Transcripts
1. Introduction: I love painting loosely, but I always fancy
a little bit of detail. Hi, I'm Nadine. I'm a watercolor artist
from Melbourne, Australia, and I'm often asked by my students to teach them
how to paint loosely. And I love loose painting, but my personality dictates
that it can't all be loose. I like to find a happy medium, and I think that's okay. I think painting is all about
finding what works for you. And for me, I can't
paint loosely the whole way and leave it without
putting any detail in at all. So today, we're going to
do a flying kingfisher where the first wash is really, really loose that I
want you to just let go and not concentrate too hard. And then we'll pull
the painting together by using lots of fine details, lots of little shadows, details around the face in the beak. So for me, that's where
my happy place is. That's where I'm
most comfortable. So you get the best
of both worlds, I think, by doing it that way. Now, I have set this class to intermediate,
not to begin up. Not because it's a
difficult painting, but because that first
loose wash that we do, you have to take a deep
breath and just go, and that can be a bit intimidating when you're
just starting out. If you're a confident beginner, by all means, go
ahead and do it. So we'll go step by step
through the painting. We'll go through the
materials and the sketch, the reference photo, and then through the
actual painting. I'm hoping by the
end you'll be happy, and you can post
a photo for me on the projects page on the skill share site.
So let's get painting.
2. Materials: Okay, materials
for today's class. First things first,
the reference photo. This one is from Pexels, and you can download
it from the link on the Skillshare site
under materials section. Now, I'm painting
flat on a board. I'm not taping it
down and I'm using 300 gram arches
cold press paper. You'll need a regular
HB pencil and eraser and in terms of brushes, I'm using well, I'm using
a few more than three, but I've got a medium size
brush or a big brush, really. It's a size ten, and that forms the shape
of these feathers. You just want to find
a brush that's got a nice tip and will hold a
reasonable amount of paint. And I've got these two
little synthetic brushes that I've used for
the rest of it. The details of these are
in the material section. Now, at the end, I
show you a couple of things that you can do to
lift out a few highlights. One of these little
veins, and for that, I'm just using this bright
stiff synthetic for that. I've lifted a
couple little spots in the face and I just found a grotty old really is ready for the bin synthetic for that.
It's just very small. In terms of paints,
I've got a handful, the orange, I'm using Daniel Smith Pyral red and
hunts the yellow medium. Then for the blue and turquoise. Now, I can't find my turquoise. I've lost it somewhere
since this morning, but I'm using Windsor and
Newton Thalo turquoise together with some Windsor
and Newton cobalt blue. It doesn't really matter whatever blues
you've got around, but I think the Palo
turquoise is beautiful. It's really punchy and staining and that's a
lovely color to have. Do try. It doesn't matter
so much on the blue, but the Thalo turquoise
is worth having. I'm also using just to help
this purple through here. I've got some
quinacridone violet. You could use any violet that you've got hanging
around for that. I just wanted a touch
of purple in here. And for my really dark darks, I'm using some
Daniel Smith indigo. I've also put a tiny
little highlight in the eye with
some white guash. You could use some China white, titanium white, go
out and buy that. Even if you don't have a white, you can just leave a little
white spot of white paper. Other than that, you'll
need your palette, a jar of water,
and some tissues, and we'll move on to the sketch.
3. Sketching Up: Okay, so sketching up, I want you to keep it
nice and simple. Don't worry about any of the detailing through
the wing here. Don't worry about the
feather direction there. I just need to give me an
indication of the edge of the wing and these
little feather tips here that I've popped
in along here. I also want you to pay
attention to the position of the eye that's important
and the shape of the beak. Now, I don't know whether I'll put these little
the little clause in, I might see when the
painting is finished, whether I bother with those. I know some of you
want to put them in. They're pretty
cute, but sometimes what works on a photo might
not work on the painting, so I'll make a decision
on that later. Now, if you don't want
to sketch that up, I have included a
template for you that you can download from the Skillshare site from
the material section. I actually on this one,
I have included where the feet are up to you,
up to you on that. We'll get painting.
4. First Wash on the Eye and Beak: Okay, I'm going to start off. I've got two small
brushes because I've sketched this quite small. I'm using these two
little ones initially. So I've got a size five
and a size three here. I'm going to start
in the beak with a milky wash of indigo and my larger of the
two small brushes. I'm going to get
myself some scrap. Okay. Now, this shape here, for me I could paint
that this way. I'll find that
tricky. I'm actually going this is why
I don't tape down. I'm actually going
to turn it around because just my hand preference, I would prefer to come from
the tip and draw that way. I'm going to get milky wash. I'm going to test it
on my scrap first because I've got fluff
and all sorts of things. If you can see this tip is quite fat when it's
loaded like that. I need it to be
fiiner than that. So I just need to take off the excess before
I go onto my page. All right, so I'm going
to start in the tip, push down on the page. Come up, take the X. I've still got quite
a bit on my brush. So I'm just painting my tissue. Pushing down. Coming along. Now, that was a bit untidy. I think largely
because that brush is quite messy on the end. I should have checked
that before I started. I'm just going to pick
up my little brush now and just make sure so
I can go wet and wet. Just make sure I'm tidy
along that pencil edge. Okay. Now, while
that's still wet, I'm looking at my reference
and thinking, that dark, I picked up some more indigo
coming in into the web page. Dragging it along. I'm getting a little
bit of bleeding. It's still a little bit
of moisture in there. I'm just going to run
my brush underneath. Just because I know I
want this line from the beak comes here
under the eye. This could be an
interesting lesson. I've got ointment
in my eye because I've got a block tear duct, it's really throwing my vision. We'll see how we go whether I will finish filming this today. I've just popped another one
there and I'm just going to drag that down. Alright, now, I can come
back into that later. I don't need to
fiddle with that now. All I'm after is a
milky wash and a couple of darker lines through it that will bleed and
do their own thing. Then I'm going to have
a look and put in just the position of the eye,
so I know where that is. So I just picked up again milky milky to creamy,
slightly darker. I'm just going to
paint that shape in. And I'm not going to be
too fussy, actually, I'm going to make it a bit
messy around there eventually. But for now, I just want
roughly the shape in. Then I'm going to come out of that and let that dry because I'm going to come into the
turquoise and Blues next, and I don't want that in to
go to run just at the moment. Come out of that for
five and let that dry.
5. Putting in the Body and Wing in One Go: Okay. Now, we're going to do all of the back the head into
this wing all in one hit. Not as alarming as it sounds, but I've just got myself
some clean water and I'm picking up as
well a bigger brush, this one, I want to use for
getting these wing tips in. I'm not sure whether
I'll use it on the tale. We'll see how we go, but I want access to this
brush on hand. I'm also using the
two smaller ones. I've got some palo turquoise and some cobalt blue
squeezed out in my well, and I've also got some
quinacridone violet. Now, to help me get going because it's quite a
reasonable size area to cover. I'm going to just patally wet
down with some clean water. Through the back, you can see that I've already
got on this brush. It's on the turquoise
on this brush. It's very staining, so already see a bit of color on here. So over the head, careful here my pencil lines and careful
of all that business, the white and orange
that's in the front. Okay, so roughly through. Now, did I just wet so stay out of the white
and stay out of the orange. That's the trickiest bit
with these you kind of forget to leave them. Patchy wet. I might have
to wet that down again. We'll see how we go. All right. I'm stalling because
I don't want to start. Happens to me too. Now I want to milky wash, picking up a bit of turquoise, a bit of my cobalt. Because I want
here to be lights, I'm not going to go on with
this bit straight up here. I want to come in a bit further down in case it's really heavy and I need to
back it off a bit. That's right. I'm
just throwing it into the area where I've wet. And letting it run. Bring that down.
I'm being messy. I didn't mean to be
quite that messy. I went into my white bit
there, back that off a bit. I want to keep that feeling
of light Through here. This is still my ki brush. It doesn't have a good tip. Okay. Pick up a bit more paint. So now I'm gonna stick with this brush to
do the tail feathers. So I want a couple little flicks through here to
suggest the tail, and they don't have
to be super tidy. And I've picked up. It
doesn't really matter because I want the idea of I've got blues and turquoises
through here. I've got a real solid
lump of paint there. This is greener than probably is in the reference, but I'm not worried about that. Coming through, now
I want to I'm just picking up a bit of
that turquoise to walk it through that wing
that's got all the patterns. There. Now, to do this wing, I'm going to put a bit of water just coming down the edge. Then I'm going to
grab a bit of coke. I'll see what I get. I've got some turquoise and
some of my cobalt blue. I want to put my
brush on the side. And make those initial shapes. So I don't want to worry about all that striping in there. I'm I'm getting
the broken strokes because I've not got
much water on my brush. I'm turning my wrist
because I want to follow the shape
of those feathers, the turn in those feathers. Then when I get
down to about here, I'm going to switch
brushes to my bigger one. Now I'm going to pick
up my blue green mix and also now a bit of purple. Now I'm going to come
didn't get any purple. Because now I want to
get that it's more a brown than a purple, but I don't really want to
do brown and that one there. I've got a beard
of purple there. Now I'm going to grab
my medium brush. I want those colors
to mix a little bit. Now, if I sit back,
this where I've got that lump
transition is too hard, so I'm going to dry my brush and just see if I can get
those two shapes. Those two colors rather to sit a bit better
into each other. Then before I let you stop, I reckon I need there's a
bit too much light here. I don't mind all the blooms and things that are
going on there. Nice and messy, but I'm going to drop just a bit more
before it fully dries. Just a bit more of that
ph turquoise in here. That's where I kind of
get the patterning that we didn't worry about
sketching by just using the water and the pigment. This one's going to bother me. So before I fully stop, I'm just going to tidy up that shape there because that's probably
going to bug me. All right. Now, we can always
come in and add more to that if it
dries too light. But I don't want to
make that decision yet. Obviously, we need more color
and stuff around the head, but I want to let that
settle in because this wing is the main attraction before we fiddle
with anything else. I don't want to do this wing
until this one is dry and don't stress about all the mucky bleeds that
you're getting. I want it to be messy and I want you to retain the
light on the back here. I'm going to come out
of that, let that dry, and then we'll come back
in and see which is next. I haven't quite decided
where to go next. Three.
6. Back Wing: It's been about 5 minutes. I'm dry and I want to
pop this swing in, then we'll come
back and start with the oranges and potentially think about this blue in here, but we might just
do this wing first. Now, I don't want to run into
the chest here, to help me, I'm going to grab my medium synthetic and I'm just going to paint just a touch of
water on that edge. I'm going to not touch this
wing that's dry either. I'm going to leave a
little bit of a gap there. Just a little bit of
water to help me move. Then I'm going to
grab my bigger brush. I want to try and get a bit of the same color
that I've got here. I might have my scrap
out to just see. I don't want it too wet, at this brush holds
a lot of water. I'm going to just take some off on the heel of the
brush there with my tissue. I've got to come in
now and put my stroke. I'm going to put my tip down
and pull into that area. I didn't get as far
as I wanted then. The idea being, what I'm after is the water to whipped that up, but I spoke for too long. I'm a bit dry. Now I'm
just going to chisel out that shape while it's still wet and just drop a
bit more pigment. I'm not going to worry. It's got this other little flick there. I'm not going
to worry about that. Now I haven't got enough
turquoise in there yet. But rather than worry
about that now, I know that I've got to come
back dry really quickly. I'm just trying
to get that wash. I've got a hard line here, so I'm drying my brush. I'm just trying to
walk that into. It's going to bloom a little
bit, but that's okay. What I'll do when that's dry, I'll pop a little bit of turquoise in to match
it to this wing. I don't want to do
it now because I'm drying really quickly and I'll get into stripe
tiding up that edge. That's all the hard stuff done. I won't put this green
in until we're dry here, the turquoise that
we've got down there. Once you come out of that, I animate myself
a coffee because quite a lot all in a
very short period of time of trying to go
and let it bleed. Come out of that, make coffee, then we'll come back and
start with the oranges.
7. Getting the Orange Feathers In: Okay. Well caffeinated and it's been about 10
minutes. I'm fully dry. We're going to pop in
some of the orange under here and under the
chest through the face. I've got my W 1:00
A.M. I going to use. Might use the middle
sized synthetic get clean water because
we're painting with yellow and red now. I've got some pearl red and
some hansy yellow in my well. I'm just going to come on to the dry page and just
whack a little bit through underneath this
tail bit doesn't matter if I touch into some of the ph, nothing's going to
happen. I'm pretty dry. I might get a bit more
yellow into that. I'm just picking up a bit more yellow and a bit more water. I want to be a little bit messy, see, because I've dropped just a little bit
more water on there. It's um I got some little blooms and
things that was a bit too flat for me. Alright. Then I'm going to pick
up my smaller synthetic, and I think I'm going to
drop. What am I gonna do? I'm going to get some of
my purple, my quin violet. And before that's dry, I'm just going to touch a little bit of the queen
violet just tidying up that shape and giving me little suggestion of a bit of
shadowing underneath here. I prefer doing that wetting wet. Doesn't need to be much. Again, I don't mind
if I get bleeds. If you dilute your
orange out too much, just grab a little bit
more and chuck it back in. That just gives me a little
variation in the wash, a little suggestion that there's a bit of a
shadow going on there. Now we'll stick with
this smaller one and come into the chest. I didn't bring my
turquoise all the way up, but I'll deal with
that in a bit. I'm painting my
tissue to get off the excess and just coming I'm just looking
at the reference. It then goes into
white up there. So I'll just bring that
in the same thing, I'm going to pick
up a little bit of my violet and just
drop a little bit in. Nice and wet and wet. Really, it's down
to not so much. I've made it tricky for
myself for not having brought the turquoise all the way to that shoulder, but that's okay. Again, just pushing and
pulling the paint a bit, I diluted my orange, just waking a bit more in
all nice and wet and wet. Then that violet really I
want it to be down here. I am going to put more
shadowing under there, so I don't want to go too much. I just want to touch
like we did up there. A bit more of my orange. I'm starting to fiddle there, so I'm just going to come out of that and let that
dry and then I'm going to come and pop a few of the oranges around
the face here. I've got this bit in here. Just onto dry paper,
a bit much red. It doesn't matter if the red and yellow mix on the page
and not in the well. That's a bit heavier
than the other ones. I'm just going to
grab a bit of water and back that off a bit. Okay. And then
there's a ***** sort of through the front there. I'll keep that pretty
light initially. And sometimes you'll
sit back and you realize that you put
the orange where the white's meant to
be and vice versa. So try and get it roughly
in the right spots. So I'm going to come out of
that and let that fully dry. Then we're going to come
back, put the turquoise, and then start putting
some of the darks in. Give it five and let it dry. I
8. The Fiddly Details that Make all the Difference: Okay, so we've hit the point
of the painting where we've got all the basic washes
in most of it's there, but now we really
need to strengthen our darks and make
it a bit more three D. Here you're allowed to be a little bit tighter
and a little bit fussier. I'm going to start
under the neck here. I'm going to take
some clean water and I'm just going to paint
down that turquoise bit. I know I haven't dealt with the little white feathers under here yet, I worry
about that later. I want to get this to round up. To do that, I'm going to take
a little bit of indigo and a little bit of phalloturquoise
together. Darken it. I've got my smallest synthetic. I'm just going to drop
that into the wet page. Initially, I use violet. Now I'm getting a little
bit of indigo in here. So go again. I'm going to take my halo, a little bit of my violet
and my indigo together, the three colors to make
my dark under there. I then washing my brush
and blending that edge. I don't lose some of the
light that I have in there. Keep going into that wet page. I picked up a bit more violet
than indigo in that one. Okay. Now, while
I've got that out, I'm going to take
a little bit more, paint my tissue, and
I'm just going to pop. Well, I didn't paint
it too much off. A couple of little
flicks in there to just suggest a few little feathers
that are under that. I've just wash my brush
and I'm just going to put a touch of
water in there. So I've got a mix of soften
hard edges and I'm going to pick a bit stronger indigo and just where it comes in
to meet those feathers. The turquoise feathers,
I'm just going to strengthen that a touch. Now, that's probably
still not dark enough, but I'm going to come
into the orange next. Here I'm going to do the
same thing where I'm actually going to use a
little bit a touch of my indigo into my orange mix to get a slightly deeper color. I'm coming onto dry
paper so that I can be get dark a bit more quickly. Then I'm going to wash my
brush and soften that edge. If when I do that, it dilutes it out because I've
teased it into the edge, I can come back and just
drop in a little bit more. Then I'm going to strengthen. I'm probably still
not dark enough, but I'm going to
strengthen around the eye. I know we spent all that
time being really delicate. Now I'm going to be a bit messy, a bit stronger around here. I'm going to take some
phallo violet, and indigo. I've wet down around the eye, and then I'm going to
throw that in maybe a bit more indigo, there we go. Then I'm going to wash my brush and chase that back a bit. I'm just dragging my wet
brush over that join. I'm going to my orange there. You can see by doing that, I've diluted, so I need to go again. My ph, my violet, bit of indigo, I didn't
get much indigo then. Just trying to strengthen up. I didn't get much violet in there slowly
strengthening it up. Now I'm going to
grab some indigo, really creamy, not much
water in the brush at all. I'm going to strengthen
that eye and if it bleeds into where
I've just wet, I'm not going to
stress about it. I'm going to let it go. You can see that little
effect is what I'm after. I'm just going to
keep an eye on it, if it runs too far,
just soften it back. My brush now is
drier than my page. I need to watch. I've got
a bit of an edge here. So then I probably need strength that strength of dark
through the beak. I'm going to go onto dry paper. Just like we did before, I'm going to paint a
couple of lines in. This is why that initial mistake that I've been chasing
that I did at the front of the beak ends up not mattering
all that much by the time you this many layers
in disappears, but I'm going to come
another one down here. I'm just thinking about
balancing up my darks. And I do do a lot of
running that wet brush. Over to get little bleeds that are
a bit more interesting. Like that dark, like that dark, need to match here, and then I'm going
to have to put something over here to balance. We're nearly done.
We're nearly done. Initially when I did this, I wet this down first and
then drop pigment in. Tired of building
up a shadow there, I'm going to go straight
onto dry paper. We're doing the opposite now. I'm going to grab some indigo, come underneath here, paint that on milky to creamy indigo. Now we're going to
do the opposite now where I come and I
chase this edge down. So I need to then blend
that into the page. All I'm trying to do
is tease that pigment down so it sits into that wash. That strength of indigo sits a little bit
better with those. I'm going to stray a
bit from the reference. I'm going to put the shadow, not underneath this necessarily
underneath this bit here. I'm going to go straight on. So I'm going to paint that on. Wash my brush and then drag my clean dry brush
underneath that. Go again. That was just straight
indigo. Nearly. But I think what I'm
going to do is mix my indigo with a bit
of my orange mix. It my dark. That page is now
wet so I can drop that in. Wash my brush, drag it under so it's not what's
in the reference, but it works with what
I have in front of me. Now, I'm just sitting back. A couple of things. I love the light that I've
got on the back here. I'm just deciding whether I need to define the
shoulder a bit more. Maybe I do. I'm
going to just throw a little bit of water
around that shoulder. I'm not really going to do
what's in the reference, I don't think. Pick
up a bit of ph. And just chuck that into the
page, move it around a bit. I think I need to
strengthen my ph here. Again, onto dry paper. I'm just picking up a bit of my turquoise and
just strengthening. It's fully dry there so I can
paint straight over that. And probably in the back here, I want a bit more of
that turquoise in there. I'm just wetting down
the page this time. I switch back and forth
between whether I paint wet and dry
or wet and wet. Again, I'm just looking
to thinking about the three D. I'm only bringing this
over the top of the head because I
don't want to have a sharp line where
the pigment stops. I think I'm going
to use a touch of the orange in this
just a touch of color. Under there. Nearly done. I think all I'm going
to do is I'm going to put a little
highlight in the eye. I keep lifting it
up to see I've got this really geometric
shape there. Geometric is not
your friend in this, so I'm just going to back off that taking a little
bit of orange and just making that a bit
more of a random shape. I'm going to put little
highlight in the eye to find that a little bit,
and then we're done. You can put the feed
in if you want, but I'm not going to. Cubaguas or China white, titanium white. Tiny little bit. Make the spot small. I'm just going to take
a touch of indigo. I'm just going to just pop
just the tiniest bit of a dark there just to show that my wing,
that's my shoulder. I keep saying we're nearly done. A couple of things you
can do if you want. I don't really want
to, but if your wings here the wash is a bit too flat and you want to
get some veins back in, I've got a hard oil brush
here and I can just clean it, take off the excess water, and just lift a few veins. Okay. The other
place you can do it is if you want to put those
little highlights in, try to see if I've got
a hard enough brush. Because this is a lot smaller
than normally, I'd paint. I'm not sure that I've got a
hard brush that will do it. So you can lift a few little highlights to suggest those little
flicks in the front. I don't get that
little suggestion. The last thing I'm going to
do, I'm just going to lift. I don't really like. I'm going to see if
I can lift a line. Just a bit of a
highlight into this one. I'm officially fiddling now. That's where I'm going to stop.
9. A Final Word: Okay, now that we've
made it to the end, a couple of reminders for you. I want you to remember
that it's okay to be messy and loose in those first
few washers and know that you can pull the painting
together and put in some really nice
details at the end that will make it a really
clever painting, but you don't have to be
tight the whole way through, and you don't have to be
loose the whole way through. It's all about finding
that happy happy medium. Do go for some really
nice bright colors. I like painting kingfishs
because I love the phos. I love thalo turquois.
I love that blue. They're beautiful to work with, and you can get that lovely transparency in that
beautiful glow. So do have a think about which colors you want to play with. Other than that, if you're
happy with what you've done, I'd ask you to pop a photo up on the project section on the Skillshare page
so I can have a look. I love seeing them. It's really fun for me to see
how you've gone, and I always am happy to give feedback and
answer questions. So thanks for joining me,
and I'll see you next time.
Nadine Dudek, Professional Watercolour Artist
