Flourish & Fleur - Expressive Watercolour

1. Welcome to the Class!: Won't do watercolors brush and ink and decorating brushes have in common why this class, which I called flourish and flow. It's an exploration into the world of easy and expressive brushstrokes will be starting out with some color mixing and brushstroke practice. Before exploring beautifully neutral palette of delicate green, soft pink. We often have a range of art supplies, but don't get to use them as much as we'd like. Now I love bringing together different tools and methods for you to try. Split the class into two sections. A sketchbook practice and our larger project. By varying Garber strikes and techniques will slowly start to build up. And when I as a texture, ultimately, this variety will bring it together into a flourish of soft flows. 2. Materials : As two materials that just wanted to start out with the bare minimum that you could do this class with. You can do this class with just two brushes and assist size 14 and a size five round brush. If you wanted that choppy texture at the beginning, I used an old decorating brush when I was playing around and developing class. I really liked the effects that, that brought. You. Could also bring in some detail brushes if you wanted. You don't need them. But I used a sort brush and I used my tint direct TO three of the zeros. And I use these for different textures throughout. I didn't use Dr. Ph. Martin, titanium white ink. The hydrous range. If you don't have that, I do show you briefly how you can use a white gel pen or you could always just water down your white told you buff, titanium, and use a dip pen for example. These two are going to be used as the base for creating these lovely muted tones. If you don't have Buff Titanium, you could always add a tiny bit of brown or gray or black, white and just play around until you get a similar shade. Asked to the pink. I just use a little bit wild rose. Adopt Ph Martin's watercolor. Again. You don't need this. Just raid your stocks. I've got opera pink here, potters pink and do something like that. Asked for the greens. I use sap green. I do like sap green mixed in with other greens because it lifts it quite a lot. I mixed this with olive green. Now, I have these brush here because I use it just as you will do watercolor. Just watering down the powder. But again, you don't need to have brushed. Just bring out any green that you have, for example, under sea green or any deeper green that you have. And the same with the Prussian blue. I've got this lovely shade here, excuse me. Cobalt, cobalt green, turquoise. Could try and to go. And he blew that you have really don't want to get too prescriptive for the color because this is all about texture. So just work with what you have. Now as to paper. Started out with more skin pocket sized sketchbook, which I use quite a lot. For the larger piece at the end. Should you want to go onto that? I used Fabriano, which is my favorite and hot press paper. You don't need hot press paper. You could use cold pressed. And just be very careful that to get those lovely textural strokes from the brush, you might need to take more water out of your brush of using cold pressed. Let's move on and do a little bit of swatching and seeing which covers we like. And then we can move on with the class together. 3. Mixing our Palette : To start with, I'm going to mix blue script from tiny bit of brush, brush and we'll be showing you how to fix some watercolors. I'm also going to use my favorite color, green. It does get everywhere. I was in Dublin. Fingers are green fingers. Then only do it with a brush. You use enough is to say the instructions if you look on their website vect to water this down with warm water. Used were more just use what I have done a little bit more patient and all the grains go away. Sometimes I quite like a grungy effect, it slightly. I'm mixed. Olive green, very deep green. Working with very, very green through to the raked up rich green. That's why I look so much. I use it all the time just as fine. Go to green. Pretty much mixed him. All right, so we're going to use those two colors with the pink, which I'll do in a moment. And just going to add some of the titanium. Just going to do two lines there. Titanium. Take some of the slope, starts to get some more neutral. And you can vary the family. Let me just show you what that looks like. We'll have plenty of practice with this in the next section. That's pretty gorgeous, isn't music. And then on this one, just going to take some of the green up. Doing it this way also gives you the option. You can dip into this if you wanted her darker body. Just going to add some titanium. Just keep adding until you've got recorded. That's pretty nice. Secret to neutral colors there. Instantly. If you also just use the green as it is without, let me still have a little bit of titanium buff and it now but just as a darker go to now, don't have brushing. Let me just quickly show you a different green. Sap green here. I'm assuming that you might have sap green already might have. And undersea green. Little bit him to say green. Let's just add titanium book with gorgeous. It's not that dissimilar to the olive green bush as well. It don't be afraid to mix them much. Get in there. Experiment gives you a look at the green. Neutral green. Bring some of this slope here. But it's gorgeous. Sap. Pretty good, just as well as he can always. Adding a little bit of blue. Cool, cool green. It's just to give you some options. Pink. Used Dr. Ph Martin's now, actually down to the dregs of this, but I think I can squeeze that butt tiny bit. That's actually only need. This is so vibrant. Don't need. Again, I'm going to mix that with titanium to go into fresh water, to click this one, excuse me. Bright. You see we get a really vibrant color, even though we've made a neutral, make the most gorgeous pink by adding green to take some of this green that we mixed down here. And just to put in a little bit at a time, I get what I wanted to put in a chair. So you've got a lovely Muted Pink. Gorgeous. Don't have the ink. Let me just show you. With potters. Pink won't need to do much work because it's already quite muted. Paik. Let's just see what happens. I may add some to it. The titanium buff again. Clean water. Love this because I do like potters pink. That's beautiful as well. That's much more muted. Pastel pink. On this page. Gorgeous. If you don't have a favorite, is opera pink. One of my two. Don't actually need to add green to either a face. That's rarely pretty special. Lovely kind of Shell think. Gorgeous. Finally, let me just show you. We've just white. So if you don't have titanium, not to worry, just choose whatever white you have. You can also use any of these colors in gouache. That's just great as well because we're going to be using the paint very faithfully. So if you would prefer to do discuss with gouache, then that will be perfect to scroll down. Just to show you this perfectly. Well with the white. Gets slightly brighter colors. That's okay. Gorgeous. I love this course so much. There's not much difference. This is a slightly more muted. You could always add a little bit of green to it. Starts to get much more muted. Just having play with what you have. Let's move on and have practice with these colors. And just making some shapes and practicing the dry brushing. 4. Practising our Brushstrokes : Let's get into practicing some of these very simple brushstrokes. I'm just going to get myself some kitchen roll. Just going to go into that blue that we mixed. Going to take the excess off. I can always just practice on a piece of paper until they've got looking for dry brush effect. Let's just practice some of those very loose. Drawing them towards you. Swift quick movement. Could also do. Some swinging movements. Can draw down some lines so that you've got a base to these petals. But keeping it very, very light. Quick. Let's just have a practice with those. Don't even think about forming petals. That's just go for it. Those are pulling towards us. And away from your body. Put down candidate. Tiny little highlights of the pink pigs. It's really like Let's just go with to take off the excess again. I'm just going to add some very quick movements in this pink. Just to add highlights. Pink. And this might be a nice copy. If you wanted. We could go on add some ink. That's practice over here. I'm actually using the pipette, but you can use Watertown gouache or watercolor with a dip pen or a skewer. We're just getting some kind of scratchy marks. Again, not, not really thinking about it too much, just always do lines up, Swinging movement. And he can put as much honestly like quite a lot. And I drag that down if you like as a paddle. Just do. Marx. Try not to think about it. Just creating marks and brushstrokes. Can also then, because all of these little subtle markings can build up. And I've gone in heavier here so we can see what I'm doing. I'm going to just blend, introducing, just pull it out a little bit. That creates a nice subtle effect. You see what's happening there. So it creates a really dreaming texture. We bring muscle to go, just one little pools of ink. So this is the blending method as well. Now normally I would not dry. Coming on and show you what I also did when I was preparing this class. And that was to add lots of texture with some thick white watercolor or gouache. I use this dark pattern here. Most of the water on my brush. And I'm just picking up quite a lot. Practice on a piece of paper before you put it down if you want. Very quickly with quite a lot of paint on your brush. Let's add some more. Great for painting oceans as well. Then what you can do is use the edge of the brush down. Can you see it's quite thick? And actually I'll go, I should be great for this if you have some could vary by liked, I can actually go in with a paint brush here. But you can also use your small round brush for this. Show you that in a sec. You can actually just pull in some beautiful brushstrokes over these dark leaves with a more water down. Let me show you how you can do that with a round brush. I'm getting quite a lot of white in my brush. It's picked up some blue and that's okay. I'm going to put down the side of the brush and swift movement down. You can get very similar effect with you, your round brush. If you wanted to add more pink at this stage. Because I did this over here, you can always go in and add some pink. Just to build up some very gentle. Can you see how we are starting to build texture? And I do love the effect of putting paint texture that's already been laid down and just try it underneath. Let's move on to the leaves. And we're using a very similar movement with that too. I'm going to dry it off again. Most of it start to create some really loose leaves. Let's just two strokes. Sometimes even just 1-p. brilliant. Let's try that again. Just really quick movement. With that, I'm going up on the tip of my brush just to do stem. You can add some lines to it. You just some thicker paint on the tip of your brush. Let's just practice a stroke or not to look like. And leaf can put in some more traditional leaves. If you wanted just quick stem, then push down. It will start out the way, the brush down. Whatever you fancy. But let's just keep that movement going. Very simple, very quick. Then over with our flowers, just pulling together the base of the leaves. I love the fact that there's actually no painting. But we're just going to suggest stamens and Stokes. Let's practice that on this side limits blank bits. Just little simple movements. It's slightly fatter line per pass, really gorgeous and swell. Don't pick it that you can always slow movement like this where you're just pulling down. Movement is tip down, push down the body of the brush, not just halfway. So let's move on now and do a little bit of work in our sketch book. If you want to, you can stop at that point or you can carry on and join me for the more immersive experience of doing a larger piece. 5. Sketchbook Practise : Okay, so let's just have run through. Good to use. This is quite large for this, but I really loved the texture. So any old brush that you have, these brushes are quite good as well, but harsh might be just a base layer of green and try not to think about it in every direction to the brush. Just loved this brush. Birth. Attacks chat. Notice. When it's still wet, Let's just make some very loose shapes with the brush strokes that we were just practicing, sir. Very loose. I'm not really thinking of them as leaves, just shapes. I'm actually going to maybe most of this off anyway, but I quite like that idea of not everything showing through the piece of art book does say after fix helped you get to that point, the end point. Little bit kitchen or cloth. Just the active blotting can make some really nice shapes. That's to the texture. Sound leaves you a quick movement that we've been practicing. You don't really need to form them into leaves. Whatever comes out, comes out, and that's perfectly fine. I think what I've learned with this technique is that less is definitely more. So with this, That's just one stroke and yet it's a leaf. Is that not so we don't really need to work hard. Lots of texture in. I'm also aware that because this is a smallest space time we'll be working on with the piece of paper. I feel it too much. I want suspects with flawless. This in itself. When I was practicing myself, I thought just at this stage it looks so without even flowers on that. Some very loose shapes. Using my dry brushing technique. Bring one over here so the pages, China. I don't want it to be two separate. Drying off your brush if you're not happy and it's coming through quite because this is quite a large brush that holds onto water. So you might need to just keep practicing with how much water you takeoff and seeing what you like. This could go any which way. Don't worry too much about composition. Just adding texture. That's it. Such as brushstrokes, tip down belly of the brush to the side. Let's pause there. Allow that to dry off stage, and then let's put some little flowers down. I did this in our mixture. I'm just using a little test, a piece of paper just so I get the white showing through that kind of dry. Brush techniques. I know that my brush is ready now. Hopefully fingers crossed. I'm going to just start off by doing some fairly simple flower shapes using that kind of swinging motion as well as pulling towards me. Emotion. Thoughts muddies up as well. The pre-approved. That's fun. I wanted to be really delicate with this because it's a small area. I don't want to have it too busy. That's a petal. That's how easy this is. I love it. It is actually sometimes easier to hold back, isn't it? And we get a bit carried away. And I go past the point of what it would be good to stop. I think that's a very common thing. Just kind of peeking through. And again, we're just building up. This is still a little damp, but that's okay. I'm really careful not to do. I'm just gonna leave that one. Because we've got all these beautiful layers that we're going to put on top. And it's very easy to think, well, I'll do that blue flower and he shaped the whole flower. Whereas if you just put a few strokes and leaves you room to add a pink petals, gives you a few more choices. I'm just creating a little wet at the top side, but then pulling it towards me back, I'm not movement easier than going away. But you might find mixture of the two would be really nice to happen. Going off the page to page. Mirrors tend to stop there and let that dry a little bit. Just wanted to add some very soft pink to this as we did with our brushstrokes earlier. We've added a little bit of green to the pink, so we've got that lovely, dusky, really loved these costs together. I want my gorgeous. I'm going to add some very delicate layers to this now. It just bearing in mind this is a small area and I don't want to have it too busy. That's enough for that one. This one's coming off page, whoops. Petal coming in. Can you see how delicate these slaves arm, but they build up over time and it's so beautiful to see. Taken off yet excessive checking, is it right for me? Little wet. I'm just going to pretty myself up to speed up a bit to get to this. I cannot move with a blue. I cannot tell you aside for blue. This is all about what your intuition is saying and what you would like to. No, right or wrong mistakes. Think I'll take a risk. I'm going to go in. I'm just going to add a little bit of ink. Now this is the Dr. Ph. Martin's hydrous white. I love it because it's slightly thicker than other white to accept used. Use it as you would if you, if you use a white gel pen and use it the same way that you were there. In practice. You could use a white gel pen instead of the stage. Let me grab. Just show you how we can do that. Let's get sky. Not just prominent as the ink, but you could certainly use to you a gel pen. You can also do with this thing. You can do little centers, just random movements. When I'm doing this, I'm just kind of channeling my best, my favorite artist, not thinking about it as me doing it on a slide. I've said brilliant. And actually sometimes fake it till you make it realize actually I do actually I might get in the work era, like I say, no mistakes. Mistakes. You can just scratch in a few lines down, which is always gorgeous. Good. Smudge that one. You don't have to do it on every petal. Probably. Well, just look at that one. Very free movements. Mark-making. We're not, I'm not trying to create something perfect. We are building up texture using all these different values as well. Gorgeous. We were laughing tonight because I will design program and one of the top designers who'd come on to judge them and use the word friction or the friction and friction. What she was maiming was a play between the different textures. So we can use that word here. I think we're creative friction. I'm going to stop there again to want to do too much. Good to pick up my little brush and look what's called handover number five. Now this is something you might want to do. We just did this with the practice run and I'm not gonna do a lot of it, but I'm just going to blend in maybe a little bit here. You can pull out. You'll see I've got a piece of a pool of white here. I can actually run up my brush to the side it out a little bit. Tiny little movements like that. You may be quite happy with the way things are not want to touch it at all, blend it and that obviously is totally fine as well. Drip here. So I'm just going to pick up that brush and make it look like it was all meant to be. If I show you on this darker blue here, smudge my other Mac, just draw. It doesn't have to be fully done with just a damp brush up against that. That's a beautiful, in fact, these tiny little details are what makes a beautiful piece. We might not even home in on them and notice them, but they do add to the whole thing. Not going to just blend this in a little bit. Buffer around too much. Let the ink dry. I'd like to add some of that texture that we did with the soft brush. I'm just going to use some tool that's a carb. I used to have some white gouache download. Sorry, this is white watercolor. You could use gouache if you have it. So I'm going to use brush for this, but you don't need a solid brush. You could use your round brush and just use the side like we did for larger one to bring down the white. Really don't need exact bushings I'm using in this class. Just about trial and error and, and choosing the ones that seem right for years. I'm taking off most of the water because I want us to go on quite thickly hatch in Texas. So just actually water with gouache. You're going in with a damp brush. Not too much water, but most of those taking off and then I'm going to just try it out on here first. Yeah. Probably like went to the top of the petal. I'm just going to drag it down. Lovely fact that we were trying. I don't want too much of this, but we would like it to simpler is, you could also put on quite quickly and Crockett down. By the tip. You could water it down a little bit more. Brush my knees it that way. Quite thick in some places. So kind of almost going in with very thick ones like chronic. I don't want to do this either, so I'm just going to do it is quite thick. Highlights here. Again, just like almost one single movement, just brings it to life. See all the texture we get c in here. Now just for me, it's very simple movements. I love this petal here. I'm not going to out anymore white. Stage. I'm just going to leave. It. Didn't want to lose sight of this. 6. Our Project: Flourish & Fleur : Okay. It That's me. Jumper, infant. 7. Thank You! :O): Thanks so much for choosing this class flourish and I hope you go away with more confidence around these Swift, expressive maintenance. And that you feel that you could go on to explore. One of my favorite parts about developing classes for you is the anticipation of seeing the world. If you would like. I would love to see that. It very much to seeing you again. In the meantime, you can connect to me on Instagram, Polly Thomas, design. See you soon. Take care. 8. Bonus Video: "In The Forgotten Place": So I'm just mixing the buttery yellow with white and hands yellow. I have to challenge myself. Yeah. L do too much. I'm going to add more whites because I want to spray this. So slightly consistency. It's gonna let that second ver a bit. And y. A So if I run through paints, White green appetite, tiny bit of neutral tint. Okay. Quin Magenta, blue, French ultramarine. So yes, all the different blues were a mix of end blue, French ultramarine, Quin Magenta and a bit of neutral tint for the centers with mixed with d blue, bit of white. It looks like I used a little bit fancy yellow I did, mixed with some green for the flower centers. As for brushes, I used one half inch flat bush and I used the number four fiber. I think that's all I for central for flowers and possibly, this modeling tool. And that's it.