Holiday Watercolor Greeting Cards: Glowing Christmas Village

1. Winter Watercolor Village Intro: Get ready to turn blank cards into many masterpieces. In this class, we are painting a glowing Christmas village that's going to be perfect for spreading holiday cheer. Or keeping for yourself because they're gonna be that good. We're gonna start with a silhouette transfer, and then we're gonna dive into a moody midnight watercolor sky, glowing windows and snowflakes and gold and white. And I've got a few sneaky trips up my sleeve to make your buildings look like they are lit from within. 'Cause by the end, you're gonna have two magical cards because let's face it, painting one is never enough. Stick around. I'm Jules. And this is the holiday art vendor you didn't know you needed. Let's make some festive art together. 2. Materials Needed: M, let's go over the materials necessary to complete these beautiful watercolor, snowy midnight cards. Okay, first, we're going to need the actual cards. So I've got some watercolor paper cards that I had ordered off at Amazon, and I usually do two at a time because, well, by the time I get to the second one, I've already perfected what I'm doing. So actually, the second one's a lot easier than the first one. And it's nice to get two done at a time. Okay, you also need some scrap paper. I've just got two pieces of just paper laying around the studio that I don't need anymore. I've got a piece of graphite paper. If you do not have graphite paper, you can simply get a sheet of white computer printout paper and get a number two pencil and just take it and go on the side all over as big as your image, and this can be your graphite paper. Okay? And then we're going to need our printout of our design. So the design I supplied for you will be able to be printed out at 6 " by 4 ". And you just put in this dimension in when you go to print out the photograph. So it'll say custom size or or something else like that where you can enter in the actual dimensions of the photograph that you want to print out. So if you bought 3 " by 5 " for your Christmas cards or six by four or five by seven, that's how big you would print this out. Okay, what else do we need? I have got some gel pens. I've got a white and a gold. And then I also have, like, a micron. This is a uni pen. It's got pigment ink in it, so it does not smear or bleed when it gets wet. I have a 0.3. Then I've got two round paint brushes and two flat ones just because I like options of different sizes. Okay, I've got an eraser, some washi tape, and some painter's tape. I've got rags. I just cut up old sheets and cut them into these rectangles and use them over and over again. I've got two things of water, a spray bottle, which I spray down my palette with, and I've got these watercolors. So I've got a couple idscent colors, a bronze and a gold. This is a yellow ochre, ultramarine blue. Turquoise blue. Indigo, neutral tint, and then a aqua green pho color. So I think that's going to do it for us, so grab your supplies, and let's get going on our image trace. 3. Image Transfer: M. Okay, welcome you guys. I just want to remind all before we start that imperfection is not your enemy. It's where we are unique and interesting. I have to tell myself this all the time. I have to push through the missing middle. I have to push through the messy middle to come out the other side to see a beautiful piece of artwork. So I want you to trust my process. It's a lot of layering and blotting, layering and blotting. It's the same thing over and over again. I promise it's easy, even if you're a beginner, this is for every skill level because, you know what? I decided a long time ago. It's just like playing golf. And that if you want to be a better golfer, you need to hang out with better golfers. So even if you think this class is a little over the top, please stick around, learn some new techniques. This is where the magic happens. So let's embrace the process and have fun and let's paint these beautiful watercolor holiday cards together. Okay, this is where we're going to set up our workspace, and I just want to show you what I've done so far. So I have taken my two watercolor cards and put it oriented it on my desktop. And then I have taped with painter's tape down on the backside of both of them. Okay, so I've taped both of them down, and now I'm taking those two pieces of scrap paper and laying it down on top of the backside of my cards. The reason I do this is because I am messy. And I admit this, so I accept it, and I have to set my place up so that I don't have unexpected little blobs and spills on the back side of the card where I want to clean and white. So I've begun to tape down my one card with washi tape. And this washi tape actually is not very sticky, so you'll see me over and over again keep pushing it down throughout these videos. So I'm going to tape up this second card. And I just want to let you guys know throughout these videos, because I'm doing two cards, I'll do one card, like in real time, and then I'll speed the next one up just so that you can see it again, like the process a second time. I don't want to waste your time in these videos, but I also want to be thorough, and I want you guys to learn something. Alright, so let's line up where we want our design to be. I want to make sure I've got at least three quarters of an inch to an inch maybe at the bottom. Where the bottom of the buildings are to the bottom of where my design is going to be. So that's why it's sitting up a little bit. I'm orienting my graphite paper with the dark side down. And if you made your own, you'd put that dark side down. And I'm going to take my ballpoint pen and just start tracing around the entire image that I see. So I'm not sweating things. Like, I'm not sweating the small details on this. I'm not going through, like, the panes of glass and doing all the cross hatching. I really am only getting the outside of the windows because that's all that's necessary right now. These are just placeholders, and something that I think beginners get wrong is that they spend too much time doing details when they're just going to end up painting over it. So it simple, do yourself a favor and don't spend energy on stuff that's going to be covered up anyway. So these are just placeholders. So I've sped the video up because really that's all I'm doing is tracing over the lines that I see and getting that graphite down onto the paper. And there it is. It's very light, but I can see it enough that it will give me some guidelines to when I'm painting with the watercolors, I know what I'm doing. So here we go with the second one. Again, if you don't have graphite paper, take a pencil like I'm doing, lay it on its side, and fill the entire sheet, then you would take the sheet and just flip it over to where the graphite is down and keep tracing like we are. But anyway, so reposition the second one. I have about half, two, three fourths of an inch at the bottom. Below the buildings, I'm putting my graphite paper down, and I'm gonna begin tracing again. Super fast. Super fast. Super fast. Okay. Not sweating it, getting the outlines, getting the placement. That is all. Do not sweat the details. Cool. The details are just there for you for later. You can always use this image as reference. And also, like you just saw me do there, I'm adding another window. I'm flipping up the original image, making sure everything is down on the substrate. And if I see something is missing, I'll go ahead and transfer it over before I pull up the image like that. So that's about it. You guys complete this portion, and we will meet back in the next video where we're gonna begin building this midnight sky. Make sure you press down your washi tape and get it all very fixed for this next lesson. See there. 4. Midnight Sky: Yep. Alright, let's get going on this glowing Christmas village. We are going to start with our midnight sky. So I want you to grab your fluffy round brush. I have a Dugato squirrel hair number zero, and I'm just going through and wetting the sky above our Cloudline. And then I'm getting just a little bit of indigo, building our first layer. I would rather go lighter than darker because I don't want to put down too much pigment to begin with. I'm getting some ultramarine blue and mixing it in with the indigo. And I'm going to stay above our cloud line with the dark pigment. I'm making sure that I have plenty of water on my brush. You can see how things are freely moving around, and then I want to get a lot of water on my brush and come in from the light area to the dark area. Lifting up through the dark area. And what happens is, as you can see, as I do that, the dark pigment then comes down and runs into the area of lightness where the water is that we put down. So it creates more of an ethereal, kind of wispy, very airy look. So I want you guys to start with me and start doing this. I've tried to leave my pigments in the frame and my water in the frame so you can see just exactly how much of what I'm using. I'm now bringing down some of the water with the really light areas down in between the buildings. Okay, so now I'm doing the second layer of darkness in the clouds. I'm slowly dropping in just the slightest more pigment above that cloud line that we first put in, bringing it down into the little folds of each cloud. So I'm bringing it down into that little valley, and I'm not filling it all in. I do want to leave some lighter areas in the sky. I want to make sure I've got a lot of light and a lot of dark that it's not all uniform. So I'm going to continue going around these shapes that we initially put in, and you can see that outline right there, rinsing my brush, and then I'm going to go from light and pull in some of the dark. So I'm just staying in the light area, and when I feel like I've got too much pigment on my brush, I just go back over and rinse my brush. I'm going from the light to the dark, lifting up and now that I've got a little more pigment on my brush from lifting up, I brought it back down toward the building just to give another little gradation of color. Okay, and I'm just slowly working it. You know, I'm just responding to what I see. I'm responding to the way the water is moving around on the page. Just slowly making choices, you know, as I go. Alright, so I'm going to let that sit and move and see what happens, and I'm going to start on the other card. So like I said before, I'm going to speed it up some. I'm getting the area above the clouds wet. I'm getting more ultramarine blue with the indigo, and I'm going to start building in this first layer. Now, I'm going to be a little more confident on this second card because I just did the first one. So you already see that I put down initially a little bit more pigment than I did on the first card. And now I'm building in the same way. I'm loading my brush up with a lot of water. I'm starting in the light area, and I'm moving in towards the darker area. And then I've got more water on my brush, and I'm just bringing down those lines in between the buildings. Okay, so now the second layer on this card on the right, dropping it down in the same patterns, and then coming in with a wet brush from the light area into the dark area. And you see I'm kind of rounding out the shape as I'm bringing it into the dark area. And then I'm going to grab my rag, and I'm going to twist it up into kind of like a jelly roll, cinnamon roll pattern at the end of it and just lightly blot all over it. Okay, so now I'm doing the same thing again. See, I do the same thing over and over again. Really, this should build your confidence because it just takes a little bit of time, and then it takes just repetition. Okay? So I'm bringing down just a little more pigment in between the buildings. I do want to make sure I have that line of light to dark where the cloud line is. Okay. So I'm taking my rag again, blotting away excess. And when I use that little jelly roll pattern on the bottom of my rag, it actually creates interesting shapes of where it lifts off the paint. So I like that. I like when it does that. I don't want to just blot my rag with a side that is uniform. I want it to be undulated. I want it to be irregular. Alright, so now I'm reloading up my brush, and this time, I'm going to do the indigo, and I'm adding in some neutral tint. This is Daniel Smith neutral tint. I love this color because it does not muddy colors. It strictly deepens the value of the color. And you see all I'm doing right now is I'm hitting the darkest spots. Okay, and when I'm hitting the darkest spots, there's only three or four spots on each one. And then I'm coming back around with a very wet brush and just kind of bleeding the edges slightest just a little bit. Okay, moving it around, just softening the edge of where I put all that dark picnic. Okay, and more water on my brush a little bit. And I'm gonna come down by the buildings and just build in. I'm gonna leave the whitest white next to that dark cloud line where we first drew our line. And because I'm using the neutral tint right there, it's actually making it a little bit more cool rather than warm. As it gets down to the buildings. And again, I like that, too. So this is the last layer, which is going to be the darkest layer. I've really loaded the pigment up on my brush as far as pigment to water ratio goes, and I'm just dropping in a few more really, really dark areas. And I know that because the paper is wet, it's still going to bleed. It's still going to move around a little bit. And I'm remembering my initial cloud line kind of dropping in some darker colors where the clouds come together. Okay, so I've now repeated the process. I got more water on my brush, and I'm just going in and softening the edges just a little bit. A little bit more water there, letting it bleed around a little bit. And wherever I think there's an edge that's too sharp, that's where I go in and drop a little bit of water. Yeah. I think that's looking pretty good. Yeah, so just take the time and let the pigments move around. If they get too uniform, blah, blah, blot. Use your rag. It's your friend. And just keep slowly like you saw, I did four layers here. And up there in the top corners, I feel like it's getting a little too uniform, so I just blotted it, so it's not the same amount of pigment everywhere. I'm going to take my heat gun and dry this area, and I think it's drying beautifully. I'm pretty happy with this. We might go in and add a little bit more color later on, but I think this is a great base for what we want to build in our midnight snowy sky. So you'll take the time to do this, and I'll meet you in the next lesson where we start our buildings. 5. Buildings: First Layers of Watercolor: Okay, this is where everything starts popping out. This is so much fun. We're gonna take our yellow ochre and our flat brush. I've got a what is it? A flat brush number eight by Princeton. I'm gonna get my yellow ochre out. I'll go ahead and pull a few other colors out, too. Let's see. The ultramarian blue. And let's see. The bronze and the gold. Yeah. So that's the gold. Here's the bronze. Okay, let's start there. Alright. So more yellow ochre, a little bit water, and I'm going to start in the middle. Okay, so I'm just going on the front facades of the building. And if you'll notice, I only went to the well one time, and I'm pulling all of this pigment down. I'm getting more water on my brush. And now I'm going to use this middle building as my well. So those buildings in the middle, those first three buildings in the middle, whenever I need more pigment, that's where I go to draw my pigment from. So those buildings will get a little lighter. And as I use the pigment from there, can pull it over to another building. See how it deposited more pigment right there on those others. So use that to your advantage, and then I just got a bunch of water right there, and I'm just smoothing out the bottom, grabbing my rag, making sure the bottom where I'm pressing down is kind of all balled up and has different textures on it. So right here, if you can't get some pigment off of the paper, just re wet the area. So I'm going to put a lot of water on my brush. Put that there. Press. Press, water, press, press. See how it lightened it up just a little bit. Alright, great. That looks good. Okay, so speeding up on the second one. Same thing. I've got pigment and right there, reloading different textures, different amounts of pigment, and now I'm blotting. All right, perfect. Moving on. Okay. So now we are going to go to the ultramarine blue. Put it with some indigo. And neutral tint. Okay, pretty dark, so I'm going to spread some water on it to lighten it up just a little bit, get it flowy. Okay, and then I'm going to start on the roofs of the buildings. So I'm going to start on the edge. And I know the ones on the edges, I want to be darker. So I'm very confident that with the amount of pigment I've got on my brush, I can put that over there on the side. So I'm going to do the second one that's underneath it. And I'm using the shape of my brush to really help me pull in these edges, pull in the shapes, and then just bringing it down. Okay, and now I'm going to go to this little cone silo looking building and using, again, the shape of my brush to help me pulling down that dark pigment. And right now, I'm thinking to myself, Okay, it's closer to the middle. It should not be this dark. Okay, but I'm going to put my brush in the water, and I'm gonna blot a little bit and put some more water down on the body of this and lift it up. Okay, so that's a little light. So I'm going to go on to this other building, and I'm just pulling down pigment that I already had from the roof. Okay, little bit of water and smooth that down. Same thing with this building. And now I'm going back to the cone, and I'm gonna drop down the shadow on the left side. Okay, so now we need to make a decision. There's a building back behind those two buildings we just did, and we need to decide what color to make it. So because the roofs of the buildings that we just did are so dark and the background, the white white is so white, we need to do a middle tone so that it will stand out, okay? So right here, I've got a mid tone between the white and the darkest dark, and I'm just going to pull down that mid tone and see how you can still tell that there's a roof there. I can distinguish it from the background, and I can distinguish it from the two buildings that are in front of it, okay? Alright, so now I'm going to work on the front facade, and I'm just going to come down right underneath the roof line to maintain that little line of yellow. I think that's a nice little highlight that's automatically built in. So why make it hard on ourselves? And then I just got some water again, and I'm blotting. Blotting, blotting. I love the blot. You'll see this over and over, guys, and see, I didn't rinse my brush right there. I just moved down the pigment again. I'm gonna blot again, move around somewhere pigment, wherever I need to bring it down. Hey, little more uptop. So I like that that's all dark in front of that other building. And then possibly the other building can get darker at the bottom, but we'll explore that in a minute. So I'm going to move on to this roof line using the shape of my brush again to help us out. And I'm making this roof line a little bit quirky. It's not regular. I've got to do this little bendy thing on the left side, and I'm also going to make the left wall of the building a little wonky. It's going to come out at an angle, but that just kind of will contribute to the quirkiness of the entire area. So here we go with the front facade. I've left that white line just under the roof line. I've got some water and I'm smoothing it out. And then I'm going to come in with a rag. Blot a little bit, soften that edge, come back in. There's that off center line I was talking about just to keep your eye moving around, and I'm going to start working some of these shadows. And I'm going to keep all my shadows more on the left side. So underneath the roof lines and on the left side of the buildings. So that means our light source would be coming from the left. I think that is correct. So when it's shining, no, it would be from the right. I don't know. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Just pick one side. Pick one side that your shadows are gonna be on. I'm picking my left. And so I'm going to make sure I've got the bottom of the windows and the shadows on the left. Anyway, you'll see what I'm saying. So paint, paint, paint, blot, blot, blot. Going back to the pigment and getting the top of this cone. We're going to put a little cross on top of this cone later to make it like a church steeply thing. Okay, bringing down the lines of the sides of the building. I think it's a little skinny right now. Let's just wet our brush and bring in the pigment on each side. Okay. I think I'm gonna widen this building a little later on the left. It just seems a little skinny to me. Alright. A little more pigment. Me. Alright, let's move on. When in doubt, like, right there, I'm not happy with it. So when in doubt, move on. I can come back to it later. I'm gonna let it dry. I'm gonna let it go. Let it go and let it dry. Let it dry and let it go. Okay. So I did the roof, and then I just pulled down a little bit of the pigment after wetting my brush and more pigment for the last roof line. Again, using the shape of my flat brush to help me out, get those nice crisp lines and see how I made the roof line a little curvy on the right. So that adds to the quirkiness, as well. I'm realizing I didn't put in any of the chimneys, so I'm gonna drop in a few of those right now. Oh, the whole roof of this one is missing. Hello. So let's put that in there. Okay. I'm just using whatever pigment was on my brush. I like this mid tone for this one, and I'm leaving a little bit of white underneath the roofline, again, just to maintain that color of lightness. And I'm gonna start dropping in some shadow, like I talked about earlier, on the left. So shadows on the left. That means our light source is coming from the right. I think I got it right that time. Okay, so all that shadow on the left side. Left side of this little cone, left side of the facade of this building. I'm starting to think about the windows that are there and building this out. So see how I left a little bit of a line from the roof down to the front of this building 'cause I'm anticipating section sectioning section Yeah, that word. You know, quarantining it off. So right there, I'm blocking out some of the windows. I'm actually doing so on this building pretty dark because I feel like this building is a little closer to us, whether it is or not, I do want to make this building with a little bit of detail. At least more so detail than the other buildings. And you'll see what I'm saying later. Okay, so little shadow on the left, underneath the roof on the left, more pigment, indigo, and Alright, yeah. I'm going to start thinking about the roof lines in front of these buildings. So this is going to change our perspective from down in front of it to up and down. So I'm pulling in a little chimney right there, the rest of that roof. So now we're more like, you know, standing on a roof looking over. I'm gonna pull in another one right here. I feel like the buildings are nice and congested. They're close together, so I can play off of that. I think that looks nice. And they're gonna be pretty dark. We're going to add some shadow to them a little bit later, so I am blotting them, but see how they retained their pigment. So dropping in a little more pigment, and I'm going to let this pigment sit a little bit, and then I'm going to come back and move it around a little bit later. Okay, so let's see. Some of these other rooftops, we need to block in some shadow. So I'm coming in with that same pigment. Getting the left side of the chimney and keeping it on the left side of the roof. So I am making it kind of blocky, which makes it more cartoony. But in a don't know. Maybe a fantastical surreal sort of way, because of the shape of the shadows, because of the chunkiness of the shadows. So I'm just keeping in this rhythm, turning my brush to make it do what I want it to, and it's just slowly dropping in these nice shadows for us. Which gives it almost a fairy tale kind of feel also, right? So on this one, here we go. I'm going to bring down the darkness, and I'm glad I left, you know, the center of that cone building light. And now I'm dropping in that darkness and the midtones in between the two buildings. And I think that really looks nice. That way, it doesn't look like a jumble mess. I hope that helps you out. I think that something like that's really important to the way we read the art. So I just lifted up a little triangle in front of that building, but you see I left it dark around the building behind it. Okay. Alright, so let's see. Okay. So we're going to let this dry, I guess, and see what we can do with this next one. Alright, so I'm going to slowly bring down a little bit of shadow slowly, but slowly. I started on the roofs on the other one. I'm starting on the fronts on this one. Doing things a little bit differently, but you can see how they can shape up in the same way pulling in those tones on the left side for the shadow. Smoothing out the edges with some water, and now I'm starting to drop in the rooftops. I can already tell this card on the right is going to have a little bit lighter tones than the one on the left, and that's okay. I like the different fluctuations of colors. So, as opposed to the one on the left, where we had a dark roof on the left and mid tones on the building behind it, this time, we're going to make the building behind go dark all the way. And the building on the left, that front facade is going to stay light. So what a cool concept. We can do it either way. Alright, here I am pulling down some more of those strange little rooftops that are kind of quirky and magical and surreal and fairy landish, whatever. This last one. Okay, then I need to drop in another, another all these chimneys that I forget. Here we go. And now our shadows, keeping them a little quirky, keeping them on the left hand side, though, using the shape of our brush to keep in those same shapes. Adding another building down in the bottom right that I had forgotten earlier. So there we go. That looks good. A little bit more there. Yeah, and check out the difference between the two buildings right there where we looked at earlier, the one on the right is darker, the building behind on left is lighter. I love how you can handle the same situation two different ways. So nothing is wrong. You guys complete this part of the project, and I will see you in the next section where we work on shadows and windows and highlights. 6. Buildings: Watercolor Shadows: Okay, before we get going, I am noticing, as I'm looking at these, that the sky does not have enough color in it. So I'm going to get back out my ultramarine blue and put some water in it, get a nice consistency, like a mid pigment consistency. And I'm going to start dropping in some blue next to the darkest darks, okay? And I know if I touch it very lightly and then blot I will not move the pigment that has already dried on there. So working quickly, again, not massaging anything, just dropping it in in a liquid state, and I can get just that little bit of a pigment to retain itself. I'm gonna get some of that. Oh, what's that color? Turquoise blue. Some of that turquoise blew out, and I'm going to do the same thing. Next to the darkest darks here and there, not around the entirety of it, dropping it in in, you know, three areas or so, two, three, four areas right there, blah, blah, blah. And that is looking pretty good. Okay, now we can move on to the buildings. So what I want to do with the buildings is get out an even smaller flat brush. I'm going to take it, and let's see what number is it? It is a four. It is a four flat shader by Princeton. Okay? And so I'm going to get a nice consistency of pigment, and I'm going to start pulling around shadows around the windows. So I'm just envisioning or I'm looking back at our reference photo what windows are on the buildings. Okay, so I'm also going to take care to maybe leave a little bit of that gold area in between the windows and the roof. And I'm also going to take care to blot in between after I do each building. So you don't want to get too many buildings ahead. So right there, I've added some water, and now I'm going to blot. If you get too many buildings ahead, you're just going to have to re wet more pigment to get it to lift off. So right there, that's a nice gradation of color. It's a nice ombre effect. I want to keep the buildings lighter at the bottom, so, like, the street below it is glowing and all the windows are glowing, too. This is going to help with that effect. So this building that's behind the cone building, it's good that I'm making the wall darker because the lower portion of the cone is lighter, so I'm doing it the opposite of the roof line. So I'm pulling down some of that shadow, picking where the windows are. And you can follow the template or not. It really doesn't matter if you want to put in doors or just all windows or however you want to handle it. Just just decide. It really doesn't matter. Okay, here we go. Got more water, more pigment coming down below that white white line that we made and just using the shape of the brush as I'm going down the front of the building. I'm going to make three windows going across on this level. And look, it doesn't matter that they're irregular. It doesn't matter that they're not perfect because I'm going to come back and blot out, and then I can always repaint another shape. Again, it really doesn't matter. I want you guys to get in the mindset that you're putting a layer down. You're going to let it dry and you're gonna forget about it, okay? So less pigment is easier to manipulate than more pigment, and you can always add another layer with more pigment. So right there, I've added some more water, and I'm blotting. Awesome. Okay, next building, same thing. Coming down under the roof line, and I'm picturing or I'm looking at the reference photo of where I want the windows. I've got two on this level, and I'll put two on this level. And maybe a door at the bottom. Blah, blah. Okay, a little bit more shadow here. I'm noticing it's a little light compared to all the others. I do want to maintain that shadow on the left. So as you're doing this, it's always good to look back over what you've already done. And if you know the amount of pigment on your brush, you can then go back and supplement areas that you need to. A little more water right there. Lifting off paint in the bottom right corner of that building. Okay, and now on to the silo. I want to paint two walls of this silo. I'm going to see the side of it, also. So the side on the right, I know this is different. Shouldn't be in shadow, but that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm doing it opposite I'm making it quirky. So if you want it all anatomically correct, so to speak, you know, do what you got to do. I just like to be different. So I think I'm going to make the wall on the right darker than the wall on the left. Okay, leaving a little bit of white space there at the bottom for the line of the wall. And I'm gonna build out this line like I said I was going to earlier and maybe move this line of that building over just to fill in those in between areas a little bit. Okay. And on this one, I'm going to make sure that I leave white just underneath the reef line. I'm going to come around all these windows and make it a nice midtone and blot. Nice. And here comes one more. All right, I'm going to do a set of windows all on one level. So here's one, two, three, and part of four. Okay. Bring that down. Blah, blah, blah. See how it just makes a suggestion. It makes it very light. It makes it look like there's not a lot of light out because we can't see detail very well. So I think it adds to the night sky. I adds to the shadowiness. I'm just popping in some shadows on the left side of that building again. They're also a little bit of that turquoise blue. And I'm just gonna pop a little bit more shadow around some of these windows and the roof line. Just adding in a little bit more color, being a little bit more bold with my pigment amount. Dropping it in slowly, but slowly, slowly, but slowly. Alright, I like it. A little bit more blue. In the shadows, I'm just kind of looking around and seeing where I think it might need it where it needs a little bit more variation. I'm going to smooth some of this out the lines are a little harsh, so I got some water on my brush. Okay. I think that's looking pretty good. Yeah, I think I want to add one more roof line right here. It's looking a little white right there in the middle, so I want to remedy that. So I'm just gonna drop in a shallow suggestion and a smaller chimney than the other chimney on the right. That looks pretty good. Okay. So let's quickly move through this next one. I'm going to do the same series of things trying to bring down shadows around the windows, adding water. Then on blotting. It's the same thing over and over again, right? Y'all are starting to get the pattern of my work process. It's actually pretty easy. You just again, patience and repetition. That's the name of the game. Okay, so just picking a different pattern of windows this time because I like variation Alright, making three sets on this one. Using the shape of my brush to help me, making that wonky wall on the left. And I'm blotting. And I'm blotting. Okay, there's the wall, making the windows facing us and then making the windows looking away. And there's a little bit of shadow around those windows. And then I'm going back and I'm looking over the entire thing, and I'm gonna see where I need to add just a little bit more shadows on the left side of things. Okay, so as I finish up, I want you to as well, and we will meet back here, and we are gonna start on these windows. See you soon. Okay. 7. Windows and Highlights: M. Hey. Now let's go for the gold. Alright, we're gonna spray down our gold, and we're going to start working on these windows. So, very simple. I'm just gonna go over each window with a blob of gold. So I'm just gonna fill in the square. I'm not gonna sweat it if I don't fill in the entire square, 'cause sometimes that's good to leave some light around it. Gonna fill in all the windows. Not hard, all one color. It's really just paint by number right now. Don't be perfect about it. Notice I'm leaving color around the gold. And doesn't that look cool. I mean, with the way we did the shadows on the fronts of the buildings, it makes it look like it's catching the light that much more. This paint's pretty thick 'cause I do want it on there. I want it to really catch the light. Now I'm going to do the cone and getting the side windows and the front windows. And getting this row. This almost looks like a guard tower to me. I hate saying it, but there it is. The guard tower. Okay, and getting this front window here, a little bit of an oval to it. And the last one. Awesome. Okay, let's quickly go through this next one. All the same thing, filling in the windows. See, isn't this easy? I told y'all it wasn't gonna be hard. I mean, I think the hardest part is over, quite honestly. You didn't even know you did the hardest part already. Right? Okay. So there's the gold on the windows. Alright. Now I push down that washy tape. It's starting to come up a little bit. Now, I think, let's see. Let's put some gold on the front of the buildings. So what I'm doing is I'm getting a very, very thin film of that iridescent gold. You could do the iridescent bronze if you wanted to. You could do whatever color you wanted. But I'm just making sure that it's very liquidy, very fluid, and I'm just putting it down in the bottom, like quarter of the building, so it looks like maybe there's some light shining off of the street that's below it. Okay, I'm just going around smoothing the edges. If I see a rough edge or edge that's sharp, I'm just smoothing it out just a little bit. And this is a lot less pigment than we put in the windows, okay? So I'm gonna do this one more time. Blot, if you need to. Just a little bit film of that gold coming up from the bottoms. Just enough to catch the light. Alright, that looks pretty good. Red some my brush. Okay, now we're going to Okay, we're working on these windows. So I'm going to think about the panes of the windows, and I'm really just hitting them, but I'm also anticipating that I'm going to blot, also, because this is coming out really dark. Okay. So I'm going along, following these lines, trying to figure out how I want it to look. I think it looks a little too tight, so I'm just going to wet the lines and blot them just so it blurs the lines a little bit. So it's more of a suggestion around the windows and a suggestion around the buildings. I think I like that. So as I go, you'll see I changed my mind and I kind of feel my way through it, and if something's not working, then I stop. So right there, I had the paint really thick on the windows on the left, but now I've loosened up with more water so that when I blot it, it's not as harsh. So, yes, my lines are thicker right now because I have more water on my brush. And that is okay. I'm going in the bottom left hand corner of the windows, where the shadow is. And now I'm gonna blot and see how it took away probably, I don't know, two thirds of the pigment, which I think looks good. I'm just gonna hit a little bit more. And if I need to blot again, I can. But that's the process. I'm gonna hit in that bottom, left corner of the window. Coming back. Okay. And then maybe some cross hairs, bottom left, the sides of the building. Make it pop out just a little bit more, get that shadow. And I'm gonna blot. And see I blotted off just enough off of the windows so that it's not 100% regular. It's not uniform all the way around. Okay, so now I'm catching the bottom left hand side of those windows again. Bottom left, bottom, left, bottom left. Yep. And I'm gonna go cross, cross. Just kind of filling in the space because I know I'm gonna blot and it's not gonna be crisp. I want it just to be a suggestion. And if you do it too light, that's okay. You can put another layer on it. Okay, let's do the other one. Let's speed through this, bottom left corners. See how that makes the pop. That makes the windows pop so much. A little bit of shadow on that one. And then all the crosses. And I've learned to control how much pigment I want now, and I don't really have to blot on that one. I think it looks pretty good. Alright. Now let's catch some highlights. We're going to catch highlights on the roof of the building with the white gelpin. This white gelpens really going to make some lines pop out. It's going to make things crisp. So where we left a little bit of light underneath the rooftops, we can hit so that it looks like it is glowing from underneath so that the light is coming from the street underneath the building. And right there. Okay. I'll do the other one. Very nice. Now it's time to start thinking about the highlights on the windows. So I'm loading my brush up with the white watercolor, and I'm going to come in on the right hand side of the window this time. So I put the shadow on the left and the bottom, and now I'm just adding a little bit of a highlight on the right side of these items. But just a little bit. Just the suggestion all the way. All these beautiful windows, see how they're really popping out. Wow. Love it. Just that little line. And okay, so now I'm just getting a little bit of water on my brush, and any edge that I feel like is too sharp, I'm just cleaning up the edge with a little bit of water on my brush. Just looking around the whole piece and around the rooftops, too, if I feel it's too chiky in one area, I can just hit it with a little bit of that water to knock it back. Alright. Alright, now I've got out my gold gel pen, and I'm just gonna start bringing down the lines on the sides of the building just to give it another little level of sheen when it catches in the light. It's really starting to tie things together, give it another layer of gilded gold. And right there on the guard tower, and then we're gonna do the other one. I love watching it fast 'cause you can really see it transform in front of you. So awesome. Okay, so get your shadows and highlights on the building, your windows in. And in the next lesson, we are going to start adding the snowflakes to our winter wonderland watercolor. Glowing Christmas village. 8. Snowflakes & Windows: Okay, now it's time to start adding these beautiful snowflakes to our midnight snowy evenings. So I have gotten some of my white watercolor out, and I'm just going to start in the upper left corner with a six spoke snowflake and just start putting these little arrow heads at the end of each spoke. So I'm just going to take the time. This is kind of zen like, kind of zentangle meditative, whatever. It doesn't matter how you do it. Each snoplake is different, so your imagination can really take shape here. I'm just going to put a little dot at the end of each one of these because I think it makes it look a little dainty. And if the white isn't as dark as you would like it to be, just go over that area a second time. Okay. So now I'm going to pick another area, and I'm going to go just off center to the right. And I'm going to put another snowflake about the same size, maybe a little smaller. And this time, I'm going to do what is it? Eight spokes instead of six. And I'm going to do circles at the end of them. So you see, I'm just kind of randomly choosing different ideas, different shapes. This one, I can tell I'm kind of running out of pigment, so I will have to go over it a couple of times, but I really just want to get the template down. So I try to go as far as I can with whatever pigment I have on the brush. And as you just see, I'm twirling the brush against the pigment so that I can make a point at the end of the brush. So you can manipulate your brush in this way to get a finer point on the edge. And then I'm just going to come through with some of those little arrows. I'm going to put two on each spoke. Take the time to do that. And again, this is real time. I haven't slowed this down at all. It's a slow process, but it's quite fun and quite satisfying when you look up and you're like, Oh, what a beautiful snowflake. I love it. So I'm going to put one more snowflake. So odd numbers are great. So I'm going to put a third one right here in the upper right hand corner, and I'm going to make it smaller. So just a small little six spoke snowflake and putting little dots at the end. And then I'm just going to do one little tiny arrow on each spoke. Or on every other spoke, rather. Putting a circle in the middle of this one, just kind of going over the lines again. And now I'm going to put three on this other card. So I'm just going to mimic what I did because it worked so well on the first card. Going through, putting a few arrows on each one, adding my dots, going just off center for this one, making eight spokes, putting circles, and pulling the arrows. One more. Putting the smaller one and little dots. Perfect. All right. So yeah, let's turn our attention maybe to some of this gold or bronze color, whichever one you want to choose. And we're just gonna start putting gold circles. And this will mimic just big snowflakes. We're just going to put a few dots. We're only working in the sky right now. We're gonna come down in front of the buildings in a little bit, but I want to do this in two separate sections. I'm just sort of randomly placing these dots around where it seems appropriate and where it seems random. So I don't want it to be regularly spaced. Maybe you do, and that's okay, too. That would add to the fairy tale cartoony, like, nature of it, as well, if everything was evenly spaced. But I kind of like it off center. I like things irregular. And then I'm just going to start adding maybe little six spoked snowflakes. And see how when I put it on one of those really dark areas? Wow, does it shine? It really pops out. I think that's lovely. Just like how the white snowflakes really shine out on top of that dark pigment. A little bit more pigment. Twirling my brush to get a point on it. And I'm gonna build out a few more little star shapes. And getting some white, and now I'm just gonna put little tiny dots. And again, I'm just up in the sky right now. Dot, dot, dot, all over. Oh, that looks so nice. I love it. Cool. So now I need to start thinking about where to place the snowflakes in front of the buildings. So I want to begin looking at areas that are really dark that I know that the white snowflake is gonna stand out on top of. So probably on top of a roof, maybe right here, just a small one. And as long as I don't go over over the lines over and over again, that dark pigment underneath this white won't show through. It'll the white will just float on top. So pulling out my little star shapes, my little arrows and deciding on another spot, I'm going to put one right here, and I'm going to make it pretty big that'll make it look like some of those big ones are falling on top of the buildings as well. A building out my little arrows, and I'm loving how this is gonna fall off the page. See how I'm painting on top of my washi tape, so I know part of it's gonna come off, but it's gonna make it look, you know, like there's other things going on outside of the frame of the piece of art. Alright, so that looks pretty good as far as pigment goes, little bit more to put little dots. I love the dots. I think that really finishes it off nicely. Cool. Okay, maybe one or two more. I think since we've got five white snowflakes right now, I do want to add two more, so we'll make seven total. So I reload my brush, til it up to get a point, and pick two other spots. So maybe over here, where part of it's catching this roof 'cause I like how the black shows behind the snowflake. And I'll just put little dots in between. Okay. And then one more. It's got to be on this left side somewhere. Make it look random right here. I like it. Add some dots. And a few little arrows. Yeah, that's looking great. Okay, so seven big snowflakes in total. Three in the sky and four on the buildings. I think that looks really, really nice. It keeps your eye moving around. So let's grab some of the gold, again, or the bronze, and we're gonna pull down some of those big circles, those big flakes. Put a few of them on top of the buildings. And I didn't want to put those down on the buildings earlier until I had the white snowflakes, and I didn't want to put the white snowflakes until I had the upper sky done just so I could see the whole thing altogether. So I'm just sort of adding these randomly here and there. So on top of the buildings, some off, some half on, some half off. And then I'm going to slowly start adding the other tiny white flakes and the other four larger white snowflakes. So I'm just going to quickly go through this and add the white dots randomly here and there. But you see how just that little bit of white snow Oh, wow, it really ties the room together. I love it. However many you want. If you want a blizzard, go for a blizzard. If you don't, that's fine, too. Alright, so now I'm gonna start adding these other white flakes in quick time. One over here. One on the roof. Just and one on the other of over here. And then more snow to tie it all together. Yeah. A Love it, love it. Love it. Okay, now it's time to get our fine liner out. So this is my NIPen. It's a 0.3 with pigment ink so that when it gets wet, it's not gonna bleed. I am just pulling down the lines on the sides of the buildings where we put that the gold gelpin. And then I'm also going to go, like, around the edges of the roof and whatnot. And you're going to start really seeing things pop out. So I'm making sure look at that right under that highlight it really sharpens everything up, so I'm just going to go around all these roof lines. And let's see. Start over here. Ma sharpen up the lines on the cone on the top of this roof and watch this. Boom, right there. Look how that just pops out now. Hit that line right there with the roof. You can sharpen up any of them that you want to. And if you feel like something's white, you can always go around it, like the edge of this chimney. That really sharpened them up, pull the rest of this line. Yeah. Yeah. I hope this is satisfying for you guys. This part's really awesome. I love it when everything starts really coming together. And you don't even realize that you've pushed through the middle. You don't even realize that you did the hardest part. It's just all starting to take shape. Very rewarding. Oh. And my washi tapes coming up again, but that's okay. So now I'm going to start hitting the bottom left corner just in a little L on all of these windows. And see what that's doing, it's just giving it more of a three dimensional quality. It's making it pop out so much. Just that little bit. Wow. Okay, let's do this one, too. I'm gonna do the roof lines. H. All of those up underneath, hit the windows. Ooh, I'm loving it. Hold these other lines down. Put the cross on the steeple. All right. Okay, so now I am going to go around and I'm not I'm not hitting every single one of these panes of glass around each one of them. I am just randomly making little hatches here and there just to give the suggestion of the windows. But look what that's doing. It is just Wow, it's making it like the light is shining off of it in different angles so that you can't see all the details. And that is such a good key. You just need to make a suggestion of things. Your brain's going to sew the rest of it together for you. So just hitting in the rest of these shadows in the windows, how beautiful. Just those little details they add so much. Sitting on the bottom of the windows a little bit more. Just anywhere I feel like it needs more detail or a little crispness. Just use your artistic eye. Oops, right there. I went over that snowflake. I'll have to fix it with some white white paint. Right there. Yeah. Okay, so finish up your snowflakes, put some shadows on the windows, meet back here, and we are gonna finish this up. But 9. Color Shift & Final Details: Good. Okay, let's wrap this project up. I am going to start taking off the washi tape, but not the painter's tape. I really still want these cards to be down because I just want to take a look at them and see how it all changes with that bit of purple washi tape out from around the edges. I want to see those crisp blinds now. And, wow, that looks beautiful. Wow, we did such a good job. I have noticed, though, I'm not quite as pleased as I want to be with the colors. I think I want to make things a little bit more blue. So I'm going to grab a little bit more color and put it in the sky, just like we did earlier. I'm just putting a little bit, and I'm blotting. I'm just adding a suggestion just going in these lighter areas now and adjacent to the dark ones like we did before. But if you feel like you need a color shift and you want things a little bit brighter, add some aquamarine, add some turquoise blue, whatever you want, and just sort of drop it in there and blot it out. And, of course, you don't need to add much. It's just a suggestion. But even that little bit look what that did in the sky again. I love it. All right. Okay, so next on the agenda, let's color shift the buildings as well. I think I want them a little more green tinted. So I'm getting some of that aquamarine like Thalo green, blue, and I'm going to start the buildings on the side of the card, and I'm dropping in some of the green shadows, like where we put the shadows before. So on the left side of the buildings and underneath the roofs. And look how that just kind of brightened it up. I think I actually really, really like that. So I'm going to put some on this side, too. Especially in this house on the front, it might be a little more brighter than the other ones. Oh, I love that green. I think that kind of makes it glow, as well. So you've got the glow of the gold in the windows. You've got the green reflecting, the blue reflecting from the sky, pulling down that little bit. So you're really just putting a sheen over the top. It's not a lot of pigment and it's not a lot of water. And you see I'm not reloading my brush a whole lot either. I'm just using whatever pigment I have on my brush. Oh, no. Okay. I got some on the white, but don't panic. I'm gonna clean my brush off, try it off real good. Clean it. Okay, then I'm getting a little bit of water on my brush, and I'm just going to scrub right there, and then I'm gonna blot. And look, it disappeared. Isn't that fantastic? Oh, I love it. Okay. Moving on. So I'm gonna continue putting the green shadow in these buildings. Like I said, especially this one in the front, I think it can stand to be a little more brighter than the others. And I think that looks lovely. Just casting a bit of green on the front of these buildings. It's not gonna take much at all. If you need to lighten something up, Yep, just put some water on it and bought. Okay, let's do some of these other ones. Go around the windows, try to go around the snow. You don't want to paint the snow. But again, these colors and the little details we're doing now, they don't have to go everywhere. They just have to be a little suggestion. So let's get this building right here. Yeah, I like that color. Then I'm gonna blot. Maybe I'm not. Okay, a little bit more. Actually, I do like that color on the left a lot. And I'll bring a little bit of it into these buildings in the middle. And see how I said before, the card on the left is a little bit darker than the card on the right, but that's okay. They're both unique, but they both look beautiful. They're both capturing that night sky that we wanted to see. Now, also, if you want to you can always add a little bit more in the windows. You can take your white paint pen and just put little dots if you want, like a little reflection of light. If you want to add a little bit more yellow or anything in the windows, you could, too. But I think this is looking really, really nice. The only thing that's bothering me now is I think after we finish this screen, this aquamarine tint is I think I'm going to sharpen up some of these snowflakes that are on top of the building. I think they're getting lost just a little bit, so we're going to use the fine liner and clean those up. So as you see here, I'm just going to kind of color around the snowflake. And again, I'm not tracing around the entire object. I'm just hitting certain areas here or there, as you see, not hitting every single spoke. But just the suggestion and see how that makes it stand out from the building and the card on the left, which I already did, that little bit really helps. So I can go around to the other snowflakes as well. And if I find that they're jumbly in the middle, I can just pull in a dark line and sharpen them up a little bit. And I think that's what I'm going to do after I'm done with this snowflake a little bit more. Okay. Alright, so let's see. Yeah, here, I'm going to go into the middle and just kind of pull those spokes in a little bit. And because it's on top of that roof, I'm able to do that with the dark background. So I'm just pulling in to sharpen those shapes just a little bit, and just doing those little tiny details like we did on the windows and like we're doing on the snowflakes, like we did underneath the roofs, that's what really makes things stand out. Y'all, I hope you really enjoyed this process. I hope you've picked up a few tips of the trade here or there, and most importantly, I hope you've created two beautiful glowing Christmas village Christmas cards that you can share with family and friends.