Transcripts
1. Introduction: One of the most important
things with watercolor, other than not
panicking is timing. Hi, my name is Nadine. I'm a watercolor artist
from Melbourne, Australia, and I want to do a
really simple exercise each day that's
looking at timing. So understanding what happens depending on how
warm your room is, how long you let the page
dry before you add pigment, seeing how that impacts the way that the pigment
moves on the page. So we're going to do a really
simple series of five fish. Keep them all the same,
and then we're going to paint those at at
different times. So we'll go through the
materials of keeping it really, really basic, and then
we'll go step by step. Get yourself a copy for
this one because it is a little bit sitting around watching paint dry, and
we'll see how we go.
2. Materials: Okay. Materials for today, we're keeping it
really, really simple. To start off with the
actual picture of a oi. I've given you a link
on the Skillshare site for's got a couple of
fish on the actual image. You don't necessarily need it. It's a pretty simple shape, but you can have a look at that. What I want you to
do is to sketch five fish alongside each other, and I've given you
a little bit of a template if you don't want
to sketch it out yourself. You probably won't need
this. It's a very, very simple shape, but I just would like
them all the same. Across the page, so
it's easy to compare. I'm painting on 300 gram archers called press paper,
and I'm painting flat. I'm not taping it down,
but I am on a board. In terms of paints, I'm
just using three today. I've got some handsome yellow
medium from Daniel Smith. I've never really
used this before. I've got some art spectrum
coral is what this is, and the only reason I'm using this is because I've run out of, I usually use Pyle red,
but I've run out of that, so I crumble it around in
the bottom of my drawer, and this is what I
had floating around. It really doesn't
matter pick a red and pick a yellow,
whatever you fancy. I'm also I've got a
slight shadow and I've got the little eyes in here, and for that, I'm using
some Daniel Smith indigo. I don't know where
my tube is for that. You'll need just a regular
eraser and a HB pencil. In terms of brushes.
I'm just using two. This is a nice medium brush that will get me the whole
distance of the body, and that's what forms
these nice fin shapes. Then I've got a little
synthetic for just popping in the eyes and a
little bit of shadowing. Other than that, you'll
need your pallet, jar of water, some tissues
and something to time with. So I'm just using my phone to time my one, two, 3 minutes. I think other than that,
we're ready to go.
3. Timing the Fish: I've got myself my median brush, some water, and I've just
squeezed out some fresh paint. What we're going to
do, first fish here, I'm going to paint
it down with water. I'm going to leave a
little bit of dry paper where this fin is on the back. Then I'm going to straightaway drop pigment into that one. The next one, I'm going to
wet it down with water, same way, but then
I'm going to wait 1 minute before I
drop the pigment in. Next one, I'm going to
wait 2 minutes and so on. Now, how many fish we get
through before everything dries will depend on how warm
it is in your room, whether you've got an
air conditioner or a heater blowing near your page, what kind of paper you're
on, how much water you put in initially, and how much water you
have in your paint. It's going to vary
for everybody. Yours will be a little
bit different to mine, we'll be a little bit
different to the next person. I think it's important to
do this exercise to see how far the paint will spread in
your setup with your style. Okay, so I'm going to
start with this one. Painting down, I'm
going to paint fully in the front of the face,
front of the head. I'm not going to
worry about the fins. We'll deal with those
with the dry brush. Come down, paint all the way to just where the tail
starts on both sides. I doesn't really matter if
I don't leave the space, but I'm just trying to
leave a little bit of a dry paper between
Ws are there? That's how much water
I've got on my page. I'm trying to just leave a
little bit of white paper, clean dry paper on that fin. Then I'm going to grab, put a little bit of water
in my paint, not much. I want to tooth pasty, bit of red, bit of yellow, and then I'm going to
come straight on and just drop little bit of paint. Here you can see I
didn't get any water there because it's
just dry paper there. That's okay. Now, I've got a huge badge
of pigment on my brush, so I'm just going to
paint my tissue so that I can come
pretty in a tail. I'm just dry strokes there. That's going to annoy me that
I've got no water there. I'm just going to chuck
on a little bit of water down there
because that's too dry. Then I'm going to
come out of that, let that one dry, move
on to the next one. Here I've got my
phone next to me. What I'm going to do is
paint down with water and then I'm going
to start my time. This one I'm going to
try and be a bit more careful that I actually get water on this edge
because I left it too dry. Coming in all the way
to my pencil edge. I made it tricky for us by making that a
little bit skinny. Now I've got water on there. Now I'm going to set, I'm
going to start my phone. I'm going to wait 1 minute. That's 1 minute. Now I'm
going to pick up again, my tooth pasty consistency pain, and I'm going to come on
and drop some pigment in. There's still quite
a lot of movement even at that minute. I've got a lot of water here. You can see it's
really moving there. Then for the tail, I've got
dry paper here, push down, come off same, and then I'm going to
come out of that one. Moving onto the
next one. I'm just going to join up
that space a bit. I have a little bit
too dry paper there. Then I'm going to come
onto the next one. This one, I'm going
to wait 2 minutes. Just hitting the two
minute mark now. Grab a bit more paint. On the tail, when I
come down to the tail, use my dry brush, push down, come off. Fins. I'm just going to tidy that
up just a touch there. We're doing the four minute one. Now, I I could have wet
these all down at once at the same time and just then gone and done them at 1 minute, a three minute, but
I didn't think I could wet them all and
get it all organized. At the same time while
I was narrating, which is why I'm doing
them one at a time. But you can do them
wet them all down and then set your time rather
than doing it the slow way. It's coming up to 3
minutes now, just about, you can see that the page, it's still a bit damp, but there's no water
sohing around there. But I've still got some
movement in the page. I've fully dried up here where I've had not very much water. Now I'm pretty dry up there. Okay. And then last one. Because it's excruciating
sitting here watching the time. Okay. We'll do 4 minutes
for this last one. I'm hoping that the last one, I don't really want
to draw another one. Now we're just about
to 4 minutes now. I'm just going to grab my paint and let's see if there's
actually anything left now in the page
pretty dry now. Now I'm effectively
painting on dry paper. That minutes is
where my room is. Okay. Now, I am going to
come back to this, but just for a second,
while, I'm just going to pop that outside
for 10 minutes to dry. Something else I wanted
to draw attention to. Now, I don't often
talk about this. I don't think my lessons, but there's also the
difference between. I I squeezed out
fresh paint for this. I pretty much always
paint from the tube, I don't have dried up
palettes, but I do also use. You can see these paints have been sitting in
here for a while. I don't want to waste my paint. I do go back and use
up dried up paint. But there is quite a
difference between painting with freshly
squeezed paint. I don't know why that's
hard to say and paint that's been sitting in
the palette drying up. If I pop two fishy
shapes on my page here, If I take my freshly squeezed
really tooth pasty paint, that's the kind of effect I get. Now, this guy, I can't
pick up at the moment. I can't pick up paint from
that because it's too dry. I have to get water into it. To get enough water
to get to lift it. That means now that
when I put it on, I'm going to get a real spread. If you're painting from a palette where everything
is squeezed out, it will be harder to
get these shapes, these effects than if you're squeezing out fresh
from the tube.
4. Finish the Fish: Okay. It's been about 10 minutes now and I'm completely dry. So what I'm hoping you can
now see is the difference between our zero
minute, 1 minute, two minute, three
minute and four minute, how much spread we
get in the paint. So here where there's a
lot of water on the page, the pigments really spread, and I don't have many of
these defined shapes. And also what you
can see because I didn't off any of the
water while it's drying, I get that hard edge, which sometimes is good, sometimes you don't want, whereas I don't see that as much in the ones where there's
been less water on the page. This one I did because
I added a bit of pigment there while
it was drying. Here, obviously, there's
no spread at all. Now, although that
was the point of the exercise and
probably for me, I probably go somewhere
in between these two. I quite like this. But I also like a few of
those dry strokes. I potentially do my 3 minutes
and then at 4 minutes, come back in and
give myself a few more to find spots in there. Now, although it's
not the point of the exercise, I
can't help myself. I'm just going to pop in a
little bit of the shadow, pop in the eyes
just because I can. I might also just see
what it looks like if I grab a little bit of my red and say in some of
these where I've got space. I've got my little brush here. Just pop a little bit of a
line in for that underneath where that dorsal fins in
there, just because I can. I'm just pulling along. Then I reckon I'll
put a little bit of indigo as a shadow. I got really milky. If it's windigo paints
gray, I think it's indigo. I'm just going to
along the side. Just paint a little bit of a I'm imagining the lights
coming from the top, pop that line in and then
I'm just going to blend it. I'm dry cleaning my brush, drying it off and just
blending that indigo. It transitions from darker
on the edge of the fish. Lighter as it's coming up, and I'll do it on both sides. So you don't have
to do this. It was just sitting there looking
at me begging for it. You could probably
also do that with just a you could pop
spring water everywhere. You could pop a little
bit of red into Indigo rather than
just a straight dark, you could put a bit
of color in it. I'm just going to go along
and do it on each of them. I see tidy up some of the shapes too
if you don't like them. When you get to this one where I've got really solid pigment
here because it was so dry. That little indigo
shadow will blend into the paint and that's fine.
You'll get movement. You can see I've got movement
of the pigment underneath. I'm getting a red shadow and don't mind that,
not a problem. Then I'm going to add
little stroke on each side. Bit of an indication of an eye. Just because I can, I might
be too waiting there still. Yeah, I might be a
bit waiting there. And I'm just mucking around now, so I probably that's
where I'm going to stop. So Good exercise in seeing how far your paint
is going to spread, depending on how much
water is in the page, how much is in your palette
how warm your room is. Also good actually
for testing out color combinations and
seeing what you like. You will not, I
didn't really say it, but I'm picking up
different amounts of red and yellow and letting
them mix on the page. You get a nicer effect when you get more mixing on the page. Obviously, that's harder
here when I've got a really dry page. The other thing, these
strokes are really nice. It gives you a little
bit of practice in these dry strokes pushing down and lifting off so that
you get a little bit of sparkle. Through that tail. And here you can see where I've picked up the
different colors. And that's a much
nicer effect than if I mixed the orange in the palette and just went ahead and did it. So use lots of scrap
bits of paper for this. Make sure you've got a coffee
because it's really boring, waiting for even 4 minutes, which doesn't sound very long, but it is a bit dull. Make sure you've got
something else to do and have some fun with it. When you finish, place a
couple of picks for me up on the page so that
I can have a look and thanks for joining
me for the exercise. Oh.
Nadine Dudek, Professional Watercolour Artist
