creating an even blend of the blue color in my sky. Now the idea here is to have a darker tone of the color at the top which means we'll be adding more pigment to the mix for the top and then as we transition downwards, we're going to make it lighter. So you're just using water to blend the color downwards. Now, the fun part. Remember how I taught you the lifting technique in the watercolor techniques lesson? You're just going to use that method and you're going to lift off these clouds. Now this is one of the simplest way of creating clouds or just like a rough sketch of the clouds you don't want to give in a lot of details and we want to focus more on the flowers rather than the sky. I'm just taking my tissue tapping in the wet section and since the paint is wet, it's going to get soaked into my tissue and I'm just going to create this beautiful cloud effect in my sky. Now, as you can see, the paper is not completely white. That is because ultramarine blue is a staining color, so it stains your paper. That is why when I'm lifting off the paint, it's not completely white and that is exactly what I want. I don't want the clouds look exactly white, but rather have that blue into it. It creates a nice shadow effect as well in the sky, which I think looks perfect. I'm not going to overdo anything. I'm just going to stop right here. As you can see, we've got this beautiful cloud effect in our sky and I think looks perfect. Now we're quickly going to move on and paint our field by the time the sky dries. I've taken the color green on my palette. This is a beautiful shade of green from the white nights series and I think it's perfect green so I have sap green, green, indigo, and cadmium red on my palette. Now, unlike the previous class project that we did, here, we're going to have red right under the horizon line and then we'll be transitioning to the green. That is why I've taken read on my palette. So I'm just quickly going to show you a quick swatch of the colors. We have the cadmium red, we have the sap green that I just swatched out and you have the green color. This green color like we did in the previous class project is basically just a mix of your sap green and indigo. Or somewhat very closer to that shade and next to the same green color, I've added a bit of indigo to get the darker green color. If you don't have the green shade, it's not a problem at all. You're just going to work with your sap green and your indigo color. Here, I'm using the wet on dry method. I'm nicely applying a layer of my cadmium red at the top, cleaning my brush and slowly moving the colors downwards. Now, here, keep in mind you want to go in that left and right stroke. You don't want to create different little uneven stroke. So just make sure you're going in the left and right strokes. Then just to add the effect for our stems, I'm just making these vertical strokes and this way you just add a little bit of details to your field. Of course your red is not going to just stand in the layer. It's not just going to be red and then green right under it. You need to show that it's blending in together and it is standing on something, your flowers have a stem. They're not just in the air. Here, you're just transitioning. I'm just creating a base of the color before I go ahead and add any further details. I've transitioned from sap green to the medium green and then on the bottom, I'm creating a really deep green shade. Like I said, at the bottom, since it's closer to the observer, you'll be seeing more details. Over here, I'm just making this little wet on wet grass shape as well. This creates a very nice effect for the stems and all the puts in all our shadows that we need. Since it's wet on wet technique, it will just nicely blend in together and create that effect which I think looks perfect. Don't worry about making it look perfect again. Just don't worry about the perfection behind your shadows. You're just adding in these shadows and they'll try out to be really nice and just among themselves. I'm creating that vertical stroke and then I'll be adding red on the top. This way, there'll be a nice little blend between the green and the red. I've put on the red at the area right below the horizon line because let's say the poppy field is really dense. In the reference picture, you can see it to the poppy field is really dense. Because it's dense, you don't get to see a lot of the green in that area. That is why it is completely red. But as you transition or as you come closer to the observer, and as an observer if I'm standing right there, I can see more green and that is why that transition needs to be in place. Now, once our layer is completely dry, both our ground section and also our sky, we're going to go ahead and add those little trees in the background. I'm switching to my size 2 brush over here. You're using size eight previously just a nice medium brush. Now over here I'm just creating again the uneven sections for the trees. Again, keep in mind that at the horizon they don't have to look perfect. You are just going to make them vary between different sizes. You want to start off with the trees looking more denser at the left and as you transition or move towards the right side, you want them to get smaller. Again as you reach the middle and after you transition to the extreme right, you want to again start increasing the size of your trees. We're doing this because making the left and the right more section of these trees at the horizon gives us an illusion that these trees are still closer to the observer, but the tinier or the smaller ones that are in the middle are still at a really further distance and really far away and it gives that nice illusion of the depth of your ground. Now, we are just going to make the trees over here, my phone did not record the aid that I added the tree, but we're just adding the tree like I taught you in the elements section and that's exactly what we're doing. Once we are done with that, we are just going to wait for everything to dry. In the next lesson, we'll be adding all the details for our stems and our flowers. 8. Project 2 Part 2: Painting the Floral Meadow: Let us paint the flowers and the grass of our painting. For that, I'm taking my white gouache, I'm adding green, a little bit of indigo and then a bit of sub green as well. I'm just going to play around and get a deep, dark green mix of the color, so we're going to start off with a darker green mix and the area under the red that we've laid down. I've added a lighter green version, but we're going to do it overdo the whole thing again. I'm going to start off with the dark green mix that I just made and start making the grass like we've done in the previous class project, the process is just the same, you're just going to go from the bottom and then you're going to release just like I taught you in the elements section, so just [inaudible] like we've done before. For the area that is right under the red, I've created a lighter green mix and I've added that. My phone ditched me while I was regarding that section, but I was completely fine, we can work around that. I'm just taking the green color for now and adding the details for the darker shadows or like there for the shadows of my grass and that is why we are going to work with the green first and then move on to the lighter shade. Here, as you can see, instead of going from bottom to top, I'm going from top to bottom and then also switching it up in between and adding bottom to top. So it's just about what stroke works for you more. You like putting it at the bottom and then releasing or you're like putting it at the top and releasing it downwards. I mostly like to work with from bottom to top, so I create my stroke just like that and you're just going to work in sections and fill out the entire area with the deeper green shade here. You can also add this deeper green shade for the area right under the red as well so that you get in some deep dark shadows right there and you don't have to do it for all the areas, just a few little here and there. Now, we're just going to add the green again, the process is replicative, you're working in layers, so just make sure that you are working in layers because if you go all over the place at once, you don't really know the type of strokes you're supposed to be making. Like I told you, each time you transition downwards, you're going to increase the size of the grass that you make because it's getting closer to the observer and it's getting bigger because it's closer to the observer and you make them bigger, so just make sure that you're working in layers. Again, this is a time consuming process, so take your own sweet time and just work on the layers. Now, I'm just going to create the same mix of the green, but I'm just adding a little more indigo this time so that I get a little slightly darker green mix for the grass because we are transitioning to the darker shade and we want our darker shade to show up on the darker green that we've laid out. But yeah, just make sure that your green slightly darker by adding a bit more indigo, so as you can see, the color does not completely match with the color in the background but you can see the strokes of the graphs that I'm making and that is exactly what we want. I'm just going to slightly increase the speed because the processes again, replicative, you are free to slow down the video and follow me alone. Now that we've laid out our deep green color, you're going to add more vital the same mix and a little bit of sap green, so you get a lighter version of the green wood shall be using for the highlight sections of stems. I'm just going to take this color and I'm going to go ahead and create the grass, shape or the stroke once again right in the bottom of the painting because that's where you'll be seeing more details. I'm not covering up all the green that I've laid out because again, that defeats the purpose of laying down the green. You want to add these tropes somewhere next to the greens that you've laid out, you can cover a few of the greens of course, you don't have to completely separate the two strokes you're leering, so make sure that you're not covering all the greens. You're just going to work in little sections, make sure that you're not adding a lot of this lighter strokes because again, you want it to be visible on the paper, but you don't want it to completely cover up the previous stroke. I've just laid that down in the front or the bottom section of my painting, I haven't gone all the way at the back and then right above the layer that we added, we're going to add more white to the same paint and add a few more highlighted sections, which is going to be at the area right at the bottom of our painting basically. I'm just creating that stroke and I'm adding a few little dots just to create the shape of the buds, just to create the illusion of the buds and the flowers that haven't bloomed yet, so I'm just going to make the lines and then create little dots around it and make them curve in a direction. Don't make them all straight, give them different directions, make them flow, make them go with the air, that's the whole vibe of the painting and that's exactly what we want to do, make them all happy and fun and just add them, do not add them everywhere of course, again, this is a third layer, so we want it to be in little lesser spaces as compared to the dark green or the medium green that we laid out while leering for this tense. Now, I'm adding a little more white to the paint, and this is going to be my final layer for the grass, I'm just going to add a few little strokes here and there just a few and a few for the buds just a tiny hint of it. Do not overdo this otherwise it's going to look really white and we do not want that, we just want a few of them to be in the details, that is all. You're just going to create the graph shape and make those buds, which is basically a dot and then you're giving it a stem, that is all that you're doing. Now, while this layer dries, what I'm going to do is make a mix of the poppy florescent you're supposed to add. Generally, I will just use the cadmium red, but I wanted to be like a deeper version of the color and that is by I'm using the carmine shade. Basically, just try and mix a pink in a little amount and read in more amount and then, of course, your white gouache, and a mix of all of these colors is going to give you your perfect poppy color shade. Here the one that I'm going for is red, more towards the red side, but you can also do orange and go for whatever color you want which matches to the color that you've laid down for the poppy. I've done red here, so I'm going to go for a darker version of the red. Now, in the area right below the horizon line, you can see it's red. We want our flowers to be really close and compact together so that it serves the purpose of laying out the red right there. I've taken my size two round brush and I'm just loading my brush with the paint and then tapping in these dots really close to one another. As you can see, they're really close. We just want to do that because we want to cover up the space of the red with compacted flowers in the distance. I mean, that does not mean that you completely fill the space with red, you need to leave the little hints of the layer that is beneath. But again, yes, make them really compact. As you come closer, you want to make these flowers slightly separated so that you can see the greens and the stems that you've created and that is it. We're just going to work in sections like we've done before. We're going to go part by part and then tap in these little dots to depict the flower heads. As you come closer to the observer, you're going to be increasing the size of the flowers. As you can see over here, I'm just making dots. They're dots of different shapes, you can call them dots of different sizes. I'll Make them most of them more around towards the right side, more around towards the left side, wherever. We're just tapping in these dots that are going to be the flowers at the distance. In this area that we've reached up till now, we've had the flowers in almost small dots, and we want to slowly transition from these small flowers to a slightly bigger and slightly bigger so that when we come closer to the observer we have enough bigger flowers. I'm just slowly going to increase the size of the dots that I make. Now, make sure that you're slowly increasing it and not completely making huge ones when you have really small ones at the back. When you knew transition it, it gives that beautiful effect of the endless poppy field that you're standing in. It's a smooth transition basically, that is exactly what I'm trying to say. It's a smooth transition between the sizes and the shapes of the flowers. As you can see, I've started increasing the size of the dots that I'm making, and really close to the observer, I'm going to be making this size of the flowers. I'm not making them really huge and it's not really small. Over here again, if you've noticed the shape of a poppy flower, it does not have a lot of petals, it has limited petals and that is why we are just making a small swirl. Just create these little swirls and uneven shapes because like I mentioned before, they are not close to the observer yet, so he's not able to see the proper details of your flowers. But still, he can see these pretty flowers. You're just going to go ahead and add them close to one another because in this picture the field has flowers really close to one another and it's just such a beautiful little meadows. Just go ahead and add the flowers and then we'll move on to the next details. Once this layer has completely dried, we're just going to go ahead and add a few little details to the flowers. I'm just going to add more white to my red mix that I used earlier. Then I'm going to load it on my size two brush and we're just going to add a few flowers with the lighter color of the red. This is just to depict the different colors in the flowers and just give it a little more definition than there already is. Because here we're not going to add the black dot in the middle and that is why we are just going to add some highlights to the flowers and we have them have different colors. There is no particular order in which I'm doing it, I'm just adding it wherever I feel like adding them. This, you have to do mostly for the flowers that are bigger in size as compared to the smaller ones. You don't need to really do it there. But mostly to the flowers that are closer to you are the ones that you need to do it in. Now we're just going to give our flowers the stem. Our flowers are not just going to be floating in our meadow. What you're going to do is just make this V-shape right under your poppy or just like a little dash under your poppy, and then make a stem that's coming downwards. You can skip the dash step as well, but I just sometimes like to add it to give it this continuity of the flower. But that is completely on you, we're here to have fun. Make the stems, especially for the ones that are closer to the observer. Don't forget to do that on them at all. But you can skip the ones in the background because they already have the darker tones for the stems. For the stem, we are going to use a mix of my indigo and the green color. Just like the one that we used earlier, or you can even create a slightly darker version of it that's completely on you. Have just used a mix of the indigo and the green color and I'm just going to add some stems to my flowers. Once our painting is completely dry, we are just going to peel the tape off. I think it has turned out beautiful. We've gotten this beautiful sky cloud effect with just lifting off the paint with tissues. I love how the field looks. Altogether, I just loved the whole vibe of this and I just want to go and stand in between these flowers. I hope you enjoyed this class project. Let us quickly move onto our third class project. 9. Project 3 Part 1 : Painting the Background: [MUSIC] Let us paint our third class project, which is this beautiful daisy field. The colors that I'm using is cadmium yellow, golden deep, ultramarine blue, sap green, green, sepia, Payne's gray and a tube of white gouache. I have take down my paper on all four sides using my masking tape and this is the picture that we're taking inspiration from or trying to slightly retreat. As you can see here, we have the daisy flower beds in the foreground and we have this beautiful green landscape with some trees and mountains in the background, which is really blurry and not in focus. We are going to be painting a landscape in which the foreground is more in focus as compared to the background and we'll give it a nice circle. The first thing that we're going to do is create a basic sketch to get our elements in place. Using my scale, I'm going to draw a horizon line slightly above the half of my paper and this is going to separate my sky from the ground. From the right side, I'm going to make this trail of bushes that comes to a fine point towards the left side. In the reference picture, you have everything that slightly comes and merges towards the left corner and that is exactly what you need to follow. I'm just drawing the trail of bushes, it's like a few stems and trunks for the trees, and I'm just making the bed at which the daisies are going to lie as well. It's a very basic sketch. Just remember everything comes to the point in the left side. Now for the sky, we are going to use the color cadmium yellow, golden deep, and ultramarine blue. I have taken these three colors out on my palette and using my flat brush, I'm just going to wet the paper. We are going to use the wet-on-wet technique and we're just applying clear layer of water right here and using my size eight brush, we're going to start off by painting the sky. Now, we're going to be using these three colors, and I'm going to show you how you can create a nice muted color for your sky as well. First thing that we're going to do is start off with the yellow. I'm taking my cadmium yellow, adding a bit of water and I'm applying it in the middle. If you look at the reference picture, you will see the sun is somewhat in the left side of the paper and slightly in the middle as well. Left middle and around that we have the orange color. I've taken the orange, I've mixed it with the yellow that was already on my palette and added it around the yellow. We're going to start off with the lighter shades first and then apply the more vibrant version. Now I'm going to mix a muted color for the bluish-gray color of the sky. I'm going to mix my yellow, orange together and then add a bit more blue to the mix to get this nice gray-blue. It's more like a muted color that really goes well with the colors of the sky that we're laying down. I'm just quickly showing you a swatch of the colors that we're using. We have our yellow, our orange, and at the top you'll see the muted color that we're going for. Now, I'm going to make more of the mix. I've added blue. Adding a tiny bit of yellow to the mix and a tiny bit of orange, and then adding more blue to the mix. When you add more blue, it becomes slightly like a brown-gray color. That is the color that we're going for. It's also very close to your Payne's gray shade, but not as dark. We don't want it to be really dark. Whatever white spaces I have right there, I'm going to add the gray color in those little spaces. We have yellow around the yellow, you'll have the orange because of the light of the sun and then in the remaining area in the left and right sides, you will have the gray. As you can see, my gray is really lighter. I haven't added a lot of it. I've made the color added more water so that it has a lighter tone of the version of the color. Now, again, I'm applying the colors over one another so that we get a more vibrant version of it, especially for the yellows and the orange. I've just laid down the yellow and then applying the orange around the yellow to have that nice glowing effect of the sun, and then I'll be adding the muted gray color around it. Now, we want to lift off the colors for the sun. You can either do that by just lifting the paper directly, by using a tissue or you can dry off your brush slightly and then lift the color with your brush and wipe it off. Here I'm using both the methods. I have lifted the color with the brush slightly and then lifted more whites by just using a tissue to when the paper is still wet and you use a dry tissue, the water gets soaked in and you're left with the white of the paper. You can see how beautiful this sky is turning out each time we're moving our brush over. In the sides I've added the muted gray color and once we are done with that, that will be our sky. While the paper is still wet, it's time for us to move on to creating the background; mountains or trees. For that I'm again making a nice muted gray color, only this time it's going to be slightly darker than the colors of the sky that we've used but it's somewhat the same color. It is slightly more blue and darker. Using this color while the paper is still wet, I'm going to go in this upward motion and I'm making these lines. Since the paper is wet, it will nicely blend into the paper and create the soft glowing effect, and that is exactly what we want. We want it to be nice and glowing and smooth so that once it dries, it creates that blurry effect and it's not in-focus. To create that step, you have to make sure that you're working on the wet-on-wet technique. Another thing to keep in mind is whenever you are layering more details, so the first layer, like the sky, was more loose, it had more water content. But the second layer is supposed to have more pigments so that it doesn't spread out and create a cauliflower effect, but rather it retains its shape. Now the next color that I'm using is this brown color, which is a sepia color. You can also use van **** brown, whatever browns you have, or like whatever deep dark browns you have. Using this color, if you see I'm adding more pigment and less water to the mix. You can see that my mix is more thicker this time because I want our paper to retain the shape and I'm still working while the paper is wet. If you think your paper has dried out or it has dried in parts, in sections, in bits, then you just wait for the whole paper to dry and then carefully apply a layer of water over again. Then repeat this process because we want our paper to be wet to create that soft blurry effect. Here, if you see, since I'm adding more pigment and less water, my paint spreads, but it is more in control. I have control over the way in which I'm making the shape. Whatever shape I make, it's going to retain the shape that I'm making, but at the same time it slightly blends with the water in the paper. Once you're done creating that bush shape, you're going to just stop in the stems and the leaves together to create a thing that looks like a tree or like a tree. I don't know why I would say a thing that looks like a tree. It is a tree. We're going to create the trees and the leaves and the branches, but in a more blurry way. I'm just stopping in, I'm not creating any stems and then tapping in the leaves, I'm just creating dots next to one another. Eventually it'll just give you the shape of a tree in the background which is blurred out, you cannot see the details off. But when you look at it, when you look at the picture, you know it's a tree. Just stop in these strokes next to one another and fill them up slightly so that they look like a tree. Keep in mind that you want to make sure your paper is still wet to create that blurry effect. If your paper is not where you're not going to get this effect. Once you're done with that, we are going to move to our ground part. You can either wait for the paper to completely dry before you do it, but I just went with it. I'm not going to wait for the paper to completely dry before I go ahead and paint the crown. Just be careful that around the horizon line, you apply water carefully, otherwise your brown is going to flow into the ground. Just be slightly careful around that area and other than that, you're free to do and go into whatever you want. Now I'm switching to my size 12 brush. You can still use your size 8 brush. I'm quickly going to show you [OVERLAPPING] of the color. [inaudible] sap green color in the little triangular region area that I have and this is going to be the lighter version of the color. Then again, we'll go ahead and add the deeper tones. This is my lighter color. First I have applied my sap green and next this is the green color that I'm using. Again, if you don't have this color, you can go ahead and use any other green, hooker's green if you have, you can go ahead with that as well, or you can just add a bit of indigo to your mix and you'll get the same green. Now, I'm adding these strokes on the left and right side of the paper and putting it in the middle. Why I'm leaving that center spaces because of the sunlight that's falling in that area. We're going to have that region be more lighter as compared to the other sections. Now we're going to slowly shift towards the area to which is like a triangle again, like a slope, and that area is going to be really dark, because that's more closer to the observer, that's the foreground. You'll have deeper, darker shadows in that area. Once I lay down the green, I'm going to go ahead and create this little grass shape. Make sure that when you're making the shape, you have more pigment and less water. You can see it retains the shape. You can see the shape of the grass that I'm making. You don't have to make it look perfect. Again, this is just our deep tones in our foreground, and we are just blending all of it together so that once this whole layer has dried up, we can go ahead and add our details with our gouache and create the grass details. So just going to go ahead and create these bushes of these grass one next to each other. Remember that the ones in the leftmost section at the top is going to be smaller as compared to the other brush shapes that are making that is towards the right side. This is because this whole landscape is coming from the left and spreading towards the right side. It's like the point of view is diagonal and that is why the left section is more smaller as compared to the right one. I'm just going to add in a few little deeper darker tones for the grass in the background. Just stepping in a few little strokes, that will be the darker parts of our ground and we're not going to overdo anything anymore. We're just going to leave it right here and wait for the whole layer to dry and once it's all done, we can go ahead and add the further details to our painting. I'm just going to go ahead and add a few little deeper, darker strokes in the foreground area and that is it. In the next lesson we'll discuss how to add more details such as the stems, leaves, and the flowers to our foreground. 10. Project 3 Part 2: Painting the Floral Meadow: Once the paper is completely dry, we are going to go ahead and add all the details that we need to add in our foreground. I'm going to create a really dark version of the green color, which is basically me mixing the green shade with a bit of sap green and the Payne's gray color. Mixing these three colors together, you're going to get a deeper tone of the green shade. Using the shade, we'll start off by creating the darker colors for the stems. We're going to start from the leftmost section. I'm going to create the same grass shape that I've taught you in the elements of spring lesson. You're just going to be making these strokes, trying to give them different directions. Don't make all of them in the same direction. We are just going to work in sections. Over here one thing to keep in mind is that you are going to increase the size of the stroke that you're making of the grass or the stems that you are making. They're going to increase as you come towards the right side. Like I mentioned in the previous lesson, that in this landscape you're standing diagonally, so things are coming from the left side and getting bigger towards the right side. That is why the right side grass stroke that I'm making are bigger as compared to the left one. That is the only thing that you have to keep in mind. You're working in sections. You'll see me add bigger grass shapes in the right side and we started off with really small ones. Once I'm done with the first section, I'm going to leave some space and start making the same stroke from the left to the right side and slightly increasing the size of the strokes that I make and finishing all the sections. As you'll come at the bottom, you'll be making really long ones because that's where you're seeing more details and that is the area of that it's very close to the observer. That's bigger and everything else is smaller. The process is very repetitive. I will slightly increase the speed because the process is repetitive and I don't want to take a lot of time. You can slow down the video if you think it's going too fast to follow me along but over here we're doing the same process and that is working in sections and increasing the size as we change the direction. Over here I'm doing it around 3-4 sections for the grass and the ones that are in the end, the fourth layer let's say, is the one that is really long and really denser. You're going to make a lot of grass together. They're going to be a lot thicker as compared to the ones you've laid out before. To create this type of stroke, you're just going to press slightly harder on your brush. When you do that, you create thicker strokes and that is why knowing your brushstrokes is really important. The amount of pressure that you're applying on your brush is really important to get these types of strokes. Now, I'm pretty happy with how the deeper colors of my grass looks. We're going to move on to the next step. That is to create these little wildflowers that are coming from the top. For that I'm going to take my brown color and I'm going to mix it on my palette and add a bit of green because I don't want it to be just brown. When you mix these two colors, you actually get a really nice olive green color but this is of course, a really darker version of the olive green color. Remember how I taught you about these wildflowers in the elements of spring lesson? You're just going to be creating that in different directions and different sizes. I'll give you a closer view of what I'm doing. I'm going to make one long stem and then tap in these dots left and right. The topmost stroke that I make is going to be really small. As I transition, it's going to grow bigger. It's like forming a triangle, so you don't have to stress out a lot on this stroke. You're just going to work on it in bits and pieces and you'll get the shape. Do not not worry about getting the shape right because that's our second concern. Here you're to have fun. You're just going to make these wildflowers. You make one stem, adding the strokes for the flowers and then leave it right there. You can also add the leaves like I taught you. You're just going to make one stroke, extend it, and then press it downwards to create that leaf. If you think that this wildflower is a bit difficult for you, then you can totally skip it. You don't have to add it as well. Go ahead and create this little shape. I will just give you a closer view so that you can get a clearer idea of how it's being done. Once we're done with that, we're going to go ahead and add the details to the leaves. For that, I'm going to take my white gouache. I've put it on my palette, and we're going to be mixing white gouache with a bit of our sap green color. If you have to mix right on your palette, we're just going to add your white gouache to it as well. We are going to be making, let's say around three layers of the white gouache. For the first layer, I've mixed green. I've added a bit of yellow to give it that nice, warmer green tone. I'll just quickly show you a swatch of that color. This is the color that we're using. This is going to be the first layer for the gouache strokes that I make. We have, let's say four total layers. The first one was the deeper tones. Here is the slightly medium one. Over here you're going to start making the same strokes like you did with the darker shadow one that you laid out. Over here, do not worry. You don't have to do it for all of them. You're going to make it lesser as compared to the one that you laid out first. Remember how I told you in our second class project that each time that you add a layer, you're slightly going to decrease the number of strokes that you make. Let's say if you made 100 in the dark ones, you're just making 75 now. Then 50 only for the lighter one. Then for the lightest highlight stroke that you make with gouache, that's going to be, let's say only 25. That's just my basic math. Using this color, we are going to apply the strokes. You will see me apply it very less in very less places just to put in different layers because that's what we want, different layers, and we don't want to cover the layer that we've already laid out before. It does get over really fast and each time you are layering the number of strokes that you're making is lesser so it's fun that way. Over here, I'm quickly adding the bigger strokes for the stems and the leaves. Make longer grass fill in that area and you'll be done with your second layer with the gouache. This color, I think looks so pretty. It goes with our background color as well and it's nice. It's a nice warm green so adding yellow to the mix really helps in your gouache paints. We're done with our second layer. What I'm going to do now is add a bit more white to the mix. Once you're done and happy with how everything looks, again, you can add a bit of white to the same mix. Here we're using the size 2 brush. You can use any size brush that comes to a nice fine tip. Here's a quick swatch of the shade that I'm using. As you can see, it's a lighter version of the same color that we laid out first. I'm just going to go ahead and repeat the process of adding these strokes. This time, even lesser. We are at the 50 percent mark. I'd be adding even lesser stroke and you're just doing it in some places, you're leaving some places as it is. Each time you add the layers, you're going to decrease the number of strokes that you're making. Also, it is very important to add these lighter strokes in the area that is closer to the observer. Because that color or the strokes that you're making in the area that's closer to the observer, he is going to be able to see it a lot clearer because he's able to see more details in your painting, or in the landscape, or when you are standing close to let's say a flower bed. That is exactly what we're painting. You're going to be able to see more details to the area of the flowers and the stems and the leaves that are closer to you as compared to the area of the region that's further away. Of course, you're going to see more colors, but the ones closer to you are going to have more details and that is exactly what we're trying to depict. This is my third layer. I've added my third layer. This is a lot lighter and there are a lot of more details to the area that closer to the observer. Once we are done adding this layer, I'm going to stop right here, and I'm going to add my fourth and final layer. This is the 25 percent mark that we discussed first. Just add a bit more white to the mix and you're just going to make it very little areas. Just especially in the area that's closer to the observer, you don't have to go all the way at the back. This is just to add bit more highlights to the flower bed or the grasses. Once you are done with that, you're going to leave it to dry and we'll move on to the next step. Once my grass layer is completely dry, we are going to go ahead and switch to another brush. I'm using a size one liner brush because this brush does not come to a really fine tip but it is really small, but I don't get that very sharp stroke and I want a type of brush that does not come towards really sharp stroke because I want to add a more rounded edge for my flowers. I'm just using my white brush and I'm going to start tapping in the flowers. Remember, the left section is going to have just dots and as you transition to the right side, you will be seeing more structure for the flowers because it's closer to the observer. That is exactly what I'm going to do here. I'm going to make dots, especially in the area that's very far away. As you come closer, you are going to be seeing more details. You don't have to make each and every individual petal, but they're just going to make, let's say five or six blobs together to form a shape of a flower like I taught you in the element's lesson. You're just going to repeat the process and have some dots, have some bigger flowers of course. You'll not have all the flowers looking the same way, so you need to vary the different sizes as well. That is exactly what you're going to do. Make some blobs, make them look rounded, give some of them a proper shape especially I'm talking about the area that is still further away. When you come closer to the observer, of course, you'll have to show the petals, the individual petals, not in a proper way or in a perfect way, but of course you'll have to show the individual petals. Here, I'm going make a bigger flowers. I'm just tapping in, let's say 5-7 petals together and all of them come together. 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8. I'm not really sure how many I made, but a bunch of them. Maybe seven, maybe eight, maybe 10, depending on the size of the flower that you are making. The idea is to just show our individual petals. This is the area that's really much closer to the observer and that is why he's able to see those flowers in a lot clearer way. Go ahead and create these bigger flowers at the bottom and then also vary them in different sizes. Make some of them bigger, make some of them smaller to add a lot of different variations to our flowers. Once you're done adding these individual flowers, you can also fill in the spaces in between with smaller flowers or even little dots which depict the flowers that are yet to bloom. It just adds a nice little radiations to our flowers and I think it looks very cute. Just go ahead and do that by just making these blobs that you made at the top. That is exactly what you're doing just to fill in the space and make everything look put together. Now that my daisy base has dried, we're going to go ahead and add a bit of details to it. If you look at the daisy flower you will see that it has a little yellow-orange center, so we need to make that. For that, I'm mixing my golden-leaf color, which is a nice orange color with my cadmium yellow. I'm adding a little bit of white to the mix to make it nice and opaque. You get a mix of the yellow-orange color and you mix it with your white gouache, and that is exactly what you need to use a quick swatch of the shade. You're going to be making this little dot in between the flowers, especially for the ones that are further away. But as you come closer and especially to the flowers that are closer to the observer, you're going to make a nice round circle. You can make a nice round circle. You can make a semicircle. That's totally on you. I'm going to go ahead and make just circles in the middle. That just adds to our flowers, and I think it looks very pretty. It does look like a daisy now. Go ahead and add the detail to your flowers. You can add them, to all the flowers, especially the ones that you can see the petals and you can skip the ones that are just as blobs. But don't forget to make it on the ones that you see the petals in. Once we're done with that, I'm again switching to my size 2 round brush. I'm going to use my Payne's gray and my green mixed together to add stems to my daisy flowers. I forgot to make this step, but luckily I remembered in the end., so I had to remove the tape and put it out again to make the stems. You're just going to go ahead and make this little line so that it doesn't look like your flower is just floating in the air, but rather they have something to put their heads on. Just go ahead and add in the stems. When you're doing this, you'll also notice that you've missed a few spot, just like here where I forgot to add the center part for the daisy in that little flower. You can add and change anything that you think is missing, you can add or you can try and rectify your mistakes. That is it. That is going to be the end stair for your painting. Once you're done with that, you can just let your layer completely dry and then you can just nicely peel the tape off. I'm just going to go ahead and add those stems and wait for my beat to dry. Now, everything is dried out really well, so we are going to quickly peel the tape off. I absolutely love this class project. It is my favorite. I love how we've gotten to create that blurry background and the foreground is so crisp and clear. I absolutely love it. Let us move on to our fourth class project, and it's the last one. I'm really excited. 11. Project 4 Part 1 : Painting the Background: Let us paint our fourth and final class project, which is this dramatic sky and flowers. I absolutely love the composition of this painting. The colors that we're using are cadmium yellow, golden deep, ultramarine blue, sap green, green, sepia, Payne's gray, and white gouache. If deep down my paper on all four sides using my masking tape. This is the picture that we're taking inspiration from. We have this beautiful dramatic sky in the background. We have a few series of mountains. In the foreground we have these beautiful flowers which are so nice and green, but not too green. I love how the composition of this whole landscape picture is. The first thing that we're going to do is create a basic sketch. Instead of creating a horizon line, we're going to create a mountain shape avail. You're just going to create a mountain coming from the left to the right, extending from the left to the right somewhere in the half of your paper. Then at the back, you're going to create a few more mountains, which is like a series of mountains. The last one is going to be really small. Then you're seeing a little more area and the one that's closer to you, you see the entire mountain. You're just creating a small series of mountains. In the foreground, I'm just creating these little stems, and does not really matter. You don't have to sketch it out but this is just for me to get a basic idea of where everything is going to be. But yeah, the sketches are very simple. It's not at all complicated. Now we're just going to move on and paint the sky. For the sky, I'm using my cadmium yellow, golden deep, and ultramarine blue. I've taken them all out on my palette. Using my sized well brush, I'm going to apply water in the sky region, which is the top of the paper. We're using the wet-on-wet technique here because we weren't good blend in our sky and for having good blends in the sky wet on wet technique is the best method to work with. Carefully layer your water around the mountain shape that you've sketched out. Then I'm going to show you the swatch of the colors that we're using. We're using our cadmium yellow, which is this nice bright yellow color. Then we have golden tip, which is a nice orange color. You can use any orange color that you have with you. Then we have the blue color. For the sky, we'll be creating that nice mutant grayish color but it includes the blue color. I'm just swatching it out for you. We're going to start off with the yellow first. I've taken my size eight-round brush by silver black velvet, which is my favorite brush to work with watercolors. I'm going to load it up with some yellow and tap in the yellow somewhere in the middle of the sky region. Not exactly in the middle, slightly at the lower and then the left side but you get the idea of where you want the sun to be. Next, I'm adding the orange, that is the golden deep shade into the same yellow so that I get a lighter version of the orange. I'm going to fill out the little spaces that I have left right here. Now there is no perfect way to do it. Every time if I was supposed to recreate the sky, it's going to look slightly different because I'm just going with the flow and letting my paint blend into one another. I've lead it, let's say half of my sky portion is with the yellow and the orange. At the top, they're going to have the dramatic sky. It's a dramatic sky, so we need to have the muted color. I'm again making a mix of my blue, orange, and yellow together to get that nice gray color. I'm going to add it at the top. Now you have to be a little bit careful when you come around the orange. Don't mix it directly in because then you'll have a muddy color. You're just going to go around that area. You're going to go around that shape that you've left the whitespaces. Since it's wet on wet technique, these colors will slightly blend into one another but if you forcefully blend them, you will have a muddy color which we do not want. Once we have the basic colors laid out, it's time for us to add some deeper, darker tones for fun to make it more vibrant and nice. I'm going to lay down the yellow just like I did earlier. Fill out those little whitespaces here and then move ahead and add orange. Once you are happy with how the yellows in your sky look, you can move on to the orange and then fill out that space of the orange region, just like you did earlier. I generally like to mix my orange with the yellow so that I get something that is still a little bit yellow and not too dark orange. I'm just tapping in the orange in the region that I did earlier to get a nice vibrant mix of these colors. At the top again, I'm just lightly tapping. You'll see I'm not blending the three with the orange. I'm not forcefully trying to mix them, but I'm just tapping into that. The wet-on-wet technique does its own magic and makes the colors blend on their own. Next, again, I'm going to make a mix of the muted color which I think looks beautiful, just mixing yellow, orange, and blue together gets you this color that goes perfectly with your sky. Just tap in the color at the top again to get a darker version of it. Tap in. Don't forcefully try to blend the colors, otherwise, you will not get a nice color in the sky. You wanted to just seamlessly blend into one another effortlessly. Your blending has to be effortless and that's what we want. We don't want to force any blending here. It's just tap and let the colors do their own magic. You can just play around in this section, you are free to do it the way you want to do it. You don't have to focus on the reference picture also at this point, just go ahead and blend and see the blend of the colors and see what works for you. If you like it or not, if you want to not have some certain colors or have certain blends, that's totally on you. Now to lift off the space for the sun, again, we're just using the lifting technique. Tapping in with the tissue, it will nicely lift off the pain. You get that nice sunglow and Wait for your paper to dry. Now my paper is completely dry. Once it's dry, the sky portion has nice blended dry we are going to go ahead and create a series of mountains. I'm going to use the same color that I used for the sky, for the mountain that is really far away. I'm just going to take my size 4 brush, tap in, load it up with some gray that we use for the sky and then just create mountain fill in the mountain. Wait for this layer to dry before you go ahead and add the second layer. Each layer that you're adding, you're waiting for the previous layer to dry. This is all the wet-on-dry method, so you are not having that soft glowy effect like we did for the previous class project, here you want everything to be dry before you go ahead and do anything else. Now I've just taken a little bit of sepia on my palette, and I'm just mixing the sepia shade with the grade that was already on my palette, and this is going to be the second color for the mountain that I make. Once that layer has completely dried, you're going to go ahead and create another mountain with this color. Fill in the entire space using the wet on dry method and when you're using the wet on dry method, the paper dries quickly, your colors dry quickly and if they're not drying quickly you can just use a hairdryer to dry everything out. Now I'm going to take my green shade. You can use your hookers green or just green mixed with a bit of pale gray, it's just a darker version of the gray. I'm mixing it with the brown shade here. You don't want it to be really dark right away, they're just mixing a little bit of brown and the green color, mostly more towards the browner side. If you see I'm swatching it out, it looks more like an olive green color. Using this color, you're going to go ahead and fill our third mountain. You have three small ones and the fourth one is the one that's closer to the observer, so we'll have to work on that with a nice dark green and have transitions of the light that's falling on it but the others can just be as is. Once that layer has dried up, they're going to fill the entire front mountain. For that, I'm going to take my green color, of course and you're going to have a mix of the brown shade with the green, so that you get a really nice dark, deep color and that is exactly the type of color we want. I have made two different types of greens here. One green is your green mixed with brown, and the other one is your green color mixed with beams gray, which is this nice deep green color. I'll show you where you're going to use that. I'm using my size 8 brush loading it up with the green mixed status with the brown one, and I'm just going to apply it around the sketch. Then I'm making these tiny vertical strokes that are going to depict the cheese on our mountains, it's a nice thick green luscious mountain. Then when I come to the area that's right under the sun, I'm going to add a bit of orange to my mix so that I get a slightly lighter green. Then coming to the other side, which is the left side where light is not directly falling on the mountain, we are going to have the darker green. The basic idea is to transition from dark green to the green mixed with orange, and then back to your dark green color. Then you're just going to apply it in the entire portion of your mountain. What you can do here is just take water, lots and lots of water and then apply it so that you're wetting the surface and then slightly blending in the color, and that is exactly what I'm doing. See I've added lots of water and then once I'm done with the water, I will just add in the pigment. It's basically like doing the wet on wet technique. Usually wet on wet technique makes things very easy to blend and mix and spread out as compared to wet on dry and in wet on dry is more controlled, it's more limited but with wet on wet, it's more out there, it's more flowy and you've covered in a lot of space with wet on wet. What I'm doing here is just covering the entire mountain with the green mixed with brown. Once I'm done with that, we're not going to leave our mountain as is, because we want to show that a mountain has some texture, it has some sort vibe going on there, it's not going to be flat. What we're going to do here is we're going to add deeper darker tones and this will depict the forest shape, the trees, and things like that. So I've just taken a little bit of my green mixed with the orange and then I'm going to apply it again right in the area that comes under the sun and where the sunlight falls. Then you're just going to create this nice diagnose shape so your mountain is flowing downwards. You're going to have that curved, it's not going to be flat, it's going to have a slope. To depict that slope, you need to go in that diagonal angle. This way when you see when you apply the darker tone, you will have mixed my brown with the green, and there's a darker tone. When I go into that slant it's like there's a sloped on my mountain. Then I'm making these vertical strokes and when I lay that down since it's wet on wet and then it's more controlled because if you notice my palette, there's not a lot of water, there's less water. When there's less water, your paint is not going to spread out more, it's going to retain the shape and that is exactly what we have learned to control the wet-on-wet method, to control with how your paint moves. When you add less water, your paints blend out but retain the shape. So you're just going to make that little tiny strokes vertical ones and this gives us an illusion of forest of a slope and all the cool things that you want to add on your mountain. Eventually this slightly gets covered especially the bottom portion slightly gets covered because of our foreground flowers and leaves and grass and all that but it's always good to add in the texture just in case. It shows through the strokes that we make. I really like how the mountain slope has turned out honestly, I was so happy when I was painting this. It looks so good with how minimum effort you've had to put into it to get that nice structure to your mountain, it looks so good. It looks like you've put in a lot of effort, but it's like your friend put on a lot of effort, which I think is very good. So yeah, just go ahead and add these vertical strokes wherever you think you want to add them, and play around with the different greens. One is the green mixed with brown and the other one is mixed with orange and wait for it to completely dry. Once the paper is completely dry, you will see the different textures that you've added, the different layers that it looks like the slope is coming down and you have trees and it looks all so nice. Yeah, in the next lesson we're going to add in all the details in our foreground. So keep your green and paint gray ready. 12. Project 4 Part 2: Painting the Floral Meadow: Let us start painting the class and the stems and leaves in our foreground. For that I'm going to use a mix of my green shade with paint cream. The idea here is to actually have a green that is darker than the green that we've used for our mountain. If we do not use a green that's dark enough and darker than the mountains, then it's not going to stand out. Here we're layering. The first layer that we're putting in are for the deep shadow parts of our leaves, so the darker ones. The dark color is going to be our first layer. For that, I've made a mix and as you can see, it's a really nice dark, almost gray color, almost Payne's gray color, but it has a mix of the green as well. Usually a lot of people would say, why are we not just using black? Why are we using a mix of gray and green over here? If you just add black, it stands right there. It does not go. In simple terms I'll tell you, it does not go with the vibe of the paper and the vibe of the painting if I just put in black, but when you mix a color that's dark enough with the colors that you're using in your painting, it matches with the vibe of the painting. In very simple terms it matches with the colors that you're using in your actual painting and does not look very odd and that is why you're using Payne's gray and a darker green to create that deep, almost close to black shade. I started off by making the strokes and then I realized that I should make a slope as well on which my grass lies on because as we layer, we'll add in the more details. I've just gone ahead and made a slope, and on that I'm making the grass shape. Again, the same shape that we've been doing since class project 1. We're just making the same shape. Go ahead and add it. Do to not worry about the grass shape in the area that is below the slope because you'd be wondering, why we're not adding that, it just looks very odd? But we will work in layers and then it will stand out more. This is your first layer, you're going to wait for it to dry. Now, this has completely dried out. See how it's really dark, goes well with the vibe of painting. It's green. You can see the green in there. We're going to start off with the first layer with the gouache. I've mixed white quash and green, added a tiny bit of Payne's gray to it, just a tiny bit, but mostly green and your white gouache. Using this color, this is going to be a second layer, so you're going to go ahead and create the grass shape. Now here is where the magic happens. Here is where you're going to start working in different sections. In the first layer, you just made one slope and went ahead and added the details for the grass, but here you're going to work in section. The top most is going to be your section 1, so you're going to lay long grasses. Of course they are long, but they are thinner. They are less detailed as compared to the ones that we'd be adding in the front. That is how we're going to show the variations in the shape of our stems and the leaves in this type of painting. The section is small. Everything is close to the observer, but there is still something that's closer and there is still something that's a bit at a distance. The leaves that I'm making now, they're at a distance and the ones that are at the bottom of the paper, they're going to be still closer. Over here I'm making two different types of strokes, one is going from bottom to top and the other is coming from top to bottom. Now, the ones that are coming from top to bottom are the ones that are the stems and once you make a couple of those, we'll put the flowers on them. Now, the second section that I'm working on is again, making different strokes of the grass. Top to bottom, bottom to top, just play around and add this layer. Here, just imagine this is your 80 percent margin off the number of leaves and stems that you're adding, so you're adding 80 percent of that, so you're just filling the entire surface with the grass. Do give them different directions because that adds a lot of variations, it shows that your leaves are flowing, growing and are happy in each other's company. Go ahead and do that. Make a bunch of these like 80% percent, fill up the entire space with your first quash layer and once you're happy with your basic shape, you're going to wait for it to completely dry before you move on to the next layer. Again, remember to add these strokes in different directions. Don't make all of them in the same direction. Once this layer has completely dried out, you can see it's dry it out. It's a bit darker than the color that we lead in and that's what happens with gouache, it dries a little bit darker. The next color that we're using is this lighter green shade. I've mixed my green, I haven't added any Payne's gray this time, and also added a bit more white. Here you can see it stands out a lot more than the previous layer or the color that we made. Now over here, you are at, let's say 60 percent, you're adding 60 percent of the strokes. Do make sure that you're not covering all the previous layers that we've added and you're making some of them nice and vibrant, standing out, adding highlights and layering and all of that stuff. Go ahead and make the grass work in sections again, because that is really important. When you work in sections you get an idea and everything does not look crazy because when I used to paint earlier, when I didn't have any idea on how it was supposed to be done, I would make it all over the place and it wouldn't look good at the end of the day, so working in section makes it really happy. For the area that is at the bottom, which is again, like I said, closer to the observer, you will see more details. I'm adding leaves. For the leaves what I'm making is the same grass shape, but I'm adding a few more strokes around it so it looks like these are leaves and stems. It gives in a little more detail, and as it is closer to the observer, he is able to see all of those things. Add in a few little extra details here and there and fill out the entire space. To make the stroke again, I'll show you, you make a line just like the grass shape, and then you add in a few strokes around it in different directions. That shows the leaves and the other stems that are coming around from the same single stem. Once you're happy with this layer and it has completely dried, you're going to go ahead and make our final layer. For this, I'm mixing my green, adding yellow to it. I'm using my cadmium yellow because I want the green to be nice and vibrant. I'm adding white to it so that it's lighter and stands on the layer that we've already laid out. Here's a quick swatch of the color. It's almost like a lime green color. It's like a very pretty green actually. Using this color, we are going to go ahead and add a final stroke. Over here, you're slightly dropping down to your 25 percent. Just a few strokes, not that many. Just a few for detailing purposes, especially at the back, just a few. But at the bottom, you can add a bit more because you only have two layers right there and you want to add in a few little details to it. This time when you're adding the strokes, you can also create those little leaf shape that we learned earlier. Make the graph shape and make those strokes around it to depict the leaves and the little details of the stems. That is again, the repetitive process that we've already done. Make sure that you're not going over the same thing that you've made. Let's say I've made one stem in the previous layer going towards the left side and I would make the other one in the right side. This way, there's more variations, there's more layering, and it looks denser, it looks fuller when you give a different direction. If you make all of them in the same direction, then you don't really see what's going on, so you give them different directions. See, in this one that I just laid out, since it was facing the left side, I made it in the right side. Similarly over here, if it's facing the right side, I'm going to make it facing the left side, so that's how it generally works. You just add in different layers to it and different directions to it to make your field or ground look fuller and denser. Now I'm really happy with how the foreground leaves and stems all of that are looking, it's time for us to move ahead and add the flowers on the top. For that, I'm making a mix of my orange deep color mixed with white gouache, so I get this nice opaque orange color that I need for my flowers. I've just taken my size 2 round brush here and I'm loading it up for the size 2 round brush, adding a bit of water to my gouache and I'm going to start making the flowers. You see those stems at the top. Those stems are going to be the stems that you lay your flowers on. All those little shapes that you see that are protruding outside. You're going to fill all of them with these tiny dots. These flowers are still further away. They are smaller, but you can still see them, and when you'll becoming closer to the observer, you'll be making them bigger. Now, over here the shape of the flower is very random. You are just making those. It's like making a daisy, but you're not making a daisy because you have even lesser strokes in your flowers. They're not as detailed as your daisy was in the previous class project. But still you are going to show those little individual petals, but not as prominent, the much more compact and that way you're just going to add some flowers. You can also go ahead and make a poppy if you would like, that's completely on you. See the type of strokes that you want for your flowers. That is, I'm going to give you the freedom in this class project to do so. Add in the flowers that you want, you think you want to add daisies over here, feel free to do so, you do not have to do it exactly like how I'm doing. You can just recreate what you've done in the previous class project, the daisy flowers and you can put them on the paper over here. The process is going to remain the same. You'll be adding the flowers in the same way, so the area that's closer to the observer, the flower are going to be bigger, whereas the area that's further away, are going to be smaller and they're going to be tiny of blobs, so feel free to express your own emotions with the painting. Try to put in your own details if you'd like and in that way, the painting becomes uniquely yours. You can also do it something different, or you can just follow me along, which is also going to be fun. I'm not going to tell you that it's not fun to follow me along. I'm just adding these orange flowers everywhere, adding a bit of details to the flowers that are closer and the ones that are further away, they're just dots and just little blobs honestly. They're just very random. Just go ahead and add your flowers. Once you're happy with all the flowers that are laid out, we are going to go ahead and add some basic details to our flowers. The first thing that I'm doing is mixing my brown color with a bit of the gouache to make it nice and opaque and I'm going to use this color to make the stems of my flowers. Our flowers are going to be facing in different directions. You'd have some of them facing left, some of them facing right, some of them facing towards you, and some of them facing on the completely opposite direction. You'll see me making this little a star shape, or like a little petal star shape, and then make a stem out of it, so that depicts the stem that's holding your flower. I'm not making that on all of them. These are only done on the ones that are facing on the opposite direction. I'm just going to add a few little details for the stems and make the stem so that your flowers have something to rest on. It shouldn't look like your flower is just floating in the air, especially for the ones that are closer. We've sorted the thing for the ones that are away from the observer because you have those stems that they rest on. But for the ones that are closer, just wanted to add some darker stems into the mix. Once you're happy with that, we're going to go ahead and add the center part of our flower, so it should look like our flowers have some definition. To do that, I'm just going to pick a bit of that orange color that I have on my palette already and I'm adding a bit of brown to it that was already on my brush and I'm mixing those two colors to add dots in the middle of my flowers, especially to the flowers that are more visibility to you. What I mean by that is the flowers that are facing sideways, the flowers that are facing towards you. Make sure that you see which flowers those are, and the ones that you want them to be and add that little dot in the middle. Once you're done with that. it's time for us to do the last final thing and that is to make those little buds that are yet to bloom and the most highlighted layer of our painting. For that, I've added more white to the green mix that was already on my palette and I'm going to create these little dots and these dots are the buds that are yet to bloom and add in a few more grass shapes, these are just five percent. You're just at the five percent mark and it's just adding very little strokes of the grass as well. These little dots are the buds that are going to bloom out in the future. This is your final detailing of the painting and I think it looks absolutely gorgeous and I'm so happy with the way it has turned out. I'm also adding a very light version of the green also for the buds that are yet to bloom, but you can completely skip this step. I'm just going ahead and filling the little spaces that are empty. Trying to fill all of those things up so that it looks nice and pretty, but you're free to just skip this step. Once you're done with that, once you think that your painting is done and you feel happy with the way everything has turned out, you're going to stop right there. Don't overdo it. Wait for it to completely dry and then peel the tape off. Absolutely favorite part about painting is peeling the tape off, getting those clear, crisp edges and seeing your final painting. Once all those little things are off from the tape, you get a more high definition version of your painting and it looks so beautiful. I absolutely love the sky in this painting honestly, it looks so nice, so dramatic, so pretty and the mountain on the back is absolutely gorgeous. That is it. We have finished full class projects. I'm so excited to put all of them together and share them with you. 13. See You in the Next Class!: [MUSIC] This is it too guys, we've reached the end of the class. I'm so happy that you've decided to join me and explore the beautiful season of spring. We've learned how to add pretty flowers in our landscapes, learned a good amount of watercolor techniques and how you can combine them in your landscape paintings. Everything that you've learned in this class will not only be useful for the class projects that we have painted, but also you can use them in your own paintings. I hope you learned something new from this class. If you've painted along with me, don't forget to upload your class projects under the project section of the class and if you're sharing them on Instagram, don't forget to tag me @thesimplyaesthetic because I would love to see them and share them with my followers as well. If you haven't been a long, don't worry, you can take your own time and paint the class projects whenever you're free and then upload them. But I would love to see them. Do leave a little review under this class because it truly helps me to understand how I can do better or if I've done a great job and it truly motivates me to make more classes. If you have any questions related to art or the class projects, feel free to reach out to me on Skillshare or on Instagram and I would be more than happy to assist you. That is it. I will see you in the next class. Bye bye.