Ink and Toned Paper: Create Beautiful Flowers | Ohn Mar Win | Skillshare
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Ink and Toned Paper: Create Beautiful Flowers

teacher avatar Ohn Mar Win, Illustrator Artist Educator

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      2:04

    • 2.

      Your Project

      2:28

    • 3.

      Materials

      5:31

    • 4.

      My Examples

      4:38

    • 5.

      Advantages of Studies

      2:48

    • 6.

      Negative Space

      3:55

    • 7.

      Flower 1: Clematis

      7:52

    • 8.

      Flower 2: Hawthorn

      8:02

    • 9.

      Flower 3: Mixed Bouquet

      9:48

    • 10.

      Final Thoughts

      4:11

    • 11.

      BONUS: Clematis Colour Study

      13:07

    • 12.

      Behind the Scenes

      1:25

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About This Class

Join Ohn Mar Win's art class and master the art of creating dynamic flower drawings through the technique of simplification, breaking down areas into light, mid, and dark tones. Discover the power of toned paper studies to enhance your understanding of values (lightness and darkness) without the distraction of colour. If you love painting flowers and want to take them to the next level, use brown and white ink for these studies to help refine your observation skills and knowledge of value contrast. Join now for an enriching learning experience in floral art.

Advantages of using toned paper studies of flowers include:

Improves observation skills 

Enhances understanding of values & simplification

Ensures a solid foundation before introducing the complexities of color.

Toned paper studies serve as valuable stepping stones in an artist's creative journey, providing a solid foundation in values, improving observation skills, and deepening our understanding of flower forms. 

You will work from one reference image, although 3 have been provided (or can use your own) 

Included class resources: Flower References For Toned Paper PDF. This can be accessed from the "Projects & Resources" tab

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Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Ohn Mar Win

Illustrator Artist Educator

Top Teacher

Hello I'm Ohn Mar a UK based artist, illustrator author with a long and varied 20 year career.

I am a great advocate of sketchbooks having filled over 30, which each serving as a record of my creative journey as a self-taught watercolourist for the last 7 years. They have helped capture my explorations in texture, line and tone as I extend my knowledge with this medium. I also share process videos and sketchbook tours on my YouTube channel - please subscribe!

Filling my sketchbooks remains a constant in my life, and furthermore inspiring many folks to pick up a paintbrush. Oftentimes these sketch explorations provide the basis for classes here on Skillshare.

These days I'm is primarily... See full profile

Level: All Levels

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Transcripts

1. Introduction: Painting flowers in their natural state can feel so intimidating as there's so much to consider with a myriad of unique shapes, sizes, and textures. Of course, flowers can be very colorful, which just adds to that challenge. This is where studies on toned paper can be an incredibly helpful first step. Hi. I'm Ohn Mar. I'm a sketch book artist, illustrator for food packaging, gift wear and books. I've worked with the BBC, YouTube, and UNICEF and I'm also the author of Go With The Flow Painting. I'm a top teacher here on Skillshare, and I help artists of all levels hone their skills in watercolor by sharing my wealth of knowledge from filling 40 sketchbooks with landscapes, still lives, and florals. This tone paper technique allows us to create dynamic sketches with the focus on simplification by breaking down areas to the lightest, midtone and darkest areas. To help guide us through the sketching process, I will provide reference images which will allow you to experiment with a variety of shapes and styles. Throughout the class, I will share key decisions about how I interpret all the different elements from the photos that impact composition, shape, and contrast. In addition, we will delve into the concept of negative space, a technique where shapes are created by painting around them. This approach can add depth and dimensionality to our sketches. Don't think you need to splash out on loads of materials. Just brown and white ink or paint is enough and you can use any tonal paper from old envelopes or even the inside of cardboard boxes. If you love painting flowers, I want to take you to the next level. These type of studies will help you refine your observational skills and knowledge of value contrast. I hope you are excited to join me in this journey and I can't wait to see your beautiful interpretations of flowers on toned paper. 2. Your Project: Thank you so much for joining me for this class. I've been working on tone paper for the last year, along with improving my knowledge of values, especially highlights. I think this has vastly improved my sketchbook pieces as I'm forced to seek out areas of light and dark and simplify them into shapes and use contrast to give the illusion of directional light. For this class, you can use any of the high resolution reference images that I used for the demos in this class. There is a PDF download available called flower references for tone paper, and this can be found under the projects and resources tab just here on the right-hand side under the word resources. Your project is to create one floral study on toned paper with white and brown ink from a reference image using the techniques I'll demonstrate in the videos. Please include one or more tone paper and ink study of your chosen floral plus your thoughts on the process, and the lesson learned, and any challenges that you faced. It's okay to be honest here. You can choose your own images, but do be sure to include your reference photo in your project. This is important, particularly if you would like some constructive feedback on your sketches so that I can see what you were working from. When you're ready to upload your class project, head over to the projects and resources tab and hit the "Create Project" button. First, gave you a project to cover photo and a title to make it really stand out. Here, you can add the contents of your project, including the photos and text to reflect on the process and what you found interesting. Once you've added your content, don't forget to hit "Publish". When you're done, you can come back at any time to edit or even add more photos to your project. I know it can be really scary putting your work out in the world, particularly when you're starting out, but I would encourage you to be bold and share so that I can give you feedback. Please take a good look around the project gallery and drop a few likes and comments on some other student projects to. Let's spread that good energy as an encouraging comment has the power to really make someone's day. In the next video, we're going to go through the tools and materials you'll need for this class. When you're ready, join me there. 3. Materials: Let's start by looking at the materials that we are going to need for this class. Toned paper is simply a paper that has a value other than white. Or in other words, it's not white paper. It often comes in different shades of gray or brown and also black. You can buy a toned paper in many forms. I have this gray toned paper sketchbook by Hahnemuhle, which you'll see more of later. Hahnemuhle also make a cappuccino version. You'll have to check out my other toned paper class if you want to see these pages close-up. Strathmore produce a pack of different colored tone paper like these. It's made for pastels, but you can use this for this project as well. Also worth considering is a pack of standard kraft paper which you can buy really cheaply. You very likely have toned paper lying about the house without realizing it, perhaps from packing paper or the inside of food packaging boxes like this. If you take them apart, they come in all shapes and shades. Very surprisingly, they are ready-made toned paper. The great thing is you don't have to pay any more money for these my protein bar boxes, Amazon envelopes. I even kept this paper but some flowers are wrapped in. I also have this manila envelope from a few years ago that I drew flowers on in white pen. I thought it was worth showing you as it's quite pretty. What we're doing in this class are mainly studies, and they are not meant to be elaborate finished bits of artwork. You can really use whatever scraps of tone paper you have lying around. Also if you're new to this way of working, if you mess up slightly, you won't feel precious about having to throw away expensive paper. Just find another cardboard box and take it apart. As we need to indicate shade and highlights. This is where the inks come in. Let's start by looking at a selection of brown inks. I start with acrylic inks. They are essentially an extremely fluid version of acrylic paint. Acrylic ink is pigment based, and these pigments will bond to the surface of the paper permanently when they dry and they cannot be reworked. You do have to work quite fast. Generally, acrylic ink is more resistant to fading because of the pigments contained within it. I've got these three acrylic inks bite down around me. These will need to have a good shake as some of the pigment will be stuck at the bottom. Let's see how they look on scrap paper. This is Tara Rosa. It's quite a reddish brown, probably a little bit too red for my liking. This one is antelope brown. It's a little bit like nut-brown, but it's light greenish shade. This one is sepia. When I looked at it through the bottle, It looked like a murky dark green. But when I apply it, it's actually quite a deep brown. These two brown inks are by Winsor and Newton. We have nut-brown and peat brown. Nut-brown is more of a reddish, earthy color. This peat Brown is more like raw sienna. It's quite a golden shade. Both of these are a lot more translucent than the acrylic inks. Also worth mentioning is this burnt umber acrylic ink by Liquitex. I would say it's close to chestnut brown. It's quite warm color. If you haven't got any inks, don't worry, just mix up some brown Gouache until it's like a single cream consistency. Now for the white inks, again, there are quite a few varieties out there that will give you different results. First, I'm starting with the Kuretake a highly opaque white ink. It is coming out quite quickly, but you can water it down. Next up is Dr. Ph. Martin's Bleedproof white ink. This is pretty thick and it's very similar to the Kuretake. This next one is by Daler Rowney. It's an acrylic ink. I probably should have been washing my brush. There were still inks from the previous two versions that were stuck on this brush. It's given a different result. This one is the white Liquitex ink. I did wash off my brush before trying it out and it's not as thick as the others. If you don't have any white inks, just mix up some white Gouache or even white acrylic. They will work just as well for this. Finally, you'll need some small brushes. These are just synthetic brushes and they'll give a really good snap. Whatever brown and white inks you have. I strongly suggest that you try everything out on a piece of scrap toned paper like me. You have a good idea of the coverage and how they behave. If you do this, you'll probably have a much better experience when you come to create your studies. 4. My Examples: Even before I knew I would be creating this class, I was trying out quite a few different approaches independently. This actually ended up forming the basis of the demos that I'm going to show you in this class. You are going to be seeing the experience that I've gained from several attempts and iterations in this class. You'll have the opportunity to witness the evolution of your own skills and techniques and gain a deeper understanding of the learning process that can be achieved through persistence and exploration. Some of you may have see this gray Halloween sketchbook from my previous tone paper class. I feel the beginning of this sketchbook with portraits I rendered just in black and white pen. I wanted to carry on with this theme, so I decided to make life easy by capturing simple florals. First off, we have this, forget me not, with white ink and Kuretake brush pen. I'm really just looking at shape to gather the essence of the flower, and there is quite a lot of simplification happening here. Next up are some snow drops. I did sketch these in the early part of spring, and I was really inspired by what I was seeing around me. These would have been done incredibly quickly but the results are really lovely. This particular video was taken in Norfolk on my birthday weekend and it was such a glorious sight. I did actually paint more snow drops while I was there. I'll show you at the end of this class. One of my favorites is apple blossom, which heralds the warmer parts of spring. They have such distinctive buds which are so delicate, but they turn into amazing fruit. These particular apples are so sweet. My kids love them. Here are some really cute little Nazi side and lily of the valley. Again, just really simple Kuretake brush pen and ink studies. Cherry blossoms are just so charming and seeing them always brightens up my day. These particular samples were picked by the river. I'm not a great lover of helly balls but I have now found a huge appreciation of them. They still bring those lovely spring vibes. You can see here that my strokes are getting pretty expressive. At this stage, I felt my sketchbook was too small for the type of exploration I wanted to play with. Luckily, I did have loads of brown paper lying about. I use some of the packing paper around some parcels to try out a few different ideas. Here, you can see in this first example, it's some hawthorn blossom. The paper is a little bit wrinkly but it really didn't matter. However, this cardboard envelope was really nice to work on. I have to say I was really impressed by the results. Just by repeating the process, by using the same reference image, you get such wonderful results. I learned so much. I carried on by looking at flowering winter climates. I know the paper is really wrinkly but I think it adds to the effect. It is quite a complicated image. So it meant I had to really look and simplify those darks and lights. It's a really important study for me. This one is a little bit more involved. It's from a photograph I took last spring when I was picking up sprigs of blossoming flowers as I went on my daily walks. I still learned a lot from these two examples, but I did feel the tonal value of the paper on this one was a little bit pale for us trying to achieve. Again, something like this is really important for me to understand going forward. I can take that information and use it at a later date. I also have another class on tone paper called toned paper, stunning and simple illustrations in black and white. We use real-life references of fruit, vegetables, and vase to break down forms into their essential dark and light areas in order to understand the subject better. Please check out this class if you want further examples of careful observation and using black and white pens to focus on shapes and contrast. I'll leave a link to this class in the description. 5. Advantages of Studies: Color is probably one of the most attractive qualities of flowers and there are a myriad of colors to choose from. But believe it or not, when you are trying to depict florals, value is actually more important than color to the design and success of a painting. Value; the lights and darks, are the reason we do not need to see an outline in our painting. Edges of objects are not necessarily defined by color but by relative value. In this class, we are using tone paper to enhance our understanding of contrast and depth for our floral references. The tone paper itself acts as a foundation, allowing highlights and shadows to stand out prominently. Tone studies should not be dismissed as a waste of time. On the contrary, they play a crucial role in deepening your understanding of floral artwork on multiple levels. While it may be tempting to dive directly into the color version, rushing past the tone study would mean missing out on significant learning opportunities. By taking the time to create tone paper studies, you lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive understanding of your florals. These studies will allow you to explore and grasp the fundamentals of form, value, and composition without the distraction of color. They will give you the solid foundation for capturing the essence of the flower, their shapes, and the interplay of light and shadow. By carefully observing and rendering the florals on tone paper, you will develop a keen eye for the subtle nuances of value and contrast. This heightened awareness will greatly benefit your future color work as you'll have a greater understanding of the relationship between different hues and shades and how they interact. Additionally, tone paper studies provide an opportunity for experimentation and planning. Since they are usually quicker and less time consuming than a full-color piece, you have the freedom to try different techniques, explore different compositions, and make adjustments without the pressure of committing to a final outcome. This allows you to refine your ideas, test various approaches, and gain confidence before starting on a more complex color version. This evolving process of learning and refining will strengthen your artistic ability and will help you grow as an artist. These studies really are going to lay a solid foundation for any potential color pieces, enabling you to approach it with greater confidence. 6. Negative Space : Sometimes I use negative space in my sketches as a means of defining shape and form. As you can see, I'm filling in the background area and behind the cherry blossoms using a brush pen. I originally painted this in watercolor and ink, but felt they were lacking in depth, so I'm using this brush pen in the negative spaces to help provide visual contrast to the main subject, which are the cherry blossoms. During the class demos, I might start talking about negative space. I'd like to explain a little bit more about this term. Negative space is the area surrounding the subject, or in other words, positive space is the main focus, whilst the negative space is in the background. By intentionally blocking out the background or surrounding areas, the subject becomes more pronounced and visually prominent. Negative space acts as a visual frame, drawing attention to the viewer's gaze towards that main subject, which in our case will be florals. By paying attention to the shapes formed by negative space around the subject, artists can effectively define and enhance the overall shape and form of flowers. The interplay between positive and negative space creates a visual dialogue that adds depth, dimension, and visual interest to your artwork. Using negative space allows room for interpretation and I personally think it prevents the artwork from feeling overcrowded or overwhelming, and it's a really handy device to understand how to use. I'm going to show you a few more examples. This is a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. The reference image show this temple in the snow. I use the line of trees in the background to define the edge of that roof which was covered in snow and I think that's a really great example of using negative space to give the sense of the edge rather than using line because the paper was white. Here's another great example where I filled in the background behind this **** crow in a really dark color to accentuate the shape of its body. I don't know what was in the background, but this is the device that I use to look at his tail feathers. In this version, the verse is really pale and against the white paper it would have been really difficult to define, so using a very dark Burgundy plum, I was able to give it a lot more definition and the same again, with this glass of cherries. This still life, I've used a really, really dark blue acrylic marker to define the edge of this onion that's growing and also the handle of this teapot. In this one opposite, you can see the dark blue comes in again in-between the stems and edges of these leaves to give the impression that you can see through that plant into the background. Finally, this example of the thistles, I've used negative space, again, using a brush pen to give a much darker background because the leaves were a very unusual shape and also the top of the thistles were fluffy and I thought that was the best way to approach these thistles. I know that's an incredible amount of information, especially if you've never used negative space before. But I hope the upcoming demos will put some of these theory into practice. 7. Flower 1: Clematis: This clematis was actually growing in my garden and I thought it was a really pretty arrangement. You can see the light and dark very distinctly, with the clematis flowers themselves being incredibly light in value. The darkest areas are directly underneath those central florals, and then as you move out from these areas, you start to see the shapes of a whole leaves. For this demo, I'm going to be using curie take white ink with one of these strathmore toned papers from the pad. I'm going to place the largest clematis flower, that's the one on the lower right. They all have four petals which does make life easy, although they are not completely at a 90 degree angles from each other. Remember, these are organic growing things, so let's not get too perfect early on. There are three information which are overlapping each other, so you have to decide which petals are at the front and which petals go behind the others. Overlapping petals and leaves can be really confusing and you don't have to portray it accurately. These are only studies. You will have to make a judgment call and your decision is absolutely fine. This slightly smaller one, although it's slightly more pink, I'm still going to go with white ink. Because it is just so light compared to that background. I don't actually think the positioning of some of these petals are accurate, but what I'm trying to do is look at the relationship of each petal and leaf next to one another, so it still reads as a clematis, as if they were growing organically. Tone studies serve as a really great problem-solving exercise. Here we have the first layer, which is the white ink. Now we're going to be using some of the Liquitex burnt sienna ink. I'm picking out absolutely the darkest areas which lie between the petals in this central area, although I'm mindful of the vines and sections which probably fall into the mid tone areas. Let's just look at the shapes of those darkest places first. This helps you to understand the underlying structure and the proportions, and this will enable you to create a more accurate representation. As I've mentioned in other classes, it's really good idea to squint your eyes by half closing them. As you do so, you will actually see less of the color and more of just the lights and darks, and these are the values of your colors. This area here-, the section that I'm working on is actually a leaf, so I'm going to be using negative painting to extract that shape from the tone paper. We can make sense of what we see because we recognize its shape. I've been able to define this edge of the leaf and this one next to it. My technique is to outline it first and then fill in that negative space, there are probably other ways of doing this, but this is the process that I'm leaning into at the moment. I'm adding that stem now and the leaf that's hovering just above it. I know it looks half finished, but I am going to come back to it in a little bit. Tone studies really encourage the simplification of forms and shapes. When we're working without color distractions, you can concentrate on capturing the basic shapes and structures of your subject. You can't hope to capture everything, so at some point you're going to have to decide what to include and what to leave out, in order to give that appearance of layering and depth. You'll notice that I am flitting or moving from area to area, and that's just my way of trying to make up my mind, trying to work out how everything fits together, because I can't always see it immediately. I have realized the stem that I've just painted in is actually in the wrong place, and I've realized its relationship to the petal. I'm going to have to make a decision about this. For now, I'm going to leave it outlined, I know there's something not quite right, but I can't figure it out at the moment. There's just so much going on there right now, and I don't want to include everything because it would just look too busy. I'm going to have to make adjustment call. Although, I am still trying to convey that randomness of the leaves into weaving in the background. It's really like analyzing the distribution of lights and dark in order to identify those main shapes, and it will allow the viewer to comprehend what is actually occurring here. Moving on to the stem, that you can see coming out from the left. It's probably a little bit heavy handed, but we are going to fill in that section with some negative inking. For me, when I'm in doubt, I always fill in the darkest areas first because it gives my brain to ponder what my next step is going to be. I'm using negative and positive space to portray the leaves of the clematis and the stems, because they're intermingling. Even though I've speeded up this video, you can still see that there's a fair bit of hesitancy and that is just me deciding what this next step is going to be. I keep looking at the reference, and looking at my paper, coming up with the simplest way of portraying what I'm seeing. This line I've drawn just on the left is actually one of the post of my fence, and I think it will create quite a nice border. I'm looking at the edge of this clematis flower. I could fill it with white ink, but I think what I've decided to do is just let the tone paper show through instead. I think that worked out quite well. Now we're finishing up by adding the stamens to the middle of each clematis flower. I've decided just to use dots, because when I squint, I can't actually see very much of what's happening, so this is the best approximation that I can convey. But that's okay, because it's the simplification that allows artists to quickly identify what this part of the flower is. Just to remind you again, these are only studies. They are here to allow us to improve our observation, depth perception, and become more confident about making decisions. You know I always like to do a caring critique afterwards where we assess what we've created. I have to say, for my first attempt, I am really pleased with how this has turned out. I think it gives a good impression of those pretty pink clematis. There's a really lively organic quality, almost like a pattern of light of dark light running throughout this group. The more I look at this piece, the more I observe how light falls on different surfaces and it creates those highlights and shadows, and that allows us to define some of the three-dimensional forms of those petals and leaves. 8. Flower 2: Hawthorn: These hawthorns grow everywhere in my local neighborhood. I love seeing them in high spring. If we do the squinting trick where we have closed our eyes, we can see the hawthorn blossom really pop against that dark green background and also most of the leaves themselves. Make a note of the very darkest areas, especially where those delicate stems which are really light in value appear in front of these dark patches in the background. Luckily, hawthorn blossoms and buds are pretty simple and that's what we're going to start with. I'm actually using a paper takeaway bag for this. Starting with the Daler-Rowney white ink and a number 8 round brush, the white blossoms are really simple strokes. You can either dab them on or start from the middle outwards. Remember to overlap some of the blossoms as it's what they do naturally. It's best to concentrate on getting the shapes of the entire clumps of blossoms together rather than trying to paint them individually. Remember, the brain can fill in the gaps. It can make assumptions about what's going on. Tone studies are not intended to be perfect replicas. Instead, they're meant to encourage artists to observe and interpret their subject matter. By allowing for approximate shapes and proportions, you can focus on capturing the essence and character of your florals rather than getting caught up in anything too precise. This allows for more expressive and personal interpretations of your subject matter. I think this is getting off to a really good start. Now, we are going to go in with the Daler-Rowney ink. This is sepia. Do remember to give these ink bottles a little shake so the pigments are not stuck at the bottom. If I squint, that area is one of the darkest and it's directly next to the blossom. However, as you move downwards, there are more leaves, so we're going to have to go around them. I'm going to be adding the leaf which is adjacent. I do think my positioning is slightly off, but I can live with this. We can come back to look at this. I'm now going back to fill in another really dark area. I have noticed that the leaves on the hawthorns are very distinctive and they're like a three-pointed shape. This section here, you can see some of the really delicate stems, and I'd like to incorporate them. That means having really steady brushwork in order for that toned paper to show through as we're painting the negative space around those very thin stems. I have decided to add a few more white blossoms having observed that reference image a little bit longer. I think working this way is like following a road, but you're not quite sure where it's taking you but you just have to trust that you will get to the final destination. I'm now working on this upper section, which has that tiny branch that all the sprigs seem to be coming off. It's a good idea to add that now to serve as a point of reference so that I can gauge where some of the leaves are in relation to it. Now, I'm going from dark area to dark area. Although, I have to admit I am sometimes really confused because I can't actually figure out what's going on. I have to work with an approximation and just keep going back to the reference image to do really careful observation to gain more insights. I'm sure all of you are going to have your own interpretations of the same image, and that's absolutely fine. I think tone paper offers artists wider range of expressive possibilities and you can make this your own. You'll see that I'm still doing this flitting from area to area, just trying to gather up information. Little by little, I think I'm getting there. I tend not to linger anywhere too long. Otherwise, I could end up overworking certain areas and I really don't want that because this is only meant to be a study. I've decided this area on the bottom left. I've just had to make it up because it's a little bit blurry in the photo, but if I squint, that area is incredibly dark, so I think this is the best solution. Tone paper studies provide an opportunity for experimentation and refinement as we try to establish the relationship between certain items. In this case, it's leaves and blossoms. I always think it's a little bit like magic as you fill in the negative space and you see those leaves emerging from that patch of paper. This area on the top left needs just a bit more definition to help this piece read better. One thing worth mentioning here is rough studies like these can help artists overcome their fear of making mistakes because it encourages a more relaxed and exploratory approach which fosters a sense of freedom and creativity. It's really embracing the process. Now it's time to add the little stamens in the middle, which are very delicate. I've probably been a little bit heavy handed here. Another analogy might be filling in parts of the map as you go along. You're trying to plot out the different parts of this hawthorn blossom. As you gain extra information, you can fill in another part. I think the tiny areas of the delicate stems needs a little bit more definition because it's an important part of this hawthorn blossom grouping. Although these tiny hawthorn stems are incredibly small and fiddly to paint in as negative space, they are incredibly important in supporting the story of this bunch of hawthorn blossom. I'm just adding that helps to characterize the distinctive leaf shapes that we see on hawthorns. Let's take a look at what we've done here. Yes, it does look a little bit rough around the edges and it's unfinished, but that's totally acceptable. The main thing is we have emphasized the essentials, which are the value relationships and the overall composition. Also by intentionally leaving certain areas unfinished, you can draw attention to the most crucial elements that convey the essence of your floral. This selective approach helps prioritize the essential aspects of your work and leaving it unfinished can serve as a visual representation of the artistic process. It is a work in progress and it captures a specific moment in your creative journey. Personally, I think this adds a sense of spontaneity and gestural quality to my artwork. Remember, the goal of a tone study is to capture essential elements and serve as a learning tool. As long as you have effectively conveyed the main aspects of your subject, leaving it somewhat unfinished allows for interpretation. You can embrace the unfinished aesthetic as deliberate artistic choice and explore the creative possibilities it offers. 9. Flower 3: Mixed Bouquet: This is a lovely bouquet I put together during a spring walk last year. We have a mixture of calamitous, bluebells, and also hawthorns. Two of these you've already tackled before in this class. I know this bouquet looks quite intimidating but it can still be pretty straightforward. For a start they are all generally lighter than the background, so the petals and the leaves should pop out. However, one area that I do want to point out are the bluebells as they're probably closer in value to mid-tone. I think we're going to leave them as tone paper showing through in the areas where they sit. This brown paper is the back of an Amazon envelope. For this demonstration I'm going to be using Dr. PH. Martin's bleed-proof white ink. As we did before with the other calamitous flowers, we are going to start with the distinctive petals. However, I have to be mindful of the shape they create when the petals are touching each other, especially this one on the left which is angled away from us. Please squint in order to see the shape. Now let's add a few of those hawthorn buds just to give some more information to this basic framework. There is actually a third calamitous flower on the right and the petals on this one are slightly larger than the other two. Then there is a really small version next to it. We're going to finish off with the hawthorn buds and remember to fill in the shape of the mass of the buds to give an impression rather than trying to add every individual one. Now that we've got a framework in place I think there's enough here to start adding some of the brown ink. This is Winsor and Newton Pete Brown. The central area here is really confusing as it's just a mass of dark leaves in there and I'm desperately trying to figure out what's going on. However, we do have this distinctive Hawthorne leaf right here at the front so I think I'm going to add that first. It pops out because of the massive darker leaves behind it. As my eye moves around the paper I do realize that there are a lot of dark edges to the side of that calamitous so I'm going to add them now because that will probably help me to secure that position. I've decided to block in this little area here until I figure out what is happening with all the different relationships. In this composition I need to figure out the relationship of the stems of the hawthorn buds and there's so many of them. What I've done is just give a suggestion. I haven't been able to add every single stem. Now, this downward stroke is actually part of my hand. Now, I've just added some positive shapes, some basic leaf shapes, and then moving up I revert back to negative to add more dark areas. I am having to simplify a phenomenal amount here because there's just so many leaves in this background. Now I'm adding the stems of these buds. I have realized the hawthorn blossoms are a little bit out of place. But I think once we have the bluebells they're going to look much better. I'm not going to stress too much about them. When beginning these bluebells, I want to add a lot of detail but I'm trying very hard not to get caught up in all the little separate flower heads. What I've decided to do is just outline the edges of the bluebells. I'm trying not to be concerned with the bulk of what's actually happening within this area. That's why I've just stuck to the outline. I know it looks really odd right now and it doesn't make much sense but what I think does help is establishing part of that dark background. Even if it's just bushes in the background, if you squint, it's difficult to figure out what they are apart from this dark mass. Now that there's something framing the bluebells, I feel a bit more confident about adding the gaps within some of those separate bell shapes. Now we need to establish the edges of the other side of this bluebell group. It does look messy but I do think it has improved dramatically in terms of how we are able to communicate this bouquet. I can tell there's something floral happening in that space. Now let's expand that negative space around the top half of this bouquet. I really should have used a bigger brush for this. Anyhow, and also adding that patch of dark above those hawthorn buds on the right has really given it some context. Moving back down into the center of the bouquet again, I'm doing my usual trick of just trying to find the darkest areas and defining those leaf shapes upon the paper and you can see that they are emerging nicely which is so satisfying. These leaves in particular bat up against the blossom. I need to make sure that they appear to be underneath this grouping and to give that illusion of depth, I'm not quite sure if that part was quite right but it'll do for now. I've decided that we need the last little calamitous flower and perhaps the hint of another. While I've got my paintbrush in my hand, I'm going to add a few more masses of hawthorn blossom and claim their space just there. If we concentrate on this bunch for the time being, we can help them along by defining the lower edge of this group with some dark ink and then adding that leaf shape to define another edge. This is really starting to communicate better and this adds clarity to the composition and enhances the overall readability of this piece. The main spatial relationships of this bouquet are in place and our gaze is being directed towards those larger calamitous blooms. However, I'm not overly satisfied with those bluebells. They are just too flat. I think we need to introduce a stronger contrast between light and dark values. I'm going to take some of that white ink and just pick out the smallest highlights on the bluebells. They're going to be on the very tip of the flowers. Highlights are essential for capturing the play of light on different services and they indicate the areas that are most directly exposed to the slight. Now it's time to go in and create those stamens. You could probably be a little bit lighter in touch than what you see me doing here. I probably should have changed my brush but never mind. These small dots really add a nice touch of contrast to draw your eye towards the middle. I think we've done a pretty good job here. Perhaps I could have looked a little bit more closely at those bluebells when they're bunched together like this but they are incredibly complex and I didn't want to overwhelm myself. I feel with this piece in particular I had to be more mindful of the edges as there were a lot of elements as in there were lots of different types of flowers and leaves. Defining edges on tone studies is essential for creating visual separation and conveying depth. It's important to establish a sense of separation and define the boundaries between the different shapes of leaves and flowers to communicate the vibe of this bouquet. I want to end this video by highlighting the importance of these quick exploratory studies as it allows artists to experiment with different techniques, mediums, and ideas before committing to a larger, more complex painting. I know these look incredibly messy and rough but the beauty is that we learn from each and every one of these and our skills can be refined. When I was an art student, we had so many quick exploratory studies often with a very short time limit. By creating these smaller studies first, we can identify and resolve any potential issues and this will prevent wasted time and effort on larger, more time-consuming pieces. It allows for adjustments and refinements to be made in a more efficient manner and ultimately lead to a more focused painting process later down the line. 10. Final Thoughts: Thank you for taking the time to watch my class. It's worth remembering that even with no color at all, we were very easily able to identify what the flowers were. This is because our brains are highly adept at recognizing and identifying objects such as flowers based solely on the patterns of dark and light. This comes from the remarkable ability of our visual system to prioritize and process contrast. I truly hope you are able to take what you've learned from this class and apply it in future artworks. Have fun in discovering the shapes and your florals and I can't wait to see what unusual bits of card or packaging you use to paint on. Please remember to upload them in the project section. I'd love for you to leave a review for this class as it really helps me and your fellow students. If you want to share what you've created in this class on Instagram, then please tag me @ohn_mar_win and use the # ohnmyskillshare, so that I can find your amazing pieces and share them on my feed. Now I did promise you a peek at another version of snowdrops I painted in my sketchbook. This was started on location in sharing and park in Norfolk. This is actually the background of my sketchbook before I added anything else. It does look like abstract watercolor, but what I've actually done is create my own toned background. Most of this is actually mid-range, apart from those trees which were in the background and incredibly dark and I was able to work on top of this, you will see that there were two versions that I created. One using posca pens and the other using colored pencils. However, it's the same principle of finding the darkest areas and using negative space to block out parts of the background. I think it's very much a continuation of what I have presented in this class. But taking it to the next stage, applying the same contrast and shadow considerations, but using different mediums. Creating my own spontaneous tone backgrounds is something that I've been playing with a lot recently in my sketchbook studies. I've used ink in the background, applied very randomly, so it wouldn't react with any watercolor or pens I might want to work with on top. Once you have the foundations, you will be able to apply the same framework. These are actually taken from my on-location sketchbook. If I turn some of these spreads into a black-and-white image, you can see I have basically created toned paper. I have been able to add highlights using one posca pen and darker brush pens. Understanding the relationship between color and value makes it easier to work with different colors. Even those that seem unnatural like the accidental red splashes over acrylic paint in this sketchbook. In fact, even without any color at all, our brains can easily identify objects in an image. This is because our attention is primarily drawn to the patterns of light and dark. When there is contrast between light and dark elements, our eyes are immediately captivated. While we often think of color and value as separate concepts, they are closely interconnected. By considering the value of a color, we can effectively capture the essence of an object or scene regardless of its coloration. By recognizing the importance of value and its relationship to color, we can make informed decisions when choosing color in our artwork. Understanding that value plays a significant role in how we perceive and interpret colors helps us to create more impactful and visually engaging compositions. 11. BONUS: Clematis Colour Study: I wanted to include this bonus video lesson to show you how I interpret the same clematis from Demo 1 as a color version. Now you can compare how undertaking a toned paper version has influenced my decision-making when I create a watercolor study in color. You don't have to undertake color interpretation as part of your class project, this is purely optional. However, if you do go ahead and decide to paint one, please do upload your color version along with the tone paper study and a few words about your experience comparing the two different studies. Now that we've created a toned paper version of this clematis, we have a lot more information at our disposal again from that first study. We can use this experience when looking at a watercolor version of the same reference image. Don't feel intimidated because we are now working with color. As we still have to be mindful of almost the same things, there should still be a strong emphasis on shape and values. Before undertaking tone paper studies are very likely would have started with a pale petals like this. But it's quite difficult to see. I'm going to change it up and work with the negative space first, just like in our Study. Let's go in with a bit of sap green, where I've added a drop of indigo. I'm leaving the paper white or unpainted and then using the green to paint the space around the shape of those petals. It's still a case of looking for the darkest areas, mainly between each petal. When I'm painting the darkest areas, I am then using Payne's gray mixed up with that sap green. Don't water it down too much. Make sure there's loads of pigment in there for these darker values because watercolors will dry lighter. You can see these petals emerging, which I absolutely adore. I am actually looking more at the reference image right now rather than my study because I think I missed out a few things the first time round, and because I'm in charge, I can interpret it how I want. Sometimes it's really interesting to see what the differences are when you compare two pieces of work that may have derived from the same image. I'm still trying to figure out the main petals again. They do slightly vary from my total study because I'm still working with negative space and it's giving different results now. I was having real difficulty in getting the proportions of those petals right and their positioning. But I've just let it go and I'm carrying on. If creating a tone study and then moving on to a color version on the same study is new for you. I want to quickly go over some of the reasons why repetition is so important. The main one that I've touched upon is building confidence. As artists repeat and practice various techniques, they become more familiar and comfortable with them. This breeds confidence, reducing some of that self-doubt, and enables us to tackle more complex pieces like this. Furthermore, it is really important for building up muscle memory by repeatedly practicing those techniques and brushstrokes. We train our muscles. When we do that, there are actually neurological pathways in our heads that perform the desired movements time after time. It becomes a lot more effective and effortless. This leads to better control and precision and consistency in our artwork. Now we're looking to bringing some brighter leaves or slightly lighter in value at the top area here. It's now sap green mixed with yellow. You can see how that corresponds to the areas on the toned paper that we left unpainted. If you have parts of your tone paper showing through, this is where some of your leaves might come in because they are more of a mid-range value. I'm letting the pigments mix on the paper. So letting some of those yellows and greens do the wonderful watercolor wizardry. When you squint, you can already see the difference between the tonal values of this light green I'm applying now and the dark indigo and sap green of the background. Repetition helps establish muscle memory, which is the ability of our muscles to remember and perform specific movement automatically, and through consistent practice, such as what we're doing here, we can train our muscles to execute certain gestures and actions without having to consciously think about it. This allows for much more smoother and fluid movements when we paint. Let's add an indication of that fence post. I am mindful to keep this area just here unpainted because there's a lot of windy stems there which are lurking. I would like to add them later. Now, I think it's time to wash the brush really well because I'd like to mix up some of that warm pale pink and then fill the petals in. What I've mixed up is opera rose with a little bit of gouache to help with opacity and a tiny drop of orange. I do want to preserve some of that white paper underneath to keep that luminosity. Again, it's up to you to decide whether you want to work from the original reference photo or from the tonal study, or a mixture of both. It's really okay to have different interpretations, and that's why we do studies. As you saw from that reference photo, there was just a tangle of vines in this particular corner. I simplified it right down for that tonal study, but I think it could do with just a few more. It's okay to change it up because I have a much greater understanding of this particular scene having painted it for a second time. Those vines are a brownie beige color, but I don't think I'm going to introduce another color. I'm going to keep it really simple, but it still gives the impression that there was this tangle happening next to those leaves. I'm going to add a few more down here on the bottom right. In amongst there are some leaves. I think it's time to add a few of those to this area to give some context. Just like in the tonal studies, I don't always have a clear plan of action. I'm literally just taking it step-by-step and wondering what is the next thing that I should add. I'm going from one area to the next as I confirm a piece of information. Looking at this central petal again, I realized it was totally the wrong shape. I've painted some of that negative space in, and yes, it does look much better. Same again with a few of the other petals. They just needed to be resolved a little bit better so that the shapes are much more clearer. That's why knowing how to utilize negative space and negative painting is such a brilliant tool to have. Moving back up to the top right area, it looks pretty similar to our study, but I'm having a hard time working out how I'm going to add those leaves. I don't think I'm going to add individual leaves here rather. I'll just fill it in with a light green so it contrasts enough against those pale petals. As I've said in the other videos, It's always good to keep moving around your piece so that you don't become too fixated with one particular area and end up overworking it. I'm going to go in with that yellowy sap green because these are the leafy areas. They are slightly varying in values, but I am going to go back in once they're a little bit drier with some negative painting to make it more obvious. They are leaves. It is very loose and those pigments are still flowing together, but they are going to turn out fine. Trust me. Going back to this upper section, I don't want to fill it in too much because it is too jumbled for my brain to work out what's going on. I'm just going to leave it like that. As for these leaves in the bottom corner, I'm now going to use negative painting to build a leaf shape from that sap green we put down earlier. This area is actually a little damp. You can see it's merging a little bit, which is absolutely fine. Now let's take a moment to admire what we've done so far. I think it looks great with just the right pops of contrast. Now it's time to add the stamens. Again, I'm using sap green, but with a lot more yellow in it so that it harmonizes with the leaves. I'm just having them really quickly from the middle outwards. I have to go in again with a slightly more pigmented sap green with a touch of yellow in it. Just to add that hint of contrast within the dimension of those stamens. Let's wash our brush again because we're going to add a little bit more detail to those clematis petals, which gives them their textural quality. It could be really easy at this stage to start overworking. This is where we, as artists start to Pfaff. By keeping your brush moving around your piece, it maintains that freshness and energy, and prevent some of that overworking way. It doesn't look as spontaneous. This continuous movement and variation in the brushwork will create a sense of liveliness and allow for visual interest and vitality. I had to go back in with the pale pink because I hadn't included them on those far right, clematis petals. Now it's time for the final pass, which is what I call it when I add the finishing details using Payne's gray in this case, I thought it would be a good idea to give the bottom of this piece a bit of an outer edge or a frame. It had something to work against and give it a little bit more context. I don't often do this, but on this occasion, I think it's helping me to not just carry on and on until it reaches the edge of that piece of paper. You've noticed I've got quite a limited palette. That is to avoid muddy and my colors. And also by moving your brush from different areas, it prevents those colors from becoming muddy or over-blended. When you continuously work in the same area for an extended period, the colors can just mix too much, and that will result in a loss of clarity and vibrancy. I could have filled those leaves on the outer edges, but I'm mindful that I don't want to crowd some of this. If we take a moment to admire both pieces, I honestly don't think I would've been able to pull off a color version such as this so quickly if I hadn't done a tonal study. When you do the squint test tonally, they are very similar. Since the color version is the second version, I have been able to input more information, so I've probably added a few more details, especially the vines. I totally adore that pale pink against that lush dark blue-green background. I really hope that you'll be able to get similar effects if you decide to create a color version of your floral piece, if you do, please remember to upload it. I can't wait to see your versions. 12. Behind the Scenes: Ruby. Ruby darling, I need my desk, I need to start filming. Go on, you can do it. Thank you. No Ruby, Ruby get off, get off Ruby. Darling, I don't know if this is the way. Oh, you be calm. Ruby, you sat on my work.