Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello, I am Stephanie and I've been a professional artist for over a decade. You can see my work on social media. I go along the Monika, pretty plot, pretty much everywhere, but in most active on Instagram. Now in today's class, I am very excited to share with you how to paint a rainbow coral reef. Now this is a class that has really fit for all levels. And I'm going to guide you step-by-step explaining everything I knew from drying cross to inking your drawing, composing your drying, and finally, adding colors to family. Very vibrant final result, this class is super fun and if he like, rainbow corals are watercolors, I'm sure you're going to enjoy it. Since I'm going to explain you how I approach my own paintings and give you all the tools for you to compose and make your very own artwork. The class project really can be used, but if you're a total beginner, you can also simply follow along and replicate what I'm going to show you. I really hope that you are going to take this class, but most importantly that you're going to enjoy it.
2. Art Supplies: Let me talk a little bit about pencils. Go from h, which is hard to be, which is black. And Baeza, that each pencils and HB is like the center. So as you can see, I tend to have more bees because B is blacker. For enhanced. For instance, this is six beam. This is two H. As you can see, it's a lot darker and it's also a lot smoother or fatter. It's more tender. Basically the graphite here at this pure swats the being and towards the H there some small clay. And so it makes it much harder, which is great for very technical drawing. And also it's great for a very subtle, for certain very supple drying lets you won't see too much. I tend to go for a to H, which is a good one. Because when you draw we're going to have something very, very light. So I'm hardly adding any pressure. I'm not even sure you can see what I'm drawing here. No, no, you cannot. Well, that's fine. But basically you're going to do your first sketch into h and then go with the ink on top. Now when it comes to actually inking your work. So I'm going to put more pressure on and just so you can see better. Yeah, you can see like this. Okay. So you do not want you put that much pressure or two, because this is another thing to keep in mind is when you work with pencils, especially hard one, if you put too much pressure, then it's going to leave dense and to your paper and that's bad. So don't do that. You really don't want you put that much pressure. I'm adding pressure here so you can see what I'm doing. So this supposedly is like my I don't know the drawing that I will, I'm going to do right now making something really quick. Not very beautiful. It doesn't matter. Just want to show you how to use think. So I personally have long ago switched to dip pen and ink instead of, I still have some left. But I'm going to show you the difference because it's quite dramatic. So like most people, I used that kind of things and right now I'm still finishing them, but I will not, I will not buy this again because it's just not good. And the quality is less good and the black is less black. So if I show you, so this is the ink, so it's starting to dry and finish it. As I said, I'm trying to finish them. And here I'm using the ink. I use mostly in my own work which is from a from a German brand, all her on cleaner. So I don't have a lot in it anymore. I added some water because it does dry after a while. And because there's shellac in this one, you want to steer it to bits and you do get some Depot Sometimes this is not too bad. Another thing that you need is going to be water and and also towel. So, so this is all you need for depend. So again, you can use if you have pigment liners at home, use these. I don't like them anymore for I mean, I don't like them for several reasons. The first is because I just think they're kind of ugly. They don't do nice lines. The black is not very black. And overall I don't find it nice to work with. Then I think in terms of environmental impact, they are pretty bad. There's a lot of plastic for very little ink. And so it's not only bad for the environment, but it's also kind of bad for your wallet. You have to buy a lot of these pens to get as much ink as in such a bottle. So this is why I prefer these and I find them all through really nice to work with. So what you're going to do is I have a different have different nibs. And it's difficult for me to tell you exactly which nibs I use because it kind of depends on your style and the ink. If the ink is very liquidy, then you can use a lot more different nips. Now this link is a little bit thicker, and in that sense I prefer harder and a polygamous one, which doesn't give much in. But again, that's really personal preference. And then what you'd simply do is you dip your nib into the ink and usually always have a piece of paper next to my artwork. And I just check if everything is all rights before going over my drawing and then I simply draw and yeah, that's pretty much the extent of it. So you I'm going to be a bit quick on this one. But basically you go over all your lines that you previously drew and any until there's no more ink left in, uh, your nib. Now I'm just going our Nya. Now you can see the difference. So this is proper ink and this is the cropping. And as you can see, it's a lot more darker and a lot more beautiful. You can, you can draw decently fast. So now the ink is almost done, okay, and when you're finished, so you can either dip, if you still have lots more to draw, simply dip it back in and go on and so on. And if you feel like your ink is getting a little bit too thick, then add a little bit of water. What I personally do to use, I have this simple spray of water and I simplest pray it a bit inside just to kind of add a bit more fluid. Does he choose the ink? So you don't need me to do that often. But that's actually a lot of ink and to go through all of that takes a bit of time. And since you leave the bottle open most of the time when you can draw eventually over a few months, it might be a bit dry and then you just want to add a watch. So nothing too complex. Now, once you've finished with drying, what you want you do is you can see it's full with ink. And so this is waterproof ink. You really want to make sure it's waterproof ink because we're going to add water color on top of that later on. Not very difficult to find, just something to keep in mind. And you always want some water next to you. And then you simply rinses and then dry it up. And yeah, that's pretty much all there is to say about dependent. And so the beans that I'm going to use are these AI and just simplified a little bit my palette and clean it up. I don't use that palette. I prefer using ceramic class. This is a plate drifted, which is used for Fen Zhu. And I have several ones of those I use too often. And as you can see, sometimes I squeeze out the paint directly onto them. Now, I am going to assume that you already have your colors and in that sense, just use whatever you have at home. The final project, I will do a rainbow colored coral reef. And in that sense, yeah, use what you have at home. So if you have absolutely no colors, this is the basic sense that you will need. You will need a nice yellow. This is a good lemon yellow that is going to be good in any types of mixes. It is PY one 51. Then you will need a nice warm red. So either cadmium, which makes for great vibrant orange mixes. But if you do not want to use cadmium than payroll red is good, choose then a nice cool red. A lot of artists actually prefer PV 19, but I personally love PR E122, which is quinacridone magenta, and is a very vibrant color. So this is the one I like and this is the one most people love. Now, the other ones are two blues. So PB 29, which is ultramarine blue, and those two will make a gorgeous purple. And then phthalo blue, which is going to be your most primary blue, PB 15. And you're also going to need some black, especially for this class. You can always mix black by yourself on mix to get a neutral color. But in watercolor It's a bit more complex. So would suggest you have either black or really nice dark brown. Another option would be to have CPR, because CPR and ultramarine blue make for a neutral tone. Now in terms of brand or high-end brands are fairly similar in terms of results. But what I would suggest is to buy whatever brand is most local to you because that way you're going to get a very high-quality at the most affordable price. Now for the water, I would suggest you have three pots of water. If you're working in the studio, it doesn't make much more. It's not difficult. I mean, these are reclaims glasses, it doesn't cost you much more. And then you're going to have one part where you rinse your color out, so it's going to get very dark, very fast. And then once you rents most of the color off, you go through this one and if you have to pick fresh water that is clean, you use this one. You're also going to need a towel obviously, and some brushes. Now usually brushes, those that are recommended by most artists are Kolinsky brushes. You can use them from a lot of different brands. I happen to like those from Rosemary. They're made in England and, and they're pretty affordable. But again, I think it's like with the high-end paint by whatever's most local to you. So this is Kolinsky and these are synthetic. I actually really like this synthetic ones because they're more precise than the Kolinsky brushes. And the Kolinsky brushes, they hold a lot of water and paint. So it's nice and washes around. Brush is what I'm going to use. Most of these are three different sizes. I've got an 846. You could do the whole painting with a 608 if you don't have any virtuous, but I'm I'm assuming you do have a few brushes at home. So go with what you have at home. No need to buy something new if you already have brushes. Now another thing that I use a lot is a simple spray. Just watch her itself to waken up the colors. So just spray the colors I'm going to use. And so the watch already prepares the paint. And then I just have to go and pick the color as I wish.
3. Drawing Corals: So first I'm going to show you how to draw the different corals. So I cannot stress that enough a bird, the best way to draw calls is to use reference pictures. So you can easily find them on Pinterest or any other online search for that matter. And this will ensure you that you have the best knowledge of corals and usually artist. And I'm like that as well. We simplify things. And so when we simplify things, obviously, we do it personally, like it's our way of simplifying things. So it's fine to copy an artist. Like in this class, you will copy me. But as a general war, I think it's good to make the effort to go and see actual pictures of the subject you're interested in and then try to stylize it, how you see it. So the first coral we are going to talk about our brain corals. Now brain corals usually I would say blobs. So there are sort of roundish but a bit potato shaped, their different kinds of print girls. And some of them again, are very weirdly rounded shapes. So kind of like a blob. You can keep it very simple. I often just simply do a bowl shape, never perfect. You don't want a perfect circle, otherwise it's going to look at and bring curls usually have some kind of pattern on them. So the simple st patron is just kind of round shape on top of it. And in order for you to give the illusion of that shape being round, you want to squish that specific patron when you come to the edges. So something that is round here in the center is going to be very flat, very flat ellipse here. And this will give you the illusion of having 3D shape. And as you go towards the center, you are going to round things up more and more. So if this is going too fast, I have another class that really is specific about patterns onto round objects, which is a class that is focused on the specific mushroom. But where I go really more in depth with this. So this is really basic drawing skills. But again, if it's a bit too complex for you, either, simply practice and try to do this again, more round in the center and more squished on the science. Yet take the class that I made about the mushrooms and I really take you by the hand and that one. So this year is already a stylized version of a brain coral. Sometimes those types of brain corals actually inside have like some kind of texture. I don't do that because it just and seeing what I think is unnecessary information. But if you'd like that, if you like especially intricate details in, then you might want to stylize it differently. So that's why I think even when you take in courses like mine or from other artists that explain how to draw scopes are pains, specific subjects. Be it animal or floral or whatever. I think it's always good to double-check and look at proper pictures from the element or see them in real life if you can with corals, That's a bit more tricky. Just so you can see how it actually looks like. Because all artists will simplify the shapes. So that's one type of coral, as you can see, you have that rounded effect, that 3D effect because of the patron. And later on when we will add the colors in the end project of this class, we're going to add the shadows. So it's going to be very 3D. That's one possible shape. Another possible shape is that specific brain shapes. So the brain shape, I'm going to try it here first, basically. So this would be the flat pattern and you have something that goes a line that goes in, in zigzags and it's pretty random. But basically what you have to keep in mind is that you're going to have those zigzags. And sometimes they will overlap like this. And the space between all lines is pretty much the same, so it doesn't change maps. And so this pattern, if I have, if the patterns arrived like this, then it's really squished. Okay. And in the center it would look something like that. So I'm just going to make it like a simple 1 first. And if it's the other one, the light here, how it's going to look like here, then it's just going to be squished but in size. So something like that. And then you go and it's more like this. It gets bigger. Now of course, this doesn't work as a patch room, so we're just going to make it again on a round one. So if you've never did some drawing, this pattern might be a little bit more complex, but the same time, I'm going to say it's more forgiving because it's kind of Kartik. Also, you do want to note that right now I'm drawing with a pencil. And later on when we actually start to do the actual final project, we are going also to first start with the pencil and then go over it with ink. Um, so that's also a good thing to keep in mind because when you draw with your pencil, then you might want to readjust it. So as you can see, it's not as clear here the 3D than here, but once we add the shadows is going to be all right. So those are brain corals. Now, the next type of curl I would like to talk with you about sponges. And I know when people say sponges, most of us will think about again, something like this, a bit blobby and with lots of tiny holes and let's find, but most sponges actually more look like tubes in nature. And we are going to focus on these. So sponges come in chip side in tubes and in many different sizes. And usually the bit like, like louds, the group of sponges. And basically what you want to keep in mind is Lambda kind of rounded. So here I'm adding just a bit of texture just so you can't see it in 3D better. And those lines actually can help and can be added with ink later on. That also looks quite nice and, but also owners are not like this. Some sponges are much bigger and they're more oddly shaped, Something like that. So this is still round. And here is the other side and then it goes inside. And those founders usually have a patron then is very similar to that curl. And again, so you get that sense of 3D. You just want to start squishing that pattern when it comes to the edges. In corals in general, you're going to play around with a lot of the same type of patron and you want to repeat it. Okay, So lose our sponges. You can really play around with them. You can make them show me. You can also imagine having a lot of them at once. But yeah, basically always tube. So you got a you're going to have a hole here, something that is going to be something that we rounded. Okay, so these are sponges now the next ones, which is probably one of my favorites, sea anemones. And again, sea anemone is come in a lot of different shapes and sizes and colors. But what is most important about sea anemones are their tentacles. And so I tend to add 10 to cause whenever I want to fill a place in my work. But again, that's kind of personal preference. If you want to draw the whole sea anemones or make it the centerpiece of your artwork that is completely fine as well. There are no rules in art. The only rule is that you have to like what you're doing and that it has to fit with yourself. But you're going to have a lot of tentacles. And usually there's some kind of body underneath. So it can be something very simple, little bit squishy, like this here. Nothing too fancy, but you want to add some details to give it some texture. Yeah, it's going to be mostly worked with colors later on. But you have some more complex bodies that can be on look a little bit like that. And then you have all the tentacles that come here. And another thing that is interesting is if you play with scale, some tentacles finish like this, while others are more like this. So that can be also really interesting to, to kind of play with, with a scale and play with that. And other up-close version of tentacles would be something like that. Which also is a great filler. So simply like round blobs, round little dots. So this is a top view. If you were to kind of do it on the side, then you would have them come like this. And this is something that I personally like to use a lot. And and it's just kinda of like up-close look at a lot of different things. You can find that type of shapes a little bit everywhere on curls. But yeah, so this is also another thing. I should note that in brain corals, you can also, I like to play with scale in my work. So you don't have to do that. You can't stay true to scale, but I think it's quite interesting to play around with scale. And so in brain coils, if you look up close, there's one specific shape that I really like that is kind of doughnut shaped. And again, this is a stylized version. Off of it. I'm going to add some resources of photographs of real corals just so you can see the real deal because you might be attracted to other shapes and patrons than what I'm attracted to. And this will make your work more personal than if you just follow what I'm doing here. But it's just to kind of explain, yeah, how I work. Now, the next coral that I really like our sea fans, but then again, I like I like them all. I will also add a scan of this to the class so you can have reference sheets of how I stylize everything. Sea fans. Basically, it's kind of like a tree but flat. So when we're going to draw this, so again, we're going to start with the pencil and you want a general shapes, so you have to keep in mind, we're going to erase that later on when we adding the ink. But sea fans are sort of like a flat tree. So you have a general shape like that, and then you have branches that come like this. So I think it's always best to add first the main branch and then the smaller ones. Now this time, you might not need to go through the pencil stage and go with the ink directly. But if, if not, then it's fine. I, I used to do the first pencil drawing for a long time. I still do, not for everything, but for a few things. The sea fan especially is much easier. If you start with the spins, if you start with a pencil sketch and then go with ink. And sometimes it's like there are branches that go to them together, like that bridges. And this is going to make the whole sea fan more sturdy and nature. I've got a class about sea fans as well on how to scope them with air dry clay. Okay, so once you have this general shape, now I going to use a color so you can see it better. Now I'm going to see a color, but imagine this is ink. And what you're going to do is you're going to go around the shape you just drew. And this is actually going to be, you see, fan. So this would be your pencil drawing and not as dark. I pushed it down, but you don't want to, to push the pencil launch much. So imagine this is ink. You go and you give the whole structure bit of texture like this. So it's not just a straight line. You don't want that. You really want to add, you know, a bit of a zigzag to the line. Because sea fans usually very textured. And yeah, that's pretty much it. So of course, the sea fans have different shapes. So sometimes the general shape is more like that and sometimes they're really more like that. So the general shape, basically, I think really you have to pick and choose depending on your drawing and your composition. And that's pretty much all there is to it. Now, the next one that I want to talk about, French corals and our ranch corals are also fairly easy. Most shapes, yeah, very basic as you can see. And yet it's simply a branch of coral. And usually they are a bit thicker and they don't have a lot of branches. So usually it's 123 and not more. And they're very close together. Again, as you can see, I'm adding a bit of texture to the line, so I don't draw corals in general like this. I mean, you can, it's personal choice if you want to have it more stylized and you go with that. But I like textures a lot. So I always add a bit of a movement to each line just to give it a nice texture. And later on you can even add some texture into, onto the branches like this. And the last one, table top corals and tabletop corals are really branch corals, bots in sort of table position. So it's like you've got these things. But basically what you want to do is you're going to have a shape like lists. So this is flat, so from top it would be round. But now we have an ellipse. So basically you have something that is like this in perspective. Basically you're going to add that kind of things, but just, I simplify it to just one shape. And usually I stay smooth because it's going to be enough complicated already. And so what I do is simply I am them, so I'm doing it fairly quickly right now, but in kind of ad and you just want to have some, some space between all the kernels. And then again, the shading is going to be later added on with the watercolor. But yeah, that's basically it for the secret files we are going to work with in this class. Again, feel free to check out more reference pictures and add more things to your coral reef like fishes. Nudibranchs is whatever you like. It's not, you don't have to follow exactly in only these. And really encourage you to kind of find what you like best and just go from there.
4. Composition: So before we dive into the actual drawing and painting, I want to talk a little bit about composition. Now, the first thing you have to pick is if you want to do it in portrait or landscape. Now, there's no better choice here. It's really personal preference. Another option that you can consider is the square. However, the square is actually quite difficult. I think it's mostly become popular through Instagram and social media. But the square is actually the most difficult type of paper in terms of composition because it's already centered. And so you are going to want to center your composition or like kinda get pushed into that. And so it's a bit more tricky to work with these kind of things, a lot easier. Now another thing that you want to keep in mind is the rule of thirds. Now, basically the rule of thirds is more or less the golden ratio, but simplified. And when you're working on very organic shapes, it really is sufficient. So the idea is to simply divide your paper into threes and two-thirds. And then you do your composition along those lines. So this would give you something may be that is very organic and something like this. Maybe it doesn't have to, you don't have to. But the rule of thirds can kind of help you to decide. Now, I've used it's consciously a lot in the beginning. And it's so ingrained in my brain now that I naturally composed around thirds, but I don't really check anymore. So one thing that one can position that I really like and that I've used a lot lately, especially in my Carl drawings, is to work in an organic shape like this. And the rest is going to be the white of the paper. So that is an interesting option that I am offering usage speaks that you can work with. So again, if you prefer portrait or landscape, whatever works with you, and of course you can use squares as well. So no shame on squares or anything. It's just, I think it's just a little bit more difficult. But you can really play around with possible compositions. Daniel, rights and wrongs with composition. It's really a question of, yeah, what's your most drawn to and what you like. I mean, this a lot of documentation and theories about composition. But I feel like what's most important is to kind of try them out. And if you have an idea to just kind of go with the flow. So as you can see here, I kind of kept the paper. This is something I like to do. Again, personal preference, you don't have to. You can also center your composition and like, don't really care about the paper at all. Doing something very random here. Sometimes, you know, you have to play around with random shapes and look if you like it or not. Another option, another because composition of that I think is interesting or that I personally like a lot is, is to say in terms of composition, It's going to be fully covered. So you're going to have all kinds of things in there with a very black background. And so here basically your growth is going to come here. Your coral reefs are going to come here. And then you have the blank space of the paper that is going to give you some breathing space. With this type of composition, you have to sketch it out a little bit more. And when you compose things, you want to play around with scale and size. Maybe you're going to take something like this. So let's say something like that. And this is where you're going to have the big, bigger things. The bigger composition, the bigger, the bigger shapes. And then around, you're going to have, it's like your main characters are going to be in, let's say here. So these would be your main characters and then you have the supporting cast, so to speak, that is going to be around and then this going to be smaller. Even your, even though you're going to do an environment of, you know, things that is very rich and very detailed with loss of things. Again, he don't have to. Composition is really up to you. And you can also have something that is different. You know, that maybe you don't want main characters and you just want everything to have kind of like the same size, but put together that works, that works as well. But I really want to encourage you to kind of play around and just see maybe you want something like this where basically you're going to have all kinds of curl shapes. And then in between everything is going to be either the white of the paper or very black. So yeah, so you have to kind of play around and decide on where you want to go. And yeah, just kind of have fun with it and don't overthink it. So this is the composition that I'm going to be using. As you can see, it's very rough. You don't really need a lot more than that. I know what I want. I know where I placed my things. It's very busy. It's going to be fall. And yeah, if you want to copy this composition, this is fine. If you want to make something that is more lighter, this is fine as well. I made other artworks with coral reefs. So don't hesitate to get inspired or just copy my artwork for this class. So you can learn.
5. Preparing Your Drawing: So the paper I'm going to use for this class is my favorite paper. I live in France. It's a French brand, clear from 10. This paper's a little bit specific to me, but I just really gotten used to it basically. So it's a semi glaze texture. It's half hot pressed, it's acid free and a 100 percent cotton that is important. It's 300 grams per square meters. That is important as well. And honestly, you can use a lot of different papers. I just happened to gotten used to that. One further specific reason that it is smooth but not as smooth as actual hot pressed. And I find it just a little bit easier to work with. Now if you're a complete beginner, I tend to prefer hard-pressed on laying this one which is kind of half hot pressed, cold pressed simply because we are going to draw with ink and it's a lot easier to draw with ink on a paper that is smooth. However, if you're a complete beginner, cold pressed paper is easier to work with in terms of watercolor. And we're going to use watercolor later on. In any case, whatever good water color you have at home is going to be fine for this class. So don't worry too much about it. If you really like water color and if you really like working with ink and watercolor venue, you want hot pressed and generally speaking, a 100 percent cotton is the superior paper. Of course, you always want your paper to be acid free, but usually high and paper are always asset free. I've never actually seen a paper that was not acid free. Acid free is important, and that is true for all art materials. Um, so the pigments don't alter overtime. Now I favor blogs of paper that are glued on all four sides. That way I simply leave the piece of paper onto the block and I don't really have to worry about the paper getting wet and, you know, wobbly because as long as it's on block and then when it dries, it's going to be nice and smooth again, I would really suggest that you always buy paper that is glued on all four sides. You always want to leave some whitespace for framing later on. And he, I'm simply adding a two centimeter wind whitespace. Also, when using pencils, be careful to not push your pencil into the papers. This is going to damage it and you're not going to be able to properly erase everything. You don't add any pressure on your pencil. Basically. This is an HB. Yeah. Nothing. Nothing more to. Now that you have your paper on, you want to use an HB pencil and put in your general composition. Now I'm not going to film the entire part completely, but just keep in mind, I have, I have my little rough composition here and I simply added here also, if you're afraid of going from a very ugly sketch, too, nice piece of paper. I would say, yeah, you have to learn to trust yourself, trust the process, and also don't have too high expectations. If you mess up your painting and your drawing, It's okay, It's not know, nobody's going to die. It's fine. All artists regularly do artworks that just don't work or that they don't like. So that's very normal and it's kind of part of the process. So whenever you feel afraid of doing the artwork, tried to remember that and just kind of shrug it off. It just doesn't matter if you mess up your drawing, then next one is going to be better. So yeah, don't let that hinder you of doing something and off trying and using good quality paper? Yeah, just do it basically.
6. Ink Drawing: When trying the tentacles, it is best to start with the tentacles that are in the front and then the other one in layers behind. Also, generally speaking, especially if you don't go as detailed in your pencil sketch, you always want to ink whatever is in front first. So here, this sponge here is going to be in front of the sea anemone knee. So it's a good idea to start and inking that Ron already. Also, as you can see, I'm not drawing very quickly. So no pressure on time or anything. You've got all the time in the world when it comes to doing art. Now for the inside of the sponges, I like to draw lines. And this is sort of a preparation for the shadows. So the inking should not be too complicated depending on how much you do with your pencil. You simply go over the lines that you drew before. The only thing to keep in mind with the inking is to take your time 41. So don't try to rush it. We're in no rush. And then the other thing is if you're using the pen and ink, be careful not to move your depend too fast or too quickly. Because if you knew that you might drop a drop of ink onto your paper, It happened to me before. So that's the thing that you kind of need to be careful with. If you feel that the ink seems a bit too dry, you can always dip your dependent some water and that usually does the trick. I'm going to do a time-lapse from now on. Physics. It's going to be too long to watch in real time. Hello. Hello. Hi. So once you have finished inking your drawing, Latin, try for at least five to ten minutes. Can check if it's fully dry by just going over it, slightly wet, starkest. And then you simply want to use an eraser and remove all the pencil marks.
7. Watercolor Painting Part 1: Also I should have noted this before, but if you want to clean look and then you might want to add some masking tape. I don't always do this. And as you can see, I already started painting, so I'm going to tell you this before I start painting so you don't forget, but I don't always add the masking tape. But it requires you to be more precise about things or to just kind of, you know, work with with something that is not completely lined. So now I'm making sure that it's all new drawings are inside. And again, what is alone? Yeah, So it's really just for framing. If it's not perfect, it's usually okay. But sometimes if you want to be sure that people will really frame it to your painting so there's no white. So this kind of helps with ants. I basically, and the masking tape along the lines that Andrew with the pencil in the beginning. So I will be starting with purple in the center here. So you really want your wash it down. You do not want something that is too dark, too fast. And we're going to, I am going to go in the blues in the center. So since the background is going to stay, is going to be black later on, I not too afraid of using very strong colors. But it's really up to you. If you want your backgrounds to not be black dot white, then of course you want to be a little bit more careful when adding your first wash. Also, generally speaking, it's good to make the wash following the general shape. That way when the paint is drying out, you're not going to be in a complicated position where suddenly where suddenly the paint dries out too quickly. Now if you arrive to a position like this where you have yellow and blue and you don't want green, just add some neutral color in between. You. Sometimes it's nice to have very vibrant color next to each other, but you don't want the color in-between, so no green here. And generally speaking, this is not very green. I keep it more in this region here. And don't be afraid to just add colors as you go. Readjust as you like. Ammonia arrive at about that stage where it's not finished, obviously, it's just the first wash. You just let it dry. Once the first layer is dry, we're going to start by adding more colors and more shadows. Now, I am going to have the light come like this from that angle. So first I'm going to shadow this. No particular reason, I just want to shadow without one. And so what you want to do in that case is you're going to use color that is a lot stronger. Basically the same color that you used. And you just want to add water next to it. So you don't get any hard lines. Mike Sue. And this is also the moment away you can correct certain colors. So I was looking at this and thought orange was missing, and I'm going to add orange on there. So since I want to add a lot of orange, orange is going to add an orange wash over it. So the column using here is not actually orange, but it's an Indian yellow. You can also mix your own oranges. For the brightest oranges. Cadmium are great. But if you want to avoid card means, then yeah, yellow engine yellow is good as base. Pyrrole red, depending on which shade, some are a bit more orangey and then that's going to be easier to get nice vibrant oranges, but others are less so. And then just going over the yellow. And since the under painting sort of is a bit more greenish and getting quite an interesting wash right now, which I quite like. And so yeah, now the second layer basically is readjusting color slightly and, and adding colors but only and I link shadows but only through darker colors. Now with yellow, you can't really have an shadowy yellow, so you do have to go through a brown or black. I tend to prefer a light brown when it comes to shadows rather than black. Because I feel like black is a little bit too much. And I tend to keep the black really for the background, for a very dramatic background. But it's really up to you. I like the shadows when they are bit warmer, but maybe you like core shadows and in that sense, black is a good choice. Purple is also a good choice, a very dark purple. Also, you want to be careful when you add shadows, like here, for instance. You want to wait for certain pieces to dry before working just next to it. So you have a defined line. You want to try to keep some lighter areas where the light hits, not cover it with paint. Basically in watercolor, you use the white of the paper for whites. That being said, mixed media is a thing. And if, if at the end you realize it, just shoot, everything is too dark. You can always use some gouache or acrylic paints to lighten it up so no worries. Everything can be saved our days. Generally speaking, what I'm doing here with the layers of washers is to use the next color on the color wheel and next to it. So basically we have blue, we have purplish blue, ultramarine blue, then we have purple, then we have pink, red, orange. And here's you see orange, red, pink, purple. And when you go that way, and then the overall look is going to work out. The only place where I didn't do that is with the yellow. But I know yellow and purple and yellow and blue work together. So I just went with it and I also wanted a bit of a splash of color and I simply went over brown. So as long as you go that way and follow the color wheel, you're not going to have a weird color schema at the end. So this is kind of the easy way of working with rainbow colors. Also, if you have a more limited palettes, if she don't use too many paints, then it's going to be more cohesive. Basically, with each new layer, you load in more pigment. So the shadow is going to be the most pigment at parts of each object. So while this pattern here, I am adding the shadows to the pattern. And so what I'm doing simply STR and a bit of shadow in charge inside each of these shapes. So you have, you're going to have the illusion that it goes inside basically. And you can, can kind of pull that shadow down. And either right away or with other layers. Since we're working a very unlikely here, you can really add the shadows layer by layer and it's going to work. This might seem long and tedious. I mean, I like it, but maybe, maybe you're used to working faster. But the way we're doing it today, so layering colors slowly. It, it ensures such you have a better, It's ensures a better control. In order to keep your colors very vibrant. You really want to use the same color to make the shadows first. On the contrary, if you think these colors are too vibrant, then you can add in complimentary colors to commute these colors down. So of course, it's artists preference. But yes, if you want to keep these and I'm going for a very bright rainbow because coral reefs usually a very bright, then you kind of want to use the same colors over and over. So first layer, second, third, I think that this is my fourth layer and I'm still using mostly the same wash. Now of course, when I say the same color, it can be a mixture of one or two, possibly three colors. But yeah, if you stay in the same range of colors, then you are going to get these very vibrant effect. Also note that the colors There's quite the color shift between dry and wet. And this is also why working in layers like that will really ensure that you're getting the best outcome possible because you really work slowly and you build things up slowly. When it comes to the tentacles, you want to play around with different colors and lethal. So here I'm using phthalo blue, phthalo turquoise, a sum PG, some phthalo green and cobalt. But it could be also a homemade, a mixture of these. And just, I apply it in different colors on difference tan to cause to make it more interesting. So here I'm using a synthetic brush. And because I need something that is a little bit more precise, and I find synthetic brushes are harder than Kolinsky brushes and in that sense, you have better control over them. And as you can see, I'm adding texture through colors onto the sea fan. So I'm simply adding small dots. And he specifically, I did a mixture of Indian yellow and a bit of perylene Rand. I also have some yellow in there, some AZO yellow and also some perylene maroon. So it's a bit of a mixture of all four. I don't exactly know in detail and kind of mix by I. And I also would encourage you to kind of get comfortable with the colors you have on your palette and learn to mix with the colors you have specifically. Usually you can go a long way with whatever you call or you have once you know how to handle them. Now when you arrive here, we have a green transition. So what I'm doing now is to add some, some ASR green, which is a yellowish green. And so we want some kind of transition between the tube and other option would be, um, but this is too late for me and I didn't want you knew that but would be to go over brown if you don't like that spring green, which I can understand. So yeah, that's, that's really all I am doing here. Making sure the transitions are smooth and readjusting the color slightly with each layer.
8. Watercolor Painting Part 2: So I feel like there's enough, not enough things happening here in the background. So I'm just going to add some more details. So at this stage, I like to, and the black dark backgrounds, I'm going to use Payne's gray from senior year. It's a pain screen that I quite like and I like to use it. I have a palette and dedicated palette. I already have a lot of different blacks. So I don't have, I don't use, so it's brown and then we have black and then we have and Payne's Gray. And I think there's also one granulating and black, grayish, blue grayish. And I do like so again with my ice cream, just waking up all these colors and it's kind of making a mixture of a more living blackish color, then if you would use pure black. And what I do is I don't layer as much Cygwin much thicker right away because I know I want something very dark background and I don't wait until the end simply because seeing the black really helps me to go watch the vibrancy of the colors better. So when I feel like it's starting to arrive at the end in terms of color I liked you and the black to kind of CR, I just need to push these colors more or not. And here I'm using again the synthetic brush. So it's from Rosemary three or one, and it's a number six. I think this is a really good brush, but you don't have to buy this specific brush-up in the US, there are other brands that are more local. Yeah. But I like synthetic brushes when it comes to detailed work. And yes, simply fill in the holes and black, you don't have to do this. If you really hate black backgrounds, you can keep your background as it's either you unmarked colors or you keep it almost white. And another option would be to use a very dark blue gray, a bit of a greenish blue if you want something that is my them the more realistic or the black is probably more realistic. That's really up to you, but I'm going to use mostly Payne's gray here. And are they to the back? And then I will go back to my colors. Bring everything up again, x right now it's, it's far from finished. Hello. Hello. So here for the shadowy values onto the pink, I'm simply going to use purple as a shadow color because it's not going to remove that vibrancy of the pink, but it's going to darken everything. So the violet here, the purple I'm using as my own convenience mixture. And it's a mixture between PB 29, which is ultramarine blue, and p are one to two, which is quinacridone magenta. One way to add shadows that are more gradual is to first put washer where you're going to have the shadows and then under pigments and push them where you want them to be. For the shadows here in the green area, I added some perylene green to my mixture of green just to get a nice dark forest strain. As a general rule, I find it keeps the color more via brands. If he uses shadow color that is close to the color you want to highlight? Yeah. Yeah. Two. Yes.
9. Final Words: Thank you so much for taking this class. I hope you load it. The class project for this class is extremely straightforward. I'm simply going to ask you to make your own painting of coral reefs. Now you can make it small, you can make it big. You can go rainbow colors, or you can pick just one color. It's really up to you. I really want you to experiment with ink and watercolor and have fun and enjoy the process. If you want to share your final artwork on social media, don't forget to tag me. I go by the Monica at pretty much everywhere. And since you around, you can also check my other classes here. I have plenty to choose from. Thank you so much for watching and I really hope to see you in my next class.
Stephanie Kilgast, Contemporary artist.
