Transcripts
1. Introduction : I sometimes get so caught up in trying to get
everything right, I have to remind myself that painting is actually
meant to be fun. Hi, I'm Nadine. I'm
a watercolor artist from Melbourne, Australia. Now, one of the things
that draws me to watercolor is that you
can get all sorts of interesting effects and patterns happening without having
to try very hard. That is, of course,
if you actually let the paint do
the work for you, I like the challenge of deciding how much you have
to paint to convey a subject and how much I can let go to abstract
marks and nonsense. And today I want to
walk you through an exercise where we only
have to pay attention to the focal point and
we'll leave the rest to a haphazard mix of
random strokes. It's a really freeing
way to paint and a good way to remember that you don't have to paint
every detail, every building, every shrub. You can simply suggest. What we'll do today
is we'll go through the materials for the class and we'll go through the sketch. And I'll be asking you to
keep that really minimal. And then we're step
by step through what probably will look like
quite a chaotic painting. But I want you to
remember not to fiddle, to allow yourself
just to play and sit back and let the
paint dry before you make any decisions on whether anything needs to be
added or changed. It always drives differently. So you need to be patient. You struggle. The struggle
is real. So let's begin.
2. Materials: Okay. So first up we'll go through the materials
for this class. The reference photo for
this painting is on Pixabay and you can download
that from Skillshare site. Now I'm painting on 300 gram archers col press paper and I am painting on a board. I am today going to tape it
down with some masking tape. I've still got my framing tape. Don't use that masking,
just regular masking tape to keep it secure. Just because for this one, a lot of the time the
whole page will be wet and you will get buckling. I don't prestretch, I tend to flatten that if I like
the painting afterwards, you'll need a regular
eraser and a HB pencil. In terms of paints, now you don't have to use
what I'm using here. It is actually a good
exercise for working out what color combinations
go well together and you can just use your
favorites for me. I'm using in the sky,
I've got Daniel Smith, lavender coming into some
wind. Newton Yellow. Oka, the buildings or the roof line here
and these towers. I've got some wind,
Newton, Bert Sienna, and I'm also using some
Daniel Smith, Van **** Brown. The real brush marks that I've
got here are Daniel Smith, indigo, which I find really
good for my strong darks. You could use some burnt
umber with French Ultra or mix up whatever you like
in your palette if you don't have the indigo, but it is a good one to have a new kit and actually
the brand matters, different brands
will be more blue. I find that Daniel Smith
is really punchy dark. I'm also using, down in
the foreground here, I've got some Daniel
Smith croon and Daniel Smith py red brushes. I'm using a few today
to make it easy for me to get the different
brush strokes. I'm doing my flat washes, some of these roof lines with
my larger flat brush here. And I have the details
of the under materials on the skillshare site. I've got a little flat
brush because this gives me a nice shake. Some of these
skinnier roof lines, then a couple of small
round synthetics. This brush here forms the nice window marks
that you can see here. And it's also good for
getting in the curve roof. This little one is all
these finer marks. Other than that, we'll
just need a palette, a pot of water,
and some tissues. I think we're ready to paint.
3. Sketching Up Keep it Simple: Okay, so we'll go through
the sketch for this one. I've actually sketched it
a little bit smaller than the reference image that
I have here. That's okay. What I want you to do is to pick out what's important
in this image. I'm not fast about the hills, I'm not fast about all these detailed little roof
lines in the back. I want to think about
my focal point. Where I want to look is I want the dome and I want the light on these
buildings in the front. I need the tower here, and probably these two
little towers as well. All I've done is to
sketch those in roughly. I, I haven't come and put all the details on the roof and all the little bits in here. I just want to give myself
an idea where they are. I've taken some liberties in
the buildings in the front. These roof lines are
quite complicated. I don't need that. I'm just very basic shapes in here and not getting
caught up on the detail. Now if you really don't
want to sketch it yourself, I've popped a little template that you can download
from the Skillshare site. But you'll see in
this, I haven't actually put very
much in at all. I'm keeping it very simple. You can go as wide as you
like on either side here. This was just a size paper
that I had lying around. Okay. I think we'll get
straight into the painting.
4. First Wash: Okay. Now I'm going to pop my board just up
on a slight angle. I'm going to start
in the sky now I'm going to start with some
Daniel Smith lavender, just because I like it. And we're going to move down the painting through most of these buildings
into some yellow aka and then coming into probably some quina
at the bottom. All right. I'm going to
start with my flat brush. I'm just going to
pick up a bit of water and do a flat watch, wetting the top of
the page first, coming right across
over the tape. Then once that's nice and wet, I'm going to pick up a little
bit of lavender to start with milky wash and come
into that wet page. And just drag that across. Pick up a bit more paint coming through the top of
the spire of the dome there. Now as I'm coming down here, I'm just using clean water here. I'm chiseling a little bit around that dome
now and then I'm going to switch into
some yellow Aca, yellow. You can actually get new
paint then straight through these little towers coming all the way down on the
other side as well. Now here I'm going to keep
out of the cathedral, keep out of the light here, but I'm going to paint on this side and
through that tower. I'm leaving where I
know that I want to keep saying this building, I know I want to keep
light on this building. This part here
still nice and wet. Coming down the page,
Page down here is dry. I've got a big
white paper there. Just going to grab
some yellow and drag that through the coming. I was going to leave that,
I'll come down underneath now in a switch to some
acrodone violet. Little bit goes a long way so don't get too
much on your brush. And I'm just going to drag that down, the
bottom of the page. Still trying to keep out of
the light through there. Now, while this is still, I want this to be quite abstract around the size
of the bottom here. Got lots of water in the page to make some marks
with my brush, with now creamier paint. Popping my brush
into my acto violet. I'm just going to
paint a few marks. I'm changing the way that
I'm holding my brush, so I'm coming
horizontal, vertical. I've got my brush
there separated. But that gives me nice
variation in the strokes. Come on this side,
I'm not thinking, I'm just putting in some random marks just
to start to build up. I guess almost some texture
a little bit in here. Turn my brush sideways, maybe a little bit on this side. I'm thinking about bracketing
the painting really, but lighter up here,
going back and forth. And as soon as you
start to think, oh, where do I need to go next, it's time to come out
and let that dry. So I'm going to say
that's my first watch. I'm going to come out
of that and get that a good 10 minutes to fully dry.
5. Starting the Roof Line: Okay, it's been about 10 minutes and I'm fully dry there now. Now I'm going to come
in and paint with some burnt sienna with
my round synthetic. I'm going to grab milky, creamy paint, my burnt sienna. And I'm going to come first into this middle part of the dome. And I'm just going to
paint that roughly first. Spit in, grab a bit more paint. Come onto the other side. I'm leaving a bit
of a gap between those two parts of the roof. Then I'm going to wash
my brush and take off the excess paint and go
lighter on this side. This will end up
being my dark side, keeping the light there. Okay. I'm going to wash my brush again and
I'm just going to drag that paint across a little bit across the
top of the dome there. Okay, I need to paint this roof line in,
in the burnt sienna. I'm going to grab another
little flat brush that happens to be
just the right shape. Grab up some milky to
creamy burnt sienna. Just come straight along and paint that roof line
that was very straight. That's okay. Paint
that roof line in. Now, while I've got this brush, I'm going to go and walk around a few little roof
lines with the bed. Same consistency of paint. I'm going to put in there at a actually a bit of Van ****, didn't mean that's all right. There's a little bit of
a dome on this side. There's a little
bit of a roof line here when I do that,
popping it in. And then I'm giving myself a few other little brush strokes again with the idea that I don't want this to
be really tidy. No one I'm going to
paint this roof. In this one there's
the whole roof. And then I've got
this little side of it as well with my
brush on the side. I can paint that skinny bit in. Then I can that roof line
in there be a bit tidy. And that was a little bit I
missed my pencil on there. That's okay. All right. Then there's also this roof
line along in here somewhere. Again, I'm being
really pretty messy. Not overthinking, putting this roof line, maybe. I'm just going to walk, now I'm going to lose this
one here as well. So popping that one too. Okay. Now I'm going
to walk around, just a few dry strokes,
verticals, horizontals. There's some stuff
going on either side. Not much thought. I just need a few
bits and pieces. Now I'm going to have
a look at these now. These are maybe a yellow actually I think
I'm going to go with this. I think I'm going to
go a bit of weight. Vandyke, I've got some
Vandyke brown in my pal here. Really milk. I'm just
going to do a stroke down. Turn my brush sideways and pop in some nonsense
up the top there. I don't come to this one and
do the same thing, Milky. And now I've got
this spire here. Again, turning my brush
on the side and just popping that in bigger
one on this side. Milky Van ****, this
first bit of the tower, then this is a bit bigger
then all the way down. And I do not have to get
this shape exactly right, it really doesn't matter. There's a bit of the
triangle up there, you can make that a bit bigger. A few little turity bits. Then I've got this building
underneath it that I'm going to keep in the
vandyke as well. For this one I'm going
to come straight across. You didn't get much
banded perhaps paint that all the way down there and then this part of it is darker. I'll get a little bit
more paint in there, then I'm going to suggest these little turrets
on the wall. So I've got my brush
on the side and I'm just pulling that through. Drag a couple of marks
down while I'm at it. While this is wet,
I'm now going to grab really little brush here. Now what I'm going to do is
grab really thick Van ****, just give myself a couple of lines down the
center of those. While they're still
a little bit down. My paint is really thick now. We might have to
restate these later, but I just want to start
to get a few marks on. And I haven't worried
about you can see through the bell towers, but I'm not too fussed
about that because again, this is the suggestion. All right. Before I let you stop,
I'm going to have a lot, I'm going to pop these
little windows in here. I'm going to use for
that my round brush. I'm going to pick
up some indigo. I'm going to paint my
tissue so I'm not too wet. I'm going to put, my hand is quite flat. I'm using the tip of the
brush to pop those shapes in. Just orientate myself and
I'm going to give myself, I'm going to come up a
little bit on a tilt now. Instead, really flat little bit and I'm going to
paint a suggestion of those little round
windows in also on here. Didn't quite get them in the right place, but that's okay. So that one probably should
have been over a bit. Doesn't matter.
They're in now. Okay. Now, because we've done a little bit of
puddling in there, I'm going to let that
fully dry again, probably going to take 5
minutes that's not very wet, and then we'll come in and start adding a little bit more stuff
through the foreground.
6. Strengthening the Foreground : Okay, what we're going to do
now is we're going to add a few darks down the
bottom of the page. And use the wet page to get a few more abstract
marks in there. So I'm going to go my big
flat brush now and I'm going to make up a big
puddle of indigo. I'm going to start
over this side, I'm going to come
onto my dry page. It's been about 5 minutes now. I'm going to chisel
out that shape. And just as I go along, I'm dragging that to go down to the bottom of the page,
pick up some more. Now I want to keep
light in that building, but actually what I want to do is to create a
bit of a shadow. I'm going to come
diagonally across, there wasn't quite wet enough. I'm going to leave
the light through that building that come through this roof and leave
the light here. But paint in a little
bit on that side. It releases the light in here
by popping that dark in and particularly that
diagonal come and paint through here
a bit more paint, maybe leave a few lights as
I'm coming through this area. Keep not picking up enough
paint. There we go. Now, while this is all wet, that's going to cut
all the way over. I'm pretty much all the way
down that half the page. Now I'm going to pick up
my medium round brush. I'm going to grab now pled here. This is a putting in some
random marks around the place. I'm going to start
with my brush. I'm quite flat dragging
a few marks around. Then I'm going to tilt my hand
sideways and give myself, drag myself a few verticals. A couple of horizontals, just moving from side to
side so that I don't stay in one place for too long up
into the dry page there. Now I need this red to
track a little bit up. Now my brush is quite dry. Now, I'm going to turn my
hand to the side and just put a few marks
on this dry page. They will be it finer up
there on this side as well. Because I want it to all talk to each other from side to side. All right? Doesn't have to make sense. They're just marks. We're going to do the
same thing now with some more quin violet. I've picked up
really thick paint. My brush is drier than my page, but I've still got some
water in the page. So I'm still going to get some movement walking
from side to side, just building up some random
marks in my dry pages. A bit heavy here. I'm
just going to dry my brush and just going to smooth that bit
out just a bit. Okay, then I'm going to
do the same thing now with a bit of indigo,
creamy indigo. I want to keep the
indigo where I'm really bleedy bit lower. I don't want to put too
much dark at the top there, varying my marks,
putting some stuff in. Okay, Now with the indigo, I'm going to let
that all settled in. I need to start to put some darts that suggest
windows, that thing. Now, I'm going to pick up
really thick paint again, brush on the side. Now, I'm going to walk
around in a few places. There are these little
windows over there. I I don't have to
put them all in, but I just need
some little marks now that suggest I've got
lots of windows going on. I can also maybe
over here it's going to be because the
painting is quite random, where you put them will
depend on what you painted. It doesn't necessarily have
to match the reference, so I'm going to put some
in this building where we're left the light. I want these all
to be suggestions. Not painting windows
as such, okay. Then I'm going to drag a dark lines across a
few more verticals. Just building up the
nonsense in the page. And bracketing again, coming over to this
side a few more. Just practicing seeing
what shapes you brush. Make not overthinking it. Then I'm grabbing last one. Before I let you stop for a bit, I'm going to pop underneath the roof line underneath here. Chisel out to show a little bit more clearly that
that's a roof line. And the same on here, a little bit of a darker, the roof of the cathedral. Going to paint my
tissue, to dry my brush, and I'm going to give myself a few broken marks,
dots and dashes, and a couple of these little
vertical lines there, because there's a lot of stuff going on in that cathedral. But I don't want
to paint it all. I don't want to paint
all the mosaic in there. Okay. I'm going to come out of
that, let that fully dry, then we're going to come on
and put on the shadows on the cathedral and probably
add a little bit of a paint. I've got pencil
in my spire here. I probably need to add a
little bit of paint there. Potentially some shadows
on either side of those. But I'm going to let
that fully dry and let the settle in to see if we need to have more business going on down there or
whether that's enough. So come out for 10 minutes
and then we'll come back in.
7. Focal Point Shadows: Okay. I'm dry again now. I feel like I probably need some stuff down
the bottom there. But before I do that, I'm going to come back
in and actually put the astronmy shadows on our focal point around
the cathedral here. The important shadow is the one that this
tower is casting across the building and
down this side of the dome. So I'm going to take
my medium brown brush. I want to get some indigo, milky to creamy indigo. And I'm going to paint
the shadowing first. It's going to come
on the diagonal. I've got a fair bit
of water on my brush, so let's dry that off a bit. Make sure your comes
to a good tip or it'll be hard to get
that line in the coming straight down into that building. Okay. Then we want to put the shadow, actually might do this
one here as well. So this side of this
tower is quite dark. I'm just going to add that in. And then probably put a little bit of dark
just to settle, settle it in so it's not just
sitting there by itself. I'm just going to drag just
a couple of marks through. Then I'm going to this side
of the dome still with the indigo hanging
through that shape, down that whole side
of the cathedral. Again, just drag a few lines through with my brush
a little bit dry, pull a little bit of
that through that way. Probably need a few
little marks in there. Now, if you don't go dark
enough in that first wash, that's okay, you
can go back later. It's better to have to
add again than fiddle at this stage and muck up the wash. Just make sure your verticals are
actually vertical. Okay, I'm just going to add
a little bit more in that. Now, there are also shadows
on the size of these. Just going to take my
brush and just add a touch that was too thick. Can't really do anything
about that now. I just blued out the
side there. Okay. And again, just a few marks to settle that in and on this
side of the building now, be careful here because I'm wet not to put
your hand into it. So I'm trying to put a dark, just a bit of a dark down
the side of that tower. Doesn't have to be very neat. I've got a pencil line here I'm going
to have to deal with. So I think I'm going
to take some indigo. It's not quite vertical. Just straighten that because I've got too many leaning lines. I can have them a
little bit here, but on these parts where
it's a focal point, if they're leaning, it
will look a bit odd. Now, I also want a little
bit of a stronger dark. Through some of these,
I'm going to get my indigo less
water on my brush, then my page again. I want a few more, a few stronger lines through the dome because that's
where I want you to look. I need to get some punch
punching marks through there. I might strengthen
up just a few, probably a little
windows on there. They have disappeared a bit,
so I will restate those. I'm just trying to work up
interest around this part. I'm going to let this
dry in a second, but I just want to add in a little bit of something
on the top of the cathedral. I'm going to use yellow
in here. Milky yellow. I'm not going to worry
too much other than I need a bit of paint up here. Actually get some paint. I'm too milky because I've got the pencil
there a little bit. Hard to see, but I actually do. I just painted over that pencil line to give me some nonsense in
the spire there. I'm going to use a touch
of yellow ochre to just drag into a few bits
of that cathedral. Then I'm going to
touch my tissue to it. I'm going a bit, stuff
happening in there. A little bit of
warmth without having to really paint anything. Now I need a bit more
stuff down here. I'm going to wet this down. Damp, not soaking. And I'm just going to
restate a few violet, my queen violet marks, just to pull that out a little
bit too much space there. And then a touch of my red. Again, I'm just
varying the way that I'm holding the brush,
dragging it through. That's probably for
me when I sit back. I want my eye to,
it walks this way, getting softer over this side. But I've got quite strong color and pattern going on
in this bottom corner. Okay. Now I don't like, the thing that catches my eye is this light that
I've got here where I haven't painted my
roof line properly. So I'm going to grab a
bit of indigo and just tidy that up because
that's bugging me. That was a mixture
of painting onto the dry page, it's dry up there, and then just softening that line because it doesn't follow the top of the roof. That's
why it bugs me. We all have different things
that annoy us. All right? I probably probably will just give myself a
touch more dark just to straighten up that
building just in there to suggest that this is the front of the building
and that's the side. Okay. Now, the only
other thing I'm looking at is I don't mind
those red marks, but I probably want them not
to be too high like that. So what I'm going to do
is grab my flat brush. I'm just going to get a
few more horizontal lines through there just
to back off that. Those red poles I guess
almost and on the other side. Okay. I'm taking the tape off, sitting back, having a look. Probably I can get
away with putting a bit more detail through here, but I don't mind That
is is in that it served the purpose of where I want to draw your eye is here. And I don't want it to be too fussy because I can
recognize this as Florence without having to have painted all that detail in.
8. A Final Word: Well, I hope with this
exercise that I've managed to convince you that you don't have to paint
everything in. And you can let a lot
of the foreground, background go to random brush marks a little bit abstract, and still make a
convincing painting. So if you're happy with
your work at the end, take a photo for
me and upload it to the project section
on the skill share site. I always love to have a
look and always happy to provide feedback. So
thanks for joining me.
Nadine Dudek, Professional Watercolour Artist
