Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello everyone and welcome
to this Skillshare class. My name is Charlotte Jordan. I am a surreal animal artist
based in Sarasota, Florida. I have a big passion
for painting, as well as painting animals in surreal and very unique ways. I have been painting
all my life and I have actually turned
it into my profession. For this particular class, I'm actually going
to be showing you how I went about painting this little Robin
in acrylic paints. Not only am I going to be just
teaching you how to paint the robin itself in a
very realistic way. I'm also going to be
showing you how I completed the full
picture all the way from a blank canvas
to the robin itself, to the flowers and etc, etc. So you're gonna see
the whole spectrum of this painting from
start to finish. So I hope you enjoy this
Skillshare class for today. And I will be seeing you
inside the first lesson.
2. Supplies: So we're going to run through the supplies for
this class today. As you can see, I've got
my sketch already drawn up on this canvas board right here. It's a bit of a smaller
painting that I'm not spending too long on
the background here. As for the individual brushes, I've got a little
bit of a selection. I've got a sort of medium
angle brush, a mop brush, a small flat brush, a small rake brush, and a detailed brush. Make sure you have
something similar to each of those that you
can use right there. I've got some different
paints in some sap green, I've got some burnt umber. Obviously we're going to be using the fundamentals as well. So for our Robin will be
needing the burnt umber. I'm gonna use a little
bit of Naples yellow. I've got some black. And then of course we've got some titanium white paint
as well for the robin. Also finishing that off with a little bit of cadmium orange. Those are acrylic paints
that I'll be using. And then for other supplies, the might want to consider getting yourself at
some glazing medium. If you don't have
glazing medium, you can use water
as a substitute. And of course finally, I like to keep a spray bottle
nearby me when I paint, as it really helps to keep the paint wet when
you're working with it. And also keep the
paint in your palette wet so that you
can keep using it. That's everything
for these supplies. So let's jump into
the first-class.
3. Background: Alright, so first
things first we're going to be doing
our background. For this. I'm gonna be using my medium-sized flock brush
here and I'm gonna be taking some
straight sap green. That's all I'm using. And I'm basically going to cover the entire canvas
width, this green here. Pretty straightforward.
Obviously avoid your Robin. Don't cover that up. I see You need that. Just painting the entire base of this canvas with
this green here. We will be adding some of
the colors in just a moment. But I just wanted to get a
good CO on the TI thing. Being really careful
to avoid the Robbins. I don't cover him up too much. Now you want to keep
your painting or your background wet whilst
we're working with it. Just because we're gonna be
blending in some other colors and so we need them
to blend smoothly. I'm going to go ahead and
speed that up for us. It's pretty straightforward
what I'm doing here. I'm just covering
everything with this green. I'm not too worried
about the branch. The branch is a pretty
straightforward thing to put back in. So I'm just avoiding
the robin right now as he is the more important
part of our painting. Now I'm taking some brown. This is button number. Whilst the painting
is still wet, I'm going to be
mixing this and just really roughly adding it
in with my flat brush. We're going to be blending
this a little more smoothly in just a minute. I'm adding this towards the
bottom part of the painting. This is gonna get the illusion. It's a little darker
down below the robin. Having it in-between. Making sure I get all the spots. Again, laying the paint
on a little thickly so it stays wet whilst
we're working with it. I'm going to wash out my
brush now and then I'm going to actually pick up
a little bit of white. And we're going to add this in the top corner of the painting. So we've got a like a dark and a light sort of highlight or
value for our backgrounds. So it looks like he's in
more of a scene somewhere. It's really lovely
adding this in. I'm going to give
it a quick spray down with the water bottle. You can use wolf bottle or
if it's still wet enough, then you can just go straight
in with the mop brush. Sometimes it helps, sometimes
it's not necessary. With mop brushes. You want to go in
a circular motion, keep it really light, touch almost like
your feather dusting. This is going to create
a really smooth blend. It's okay if it goes a little bit over the
robin because it's light enough that we can still see the line work that we need. Just going over all the areas, blending it really
smoothly together. The mop brush I'm
actually using is actually a watercolor mop brush. I find these are much softer than any of the
acrylic oil brushes. I'd recommend getting
a watercolor mop brush if you haven't got one yet. I'm also just going to lift
the canvas so I can get right to the bottom
of the canvas here. The easel sometimes
gets in the way. This is pretty much all gonna be doing for our background. You're going to want
to let this dry before we actually
stop the robin. That way there's no chance of any green kind of
bleeding into the robin, has we paint it? Not that it particularly well as acrylics or Ithaca paint, but it's more for
precaution that will take.
4. Base Layer : All right, So now our background
has completely dried. We can move on to the first
layer in the robin painting. I'm using my small
flat brush for this because we are working
on a small animal hair, starting with a dark brown. So I mixed a little bit of
black into my burnt umber and I'm gonna stall in the
brown areas on the Robbins. So sort of more of
the outside edge. And I'm basically just starting with my darker values here. So I'm just mapping out where the darks
and the lights are going to be some kind of
picking a light source. So obviously the
top left-hand side of the painting is where my light source is
going to come from. I'm basing my dark
values around that. I'm moving up to the
top of the head, figuring out where those lights and darks are going to be. It doesn't have to be
perfect because it is a painting and you may want
to change your light source. You may want to follow
the reference exactly. That's completely up to you. I just kind of go off of
my own intuition here. Just creating talk values
down the Robbins neck. And I'm leaving that area open right in the
middle of the robin because that's where the
red or orange feathers go. Next, I'm mixing a little bit of white into that brand
that we were just using. This is going to be my mid
values, not my brightest, but they're going to
fill in all those areas that are not the brightest
but not the darkest. Then mixing a little
bit more white in with that color that I'm making
my lightest values. And then putting those in the areas where the light
would be hitting the robin. All along the edges here, you can see I'm just in
all those little gaps. You want to work
quickly here because the paint needs to be
wet for this step, as you work through
each of the values, quickly switching to
my small rake brush and I'm only going to
wet it with water. There's no other pigments on
it or anything like that. I'm going to start to soften those harsh edges of the
values using this brush. And this is just going to
make the robin softer. I'm keeping my brush strokes in the direction that
buffer or the feathers, sorry, would naturally grow in. So they're all gonna
be pointing in a downward way away from
the robin center line. Just really carefully
blending those together and making
them look a little softer so they're not so stalk and there's
no awkward lines. You can go back and forth
between your lights and your darks as you work
through your painting. So don't worry, if you feel like you lose
any of your values, you can put those back in. Next, I'm going to wash out my small flat brush and I'm gonna switch
over to some orange. I'm going to mix a little
bit of cadmium orange and some burnt umber together and a tiny bit of black
deepen it up. I'm making my dark values now for the orange
patch on the robin. Again, figuring out where those lights and darks
are going to be. In conversion to the rest
of the painting itself. I'm giving him a little
bit of a neck line. Make sure to put a little
bit of it underneath the beak as the weakest costing
a little bit of a shadow. Then washing my brush out again. And we're going to be
mixing a little bit of white into that deep orange. Except I'm also a mixing
a little tiny bit more, a cadmium orange into this
mixture for the mid tones. Then just filling in
those areas again, again, not my brightest,
not my darkest. These are the mid tags. Nice and simple. Then of course, adding a little bit more white to that mixture to make my lightest values for
this section of the robin. Then again, wash out my
small little rake brush, dry it off a bit, and using nothing but
a little wet brush to give the Rogan a softer look. Just blending those
oranges together. Don't want to blend it
too much into the brown, but it's okay if it
overlaps a little bit because this is going to give a more natural
appearance anyway. You can already start to see all little Robin come
to life a little bit just from this simple base layer that
we're doing here. This is everything
for the base layer. We're just going to let
this dry completely before we move on
to our next step.
5. Texture Layer: Okay, so now our base layer on the robin has dried
a little bit. We are going to move on to our texture layout using that right brush we
were using before. And a little bit of a lighter brown using a very
light brown value here, I'm going to start to add in
all the feather textures. Now obviously these
aren't going to be super detailed because this animal that we're working
on his little bit smaller. And so when you're working
on a small animal, sometimes less is more. When you're working
with gouache brushes, I find it helps to water the paint down just
a little bit so that it helps to give them
a more translucent look. And so the bristles
don't clump together, creates that texture
that you're going for. I'm going to go ahead and
speed it up a little. I think it's straightforward
what I'm doing here. I'm basically just
covering pretty much all of the brown areas with this color here
using the rake brush, I'm just building up some of those areas as well with more of a solid appearance
with that paint. Then I'm going to take a very light orange and I'm going to do the exact
same thing pretty much on he orange breast of the but I'm not worried too much right now about color correcting because we're gonna do that a little later on. And we can always
go back and forth, like I said before,
between our values, between our colors
and things like that in order to really build up our layers and make
them look more realistic. If you do get any kind
of streaks that, uh, to lobby with paint, I will just use my finger to just wipe them
away a little bit. I'm going in with an white now, so it's that brown
mixture again, but it's very pale. And I just added an
extra layer right there, four brighter highlights. Now I'm going to go in
with a detail brush and some blackish brown that really dark value that we used at the very start. And I'm going to
start to map out where the Robbins legs
and feet are going to be, as well as the darker values of the beak and also his eye. My robin is going to be
perched on a branch. I'm just following similar to the reference here and just
going for really simple. Look with the legs. Making sure to have it looking accurate on
the other leg as well. Just making sure to
keep the shape of them really realistic if I can, following the reference to the best of my
abilities, excess. And I'm also going to use
the same color to outline the eye and start to fill
that in just a little bit. We're going to fill it in
completely a little later on. I just want to get sort of like an eyeliner going
on here for him. So I have a rough idea of the sort of values and
shadows around the eye. I'm also going to start to add these dark values to the
bird's beak as well. You can see I'm outlining where the top of the beak
meets his head. And then the bottom of the
beak is a darker because it is underneath and it's
in more of a shadow. Then also giving him
a little notch in the beak to make it look like
that is where his nose is. Then I want to fill in that blank area just
above the beak there. I actually did miss it earlier
in the painting process. You can fill it in
with an orange or I'm doing off color brown. So for more of a
cream brown here, I think you can put a little
bit of orange that as well. That's pretty much
everything we're gonna do for this texture class. We need to let this
completely dry.
6. Glazing: So the next slide we're going
to do is our glazing layer. And I've got my
glazing medium here. Before we do this though, we need to make
sure our robin is completely dry before we
even put any glazing on. If you don't let it dry. Before we put the glazing on, it's going to muddy
all the colors, all those textures you
pulling or not gonna show up, they're gonna get lost or just completely destroyed
if you like. You need to make sure
it's completely dry. I'm using my small
flat brush for this. We are working in
a smaller area. First, glaze I'm putting on is just a very light
brown glaze here. A little tiny bit
of my burnt umber, and I'm quite a bit of glaze. And I've just made a
really translucent Brown. I'm gonna be putting this in the brown areas of the robin. I'm also going to focus a
lot on the darker areas, more of the shaded or
shadows, I should say. The Robin said that
it looks a little more deeper with the shadows. Just a little bit on the
orange patch as well. You want to work quite quickly
with glaze just because sometimes it dries a little
bit faster than acrylics do. Sometimes you might
accidentally lift off glaze instead of put it on
if it dries too fast. Now I'm going to mix orange glaze and we're going to really boost the vibrancy on the
Robbins orange crossed him. Just mixing the glaze
right now it's just me washing out the excess
pigment in my brush. And then using the same brush, which is putting on
the black glaze. Glaze, it should be
translucent enough that you see layers that
you've worked on. That's the whole point of glaze. Glaze is to boost your colors and depths
and to really give a richness and a life-like
appearance to your animals. Really focusing the orange and
the areas that it needs to be washing that out. I also decided to go in
with a little bit of Naples yellow glaze and give sort of a light
yellowish tinge to the orange and sort of
whitish areas as well. This is just to give another
color in that that's different from the
brow or the orange. And obviously we'll have
the white later on anyway. It's very subtle. But sometimes social
is what you want to go for with realistic animals because that is typically what you see in
life-like paintings. Adding this to the
more highlighted areas of the Robbins body. That's all I'm gonna do for
the glaze as of right now. Now I decided to go in with
my detail brush and just add some light gray highlights
to the robin speech. Again, this is sort of, you can do your preference on how you want to do this here, really adding some little
claws to them as well. Then I'm also going to
go in and start walk on that top part of
his beak as well. We need to fill it
in a little bit. I am using sort of
a brownish color. I'm just filling in all the
areas where the black isn't. Being really careful to keep
the lines nice and clean. Then going in with a
light brown again, this is very pale color and this is to start
to add in some of the highlights of
everything on the beach that that speaks can be a
little tricky color wise. Sometimes they're pale color, sometimes they
incorporate colors from the actual body of
the burden in them. You just have to pay attention
to your reference and figure out what you
want to incorporate. I'm just using my detail brush to blend everything
a little easier. Smooth out the
lines a little bit so they're not so sharp looking. And just get a nice
blend doing full that. We will be coming
back to that to add back in some shadows and make it look
a little more 3D. I'm just clearly defining
the edge of the beak alone, the robins, where it connects to him versus
the peak itself. I'm also going to go in
and fill in the eye. I'm just basically using
a brownish black hair, giving his eye a little bit
of an eyelid or an edge to it to using that lighter
gray that we used earlier. Redefining certain areas on the beak and just going back
over some of the shadows. That's pretty much everything
we're gonna do for this class where you
can let those dry between layers and you can apply more glaze if you want to
really boost the vibrancy, or you can leave it with just
one glazing layer as well.
7. Final Detail for Robin: So our glazing layer has dried
and now I'm switching to my small rake brush
to start doing the final details
on our Robin here, I'm using some pure titanium white for this little layer that I'm gonna do
on the Robin Wood. Just going to start to add those final layers and really start to fluff the
robin out a little bit. I wanted to go for more of a fluffy robin
because it was cute. And I'm just really
clumping together some of those feather layers and making it look a little
more realistic with that, let me go ahead and speed it up. I said it's pretty
straightforward what I'm doing. Just putting out
some IT areas on the orange parts as well as on the top of his head where
the light would be hitting. I'm also going to go
along the very back of his head and just a thin
amount in a very thin line. This is going to
give the illusion that he is a little bit backlit and it's gonna
make him really pop out from the chemist, right? That just building up those white layers
just a little bit to really make him stand out. I'm also going to add just a
little bit of orange hair in that just to bring back some of that orange color and help redefine some of
those patches as well. Using my rank brush. Going to wash my
brush out a little. Now I'm switching to my detail brush
and we're going to focus a little bit
more than the eye. I'm using the very tip
of it to line the eye with this whitish it's like
a grayish whitish color. And I'm just lining the eye with this to give
the illusion that he's got a little bit of an
eyelid or an edge to the eye. Then going in and adding a
slightly brighter details to the eye using the very
tip of the brush here. I'm also going to
fill some white spots into the eyeball itself to give a little bit
of a reflection. I'm also going to
add some highlights to the beak as well because speak so gonna be
a harder surface that will give a bit of shine. I'm giving a little bit of a backlit look to the bottom
part of the bird's beak. So it helps to stand
out in a little bit. Just going in with some orange, some pure cadmium orange, and just giving a
little bit of a boost to the colors here and
there on the Robin, especially in the darker places. Just because I wanted the orange to pop out a little bit more. You could also do this with
glazing if you wanted to. Specifically focusing it on
the slightly dark areas. So just under the beak and where the body starts
to curve around. Just using my finger to
blend and smudge that out so it's not too
obvious, there's lines. Then I'm going to switch
over to some darker orange. I'm going to go
underneath the eye itself to really deepen
up some shadows. And it's gonna help
seat the I in the head. So it doesn't look like
it's been stuck on top. I'm also going to apply this shadow to the other
dark places on the bird. So for example, right underneath his beak
where that would be casting a shadow and connecting that up to the
corner of the eye a little bit so that it looks a little
more indented how it would on a little Robin. And then just a few patches
of it here and there and the darkest areas of that
orange patch on the robin. Then adding a few bright areas on top of his head just
with a detailed brush to get some strands of feathers that might be
sticking up a little bit. This is just going to help with the illusion that the light is hitting his
forehead a bit more. But that's pretty much all you
need to do for your Robin. It's just a matter of putting in the tiny details that are gonna make a few things pop out
or push few things back. So that is everything that
we're going to need to really do for our Robin here.
8. Branch: Now that our Robbins dried, we're going to move on to
the environmental things within this painting. The branch that the
robin is perching on. We're going to start with that. I'm using my small flat brush
and I'm using a mixture of burnt umber and a little bit of black
just to deepen that up. And I'm starting to map
out where this branch is, how long it's going to be pointy and just the
general shape of it. This is just again like the
base layer for the branch. I'm adding a few little
notches in that. We will be adding a few
more little branches later on once we've done
some flowers on it, I just wanted to get a base
layer of the branch on that. Once you have a
base layer on that, you're going to want
to probably let it dry just a little bit so you can move on to
something like a mid tone, just like we did with the robin. We're doing autofocus layer or mid tone and then some
highlights on it. Then washing out my
small flat brush and then taking a little
bit of a mid tone here, just using the
very edge of it to create some mid tones with. You can use a detailed brush for this step if you want to, if you want a little
bit more control, I just like to use the flat
brush just because it covers more ground a lot more quickly and it just gets
the job done faster. Again, washing out my brush, I'm Ashley guys switched
to a detail brush for my highlighted layer
on the branch. And just using a little bit of a pale brown mixture to
create those highlights. I'm putting the
highlights on again, the areas that I'm going to make sense to the whole painting. Remember we have a light
source that we are keeping in mind as we work through each
stage of this painting. Bringing that highlight right up into the tip of the branch. I'm allowing the
brush to give it to her a bit of a rough
texture really. That way it's going to look
a little more realistic. Branches on not perfect, they are a part of nature and nothing is
perfect in nature. So they've got that rough, uneven, not sort
of straight look. You can even go in with some
really bright highlights using pretty much pure white to highlight the rest
of the bronchus. Here I'm going in with some of those darker values
because the robin itself is going to be
costing a little bit of a shadow where he's perching. So we do want to keep that in mind as we work on the branch. Just working my way up
to the very tip of etch. Costing some dark
shadows where some of the little tips or knobs that are sticking out
would be costing the shadows. Just washing out
my detailed brush. Then I'm doing kind of
similar to the robin and I'm just so backlighting
that little rubbing that, that's all we need to do for
the branch for this class.
9. Flowers Part 1: Alright, so now we're going
to move on to some flowers. I'm taking my small flat brush and just some pure white here. And I'm gonna start
to add in and map out where my flowers
are going to be. You want to think about the direction of each
individual petal. What kind of angle are you going to be
looking at it from? And how many you want obviously. Is some petals bending around the branch of a
sitting on top of it. You want to include
some maybe flower buds, maybe they're just
coming into bloom. You just hold. Want to think
about or things like that. I'm gonna go ahead
and speed it up for you as it's pretty
straightforward, I'm just mapping
out the flowers. I'm not really particularly following any
reference for this. So just if you are
struggling with the flowers, just make up wherever you
feel comfortable doing. You don't have to include
any flowers at all. Or you can include
a few closed buds. It's completely up
to you off-camera. I did actually include a
couple of falling petals just around the painting itself. I wanted to make it seem
like it was Brings seen. These flowers have
come into bloom and that's blossoming
all over the place. And there's a couple
of closed bars as a couple of petals falling. That's pretty much all
I wanted to include. Fullest painting is just a
spring feel to this robin. Just the base layer
for this class, just mapping out where
everything is going to go. Now you're going to
want to let these completely dry before we move on to putting any of our shadows
or values on top of this. Like I said, this is
just a base layer so we can see what, how many and where
they're gonna go.
10. Flowers Part 2: Okay, so now I'll base layer
for the petals have dried. I've added in a few
floating petals falling down and
a few more buds. And I'm using my flat
small brush again, and I'm going in with
a grayish color. Here. I'm going to
start to map out my shadows if you
like, or my mid tones. With this, we're going to figure out what plane these
flowers are gonna be on. We're going to add some shadows
in the individual petals. I'm using my finger to smudge those out a
little bit as well. Doing the same, the
flower buds and pretty much all the flowers are just gonna get a little bit of this gray to map
out the values on it, just like we did with our Robyn. Who just mapping out values. You do want to pay
attention to the flowers. You want to make
sure that you're putting the values
in the right place. Especially once you've got a base layer,
sometimes the lines, the definition of
each petal and where it's pointing can get
a little squishy. So just pay attention
to that area. I'm taking a detail
brush and I'm actually going in with a little
bit of yellow here. And I'm just washing
in some yellow in the center of the open flowers
or the semi-open flowers. And just giving the illusion that they have a little
bit of a center. Next to my Xi, taking
a little bit of brown. It's kind of a
translation Brown. I've watered it
down a little bit. This is to give
the illusion that the petals aren't so perfect. They are white petals, so they're gonna be reflecting a little bit of the environment. And that also a
flower out in nature. They're not gonna be
perfect or pristine. Going to have this appearance
of slightly dirty, maybe reflecting a little bit of the environment around it. So just adding a little
bit of that brown. It's also going to add a nice
color in there just to give them something else so
they're not so stark white. Again, you find that
you might want to go back onto your
Robin later on just to really boost the whiteness of his belly foe or a
feathered staff. Then I'll see the the flowers I'm going to go in and detail with a detailed brush and a much darker gray almost looks
a little bit black. Taking those dark values again and applying
them to the flowers. Again, keeping in mind the
direction that the light is coming from and how it would
affect each flower petal. Next, I'm going in with a
little bit more white and just redefining some of
the brighter areas on my petals and buttons. You can see how
outlining it just a little bit to make it look
a little more backlit because all light is coming
from that top left corner and behind the Robbins want to give that illusion
also to the petals. Just adding in those
bright highlights to the falling petals as well. Again, any web that the light
would make sense to add. I like to use my finger a
lot to smudge out the lines. A bit too harsh looking. Alright, and taking my
detail brush again, I'm going to start to add
in those branches that I wanted to connect up the buds than any
other flowers with. Again, I mentioned
earlier in the branch costs that we were
going to be adding these in a little later on. Just because I wasn't sure of the placement of the
flowers at that moment. It's okay to go back and forth between the things if
you need to add them. Then again, doing what we
did in that branch clause, just adding in a few mid
tones and highlights. The branches look a little
more 3D like they are an actual object holding something other than
a flat surface. Giving those highlights that I also decided just to get some brighter highlights
to the Robbins feet. Then brighten up my Robin just a little bit more
with some brighter white because I felt like the flowers were washing
him out just a little bit. So I decided to go in and
give him a bit more of a white appearance where his feathers would
look like that. You can choose to do this
if you want to on notch, It's completely up to you. I just felt like my Robin needed at brighter surface on him. Then finally adding some more of a deeper orangey color to
the centers of my flowers. I'm basically just going to
be touching up the centers, adding a little bit
of a dark brown and that add some shadows
where the center would be. And also some yellow just
to brighten that area up. But this is pretty much
our finished painting. I'll Robbins dawn or flowers had done the branches look
good and realistic. You can add as many elements
you want to your painting. But I wanted to keep this a
simple spring robin painting. So thank you so much for
joining me for this class. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you've learned
some new techniques from it. Don't forget to check
out my website and the other social
medias, fat I have. If you want to support my work, you can take a look at
my patron page where you also get at
exclusive content. If you want to
learn how to paint realistic animals really well. I also run the animal, our Academy courses for you to look at if you're interested. Thank you so much and I will hope to see you
in the next course.
Charlotte Jordan, Artist | Entrepreneur | Teacher
