Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Nadine. I'm
a watercolor artist from Melbourne, Australia. And today, I want to do a
lesson where we're using wet and wet to create a
really soft painting. And the subject that
we're going to be doing is a a giraffe portrait. Now, it's not particularly
difficult painting, but having said that, you will need to pay
attention to timing. That's what it's all
about when we're painting wet and wet
because we're using this technique to put in the spots and the
patterning on the subject. Now, if you haven't
done my I've got a little lesson of Koi fish, where it's just a 15
minute exercise under the basic techniques that's probably worth doing
before you do this class. Again, not that it's difficult, but just to get a
handle on how much your paint is going to spread depending on how
wet your page is. So I'd really recommend doing that before you tackle this. The other thing I want
you to keep in mind when you're doing this class is that not to be too quick to rush in and fix things that
you think are mistakes. I think in every painting, there's a point where
you get halfway through that you think
this is terrible. It's not working.
What am I doing with my life and you
want to throw it out. And certainly when
I was filming this, I hit that point where
I thought I'm going to have to be
filming this again. And it happens to me, I think, pretty much in every painting, but I want you to learn
to take a breath, to sit back and not
judge things too quickly and to see that if
you push through that point, there are lots of little
things that you can do to lift painting. And this one doesn't really
come together really until just a few little details right at the end.
So stick with it. I hope that I don't look back at this introduction
and think gosh, I've put you off
taking the class. It's really isn't
that difficult. You just need to pay a
little bit of attention to the timing and push through anything that
you think is a mistake, not judge yourself too harshly. So let's get going.
2. Materials: Materials for today's class. First up the reference photo. This one is from
Pixabay and I've popped a link underneath
the materials feed to download that photo. I'm painting on 300 gram
archers cold pressed paper. I'm painting flash on a board, but I'm not taping it down. In terms of paints today, I'm using just a four. I've got a couple of
Windsor and Newton paints. I've got Burnt Sienna
and yellow cha. You could use Raw Ciena if
you didn't have yellow ka. And two Daniel Smith paints. I've got Vandy Brown, and I've got indigo as well. You'll need a pencil and eraser, your palette, jar of
water and some tissues, and then for brushes,
I've got just a three. This one is the one
that I'm doing most of the work with details of that are under the
material section. This is just a little synthetic
for the smaller areas. This one is just
a flat brush son an oil brush for lifting out
some of these highlights. That's really the
only place that I'm using that and a little
bit in the main. I think that's all
for materials. So let's get to the sketch.
3. Sketching Up: Okay. First up with the sketch. Now, I have kept
this really simple. I've got my basic outline. I've paid a little bit
of attention to the eye, so I've got the curve of
the eye and the eyelid. A bit of a line in to show me the separation of the
lips on the mouth. But I'm not drawing
in any of the spots, keeping those for painting,
not worrying about that. I have given myself a bit of an indication of
where the main sits. Now, if you don't want
to sketch this up, I do have this as a
template that you can download from the site. So I think we'll get painting.
4. Spots on the Neck: So I'm going to start
with my medium brush. And what we're going
to do is we're going to just wet down the neck area, maybe coming into the
head a little bit with some milky yellow ocher. Now, if I say this
a lot, I feel, but if I was
painting for myself, I'd probably wet
down the whole lot, but because I want to
break this up for you, I'm just going to
do the neck first. So really milky
consistency paint. I'm going to stay
out of the main. I'm going to leave the
main just dry paper. Now, my room is pretty warm, so I've got to put a
reasonable amount of water on because it's going
to dry pretty quickly. I'm coming to this side. Now, because I'm not going
to paint in the face yet, I'm just going to get some clean water and just soften off that yellow edge where I've stopped so that I don't get
too much of a hard line. All right. I'm also going to pop a little bit of water
just going into that. Yeah. Now I've got lots of
dust on this bit of paper. Must have been kicking around
in my studio for a bit. All right. Now, what
I'm going to do? I'm going to test
out and see how fat my paint is going to
spread when I put on the spot. So I've got some bandit brown and a bit of burnt
sienna in my well here. I'm just going to test out what color that gives
me on a bit of paper. So probably more van ****
than the Burnt Sienna. Down here, I'm going
to test out and see how far that's
going to spread. That's probably all right. I
want to spread a little bit, but I don't want to shoot
over the whole page. I'm going to come along
and just pop in my spot. I'm looking at the
reference to get a little bit of an idea
roughly where they are, but I'm not painting
shapes as such, I'm just dropping in the paint. And I want to let the
water do the work for me. Now coming up here, Do I
need another one down there? Maybe, I'm just going to
put a little one in here. Maybe one softening off there. I've got my palette needs. I've got a dust everywhere, actually, a little
bit of hair in there. Now, getting a
little bit smaller as I come up to the top here. Okay. And while,
before I'm fully dry, I want to pop a couple in here. Now, the reason I did this
side as well is because I want to make sure I'm getting the similar colors in both
sides of the neck here, because chances are
if I did this side, walked away for a
while and came back, I wouldn't pick up the same mi if I went down this side of
the neck and did it again. And I'm going to
pop one just down. I'll be dry in here, so I might have to pop
a bit of water. I'm not got any
movement at all there. I'm going to pop a bit
of water in there. I might bring that right
to the edge of the neck. Et's see if I can
get maybe one more. You can see now here. I'm
fully dry on that paper. So I'm just wet my brush. I'll just soften
that back a bit. I need to get out now because my paper is dried up the top. So I just have to work on, I'll have to join this bit to the rest of the
face when it's dry. Now the point of this is to sit back and let it do its thing. You don't want to try and fix up all these
shapes and muck in here. You just want to let it go. So resist the temptation to fiddle and let that
dry for 10 minutes.
5. Finishing the Spots: Okay. In about 10 minutes
and I'm fully dry now, so we're going to continue
on with the face. And what you should find is that you've got this nice light. If you haven't touched
it, that you've got the nice light
between the spots, and it doesn't
matter that they're not all even and all perfect. That's the point.
We don't want to be we're not going for
perfectionism here. We're just trying
to give the idea. All right. So milky
yellow cer again. I'm going to paint
through the face. Now, up here underneath the ear, I'm going to leave
a little bit of dry paper under
this pencil line, so when I put paint on here, if I put paint on the ear, it doesn't bleed straight
into the forehead here. I stay out of the eye
for the time being. It's really just
instead of wetting down with water we've just got a touch of color just to make it easier to see where
we're going, really. Okay. I might leave it dry as well between the top of the ear here. And the hos. While I'm at it, I'm
just going to wet down a bit on this other ear as well. All right. Now I want
to have a look at my reference and decide
where these spots are. Trying to pick up a similar mix to where we were
before for the neck. I'm just going to move the spots the top of the head
here are small. Then I'll get darker as we
move to the top of the horns. Really just letting the
paint do the work for me. I'm just going to tidy
up that edge there. I'm not turning my head off. I'm really already
quite dry up there. I'm going to stay
out of the ears for the horns for a minute. Come down and pop
a little bit of something through the face here. Now, there's not in the ear. It's darker on the bottom. What I'm going to
do is just a bit of in the bottom of that ear. S and just let that bleed. Coming down now to
the face here cheek, there's spots all through here. I want to try and
follow although I'm not really painting
true to the reference, I do want to follow
the curve here. I'm just randomly
throwing some stuff in mix of the van dike
and the burnt sienna. Then as I come down
to the bottom here, it's really small shapes. I've got this funny
the lip down here. I'm just going to
now paint straight. I feel like I'm pretty dry here. There's a lot of
dark under there when you look at the reference. Now I'm just going
to paint solidly. I've got mostly ciena there and just paint through
the front of that face. Just to get that first wash off. I'm going to wash my brush
and with a clean damp brush, I'm just going to soften
where that paint comes up. Here because I want to retain the light on the
front of the nose. Now here, I've
completely dried off, so I'm going to just
have to wet that down. Again, actually, I
might deal with that. Yeah, I think I'm going to leave that and deal with that
when I'm dealing with the rest of the lip there because if I add
more paint there, I could get into strife. Now, I coming back here
where I wanted to join. You can see that I've
got that hard line. It's a bit messy, so I just
need to soften off where my wet edge meets
that first wash. Okay. Now, I worry
about that later. My ear here is probably dry. I'm just going to get
a bit more water again because I do want to pop same
thing that we did there, just a little bit of
van **** in there. So really milky van **** just on the back
of the ear there. I'm just letting it run. Maybe just a touch on that side, wash my brush. Soften that in. Now, if you're dry
up on the horns, I'm just going to
pop a little bit of the horn in and then we'll
come out and let this fully dry because
you can see what happened because my
page dries so quickly. Now I'm just going to
pop a bit more water on. Doesn't matter if that bleeds
because I'm going with heavier paint over the
top. And this side. That's the top
third of the horn. And then I'm going to take
creamy thicker van **** now and just throw that
into that web page. Because I've had a few
copies this morning, I'm going to switch
to my smaller brush to get a little
bit more control. My hands are a little bit and just tease that shape
to where I want it. So I'm just pulling that
pigment out to my pencil edge. I'm ignoring all
the little bumps and things that are
on the reference. I'm just giving the idea. Now I'm just washing my
brush because again, I just want to blend
where I've got really wet paper and
really starting to dry paper so that I don't
get those joins. I'm just softening
the wet edge into the dryer edge
without introducing a whole more water.
Same on this side. Then I'm going to come out
of that and let that dry. While that's drying, I'm just
going to sit here and keep an eye on this join and make sure if I see it forming any edges
that I don't like, I'm just going to make sure I chase them back,
soften them off. But you just have to
keep remembering, don't add any more
water into this while it's drying or you'll be in a world of pain and you
won't be able to fix it. Just clean damp brush
just to keep blending it. So I want to come out
of that, let that dry, then we'll come in and
add some of the details before we probably
put in the main.
6. Mane and Starting the Shadows: We've been another 10
minutes and I'm fully dry. Now, there are bits of this that absolutely I don't
like at the moment. So things like my join here, my spots have really
disappeared here and then I've got really
obvious spots here, but I don't want
to deal with that. Until I finish some
of the other detail because that will show me
whether that matches or not. Because often I think
you get at this stage, you get hung up on bits that
you don't like and you start fiddling with them
before too early. It's too early to tell what
does and doesn't work. Again, resist the
temptation to fiddle. I'm going to go with
my medium brush again and we're going to
just pop in the main. Now, to do that
initially, I think all I'm going to do I I'm going to paint a line
of yellow ca down here. Drop a little bit of some
bandit that to the base of it, see how I feel about it and fiddle with it later
if we need to. So I'm going to start
on the top of the page, push down as I come to spread my brush a bit as I come down
to the bottom of the mane. All right. So milky to
creamy, yellow aca. Come on. I'm just going to my
page is bit wobbly. I'm just going to rest my little finger here
to steady my hand. Come down start to push down
as I come down to here. I pushed down a bit too early, so I'm just going to
clear up that little bit. Where I got paint
there because I don't really want it just there. So I just grabbed a tissue, which I can do because
that wash is dry. All right. Then I'm going to take some be van
**** brown, I think. Same brush, really
tooth pasty paint now. And maybe from about here, into that wet page. Drag a little bit of that paint. I might come up a
little bit further. Wash my brush, and
I'm just going to soften that in a bit. I just want a little
bit of movement. If I don't like it,
I can come back and fiddle with it later. Yeah, I think it's two already. I've decided. I want to mark. Flat brush, bit of water. I'm just going to drag some
of that while it's still wet, some of that van ****. Just to make it a bit
more interesting. I'm drawings. I really
should turn off my ha, but I'm really I am so cold. Don't overdo it. Now I'm going to work on I
might come into the eye. I'm going to take
a smaller brush. Actually have a look
at my reference. I'm going to paint
the shape in for the eye with a little bit of my burnt sienna Van **** mix. Go onto dry paper, putting the right glasses on. I can't see. In here. I want that
curve to be right. You might have to tilt it up
to see where you're going. I might bring that up.
Now to settle that I in, I'm going to clean that brush. I'm just going to drag
my damp brush just along the edge of it, it bleeds out a little bit. And I'll have to come back
and restate that dark, but I just want that soft up the top there to decide
where how far out I'm coming. If it disappears
too much on you, I'm just going to grab a
little bit more van dy. I can just throw
a bit more paint. Now, I need to give
myself a little bit of a shadow underneath
this ear here and join up my gap here
that's a little bit wide. I'm stay with my small brush. I'm just going to
paint up to that ear. Doesn't matter if that
was I'm softening off that hard line a bit, coming down to this
little curve in the face. Then I'm going to pick up. I'm going to put a
little bit of indigo with my van **** because
I wanted a bit stronger, and I'm just going to
touch in to that wet page. Bit more. Wash my brush
and just soften off. Oh, I didn't wash my
brush. All right. Because I've just put paint
on that I don't want, I'm just going to get to my
bigger brush and just get enough water to be
able to soften that back because I didn't
clean my brush. Because I've had to
fix that mistake, I've now lost most
of my pigment. This is the sort of stuff
that happens all the time. Not intentional, but now, I'll go back and
pop a bit more of that darker pigment and let it. Let it bleed. While
that's settling in, I'm going to come back to the nose here where I didn't where it was
all a bit too dry, and I'm just going to wet down the nostril and pop in a little bit of my
van **** Vc mix. Wash my brush. I want it
to softly transition up. I'm just picking up a bit
more van **** because I want it darker down the bottom there. These are This is what we'll do on this side
of the face as well, but just not quite yet. I'm going to come into here and start a shadow on
this side of the face. We might go to the medium brush again so I can actually wet down
a bit more quickly. Wet do where the
chin meets the neck. Now, I am going to do
then I'm going to pick up some bandi and indigo
into that web page. Drop that paint.
Tease that up a bit. I'm just chiseling out seeing, I think that's
probably the line. I'm going to be darker
on this side than here. I'm just trying to get my eye in as to where that lip starts. But because I've teased
that pigment out, you can see it's
diluted quite a bit, so I'll just grab
a bit more paint while it's st and
drop it back in. I think I'm actually
going to also drop. I just want a little bit
more warmth in there. I'm just going to
pop a little bit of burnt center in there
while it's still damp, just to warm it up a bit. Then I'm just going to tidy up, yours mightn't be a problem, but my shape here. I've got a bit of messiness air that I'm going to tidy up, so I'm just painting with water. And then I'm going to
take a bit of my van di. And lets me fix up that shape because I just had a little chink of
white that I didn't like. While we're in the
little shadow mode, I'm going to do a
little bit just on this ear just to start. Wet down half of the ear. I'm just going to
blend that spot a bit. I've got a bit of a
better transition from the head there
into the ear. And then I'm just in
the join down here, going to drop a little bit of mine that's too much indigo. I want to browner than that. Little bit of paint,
wash my brush, flood that a bit, and
just move that pigment around till I'm happy
with the shape. You can see that even though I, I went on with that indigo
and it was too much and I had to add the brown in and it was a lot of pigment, rather than trying
to lift it off. I've just flooded it with
water and pushed and pulled the pigment to get
to get what I want. You don't have to panic. Now, I need to sit back for a minute and
see where I want to go next. I'm going to stop there
and let that dry. Probably this is where
I'm going to come in next and think a bit
more about the eye, and then we'll do the
dark under the mouth, but I need to come out for five and have a
think. Let that dry.
7. Strengthening the Mouth: Apologize. For some reason, the flight path that I
mean is really loud today. I'm hoping that
you can't hear it too much to know where
everyone's going, but there's a lot of traffic. I'm going to come back
and fix in a few of the little problems that
I can see at the moment. For starters, my pencil line, you might not be able to see it, but my nose actually
comes out a little bit further and I've missed it with the first pencil line.
With the first wash. I'm going to take a tiny bit of really milky Yellow achar. I'm going to come
onto this page. I'm just going to
worry that edge of the wash so that it disappears and bring that out to my pencil line because I need it to come up
to the eye there. That's a bit better. Because there's
that nice flash of light on the front of the
face that I want to retain. Now, on the front
of the eye here, there's a bit of light here, but I need to darken off
on the top of the eye. I'm just going to that
down little brush. I'm just going to I'm going
to in a bit of by mix. Wash my brush. I want it
all fleeting and soft. Come to my actual ge I might. I'm going to go slightly darker and suggest that
a bit of an eyelid. There's that little
eyelid in there. Just suggesting that, and
then I need to darken off in the corner here in
the corner of the eye. Wash my brush, just pushing at the pigment
around a little bit until I'm happy with
where it's sitting. Then I'm going to move down
to this part of the face. Bring my reference. I'm going to pick up just
some water it's quit now. I'm going to try and
not cover that in. I quite like that.
We'll see how we go in a wet all around this area. Then I'm going I want a
bit of warmth in there, so I'm going to pick
up my brown and burn, my van dike and burnt sienna and drop that
into the wet page. Now I'm going to leave just
to make it easier for myself. Just a tiniest bit of a
gap so that I can get my eye where the lip
actually is there. Just tidy up my shape. Wash my brush and I need to soften where it comes
up into the cheek. Then actually in here, there's a bit of light there. I can if I've got less water
on my brush than in my page, I can play with
that a little bit. I don't want to I can't
introduce water into there. That will go badly, but
I can use my clean brush to give that slight suggestion of a bit more light. There. I'm trying not to lose
too much of this light, but I do need to bring
it up a little bit. Washing my brush,
softening that off. Now, I need while
it's still wet. I'm going to put in a bit
more andy underneath. Now I want really
thick thick paint. I've got there, that might
be too thick. We'll see. I'm coming underneath that
little triangle there. And see if I can come out to
my pencil edge a bit more. I'm just starting to think about what's
happening in here. It's a crazy looking
mouth, really. Wash my brush. I go to
soften that back a bit. Now, I think I possibly got too much light under that bit, but I want to wait
until it dries before I add another layer
because it's really it's a pain to have
to shake it off, easier to add it than to have
to try and chase it back. I'm going to leave that one
there and then I'm going to a bit of dark
underneath here. Now I now. I can join up that gap. Again, I'm just being really careful not to add more water. Really dry brush. I'm just
clean the brush and I'm just teasing it into that
burn sienna wash. I wanted to keep that light, but I'm going to have to put
some of it in because it's too much light that often happens you light the effect of the paint that you produce, but it it doesn't work
with the actual painting, so I'm going to have to close
in a little bit of that. Now, I've been in there a while. It's possibly not
quite right yet, but I'm going to
get into trouble if I keep playing in there. I need to come out of that,
and I'm going to think about the ear here for a minute. And then we'll see how
much more we've got to go. I need to probably
get a few more spots in here and then get a little bit of stuff happening
on the bottom of the ear. I'm going to wet down
bottom half of the ear. Into this bit that
I didn't like, I'm going to try and deal
with that a bit now. I've got dry paper on
the top of the ear wet on the bottom. Now you could use some lavender
would probably be nice. I can see in the
reference some lavender. Another purple in there
if you wanted to, I'm going to keep
the palette simple. I'm just going to
stick with my any. I've just throw a bit
of paint in there, keep it really messy. Then I've I need to
get a couple of spots. Up here, probably needs a
bit more Ciena in there. I might bring just a bit more because I don't really want to pay too much attention
to the reference. I don't want to get too
much detail in there, but I just need something
happening in that ear. Now I can feel that
I'm fiddling in there. Don't like that bit
that I just put in. I'm just going to
soften those edges. This is the exact, the reason why it's nicer if you can wet
at all and do it at once because these
don't quite match, but I can't really do
anything about that. Now I need a little bit of
the warmth that I've got here into the cheek. Did I wet that? I
think it's wet. I'm going to take a bit and I meant to get some
burnt sienna then. I just getting a bit
of burnt sienna. I just want a little
bit more warmth through there maybe one there. Again, I've got to go easy
because it's really easy to start put adding adding adding and then discover
that I've got too much. I'm just watching
that little edge. The other thing I
have to decide is whether I want to the
little horns here. I might just see. Take a really milky vy
and just a touch on that division there between the horns at front and these
little horns at the back. Big horns and little
horns, presumably. You might just is that shape. You might need to depend what your spots looks like and how your painting actually looks. You might need that,
but I'm going to pop that just in there. Then I think a little bit
of a shadow in there. I'm going to go to
my small brush just to tidy up this shape because I didn't come to my pencil line. I'm not going to
worry about that, but I've got a big triangle
of white there. It's bugging me a little bit. I'm just going to whack a bit of I've got some and wet the page, and popped a bit of van dike in there just to reconcile
that shape a bit. Then I as this is drying, I probably need a
little bit of the same. I know I've already
been in there once, but I'm just going to pop a little bit of water
and a little bit more with my van **** a bit rough in there just so that
these ears match a bit. Probably there's
more yellow ochre up as I sit back and look. There is a lot of
light on this ear, but I possibly need a little
bit more yellow ochre, a little bit more
warmth on that side. I'll just wet it down
and just a touch. I don't want a
whole lot. Now, I'm probably going to let that dry. I'm going to just soften
back those hard edges. Go to let it fully dry, then I'm going to rub
out the pencil lines, and then I'm going to see
what else we need to do to finish because I want to put in a bit more detail in the eye, see if I need to work on this, see if any of these shadows
need to be strengthened, but I'm going to
come out of that for ten and that settle.
8. Finishing Off: Okay. We're on the
home stretch now. Couple of things
I'm going to do. Firstly, I'm going
to work in the eye. Now, I'm going to
take my small brush, clean it, take off
the excess water. I'm just going to
lift a little bit of paint on the bottom
part of that eye. If it won't move, you
can pop your tissue to it while it's stamped
to help help it move. I think it like a marble. I just want a little
bit of glow at the bottom without pointing
a really obvious highlight. If you end up taking
too much off, you can paint it back in. Then I'm going to
get some indigo, and I want to give
a little bit of the eyelash feel.
Small brush still. I'm going to paint my tissue, so I've not got too much
paint on. Then in here. Just going to pop just a
little bit of that eyelash. I might even round up. Just when I look at that shape, that eyes a bit
rounder up the top. Don't get too carried away with the eyelash because you'll end up looking like
a cartoon character. Just that little suggestion. Now, when I look in here,
first couple of things. There's all the creasing
in the neck here, and it's a bit nothing in there. I like that bleed, but here I can see my pencil line.
What I'm going to do? I'm going to take my flat brush, stiff brush, I'm
going to clean it. Just on this pencil line here. To see if I can just lift out a highlight act I
might come this way. Cleaning the brush and
just lifting that paint, just to get a feel of
those creases in there, and I come all the way down. I might put there's
quite a few in there. Just because it's
a fairly boring, I've got anything very
interesting going on in there, just to give myself a
little bit of interest. I can just break up
those shapes a bit. Now of course, you
have to actually have some pigment on there
for anything to lift. It's quite a handy sheet because I don't
want to muck around and put more spots there. But I want to give
that feeling of the wrinkling but you have to keep cleaning the
brush to do that. Maybe as well, like all
that wrinkling in the ear, let's see if I live
to regret this. Just a touch in the ear. It depends what you've got
happening in your painting. You might not need anything that might have all
worked beautifully. But I feel like I just needed
a little bit of something. I'm just looking at
that little light. I think probably just going
to tidy up that shape a bit. I think I probably need
a touch of something. I want the light here, but I need a little bit of spotting on there.
We're nearly done. I'm just going to
take my little brush just because there is all sorts of stuff
happening in there. Just going to wet that down. Just not soaking, take a
little bit of my van dike and burnt Ciena mix and just a just a touch of
spotting just through there. Then really to finish,
while I'm looking at that, I think for me, I just need a little bit stronger in the shadow
underneath here. Just to balance
probably the dark. I've got a fair bit of
dark on the horns here, and then I just feel like I need it to
balance a bit better there. This has to be dry
where you've lifted before you do this and yours
might already be darken. See if this time I don't
it up. Picking up. I'm actually going to
stick with my band di and burn sienna in there, so keep it a little bit warmer. It's just little things like that that can make
quite a big difference. To me, that just maybe
I'm kidding myself, but to me that just works
a little bit better. I think that's probably
where I'm going to stop. Let me just look. Yeah, I think that's where
I'm going to stop. Now, I did two versions
of this before I filmed it because
this isn't easy. For me, the thing that tripped me up while
I was doing it, was how many spots I put in and adding too much and then finding that everything
ran together. Don't feel bad if
you have to have a couple of goes because I
had to have a couple of gos. But the main thing I
want add of this one, this for me is still the
nicest part of the painting. These parts where we just
dropped it in and let it go, didn't touch it, and That always looks better than all these bits that you
have to fiddle with. I'm hoping that you get
that beautiful glow and it helps you work out how far
your paint is going to go, depending on how
wet your page is. When you finish up,
take a photo of your painting and upload it to the project section
for me to have a look at. I'm always happy to give you some feedback.
Thanks for joining me.
Nadine Dudek, Professional Watercolour Artist
