Transcripts
1. Introduction wheat field: Imagine turning a simple idea into a stunning piece of art, a glowing field of wheat
drenched in sunrise. In this class, I'm going
to walk you through my full process of
transferring a design, inking it, layering
vibrant watercolors, and finishing it with
shimmering gold accents. So whether you're starting out or have been
painting for years, stick around because
this class isn't just about creating a
stunning piece of art. It's about building
confidence in your creative process,
because by the end, you'll not only have
a radiant artwork, but also the skills to take any design from
concept to completion. Hi, I'm Jules, and
this is my art vendor. It's where things get creative, a little quirky, and
a whole lot of fun. So grab your paints, settle in, and let's make
something magical together.
2. Materials needed: In this lesson, we
are going to go over the materials we will need
to complete this project. To begin with, we will need
our printout of the design. This is attached to the lesson
in the download section. You can print this out on your printer just with a
regular sheet of printer paper. You will also need a piece of graphite paper cut to the
size of your printout. Graphite paper is not the
same thing as carbon paper. Carbon paper is going
to go on the paper a lot darker than
graphite paper. Graphite paper actually can erase with an
eraser very easily. If you want a cheap workaround, instead of buying
graphite paper, I will show you how
to make some with a number two pencil and a piece of computer
printout paper. Okay, so that and we will
also need some paint brushes. I've got a gold pen and just a regular
black ballpoint pen. I also have a purple micron, which is a permanent
pigment pen. I'm also going to use several different
colors of watercolor. One of them is this Opera pink. Love Some opera pink. I'm also going to use some
purple, which is right here. And then I'm also going
to use in a variety of different idscent
watercolors. This is a brand Karatake. I got these the other day, and I haven't
stopped using them. I haven't put them away at all. They've been out for
several weeks now. Okay, so what else do we need? We need some washi tape. And then we'll need
our sketchbook or any loose piece of paper that you want to
complete this project on. Okay, we'll also need
some water and a rag. I use a cotton rag that is like an old bed sheet that I would have
thrown away or donated. I just rip them up into squares and use them
over and over again. Okay, so if you
guys want to grab your supplies and
meet me back here, and we are going to get
started with this project.
3. Sketchbook & Image Prep transfer: All right. In this lesson, we are going to prep our paper, and we are going to prep
our image for transfer. So I've got my washi tape out. I am taping off the
edges of my sketchbook, which is where I've decided
to put this design in, and I'm going to
continue on each edge, and I'm also going to tape
down the middle just in case I get a pool of water from the watercolors
that we are using. Okay, so that looks good. Now I'm getting my image, and I'm going to start trying to orient it as to where
I want it on the page. My page, once I've taped it
off is about 7 " by 7 ". So that's how big I have printed out the design that
I made for us today, and I've got out
the graphite paper. So I'm just taking the time to place and make sure I can see the mountain on
the top and all of the trees that everything I
want is in the field of view. And I just kind of crease the top of the
paper a little bit, and that's how it's
going to be once I start tracing the image. However, if you guys do
not have graphite paper, I am excited to show you how
to make some of your own. Get your number two pencil, get a piece of computer paper, and turn the pencil on its side and just start
scrubbing back and forth, like you see me doing here. I am going to cover an
entire area so that when I flip this paper over and
put it underneath the design, I'll just be able to
trace over the lines on the design and the graphite
will show through. So I've taken that out. I'm replacing my
design on there, and I'm going to put a
little piece of tape over to the left and then I'm going to add my graphite
paper underneath my design. So the darker side, the side with the graphite goes down onto the page where
we are putting the design. The light side goes up, and I fold my design back over. So now I'm getting
my ballpoint pen, and I'm just going
to start tracing over some of these lines. And I'm going to do the
base of each one of these sheaths and then just
kind of work my way up. So this is the image transfer. A little bit of graphite is
going down onto our paper that we are going to put
our final design on, and I'm just kind of going
through and there you have it. Yes, it's light, but I
see it. I see the leaves. I know what I've done, and I've always got
my reference image that I could look at later also. So I'm speeding up this
process. There's another one. Boom. So I'm speeding
up this process just so you can see all
the steps necessary. But also, and here's
here's this one. This is with the pencil lead, just showing you another
example on the side. So anyway, yeah, I think it's an awesome
technique. I think it's easy. And if you've already
got a design that you've made on some tracing paper
or some other paper, and you want to transfer
it over into a sketchbook, these are the methods that I use almost every day to do so. So I'm just going
to, like I said, fast forward through this
and show you I'm not getting every single detail I'm
just making some outlines. So on a lot of these
sheets of wheat, I'm just pulling a straight line up and through and just getting the first few little nuglets of foliage at the
bottom on each. And you'll see what I mean
when I pull this design up and we look at what
we have underneath. And so I want you to do this. I want you to get your
image onto the paper. So in the next
lesson, we will go on with our micron pen and start with that permanent ink to outline the image we
just transferred.
4. Inking the Design: M. All right. The time has come for us to
start inking the design. We have drawn in
with graphite paper, the design we are making, and I'm just going to start in the middle with one of
these wheat stocks and my purple micron 0.5 pen. Yeah, so time out right now. If you don't have a micron pen, just make sure your pen
has permanent ink in it. That way later when
we add watercolor, the ink will not bleed. And I'm just going
to begin pulling these lines up and I'm looking
at my reference photo. I'm also going to take
the time to get some of these more interesting leaves down first and
just sort of trace around where we've drawn. Now, I know I didn't draw each and every one of these
wheat stocks earlier. I just pulled some
straight lines, but I can fill in the gaps
because there's enough of them enough of them that
I recognize the pattern, and I'm just going to
make the same pattern over and over and over again. So here we go. I'm pulling up the lines. I'm going to put one kind of off center there
in the middle. Instead of pair pair pair, I've got one in the middle, and I did that on
the first one also. I'm going to speed this
up because I'm really going to do the same thing
over and over again. I'm choosing the wheat
stocks to start with. I'm filling those in
because those are the things that add
the most interest, and I want to make sure
I've got the placement correct before I go in and
add the leaves and whatnot. Just filling in
the gaps as I go, being mindful of
what's in front, what's behind, being loose, not taking everything,
you know, so literal. Building out some of
these smaller ones and making sure when I'm drawing these bigger ones
that like I said, I've got one offset
in the middle, one of the little
petals of wheat, little leaves of
wheat in the middle. So I'm just building
these up and out, kind of using a
zentangle approach of a repeating pattern. But you notice, I'll always start at the bottom
and then build it up. I find that's the easiest
way for me to get these shapes the
way I want them. I pull my lines up and out, I come from the
center and go up. And let's see. This here, I'm going to bring
this lease up and over and maybe one
more right here. I'm just taking artistic license at this point with this one. Okay, that's looking
pretty good. Let me fill one more little
piece of wheat right here. C. Pull my stems down. Okay, so I'm going to
start in the background. So the wheat in the field
that's closest to us, we're going to see a
little bit more detail. So we want to see
some ragged edges, and we want to keep
that little rhythm going throughout the
front of that field. We're going to pull
lines back behind it. And as we go on in the distance, we're going to
make them smaller. And further apart and eventually just end up in a
straight line or a wavy line. And so I'm just going to
pull the rest of these, putting some ink on the paper. And again, this is
a permanent ink. The microns are archival ink. So when we get them wet in a little bit, they
will not bleed. We can put water over them and the pigments not
going to move at all. Okay, so these trees, I'm going to be very loose. I'm not being literal with what I have written
there at all. I'm just kind of
making some blobs and moving along the landscape. And then I'm gonna fill
in some little trees in the background
in the distance. And do the same thing over here. And really, they're
just a bunch of squiggly lines at that point
because they're so far away. Alright, time to
erase everything. That graphite that we put down from the graphite
paper is very light. It is very easily erased. So I'm taking the time to do
that a little bit more up top right there. And
that's about it. And we're about ready to
move on to our next phase, which is adding pink and purple
watercolor to our design. So I hope you found this
image transfer easy. I use this almost every
day in my art practice, and I think you should, too.
5. Pink and Purple Watercolor backfround: M. So now it's time for
us to have some fun and start adding our
watercolor pinks and purples to our design that
we have transferred and ink. Okay, guys, this is where
the magic starts happening, and I don't want you to
overthink this too much. I just want you to wet the paper and get a little
bit of your pink, your opera rose, your opera
pink on the flat brush. And you'll see I'm just starting to move it around
with the water. I'm making sure I don't
have too much pigment. And I am going to take my
time as I do this process, and I haven't sped this
up at all for you guys to see how much I'm
working it into the paper. And making sure I'm doing an ombre effect where it's a
little darker at the bottom, and then it goes
up to the light. Okay. So I'm going up to the line where we see that
wheat in the background, and I'm keeping the paper really moist so that the
pigment flows around. And part of what I want to create when I do these
backgrounds is have some areas that have different
amounts of pigment on it. So I don't want
everything to be uniform. I don't want it to be exactly the same all over the place. Okay, I'm gonna
go up to the top. I've got a little more pigment on my brush and a lot of water, and I'm just going to
outline the whole top part, including the trees
and everything. I'm not gonna worry about
the trees right now. And you can see that it's transparent or
translucent, either one. And I want to keep
it that way, too, so I can see the design
that we inked in behind it. You see how wet I
have the paper too. I want this so that
the pigment moves around and things stay organic. So there I just added a
little bit more water, bringing that through
across the field, and I'm keeping in the
direction of the field. I'm bringing it left to right. Okay. So now I want to grab
a little more pigment, and we're going to start going
in between these leaves. And I've loaded my
brush up the one time, and I'm Okay, I'm going
back to the well again. But I'm dropping in
some very liquid, very pigment forward areas, and I'm letting them spread. We've added enough water to the paper that when
I drop these in, they're trying to
spread on their own, and then I'm just very lightly touching it with the tip of my brush to get it to move around to
where I want it to go. So I can really manipulate this, and I'm using the amount of pigment I have on my
brush to my advantage. So as the pigment gets
lighter and lighter, I'm going up to the areas where I need less
and less pigment. So I'm going out into the field and just
kind of dotting to create some different textures
way back in the field. Okay, and that's looking pretty
good, bringing it around. And now I'm going to
grab my round brush, that's dry, and I'm going to start removing some of
this unwanted pigment. So all I'm doing is painting on the wet paper
with a dry brush, and I'm wiping it off on my
rag in between each leaf. And you see how it's
nicely lifting it up. And what this is going
to do is allow for me to put other colors and just create different depths of shading later when we go
to do the leaves. And it's going to
allow me to see our design a little
bit more, too. So I can lift up some pigment
to help myself out later. I think that looks great. It also creates more barrier for the pigment to stay
where I want it to. If I dry off the middle, it won't bleed off into
the leads anymore. Okay, so I put first time purple on there because I want you to see that I'm not going to the well of my
pigment very much. Okay, so I've loaded
my brush up one time, and I'm kind of bringing it
around and just using and watching the values that's coming off of the end
of my paint brush, where I want them to go. When I lose the amount of pigment that I have on my brush, I just go back to that
first initial spot that I made on the paper that's really
dark at the bottom left. You'll see me go
there occasionally and reload my brush up. So like I said, I've only been to the well once, and I'm going to
cover quite the area with what's on my brush. It's a relatively dry brush. You can start to see some
of my brush strokes in it. And as I'm going up, I'm kind of creating
with the side of my brush the texture or the direction that
other leaves would grow that other stalks
of wheat would grow. And so there I go back to the well in that
bottom left corner. See how I grabbed
off the pigment, and I'm going to keep moving it around only having been to
that well of purple one time, bringing it up, and the brush
is getting drier and drier. You'll see, I can start to make more wispy marks with
the edge of the brush. And kind of feather
that out a little bit. Easing all the pigment in my
brush that I have already. Okay, now I'm really dry. And, so then I'll have
to go back to the well. Okay, so I'm getting
some water on my brush. I'm going back for
the second time. Look how dense that is, but I'm going to dance it around and keep building up layers. So I'm just again trying to
create different areas of the background that
have different amounts of pigments of not
only the pinks, but now the purples, and I'm just going to
move them around. I've sped this one up just a tiny bit just to get through it. But I think you guys see
the idea of what I'm doing. I try to keep with the patterns of the items that
we are painting. So the shape of the leaves,
the shape of the wheat, going back for some water
smooth this out some so that the pigment can
start to move a little bit up into those ombre areas. Taking my time,
going around Okay. And third time to the well. This one's got a lot
more water on it. It's going to move
around a lot more. I'm going to try to keep
that area a little more dark in that, you know,
front right part. And this is the fourth and final time that I went
back to the well. See how I've got two
different darker areas, three different darker areas, one in the bottom left, one in the middle right. That little bit I
just popped in right there on the far
right and middle, bringing water through it again. Water will really help to keep things moving around
in the background. But I think that is
looking pretty ding dang good with the
different colorations. I've got lots of movement
for my eye to move around, and, you know, things
are going to shift, I mean, when it dries,
and we can re evaluate. But I think this is going
to look pretty good. I'm not being precious about, you know, what is there, just
dancing my brush around, following the outlines sort of, but not really keeping it organic bringing the
back line of trees in and then getting some
water on my brush and just kind of smoothing out some of these lines just to add a
little bit of shadow in it, but I do want to keep
this area light because later we're going to
put some of that gold or champagne flecking in it to get it to look like the sun
is shining on the field. Okay, a little bit
more water right here, just to bring this line through. Admittedly, I did
put a little bit of Payne's gray, I
think, right there. Just to deepen that
shadow and kind of cool it a little bit 'cause
everything else is warm. Okay, we're gonna let
this dry and come back to the next layer
in the next lesson. See that.
6. Golden Watercolor & Embellishments: Okay, we're coming in to the final portion of our
watercolor wheat field. Our backgrounds of pinks and purples have dried and
are ready to go for us. I have gotten out my starry
colors by Kura take, and I am just going to start gilding these pieces of wheat. I'm going to arbitrarily choose different colors
of these golds that I have and peerlescent
colors, idscent colors. I'm going to do three to five of each color and then
just kind of make some artistic choices as to what I want what I
want to place, where. So I've gotten my
palette all wet. I use the spray bottle to
get all the colors wet so they could be nice and
moist for me, ready to use. Putting down this orange gold
color right now and just kind of picking different points along the page just to keep
your eye moving around. Your brain wants to
match colors and shapes. And so in me spreading out where I'm placing
these colors, I'm forcing the viewer's eye
to bounce around, as well. So I'm not being too precious about where I'm putting
these marks or even coloring in side of the lines because I know
at the end I'm going to come back with that micron pen again and fill in
some more details. So I'm just going around. You guys can pick whichever ones you want to paint
whatever color. I just think these golds
and iridescent are awesome, and they really go great with
trying to create this scene of daybreak with the sun coming over the hillside
and the countryside. Okay, got a few more to color in choosing this
one to be light, and I've got some that are overlapping in different areas. So, like this one goes behind that other one and on
top of the white one, and then I still have that
other one to fill in. I get these little guys. And then this last one I'll do more like the champagne color, which is a mid tone color and
on top of the orange one. Alright, so now I want
to mix a color for the leaves of our wech stalks. So I'm grabbing
some of this kind of iridescene champagne color, and I'm gonna mix it
with my opera pink. And I'm just going to get a tone that I think
will go well. We're going to give this a try and see what that looks like. Okay. And I think that looks too close to the what
we've already done. So I'm going to add some more opera rose to it and
darken it up a little bit. That's looking a little better, and see what this looks like. Okay, yeah, that's
got a little bit of darker tinge to it, and I think I'm going
to go with that. So I've dropped
in how many times I'm reloading my paint brush in the bottom left
of the screen. I've got my wells there for
you so you can see as I go back and forth and how much paint I'm actually
adding to my brush. I've got that round brush. That I'm using that I used to pull away the paint earlier. I'm now using to add
the paint back in. So this beautiful,
iridescent color that's got a nice pinky quality
which picks up some of the tone of the background
that we've already painted. So I'm just going to
continue doing this around. It looks like I'm going to
have to mix some more pink, gold pink because I
don't have enough. Yeah, let me grab some
more and add more pink. Oh, that's pretty.
I like that color. Yeah. Okay, so here we go. Little bit darker
than the others, but I like the
different coloration. I can always take some of this darker and go on top of
the ones I've already done. But this is looking good. I'm gonna continue out
the rest of these leaves. Taking my time,
going, making sure the ones that are behind
the other ones look good. Just a few up top. Again, not being too
precious of my outlines. I'm covering some of
them up. That's fine. Alright. And one more. That is looking pretty good. Alright. Now we are gonna do a little bit of this
field in the background. I've got this champagne color, and I've got a whole lot
of water on my brush, and I'm just doing a thin, thin wash on top of the
field and the distance. I want it to look like it's catching some of that
morning sunlight. A little bit more right
there at the bottom. And then the far right hand corner, I'm not putting a lot. I'm just going to kind of wet it out and let it not be as
reflective right there, adding some water, just
kind of smearing it around, and blah, blah, blah. So that way, it's collecting more sunlight from the left
than it is from the right. And here's what it
looks like just at a different angle so you can see how the light is reflecting off of it and
playing differently. And now we are going to go
in with our gold gelpan. And I'm going down the stalks of all of these pieces
of wheat and leans, just dragging down the
line so that it has that little pop of sheen that
it's catching in the sun. And I'm making it
uniform on all of them. Again, not overthinking it. Sometimes I'm on top of the black line
we've already made, sometimes I'm beside it. And then I'm going to go around all these leaves, and
I know it's subtle, but I'm going to outline all of these in this gold pen as well. Again, there's going
to be a little bit of black still sticking out or the dark purple from my
micron pen sticking out, but I think that
looks really good, and it's just another level
of detail, although subtle. Yeah. Pulling in that middle
line on all of them, too. Okay. Now I'm going to
go up here to the field, and I'm just kind
of making a bunch of small parallel lines. They are not perfect. Each one is a little
bit different, but I'm just kind of hatching hatching in this front line. With gold just so it catches the light differently
again and this line, too, just because
they're upfront, they're going to be more fluffy. And then all these other lines, I'm probably just going to
make smaller and smaller dots, and then ultimately just lines, the further in the
distance this one gets. See, I'm just dotting
now and now just a line. It's not adding a lot.
It's pretty subtle. Just another layer of detail
to draw interest Okay. Alright, now I've got
my micron pen back out. This is the purple
micron. It's a 0.5. And I'm just going
back and hitting all the little leaves on I guess you call them
leaves on the wheat stocks, the little pieces of wheat
on the wheat stalks, just to get that level
of detail back in there. And I think that
really makes it pop. It makes your eye, you know, get drawn to the middle of the page where all the wheat is. It makes your mind
think of the wind blowing and the sun
coming up over that hill. Adding it in all of these beautiful wheat stocks
that we made with the gold and the pearl
essentidscent colors. And the last one. And then finally, I'm
going to go through all these stalks of the wheat
itself, not the leaves, but the wheat and just
kind of drop a shadow in next to the stems just to
help pull your eye down. And yeah, now we're
going to take out the washi tape and see
what we have made. So this is my completed project. I can't wait to see yours. Please upload it in the
project section of this class. Again, I am Jules. This is my art vendor. I hope you have gained some
confidence in filling in your sketchbook and enjoying the process of making some
wonderful art together.
Jules Art Bender, Artist and Art Educator
