Gouache Florals: Explore Shape, Color and Creative Composition

1. Welcome to Painting Gouache Florals: Oh. Gach is all the rage right now, and it's for a good reason. This highly demanded medium is extremely satisfying to practice. With this creamy consistency, rendering a beautiful matt opaque finish. In this class, we will be learning Gach while experimenting with a new floral painting style that will allow you to try a new approach when building composition while featuring their form in a more playful way. We'll be covering materials needed. How Gach is used and the results it can produce, doodling with gouache, layering your paint. We'll also be covering exercises to break you out of your comfort zone. This class is for both beginning and season artists. Beginners will learn guash techniques as a loose illustrative form while seasoned artists can play with a transition and medium or artistic style and technique. I am thrilled to see the pieces that you create during and after this class, as your projects will challenge you to build a unique floral arrangement that screams you. Let's get started. 2. Class Project: The project for this class will be to complete a collection of three pieces that will showcase different results. The first piece will be an experimentation of a limited color palette. You'll select 3-4 colors and stick to those to complete your entire piece. Your second piece will focus on creative composition where you choose what elements stand out to you the most, and you arrange florals in a new way. Lastly, once you've completed two pieces with separate focal points, you'll blend these two elements together for your final piece to showcase your creative choices in both color and composition. 3. Materials: This class calls for your paints and your brushes, your paper, and a water jar. I'm going to go over some of my favorites. While there are many options to brands, I don't want to overwhelm you. So to keep it really simple, I'm just going to explain what I use, how I use them, my favorites so that you can jump in on your own and feel free, of course, to experiment with different types of brands because what works for me really well may not be your favorite. So it's always fun to be able to dive in and see what works best for us. So, the first thing that you're going to need is guash. There are two forms of guash that I'm introducing to you. One of them is water based while the other is acrylic based. So what are the differences between water based gash and acrylic based squash? This is a really good question and it comes up a lot. So you've probably heard of Holbeins acrylic guash, and if you haven't, I'm going to explain all of that to you, but first, I'm going to talk about the Windsor and Newton Gach. And this gash is a part of their designer guh series. It is water based, and that means that it is not water resistant. It will reactivate on your palette and on paper similarly to watercolor. And it still has that nice matt opaque finish that you're definitely looking for with Gach. You're going to get that result from this stuff. The difference mainly is that it will reactivate similarly to watercolor. The other is the this is Holbein ands acryl gah, and this stuff will not reactivate. It is water resistant. So once it's down, it's down, it's not coming up. It's very quick drying. It's great for layering. It will also give you that nice opaque finish. So Depending on the style that you're going for or what you want to use and how your tools react to what you're doing that may help with your decision on what you want to use. I have always been a big fan of being able to reactivate my paint, but as it turns out, I've been very partial to the Acryla gauche as soon as I started using it, I really love the creamy consistency, and for me, it just packs a little more punch to it. You'll want a palette to use, whether this be using just for your project or whether you carry it around. I will say that the ones are in Newton Gauche doesn't necessarily hold very well in a palette if you're taking it along. Even though it's water based, it tends to crack a bit. So you can see that these colors have some cracking, if you're prepping your palette correctly, you shouldn't have issues with it falling out as much, you can use something like a plastic palette or I have this ceramic palette that probably wasn't a palette before, but that's what I tend to use it for. Note that because there are water based and acrylic based, if you place a water based color in here, next to, let's say, an acrylic color, and you're grabbing the acrylic color after the water based color has dried because the water based squash reactivates, it's possible to grab some of that color. So be careful and just know that going in because you don't want to accidentally pick up a different color. If you tend to be a little type B when it comes to creating and you're a little messier, that's just something good to know. And of course, there are always the palettes that have wells that you can add in and then scrape out and clean out later when you're done. So options. My favorite, however. I I swear by this. This is Masterson's stay wet palette. And this thing is it solves all of your problems. Because, like, especially acylgh, it's not rewetting. It won't reactivate. So once it's dry, it's dry, because it's quick drying, it can dry, super fast, especially if you accidentally use too much paint and then it sits on the palette and you've just wasted paint. So this is great if you are notorious for using too much paint and then wasting some. The way that this works, I want to just show you real quick. This I've been using about a month and I've added to it here and there, but for the most part, you can see that all of these colors are still wet. The way that this works is it's got a sponge underneath. It's okay if it gets stained, it's no big deal. But what you do is you get this sponge fully wet and just press out the excess water, and then it comes with this special paper that grabs the water through it. This isn't supposed to be salesy, but I'm telling you, guys, like, after you buy this, you're not going to use anything else ever again, especially unless you're using water colors where they sit in their wells. But it works so well. So these paints I have not used for about a week, and you can see that they're still super ready to go. So this is amazing. Everybody needs one. We'll move into brushes. So for brushes, ICO two is always a round brush. You can't go around with a round brush. You have the ability to make nice thick lines and nice thin lines because it's got that pointed tip. I'm always using my brushes. I'm very partial to them. These are by the pigeon letters. They're 100% pure synthetic, but they're professional grades. They have a nice quick snapback. These are a brush that I created because what I was looking for, I couldn't find on the market. I thought, well, What if I looked into having these manufactured and then provide them to you guys because if I'm looking for him, you might be looking for m, and I just solved a problem. Anyway, that's what I'll be using. This is just a round number eight. I'm also going to be using around number two. And then I'm also going to be using. Now, you don't need to do this at all, but I have a wash brush, a 1 " wash brush, which is great for when you want to do a full background really quickly or lay paint really evenly and fast in a large area faster. And then I've got a filbert brush, and this is I didn't wash this out very well, but it's fine. This is a angled brush at the tip, so it's got this nice curved edge right here. This is great for making leaves, petals, things like that, but also good for covering a larger area without having a hard edge. So that's another one to play around with. But again, these are not necessary. I will be using them. I will be showing you how you can create quick leaves and things with this one versus round brushes, et cetera. But those are the brushes I'll be using. We will be using a water jar, if you want to do this correctly. Two jars are great, one for warm colors, one for cool colors. Then lastly, I'm going to go over paper. You want to use watercolor paper that's 140 pound or higher. If you don't know, real fun, quick tip. When you see 140 pound or 300 GSM, that is a ream of paper that they measure. So when you see that on the packaging, that's what it means. It's how much a rem weighs. A m is 500 sheets of paper. They put it together, they weigh it 140 pounds. So as opposed to 98 pounds, which makes that mixed media, et cetera. This will be a heavier weight paper, which will withstand water a lot more. Not all paper is created equally. Different brands are great to try out. In this class, I'm going to be using my leaf sheets are Hnomul harmony cold press, and then I also have legions, stonehenge, cold press, and hot press. The difference between cold press and hot press, Cold Press has some texture on it. It's got some tooth. The texture on here, what that does is it's really great for watercolor because the water will sit exactly where you want it to go. Was Hot Press doesn't always do that. Hot Press can because it's so smooth. It might disperse, but when we're using guash, that's not necessarily a bad thing because we are often going for that nice opaque mat finish. So the bleed, if you will, in watercolor doesn't always apply. You can use either depending on your preference. And then I also am using a Strathmore watercolor journal. And this is where I play with a lot of Gach. I think that I think that having a sketchbook is really fun because it's the one place that, you know, nothing is going to doesn't have to be finished, doesn't have to be pretty. It's just a nice place to explore. Great exploration opportunity here to really play and get deeper into some fun techniques. So as you can see, mine mine vary quite a bit with what I'm doing. But we're going to be focusing on Goch florals, which is so very fun. Again, this is strathmre, watercolor journal. You can see it's quite beat up, and this is a fun one to bring around. Just for kicks, if you want to grab a pencil. We also I will be talking about pre planning your painting composition, both in laying it down in pencil first, but then also just diving right on it. Have an eraser on hand. It doesn't matter your brand as long as it works. These are the Tambo Mano erasers, s are great. Lastly, lastly, I think I keep saying lastly. Maybe I haven't been in my head, I am. We're going to be using an ink pen. I am using my own line again, archval ink pen. It's similar to micron. The only difference is, the edge of it. Is curved. So microns are flat, so they're great for drafting, but the pigeon letters monoline pens have a slightly curved edge, which make it great for being able to draw at angles. So that's what we'll be using. Okay, that's it, I promise. Let's dive in. Let's play. It's time to get started. 4. How to Use Gouache: Acrylics -vs- Water-based: If you've ever used Acrylic paint or watercolor, you're probably going to get right into this, no problem. It's essentially blending the two. So you're going to have that really nice creamy consistency with watercolor, with the opacity, that nice flat color of Acrylic. The difference is it's gonna be a nice matte finished so you're not going to have any shine. It's just this beautiful, flat, creamy consistency. So I'm going to start off showing you, and I'm using water. I will show you Water-based gouache. But first we're gonna get into acrylic based gouache. You're going to find both. And you're going to probably hear about the both of the those kinds, depending on where you're learning it from. I'm going to address both because I think that both are important. Because if I tell you one thing about acrylic gouache and you think that that applies to gouache in general, then it's going to be very confusing because it's not always the case. Some is Water-based, some is not the difference. What you're going to find, the primary difference is that one can be reactivated. Acrylic cannot. So we're starting with Acrylic. I'm just putting a little bit down on this palette. And the reason why I'm using this pellet is because I have this wet sponge underneath and that is going to keep this wet when it is locked, airtight for a couple of weeks, which is great. I don't really want to keep it that long because the sponge underneath can form mold which we don't want. But it will keep it nice for a couple of weeks and that way you're not wasting any paint. So I'm just grabbing some water on my brush. And when I do this, I just come in and push it on the side so that I get the bristles fully wet. And then I'm gonna come over here and just grab a little bit of gouache. And I kinda come in from the side so I don't get this big glob up. You're going to want it to be a little bit creamy. So you can see this is really watery. This is gloopy. This is your Creamy area. So when I have that, I'm going to just lay it down like this. So you can already see this nice, Creamy, flat, opaque finish. It's beautiful. Now, gouache can be watered down. So you see this area here. It can be watered down the same way that watercolor wheel, but you'll see that you still have a really nice opaque finish. More you watered down. Yes, you can get a little bit transparent or just lighter, but typically you're going to have a flat, solid color every time. When it comes to blending, you're going to see why is this one. You're going to run into the same thing if you've mixed any Paint ever. So, you're going to same way, add a little bit of this color to this one. And you're going to get your desired result depending on what that is. The thing I love about this brand. It's by Holbein, the Acrylic Gouache. No joke. I love every color out of the tubes. Like every tube color is just so good. It looks just like what you see. They're fantastic, but you can see like a little bit is going to go along way. I could probably fill up most of this page with just what I have right here because I only need to grab just a little bit, makes sure that my Brushes full house water be this is too watery but you're just seeing how much this stretches. It is a little transparent because I put so much water on it. But you can also make it and it's going to flatten out and even out where you can already see how that's starting to blend. And even then when this dries, it's not going to be able to be reactivated with water. I'm going to show you that once these dry, but for now, I'm going to make this area all just a flat block, if you will, because we're going to play with overlay and I'm gonna do it while it's still wet so that you can see what wet on wet with Gouache looks like. So if I was to grab I'm just going to grab this blue color. I don't really have a rhyme or reason with how I'm choosing colors right now. I'm just doing it to give you examples of how these interact. Not all pigments are created equally. So what that means is some are gonna be more pumped full of pigment if you will, than others. Some will be more. They'll pack a punch tomorrow, there'll be more vibrant. This I find is pretty forgiving they entire time. But if I put this on top of something, that's what it's going to be more transparent. Sometimes that is exactly what you're looking for. Sometimes it's not. I'm gonna leave this here and show you what the difference between cat hair, between Putting something down on wet, wet on wet, putting or putting gouache down on something that's dry. Because this color is actually quite It's like a periwinkle. It's really pretty. That said, we have this one Drawing for the most part. I will just drag some of this color on top. So you can see that we've got a nice opaque top, just dragging it over once. If I let this dry again, now I could just go in again. So if I do on right here, you see a little transparency. If I go in one more time, it's going to be even more vibrant. However, because it's wet still, you might still see through it. So what I can do is wait for this one to be all the way dry and then just do another layer. So if I did that here, I'm gonna get more water on my brush. If I did that right here. I'll show you what that will come out like. Okay, this is almost dry. This one's getting there. So over all though, the reason why I wanted to show you go overlapping is because there's so many times that we will have a flat design, especially with if you're used to using watercolor and you have this design and you wanna be able to do more intricate things on top of it with a smaller brush or something where you know that it's not going to cover, especially if it's a light color. So you're like, Okay, I'll grab my paint pen or I'll grab some Acrylic with gouache, you're getting that creamy consistency. You can even use it over watercolor if you wanted to. And then you're going to be able to get all of those fine details, even if it's just totally white. So if I was to grab this light color again, this peachy color, little less water. So just I'm just grabbing a little bit just to get it to be at creamy consistency on my brush. And then this is not quite dry yet. I'll do this one right here. If I was to add little details to this, you can see even just with the tip of my brush, it just pops. It just comes alive right now. There's no I could put it down again once that dries just to get it. That extra bump. It just again depends on the pigment, but I find that this one, it's the shell pink. It's not one of the most like opaque, opaque. I mean, it is, you can see that it is but over color like this, if it's giving you this much just based on of that little bit that I just did. I mean, that's pretty good. Okay, So let's see. This one is about dry, so I'm gonna do the same thing here. I'm just grabbing this from my palette on the side. I'm going to grab some of those water and put it over here. And then creamy. So more creamy, less watery. This area is a little watery. So I'm just grabbing a little more pigment, bringing that in and then you can see on my brush, I've got that nice consistency. So if I was to drag this in, so this is dry but my paint on top is wet so you can see exactly what I mean, where it's a Smith buret, but it's definitely got coverage, like we are good to go. This one is about dry, so I'll just go in now again, I would wait for it to dry completely and just say no in-between colors. I am rinsing and running my brush sideways in the water here. And then I'm just getting some of that water off and then grabbing this pigment making sure it's nice and creamy. And then coming in here and just dragging it over one more time. And now the difference, while it's still wet, you can still see that it's opaque. There is no transparency to this one. There's a slight amount to this one, but overall, we're solid. So that is acrylic based gouache. Literally going to perform the same with two, with Water-based gouache. The difference is just that this can't be reactivated. So if I'm using this on this palette, I told you about how I have this sponge underneath here. I wouldn't ever need that for Water-based gouache. Some people asked me why I choose to go Acrylic over Water-based. And to be totally honest, I don't have the two solid reasons for me. One, this is so funny. One is, I'm lazy and I love, love, love the colors in the Holbein acrylic wash. That's just my truth. I love the colors. They make me feel so happy inside. But for, for something that actually matters. It's because I like to layer a lot, love Layering. I loved doing a lot on top of a lot. And just like anything, the more you work, something like with watercolor, if you have something dry, the more you work it, it's going to reactivate. It's going to take away some of the pigment. It's going to spread it. It might lift it up on the brush. This allows me to never worry about that once it's dry. Speaking of once it's dry, Let's do this part and then I'll pull out my Water-based Gouache I need a little bit just to dab more of this Bluemix. I didn't put very much down. Oops, that's too much but piece. Okay. Alright, so a little bit of this one. Make sure it's nice and creamy. And then I'll show you down here. It's not all the way dry but you're gonna get it. Okay, so see the difference like this. This is now wet on dry ish. So the bottom of it is almost dry. So you can see that anything that I put over this now is going to be that nice, opaque, creamy consistency. While this might not be appealing, There's a time and a place for this. If you're doing a sunset that has red to pink to orange to yellow, it would make sense to do like a blend like this. But if you're looking for that nice, opaque, I mean, this here, this here and let me tell you something. This photographs beautifully if you'd like taking pictures of your work. Okay. Now I'm going to pull out my watercolor palette. So this is watercolor, but I do have a couple of colors in here that are gouache. The reason I have them in my watercolor palette is because I really love the colors. So it's these two, they're the only watercolor gouache I have in here. You can't do this. You can't put Acrylic Gouache in a palette. For same reason, you can't re-wet it. So for example, all these are dry right now. But if I add water, I'm going to be able to stir that up and use it like I would watercolor. But I'm still going to get that nice opaque finish. So this is actually, this color is really similar to the flesh or excuse me, the pH, what is it called? Shell pink? This was shell pink. This one is called flesh tint. Unfortunately, assuming that everyone's flesh is this color also, nobody likes Lord flesh. I don't know if they changed it by now, but this is Winsor and Newton, Water-based gouache. And the color, It's a little more Beijing, but it is gorgeous. I love it so much. But you can see that it's still has that really nice Creamy finish. I'll show you this one to this one I believe is French ocher. You know what? I can tell you? Oh, no, I'm sorry. Not French ocher, yellow ocher. So I have this little deal in my palette because I like to see what it does I'm using. You can see, look at how pretty this is. It is gorgeous and it has that nice flat finish. So these same, these same colors can be used over. I'm gonna go here over acrylic based gouache. No problem. It might take a minute. You might have to do a couple passes because you can see it starts to shrink up a little bit. It's just the medium not interacting as well. Acrylic will always work better over the Water-based, but still even so if I just work it a little bit, I can still let them interact, which I've done with these two colors and Acrylic Gouache many, many times. So that said ISA to you. Experiment know that wet on wet does work beautifully, but you can also, you have so much ability to Layer and really let colors pop, pop, pop. And it just creates such a pretty effect. And it not to mention, it is so satisfying to use because either either Water-based or Acrylic based are going to have this. I mean, it is Creamy. Every stroke feels so good to put down. Alright, That said, I hope that is also helpful and you fall in love with gouache so fast 5. Brushes - Round, Filbert, & Wash: Let's start out with some basic brush strokes so that we can get a good idea on how to actually use our brushes to our benefit. If you've taken my watercolor class, then you will be familiar with the strokes with the round brush, but I'm going to go over those quickly so that everybody can get a good idea on exactly how to utilize the round brush to get our nice thin and thick strokes. So I'm going to load my brush up with paint. Remember that you're going to want a good amount of paint versus water. So I just dip my brush slight quickly, and then I drag along the edge, and then I just give it a little swirl in my gash. Good practice to really get familiar with this brush is to use just the tip of your brush. And drag it along your paper, and then to use the more pressure. So still on its side, but press all the way down, and then drag, and you can see how you have that nice thick stroke. To play in between those two, you can drag lightly and then press down and then dry lightly and then press down. Drag lightly, press down. And this gives you a really good idea of the variation that you can get in only one stroke. So to create a simple leaf using this, it's my full pressure where I'm on the side and I'm pressing all the way down. And I'm dragging, but as I'm dragging, I'm lifting very slowly so that I can get a nice, fine tip. That would be my leaf shape. Now, I can also build off of this, so that could be a single leaf on its own, or I can go in and actually on the side, drag around and meet at the tip. I left a tiny bit of white space in between, and that is so that I can elude to the center of the leaf, but it makes it nice and full. So you can see that there are different styles there. Then you can build off of this by creating a full branch. So to do that, I'm just going to very lightly drag all the way through with my brush of the tip of it, and then I'm going to full pressure and lift up. And I'm going to want some more paint on my brush. This would be great for watercolor to have that translucency, but for guash, I like to keep it a little more opaque. And then I'm going to draw these little petials coming off of the stem. And then the same thing, my full pressure and drag into a lighter pressure at the top, and it's okay. You don't have to have white space in between every leaf. In fact, too much makes it look almost too formed, so having that looser effect is nice. And it's okay if they overlap, but you're just practicing full pressure and then lift up real slow toward the tip so that you can create that nice flow. This is just a really great practice for getting familiar with a new round brush or familiar with paint, or if you don't know what to paint when you're starting when you sit down and you're like, Well, I really want to paint, but I don't know what to paint. You can always start off with some leaves. It's just a fun exercise to do. So you can do it that way, or you can just do it that first way that I showed you where your leaf is just that part. So if you had a stem, and then they'd be coming off like so. So play with that and get familiar with your round brush. Now, the next brush I'm going to show you is the filbert brush. And this brush is great for creating leaves as well. I'm just going to show you a quick stroke with this one. So if I apply pressure, and then I release, I'm going to get a little more paint on here. So I'm applying full pressure and then releasing. You can see that it's also creating a little bit of a taper, but mostly, you're just getting that nice soft edge. So if I were to create smaller leaves with this, all I need to do, let's say, I have a stem, which I can do on the edge, because I still have the ability to do a nice thin stroke with this one, and then I can just come off of it, like so. And that's going to create a little more texture. It looks a little more organic, as you can see, but it's not as formed. So you can really kind of play with that. And then as you're doing a leaf, you can go off on an edge, like so. So this is more of a very quick stroke. It's also great for washes. If you need to have some soft corners, then you can really control that a bit more. And then lastly, I'm just going to show you the wash brush. I've got a nice thick 1 " here, and this one is going to be great for if I'm doing a real large wash as a background of some kind. I don't have quite enough paint on here. All right. So you can see it's going to have that nice even stroke to really cover a large area with ease. Oh. 6. Gouache Florals Doodles: Now we're going to play with flowers that are on their side. It almost doodle like the same way that we did our branch at first, so we can start with a branch. And I'm going to grab a round number four. Grab a green color. And then just using the tip of my brush, I am going to drag a line up, and then I'm going to go in and create leaves using a little bit of pressure on my brush, but not as much as what we used before because I'm just creating these pretty small, so that will help you with that control and getting familiar with your brush control. But just a little branch. Okay. Now I'm going to do the same thing, but I'm going to make it so that the tips of my leaves are rounded instead of pointed. So I'm going to draw my stem going at a curve, and then I'm going to round these out. I'm going to use pressure toward the top. See how that rounds it out. You can also do this a different way where you form it and then just fill it. When they're this small, it doesn't really make that much of a difference because it's easier to fill. If they are large, then using your brush would be to your benefit. You can also as these get lower, you can make the leaves get larger and larger or longer. It just switches up the effect a little. Just doing simple things like that in a piece, and then you could make one look like this, and then the next one could have the variation in length or the variation in size, the lower it gets, but change just the color. It can look like a totally different type of branch. Guys really don't draw your fingers through what you're doing. Since I'm just showing you, I'm not going to worry about it. Okay, so now let's do some flowers on their side. So the first one I'm going to do is really, really simple. It's not even it is a flower, but it's more like a plant. So I'm going to draw two little stems coming from the same spot. And then all that I'm going to do is at the very tip. I'm just going to add in These little balls. It just creates a fun effect to add on to other floral pieces or as a standalone because how cute is that? Then branching off of that same idea, I'm going to do another stem coming up. And then instead of just doing a ball at the top, I can shape it a little bit. So grabbing another color. I'm going to do the same idea at the bottom, but then just dip it in a couple of times and that creates once you fill it, something that looks a lot more like a formed flower. So super simple on that one too. And then you can just go in and add a leaf to the stem. You can do the same idea that we do with the leaves on a branch, only do that with flower ornamental additions. System. Then I'm going to have some smaller ones branching off here. Then similarly to these balls, I can do that again, or I can form them a little more. I could just do a part at the top. Point these in different directions. This one looks like it's more on its side here. Like that. You can play with what looks more like a lavender where you do your stem, and then you come back in and just do some mark making that builds on itself. All I'm doing is just a couple and then some more underneath that as it gets longer. Then in keeping some space open on the stem to make it look like they're in bundles. Then if it was lavender, the stem, it would be better if it was a bit longer. There we go. So all of these, when you put them together can look really pretty, kind of, like a wild flower capture similarly to my botanical line drawing class when we cover, you know, filling up with wild flower types of styles. From here, we can get larger, and we'll do that, and then we'll add some detail into it, which is a big part of the fun with Gach. 7. Exercise: Layering Gouache - Part 1: I want to start off with some front facing flowers. These are going to be flowers that are pointed at us as if we're looking at the tops of them. What we're going to do is less realistic and more playful. So this is the first style that we're trying, and we're going to really experiment with different types of flowers, but this one is just going to be really simple so you can get a really good hang of using the gouache and seeing what it's capable of doing. So I'm going to start off and I'm going to create the center of my flower. And then from there, I'm going to do in the same color because I'm going to be able to overlap colors later. I'm just going to use my brush to form a petal. Then the other side like this. So it's not really taking much effort. I'm applying a little bit of pressure to my brush as I drag out. But these are like your typical flowers that you would learn to draw when you're a kid, and we're just going to start with it to make things fun. Okay, so that's one. And then I'm going to rinse my brush and do another one. I'm just going to fill up this page with different forms of flowers. So I've got those basic petals. I'm going to do another center here, and I might do some more broad petals. And see how I'm just making sure I have that creamy consistency. And filling that space in. And if I'm running out of paint, I'm just going to get more. I didn't need to dip into more water because the paint on my palette is still nice and wet, and I want to keep that nice creamy consistency. Okay, so I'm going to throw another one in here. Different color for fun. And you can choose a different color for your centers or do them later, however you want to do that to make it fun. Clearly, I have a different color meshing in with Oh, you know what? Guys, this is what happens when you don't change your paint water, so I'm gonna do that real quick. Alright, so I've got that nice and clean now. Hopefully, this is gonna show up the way we want it to. There we go. Look at that lesson learned. That was a build up since the class started. So in my defense. And it's okay if these kind of lead into other areas or they fall off the page or they're not just they're not quite perfect. We're just practicing here. Getting familiar, using our gouache. Just form some petals. Play with different colors, see what color palettes that you like the most. This one, I'm just having putting some tips so that you have a little more texture to your flower. A little more movement. They definitely don't have to be perfect. So if you make a wonky petal, roll with it because you might really like the end result. Hey. And then from here, so you have your centers, you see your petals really easily. You could also create one that is a little less s shaped. However, I would say that. You know what I'm talking about. And lacks that definition in the center, but still has its petals. And then you can go in and add the center and have it look like it has a little bit of movement to it, but it's still front facing. Which might not make sense right now, but it will when we add the center. And this can look really pretty. When you add leaves to frame it, such as this quick painting that I did recently with this type of flower. You can also put in a general shape, so to kind of give the illusion of a flower that's a little tighter. It's petals aren't necessarily blossomed yet or bloomed, blossomed. You get it. And then I'll show you how to add to that when it dries. Once you have all your shapes, let those dry completely. You want these completely, completely, completely dry before you jump into the next step. 8. Exercise: Layering Gouache - Part 2: So now that my flowers are dry, I can see that I have some irregularity in the opacity of my paint here, so I can go back in with some more paint and add a second layer like we talked about, or I could just leave it as is. And paint on top of it if you like that texture, because even though in theory, the best way is to have that nice mat finish. Sometimes you want to kind of break the rules for special effects that are intentional. You know, you sometimes learn the rules to break the rules. So there's no it's not necessarily wrong to leave it, but if you want that nice creamy mat finish, you can always go back in and add that additional layer. And then the same thing with this one. But since it's so light, I'm just going to leave it because we can play on top of that. But this one I did want to show you, it's opaque. Also, don't look at that petal. You all know what happened there. Okay, so now that I want to add detail to my petals, I'm gonna grab a smaller brush. And remember, we're just hading illustrative elements. So, these aren't gonna look realistic. I mean, they already don't. They don't have high expectations at this point because we're just playing. We're just experimenting here. So I'm grabbing a lighter color, and I'm going to paint directly onto this coral flower that I have, and I'm just going to create little detail inside of the petals just to kind of mirror what they already look like. And then these will probably need another coat because I did use a much lighter color on top of a darker color. So I'm going to comply before I add another coat. And I'll move on to my blue flower now and start playing with the types of details that you can put on these flowers, 'cause there's a lot you can do with them. You can put in some line work or some dots or some variation in petals. You can just do some real regular additions, like you would do with a regular illustration, but make them bolder. Obviously, the the tip, the finer these lines are going to be, but you can just play with it in the meantime. And let's say you want to add a different color for the center. I can go in and paint directly over it here. So you can see how that just adds some fun elements. So just don't be afraid to experiment. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. You can also go in and actually outline. But I am outlining imperfectly, so I'm not following the lines exactly. This is also a fun way to add some interest. And then do yourself a favor and don't drag your finger through all of your wet paint like I do. And then I'm just going to use my brush, and instead of just dragging the line, I'm setting it down and kind of flicking it. And that's creating lines that are wispier at the ends. And then I can create a center just by pressing my rush up and down, so it creates something a little more organic looking. So you can see how just those two are so different even though they have the same elements to them. This one, I'm just going to similarly to the previous video that I showed you, add The centers is probably probably should be a little bit darker, but when you add little leaves and whatnot, it will make a lot of more sense. And then this one, I'm going to switch back to the larger brush sides. I'm just going to use a four, though. You could use. No, I will use my eight, which is what I use to first paint these. So I'm gonna grab a lighter color here. And I'm mixing colors. So if you didn't see this on my palette, that's why. I'm just mixing some that are already there, and then I'm just going to drag it back and forth. So I'm going around in circles leaving space in between so that I keep my initial color. But I just have some strokes to really bring that kind of the illusion that there's petals that are tightly together. And then I'm just going to do the same thing over a couple of those areas with a much lighter color. So it almost looks like a rose that's really tight still. And then I've also done the same thing to this flower that I did with this, but I didn't add the outline. So different variations, just fun options here. So play around with some flowers like this and just see what you can come up with and how comfortable you can get with using your gouache. 9. Arrangement - Part 1: As we move into composition, I am going to be using a floral bouquet as a reference so that you can see how you might interpret things onto paper as you paint them from looking at them, and I'm using an image that I hope I hope I pronounce her name correctly, but Amalie Oge. That could be wrong. But I found this image on Unsplash, and I thought it was perfect to show you kind of how we can take what we've learned thus far and create a composition from it. So, you know, Although I don't like to jump in with pencil, I'm going to do it just for those of you who feel more comfortable doing that. I'm not going to draw the elements exactly as they are, though, because I like the idea of keeping a much looser, flow to the illustration so that you can add detail later. I see that there is this hot pink flower, and that's another thing too. I'm going to add this right in here, so I have its general shape. But another thing about this is that the color choices, while this is a beautiful bouquet, and you can absolutely opt for the colors that are in it. Nobody's saying that you can't alter them to make it more your own. The very first bouquet with Guash that I used a real flower bundle as a reference. I didn't really follow the composition exactly as it should have been. I just took some elements that I saw and then transferred them where I thought they would fit well on my page. And then I also didn't use the same colors as the actual flowers. I changed those up, too. So that was really fun. It's actually still was although it was my very first one with Guh, was it still remains to be my favorite that I've done. So I encourage you to really play with that. So we're gonna do that next. One, we will lay out some composition for those of you who feel more comfortable doing so. So I'm doing these purple flowers. I'm just giving it kind of a general idea of where it's going to go. I've got some got this. Daisy, sunflower. Got some leaves, leaves, a bundle here, and some little wild daisies here that are going to come out. A few different areas and some leaves and an orange flower that I'll probably tuck a little bit under more. Okay, so that's all I'm going to do to lay this out. Of course, you can get more detailed if it makes you more comfortable, but that's all I want to stay with. And then anytime that I do a guide, I like to go in and actually erase on the top of it, which I know sounds a little weird, but that way, I still see my lines because I'm only doing the side. I'm not, like, really getting into the erasing part. But I still see where everything is. It just won't be as vibrant in case I lay a color down, and then the pencil mark doesn't go away for some reason. Gush doesn't usually have that as an issue, but It's better to be safe than sorry. So I'm just going to dive right on in. And I'm going to start with this hot pink flower. And I'm going to select a much lighter color to complete this with because I'm just drawn to different colors at the moment. So I'm choosing kind of a peachy color. And I'm just going to mimic the overall shape. I'm not going to make this perfect. I just see that there's some movement in these petals where they are wider toward the ends, and so I am incorporating that, but I'm not really worried about perspective. I don't care about any of that with the style of what I'm doing. And then I'm going to let that dry I'm gonna let everything dry before I add detail. So, again, this is like we're going in with blobs and then coming back. I hate that I don't have a better term than blobs right now. But I think you understand what I mean. And then I see another one kind of peekaboing from the back. So I'm gonna go ahead and add that in as well. So see, just because I didn't lay that out doesn't mean I'm not gonna add it. The layout was more so that I know approximately where things are going to go. And then there's another one from the top. So I can put that in here. It's going to be overlapped with other flowers, which is totally fine. Okay, so those are in there, and then I'm done with that color for now. I might need it, but in general, that's what I'm going to do. And then I'll move over to my purple flowers. And I'm going to keep pretty close to their actual color because I like this light purple right now. Notice I'm not really paying too close attention to the texture along the outside. I'm just putting in some shapes. I see that there are some at the bottom here. So I'm just placing that in here as well. And then there's some smaller. Next to these ones. And then I see a deeper purple that has a lot of greenery around it, so I can put that in as well. I'm not going to use the same purple, though. I'm going to use more of a mob. And I'm just going to create some mark making, not doing it exactly how it's laid out there because I want to kind of just form my own composition in some of these areas to fill it a little bit more. It might actually make those even larger, and this is where creative choices come into play, which I highly push for because it might feel a little bit unfinished if you don't make those choices sometimes. So I'm actually going to blend these together and 10. Arrangement - Part 2: Once this is dry, it may look awful, but we're going to bring it to life and you are going to love it when we are done. First thing I'm going to do is add texture to the inside here. I'm just doing poshoe shapes to the inside here. Note that the more condensed they are, the more depth there is because you're adding additional shading and whatever is darker will detract while whatever is lighter will attract. If you want to play with that, you can. Otherwise, I'm just overall putting some shapes in there to show that it is the center and it's got a little texture. Then once that's done, I can put some detail on the petals. While we did do just the interior and didn't really line it before, since this is just a blank area, I can go in and add some petals like this. If you need help with shape or form, do refer to my botanical line drawing class, it will help a lot. Then up here, since they are formed, I'm just going to add some line work, but I'm not going to really complete it because I wanted the shape to make its own way. Then I'm just going to add some petal detail, and I'll do this, even on the ones that don't have outlines. I'll do that to this one. It's okay if you go outside the lines and have some white space in there because that just adds to it. Then for these ones, I'm going to do something similar to what I did with the PNEs before. Where I just create a petal with movement on the side and then have some layering happen up here. Then I will add some line work. I'm going to do the same thing that I did with the small flowers before, where I just add a few lines on each petal, and it just brings us to life a little more. Even if they're a little light, they'll show up and you'll see a lot more life to them once they have a little tiny bit of detail. A little is all it takes. You can curve the detail inward or you can even have it come outwards, so the difference would be the line work comes in and out, or it curves inward like that, gives a different effect to the way the petals line, but this is such a simple addition to these little flowers. Then for these ones, I'm just going to create some really small curved lines toward the center, just to emphasize it a little more, and then I will create some petal lines where they flow with the direction of the petals, so the lines that are toward the outside curve along with it, and then as it gets further in, it curves less and less. Then I will do that to these ones and see how the petals here would overlap. I'm actually going to draw that coming up, but then I'm not going to finish it. I'm just going to draw the middle here and that's just to outline where it's at, but not do like a full black line. Although a full black line is really fun, that's something that try to, if you want to do that or you could just add a couple in here like this, where it's not everything but it's just one or two. Then here I'm going to add some texture to the outside, and then have that continue on in. That's just to show that this has a lot of elements to it without actually getting into it too much. Because with little marks like this, a little goes a long way and you can really get the idea of what's going on just by adding a little bit. To be caution I just remember less is more. Do that down here as well. Then these ones that I made up myself, I can do anything with this. I'm going to just put in some real small like squiggly, imperfect shapes, and then maybe a center on all of them. It brings out what the flowers actually are, but in a much grander scale since I did a bunch of blobs together. Then I can just, sporadically, place these, but it doesn't have to be the whole way, because once you step back and look at everything as a whole, then it just adds to it rather than, is the focus of attention. I'm going to leave these green leaves, but then these ones I'm just going to do a really small open slit. Actually I'm going to go in and I'm just going to add a small line just to the inside here of each leaf. That is it. Now you can see that the before and after is quite significant indifference because now you have form and shape, and this makes sense more, and you used a basic reference for it, but overall made it yours. That is how I would plan that type of composition out. Now, to finish this off, it's also really fun to add a background color. You can definitely do this before you start painting, because as you know, you can't paint over gouache and have that work. But if you were to go back and digitize this, it will be a lot easier to do it without the background or with the background not quite touching the edges, but just sitting on it, similar to how this looks, and that's how a lot of these illustrations get scanned in and then they get cleaned up in that little area in between the background and the flowers, it's a lot easier to clean out, basically. Putting that on our background really makes things pop, so I want to do that. Color selection, this part is really fun. You can really take it anywhere that you want to go with it, what's going to be complimentary. But then you could also choose something wild, that doesn't necessarily fit with what's happening. For instance, if I was to do this really bright lime green, it might be really weird, but it might somehow work. Don't be afraid to experiment and see what looks best. I'm just going to choose though, just a pale pitch, to give you an idea of just how a subtle color can really bring it to life. Because it don't have a lot of room, I'm not going to use my wash brush, but I will use my full brush. I'm just going to come through and place this paint, leaving a little bit of space in between the background and the flowers. That's really all that is to it as far as adding a background, but you see how that really makes that whole bouquet pop, and you have a very, very fun, playful gouache illustration. The next technique, we're going to be going over a different way to translate that information on the paper. I will see you in the next segment. 11. Exercise: Shapes First, Details Second: Now we're going to move into the flowers that we would create in a blob way, for lack of better words, and then we're going to add the detail with ink later. There's side-facing flowers, there's front-facing flowers, and what you create is ultimately up to you. But I am going to start off with what might be more of a smaller base of a flower where the petals are up higher, and then I'm going to just create some movement at the top and fill that in. You'll see how I add detail to this in a bit, so right now we're just putting shapes down. You can follow along with me or you can create your own. Mostly, I want you guys to explore a style of your own while practicing all these different ways. Because there's nothing like being able to really be proud of work that you're creating that's coming from you. I have laid down a few of those, and then I'm going to add some stems to those as well. I'm going to create those with a smaller brush. Nobody says that they have to be green. I'm going to create some other styles of flowers to go along near side. I'm keeping these separated. You guys don't have to. The reason that I'm doing that is because I'm actually going to bring this in for a repeat later. If you guys want to create a repeat pattern with what you're putting on paper, yes, you can layer it up, but it will be easier to separate those elements. I'm just doing a nearby so I know how things flow together and how they make sense together before I put them in to digitize them. That's a good tip for those of you who are getting into that. I'm just putting in now some loose shapes. These are going to be more of those flowers that are smaller and condensed. Basically, this isn't a composition piece. This is more of a loose placement. It's more about the elements that we're creating, less about where we're putting them. Because all we're doing is going into adding detail, showing you how that's going to work. For these ones, they're like those little squiggly detailed ones that we did. These types of filler flowers really work with so many things, because they're playful, they can be in bundles or bunches. Actually, I'm going to overlay a couple of these for fun so they have that layered effect. Then even though we're doing detail with ink, you can also go in and add centers to your flowers in the color of the stem or in a pop of color. I like to often take a bright red or a bright vivid blue or something. These ones I think is that this mauve color is really pretty as a center element. Then I'm going to do some pretty basic flowers, the petals we all know, don't put your hand in your work. Pro tip, start on the left side of your paper first if you are right-handed. You'd think I would learn by now, I'm so bad. I'm going to do some wider ones with some movement at the top, so they look be wider and flatter. Then of course you can also go in and add leaves, but this looks good to me. Now I'm going to go in with my ink, and I'm going to add some detail. Just because a flower is on its side doesn't mean it has to be completely on its side to us. We can create a line to show the top of the flower here. I'm going to come up and just add an imperfect line towards the top. I'm going to do that on all three of these, and then I can add the center and to right here. You can see how that's coming from the middle and this is just that line that adds, it's like that petal definition. You can also come in and split it and come down, so now it looks like two petals. That kind of stuff is very, very simple. Just find a good, easy area to break it so it looks more intentional. It's really all you have to do or you could go in and add a couple of lines coming from the bottom to show some movement in the petal itself. But I would say to air on the side of less is more. Because the more you put in here, the more it's going to take away from that fun illustrative effect. Real quick, I'm going to add a center of pop of color on these ones. Notice that I'm just setting down my brush a few times, the pop of color. Then I'm going to go in and just add a few lines on each petal coming from the center to give some detail to it. Just this small addition brings a really fun element to the overall illustration. Then you can go in and add additional details. These ones, they could be layered with petals like this, they could have the lines going out like that. You can take it anywhere you want to because of their round, almost flatter shape. Remember, the more that you add, the more it looks like a drawing and less like a fun pop of color. Figure out what you want that end results to be. I'm just going to actually add some small lines coming from the center only so they don't actually reach very far. They're just enough to give a little bit of definition. Then with these pink ones, I'm going to do the same thing I did here, but I'm going to add several layers of them to create that appearance like a delicate peony would have. Little tiny movement that is layered right here. Then you can go in and add small detail to petals like we did to these ones, but again, less is more. A little bit goes a long way with the detail on the style. Then on these balls, I'm just going to create little tiny horseshoes toward the tops. Then for their stems, I'm actually going to use my pen. The same thing on these, I'm going to use my pen for detail but I'm not going to do crazy. I'm going to be separating these later. Then for the detail on these, a lot of these are not dry yet, but I'm going to separate petals like this, and then come up like so or just have them show just the top here. Basically split, so you can see a couple of layers, but nothing too crazy. They're very small, so you don't want to attract the eye too much to them because it'll get confused overall with the overall composition when you have that in. That is how to bring blobs to life with just a little bit of ink. You can also do this with your paint like we did in our exercise on the flat ones. You could do the same thing with paint for a different effect. 12. Gouache Florals Imperfect Outlines: Now we're going to play with an element where we loosely draw the flower with paint and then go back in and fill it. And that is going to make it so that our fill overlaps our outline to create more of a kind of playful organic style. I'm going to do some flowers on their sides. And see, these are just going to be really loosely formed. Some of the lines are going to be thicker, some are going to be thinner. But essentially just building up kind of a bouquet of the M. So we want to let that dry now, and then once it dries, we are going to paint over with a different color. In the meantime, you can add some leaves or other interest if you want to. But notice this is just a very sloppy technique, but it's going to be a fun unique finish. Just to kind of break you out of your comfort zone of what you're used to doing. It's much, less formed. Okay. So once that dries, I'm going to go back in with my lighter color. And I'm going to stay pretty close to the outline and then fill it. So I may not be right on it, or I might be a little further away in certain areas, but overall, I am staying close to it. So it's still there. It might disappear a few areas. That's kind of part of the charm. Notice how when I'm going back for more paint, I haven't dipped in for water yet. I'm using, see, now I am to mix more, but I'm using what I have there on my palette that I've mixed together to to see if I have enough there. And usually, for the first few strokes, I will, and then I can add water as I go. But you'll know. You'll start to feel it getting drier. Just don't add too much because you don't want to have those transparent elements. But if you do, you can always do a second coat. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. So once you've laid down a couple of coats on there, you can go in and add some detail. And these so Your details should also be loose. I'm going back in to grab the outline color, and I'm going to add some real loose detail like this. They're not all going to look the same. I just want some lines in here to accentuate my petals. But don't overthink it. This is a very loose abstract type of style. And then I can do the same thing with my leaves, but I think I'm actually gonna leave them. I'm pretty happy with that. So once I have this digitized, it can create a really fun, just very playful floral design. So I encourage you to expertly a bit more and see what you can come up with. 13. Bouquet 3: Creative Composition - Paint: [Music]. The next way that we are going to work on our composition will be through placing things; not the way that we see them, but taking elements and building our own composition. There's a few ways of doing this. We can take what we see and scatter them among-st itself so that it's nice and even, as far as certain flowers. So we have a daisy here, here, and here. Or we can do a cluster of daisies and a cluster of dahlias or whatever it maybe. I'll show you an example. This would be more of an isolated situation where you have your cluster here, your cluster here, and then you have some smaller flowers right here. This is another example where you have the bulkier flowers. You have got your red flowers, you have got these grassy leaves and they're all separated. But you place them based off of what you see and it creates a lot of interests, whereas these are more dispersed evenly. You can play with that. These ones are a lot more even so you've got elements coming from all around that are carrying over. I've been attracted to the illustrations that I've had been doing that are in clusters. I think it adds a cool element. It also lets you explore a little more and lets you have a little more creative freedom on how you want to place things on the page. The example I'm going to use is my own garden. Laura, my wife, has done an excellent job putting these colors together. I was very pleased this year. We've got some awesome violets and pops of orangey-reds and compliments of yellow and then some deep fuchsia colors. I am going to marry all of those together in my shapes and create segregated areas of flowers to compliment itself. You can see that this is pretty wide and I'm going to intentionally make this a portrait, so that I can scrunch all of this into one. While that's going to be a challenge, it will also allow me to create something that's unique to me and my art the way that I'm seeing it. Another thing that I would say is the flow and how this is flowing on the page is also going to make a huge difference. I've now done to C-curves in this direction. Now I have the opportunity to say, "okay, well what if I wanted all my flowers flow one certain way, instead of going straight, up and down or what if I wanted one section to flow like that?" I'm going to play with that as I place these and I'm going to do a few more and then maybe stick one coming this way just to start to balance as it goes through. Then I'll add the little petals, and I'm going to choose. Instead of doing this real vivid-purple, I'm going to choose a real light one, and add those; like I did before when I was showing you the real simple styles. I'm going to do the same thing where I'm building on mark making with my brush and keeping some areas open so that you can see that climb. Same thing over here. I'm making this very imperfect. Now I'm going to go back in and add a little more of a darker color so I can get some more depth in. I think that's going to let this standout a little bit more. Sometimes it's nice to wait until you have everything in place so that you can see how your color choices harmonize together, because you might not want that real vivid pop. I just happen to know that I definitely do, so I'm going to add that in. Okay. Now that is placed, I'm going to return to this layout and choose what the next thing that I want to bring in is. In the back, I also have this cool-salmon color. I'm going to bring that in, and then probably, I think I want to tuck it in closely so that I can have- - I'm thinking about composition. Do I want this to be totally full or do I want it to cascade down? I think cascading down might be nice. I'm just going to create a little bit of that salmon-color peekaboo through here. I'll bring that down like so, and that's all I need to do with that shape because I can again add my line detail later. I'm just going to throw a stem in there is a neutral color. Now I'm going to put some leaves in here. My leaves are going to cascade as well. I'm going to choose an olive color. The olive-green is nice because it has a strong yellow hue, it almost looks a little bit like a vintage-y or retro color. It's not quite green, but that can be fun to play with. Just an example of how you can shift colors a bit. I see some leaves in here, some greenery. I'm going to bring those up and play with some basic leaves. Then I'm going to overlay those with other flowers and whatnot. Just getting them in here. I'll probably add more toward the bottom as overlap once I get down there, I might not. That's what I'm going to stick with for now, and then I also have some leaves coming from these plants so I can add those. They come up and then shoot back down. I can add a little bit of that, and it would be ideal to wait until this dries, but I don't mind having that mix in there. Know that it'll likely bleed if you don't wait for it to dry. Some of this, I'm sure is going to be covered up by something else that's overlapping, but it's fun to add it in there. Now I'm going to work on these flowers that are in the center and they're nice and bright. That nice pop of red, I love it. I want to wait for this to dry because I'm going to overlap a lot in here, but I will add some down below. I'm doing some real loose petals, and some of these are going to be forward-facing, some of them are going to be more on their side, so the petals in the back are a little shorter than the ones on the side. Some might be facing this direction. There is definitely going to be some overlap, that's something that you will divide once you begin adding ink. I might add more of those, but for now that looks good, and then I'll add the others nearby. Those are a lighter color. I'm just going to grab a real soft cream color. I could keep these white. Often times, you can use the white of the paper, I hate a negative space almost. I have done this so many times, where I laid a color down and I didn't like it, and I just painted directly over that shape with a different color, and then I ended up liking my work a lot more, when I've changed that color. Then of course, if you want to digitize things, you can also always add the color that way. But having it correct, what you want it to be in the beginning, is always helpful. Especially, if you don't want to digitize it, there's a lot to say about the texture that you can maintain with the glowish. It's really lovely. You can see that I've made this my own already. The flower situation is all different than what it actually looks like in the garden, and I am building this to make it my own. There's also these very small purple flowers that are peekabooing through. I'm going to do those, but I'm going to do them in a mauve color. I'm just going to put in little pops of shapes. They're not going to be any set form. Then I'm going to do a cluster around the same area, because I want to maintain the sections that I've created. I just think it's really fun. I bring some down. Then, you can overlap these, of course, if you want, it would look a little more dense. I might do that a couple of areas, but overall, they're just on their own. Then, there are a few more flowers that are a little more vivid. I could throw those in the back. I think I will use that really nice bright color, because that would be a lot of fun. For this form, I'm just going to put it on its side, where it has some movement and then tucks away behind here. You can see too, this is a little more of a watery consistency than I'd like, so you can always take your brush and drag it, so that it takes some of that water off. Now, that might look weird, because of the color shift and all of a sudden, you have something super bright, but that's one of the things that I love about putting some weird color combinations together. There can be those random pops and then somehow you can make them make sense, because it is your art. I'm just going over this red, since it's overlapping, so I can add another coat to have some better coverage. Now, I am going to put some of this brightness from the lantanas in the bottom. I'm going to do this just with the tip of my brush. I know that I want some greenery in there. I think I might actually do that part first. I'm just going to create some peekaboo leaves. Now I'm going to grab, I have an orangery color, I'm just going to set it down to create those pops of color. I think that that flow looks good. Then I'm going to add the second color in there. I might actually just carry that nice bright fuchsia over into that orange. Wait for it to dry, so it doesn't bleed. I'm going to add some of the yellow flowers, the real small ones, by adding some smaller brush strokes. I'm keeping this pretty colorful. There's nothing wrong with going even more muted than this, or choosing a color scheme of just four or five colors, and then sticking to that. I think that I have found more interest in doing it that way, but I wanted to show you how you can alter some or put in some random colors that may not make sense, and how you can make that work. Then, I can also go back, and now that that red is dry, add the center of the flowers. Some of it is not dry, so I'm going to skip that part and come back to it and at the center. Then, I'll add the center to these lighter ones. Most of these are dry, I'm going to back in with that fuchsia, give it a little bit of [inaudible] with that color. Then, I'm going to create stems for these yellow lines in black when I do my line work. Lastly, I will add centers to those flowers when they dry. 14. Bouquet 3: Creative Composition - Adding Ink: To emphasize the separation here, I'm just going to create kind of like they're almost circles, but they don't quite connect on one side. And I'm not going to do this throughout the whole thing. I'm just going to do it enough to where you can see what's going on for texture. Again, if you like the look of having the full outline, and that's a lot. That can be really fun to it. When I first started water coloring, that was my go-to was I loved outlining everything after I put it in and I loved the effect that it gave it. But I think that there's a lot to say for this style of just adding kind of the interior details and letting the color and the brushstrokes speak for themselves and create a whole new exciting style. Alright, So now I'm going to add some detail here and all I need to do is come up and back in. And then I can skip some areas because now you're understanding what's going on. It's just kind of like the illusion or eluding to the style itself and what's happening without having to put everything in there, So that's all I need to do. Then you can kind of see how it's fading into the background. Its prominent upfront, you know, you can see the shape and how it's coming, curving in and downward. And Then my leaves, I'm just going to do the same thing where I add a two line, main in the middle. Another thing that's really fun is to just do some scribbly mark making. I'm just going do that in the center here. It creates interests and afterwards you can see that they're there, you can see us something's going on, but you don't have to really fill them out too much. And then these lines, I'm going to add those centers where they just have the few lines coming from the petals. Drag and my hand through the paint again, guys, let your paint dry before you go and do this, because your stuff is going to look like mine where it's a hot mess. And these little surrounding leaves that are peekaboo leaves, I can just add that center. And then with these little flowers and I know that they are the paddle flowers, but I want to just assume that they're all pointed upward and add some detail just to the bottom of them. Think that it'll look nice as a complement to the rest of the flowers that way. So this gives me a little more to work with. And It was doing some line work stems, kind of messy, kind of fun. And the ones over here though, I'm going to do something similar to where we just draw the petal. Petal and then you can see the center. Then you got your stamens. I can add detail to my red flower is the same as I did to these peach flowers. Or I can just do a bunch of smaller lines toward the center or toward the top. Just anything that kind of adds interests. It doesn't have to be realistic. This is where you get to experiment. Then here I've got one that is assuming that the petals are going outwards. I'm just going to add a few petals pushing that way, but sometimes it looks not totally balanced. That's where I can separate a few of these with some lines, and so they takes on the form. It's not totally like overtaking the shape. It's not. There we go. So It's just an after where you have a little detail about getting lost. Add stems to these guys, as soon as those are dry. Then with these ones, I'm just going to do the same thing where it's just a more scribbly mark making over the general areas, so you can see some texture. That is all that you need to do, And then you can go in and add a background color to really make that pop. And you have your complete piece that you have structured the way that makes sense to you as you're building it. It's so fun this way, and it really makes huger's want to dive in and make so many as I've showed you, I have made so many. So fun. So I can't wait to see how you guys interprete an image or a garden in front of you. How fun. 15. Your Funwork: The project for this class will be to complete a collection of three pieces that will showcase different results. The first piece will be an experimentation of a limited color palette. You'll select three to four colors and stick to those to complete your entire piece. Your second piece will focus on creative composition where you choose what elements stand out to you the most and you arrange florals in a new way. Lastly, once you've completed two pieces with separate focal points, you'll blend these two elements together for your final piece to showcase your creative choices in both color and composition.