Intricate Picnic Basket with Watercolors: 8 Days of Short Painting Sessions

1. Introduction: Hi everyone. My name is Na, and today I'll be guiding you through this class, where I'll be painting an intricate picnic basket. I tried something different when I was painting this, which is to take breaks in between. This can be a short snack break, or a walk, or even a little bit of stretches, especially for my hands, just to refresh my eyes. In general, I felt like by doing this, it made me a bit more relaxed as I tackle on each item a better concentration and mental clarity. Just because I felt less rushed. This inspired me to share the process with you, especially for those of you who I know have really hectic and busy schedules, whether it be taking care of your family, school, or even work. And I just find that this is a better way of managing time. I've divided this class into eight painting sessions. This excludes this current introduction, the supplies, and also my ideation and sketching process. Each session took me around 30 to 45 minutes to complete in real time. If you do have a very hectic and busy schedule, I would recommend for you to take this a day at means eight dates in total, which is how I've set this class. Or if you do have more time in a specific day, you can take a few painting sessions according to the slot of time that you have. But I would still recommend for you to take the breaks in between each item just so you feel the difference when it comes down to tackling the painting. As you can see, the painting itself is very detailed and intricate. I would gauge the levels to be for intermediate to advanced students, I'd recommend for you to understand things like paint consistencies, brush control, and especially brush load. Since we will be painting on very tiny areas and trying to create lots of different textures with the can also enlarge your outline to make it easier for you to paint since you have a larger space for you to spread the paint around. This might sound intimidating, but I assure you that I'll be taking you through the steps one by one, just like in my usual classes. But this time the brakes will also help get rid of that intimidation as we tackle each item one by one, day by day. Just treat it as its own painting. I just feel like this will get rid of the overwhelming feeling of getting too much information all at once. It helps you to be in this more relaxed mental state as you're tackling maybe challenging painting. Even if you're new with water color and might be interested in trying this class. I'll still welcome you as I'll be trying my best to guide you through every step. As I mentioned earlier, I'll be showing you my ideation process when I was tackling this painting. You do have the option of creating your own composition, but like usual, I'll also have the traceable outline for you guys to download in the projects and resources section before we start painting. Just as a little disclaimer, if you've never taken any of my classes, I do speed parts of the painting or make cuts in between. If my hand is either inactive or off the camera. I would recommend for you to either watch the class or some lessons prior to painting along. Just so you know of this class and speed that I take to paint. I understand that everyone paints in different speeds. I would recommend for you when you're ready to paint, a law to pause in between each step. This way you don't feel rushed as you're painting and you can enjoy the process more. If this sounds like something you guys might be interested in, let's begin this class. 2. Supplies: In this lesson, I'm going to go over the supplies I'll be using to complete this painting. For the paper I'll be using Strathmore 500 hot press, and this is 300 GSM. Originally, The size of my paper is actually a combination of these two which I've cut down for the painting. The measurement of my paper is actually 7 " by 7.1 ", but you can round it off and make seven by seven instead. As for the rest of the paper that I've cut off, I'm going to use this as my scrap. It's best to use the same type of paper. If you're going to swatch for your painting, the paint will react the same way. And of course, in order for you to cut your paper, you'll also need ruler. And you can use scissors or stanley knife. For the brushes, I'll be using two. Both of them are round synthetic brushes. The large one is by George Jorn in the series G 1010, and this is a size six. As for the smaller brush, this is by Arti Media with a series 2700 and size zero. I know that these brands will sound unfamiliar to most of you. That's because I bought them in Indonesia where I currently reside, And these brushes are the ones which I could easily get here at that time. These are just ordinary round synthetic brushes, though You can use more popular brands like Reefs or Lyra for synthetic brushes, which I've also used before, and they basically react the same way. You'll also need a palette. You can use a porcelain or a plastic palette. Mine is just a cheap plastic palette from, so I use it so much that the color is now yellow when it was originally white. But I would recommend for you guys to use a light colored palette. When you're mixing up your colors, you can see what it looks like. As for the colors, these are the ones that I'm going to be using for the whole painting, but I'll go through them in detail later on. You also need tissue or a paper towel right next to you as you paint. This is a must, as this will help you control the load on your brush, which helps to avoid puddles as you're painting. I'll also be using a clean jar for my water. You can use two to clean your brush and the other one to re, wet the paint. But personally, I just use one and I just keep on changing the water. It's completely up to you though, how you want to approach this. Now, onto the sketching portion, I'll be using my pentel, sharp lit mechanical pencil, and the lead is two. I like to use either two B or HB for the eraser. I have my favorite eraser here by box. You can also use the needable eraser if you would like to. We're going to create your own composition. I would recommend for you to use a sketchbook or any scrap paper for you to sketch your ideation and your process. Or if you want to get straight to painting, you can also download the outline from the Projects and resources section. You can download this and trace it onto your watercolor paper so you can paint straight away. This is optional, but I always like to have a hair dryer next to me as I paint, in case I need to dry off a certain area quickly. Now I'm going to go through all the colors I'll be using. Firstly, this is Chinese white by Holbein Yellow ocher by Holbine. Cpa by Holbein Indigo by Schminker Hooker Screen by Cotman. He's a yellow medium by Daniel Smith. Titanium gold ocher by Scher Quiana by Daniel Smith and Quin Red by Daniel Smith. Here's a list of all the supplies that I mentioned earlier. You can take a screenshot of this to prepare before we start painting. 3. Ideation: Before I start to paint, let me just quickly go over the ideation process with you. I wanted to paint something to do with a picnic. Initially, I wanted to paint a picnic spread. These were the images that caught my attention when I was looking through Pinterest, and I really love the idea of having something colorful with many elements. You can download these images that I've collected together as my reference in the projects and resources section, but if you want, you can also look through more pictures for more inspiration for your own painting. Just like any other ideas, I by doing really loose messy sketches, just to get the ideas out of my head and think about what items I wanted to include at the stage. I'm not even thinking about the complexity or the steps of the lesson. I'm just putting down ideas really quickly on paper to get a better visualization for the composition. Since I wanted to include a few items, it's easy for the painting to look messy. After sketching these out, I want to see what composition might work. I find that because I want to definitely include baguettes. I can follow this up into a diagonal composition where our eyes is directed to the rest of the items from the line of the beget to the basket or the spread. Initially, I like the idea of including jam, croissants, cakes, maybe even a cheese board, and things like that. I listed all of the items and drew a slightly neater version of those sketches that I've done here. I really like the first one that I drew out here. I especially like the placement as I feel it's very natural and loose. But after drawing out all the elements, I realized that this would be a little bit difficult to draw since there are a lot of overlapping items and objects. Perspective, size, and things like that would be an issue. Especially for some of you who might be new and want to give this a go. I tried to simplify it into the one bottom here. I tried to include similar elements but less objects, but I later decided to just do a filled picnic basket instead of a basket and a spread. I came up with third idea. I feel like this composition has the main elements. As long as I include the items with many colors, the composition will still look dynamic enough. I also noted the colors that I'm thinking of, including for the items, to make sure that there are enough hues to be included as for the basket. For this one, I sketched out an oval basket. But then I realized later to make the perspective look more interesting and dynamic, the oval basket is actually a bit more tricky to make, especially at a larger scale, as I tried to draw a larger scale and it was quite difficult for me to figure out the spacing. I already knew I wanted to include the blanket or the cloth next to the basket, so I'm just including it in the sketch. But anyway, for the oval basket, when I'm thinking of an oval basket, this is generally the image that I'm thinking of. I find that the perspective would be quite boring because it's just flat. Whereas, if we draw out a rectangular basket, it's much easier as we're usually more accustomed to drawing all those angles in different perspectives. Let me just try to the oval basket for you in case any of you would like to include this in your composition. Generally, I find that this is more of an interesting perspective as to a flat one, where we're just looking at the basket frontal on, which is basically the perspective of the oval basket that I drew out here earlier. If you want to make your oval basket have better perspective, it might be a bit difficult to draw it out freehand, as the curves might be a bit hard to visualize as two angles. If this is something you want to try to make for your own composition, you can try to draw out a rectangular cube or prism. Then draw out the oval basket. Within it, you can fit the top oval, top face of the prism. Where the front might be a bit wider than the curves at the back though, I've simplified the composition of fair bit. This is still a lot of elements to draw out. If you're like me and you have issues with spacing and things like that, I actually like to draw out the frame of the paper around my messy sketch just to see what aspect ratio fits best. Sometimes I like to also do this to figure out which sketchbook I want to paint with. This is more or less square, but I find that it's probably a bit better if I leave a little room for the top and the bottom. 4. Sketching the outline: From the previous sketch. I was quite happy with all the items that I've included. So I'm not going to change much here. But the size, since this is going to be the full size of the painting, if however you want to include different items, I would suggest for you to draw out a small version just so you get an idea of the spacing before drawing out the actual outline. Since if you erase too much, there's a chance of damaging the watercolor paper since the original frame of my paper is quite lengthy. Before I sketched out anything, I just lined on the top loosely with my pencil to indicate the top of the frame. But I'm not going to cut it out just yet in case I need to make adjustments with the spacing. This makes it much easier for me to roughly measure the spacing here. I just sketched out the basket first in the middle, and I try to make sure that I'm happy with the angle of how much the top of the basket is showing, but as you can see, the lines are still very loose. And I'm just trying to quickly divide up the space at this point. Once I'm happy with the opening, I then loosely sketch out the rest of the items. As you can see, I'm just drawing out silhouettes of the items like the coquette, the flower, and the bottle. Then I draw out the placement off the handle so I know how to place the rest of the items around it. With this said, I also want to make sure that the placement of the handle is right in the middle of the basket. The weight distribution makes sense, since I want the grapes to drape over the basket. I first drew out the silhouette of how I want them to drape before drawing the single circles. I'm also doing the same thing with the flowers. In the beginning, I thought I was going to drape over some flowers since I wasn't sure what type of flowers I wanted to include yet. This is why you only see the silhouette going over the basket at first. This is also why it's best to not draw out the details because this leaves more room for you to play with the overall composition beforehand without wasting too much time. Since I've placed out the items that I included in my initial sketch here, I realized that there's actually a bit of space left between the baguettes and the wine bottle. Initially, I had ideas of putting muffins, strawberries or maybe a jar of jam or honey, but I decided to just add a couple of rod oranges since it's very easy and simple to paint. This is also because I know the rest of the elements here will take a while to paint. With this set though, of course it's okay for you guys, include different items. If you want to draw out something a bit more challenging from here on, I feel quite happy with how the baskets being filled. What I'm going to do is to slowly clean out the outline. I'm not going to talk much over this because I feel like this is more of a visual part of the lesson where you guys can see how I clean out my outline. If at this point you're not happy with part of the spacing, I definitely recommend for you to sort it out first. But once you're at this stage, I tend to look at the items like the blanket where it's easy to clean. And I like to erase per small section and then redrawing a cleaner line on top. However, if there are very minor adjustments on the already clean lines, I would suggest for you to draw out the correct placement of the line, then erasing, because there's a chance of drawing the correction line on the same wrong place by not erasing the wrong line, you can use the wrong lines as guideline instead, I personally like to clean out the lines of the larger and easier shapes. Then as we get to the areas where it either requires more detail or if it's something that's a bit harder to draw like the bottle for me, you might see that I'm making quite a lot of cuts here, but that's only when my hand isn't moving much. But I edited this in a way for you guys to see the full process of doing this. Hopefully the process looks a bit more realistic and attainable for you guys to do as well. When I was drawing out the grapes, the things that I was thinking about were how they're going to flow or drape over the basket as well as which circles would be in front of one another. You want to make sure that the way they overlap makes The wine bottle is probably the trickiest for me. I start by simplifying the shapes. I first drew out a rectangle and I tried to follow up with a smaller rectangle which is also a bit more lengthy on top. And I tried to make these two rectangles face or have the exact same angle, try to also connect below the neck of the bottle, Put them on a slight diagonal angle and then slowly softening the edges to make it look more rounded. By the way, guys, after I painted this, I realized that the size of the wine bottle is way too small in comparison to the rest of the items. If you're drawing this, I would recommend for you to enlarge the bottle. Instead, I'm going to show you how large it is when I realize after I finished painting it. If you guys don't want to go through the drawing process and get straight to painting, of course. I will also have the outline available for you guys to download in the projects and resources section. Since we're looking at the basket from the top, I do want to make sure that there's a layer for the top rim of the basket so there's a bit of thickness to the material of the basket. I decided I wasn't going to drape the flowers over the basket much here. I started by fixing the lines for the rim of the basket here. I also started by loosely drawing out the tulips. This is like the first step I took to draw the basic composition. Because here I was trying to visualize how the tulips are being placed. Later, I'm actually going to erase this. This was just to help me visually. Once I figure out how the tulips are going to be distributed, I then erase it. I started by simplifying the shape of the tulips by creating egg shapes. I want them to mostly diagonally to the top right or where the bouquet is facing. But I also want to play with how they overlap each other and try to also make the angle very slightly. Once I have most of the tulips down, I'm going to decorate the rest of the bouquet with the leaves. Keep in mind that at this point, I haven't realized that the bottle is a bit too small, kept on going since I've drawn out everything in the composition. I also decided to cut the end of the paper which I'm going to use for my scrap paint later. Here, I'm just going to show you in detail how I drew out the tulips, since the tulips were quite small here, I started out by making egg shapes. I tried to make them face, mostly in the same direction, but I still try to play with the angle very slightly. Then as for the petals, I'm going to try to make them rotate ever so slightly. Some of them might be showing three petals with one at the back, or you can see two and another two behind. Between all those petals inside are basically the same thing, which are a bit smaller, and the petals are not opened yet. To add a bit more depth, sometimes I like to slightly open up the center of the flower. I can also darken the middle so you can actually see a little bit of that opening. After I filmed my first attempt and failed because the bottle was too small, I decided to draw out another outline. I just traced over what I initially drew for the first composition, and I just enlarged the bottle. I also enlarged the tulips very slightly. Please don't make the same mistake as I did if you're drawing out your outline or you can also download the outline and trace it over your watercolor paper. Now, once you finish your outline, whether it's from the traceable or if you draw out your own, I like to prep it by raising and making those lines lighter so it doesn't show through the paint for the lighter areas. To do this, you can use a needable eraser, but for me, my eraser works fine. I like to basically tap on the outline to make it lighter. If I accidentally erase too much, then I would just re draw it very lightly again. 5. Day 1: Baguette Base Color: We're going to start by painting the gets. The colors I'm going to be using are yellow ochre, titanium gold ochre, quincena, and Pia. We're going to start by painting the base color. I'm going to be using a mix of yellow ochre and titanium gold ochre. I'm going to add a lot of water here because I want a really thin consistency and I'm going to use a heavy brush load so I can paint most of the get. You can actually paint the whole thing using the base color, but the surface will just be a little bit more damp. After I fill in the space, I felt like the left side is drying up. I added a little bit of water just to redampen that surface. Next, I'm going to add quincena to the previous mix. And I'm going to place this on the left side of the baguette. As you can see, that area that I just re dampen is more wet compared to the other places, which is why the paint is traveling really quickly. But that's okay because I can just clean my brush here and take off the water with my tissue and use this dry brush to absorb the extra paint. I'm still going to work on the damp surface and I'm using the same mix, but this has more of the yellow ochre and titanium gold ochre in the mix. And I'm just going to paint diagonal S's while leaving out some negative space as the cuts off the baguette on the right hand side. I tried to close all of the negative shapes if the paint is traveling too fast, just like before, I can just use a clean, dry brush to pick up the excess wet paint. That's it for the base color. I'm going to do the same thing on the right hand side. I'm starting with a mix of yellow ochre and titanium gold ocher here. This time I'm using a lighter load, but I can take a little bit more water to spread the paint while it's still wet. This time I'm also going to paint the whole. But get instead, just so you can see. But because I use the lighter load and the surface almost dry by the time I put the next color mixture, which is the same mix with added quincena, you can see that the paint won't travel as fast to have better control of the transition. I then use a clean, dry brush to soften the blend between the two colors. You can also make a little variation with the colors here at the top, I used the same mix as before, but there's a little bit more quincena in the ratio compared to the baguette on the left. And as I get towards them, I'm going to use the lighter mix. My brush load here was a bit too heavy, so you can see how the paint reacts. It just spreads really quickly. Again, when this happens, I'm just going to use a clean, dry brush to take the excess paint off, just like before. 6. Day 1: Baguette Details: Let's move on to paint the details of the baguette. I'm going to move back to the first baguette on the left. By now, the base color should be completely dry here. I'm just redefining the negative shapes using the yellow mix, which is from yellow ochre and aitium gold ochre. But this has more titanium gold ochre in the mix. I'm going to follow this up by adding a bit of quincena to the edges of the negative shapes as this area will be a little bit more cooked than the sides. By the way, this is the reference image that I used and this is going to be available in the downloadable section as well. It's really handy to have it right next to you as your painting, you get ideas of where to place certain colors within the baguette. As the surface is still a little bit damp, I just keep on adding more of the darker colors. This time I added CPA to the mix and I'm placing this at the top part of the negative shape and this will just act as a little bit of shadow. There's a little bit of separation between the height of the baguette cuts and the crust. Next here I want to build the texture of the crust, making it look a bit more crunchy. I'm using the previous yellow ochre and titanium gold ochre mix here. I'm just using the tip of my brush to.it around and create an uneven texture. I'm placing this on the right side where the lighter area of the baguette is. On the left side, I'm going to use the darker mix which has a of quincena as well as CPA. Since the two values that I just painted are very different, I'm going to use the same mixture without the CPA in between to create a mid tone. And this will make the transition between colors a bit more gradual. I'm also going to do this with the darker tones that I initially placed beforehand, especially close to the negative shapes. This will just add a bit more texture, especially around the edges of those cuts. By doing this dotting motion, sometimes I leave out a bit of negative space by accident. But those negative shapes actually help to create the crusty looking texture after adding on the previous textures. Now the shadow that I painted for the top part of the cuts look a little bit dull here. I'm just repainting it over using a mix of Quinciana and CPA. At the bottom, I did the dotting motion, again, using more quinciana in the mix. Because we are creating small textures on a small surface, it helps to always use a medium to a light brush load. Your paint doesn't puddle up. However, if you find it a bit difficult to control, you can also use a smaller brush sometimes I like to also.in some darker tones, on the lighter areas, this will make a more natural texture where certain areas are evenly. But please don't do too much of this or else your whole baguette might look paint as reference. I'm looking at the most left baguette. As you can see, the middle is a little bit more cooked or baked than the sides of the baguette, which is why I'm adding the darker tones in those areas. There's a lot of going back and forth here. The darker tones of the CPA looks dull compared to the new textures that I added. I accentuated the darker areas. Again, I feel like I'm quite happy with the colors for now. I'm going to move on to paint the cuts of the Boguette, which as you can see from the reference image, has a little bit of a char around the center, whereas on the edges it's quite light. Here, I'm using a mix of titanium gold ochre and yellow ochre to paint in those areas. And I'm using a very light consistency and a really light brush load. And I like to use the tip of my brush or use the side of my brush directed as the cuts. I'm still going back to the thicker crusts though for the painting, you can always go back and forth whenever you feel the need to increase saturation or increase the value in certain areas, which is what I'm doing here because I'm also waiting for the detail of the cuts to dry off. Once I feel like the lighter areas are more or less dry, I'm going to use the same mix with added quincena. I'm just using the very tip of my brush. I'm barely putting in any pressure and I'm placing this around certain areas of the edges to suggest some cracks to the texture which will be in shadow. Hopefully, you can see how the tip of my brush is very sharp and I'm barely touching the paper. If it's hard to get this type of control though, you can always switch and use a smaller brush. I feel like at this point I've pretty much covered the technique of how to paint the details of the paquette. The things that you need to pay attention to is the type of textures values according to those certain areas that I separated before. But you can also do this by looking at the reference image. At this point I'm just going to accentuate more of the finer details of the texture, saturation and value. Just as the final note, when I'm adding the really fine details here, I would much prefer to use a dry brush load to avoid things like the puddles that I painted at the bottom of the baguette. I'm going to basically do the exact same thing for the next baguette. I'm starting with the yellowish brown mix to separate the individual cuts or the negative shapes. And I'm just using a medium to light consistency. I forgot to draw it out before, but on the right hand side, next to the handle, I feel like there's going to be a bit of a buggete showing through, so I just added a bit of that color. On the left side, I use all of the colors mixed together. And I'm just going to create the texture straight away by using the dotting motion, while the surface of the previous color is still a bit damp. As you can see, I'm jumping around between the steps, But it doesn't really matter because what we're looking for is a similar outcome instead of the techniques, whereas the techniques just to support the final outcome. But many people have different ways of tackling things, it doesn't really matter. The steps itself are actually very flexible and you can tackle this however you would like to. In fact, it's also nice to have a little bit of variation between the colors. Not every object looks homogeneous, but something that's a little bit more natural. Let me just go over the main things that I'm looking for. In order to finish up this paquette, I want to create the uneven texture of the crust to make it look crunchy. This is achieved by doing the dotting motion in different values and colors in specific areas. You also need to know where to place the right values in between the cuts off the baguettes. I like it to be a little bit more baked along with the left side where you can see a bit of the bottom part of the baguette. For the top part of the cuts, I'm going to add a darker value. This will create a bit of a shadow for the bevel area and this will give the impression that there's a higher surface for the crust than the cut area. Now onto the texture of the toasted area of the cuts, I'm going to use the mix of titanium gold ochre and yellow ochre. And I apply the paint using the tip of my brush or the side of my brush while I'm angling it according to the direction of those cuts. This is done in a dry brush load and a very light consistency of the mix. This way, the texture will become a bit more uneven since the paint is quite dry. Just like before, I left out light areas around the edges of the cuts. After this, I'm going to follow it up with the darker values to add some cracks and extra texture to those cuts. That's it for the steps. I'm just going to keep going back and forth, layering the textures, values and saturation slowly in the assigned spaces that I mentioned before. Until I like the look of the Buetts, I'm going to keep demonstrating my painting though, so you don't miss my process. You can also go back to the previous baguette to make adjustments along the way. The important thing is that you notice what I'm working on. Take mental notes as I'm demonstrating, whether it be texture or because of the values or depth that I'm trying to add on to the painting this way for the rest of the demonstration. You can be more aware even when I'm not verbally explaining. 7. Day 2: Grapes Base Colour: Welcome to day too, where we're going to be painting the grapes. And here are the colors I'm going to be using for the grapes. I'm going to use two colors, which are quin, red and indigo. As for some of the stems peaking through, I'm only going to use Hooker screen. Before we start, I'm going to show you the reference image to simplify. I'm basically going to divide this into three sections. The first one being the grapes, which are going to be in front. And this will have a lot of quin red in the ratio, since it's the lightest area. Following this up, I'm going to mix a bit more indigo in the ratio to create somewhat of a mid tone. As I get to the darkest areas, which are the grapes further back, I'm just going to keep adding indigo in the ratio. This is how I'm going to create the different values. There are parts of the outline which is still a bit too dark, so I'm just going to erase parts of it by tapping with my eraser. Then I'm going to begin by painting the lightest area of the grapes, which are the ones in front. For this, I'm just going to use a mix of indigo and quin red of course, but this will have a lot of quin red in the ratio. You can see that I barely have any indigo here. In fact, I'm still adding more quin red. The color is mostly pinkish. And I'm just going to show you what it looks like on a scrap piece of paper. You can try to play around using different ratios until you understand how to mix the colors. On the left is quin red by itself, and here on the right I'm using indigo. You can play around with the ratio to create different tones in between. After getting the tone that I like, I'm going to use a very light consistency. In fact, I took a bit off the mixture and put it on a clean palette at the bottom, and I added more water to it. If I'm going to pick up more color, I'm just going to use that tiny spot at the bottom. I also switched my small brush here so it's much easier to control painting on the really tiny circles. What I'm trying to do is basically color in some of the grapes which are obviously in front and it's not overlapping any other grapes. But while I'm painting, I also want to leave out a bit of highlights by leaving out some negative space. And for the highlights to follow the invisible contour lines, which follows the roundness of each of those or shapes. I like to vary the shape of the high lights so it doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, I like to make several small spots. As you can see, I'm starting to run out of paint and what I'm going to do is take a bit of pigment from the pet on top and I'm going to put it at the bottom so I can add more water. And keep using the really light consistency paint for areas of the grades which I feel would be slightly darker. I would then use a bit more indigo in the ratio. I'm just using the colors that I already have on my palette here, and I also added a lot of water into it. The consistency is still very light. It's just slightly darker in value. As I get towards darker areas, I would slowly add more indigo again here. As you can see, the values getting darker and darker. But I'm still using a light consistency for this grape. I added a lot of indigo. As you can see, the color becomes more of a bluish purple since there's a little bit of the stem showing through. I'm going to leave the area of the stem and paint around it. I feel like I've established the darkest and the lightest areas. I'm going to paint the rest of the grapes and use different ratios according to how I see fit. As I mentioned before, the more in shadow or the further back the grapes are, I'm going to just keep adding more indigo in the ratio. But for some of the grapes which might not be that far back, but I want it to be darker. I can also use a slightly thicker consistency in order to get a darker value, but for the hue to still be a bit more pinkish, instead of it being too indigo and blue for some areas at the back. It doesn't really matter if you leave out the highlights or not, since we can still build up a slightly darker high light as we layer on the darker values later. For the gray here on the right, I feel like this would still catch a little bit of light, but it is still in shadow. Instead of using a lot of indigo, I went for a midtone, which looks more like a purple, and use a thicker consistency instead. 8. Day 2: Grapes Details: In this lesson, I'm going to start layering on the details little by little. I'm starting out with the most definite spots, which are the darkest spots. For this, I just use the same mixture but in a thicker consistency. But at the bottom, along with the ones that I'm painting now where I didn't leave out any negative space from the first layer, I'm going to leave out the negative space. Here you can see parts of the base color showing through as highlights. This time it doesn't lose the round form. In terms of the color mixtures, I'm basically using the same concept as before. For the darkest areas, I would just add more indigo. For the lighter areas, I would use quin red in the ratio. But this time I am working with a slightly thicker consistency as we build on the details. If I want to leave out a large area for the highlights, like what I'm doing here and the edges looks rough, I can use a clean, damp brush to soften those edges to create a smoother transition. Hopefully you can see a bit more in terms of my application. I try to not put so much pressure on my brush, instead I try to use the tip of my brush and wiggle my brush around to create uneven edges. If the edges look a little bit too sharp, I'm then going to soften it using a clean, damp brush. This is something that I'm going to keep doing for the rest of the grapes. I personally like to work on the darker values first. As you can see, I'm slowly adding more and more indigo. And I'm painting just around the edges to create more contrast in the values. Once I've painted a few of the darker areas, that's when I will start painting on the lighter parts of the grapes which are in front. This is to help me figure out the balance and how far I can take the lighter parts of the grapes. And this is to prevent myself from overworking those lighter areas. Just as an example here, as I'm adding or layering on more detail, I'm actually using a very light consistency. Still, it doesn't become too dark and while the surface is still wet, I try to use a slightly thicker consistency of a darker color. And just paint around the edges while leaving most of the lighter areas still with the base color. When I was painting the grapes, I just studied the reference image and figured out what to do or what I want to do when it comes to the painting, since the position of the grapes are quite different. However, if it does help to have the reference in front of, you, can go ahead and download it or print it so you can have it right next to you as you paint for the lighter grapes. You might notice that I like to paint a round circle surrounding the grape itself. Or sometimes I like to just paint one side following the curvature of the circle, leaving the left side with the base color or a lighter base color. This will really help enhance the three dimensional form that I'm looking for for the lighter areas. Compared to the darker areas though, I am using a lighter consistency. I don't overwork and accidentally make those lighter areas too dark for me. I find it much easier to paint the darker side of the light grapes and then follow it up using a clean, damp brush and pull whatever color is left to just soften the blend. This helps distribute the paint a little bit thinner. I feel like you can start to see more of the three dimensional form at this point, but I'm going to keep slowly layering on more paint, enhance the form further. Here you'll see me painting a dark outline behind some of the grapes which are in front because I felt like the shapes were fusing together. This is to separate those shapes. I'm also going to start being more brief, darker, and thicker for the darkest parts of the grapes. Once I've placed the darker values, I feel like I have a better baseline for the rest of the values. This is why I like to add the details of the darkest grapes. First I can adjust the rest of the grapes and figure out the rest of the values in between. Here, I'm also being a bit more brave to use a darker value or a thicker consistency for the lighter grapes as well. As I mentioned before, I like to do this by outlining the edge. And then I try to soften the transition using a clean, damp brush. This way the middle or the tip of the grape which is receiving the most light stays lighter compared to the edges, since I want the light to mostly come from the left hand side. This is why I outline the right hand side of the grapes, but then I use a slightly thinner consistency for the left side of the outline. And then softening it with a clean, damp brush. And I'm going to keep doing this for the rest of the grapes. Hopefully you guys can see that the grapes look a bit more plump now. So now it's time to play a bit with the hue. I'm going to add more of a pinkish tone to the grapes by glazing them with a bit of quin red, which will create a nice variation in color. I tend to like to do this for the grapes which are in front and for the grapes at the bottom. And I'm using a light to medium consistency, placing this still following the curvature of the grapes on one side, then dragging the rest of the light pigment, using a clean, damp brush for a softer distribution. At this point, I'm quite happy with the form, but I feel like the values still need more work, so I'm going to darken some of the grapes, especially for the midtones. As you can see, everything is about visual balance, which is why I like to go back and forth after adding layer by layer. This will greatly depend between painting to painting, as we might have used different values in certain areas. Don't be scared of using your own intuition. Or you can also refer back to the reference image if you feel like it'll be of use. Or you can also look for different references which you might feel is better suited for this composition. Lastly, I'm just going to paint the stem using a mix of Hookers green and a touch of quin red and a light consistency. That's it for today's painting session. 9. Day 3: Tulip Flower Base: Welcome to the third day. Here are the colors I'm going to be using for the tulips, I'm going to use yellow ochre, CPA, Chinese white, Indigo Quinn red has a yellow medium and Hooker's Green. Before we begin to paint, I'm just going to show you the reference image. This is the reference image that I use personally. I just used it as a color guide to see what kind of variations of colors there are for the tulips. Here's also another one with the soft pink that I like. I'm not actually going to have this right in front of me at all times, but it's something for me to keep in mind as I'm painting for the first flower, I'm going to create a creamy off white color. For this, I used a mix of yellow ochre hands, a yellow medium, and a tiny bit of Hooker's green. As you can see, I also used a lot of water here. It just looks like tinted water and I'm going to use a very thin consistency to place it all over the first tulip for the next one on the left. I'm just going to use handsy yellow medium. I made sure that my palette is quite clean so the color is not contaminated After I place a really thin layer, I'm going to follow this up by adding a little bit of quin red to the handsy yellow medium. And I'm going to place this very lightly at the bottom of the petal, as well as the petals inside. For the next one, I'm going to create a pink by using a mix of quin red and Chinese white. Again, I'm going to use a very thin consistency and paint it all over the tulip. Since I am painting the tulip side by side, I am using a very light brush load. This means that the paint is not puddling up and it dries quite fast. However, to make sure you can also use a hair dryer after finishing up the base color for each of the tulips at the bottom, I'm going to use a slightly thicker consistency. There's a slight gradient going from darker to lighter. For the next one, I want the tulip to have a salmon color. I mixed up a light pink again, but this time I added a little bit of handsy yellow medium, just like the previous pink tulip. I use a thicker consistency at the bottom. And then I use the clean, damp brush to drag the rest of the paint upwards. So there's a slight gradient going from darker to lighter as I get to the top. For the next one, I just added more handsy yellow medium to the previous mix and this will create an orange color. Then I'm going to follow this up using a thicker consistency of handsy yellow to paint the top part. There's a slight gradient going from hands yellow to the orange mix at the bottom. Since I want the bottom to be a little bit more orange, I decided to add more quin red. Just mix the color straight on the paper. I'm applying this between each of the petal underneath, and also for the petals inside. For the next one, I'm just going to make it completely yellow. I just use a medium consistency of hands, a yellow medium. Moving on to the next one, I'm going to create a pinkish burgundy color. I'm going to use a mix of quin red and indigo, with quin red being the dominant color. Again, I'm going to use a thin consistency of this and just cover the whole area of the tulip, basically the colors that I'm going to include. I'm just going to make repeats of these colors and use the mixtures that I already have on my palette. I'm going to make one additional color. I used the salmon mix and I added it to the hands yellow that I already had on my palette to create the peachy tone. As for the last one, I'm going to use the off white color that I use for the first tulip. 10. Day 3: Tulip Flower Details: In this lesson, I'm going to be adding the details. This is generally to increase the saturation as well as add a bit of gradient to the petals. I first just painted strokes in a medium consistency at the bottom of the petals. This includes the one between the petals outside. And then I use a clean, damp brush to pull it upwards while leaving a little bit of the base color still peeking through around the edges. Here, I'm doing something similar to the second burgundy color, but this time for the tip. Since we can see a little bit of the petals opening inside, I decided to use a really thick consistency of the color. So it's very dark and it looks like a slight opening between those petals. I'm also going to use a slightly darker consistency at the bottom of the petals. And then I'm going to soften the edges using a clean, damp brush for a slight gradient. Moving on to the off white tulip, I decided to add a little bit of handsy yellow and a bit of yellow ochre into the previous mixture. I'm going to place the same way as I did with the burgundy tulip. Basically, I'm placing it at the bottom of the petals and then softening the blend as I get to the top, while leaving a little bit of the edges with the base colors showing through, so it's a bit lighter. I'm also going to do the same thing for the second off white tulip. Considering this is a very light color, you won't be able to see much contrast here. I added a little bit of indigo into the off white mixture to create a grayish color. And I used this to paint more of the shadows and also outline some of the petals next for the G color. Since the color of my palette was very light inconsistency, I just added more quin red hands yellow and Chinese white to create the Pch color again and use the thicker consistency. This time to paint on the details. One, I still had the peachy color left on my brush and I added more quin red and Chinese white to create a thicker consistency for the details. Since the value is still quite light, I decided to add some of the burgundy mix into the peach mixture to create the outlines. Since I already knew I want to increase the value in between the petals. This time I just added a lot of quin red into the previous pink mixture, which is just from quin red and Chinese white. I just use a thicker consistency to paint the details as well as outline a little bit off the edges using mostly quin red for the details of the yellow tulip. Instead of using orange, I decided to add a bit of yellow ochre into the mix. I'm going to add on the details. I didn't want this yellow one to also turn peachy by adding a bit of quin red. Instead, I look for another route to create a darker value of yellow. Since I ended up liking the bright yellow tulip, I decided to glaze over a medium consistency of hands yellow to the one on the left here. Just to make the yellow much stronger, I still want the bottom to be slightly orange. I used a little bit of quin red to add to the bottom end, mix the colors on paper. After that, I'm going to finish off by using a darker version of the tulip color to paint the shadow for that little bit of opening for the tulips. 11. Day 3: Tulip Leaves and Paper Wrapping: In this lesson I'm going to be painting the leaves, the wrapping as well as the extra details for the tulips. I started out by mixing this really light yellow green from has the yellow medium and Hooker screen. I'm going to use a thick consistency of this to paint the stems for the leaves. I'm going to use a slightly darker version by adding more Hooker screen in the ratio. I'm just going to use a medium consistency to paint the base color of all of the leaves. If there are any overlapping leaves, I would try to use a slightly different value or a different tone of green. And this will just help separate the leaves a little bit. For the area in between the stems and the leaves, I'm going to use a dark green mix. I'm going to use the previous mix and add a bit of CPA to create a darker value. Since the previous mix was a bit too light inconsistency, I decided to also add more Hookers green then using a thinner consistency of the same color. I'm going to use this to paint slightly darker values on the leaves by leaving out a little bit of the base color on the side. And this will just create the illusion that the leaf is slightly folded in. We're looking at some of the leaves from the side for extra texture to the leaves. I decided to add more Hookers green in the previous mix. I use a very light load on my brush to paint streaks following the direction of each leaves to indicate a little bit of green. However, if the lines are a bit too defined and the edges are too sharp, I'm just going to use a clean, damp brush to soften those edges. Now that I've painted the darker values of the leaves, I feel like I need to define the tulips again. Here I'm going to use a darker version of each of the tulip color. As an example. Here I'm using the orange mix and I'm going to use this to outline the individual petals for the tulips. Since those lines are very thin, I would recommend for you to use a dry brush. As you can see, the load on my brush is so dry that I can flatten the tip of my brush. And I like to rotate my brush around in order for me to find the thinnest tip to create those really fine outlines. I'm going to paint the paper wrapping. For this, I'm going to use a mix of yellow ochre and CPA. And I'm going to first use a medium to thin consistency to paint the whole area as the base color. I'm also going to add the same color for this area in between the leaves, as I feel the wrapping would show through. While the surface of the base color is still a little bit damp, I'm going to use a darker version of the same color, which has more CPA in the ratio, but I'm still using a light to medium load for parts of the folds and the darker areas. After that, I'm going to dry it off with a hair dryer just to make the process quicker so I can paint the details on the dry surface here. I'm just using CPA in a medium consistency to paint in the shadows, for the inside part of the wrapping as well as the folds. By using the previous mixture in a thin consistency for the darkest areas around the wrapping words hidden behind the grapes. I'm just going to use CPA to darken that area. This was a bit too light, so I'm going to use a slightly thicker consistency after that, I also want to increase the values for the darker greens. Here I used a mix of Fucerscreen with CPA and Indigo. I'm also going to add the dark green to increase the value at the bottom of the leaves where it's really close to the tulip. That's basically it for the third day of this painting. If you would like to continue straight away to the next lessons, I would definitely recommend for you to take a break first for your eyes and just to have a walk around so we have a refreshed mind to tackle the next object. 12. Day 4: Wine Bottle: Welcome to the fourth day where we'll be painting the wine bottle for the bottle. The colors are CPA, yellow, ochre, indigo as a yellow medium, and Hooker's green. I personally didn't use a reference image when I was painting the bottle. However, I found this reference, which might be useful for you guys to use as indication to the placement of the darker values. The color for this bottle, however, is a bit darker. Mine is going to be lighter. So let me just show you the process here. I'm cleaning out my hands of yellow since as contaminated with a lot of colors. But what I'm trying to do is to create a really light yellow green color with hands yellow and a touch off hookers green in the mix. I'm going to add a lot of water to this until it becomes a really light color. I still feel like that's a bit too dark, so I added more water. Which comes to this really light color, this is going to be the base of the bottle. I'm basically going to place it all around the bottle area while leaving the lid as well as the label. And I also want to leave out a bit of white negative space following the curvature of the bottle for the highlights. Just like any part of the painting, I would recommend for you to use a light load on your brush. The area doesn't puddle up with wet paint. If you're using my outline, don't forget to also paint under the label, behind the grapes. For the bottom part, I use a slightly thicker consistency. Since I want this area to be slightly darker, while the surface is still a touch damp, I'm going to work on the details. I added a bit more hooker screen into the mix and using a dry brush load, I'm using the tip of my brush to line the edge of the bottle. Then I'm going to go back in with a slightly lighter consistency to paint a lighter green next to the line. This is to help soften the blend and also create a little bit of a thickness to the glass. And I'm also going to do this on the right hand side, I added a bit more hooker screen to create a slightly darker value. And I'm going to realign the edge. I added another line which has a bit of negative space in between the line that I previously made. This will also help with the thickness on the other side. I'm going to do the same thing by creating another outline while leaving a little bit of negative space from the base color to show through here, I decided to slowly build up the value. The surface was still slightly damp and I'm just going to add a little bit more of the darker value with more Hooker screen in the mix. After that, I'm going to start adding more detail to the mid part of the bottle. For this, I am still using the same. This time it has more handsy yellow medium. As you can see, the color is a bit lighter in value and it's a bit more yellow. It is very light though. I'm going to keep building this up by adding a little bit of a darker value, green to darken it further. I also added a touch of dug in the previous mix. At this point I'm just making things up for the details of the bottle. I'm basically just following the curvature of the neck and the shoulder of the bottle, trying to make those areas slightly darker. I also darken the outline or the outer part of the bottle. As for the center, I like to add lines following the cross contour line of the shape of the bottle using more of a yellowish green but in a slightly thicker consistency. I also tried to leave out a bit of the base color still peeking through in certain areas. You can also use a darker value for the middle, But I tried to use a lighter consistency instead of a darker one. So the sides or the edges still looks darker than the center on the right hand side where the bottle covered by a bit of the tulips. I tried to make the value a bit darker there and also behind the grapes. At this point, I wasn't really sure what color I wanted the capsule or the foil for the lid. I just started by using this really light yellow green in a really thin consistency. And I also painted the lid or the closure along with it. Then while I wait for it's dry, I'm going to paint an outline to the bottle using a really dark value from X of Indigo and Hooker screen. I'm going to paint this on both sides, right at the outer edges. I'm also going to outline under the capsule or the lid. This is just to separate it from the bottle. Under the closure, I used a thicker consistency of the same mix. With added yellow, I used the thick consistency, yellow, that I already had on my palette to paint the sides of the capsule. Then I'm going to go back in with the color of the bottle, which is the yellow green, to outline the sides and also add a bit of line detail. After doing this though, I thought that the colors were a bit too similar. I ended up adding a medium to thick consistency of yellow ochre and painted for the yellowish area while still leaving the middle as highlight. I feel I like the color separation more this way the capsule looks more golden. As for the lid or the closure, I'm going to use a dark green. I used the mix of indigo and Hookers green. I started with a medium consistency and a really light brush load so I can control the flow of the color. I basically painted the base color while leaving out some lines for the highlight of the lid. For the top, I just use a really thin consistency of the exact same color, but I want the top to be much lighter in value. Looking at this, I realized the capsule and the lid looks very different. I'm going to glaze over the same color for the lid on the capsule. Because it has the color from the yellow ochre, the color becomes more of a golden green color, which I like. I'm going to do the same thing for the lid as well. I basically glazed over the yellow ochre for the lid while still leaving out some white negative space from earlier. And I'm going to enhance the form by using the dark green mix that I already had on my palette. I also switched to my small brush this time because I feel like the lines need to be even lighter and thinner. I'm going to place most of the darker values on the right hand side. And I'm also going to use this color to outline some of the features, to redefine the edges. 13. Day 4: Wine Label: Next, I'm going to paint the label for the wine bottle. I'm going to create a creamy or neutral grayish brown. I just picked up the colors that I already had on my palette, especially the mix of Hookers, green and indigo. And I also mixed in some yellow ochre and Pia. If you realize, this color is actually very similar to the white tulips. But anyway, I used quite a heavy load and a very light consistency to paint all over the label as the base color. After that, I'm going to quickly dry it with a hair dryer so I can paint on top on a dry base. Next, I switched to my small brush and I use a dark version of this color. So I added more of the Hooker screen and the indigo mix to the previous mix for the base. And use a medium to thin consistency to outline the edge. Then I'm going to switch to my large brush again to pick up a really light consistency of the base color and paint on some lines for the detail. I basically try to follow what I've already painted on the bottle just to follow it through. Of course, I try to darken the right hand side. The value stays consistent with the rest of the bottle that we've already painted, especially when this area is hidden behind the two lips. For the darker value, I basically use the same mix with added and indigo and also a bit of CPA. To keep the color nice and neutral. I try to make sure that there's a gradual change in value. The right hand side stays in the darkest. I try to lighten the consistency as I get towards the center of the bottle after this, since the surface is still wet, I can also add on more of the darker value to enhance it on the right hand side using the same dark mix from CPA, yellow ochre, Indigo and Hooker screen, I created lines as the label using my small brush. As you can see, I'm using a really dry brush load. The tip comes to a very fine point since I can flatten it and use the sharpest tip following the direction of that line. As you guys know, when watercolor paint dries, the color is always lighter. Here, I decided to increase the contrast in value again for the label. And you'll see me going back and forth in every painting to do this until I'm satisfied with contrast in value as well as the saturation of color While painting the bottle, I felt like the shape of the tulip on the right hand side looks odd. I decided to add the same color as the label. Just round off the side of the tulip and also pull some of the green downwards to darken it and reshape the silhouette. Next, I'm going to use a mid tone of the base color, which is slightly darker than the base here. I'm trying to suggest some writing and logo for the label. As you can see, I'm just making squiggles, but I tried to constrict the place in a way that I can suggest that the top has a small writing, the middle is a random shape of a logo, and the bottom has larger writing because it's taller. Because the value is just enough for our eyes to adjust, I feel like we can make the conclusion of what those shapes are supposed to be even when they're not real letters because this is Cal object. I also want to darken the left hand side just very slightly but I still want the right hand side to be the darkest in value. I'm also going to use a light consistency of the mix between Hookers, green and indigo to paint at the bottom of the label to separate it from the bottle. Next, I use the previous mixture from Hookers green, indigo, and Hansi yellow as what I've already had on my palette. And use a very thin consistency to paint in the filling of the bottle or the wine in the bottle. And I'm just going to paint it in between the highlights. When I'm painting the wine, I want to make sure that is horizontally level to the placement of the basket because it is liquid after all and it always lays flat. After that, I'm just going to make final adjustments to enhance the cylindrical form of the bottle. 14. Day 5: Picnic Blanket Folds: Today we're going to be painting the picnic blanket. And here are the colors, hence the yellow medium. Yellow ochre, quincena indigo, and quin red. In this lesson, I'm going to be painting the folds of the blanket. I'm going to create a neutral gray color by using a mix of indigo, quincena quin, red and yellow ochre. I'm mixing up a lot here. I'm going to stop until I create a color that's almost black. And then I'm going to add a lot of water so I can control the consistency as well as the value. I knew that the darkest part was going to be the corner behind the baguettes I just painted using a medium consistency. Then I added a lot of water for a heavier load on my brush so I can spread the color across the bottom fold as well as the folds on the side using a slightly lighter consistency. The paint that I applied was quite thin, it dried quite quickly. Here, I'm just going to layer on a little bit more of the folds using a slightly thicker consistency. Actually just making things up along the way. I just look at the edges of the fabric and try to follow through with darker values to suggest the deeper folds at the bottom. Here, I also indicated a little bit of cast shadow from the top part of the fabric. Since the base is practically supposed to be white, I am very careful with the load and the consistency on my brush. I prefer to work in really light layers and adding details along the way by layering on more light layers. This way I don't accidentally create a base that's too dark to work with on the left hand side, since this area is behind the main area of the blanket, I've left white. I'm just going to cover the whole area using a light consistency of the gray. While I wait for the left side to dry, I'm going to paint some folds to the main area. I'm just looking at the shape here and I feel like there are two main areas for this white part. I'm just going to indicate it really lightly with the gray. Since I haven't really made up my mind, I'm going to go back to the left side where it's a bit darker and make the smaller folds since I feel like the light source would come from the sun. Since this is after all picnic basket, which would more likely be placed outside, I want to make sure that the blanket on the side of the basket is slightly lighter than the top. I feel like a bit of the blanket would show through between the tubicettes. I made sure to paint that area too. Now, going back to the main area of the blanket, as you can see, I'm working with a really light consistency. And just like before, I tried to look for the main folds before adding the smaller ones. After I've indicated the folds, just like the folded blanket on the left, I want the side to be darker than the top face of the blanket, so I'm going to a really light consistency on most of the area. I'm going to be really careful and use such a light consistency that it almost looks like tinted water. Once I feel like I have a better grasp of how the folds are going to look, I'm just going to enhance the values. I'm still not going to do too much of this since I'm going to go over it again after painting on the pattern. Because we're still going to lose a bit of detail after painting on the pattern. Don't forget to also add shadows behind other objects. As for mind, behind the baguette and also behind the grapes. To make sure that even when we're painting them separately, they're all still interacting with each other. To give some thickness to the blanket, I'm going to lightly outline the edges of the blanket so there's a level. When you feel like you're done with the details of the folds, make sure that this is completely dry before adding on the pattern on top. 15. Day 5: Picnic Blanket Pattern: In this lesson, I'm going to be painting the pattern for the blanket. Personally, I want the picnic blanket to have red checkers, which is the really traditional picnic look. But you can also make yours with different designs. You can make a floral design or something really simplistic with just a couple of stripes at the edge of the blanket. Since I want mine to have red checkers, I'm going to create primary red which is more like vermilion from a mix of quin red and hens, a yellow medium. Since I'm going to be covering the whole blanket with this color, I made sure to mix a lot on my palette. I don't have to keep mixing my colors, the red stays more or less consistent. In this lesson, I'm going to be showing you every single line that I paint without skipping. What I'm trying to do is basically to follow the folds that I created for the base color. I feel like by doing this, the horizontal lines and the vertical lines will really help enhance the volume or the folds of the blanket. Notice that I like to break up the lines following the folds to create a sharp edge. I feel like by stopping at the different angles, it helps our eyes to take a small break and for our hand to also not be put in weird, uncomfortable positions when we're just trying to create this really long line. I'm not too worried about connecting every single line. As you can see, some of the edges are a bit messy. I'm not looking for it to be perfectly uniform. However, if this bothers you, you can always net in the lines if you would like. In terms of the consistency, I'm just using the paint straight out of the palette. However, if it's drying up, then I would add a little bit of water. This is technically just a medium consistency. I know that at the moment it looks faded, But I actually like how it looks once the color crosses over each other when I paint the horizontal lines later. So I'm just going to keep doing this until I cover the whole blanket for the stripes at the bottom. I decided to darken it by adding a little bit of the gray from the base color to the red along the beveled edges. I'm going to add a small horizontal line to connect it to those stripes. I'm also going to use the dark red for the lines behind the buckets. After painting all of these vertical lines, you'll realize that the details we painted earlier for the folds are disappearing since they were quite light to begin with. Before adding on the horizontal lines, I'm going to try to enhance those folds again using the gray that I still have on my palette. The reason I'm doing this now, instead of after I paint and the horizontal lines, is because there might be a chance for the red to smudge if you both the red too much, the more red you have on the surface, the more chance for the red to smudge all over the gray areas. I'm not going to add too much, I'm just going to add on the main shadows. Once I feel like there's a bit of form that I can start to see, I'm going to continue on to paint and the horizontal lines. For the horizontal lines, I started by painting the darker areas using the dark red mix. This is for the area behind the baguette, the fault on the right and also at the bottom. Just like the vertical stripes before. For the horizontal lines, I'm still trying to follow the folds or the cross contour lines of how the blanket is placed. For the horizontal stripes on the main areas, I'm just using the exact same red mix as before. If it's a bit hard for you to divide up the space for the line. Sometimes it's also easier to just do a small section at a time and then continue it down horizontally. Once I've covered the whole blanket with the checkered pattern, I'm going to use the dark red mix and painted over the lines of the shadow areas to enhance the value of those shadows. Lastly, to enhance the checkered effect, I'm going to use a medium consistency of the dark red to paint squares where each line crosses each other, so those look darker than the rest of the lines. I also switched to my smaller brush for this because I find it much easier to flatten the tip of my smaller brush because the bristles are very short and small. It also holds water, which means there's less chance of the paint flowing too fast, creating a puddle again. I'm going to apply this all over the blanket and thus it for today's painting session. I hope you guys found the repetition relaxing for this one. 16. Day 6: Basket Handle: Welcome to another year of painting. Today we're going to be painting the basket handle and the oranges. I'm starting with a basket handle so it's easier to paint the textured edges since this is positioned in front of the oranges. And here are the colors, quincena, titanium gold, ochre, yellow ochre, and CPA. Here's the reference image that I use for the handle. I personally like the twist and also the value shown on this photo. So if you're using the same outline as what I'm using, please have this reference right next to you as your painting. I'm going to start by painting the base color using titanium gold ocher. And I'm going to use a light medium consistency to cover most of the area, but I'm going to leave out a tiny bit of white negative space as you can see from the reference image where the high light off the handle is. Since I am painting a larger area, I use quite a heavy load so I can spread the paint evenly while the surface is still damp. I'm going to use a little bit of quincena to paint in the bottom. And this is just to darken a off the bottom area which is covered by the grapes. And I'm also going to do this for the back side of the handle, which is clearly shown in the reference image. Since the lighter color was drying up, I use the clean, damp brush to soften the edge to make a better blend. Then I'm going to go back in with a slightly thicker consistency and slowly build the contrast of the base color. This is something that I'm going to do for both sides of the handle. After this, I'm going to start painting the pattern of the natural fibers. I do want to make sure that the base color is more or less dry to paint on the lines, I'm going to add yellow ochre to the paint that I already had on my palette. This has a little, the titanium gold ocher and Quinciana, I'm using a light to medium consistency with my small brush in a dry brush load so I can create really thin lines. This is when I paid a lot of attention to the reference image because this helps me figure out where to place those lines, or at least the bigger picture of how the fibers twist around the handle. As I get closer to the lighter area, I also use less quinciana in the mixture. The fibers or the shadow of the fibers in between also reflect the value of the base color. Since I want the handle to twisted cylindrical form, I want to make sure that the sides are also a bit darker. I'm going to go back in with a mixture that has more quincena. I'm going to paint this on the sides of some of the lines that I've already painted since. The right hand side of the handle is the darkest area. I'm going to use mostly Quinciana in the ratio to paint those lines just like the previous lines that I've darkened. I'm going to do the same for this part of the handle as well for the darker values. I just added a CPA to the Quinciana. This is also where I start thinking about the edges. Each of those fibers has its own cylindrical form. I do want to make sure that those lines are somewhat connected with really subtle separate curves. This is just something that I'm going to go back to as I'm slowly enhancing the overall form as well. As you can see from the reference image, the bottom part of the left side of the handle is a little bit darker here. I'm also enhancing it with a darker mixture, following up the overall cylindrical form of the handle. I'm going to just glaze over a bit of titanium gold ochre and yellow ochre on the side. Then I'm going to darken those pattern or the fibers again using the dark brown from quincena and PA, generally in a cylindrical form, there's an area where the highlight is very prominent. Here I'm going to paint on the darker lines surrounding the main area of the highlights to enhance the shadow around it which then will the highlight and the form. This is where I start paying attention to the curved edges. Again, as you can see, the curves are not very curved. It's actually very subtle, almost like a line, but it just has a slight curve at the edge. I feel that it's barely visible because those rounded corners are somewhat uneven, it gives more of a natural look for those edges. I decided to use the darkest brown mix, which has Quinciana and sepia. After this, I'm going to keep going back and forth to glaze over some of those areas and darken it very slowly using a thin consistency of either the yellow brown or the darker brown. But you'll notice that after glazing, you will lose a bit of detail of the lines. That's something that I'm going to go back and forth to until I find the right balance. 17. Day 6: Oranges: Next, I'm going to paint the oranges. And here are the colors. Yellow, ochre, quincena, wicker screen, hazy yellow medium, and quin red for the oranges. I thought it's simple enough to paint without a reference, so let me just go straight into it. I'm going to use a mix of handsy yellow medium with quin red to create an orange. But I want the first mixture to have more handsy yellow medium. In the ratio, the color turns to be more of a deep yellow. Instead, I'm going to use a light medium consistency to cover the base color of the first orange. For the one behind, I use the ratio, which has a little bit more quin red. Since I want this orange to be slightly darker, I wanted the top part to be lighter than the bottom. So I decided to take off a little bit of paint with tissue for the ends of the orange where the stems used to be. I'm going to use a thick consistency of hands yellow, medium with a bit of Hooker screen to create this yellow green color. I'm placing it with my small brush. While I wait for that area to dry, I'm going to go back in with the same mixture that I already had on my palette. This time it's a little bit more orangy than the base color. As you can see, I'm just creating dots, using the tip of my brush to create the uneven texture of the orange. And I'm going to be very careful around the green area so the paint doesn't bleed out. Just like the other objects. I want the bottom part to interact with the other objects. I want those areas to slightly be darker. I'm going to do the same thing for the orange at the back. By creating the texture, I first use the mostly yellow color. Then I'm going to build up the darker oranges with more quin red in the ratio. But since I want to meet the color slightly, I'm going to add a little bit of quin sana, as well as yellow ochre. As I'm applying the paint, I'm still doing the dotting motion. And I'm going to slowly build it up layer by layer. And while doing this, I try to increase the consistency to slowly build up the contrast. I'm also going to add a little bit of a darker value near the green part of the orange, just for a little variation in the shape to make it look like it's suck down in that area. I feel like the form is fairly clear. Now all I need to do is enhance the values for the shadows. And for this I just a medium to thick consistency of quincena for the darkest areas, especially at the bottom of the orange where it's hidden behind the bottle of wine and the grapes. Lastly, I'm also going to add a little bit of a darker value next to the green part of the orange. And for this, I used a mix of handsy yellow Hookers, green, and a bit of quincena. 18. Day 7: Rim and Basket Base: Today we're going to be painting the basket. I'm going to start out by painting the basket rim. And the base color here are the colors I'll be using. Indigo, pa, quincena, titanium gold ochre, and yellow ochre. I'm going to start with the top part of the rim. For this, I'm going to use a really light consistency of titanium gold ochre and yellow ochre. I want to darken the area right under the tulip. For this, I started out by using a thick consistency of yellow ochre, but then I decided to darken it further by using a little bit of CPA side face of the rim. I'm going to use the same mixture which is from yellow ochre and titanium gold ocher, but I'm going to use a thicker consistency so the color is more saturated. And it's also slightly darker in value, since I want most of the light to come from the left hand side, I'm going to use a slightly thicker consistency for the right side of the rim. After I've equally distributed the color, I decided to darken it further by adding a little bit of Quinciana. I'm also going to darken the left side of the rim behind the grapes. Now that I can start to see a bit of form from the values that I've placed, I want to make sure that it's completely dry. So I'm just going to use the hair dryer before I paint on the lines for the fiber of the rim. For those details, I'm going to start by using a dark brown from Quinciana and sepia. And here I'm using a really dry brush load so the tip of my brush can be flattened out. And I'm going to use the really thin side to create really thin, delicate lines following the direction of the grain. This means for the larger sides of the rim, I'm going to create vertical lines. For the upper side, I'm going to direct the lines diagonally towards the inside of a basket. I'm going to enhance the values further here. I'm using the dark brown mix from Quinciana and Pia and I'm going to place it right under the tulips for the top side, I want it to be slightly darker. As for the side phase, I like to use the same color, but I'm going to paint it following the vertical grains. For the lighter left side, I'm going to use a mix of quincena with yellow ochre and titanium gold ochre to paint the rim behind the grapes. And then I use the clean dam brush to drag the paint further. After that, I'm just going to enhance the lines again, since I feel like by glazing over the top, I have lost a little bit of detail of the edges. And those are basically the steps. I'm just going to keep doing this layer by layer until I get the right balance that I'm looking for. Next, I'm going to be painting the base color for the rest of the basket. For this I'm going to use a medium consistency of the yellow brown mix and this is from titanium gold ochre and yellow ochre. I'm also using quite a heavy brush load so I can spread the color all throughout the left face of the basket, behind the grapes and the blanket. I'm going to use a thicker consistency of the same color just to indicate where I'd like to place the darker values later on. For the right side, I'm also going to use a darker color for this. I use the same mix with a little bit of CPA and a lot of Quin Siena. And I'm going to cover the whole right face of the basket. While the surface is still a little bit damp, I'm going to create a darker brown color using the same mix with added indigo CPA and quincena. I'm going to place this color right under the rim. Under the rim for the left side of the basket. I first use the base color of the right face of the basket. Then while the surface is still wet, I added a bit of the darker brown right under the rim. And this will just create a really subtle gradation that I'm going to follow this up by using the brown with mostly quinciena for the shadows behind the grapes and the blanket. That's basically it. I'm just going to dry it off completely before I paint on the texture and the next lesson. 19. Day 7: Rim and Basket Texture: In this lesson, I'm going to be painting the textures for the basket. I'm going to first start by painting the pattern off the track. At the bottom of the basket, I'm using the midtone brown mix, which has all the colors except for indigo and the ratio has mostly Quinciana. I'm actually just going to draw on the pattern I first lined, where the track is going to end in that small area. I'm going to paint on what looked like braid pattern. Of course, since I'm painting on thin lines, I'm using a dry brush load. On the right hand side, I use the same mixture, but this one has a bit of indigo for a darker brown. And I'm going to do the same thing. There should be a little bit of space in between the lines and the braids at the top and the bottom. In this area, I'm going to paint on diagonal lines using the same colors. Once I'm done with a braid pattern, I'm going to enhance the darker value of the cast shadow from the grapes and the blanket by using a mix of the yellow brown with a bit more quincena. After that, I want to make sure that everything's completely dry. Next, I'm going to paint on the woven pattern of the basket. For this I use the thick consistency of yellow ochre with a little bit of Quinciana. What I'm trying to do is to create horizontal curved lines, leaving a bit of space in between and placing them vertically. Once I've done a section, I'm going to continue on to the area next to it. Ideally, I want this to be aligned with each other, but I was still trying to freehand it. However, towards the end, I did actually draw out lines with pencil to help as guide. The curved lines are not as wonky. If you already know that the lines are going to be wonky, please use your pencil to create the guidelines beforehand. On the right hand side, because the angle is different, I'm going to follow the angle of the basket itself. As for the color, because the base is darker in value, I'm also going to use the darker brown mix. I just basically added CPA to it. However, if you want the brown to be a bit more vibrant, you can also add more quincena. Notice as I'm painting on the curved lines next to the one that I've already painted, I tried to paint it underneath the lines, off the edge of those curves. This is basically how they connect with each other at this point. This is also when I realized that it was much harder to draw the curved lines on an angle. I decided to draw on the guideline really lightly using pencil. By the way, I hope that the change in color and the light too much of a bother to you. It was really hard for me to edit this since I filmed this. Well, at the moment, it's still a rainy season, it was a really cloudy day when I filmed this and the temperature of my camera kept changing. I tried to edit it as much as I can, but some areas I feel like I can't really do too much of. Hopefully it's not too much of a bother for you guys as I'm painting the curved lines to the grapes and the background of the base color is a bit darker in value. I also want to re, outline some of those curved lines using the darker browns to help enhance the darker areas. Once I've covered the whole surface area of the basket with the weaving pattern, you can see that it looks weird and it just looks like an overlay of texture. I'm going to make this blend in a little bit more with the basket by adding on the details for the values of each individual curves. Here I'm closing up the ends of each of those curves using a dark brown. And this will give the illusion that the fibers are woven into each other. As the ends of those fibers are in shadow, I'm doing this mostly on one end, which is on the right hand side, since I feel the light will be coming from the left. However, if there are parts of the curves which are a little bit too thick, I'm also going to close it down even if it's on the left hand side. I like to also glaze using the base color, which has mostly quincena. I'm going to do this on one side of the curve. This is something that I'm going to go back to to fix the overall value. Later on, you'll notice that sometimes I like to also run the darker brown to straighten the top part of the curve slightly. I feel like this will give more of an edge to each of those curves since they're not supposed to be completely curved lines. Instead they're supposed to be somewhat angled. But considering it's a little bit more difficult to paint, this is how I've decided to simplify it by making the curves. Doing this will also add the illusion of the weave texture of the basket as this is more or less the negative shapes that will be left after separating those curve lines with the darker values. After adding on the darker values With a lot of CPA, I feel like I've desaturated the basket here. I'm trying to bring the saturation up by using yellow ochre mixed with a little bit of quincena. Since I'm using quite a light mixture, I'm going to place this on the left hand side or the lighter areas of the curves. Now that you have the basic idea, I'm also going to apply this to the left side or the face of the basket that is facing us. Since the surface is much lighter, I'm also going to lighten the darker brown. For this, I mostly the same colors that I already have on my palette, but it has less CPA. The colors are also much brighter and more saturated. Of course, on the left hand side where the basket is slightly hidden behind the grapes and the blanket, I am going to darken those lines that I mentioned earlier. So here I'm back using the colors that I use for the right side of the basket. When I'm painting on the details like this, I personally like to jump from place to place and sometimes I don't even cover a certain area. I feel like by jumping place to place and slightly playing with the values or the tone of the brown, I feel like it helps the painting to look more natural. As for the woven areas under the rim, since the rim is protruding outwards, this area will be in shadows. So I'm going to cover most of those curved lines using the darker browns, I feel like the texture is getting there. But at the same time, those curved lines look a little bit too individual and a bit too glaring for my liking. So I'm going to make them look a little bit more uniform and also add to the value and form of the texture by glazing the right side of each of those section using the browns according to the value of the base color. As for the actual mixtures themselves, I think I've pretty much mentioned them all. Most of the colors are mixed into each other already. It's all about balancing the values and saturation by playing with the ratio. After adding on those glazes, I decided to dry everything off. And I'm going to enhance some of the curved lines if some of them have disappeared or blended too much into the background. I realized all this time, I've left out the foot track off the basket. I'm going to similarly, but I'm not going to put in as much effort and detail since the rest already suggest the texture of the basket. Anyway, here I'm just glazing on the color according to the value, just like before. If parts of the lines have disappeared into the background as I've glazed the color on top, I'm just going to add more onto it. The main thing that I want to do is actually to separate the two patterns of the weaving itself from the main basket and the bottom of the basket. To separate those two areas, I like to actually just add a darker value on top of the foot track. That's pretty much it for the basket. The next couple of lessons will be for the simple grass texture below the basket along with the simple background. I'm also going to do the finishing touches, which doesn't really take too long, depending on the state of your painting. If you do have time today to finish off the painting, you can join me in the next couple of lessons, or you can also continue tomorrow. If you wish to continue though, I would recommend for you to take a short break for your eyes and hands since we've been focusing a lot on those tiny little textures. 20. Day 8: Grass Base and Background: Welcome to the last painting session. I'm going to be making the green ery surrounding the basket as well as the background. As for the colors, I'm going to be using yellow ocher, CPA, Indigo, Hooker screen, and hands, a yellow medium. I'm going to start by creating a light green from hands, yellow, medium, and Hooker screen. I'm going to use a medium to thin consistency to start painting the grassy area underneath the basket. Since we've already painted the basket, we can't really make tall grass that is going over the basket this time. I'm just going to suggest the texture through the edges of what we're painting here. I try to make grass textures facing in different directions. What I mean by grass textures is for my brush strokes to be thinner as it gets to the edge or the ends of my flicks. I also try to pair this up with some leaf shapes. Since we're painting this in one go, this is just going to create uneven edges. I'm working a section at a time and while the surface is still a little bit damp, I'm going to add the darker green from added hookers, green and indigo right underneath the basket and the blanket for the right hand side. I'm of course going to use a darker green. I'm using the same dark green mix which has a bit more Hookers, green and indigo. As for the application is more or less the same. But this time I want the flicks of the brush strokes to be directed at the basket side. Just like before, I'm going to pair the grassy texture to some leaf textures as well, but the surface is still wet. I'm going to add on an even darker green, which has more hookers, green and indigo. And I'm going to place it right beneath the basket, especially at the further end. Since the surface is still fairly damp, there's only so much value we can add to this. I'm going to work layer by layer until I reach the value that I'm looking for at the back here. I want the color to be muted in comparison to the yellow green in the foreground. I decided to just use indigo by itself as I get towards the back. As I'm layering on more paint, on a more D or a slightly damp surface, I'm going to actually layer on the texture as well. There are several layers of the uneven edges which will still add depth to this, even though it's laid flat. For the even darker values right under the basket, I'm going to use a mix of CPA and Indigo. I feel like I've placed enough details for the moment. On the right hand side, I'm going to move back to the left hand side. While I wait for that to dry, I'm using a fairly dark green mix to paint right under the blanket as well as the basket. While doing this, I'm also layering on the textures Before I layer on anything else. On the right hand side, I do want to make sure this is completely dry so I can keep adding the darker values without the color bleeding out after placing the really dark color. I'm going to follow this up with a bit of hook that I'm going to somewhat mix since I'm dragging the hookers green from that dark mixture Earlier you'll notice me smudging the backside of the basket. I don't want that part to have a lot of detail. I ended up just smudging it. Next, I'm going to create a different tone of green by mixing what I have on my pet with a bit of yellow ocher to make more of a muted tone. I'm going to paint the left side of the blanket just to give the edges a little bit more of an interesting texture. I'm creating more or less a similar texture for the edges, but as you can see, this time I'm flicking it a little bit higher. I'm also going to mix this up with some leafy textures. I'd like to also vary the value while the surface is still a little bit damp, I use a thicker consistency of the same mix. Next, I'm going to paint the greeneries for the background. This time I'm going to use the same mix with added Hooker screen, so it's a little bit more green than before. This time I'm also going to create a slightly different texture for the edges. I wanted to look like a fluffy bush. I'm also going to add a little bit behind the bigett, I used to really thin consistency. To start, even if the edges are sharp, it still looks really subtle and a little bit blurry. And while the surface is still damp, I'm going to add a thicker consistency of the same color and add it to the bottom part of the background. After adding on the darker values, I felt like it was a bit too dark overall and the surface looks a bit too even for my liking, I ended up taking off some of the paint using tissue. Then I'm going to go back in with the same color with more Hooker screen in the ratio and I'm going to paint on some small and really light leaves. 21. Day 8: Final Adjustments: For the final adjustments. This will greatly depend on the stage of your painting. You might not even need to adjust anything else at this point. For me, I feel like the grapes needs some further definition. I feel like it lost the form and I want to make it rounder. I used a mix of quin red and indigo to paint a little bit of a curved line or even an unfinished circle that I'm going to smudge while leaving the center as well as the edge with the base color. I'm quite happy with the darker values. The form that's lacking here, I feel is from the lighter grapes, I'm just doing them for those. And for some grapes I like to add more quin red in the ratio. So there's a bit more variation where some of the color has more pinkish tone for the bottom part of the baguette where the crumbs are quite light. I decided to darken it since it's closer to the bottom using a mix of titanium gold ochre has a yellow and yellow ochre. Another thing that I want to add on is the gradient of the orange tulip that is facing us. For that, I just added Quinn red to the previous color mixture to create a deep orange, even almost. I'm just placing the light consistency using my small brush for the bottom of that tulip. Lastly, I feel like the wet patch gives off a messy look. So I'm going to clear it up by adding a layer of the texture and also smoothing out the edges. That's pretty much it for mine, but you can keep on going if you still feel like you need to fix any other areas. 22. Closing & Class Project: Congratulations for completing this class. I hope you guys enjoyed watching the process for the class project. If you haven't made it already, you can make your own customized picnic basket with your own items that maybe as your favorite to bring in a picnic. Or you can also use the outline that I've provided for you to download in the projects and resources section and follow the painting process as I guide you through this class. Once you're done with your projects, please don't forget to post it in the project section where you can share it with me and other students. I'll be really happy to answer questions and also give feedback if you ask for it to see what you guys create with this one. If you guys enjoy what you see here and you would like to see more tutorials by me, you can follow me on my Youtube channel where I post weekly art tutorials on my channel Anani. If you would like to see more art by me, you can also follow me on my Instagram at IG, underscore Anani if you guys are still here, I would like to thank you so much for sticking right to the end of this class. I can't wait to see your projects. Best of luck and I'll see you in the next class. I