Ink & Watercolor Magic: 5 Step By Step Drawing & Painting Illustrations

1. Trailer: When ink combines with water color, the results are as close to magic as you can get. For the best part is, there also very easily to achieve, there are numerous techniques and make the two mediums perfect for each other. It is especially beneficial if you're a beginner in water color but anyone from any skill level would be able to do much more by using ink in their water color paintings. If you're an ink artist and never thought to combine it with water color, then you're in for a real treat because water color can add so much dimension, color, and gorgeous texture to your art. I already made plenty of classes at explained ink and water color separately and together, but I wanted to make something slow where you can follow along with me and learn by doing essentially by looking over my shoulder and this class will illustrate five beautiful step-by-step illustrations, but use tons of unique techniques and show you my not-so-secret ways of combining the mediums. Working with ink and water color together is my favorite way to illustrate, and I want to show you why and how you can do it too, so join me for this fun adventure and level up your skills and creativity along the way. Let's start. 2. Why Use Ink & Watercolor Together: Welcome to the class. Before we jump in, let's see some examples of why we should mix watercolor and ink. Watercolor on its own is nice, and so is ink. But when you combine the two mediums, you create something that pops off the page, they are the perfect couple. For example, the cherry on the left is much more interesting and cuter than the cherry on the right. But if I outline it in ink, I increase the contrast and visual interest substantially, and now the cherry on the right pops out at you more than the left one, even though the water coloring was much more skilled on the left one. Same thing with just an ink drawing. Sure, it's nice, but the magic of watercolor makes it extraordinary. The union between these two mediums not only looks awesome, but it also makes it easier to use both mediums. Watercolors are not scary when you have outlines to work in or ink to help make it pop, and ink doesn't have to do all the hard work on its own. You don't have to rely on it to shade and show all the detail, watercolor can do that for you and add tons of color along the way in a much easier and less time consuming fashion. You can illustrate with these two in infinite styles, but usually if you want a neat and careful design, it's better to do ink first, because you can erase your pencil marks and it's easy to stay in the lines when the ink is down. It's almost like a coloring book page. But if you want something more loose and fun, watercolor first tends to do the trick, because you can add in the ink sparingly and loosely at the end. But throughout the class, you will see me flip these rules on their head, because you can do anything you want and I really love working loose. There are so many different techniques out there. It's up to you to discover your favorite way of illustrating with these magical mediums. With all the many illustrations in this class, my hope is you'll understand how to combine them and will find your favorite ways of doing so. Together these two mediums are not only approachable, but really fun and beautiful. Let's dive in. But before we do, let's talk supplies. 3. Supplies: A quick note before we start, this class is open to watercolor ink beginners, but it helps if you know the basics of watercolor before we dive in so that you understand how it works and the terms I use. I have a super short class on the subject that takes you through everything you need to know if you're completely new to the medium. So if you are, I recommend you watch it and come back. But if you have some experience, you are ready to start the class. The supplies for this class are very flexible. As long as you have some sort of watercolor paints and some sort of inks, you can make it work. One thing you should make sure to have is a pencil and eraser. The important thing is to have a light pencil or not to press down hard on it if it's darker. I use blue LED to keep it light, but that's just a personal preference. You have to use watercolor paper that has at least a 140 pounds or will work too much and be impossible to work on. My favorite paper is very inexpensive Canson Excel paper, which is cold press, so it should be rough, but it's actually fairly smooth. This is what I recommend and what I will be using throughout the class. If you're getting some other brand and want to work with Micron pens, and I recommend getting hard-pressed paper for a smoother surface. I'm using mostly Mission Gold watercolors, but any brand is fine. To prove this, I did a cheap art supplies challenge on YouTube recently and this was painted using $3 Crayola paints. Don't worry if your paints aren't fancy they don't have to be. As for brushes, I'll be mostly using a size ten prints and Neptune round brush and a size two and six silver black velvet round brushes. If you have anything bigger, you can certainly use it for backgrounds and such, and if you have anything smaller, you can use it for even finer detail. Whatever you have on hand should be fine. I also recommend having paper towels, fixing mistakes, and manipulating the paint and the water, and two water containers on hand for making sure your brushes clean. Because you use one to clean it initially and the second one to make sure it's clean. For Ink supplies, you can use whatever you have. The only rule is to make sure that your ink is waterproof if you'll be using the ink before the watercolor. If you only want to use ink second after the watercolor, then it doesn't really matter, but it will limit you because you will be able to do Ink First. To tests your supplies, you can do a simple line test of all your supplies. All you have to do is just make a bunch of lines with different things. Then given the minute to dry and then see which ones bleed with the water. I recommend you test out things like markers and pens, because you never know what is waterproof, and it might be fun to incorporate new supplies into the class. This class will be more fun if you have brush pens or brush and ink, which will create beautiful line variation. But if you're a fan of just perfect strokes like the coloring book effect where there's no line variation and just thin strokes, then a technical or micron pen is also great for that. You will see me use both. Technical pens don't have natural aligned variation. But you can always fake it by just drawing it in. No one will know the difference. I recommend Sakura pigma Micron pens for thin outlines, the pencil pocket brush pen for a brush and ink feel without an actual brush and ink, and a disposable Zebra brush pen for a more controlled and easier to use brush pen. You don't need all of these. You can use whatever you have on hand. But these are my favorites and they are waterproof. You will also see me using a signal broad point white gell pen, which is my favorite white gel pen. I use it to add white highlights once I'm done with my pieces. I recommend you get it because it's awesome, but it's not necessary. You can always use some other form of white, like white ink, wash, acrylic paint, and so on. I'm sure you already have something on hand. If you want to be really fun and experimental in this class, I recommend you also get out your markers, colored pencils and so forth. You'll see me using various random supplies throughout the class. But this can easily be improvised with whatever you have on hand. So don't worry about it and just go with the flow. That covers a supplies. Now let's start making magic. 4. Watercolor First: Usually when I work with watercolor and ink together, I don't have a rigid structure of ink first or watercolor first. I just want you to know it's okay to jump between the two mediums and you will see me do so in future lessons. But let's start with the simple and gorgeous watercolor first technique. Watercolors on their own make magical results when you let them. The secret is to give them room to do their own thing. Wet in wet is by far the most magical thing you can do with watercolors in my opinion. It's super easy to do as well. You just have to make a shape with water and then drop in different colors. Here I use this technique to make a bird shape, and then I added different colors and even guided them with my brush. Notice how puddles formed on the outside and that's okay. We want those for very cool textures. But if you ever overdo it, don't panic. It's so easy to fix by drying your brush and then picking up excess paint in water with it or using a paper towel. I dry the birds and notice how all the place with the puddles turn into fun textures. The effect is more subtle if you don't use a hairdryer and instead wait. But like most people, I don't have the patience for that and actually do like it rough like this. But look how magical watercolors are on their own. All I had to do was make the right shape and drop the painting. The watercolors do the rest. For these birds, I used the pencil to finish end and I detailed but this could have easily been done with ink or any other medium you like. Wet on wet is so much fun when it's used like this. These cats have so much texture and life to them because of this technique. You can do this with anything. You just have to paint the silhouette of whatever you like. Like here, I did it to dog shapes. Also notice how ink was used very sparingly here. This kind of illustration is where watercolor does most of the talking. It's your turn to get your hands dirty and try this technique. Grab a piece of watercolors cap paper and get your water colors out. For this first one, I made a simple circle. A circle is so easy to convert into anything you want when you add the ink. I drop in my favorite colors and leave them alone to do its own thing. If you're having trouble with mixing colors or picking which ones to use, I made a short class just on this topic. The second shape I decided will be a lemon, which is very easy to do and it's obviously yellow. You can do any fruit since most of them are recognizable just by their shape and color. For this one, I wanted it to be more subtle. I drop in the yellow around the outline, this will make the middle lighter and I only add a little bit of yellow ocher or dark yellow or yellow mixed with brown. There's a lot of ways to get a similar color, just to give it a subtle shadow. The last one is just the heart shape and it has a lot of puddles and colors similar to the first one. I'll use slightly different colors and more water. As you can see the results are beautiful after drying them with a hairdryer. That is all the cool textures and beautiful details and now I can use ink on top. I decided the first one will be a bird and I'm going to use a technical pen or micron pen for adding detail. I don't outline the circle instead I add a beak, an eye, wings, tail and feet. Notice how is all done very simply with simple lines and shapes. But you all ready recognize it as a bird. This is the power of the human brain. We tend to see familiar things out of simple lines and shapes, even if they are only slightly similar and oversimplified or even at inaccurate. Don't worry about making your art realistic or perfect. I add in little patterns the the crown for the finishing touches. For the lemon, I use the pen tool pocket brush pen for the outline. Notice how messy it is. I went over the paint on the bottom one and didn't touch the paint on the top one, which gives the illusion of a highlight because the way the page. This gives it a very loose style of painting outside the lines. I use the micron pen to add the texture of the lemon and this is a great thing to do when inking. You don't always have to stick to one tool. Here we use the brush pen for thicker outline and a technical pen for our detail and that's a really fun way to use them together. I also drawn some leaves, but they don't have any color or detail to them. Simple and effective. With this last one, I letter in the word love using a zebra brush pen and add in some hearts and we're done. Notice how I also used again a brush pen for the lettering and then a technical pen for the hearts. I use a white gel pen to add little dots that are close together to make you look more magical and shiny. You'll see me do this a lot in all my future illustrations. The results are very cute and we're super easy to do. The magic of watercolor first is we let the watercolor do most of the talking, but then the ink is used to add in detail, contrast and just a little bit of magic, it helps to define the piece. It's up to you what you want to dominate. Maybe you want the ink to dominate, maybe you want the watercolor to dominate. Maybe you'll do a different thing in every illustration, that's what I do. These flowers are watercolor first, but I use ink to not just outline, but instead be its own drawing that overlaps with them and they work together and play together. They both grab your attention equally and add magic that piece because of their union. You will see more varied examples in future lessons. Remember that there are tons of ways of doing watercolor first. But now let's talk about ink first. 5. Ink First: There are a lot of advantages to using ink first and a lot of techniques, but the most obvious one is you can essentially make a coloring book page on what you want to paint. This makes using water colors super easy for the beginner because they don't have to worry about defining everything in watercolor. Ink is usually much easier to use. So ink offers greater versus great, if you're just starting out in watercolor or find them intimidating. It's also great if you just want to make perfect illustrations that are not messy or loose. This doesn't mean that you can't make messy work. In fact, you'll see a bunch of messy examples in the end of this lesson. Just that it's easy to make neat work. Here, I sketched out butterflies and then ink them in and added all the detail. Once I was happy with them and done drying them, I can easily erase my pencil marks. This is a huge benefit because this is impossible to do with watercolor first. Once paint goes over your pencil marks and dries, you cannot erase them. So it's very important to keep your pencil marks light unless you want the sketchy thing to show through. But this is something you don't have to worry about the ink first. Now that I have in my initial outlines, I can take my time picking out a color palette, painting in my butterflies. If you're neat, you can stay in the lines by being more careful. If you're loose, you can paint outside or inside the lines. There's no right way of doing this. The point is you already have the framework done and the painting becomes a no-brainer. This makes it much easier to finish the illustration, but at the same time the results are up to you. I personally love staying with smudging ink and water coloring. These plants were done with ink first, but notice how loosely I inked them in and I water colored loosely too. The results are super fun and charming and they are still looking nice he still recognize them for what they are. The same thing with this whale. Notice how sketchy my inking lines are and they don't touch everywhere. I also don't paint within the lines, so the result is super fun. Same thing with this portrait of Audrey. I use a brush and ink in a loose matter for the outline. And it works well with the loose painting on top. Same thing with this cube blue face monkey. I was very loose with the outlines by using brush and ink, and notice how I mimicked for and didn't touch my lines all the way around. I outlined it very loosely except for the inside of the face, and I also painted in loosely. Loose is my favorite way to work, but you can do whatever you want. The point is that, no matter what style you want to do it in, using ink first has a lot of advantages and when I use these two mediums together, I usually do ink first, but sometimes I use ink in the watercolor and the ink and then watercolor or watercolor and then ink and then ink and then watercolor, the order is up to you and you won't happen spontaneously as you work on your piece. But I hope these two lessons showed you the basic advantages of ink in watercolor first. The next lessons we'll show you tons of step-by-step illustrations using various techniques in many different ways. If you follow along, you'll pick up a lot of new ways of doing things and hopefully invent your own creative ways of using the two media. So pick up your brush and let's start the step-by-step illustrations with a loose watercolor first cactus. 6. Loose Cactus: In this lesson, we're going to paint the super cute and simple cactus plant. Before we start, I want you to know that you shouldn't be afraid to use your own colors and to make any other adjustments that you like along the way, like playing with the scale or whatever. I keep my color names vague because everyone has different sets of paints, and I want you to develop your own color style. For this one, we're not going to start with sketching. I want you guys to maybe loosen up and learn how you don't need to always sketch out, especially with simpler things like this. Let's start with a larger round brush. Here I'm using a size 10 around, make sure your brush is nice and moist and pick up some brown or whatever color you want the pot to be. If I'm doing a light wash, I like to use my mixing trait, dilute the pigment a lots of water like I did here. The pot is just a rectangular shape that is wider on the top, and once you have that down, you can pick up some more color and drop them in. It's important to do this while the paper is still wet since the paper has to be wet for the pain to blend beautifully. Also notice that when the paper is more dry, the paints spreads less than when it's more wet. You will see this a lot more throughout the class. Play with this balanced to influence your results. Now I mix the color I want my cactus to be. You can get a similar color by mixing blue and green. But use whatever color you like for your cactus. I start painting in the cactus by painting a large teardrop shape that doesn't end at a point, and then filling it in, and I continued doing so, but with each connecting shape, it gets smaller and smaller. Notice why I picked up a different color for the top one and then drop that color in the previous one as well. Using more than one color like this is an easier way to make your work more interesting. I continue adding more cactus heads and notice how it's all different colors now. This will create a beautiful gradient as it plants. There isn't one perfect way to do this, nor is there a limit to how tall it must be, or order it has to be in, or even what colors you use and how many. So just have fun with it. Then I drop in a third color into each one and let it blend. I also drop in one more color into the pot. It's okay to drop in colors at anytime as long as the paint is still wet. You can also add a little splatter which will blend into the wet paint and make perfect circles on dry paper. If you're cactus has too much water and forms big puddles, you can always simply dry your brush and then use a dry brush to pick up excess paint and water. This is also used to lighten areas. You can also drop in more water at anytime to help the paint blend and make beautiful textures called blooms. You can see the blooms better if the paint is more dry when you do this, but I usually just do this to help the paint blend. I decide to add more splatter. Now you don't have to add any splatter, but if you decide to do it, make sure to use the same colors you already used in the piece. This keeps it harmonious. You can also easily add a shadow at this point. Just use a slightly moist brush to paint in the shadow by pulling some of the paint out of the pot, that's wider near the pot. Some of the paint will get pulled out and even make a nice subtle effect. Since I put the shadow on the right side and you can put on the left it doesn't matter, I'm going to draw my brush and lighten the left side of the cactus by picking up excess paint. Once you're happy with the first layer, you can dry your painting with either a hairdryer set on low or by letting it sit until dry. Now in the second layer, we're going to define a little more and add some slight shadows. So I'm switching over to my size two round brush for detail. I pick up the same color that we use for the body of the cactus, but this time there's less water and more paint for a darker color. Also the layering of it will make it darker naturally because it previously our paint will show through. To give a very subtle effect, just paint in simple lines on the same side as the shadow. Don't put it all the way around as if its outline. This will make it look more flat, but instead just do short lines almost going around the whole slide, but not really. Then for the pot, you can make some black with the brown or whatever color you used and just paint in a slight shadow at the place where the cactus touches it, like I do here. It's really just kind of an oval shape, but we don't paint it in where the cactus is. You can also paint in the rim if you want to, and shade in the side just by putting down some water for where you want the shadow to be, then dropping in some paint at the edge. This will naturally blend out and it will make a cool texture. I personally like making small puddles on purpose throughout the piece for the added texture. I add in more water and some blue paint to make it more harmonious with rest of the piece. Now you're done with water coloring the second layer. Simple. Let it dry again, or dry it yourself, and you can leave the cactus like this, but to make it more interesting and cactus like, I'm going back in with a micron pen, adding a couple of short lines randomly around the plant. You can use a thicker pen, make them longer, or just do a little dots, or you can use a colored micron pencil, or even just paint in the little lines. Maybe even just around the outline and not within. There's a lot that can be done here and it's up to you how you want to do it. So feel free to do it your way. I decide to add little dots within to make an even more interesting, and then I outlined the pot loosely as well. There's no need to outline every side because that will tend to make it look more flat, so, I don't finish outlining the bottom. Now if you have white mediate and go back in add some haley, I use my white gel pen to do so by drawing simple lines on the opposite side of the shadow, and then I make little dots all around the piece to make it look shiny and magical. Notice I put them close together, but otherwise the size and spacing is random. I also decide to add some white lines on the left side of the cactus for a slight highlight and that's it. If you want to be even more playful, you can add something onto the pot and use even more media. If you have gouache or acrylic, you can paint directly on top with a lighter color, but here I use a thin sharpie marker to draw in a heart, and a green one to define the shadow some more and add little dots. I also use the colored pencil to fill in the heart, which gives it a nice and subtle texture. This is how my cactus turned out. But be playful with your take on it, try using different media and playing around the techniques and the colors and see what you come up with. Be sure to share what you make to inspire other students. I hope this lesson showed you how easy it is to use watercolor first and then other media to add detail and define the piece just a little bit. This is definitely a piece where watercolor talks the most. Now let's illustrate a juicy kiwi with this platter background. 7. Juicy Kiwi: Now let's jump into illustrating this fun kiwi. This time we're going to start with a very simple sketch and start by drawing a loose circle. It does not have to be perfect because fruits are organic and imperfect. But if you want to perfect one, you can trace over something round like tape or a cup. Next, drawing the shape for the center. I'm doing a heart, but you can do an oval or a star or any other simple and large shape, and that's it. We're ready to ink. Ink with whatever you like. Just be sure it's waterproof. I go for the Zebra brush pen to mix it up. Notice why I don't let all my lines touch and I don't make them perfect, but instead, add a slight wobble to them, as I connect the lines with dots to add some interests and texture. This is something I like to do, but you don't have to do it. Next, ink in the shape by drawing in small clusters of lines that always face the center of the kiwi. I leave white space in between them because if I go all the way around like in that line, it won't look as organic and it will be flat. I'm just trying to capture the texture of the kiwi. Next, ink in a small black ovals all around the shape, also facing in the same direction as the lines. When doing this, be careful not to overdo them. Notice how I turn my paper while doing this to make sure my hand is comfortable. You should do the same because it will make it easier for you to draw them in the right direction and just to draw. I also added some small dots at random parts at the end of the black dots. I vary where they are and notice how they match the dots I used previously on the outline. It's good to use a similar technique throughout the piece. Next, drawing the second outline within using the same size we did on the outside. This is just to make the rind of the kiwi so we can add a second color in to make it more interesting. Notice how imperfect it is again, for an organic feel. Now we're done inking, so simply erase your pencil marks and get your watercolors out. I start with very little green paint and lots of water. Notice how the ink from the big dots blend. I thought that I waited more than a minute, so it should be fully dry, but it's not because there is more ink in the area and I should have waited a little more, but that's okay. This is a good example what to do when you mess up a third away. No guys, you just have to roll with it. I mess up all the time. There's so many ways to fix mistakes and watercolor, so don't worry about it. I let all the grayish paint only be around the heart and then I add more of a lime green, which can be easily mix with the green and yellow and paint it around the piece. Now, it doesn't only look intentional, but pretty cool. I really like the little grayness added in there. See, don't panic. Next while it's still wet, I pick up some dark green and drop it in and around the outside of the kiwi. Notice how it's not a lot of paint still, but mostly water because I want the color change to be gradual and we're going to layer here. Then I take a small brush and add in the same color around the kiwi centers. It is still wet there, the paint blends in, but I'm not painting perfectly around. It's just lines going on the same direction as we drew the black dots before and they have space in between them. I do this to capture the texture of the kiwi. Next, I pick up some yellow ocher or you can mix yellow and brown and paint around the edge of the kiwi. This time it's a lot of paint and little water so that it spreads less and stays put. You can wait for the first layer to dry fully if you don't want to spread it all, but I like the loose look of paint mingling and I wanted to go from one place to the next. I want the colors to be a little more intense, so I pick up slight variation of green, this time an olive green, and paint around the edge within the skin and then do the lines around the center again. Only this time some parts, the first layer are wet so it spreads and others is not, so it keeps the hard edges. Since I want to soft look all around, I fix this by going in with the clean and slightly wet brush and I smooth out the edges just by painting there with water. This makes the paint fade out and gives a soft look that I want. See, you can always manipulate your paint to do what you like. Next, I pick up some yellow and paint in around the center with very small lines going in. This also adds more texture and blends in with the previous paint and makes a nice interesting gradient around the heart. We're done for now, so add a slight splatter by gently tapping my finger on a larger brush loaded with paint and water. I use the same colors we already use and don't overdo it. Now, let's make a fun splashed background. All you need is a drinking straw, but don't panic if you don't have one, you can always just blow directly with your mouth. It'll just be a little bit harder, but it's totally doable and I've done it on plenty of occasions where I didn't have straws. Let's start with picking up a darker color with a bigger round brush and be sure you have lots of water on your brush. I chose a nice shade of green and painted around the kiwi in three different places like this. Then I pick up a lighter color, I chose yellow, and I fill in the rest of the outline. Now, the paints are going to gradually blend into each other that's why I chose a darker and lighter color. Move quickly. This has to happen while it's wet. Get your straw and position it pointing away from the kiwi center and blow. Keep doing this all around the piece by rotating the paper as you blow each section. If it becomes too difficult to blow an area, just drop in more paint and water and try again, like I did here. I continue doing this until the whole background is balanced. Isn't this awesome? Then I add in some more splatter, but this time I go a little more crazy with it because I really like splatter. If you don't want any more splatter on your kiwi, you can cover with paper towel before you splatter so it doesn't get inside of it as just the background. But I like it messy. Now you can be done here, but I think the piece benefits from one more layer. I take the same dark green that was used in the background and loosely paint within. This time the paper is dry, so all my jokes will dry as they are. That's why it's important to keep it organic and random. It looks like it belongs of the looseness of the piece. I add another layer on the inside and the edges will stay sharp as well because the paper is dry. Once I'm done painting them in, I use a clean wet brush to fade out the edge of the lines just by painting next to them with plain water because I don't want that sharp feeling all around, but it stays in the middle and that makes a nice contrast. We're done with the painting and the inking. I dry the piece with the hairdryer. If you have a white gel pen or some other white media, you can now draw in small lines around the heart, similar to what we did before to add more texture in depth. I add in long lines and short lines closer to the center and I also had a second line from some of the long lines for V type shape. But the way you do this step is up to you. It is important to go in the same direction as the other line so that it blends in and matches. I also outline the outside and inside of the rind, but not all the way around. I add in the little the circles I'm so fond of by drawing little clusters with various sizes throughout the piece. These benefit the most by being in the darkest parts of the composition. For one last touch, I use prisma colored pencils to add in some more texture in depth by drawing in more lines around the center with a nice green and by drying inside the rind with a brown. I love using colored pencils for adding texture like this. It makes such a nice contrast, the smoothness of the watercolors, and the piece is done. I hope you had fun with this one. I picked up a lot of new techniques. I can't wait to see your take on it. Now, let's illustrate some gorgeous wild flowers in a glass jar. 8. Wildflowers in a Jar: In this lesson, we'll illustrate these beautiful wildflowers in a jar. To start, I sketch my container, which will be a mason jar. I have one right in front of me, because I was using it to hold the water from my watercolor paintings, but you can use anything clear like a cup or a vase, or different kind of jar. Anything that you have lying around the house, just get creative with it. If you want to do exactly as I'm doing, you can follow along as well. When sketching, keep in mind that it doesn't have to be perfectly symmetrical, since we are being loose, but if you do want to make it perfectly symmetrical, it's okay to use a ruler to make sure that you're even on both sides. If you want to do a mason jar with me, just sketch in a long rectangle and then draw in two curved lines for a depth, and connect them with a rounded rectangle. That's it. You also have the option of making an oval on top for more realistic look. Just be careful not to ink all the way around, and instead do just a little at the edges to hint at it, because the flowers will be in front. I use a thicker technical pen here and I start inking the jar. To make it look like a real mason jar, you just need to draw and slightly curve closed lines at ended a point randomly around the lid, and then ink in the rest of the sketch. If you want to give it a special touch, you can draw on the mason jar logo, or if you're vase or cup has any other patterns or designs, you can include those. I sketched it out in pencil and then made a bubbly text effect by drawing around it and making the edges rounded. Notice how I don't outline the whole letter, but only partially around each one. This gives it a feeling of glass. Also notice how imperfect and quick it is. This is the way I like to illustrate, but if you want to be perfect and neat, that's okay too, just take your time then. You can always use a ruler to help make it perfect. Now, erase pencil marks and get my paints out. Experience in painting florals help, but it's not necessary. You can make any shape you want with your brush and we'll use ink to help define the flower features later on. If you get stuck on the floral part, just look up some wildflower references for inspiration or make up your own, and have fun with it. If you want to learn more about painting florals, I have a class just for that subject, but just try following along with me. I know you can do it. I'm using my size two round brush and just painting in a long line for the stem, and little lines that randomly connect into more lines at the bottom for a root. You don't have to paint in the root, but since I decided to make them into wild flowers, I think it would be cute. If you want to paint different kinds of flowers, don't be afraid to look up references for them. In fact, I have a whole Pinterest board filled with gorgeous flowers that you can check out. The leaves are done by easily starting with a tip of my brush and then slowly pressing down more until its thickest, and then lifting until it's thinnest again. You should practice this movement and all the different kinds of marks your brush can make, to make up the flowers and leave shapes on a scrap piece of paper before you start. The only real for painting weeds is to keep the flowers and leaves small, and it helps to have multiple flowers from one stem. This is how I gave the illusion of wildflowers, even though I wasn't really using any references. I'm making up these flowers and leaves as I go along, but you don't have to follow me exactly. In fact, challenge yourself by trying to make up your own, but don't worry, the recording will be slow enough that you can fall on if you want to. Notice how my flowers don't have to touch the stem or be connected, and same thing with the leaves, we're being loose and playful, so normal rules of realism don't apply. Also be sure to vary the colors of the flowers and stems that you use for a more fun look. Notice how the second flowers are painted with the stem is bending out of the vase. This gives it a nice contrast and a touch of realism to the vase. Notice how I varied the scale and position of the flowers, and how different the leaves are on each plant. I continue adding more and more wild flowers. Keep in mind there is no wrong way to do this. Just be loose and playful with it. If you make a shape you don't like, don't worry about it. We will define these with ink anyway, and that will make it easier to fix mistakes or make the unnoticeable. I'm overlapping the stems and flowers and leaves for a fun look. It's up to you how many flowers you want in your mason jar. I like a basil with many different kinds of flowers, but if you want it to be more simple, you don't have to overlap them, and you can just include three or four. It's up to you. Once I'm happy with the main flowers, I go back in and add tiny ones in different colors to help balance the composition, add variety to the piece. I also add a subtle splatter. Notice how fine that is, because the pressure I used was small. If you want bigger dots, just use a bigger brush. Now I'm ready to paint in some water. This is optional. In fact, you can say the piece is done right now, but if you want to add it, just pick up some blue mixed with black or purple and paint in a loose oval in the center of the jar. Then I paint on the left and right side as well to make it more dimensional. I fill in the bottom part of the jar with a little bit of paint, but mostly water. That reactivates the previous layers of the stems and makes them blurry. This deepens the effect of being under water. I also use paper towel to lighten the area, but you can keep it darker if you like. Next, I let it dry and I ink in part of the oval and a couple of lines tint at the bottom oval in the jar. Next, I take my size ten round and wet the background all around the flowers. This will reactivate some of the paint that the flowers touches. Then I pickup colors I already used in that piece and spurt them into the background. One color at a time, until I'm happy with it. Now dry your piece with a hairdryer or just wait for it to dry and go back in with your technical pen to finish inking. I start by adding details on the flowers, by adding little darkness center circles and so forth. Then I partially outline random plants. Only partially, because that is the look we're going for. If you outline each flower perfectly, it won't be as fun and loose. I'm staying very loose and making flower shapes or just petal shapes, and I also outline random leaves or even draw some in that aren't painted in. There are no rules. Just do your thing and have fun with it. I also decide to outline some of the roots for fun look. I add in little unfilled circles randomly around the piece for a fun background pattern. If you have a white gel pen, now is a time to add the finishing touches with highlights. I add highlights by drawing around the flowers and background. For a final touch, I add dots within the jar and a scruple to make it look more shiny, and we're done. I hope you enjoyed illustrating this with me, and now have a better understanding of the fact that there doesn't have to be a specific order to use an ink and water color together. You can use them in any order you like, as long as your ink is waterproof and your watercolors are dry before you add more ink. This could have been done in a lot of different ways, just by varying how you do certain things. So don't be afraid to experiment and come up with your own unique composition. If you want to copy me exactly, that's fine too. Copying is a great shortcut for learning. Either way, I can't wait to see what you make. Now, let's illustrate a super QD vintage teacup. 9. Vintage Teacup: I love when I teach teacups, they are so cute. Let's make one. In this one we are going to be using mostly watercolors. Then we'll use ink to make everything pop and get more defined. If ink wasn't used in this piece, the teacup would blend into the background since the background is white and the porcelain is white. So ink can be super-useful in these types of subjects. To start, we need to sketch out a teacup. Since we are using watercolor on top of it, be sure to keep your sketch light. Start with a wide oval shape at the top of the cup, then connect the ends downward by drawing symmetrical curve lines and connecting them on the bottom. Then draw two lines going out in opposite directions and connect them with a curved line. Now, for the handle of the cup, do draw two curved lines that go out like a snake and then put a bump at the top, but you don't have to or you can make it into a triangular art or wherever you like. Then finish the curve by curving it in the opposite direction until it touches the teacup and goes out a little bit away from it. Now, for the plate, if you want to include one, do the same oval as we did for the top of the cup, and then draw a wide curved line below it connecting the ends. If you want your cup to be full of tea, or coffee, or orange juice, or whatever, you draw it in by placing a curved line below the top line and cut it off by the bottom line and that's it. That wasn't too hard. Now, get your paints ready and let's begin the painting part. I chose to do watercolor first, but it's up to you. If you want a neat or design with separate lines, but I want watercolor to dominate in this piece. I'm using a number 6 round brush and now you should pick up the color corresponding to what's in the cup. For me, it's a simple black tea. So I pick up some brown and loose the paint in the oval. I leave some specs of white on purpose, and this is a liquid. Notice how I started with a lighter color, and now I can drop in some darker colors, which I do on the right side because I decided the light source is coming from the left side. So that side will be in shadow because the cup room is blocking it. You don't have to worry about lighting and shadow if you don't want to, especially if you're making more whimsical art, but it helps to think about it if you want something with a touch of realism, it's really not that hard to do and you can use a reference if it's hard for you to think about it. I make some purple with a dark blue and paint in the shadow on the side that's facing away from the light. I simply just follow the form. Notice if I leave some white all the way at the edge, this is important to show a highlight and will be more obvious when I use ink later on. Then I paint in the left side of the plate and the right side of inside the cup because light is not hitting that area. I pick up a different color this time, a teal blue, and drop it into the shadows. This is how I like to paint shadows on a white surface because it's more interesting than diluting black, and I always use more than one color. Now, I continue playing with the form by using a clean wet brush to push some of the paint into the rest of the cup. I painted in a slight shadow on the right so we can see the form a little more even though doesn't really apply to the rules of light, and do the same thing on the plate. I also drop in some more subtle purple, or you can do a slight splatter at stage if you want. For finishing touchless, let's define the dark areas a little more by dropping in some black, or dark blue, or purple watercolor. Just be sure you're not picking up too much paint because it will send out too much. I'm done with the first layer. I use a hair dryer set on low to speed up the drying process. I want you to realize that we are dealing with shadows and notice how loosely they are done. They don't have to be perfect, but it's great to do the shadows because watercolors are transparent and when we add the patterns on later on, they will be shaded for us naturally because the shading will show through because it will be under the next layer. If you do shading second, you risk ruining the patterns and reactivating the watercolors and is just all around messy business. Always do it first in this type of illustration. Now I'm going to use gold paint, but you don't have to if you don't have any, you can instead use yellow ocher or brown mix with yellow for the look of gold without the sparkles. Just don't use plain yellow. It's not going to look like gold. In fact, I like yellow ocher so much for the feeling of gold that I'm mixing it with my gold. I'm painting in the accents of the smaller number 2 round brush around the rim of the cup and every other area I want to put little accents in. Its up to you where you want it, but it definitely makes the feel of a real vintage cup. You can do this in any color you like though it doesn't have to be gold. You could have used hot pink, for instance, to make it a modern cup. But once you're done with the accents, you have to think of what patterns or many illustrations you want inside your cup. I'm going for a traditional roses and if you don't know how to paint roses, it's actually simple. Just paint some loose lines in the center that are close together and leaving lots of white of the page in between. Then clean your brush in water with very little pigment, if any, and pull out the paint by making larger petals around the center like so. This is something that I taught in my previous floral class, and it's easier than it looks. So give it a try if you want to copy me. As you can see, I do it very loosely. There is no writer perfectly of doing this. I paint in little flowers, but making small V-shapes with different colors and varying their skills. I then paint in little outlines of leaves and do the same thing with the colors of the leaves. I also add some gold leaves to make it match the accents more. In a strike of inspiration also drawn some vertical lines around the inside of the cup and on the bottom part with the gold. But that's something I added on. You can do whatever you like. Also the plane looks a little bare, so be sure to add the same pattern used in the middle of the cup. I add in the roses inside of it to match. Notice how the roses on the left side look much darker because we're painting over the shadows and they are showing through the color, making it appear darker. That's the beauty of layering or glazing in watercolor. Now I'm done with my pattern inside the cup. You don't have to do what I did, your imagination is the limit here. But whatever you decide to paint, keep it simple and try to do a similar thing on the cup and plate. I'm going to loose the ink in the outline of the cup to make it stand out more from the background. Notice how it's barely defined and blending into the background because it's white on white. If you were working with water color only, an easy solution would be to paint in the dark background. But here we can use ink to make a similar effect with much less work and keep our background light. I'm using a disposable zebra brush pen, but you can use whatever you like. Notice I`m very loose with it and the lines don`t connect everywhere. I like a brush pen because of the line variation, but instead you can use a micron pen if you want a more subtle outline. I'm rotating the paper to make it more comfortable to ink like always, and I continue outlining until it looks done. What that means is up to you. You could have connected all your lines completely, there's a million different ways to ink, so do whatever way you want to do it. Now, this last step is optional, but this will make your cup really pop and add some magic. I'm going to loosely paint in a bigger version of the pattern inside the teacup for the background. It doesn't have to be a replica, just inspired by it. Be sure to use the same colors but much, much lighter by using more water. If you make this too dark, you'll send out too much NREL for attention with the cup, but our cup is the focal point. It means a place we are supposed to pay attention to. That's not a good idea. While doing this, I'm eyeballing the balance of the piece and adding things where it feels it could use more. There is no perfect way to do this. Just paint. If you are afraid you would mess up, you can always scan in your artwork before, starting and make sure to have a backup of just the cup painting, but don't psych yourself out. You already did this inside the teacup. If this feels like too much for you, you can always make your inner pattern super simple into basic shapes or lines, or you can make the background simpler than the inner pattern. You can do any pattern like astray pattern, or different color circles, or you can always make the background like the one we did in the previous lesson with the flowers by wetting it and spatterring in different colors for dreaming but simple background. If you want to do flowers but don't feel comfortable yet, then practice on a piece of scrap paper first, or you can take my quick class on florals and practice and then comeback to this lesson. But like I said before, you can paint anything you like. It doesn't have to be flowers. Maybe even go online and look at vintage tea cups for inspiration. Once the background feels complete, I finish out with a nice platter using the colors we already used. Now I add the finishing touches with the white gel pen always, but this step is always optional. I do my signature little dots inside around the cup. To make ink send out even more, I add white insights on the lines, and we're done. Isn't this cup super cutey? The ink really makes send out from the background, but it doesn't overpower it. This is a good example of using ink in a subtle way to help your work. I hope you took away a lot from this lesson and I can't wait to see your take on it. Now let's make a fun rainbow camera in two ways and don't worry, no drawing skills are necessary. 10. Rainbow Camera: For this last illustration project, we're going to easily create a gorgeous rainbow camera. I want to show you guys how easy it is to get a little bit experimental. I'm going to show you two versions of this. If you aren't comfortable enough to draw this, don't worry, I made an outline that you can easily trace and if you're more advanced, you can draw this using a reference. You can download the outline in reference in the year project section of the class. If you're going to be using the outline, you have two options on how to trace. You can use something found in everyone's home, a sunny window, this is super easy to do. Under certain times of the day, the window is so bright that it's better than a light box and it's free, or you can use a light box if you already have one, just be sure to turn the lights off and close the windows in the room so that you can see through the paper because watercolor paper is so thick and hard to see through. When you start, be sure to tape your watercolor paper in place onto the paper tracing from so that you don't accidentally move it and be sure to use a light pencil. Now, if you're more experienced and want to try it yourself, I recommend using a ruler to get the right proportions on the main parts and then free handing the rest. We are going to be loosing the inking stage anyway to give it more charm. Your sketches and have to be perfect. Once you're done sketching, it's time to outline. I want you to get creative with what you use to outline. You can use anything waterproof, waterproof colored inks or even sharpies worked perfectly. If you just use ink leak, always be sure to use a technical pen for super thin strokes and details and a brush pen filling in darker areas and thicker lines. Here is a technical pen for us. Then when backing with a pental pocket brush pen to add dark areas, subtle shadows and just the console the outlines for variation. Notice how loose my outlines are and cartoony, the shapes aren't perfect and some lines are wobbling. This is what gives us such a fun and handmade touch. If you make it perfect and just like the reference, in my opinion, it'll be a little boring because it's a geometric object on its own and it will look just like it. So I outlined everything and loose way including the letters. If you don't want to fill in black areas or play with thickness of stroke, you can just do a simple outline. It's up to you. For this second variation of outlining, which was more fun and experimental, I use different color thin Sharpies, markers, and different colored favorite Castillo brush pens, sharpies bleeding the papers, so I don't recommend them as much, but the favorite castle brush pens are just perfect. I highly recommend those. But even fun imperfect tools like bleeding Sharpies can be fun to use and they're also very bright. I'm experimenting with my tools here. Both the Sharpies and the favorite Castillo are waterproof, and you'd have to make sure whatever you are using is waterproof too. So notice how I'm using random colors all around. I even outlined the camera lots of times with a different color for a sketchy feel. I did pick only a couple of colors, like maybe ten, to keep it uniform throughout the piece. You don't want to use like every seen clearly have. Maybe you do. I don't know. Maybe it'll be fun. But I'm being super playful. I even scribbled and with lots of different colors where the photo comes out because the area is dark and thought who would look cute with some texture and lots of color. The cool thing about markers is you can layer them and they make different colors when they overlap, just like water colors do. So I mixed tons of different colors and I continue doing this for the whole piece. [inaudible] , how fun is this?I think this looks awesome as it's own stand alone piece. I've never done this kind of outline before,so it was something fun and new to me and I hope it inspires you to try using your supplies in a new way too, doesn't matter what the results are you just growing as an artist and taking chances to discover some new awesome technique. Never be scared to stretch your creativity by being experimental. Failure is part of the process. Now get your paints out and pick your biggest brush. I'm using a size 14 round to what the area around and within the camera. Now I just drop in similar colors to the ones I already used with the markers. All the way from the edge to inside the camera into the edge again, I use lots of color because I want a rainbow feel. But if you want a more limited color palette, it's up to you. Now use a paper towel to pick up the water and paint inside the camera. I want to keep this area light, but I do want some color to stay. So it makes it dreaming whitewash inside that camera and a dark grade low background. I continue dropping in more paint and I continue picking it up inside that camera with a paper towel to keep the camera like. This way it have a really dreamy look because it looks like the curves in the background are slightly fading into the camera. I'm adding more color just into the background. If your colors are getting muddy and are over mixing, take a look at the color wheel and be sure you're not putting complimentary colors right next to each other. But usually, I don't have a problem with this. I did so right here with the pink and the green and it's fine. Where they touch, it does become a little muddy, but since I'm not too worried about it, I just don't mix them more on purpose, and instead don't touch it and let it naturally mix. If it and mix is way too much and you just have a messy gray blob, you're probably using way too much water. You can pick up excess water with a paper towel or a dry brush and try again. I continue throwing in more color on the piece, paying attention to how balance if fields and notice how the edges, the paint are not a perfect rectangle with a smooth edge and line. They are messy and there's some specs of white left. This makes it look more loose and fun, and sometimes the background goes a little bit into the camera. This also helps with the looseness. Don't be afraid to splatter at this stage as well. The dots won't stick inside the background because it's too wet, but they will on the drier parts of the page. Now that I'm happy with it, I use a hairdryer to speed up the drying process, but I don't completely dry it. Once it's around halfway dry, I stop drying and splatter and some more color. Now the paint will still spread in the background, but not as much. It will stay more where it is and you will be able to see little specks of different colors in there. I continue drying again and this time stop right before it's almost fully dry, when the paper is still just a little wet and splatter one more time. Now the paint will have soft edges but will not mostly melt into the background. The dots will be almost defined. I add the most bladder and then I finish drying piece. Depending on how wet your paper is, you will get different effects. So doing something like this, a great way to learn how to master water on wet. This is just something you learn with experience. Now if you'd like to keep it simply could see you're done here, but I want to find the camera a little more. So I pick up some dark blue or black mix with blue or if you have fancier paint, it's called Payne's gray and painting the darker parts of the camera with a super light wash. I also use yellow och-re on the lighter parts of the camera. The lenses are super simple to paint, just paint in halfway through the inner and outer circle and leave white highlights somewhere. I chose the top-left side, do the same with both of them and make sure to highlight isn't a similar direction. You can add more blackish boot to make it even darker here since it should be dark and the paint will blend with the lighter paint to make it look more dimensional. Now we're going to use layering or glazing, which is same thing to make some parts more colorful. I paint some green and yellow here to show the shadow, but I keep it light. I pick up excess paint with a paper towel because I wanted to be super subtle effects. I make sure the rest of the pieces dried and start doing this all around. Here I add in some paint. This is easy to do. Just pick up a little bit of paint with a wet brush. To make it fade out, use a clean wet brushed paint in the edges. I did the same thing here for green and continue on. See how subtle it is. It's up to you what colors you use just be careful not to make it too dark. The background is supposed to be darker so that the camera stands out and doesn't get lost in the piece. You can also always add a slight splatter at this stage if you want to. Now, I dry the piece and it's time for the finishing touches with the white gel pen. I go around the outline twice, increase the contrast with the camera and the background. To continue with his sketchy style, I also draw little circles and highlights within the lens to make it look more shiny, and I outline random parts and lines of the camera misleads to increase dimension. I finish it off with circles like I always do, and I also add them in the background to make it match more, but you don't have to. During this process, I eyeball the piece and make sure to keep it balanced. Just be careful not to overdo one side and also be careful to overdo it completely, but they are water soluble. So if you do overdo it, you could just put a little bit of water on them and then erase them with a paper towel. When I feel like it's on, I stop working and our camera is complete. The final result is super colorful and unique, but I wanted to know is that the camera doesn't stand out as much in the background compared to the previous illustrations we made. That's because we didn't use black ink this time, but colored outlines. It's up to you how subtly you want your outlines to be. This is a personal preference. If you like the camera with colored outlines, you can also always get waterproof colored inks and use those to make outlines of your art. Your art will have a different feeling. I also finished painting that camera outline with the ink and maybe you prefer this one more. I use the same techniques with the painting phase, but I kept the background latter by using less paint and more water. But I also did overdue with the splatter and put too much paint into the background, and the camera was painted very lightly. This one pops up more because of the black ink and super light washes. The contrast is much higher. Whatever you decide to make I can't wait to see. I hope you learned a lot from this lesson, and just give you a taste of how doing different things will get completely different results even if you paint the same object. Now let's wrap up the class. 11. Until Next Class! :): Wow, you've finished the class. I really hope you enjoyed it and followed along with me, but even if you didn't paint with me, just pay attention to the techniques used and try using them in your next project. If you did follow along, that's awesome and maybe you're brave enough to share your work in the project gallery by going to the "Your project" section of the class or you can always tag me in Instagram. I can't wait to see what you create and remember that your style and skills will naturally evolve and grow with practice. So get out your paints and your inking supplies and make something, anything. If you have any questions, leave them below in the "Community" section of the class and if you want to continue your learning adventure with me, check up my numerous other classes, the ones that are most relevant to this class are my watercolor basics one, my ink basics one and the ink and watercolor class. If you like floral and doodling, you might also enjoy the watercolor and botanical doodling class. There's a bunch of ink and watercolor techniques in there as well and if drawing is your weak spot, there's a class just for that. Otherwise, there's tons of other classes and there are thousands upon thousands of them from the super talented teachers and this amazing site as well. So that's it. Stay awesome guys and have fun on your learning adventure. I'll see you in the next class.