Garden Party Painting!

1. Garden Party Intro: Since we can't get enough color and vibrancy in our work, we're just going to do another painting that has colorful and I called it garden party. And it is somewhat limited color palette, right? There's not every color under the sun here. Just a lot of them. And I did some different elements here with leaves and inspiration, botanical inspiration. So we're going to explore that and some different mediums and really have fun creating something that people will comment on and it'll get their attention because there's so much interest in something like this. So that's why I invite you to join me in the garden party experience. 2. Garden Party Beginning: Alright, so for this painting, the garden party painting, which can be this way pretty much anywhere you want. I signed it over here, but it literally can be placed in any which way. So we're going to use this as our inspiration and start with a piece of either watercolor or if you have Bristol paper. The vellum surface, I wouldn't use the smooth because it just doesn't have any texture to it. Or you could use the acrylic paper or mixed media. I'm just going to grab a piece of watercolor paper. And we're going to paint our background with just some of these colors in sections. We're going to start that way with the background on this one. And we'll go out from there. So I'm going to pick sort of a pale lime green, little bit of a soft bluish-gray, a turquoise, and lavender and kinda have them coming off. The focal point here is right around here, not quite in the center. So we're going to do the same thing. We're going to have it be, you know, somewhere like that. You can actually draw it on your page if it helps you. And we're going to paint in sections off of here with some of these colors. Alright, so we'll put that, and this will be in class downloads so you can print it off or have it in front of you on your computer and, you know, be able to see it if you like. While we work. I'm going to set it right over here. I'm trying not to get paint on it. All right. We'll take when we're just painting the background here. So we're going to be super fancy. We're going to grab a large brush. This is a number eight. But anything, if you have a four that'll just get you there. Little slower, doesn't matter. And we're going to start out with our pale turquoise. So some white. And this can be a pair like this can be acrylic gouache. And it could be also gouache. And I'm just going to make pale turquoise kind of come out here. I don't need to, for it to be precise. You can see him. In fact, I'd rather not be, I'm pretty much mixing right on the paper. I just want to cover the paper. So I'm variation is good. And you can go right into your focal point. You can throw ingest O2. If you wanted. Your way, you could use white paint or Joseph, joseph kind of give you a little more texture than just paint. Especially if you're just so is colored with paint co I would just look at my Joseph jar from from dipping my brush with paint on it. So that gave me this lavender color, which is fine. I like how just sits on the paper. You have to do is use dirty jokes. So when you get all kinds of interesting colors, I do have a clean jar. So jar if I need, if I want the gel so the nasty dirty. Okay, Let's make a green. Some yellow, some blue. Probably need a little more yellow than that. Pretty good. I had some gel. So this is where some of the magic happens when you don't, you know, I wasn't planning for my Joseph that will make those colors, but it did. And this is kind of that grayish we were talking about. So I'm going to take a neutrally color, which we can make bye, bye. Making some different colors. I mean, by mixing colors. Or I can take a tiny bit of my Payne's gray and adding gesso and I can put the gel. So right on the page. And makes weighed on my paper. Be a tad more. And put some darker stuff here in our focal 0.1 more just so it dries really fast. So I'm, I'm dipping into that jar. Mixing as I go. I just want to get this first layer down. I just want the paper to soak it up, which it's doing. Maybe I'll throw some fluorescent in there. Okay, We can go over here and pick up a Let's do a pale pink eye gravity got the floor or something on my, on my brush. And there's some green on the palette Harrison and dip in, get some gesso. And it gets mixed with whatever is in my brush and I'm HSL Jarrod, a little bit of green isn't there? We've got a nice pink. And by the way, if you don't like these colors, colors, use the colors that you like. Sometimes you have to really work the JSON to the watercolor paper. I lost all my dark, so I'm just grabbing a little bit of that. I'm back here. Kind of marketing that I can put some blue in there to marking that focal point. Okay, background done. And we will let that dry. Okay, here we go. So when you let this dry, you'll see that it's a little buckled, probably not to worry. I just gently do something like this without putting her crease in the paper. It can be just careful like this and get it straightened out. And as we add more paint, it will get stiffer. Here we go, more or less straightened out. So now we're going to add some big chunks of color and start to build up layers that will give us something like this. And as far as color, I'm going to stick with this color palette. For the most part. We'll see maybe we'll mainly we will modify. And I'm going to use, you can either use acrylic. I've got acrylics out here. I've also got gouache. I mentioned the Turner gouache might use some of those colors, might use some. Some of the Liquitex gouache. But if all you have is acrylic, that's fine too. No worries. Let's start with, I do like this fresh green, this lime green that you can, you can make if you have a lemon yellow, light yellow, and a bit of green, and maybe some bit of blue. But since I've got this already, I'm going to do a little bit of that and we'll mix like I always do. I'm going to put some just so right on the palette for a change since I've made my genitals so dirty. I'm gonna go ahead and just get some out toward the end of this jar and I buy a big tub of it and then I fill it. I put it in this jar, but this jar I'll throw out because it's dried and get a new one, little pasta sauce jar. And let's also get some of this, some sort of magenta. Actually we can try this Liquitex. This is a new color, Medium, Magenta. And I'd like to make a lavender. So I'm going to put some blue down because I'll mix that with the magenta. And let's throw in some yellow so we can get some warms. This is warmer yellow, a cadmium yellow deep. But any yellow. You can see we're not being super precise here. And I need a dark. And I do like this dark plum. So I'm gonna get this magenta. This is quinacridone magenta, but any even blue and red is fine. And then have some, either some black or some Payne's gray to dark in it. Okay. And let's grab a bright shaped brush, which as you remember is the square. If you have a round and you want to use around, that's fine too. And then you could also use one of these filbert. So if you have it kinda rounded at the top. I'm going to grab this one is just, I think I think I've just its skeleton so stiff. So before I use to clean brush as well, I would just rent them in water and not take very good care of them. So what's happened is the paint has collected here at the bottom and it's made this stiff, which actually for certain things I like if I want a stiffer feel, but I don't want that right now. Alright, let's start putting down some watches and things. So I'm just thinking about, you know, darks in the center and then some shapes around. Hello, weight to them, maybe susan more down here. That's a pretty dark. You can vary. Obviously. How much Payne's gray you put in it, how dark you want it to be. Now I will wash my brush because that was my Derek and I I don't want to blend too much with that. Would that plan on my brush? Little Plum on it. You can see it's okay. It'll, it'll help to make these other colors interesting. So because I want to knock this lime green back a little bit anyway, it's well, I can put some of it down as it is just as a highlight color. And then we'll knock it down as well. Meat. And when I say knock it down, just subdue it. Was either the color opposite on the color wheel can subdue a color. So that would look like let me get my color wheel and show you. I don't reference it too often, but just so I'm gonna do a class on color because it's just so fascinating. But if I wanted to knock back this yellow, green and subdue it, I would use a tiny bit of its complimentary color, which is the color across the color wheel. If I have an orange and I want to just subdue it a little bit, I would add some blue and just around the wheel like that. So I'll show you, Here's our bright yellow green. And I'm going to add just a touch of this magenta. You can just have to go really light because you can see it really doesn't take much, but it has. I did it a little bit. See that fascinating. Then I can add some white, get a different shade. So I'm going to try though to remind myself I wanna do larger shapes here. In the background. This layer, trying to stick with larger shapes. And I wanted to green that is, so I have a green here that's a little bit cooler. I'm going to take this same yellowy color and I'm just a bit more blue. Hold it right down. Again. There's no real formula except to make shapes, sort of reaching out from the center point. I like it not to be too obvious that they're coming out from here. I mean, about it obviously is, but I can do one that is a little bit wayward, like what would be an example in here? Well, when I take stripes going a different direction, but we could do something like maybe going this way. Okay, And then I'm gonna get some more turquoise. Just add that written, not cleaning my brush. I can get some of the paint off it like that because I've got some purple in there and some other things. And then see what I think of the color that I've gotten makes. And it's pretty. So sometimes, you know, this kinda was a happy accident and you'll find your own, Who's your work in these? It's just going around something and creates this sort of curvy mark. That's fine. Right off the paper. That's pretty color loops. Some yellow got in there, but I'm going to go with it and some more weight. I think that'd be pretty over here. Still sticking with the larger shapes at this stage, except for those small marks. I'm just letting you know the process of creating colors. Mixed. Grabbed some yellow by accident, but that's okay. Yeah, I like how this is shaping with the big chunks of color. I think my dog is trying to get into the studios on here. I think it's because we're getting a thunderstorm. Alright, so let's let this dry and we'll come back with the next layer. 3. Garden Party 2: Second Layer: Okay, It dragged quickly and I want to move on before these paints I got out dry. So I'm going to do more magenta and just a little bit more, but maybe start to make some smaller shapes too. I like the color palette though, so I'm going to grab a little bit smaller bright brush and probably a round brush at some point and see what we can do. I think I'm gonna do some magenta. It's a warm magenta because I that gel, so that has a little bit of green and a nice pink here. And then I'll maybe darken it as we go. Okay, So I want to talk about this pretty color. So I had the magenta going and I took, you know, again going up. So on the color wheel I have kind of a color in here. Add a little bit of green and it just toned it down to a really nice color. Like, Well, I want to use that color somewhere else. Maybe had some weight to it. Tone it down a little more. I change my brush shape and start going with around to get some different shaped marks. And looking at colors. I don't have this strong turquoise in this one. So let's go ahead and make some of that. I'm going to take this turquoise and add a bit of blue. That's pretty maybe a tiny bit of blue. Well, we got a weather alert that said we should shelter in place because there was a tornado nearby. So my husband came and got me. But I think that the threat has passed. If you hear rumbling, that's the vendor. Okay. What I did just so you know, because I wanted these to be wet, not dry out as I listed them with this MR. that I got on Amazon that I think is like a facial MR. And I just did that to keep them moist so they wouldn't dry because I knew we were going to come back and keep painting. All right. Now, I was doing this turquoise. Oh good. That worked still wet. And I wanted to use a different brush. That's what I wanted to do when you use a liner and grabbed my number one liner from Princeton and start playing with some small lines. Remember you have to get used more water and get this nice and wet. And where else would we want to do this? Like how that looks? I'm going to do it here to the liner is a great thing to just get some paint on a paper and practice. Controlling it. Got some magenta on myself. Don't even know how. Okay, Let's see what else. Maybe autism. I started making small like dots. But I'm gonna go with some levy outlines here. Maybe a bit over here, but I don't want the liner and then something a little thicker, thicker line. And come over here. There it comes to rain. Let's go for a light turquoise. So I'm going to pull that over here because it's mixing with the semi dry paint underneath and giving me chunks, which I don't really want right now. Sometimes chunks can I have a good texture? I'm going for a light turquoise. Go. And I'm going to make some outlines around these purple squares, but I've got so much pain in my brush that I'm trying to just work some of it off so they can make a decent line. And I'm going to really lightly, nothing like painting of the storm, right? I think that turquoise looks really pretty with the purple. Now I'm going to take some, let it be heavy on my brush now and do some dots. Larger ducts. My mom was so funny. She's an artist in her own right. And G, You know, sometimes she gives me little pointers and she, she said one time he even you could use some triangle shapes sometimes. So what's used some triangles for Mom? Mom? I do like triangles. I just didn't think of using them really. They certainly appear in nature. Leaf petals and flower petals. Gotta do my numbers About used up with this color and the tundra is getting so loud. But I'm going to stop for now. I really like the direction this is going though. It's definitely inspired by this, but different. And we'll let it dry and come back for the next layer. 4. Garden Party 3: Finishing Up!: So I started thinking about a direction that I've been wanting to try. And just to make it, I'll make this one a little different. And I sketched out some ideas for putting in a few more botanical elements and pattern. So I've got this kind of sort of leafy idea. Filling in dots and a shape. Some leaf outlines, maybe some longer leaf and maybe even some little flowers along with the other usual marks. So just kinda thinking about that. And looking at this now and wondering, do I need to add anymore paint bets before? I'd go in this direction. I don't really think so. I think we can go play with these elements and see what happens. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to use Posca marker and also, you know, paint where it makes sense for where I don't have the right color, but I have a few colors. So I think we'll be able to use Posca marker. I'm going to get a few colors here that I like. And with the Posca markers, you're shaking them. And then you are priming them. Chicken with the top on that one's doing what they call flow. There it goes. Like a leak. This one's a glitter. So first are the only glare one I have. In the red color. It's just a really slight glare. But I thought it'd be fun since this is called the garden party. Alright, so let's make some marks and see where this goes. Okay, So I just wanted to mention a couple of things. When you're using the paint markers, you want to just go lightly. Think of your depositing the paint on top. Don't scrape hard, and then move slowly so that the paint, the ink can come out and heal. You'll get the hang of it. They don't always perform, but that's okay in this kind of thing. You're not being really precise. I'm going to let that dry. You probably saw me get my fingers and one of these marks and then I had to refresh it. But when there's too much white on there, it's hard to get in and do angles. So we'll come back in a minute when it's dry. Alright, so let's continue with some of these. Still want to do the little flowers and maybe some leaves that are kind of draping in somewhere. And I think I'll pick up this sort of blue gray hair and make some of that. So I'm going to try that first. I already have some Payne's gray here. If it's still wet, you get a round brush. Be able to make those leaves. This is a number two. So let me talk about these leaves. I switched to a number one, smaller. And when you're making these leaves, you just, it's about pressure with a round brush. So you start out with not much pressure, then you press down and then you lift. And I recommend doing just pages of leaves with different brushes to see what you can create. And would you like to make my paint a little more fluid? Brushes, just not giving me the point I wanted a new brush. It's not so master touch. But I'm thinking I'm gonna switch because it's just not giving me when I'm looking for try this Princeton number two. So that shows you that you do have to switch brushes sometimes to get the effect that you wanted her to get more control? It was the first time I was trying that one. I'm not really impressed. Okay. What else do I wanna do with this color now that I have it? Because I want to bring it somewhere else. Just do some large certainly things here. I think so small marks, but I don't want them around. So I'm going to make them Let's see. Either a little flat brush like this. This will work. I'm just thinking I want to make little homeless, little tiny squares. Most definitely getting more exciting. Let's see what else I might want to do and with what color. I have pulled this pink. See if this is a hot pink. It's pretty it's not a it's not a fluorescent paint, but it's definitely bright. So I'm going to do a little bit with it. I think I'd like to put some shapes in here. Maybe in this off-white. Maybe I will do some small leaves. And we haven't done any goal yet. I'm also feeling like I want to pick up when the lime green maybe it was a Korean migraine broke. Just scribbling limb on top of what I already have to accentuate it. Give it a little more texture. And do I want it to those little flowers? And if I do, what color do I want to do them? And I kinda thinking yellow. So I have this fluorescence. Posca, basically. I think you could get the same thing by using a highlighter. I wonder if it's gonna be too bright. It's pretty darn bright. Well, let's see. I can always go over it with yellow if I do some little, some little flowers. All right, let's pause and take a look at it and come back to it. 5. Bonus: Blooming Joy Part 1: Okay, So this is an example of a little bit different approach. First, I want to talk about how I did this base layer, the background. It was basically just SO and then black paint. And then which kinda made some gray because the jester was white. And then I randomly put some pink, some things in the middle. And that's just completely random. No real process here. So now that I've got that background time, liberally throwing paint colors. And this one is definitely not a limited color palette. I am grabbing whatever seems like it would be fun to have in there and pretty much scribbling it on, taking the back of the brush and making some marks. I'm using acrylic here and I'm using the NOVAC color paints mostly. Those are pains that are good quality acrylic and you have to buy them online. You can't get them in stores. But they're good price point. And I'm using JSR was my white and mixing in practically on the paper and making marks. And there's a palette knife. This is kinda what I call a kitchen sink painting. Meaning I'm throwing everything at it. And I like working like this. It's a little less methodical than some of the other paintings we've done in this class. And I love how this painting turned out. So here I'm throwing in some orange. I don't normally use a color straight out of the out of the jar. Now I'm grabbing some white, but I know that I'm gonna be over painting so much that this is gonna be altered. But having a little bright pops in there, I'm using a big bright, bright shape brush. It's a number ten and which you can use anything. I'm scraping through. Hi, I'm intentionally just at this stage not being very trying not to overthink. That's what I'm trying to work quickly. Obviously, this is a time-lapse, this is sped up. I'm not working this quickly. Here is that wonderful 3D liner that I love using. I used it in hot pink and then the ivory color. And this is the stuff I recommend doing this kind of process. Here's the other color only have three of these and this is in silver. And I decided not to make it 3D there and scraped it down. Just to see what I thought about that. I recommend for this kind of thing to force yourself to not think too much is maybe even put a timer and say, I'm going to just do this, what you see me doing for ten minutes. So I'm not going to think. I'm just going to grab colors I like, and Rome on there. There's some fluorescent pink. And I'm basically doing some doodles with a black Posca really spilled out there. Which happens so then sometimes the Posca markers. So then I just grabbed the brush, made some scribbles because I didn't want to wait that long for all that ink to dry. So I do think if you can, if you, if you want to improve as a painter, I think getting one of these arms from Amazon where you can film yourself like this overhead is a great tool because then you can watch what you do and especially when you're moving quickly and how here I'm intentionally using left hand, which it can't be precise because I don't have him right handed. So that's another trick, is forcing yourself to be less precise with your left hand or non-dominant hand. Here I'm blotting some of it up because I want to continue and I don't want that black to bleed. This one you don't yet see any sort of emerging toward the center like the others. Here, I'm taking an oil pastel and then this is just a pencil eraser. Those mechanical pencil erasers, the white ones really work well to smear out. Oil pastel. Course, your hand works well too and that kind of scenario. Talk about an ugly stage, right? This is, I'm pulling out some Liquitex acrylic here, adding some weight to it. And I love how it pops against the purple. So I'm just throwing it in random places and literally thinking, okay, what color should I throw into your next? Me get some green. I love using lime green. Definitely on my go-to favorites just like you probably do, or if you don't yet you will. I love the effect of a little bit of paint and then the oil pastel on top of it in the same color. Same on the same, but her a similar color. It just creates an interesting effect. Now I've grabbed some more white just so to just put in there and scrape through it and my wipes and live it up. I love the process of discovering colors on the painting. So I think I decided I didn't want all that weight on there. Or maybe the texture underneath was more interesting. I always say the worst thing that can happen is that you end up with some great under layers of stuff. Because even if I were to at this point say, I don't think this is going anywhere and paint the whole thing over something. You would see some of that stuff underneath. So I'm just playing with some blues and greens in random marks. Adding color in different bits with different brushes. And trying not to think too much. This is where I talk about channeling your five-year-old. Because a five-year-old can do this just fine. We're the ones that have trouble and things, things like, where's this going? What am I doing? Why am I doing this? You're doing it because it's fun. But it's only fun if you really free yourself and let yourself play. Here, I'm using a thinner brush and I made, this happens to me all the time as I've said, I made a color just by adding some weight to that, red. And I really liked it. I'm like, Well, I'm going to use some of this and then let's add a little bit of yellow to it. And wow, I love that color. I just figured out where I want to put that color. And you still don't see any sort of particular direction to this painting in terms of the kind of bursting out or moving out from the center. I've let that dry and I'll come back to it. And even though it's not really a composition yet, I, I am liking the bright fluorescent pink in the back with some of the darks and I'm just finding it very exciting. So one of the colors that I bring in that for some reason there's a few colors that I've noticed that seemed to really bring a painting to life. One is orange, and I'll have paintings that I haven't used any orange on, and then I'll add orange and it just, wow. Another is the lime green. And I would say there's four. And then another would be the fluorescent pink, even if there's just little bits of it. And then turquoise. I'm not saying you have to use hall. Those are that I use all those, but those colors seem to really help her painting. Pop. I've had paintings just thinking ion now, this is just not very interesting. And then I find a color that really, for me it takes it to another level. I think I'm in love with this color here, this beautiful, warm green and you just take a little paint color. I just added some blue to it and then some white and just keep changing. And that's why when somebody says, what colors are you using a black guy, I invent that I'm in the process. I couldn't tell you. I can tell you. I start with the basics on orange or red or pink. And then from there it's whatever shows up on the palette whenever I mix the painting. And that's why I could never, I could never actually recreate a painting. Which just kind of a cool thing. Now I'm eating a little bit of dark something. Opening up a new liquid texts. I do. I like the Liquitex container because it's once you open it, you can just call it a teeny bit out. You don't get it all messy. Versus the novel color jar, which I tend to mess up. 6. Bonus: Blooming Joy Part 2: Alright, so here at this stage in part two, you start to see me. Let the painting kind of guide me to these focal points. I'm adding a dark hair. Plum is one of my favorite darks. I would say. My favorite darks are Navy or indigo. Payne's gray or dark plum. And so I'm just continuing to grab colors. I am doing that dark in the center area and then starting to go out from there with different marks using a bright brush. The square shape, throwing in some more fluorescent pink. But I don't yet know. At this stage of the painting, I'm seeing a focal plane, obviously to the right there. But there may be others. It's evolving. This one definitely did not have much of a plan. It's more color inspired color in shape than anything else. The thing about acrylic is you, you, to get opacity, you have to add layers. So sometimes people ask me what's the difference between acrylic and acrylic wash or Apple Watch. And there isn't a whole lot of difference, except the opacity of gouache is a more opaque paint with more pigment and it has a chalky finish. Whereas acrylic, you can get the opacity, but you are going to have to layer it. And that's why you'll see me sometimes going over colors. I'm looking at, I'm looking at a previous one for inspiration there. But then I'm taking oil pastel. You saw me do some pink. They're like color on top of lake. Then just kinda dotting some here and there. There is a woody 31 CRAN pencil, I guess they're called. And they also have very nice intense colors and it will go over anything just like oil pastel. You can wet it. I'm trying to get my eraser cleaned off and to rub that in. And it had had a previous color on it. That lime green that really makes a painting pop. Not that this painting needs anymore pops, right? But it's still feeling a little discombobulated to me. So that's what I'm working on. Bringing in that beautiful know, it's not a baby blue, cerulean blue, just such a pretty color. When you, when you work this way you discover bits that you like and don't like, you know, like I really like how those two fluorescent paint strokes on the right look with the green and the orange. And I love how those lime green blobs in the left lower corner look. It's a process of figuring out what are the parts that I like. And while leave, leave alone versus the ones that I want to cover or change. Messy hands make good art. Here I'm doing that same thing with the yellow on top, a yellow but with different mediums. It just creates. And now I'm getting some matte medium out and playing around with that. I would have been experimenting with. If I use a matte medium with acrylic, will I get that nice chalky finish that I like? Will it make it less of a sheen pan? The conclusion I've come to is it does, it does give it more opacity work. Well, in a way it gives it more. It doesn't give it more opacity. It gives it, it makes it more Mac, but it also thins the paint. So it didn't really achieve what I wanted. The smaller brush out now and doing some small shapes. But I really wanted to show you this painting because my random free approach, I think, lead itself to a really interesting painting. Unfortunately, I don't normally do this. I don't sell class paintings because I like to reference them and I did sell this original. If you bought it. I don't know. I've been thinking about contacting the buyer and ask if I can buy it back, but I'm sure she's happy to have it anyway. It is. A print. My friends are just amazing quality. So I'm coming in with a light blue, a light blue and throwing in some turquoise and just being really bold with it. And now the thing is that the trip to a trick that increases opacity, a lot is to add white, especially if you haven't unpacked row or quash white. Highly pigment and white. Or Jericho is really very thick and white, so I often just use that and that will increase the opacity of any color. I use. I use it interchangeably with, depending on the effect that I want. And use it as my white. Adding some bits of pale turquoise. And I'm getting close on this one. I'm looking at this other one, trying to get inspiration. But I'm liking it. So at this point I'm saying to myself, okay. Do what you need to do, but don't overdo wanting mixing, missing some of my lime green here. So I mixed made some. I've got my rigger or script liner, that one look along bristles and making some. I loved the way green looks on orange because they're complimentary so they make each other pop. There. I'm doing the same on the same green on green. That for me as a way to add interest without adding too much different color because I'm putting the same color on the same color. I think what I'm doing here is basically saying, Okay, I want this lime green tab pops throughout so that when the eye catches it, you can get through the whole painting by following the lime green. I do have a bit of quiet space, which something that's a challenge. Up in the left corner and up in the right corner there's places for your eye to rest as they say. So I'm conscious of that not mocking up those spots. This point I'm feeling pretty much done. I'm just scanning, going. Okay. Are there any parts that I don't care for it? I want to enhance or decorate. Think of at this stage of the painting is decorating. Maybe adding some jewelry to your outfit. You know, doing a couple of things. Draw your eye to the center here. And then the shapes that I have will naturally pull your eye out. How oh, bring it in. Because they're all kinda most of the shapes are going toward the middle. But there was a lot underneath on this one that I didn't want to cover. So that's why I'm preserving a lot of it. Pretty much done here. Really happy with it. 7. My favorite spray fixatives and varnish for artwork: Lovely. Okay, I've been getting so many questions about fixatives that this is all about the fixatives that I use. Basically used three. I will start with the completely odor free, non-toxic, all-natural, whole media de Gaulle fixative. I don't know what this stuff is made out of. It just says kerosene and denatured grain, alcohol, and water. So cosine must be the part that actually is the fixative. But at first I was skeptical because I thought, Let's work on everything and how can it be completely non-toxic and odor free. But I tested it. And the hardest thing that I find defects are these soft pastels because they're so powdery. So I've used this, they got all kinds of things. But if you don't know how soft and powdery these are, let me show you. They're just there it is on my fingers. So, you know, they're incredibly beautiful in terms of the intensity of the color, but quite messy. So I thought that the toughest test would be to use this fixative fact. That's what I've done. And in short, it works. It's just that you need to do multiple codes and it doesn't dry super-fast. So here's the piece I did it on. There's a lot of the soft pastels on this one. This is pretty much all through here. This oranges soft pastel, the green, this is oil pastel. This is ink. Let's see what else do I have on here? Ink, Gouache, pack or wash. I think it's all on here. But after several coats of this and what's nice is I can do this inside, so I can just have it on my table, give it a spray. Not too close though because it will I kinda dropped drops but don't panic, just leave it. Actually, I'll just go ahead and hit it with another color. So you can see. Maybe I've clogged it. That's the thing with fixatives is you do have issues with clogging and needing to use yeah. So you haven't used this one in a while? I'll need to so close and warm water. That's what I've done before. I just take this right off and soak this in warm water and then it'll be fine. Let me do that now so that I can show you. I'll be right back. I'm back. So what I did and this is this just happens. It's if it's been awhile, I soaked the part and I ended up having to take this out and soak the whole thing and hot water and use a toothbrush. But probably if I had saved the little top that came with, it, wouldn't have to do that as much, but it out I noticed that helps a lot. If you remember after you use it to just wipe or rinse the nozzle. But anyway, it has a nice spray. So the other reason I know if it's getting blocked up is they'll start dropping big drops, but see there's a big drop and don't worry about it. That's it In this doesn't have any odor and I can do it right here. And you can see that it's kinda wet, but I put it aside. And then you can do another coat. So that's the advantage of this stuff. And you can continue to work on something after using it. I have and I just loved that it's not that it doesn't smell. And it claims soft pastel, oil pastels, chalk, colored pencil, graphite, charcoal on paper, UPA, Canvas, ceramic fabric, glass, leather, wood and stone. So I have not had it fail me yet. Now because it takes a while to dry though sometimes I want to do something more quickly and I'll take it outside. And this is my favorite workable fixative, meaning that you can spray it on hand in the sketchbook. Show you, and then you can keep working. So let's say I have, I remember one that was, yeah, this one. This is a lot of oil pastel, which really doesn't come off too much. But I think I've sprayed this and you can spray it and then I can continue to work on it. Same with this one. It'll it'll hold things enough for me to come back and continue to work like this one. But I don't always use fixative. So like this one, I've done this a couple of layers and it's not done, but there's no fixative on it yet. It just depends on what material I'm using. If I'm using acrylic gouache and ink, it really doesn't need a fixative. But if there's oil pastel like this one has little bits of oil pastel here that if I hadn't been fixative over time, would transfer to the other side. So it just depends on what you're using, but this is really easy. I do I do use it outside though. It's vapors may cause I know it stinks, but it doesn't tell I can spray outside and don't do what I do is set a timer on your phone because I have left things outside for hours or the rain starts something. But anyway, you can bring it in within ten minutes and it doesn't smell too bad and I'm pretty sensitive to smells. Alright, then for the varnish that when I'm done, when I'm all done, highlight a matte finish. So I usually use gouache or app or wash, but I can use sometimes I use some acrylics which are shiny and I don't like super shiny surface. I use this liquid techs, matte, varnish and low odor. I've went through a few of these because I don't like the really toxic smelling stuff. So it says low odor. It's it's still smells. Of course. I still use it outside, but it's better than some of them water-based. And however, my complaint with this one and you just have to know that going in because I kind of ignored the instructions. It tells you in the teeniest print possible that when finished, bring turn them upside down and push spray button for five seconds to prevent clogging soap like that, right? Well, I didn't do that and he got really clogged. So same thing. I just pulled this off and soaked it in warm water, took a toothbrush to it and got it working again. It actually came with a different nozzle. I think I borrowed because yeah, this one's missing it. I borrow the nozzle from here, which you can do. Because this one, the one that came with just stopped working and got to clubs. So now I am sure the nozzles, depending on which one I'm using until one of these runs out and they get a new, new tube. Oh my God, so funny. Alright, so I think that will answer most of the questions I've been getting about fixative. You don t have to use fixative unless you're using things that are going to come off. And then I use them for if I want to continue working, I use one of these two. Depending on how quickly I want it done. If I don't mind waiting till the next day or several hours, I'll hit it with this if I want to work on it and the next little while, I'll hit it with this. And when I'm all done, I'll use this. I will put links to these three and the supplies tab of my website. And I'll put the link to that in the comments in the description of the video. I'm also going to do, I think my next class on this style of floral burst. I haven't figured out what to call it. Laurel burst or colorful abstract. I don't know what to call it pelvic or something, but it's a lot of fine. Okay. Happy creating guys.