Heron by Moonlight. Watercolour Landscape and Bird Painting - Beginners to Advanced.

1. HERON INTRODUCTION: Hi there, and a very warm welcome to my online watercolor class, where I'm going to show you how to paint this fabulous, great white hern nesting in the tree under a silvery moon. It's a wonderful subject, just perfect for radiant, luminous watercolors. It might seem a bit daunting at first, but you're going to be able to watch over my shoulder as I guide you through it every step of the way. It's beginner friendly, even if you've never touched watercolors before, or if you're an experienced artist, looking for some different ideas. There's a magical feeling you get when painting with watercolors. And once you know the basics, it is easy. Anyone can do it. Like any other skill, it just takes a bit of practice and enthusiasm. We'll be using the wet on wet technique to create a lovely, dark, soft moonlit sky, and we'll be using the wet on dry technique to add details and interest. We'll look at how negative painting can help our white objects like the hern and the moon to stand out and other tips and techniques along the way. And I've included a copy of the drawing in the project resources section so that you can download it and trace it, and then not worry about the drawing because this is a painting class. I am a professional artist, author, and tutor, and over the years, I've sold a lot of work across the world and helped hundreds of people to learn more about watercolor. Art is my absolute passion, and I truly believe that painting is hugely beneficial for everyone. You can see examples of my work on my website. My style leans towards impressionistic and contemporary rather than photorealistic. I like to explore loose approaches that bring out the color, light, and essence of my subjects. I've tried to replicate this across all the many other videos that I have on Skillshare. Please don't worry if your painting doesn't look exactly like mine. Lowry never worried whether he looked like Van Gogh's or Picasso's. We all have our own unique style, just like our fingerprint. And with that in mind, it's time to get on with our painting. 2. Drawing, Composition, Materials, Masking Fluid: Hi, and a very warm welcome to my online watercolor class. Today we're going to be painting this fabulous, great white hern sitting underneath the silvery moonlight. I'm going to be sharing some of my favorite tips and techniques with you, such as how to paint white shapes using negative painting and how to paint the lovely soft sky. I know you're going to love creating this painting, and I'm sure it will put a really big smile on your face, too. You can either watch the whole video through and have a good at the painting afterwards, or you can paint right alongside me as I guide you through it. Now, regarding my materials, these are the ones that I'm using. But if you have different colors, then don't be afraid to use the ones that you've already got. Most of my paints are either transparent or semi transparent, which will allow the white of the paper to shine through. This is what gives watercolor its wonderful radiance. I tend to keep opaque paints for when I want to cover up the underlying paper or layer of paint. As you can see, I've slightly altered the shape of the hern from the reference photograph and put it into an imaginary moonlight scene. This is the beauty of artistic license. You can add, subtract, change things around just as you see fit. And I've included a copy of the drawing in the project resources section so that you can download it and trace it, and then not worry about the drawing because this is a painting class. Now, the first thing that I'm going to be painting is the sky background, but I don't want to be stressing about going in between all the fiddly little branches and around the bird's feathers. So I'm going to protect them with some masking fluid. You can apply masking fluid to the shapes where you want to reserve the white of the paper, either for highlights or to paint over by hand later on. Now, you do need to wait for the fluid to dry fully before applying paint over the top of it. When it is properly dry, you can just rub off the hard gum either with a clean finger or with a putty rubber, and you'll see that it leaves behind crisp defined white shapes. If the white shapes are a bit too stark, you can soften them with a damp brush, or you can even paint over it. Now, don't use your good brushes for this because the gum will spoil them. So use an old brush or even the handle of the brush. I also use rubber tipped applicators because the gum is very easy to clean off them. You can see I'm using a rubber tipped applicator now to apply the masking fluid to the branches. The other side of this applicator has a small steel tip, and that's very useful for adding very tiny dots and dashs. You can get a ruling pen, which varies the thickness of the line, but I tend to use an unwound paper clip for very fine lines and dots. I'm using PBO masking fluid because it is blue, so it's easy to see where you've put it. Some of the masking fluids tend to be white or a creamy white, and it can be difficult to actually see where you have put it when you start putting all the color on. The other thing about PBO gum is that it does lift off very easily without tearing the paper. The downside, of course, with the blue color is that it's difficult to see what the finished result will look like until you actually remove the masking fluid and are left with the bright white paper underneath. I'm using the very tip of my applicator to paint these long stringy subjects that hang over trees. Now, I'm not sure if they're called Spanish moss or bearded lichen, but you'll love seeing them dangling over trees, and I do believe that some of them can stretch to many feet long. They don't actually damage the tree, so they're not a parasite. But I thought the addition of a few of these would make a good connection between the branch above and the water below. And as I said earlier, if you don't have a good point on your applicator, you can use an unwound paper clip for these fine lines. I'm using the same point on my applicator to paint his very thin legs and his little claws. The hern does have very thin legs because of its adaptation to wetland environments, its long slender legs have got very large feet that act like snowshoes, and these distribute its weight across a wide surface area, so it can very easily walk on soft mud without sinking in. And that kind of design requires less muscle mass in the legs. So you've got a very thin appearance in the hern's legs compared to other birds of a similar size. I'm using the masking fluid now to outline the hern. I'm using my paper clip and my rolling pin alternating between the two to get some very fine lines on those feathers. As with the branches and the moon, I'm trying to protect the white shape of the hern and especially these very fine feathers from when I paint the sky c in the background because it would be really too fiddly going in and between all these very small shapes. It might seem like we're doing a lot of work here with the masking fluid, but it really will pay dividends when we come to painting the larger shapes. It'll save us a lot of time from going in and out of these tiny areas. But having said that, don't overdo too many of these very fine feathers that are springing out from the hern's body, sometimes less is more. But I am just putting a few lines down the wing feather so that when I do add a little bit of color later on to the hern, those white areas will stand out. So now that I finish masking the bird, I can go back to finishing off the branches. And on this side, particularly, there are lots more very fine twigs, so you could either go back to using your unwound paper clip or ruling pin, or the very small tip if you have an applicator. And don't worry if you don't get the lines exactly in the same place as the drawing. It is nature, so a lot of these twigs and branches will be very organic and random. In fact, you could even add a few here and there if you think that there's too big a gap between them, or you can remove some. It's your painting, so it's entirely up to you. The reason that I painted the bird before doing the right hand side of the branches is because I didn't want to smudge this side with my hand while doing something further away. Once you have smudged your masking fluid, you do have to just leave it to dry completely before you can erase it and then start again. It will normally take only about ten to 15 minutes to dry depending on the temperature in the room that you're painting and also how thickly you've applied it. I have left masculine fluid on overnight or even a day or two, but anytime after that tends to degrade the paper. I've just added a very tiny dot for the highlight in the pupil. But if you don't manage to do that, you can always add it later on with some gouache or white acrylic. And then the last place to apply the masking fluid is below the moon in the water, some horizontal strokes for the reflections of the moonlight, and then let it dry. 3. Paint the sky background, wet-on-wet; negative painting to create white shapes; sparkles with salt: The masking fluid is dry now, and I have all my colors mixed ready in my palette. I have some transparent orange, some burnt sienna, some burnt umber. Here I've got some ultramarine with burnt umber, some turquoise, some cerulean blue, some ultramarine blue, and some indigo. If we applied wet paint to dry paper, that would be called the wet on dry technique. It does give you more control, but it does tend to also give you a lot of hard edges, so not very appropriate for a nice soft sky. So we're going to use the wet on wet technique. The wet on wet technique gives you less control. First of all, you wet the paper with clean water and then apply wet paint on top of the wet paper and let it spread into the wet wash. Now, this results in a lovely diffused effect with soft edges. And because the paint mixes into the wetness of the paper, the color is diluted. And the tone is paler. If several different colors are used in this way, they will intermix and blend with each other. So when you drop some blue into a wet yellow underwash, that will result in a blended green. Now, as you can see, I'm using a large brush to apply this clean water. I can go right over the branch shapes because all of them are covered with the PBO masking fluid. But I am going around the shapes of the moon and the hern not wanting to get any water actually inside the moon or inside the bird. If you do do that, just use some paper towel and dab it off. I've wet the paper right down to the horizon line, but I haven't wet the water below it. While the paper is still very wet, I'm dropping in my first color, the transparent orange. Now, there's no precise science to where to put these colors. I'm really making it up as I go along, but I want a little balance of the color, so I'll have a little bit around the moon, as well, imagining that there's going to be a warm glow coming from the light of the moon. And I'll also have a little bit of that orange below on the branches where the moonlight is catching a bit more color. However, it's important to notice that on this right hand side, where there is going to be that shaft of moonlight, my color is much more dilute, much paler on this right hand side than it is over on the left, where the bird is in darkness in more shadow. And now I'm adding a few little touches of turquoise. Now notice that I'm not putting these over the top of the orange, but I'm putting them in the white spaces in and amongst the orange paint. Because the paper is very wet, these two colors are mingling and blending into each other quite nicely. And then I'm doing the same thing with some cerulean blue, mainly putting that into the corners, creating a sort of vignette effect. I want the darker colors to be in the corners and down the sides and along the top. Now, it doesn't matter if you mix the cerulean blue in with the turquoise. Those two colors are very near to each other on the color wheel, so you won't get any muddy colors if there is some mixture between the two. I can paint right over the branches and the twigs because they're protected with the masking fluid. And I can also go over the feathers that are springing out from the bird's body because, again, they're protected with the masking fluid that we put on earlier. But as you can see, I'm taking care not to get any paint inside the bird shape and the moon shape, leaving those completely white. And this is what we call negative painting. When you paint an image such as a butterfly, this is called the positive shape. But if you paint the area immediately around the positive shape, to make it stand out, this is what's called negative painting. In other words, you paint the surrounding negative space to make the positive shape stand out. So in the case of our painting, we've painted the negative space around the moon and around the hern to make those two subjects stand out as the positive shapes. I'm tilting my board up and down to encourage some of those colors to blend and flow a little bit more, so I get some more softer muted blends. Now, if your colors aren't running like mine are, it means you haven't put enough water on your paper at the start, so you're getting a much drier and harder line defect. Now, if that is the case, you'll need to spray your painting with some clean water using a small water sprayer, but you do need to mask the hern and the moon first with some paper towel so you don't get those wet. Now, because my paper is still so wet, I can continue to add more color. As soon as these colors start to dry, then you've really got to stop painting the sky because that's when it starts to get overworked and muddy. Now, because I'm painting wet and wet so wet paint on top of wet paint, I am getting some nice blends, and the colors are still flowing nicely. I'm using my very dark blue colour ultramarine plus my ultramarine and dirt umber, that dark, sort of midnight blue color that I mixed earlier in my palette. I'm adding this really dark color to the top corners and along the top and in between some of the orange color. Over on this left hand side, particularly, I want it to be quite dark where it's in shadow. I'm also using touches of my indigo that I mixed in my palette as well, particularly around this left hand side of the hern. I want the white of his body and the white of those feathers that are springing out to really be emphasized. And remember that watercolor tends to dry much lighter than when you first put it on by about 20 to 30%. So in actual fact, you need to go a little bit darker than you want it to look because it is going to dry a little bit lighter than it does now. Because you want the white shapes of the moon and the great white hern to really stand out, you've got to take quite a big breath and leap in there with this dark color. So be brave and have faith that it will all look right in the end. Having said that, we don't want the entire sky to be one big dark tone. We need to have some medium tones in there and some light tones. And the light tones, particularly over the right hand side, where the moonlight is shining and brightening everything up. So you want that nice, gentle transition between the dark, the medium, and the light tones, all appearing in this same sky. But because we are creating a very abstract paint only sky, don't worry if your painting, if your sky doesn't look exactly like mine. It would be impossible for me to recreate exactly the same sky. You have to let the watercolor kind of do its own thing as well and let the colors mingle and appear where and when they want to do. You do have a lot of control, but sometimes you've just got to give the watercolor a little bit of its own headway as well. If some of your earlier colors, the orange and the turquoise starts to disappear, there's no reason why you can't drop a little bit more in, you can spatter some in as I am doing here. As long as that paint is still wet and moving, you can continue to add little touches here and there to the sky. And if you put too much color on, then use a clean damp brush to lift some of that color off or move it around. As the paint starts to dry, you'll find that the colors aren't merging and mingling as much as you wanted them to. So that's when you need to lift your board up and give the painting a good old shake. That will encourage those colours to move a little bit more on the paper. In order to differentiate between where the sky stops and the water starts, and add in some dark color, which could be any kind of shape in the distance above the horizon line. There might be distant bushes or trees or even buildings in that background. The final touch is to add a little bit of salt. You can use household salt or sea salt, but you need to sprinkle it on just as the sheen is going off the wet paper. Salt absorbs the paint and leaves lovely little sparkles of light behind, but you do need to leave it to dry and then gently brush off any excess with your finger. 4. Paint the moon, heron and water; wet-on-dry; use 'positive painting' to add details to white shapes;: And We're going to use the wet on dry technique that's wet paint on dry paper to add some details to our white shapes. So that's the moon and the great white hern and the water. We particularly need to add some color and tone to the moon and the hern to give them the three D rounded shape that they are. I'm using exactly the same colours that I've used for the sky to add some detail to the moon. But these are very light, just nice pale touches, just to create a sense of detail and roundedness on this orbital shape. We know from space ventures that the moon is full of craters and hills and valleys, so it's not just one white flat shape, and we need to recreate that in our painting. I'm using the very tip of my small brush to add a little bit of transparent orange to the hern's eye. And then, again, I'm using the same colors that I use for the sky to add some shade into the hern's body, although I mostly be using the blues and turquoises. H. I'm going around the wing area, there will be shadow at the back of the wing, as well as at the front, and I'm using a damp brush to just softly blend those colors into the underlying white paper. You haven't used the blending and softening technique before. I do suggest strongly that you try it on a piece of practice paper before using it on this painting. It might appear at first like a very simple technique, but mastering it will really make a massive difference to all of your paintings. I'm adding some cerulean blue shadow to the back of the hern's head and also underneath his chin on the neck below where again, it will be in shadow. And I'm blending and softening both of those shapes with a clean wet brush. Just as we did with the moon, we don't want to completely obliterate all of the white in the great hern shape. Otherwise, it won't be a great white hern. It'll be a gray or colored one. So just a few little touches here and there, using that blending and softening technique to vary the tone and give it the three D rounded appearance. Once you've got some soft shadows going around the wing, you can drop a little bit of darker colour, just tiny little touches here and there. The darker colour will blend into that lighter paint beneath it and soften. But that'll just give you a little bit of variety between the tone along the whole of the wing. I'm adding a little bit more shading to the bottom of his wing and his body because those are the areas that are furthest away from the moonlight and will therefore be in more shadow. The idea for painting a hern in the moonlight came from when I read about them how they are solitary feeders, and when not feeding at night, they like to roost in trees. In fact, the white hern has long captivated people's imagination throughout history. It's very striking appearance, and those long elegant legs and pure white plumage represent a powerful symbol of purity, grace, and resilience. And this beautiful, majestic bird celebrates the magnificence of the environment and encourages people to be responsible for caring for it. Most spectacular is during the breeding seasons when they grow long, loose breeding plumes from its back and wings. Speaking of its wing, I'm now just emphasizing the feathers growing down the side of its wing, just slightly going over with a very pointy brush, adding a little bit of blue color for the shadows between the feathers. And of course, I'm continuing to use the blending and softening technique using a clean damp brush to soften some of the shadows that I've painted on so that they gently disappear into the white of the paper. I'm using the tip of my small brush to add a little bit of shape and color to the head area, so where the cheek is rounded and also the rounded shape where the head dips into the eye. And there's a little bit in front of the eye as the head starts to move into the beak. For the beak itself, I am using my transparent orange. Now, some of the herns do have gray beaks, almost white beaks, black beaks, and some do have orange beaks. But I want to pick up the orange in the sky, so I want that harmony to be appearing in the hern as well. And so to make him stand out and be the star of the show, I am using that strong orange for his beak. The last bit of this particular section is to paint the water. Now, water doesn't have a color. It runs clear, but it does reflect colors that are above it. So in this case, it would be the colors that we use for the sky, and even the white of the hern and the white of the moon will be reflected in the water and the colors of the branches. Water also reflects what's below the surface. So any silk that's lying on the bottom of the water bed, any pond life, et cetera. The other thing to remember about water is that it lies flat. Unless it's a waterfall or unless it's trickling over rocks, it will be perfectly horizontal. You're painting the water, you do need to use horizontal brushstrokes. To keep it looking water, I have first of all, applied a thin wash of clean water over the whole area going over the masking fluid as well. And now I'm using the colors that are used in the sky and the birds, so I'm using some cerulean blue, some turquoise and leaving little gaps in between those colors where there might be little slivers of the moonlight shining on the water. Now, the color on the right hand side of the sky is very dark, so we need to mimic that color in the reflections in the water below it. I'm now adding some of my very dark blue black indigo color to that left and far right side. I'm still using horizontal brush strokes and letting little gaps in between show through where I'd put the turquoise and the cerulean blue. It's all very wet. I'm getting this nice blend of color. And, of course, the dark color does tend to dry a little bit lighter, particularly, so I might need to go back in and just go over some of those dark areas again. We'll see how it goes. I am mindful that I want to retain the shimmering light that's being cast down onto the water from the moon above. So although I'm taking some strokes slightly into that area, I'm not taking them right across. I have started to introduce a little bit of the burnt umber and burnt sienna into the water, reflecting from the branches and the twigs above. Now, we haven't put them in yet, but we will be doing in the next steps. So I'm thinking ahead and knowing that I need to get some browns in there and some burnt sienna colors. And of course, I have got some browns and some oranges in the sky as well, so they also need to be reflected in the water. As I'm moving towards the area where the moon is shining and the reflections are in that water, you can see that I'm starting to use paler, more dilute color. Too heavy or dense anywhere with your color in the water. You can always use a clean dry brush to lift it out. Another method is to take a small piece of paper towel and twist it into a long thin shape. Then just press it onto the color and lift it. See that the color transfers onto the paper towel. So don't just put it straight back on. You need to turn it around or even use another piece so that you don't actually press that color back on if you're doing some repeat strokes. And now I need to leave everything to dry before going on to the next step. 5. Paint the Branches using harmonious colours; paint the heron's legs : You can see here that off camera, I've removed all of the masking fluid with a clean dry finger, and now I'm starting to apply some white paint to the white shapes. There might be some little areas of the white paper that have accidentally got colored or you want to add some touches of white here and there where they've been lost. I've just tide it up the rounded edge of my moon and also some of the edges in the hern's body and a few horizontal strokes of white paint in the water where it's reflecting the moonlight. I'm now using a very thin, pointy rigor brush to add some very fine plumage coming from the hern's head and from his body. You can use white gouache, but I found it does tend to fade a bit and you need to reapply it. White acrylic paint will do really well. The best white white I found is doctor PH Martin's bleed proof white. It's a little bit expensive, but it lasts a long time, and it really is a good coverage. I've zoomed in so that you can see this very tiny detail that I'm adding to the eye. I'm using black, which I've mixed with some ultramarine and burnt umber, and I've just gone round the outside of the eye and also added a little black dot for his pupil. Then I'm using a more dilute black color to differentiate between the top and bottom of his beak or bill. Touch of turquoise and ultramarine, where the beak joins the head. Where his nostril will be. And whilst I'm in this area, I'm just going to strengthen the shadows in his head, where the head curves around near the eye and his little cheek area. Just going to make those a little bit stronger. Yours might be perfectly alright, so don't do that unless it's absolutely necessary. I've just noticed that I've missed a little bit of the background sky color between his legs. So I'm just adding that in now before I go on to do the branches. For the branches, I'm using a mixture of colors. So I'm using some burnt sienna, some burnt Umba. I'm using some of the turquoise that we used earlier in the sky and some cobalt blue, and, of course, some indigo and dark black where the branches and the twigs join. Also using different tones of those colors. So lighter in some places and darker in others. I'm also using the paper towel to dab off any surplus paint because this tree, the branches and the twigs, needs to be lighter than the sky behind. Otherwise, it's not going to stand out, but it will be a bit darker towards the back of the bird. And as those branches and twigs move towards the area where the moon is shining, they will become lighter because of the moonlight shining on them. So there'll be quite a lot of tonal variation in painting these. And, in fact, I believe in some little slivers of twigs and branches unpainted where they are really catching the light of that moon. I'll let you watch the rest of how I paint the branches and trees along with the video, but I'll put some little notes up for anything that you particularly need to watch out for. M. Nine. Nine. No. 6. Final Details. add details to heron’s eye & beak; white paint to add fine feathers: And I'm using some dark brown and black color to define the beak a little more, particularly where the upper and lower beak meet. The lower beak will also need to be a little bit darker in tone because it's in shadow from the upper beak. As you can see, although I want a fairly hard line between the upper and lower beak, I'm also softening in some of those lines with a clean damp brush to get a more natural appearance. It's a very small area really of the whole painting. But as with all beaks and noses on animals and birds and even humans, you don't want them to look as though they've been stuck on like a plug. And as is often the case, now that I've defined the beak, the eye is looking a bit insipid. So I'm using a black waterproof pen with a very fine nib to go around the outer edge of the eye and also redefine the black pupil in the middle of it. And whilst I've got my pen out, I think I'm just going to add a few little not a long definite line, but a few little touches to that separation between the upper and lower beak. I'm also going to use the pen to add a little bit of dark shadow to the left hand side of the Heron's claws. You need to stand back now and have a good look at your own painting to see if there's any areas that might need lightning a bit. Although you can use a brush and some water to lift off paint, I want to introduce you to magic sponge eraser because this little tool works miraculously to remove unwanted paint. You can use it to lighten an area that is too dark or even strip the color right back to white paper depending on which color you've used because some colors do stain the paper more than others. Tear a small piece of the sponge, dip it in some clean water, then squeeze it to just damp and rub over the unwanted paint until the colour is removed. Use a paper towel in between to blot and get the last bit of paint off, and keep rinsing your sponge out during use to keep it clean or even throw it away and use a fresh piece. If you accidentally get a blob of unwanted paint in the middle of your painting or you just want to lighten the tone of an area, give it some highlights, this little piece of sponge will become your best friend. Because it's normally sold as an abrasive household cleaner, it does tend to rough up the paper a little bit. So take extra care if you're painting over the area that you've sponged with another color. And you don't need to do anything really drastic. Sometimes just a few little subtle touches can make all the difference. But we definitely get into the stage now where it's important to step back fully and assess what final details need to be added or removed from your own painting. It may be absolutely fine just as it is. And deciding when to stop overworking a painting is an important step that comes with practice. It can be useful to look at the painting in a mirror or even put it to one side for a few days and view it later with a fresh pair of eyes. I think that I am definitely moving into the danger zone of over fiddling now. I do feel I've achieved a good balance of dark, medium, and light tones. And if I add any more detail to the white hern and the moon, they're going to lose their lovely luminous whiteness. So it's time to stop painting and call it done. I do hope you've enjoyed this painting and that you've learned some tips and techniques along the way that you can incorporate into your own paintings. And why not pop it into a mount and a frame, and you'll be amazed how good it looks when you do that? I'd really love to see your own finished painting, which you can upload to the your project section. And if you could just take a moment to leave me a short review, that also would be really great. In the meantime, thank you for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you next time Happy painting. M 7. HERON FINAL THOUGHTS : Well done on completing the painting of this fabulous great white hern in the moonlight. We've covered quite a few different techniques, as you've been following alongside of me. Instead of just copying the reference photos, we've used them in a more loose and imaginative way. We use the wet on dry technique, putting wet paint on dry paper, used the wet on wet technique, putting wet paint on wet paper, and we learned how to use the technique of negative painting. So painting the negative space to make the positive subjects of our great white hern and our white moon stand out more. We looked at how to recover the white of the paper using magic sponge and how to add white to the paper using white acrylic paint, ink or goahe. I would really love to see your own finished painting, which you can upload to the your project section. And if you could just take a moment to leave me a short review, that also would be really great. And if you've enjoyed this video, do have a look at my other classes on Skillshare, which are packed with more tips and techniques to help you on your own art journey. In the meantime, thank you for joining me, and I look forward to seeing you next time Happy painting.