Transcripts
1. Introduction: Watercolor Special Effects: The most exciting
aspect of watercolor is its ability to paint the picture for you
if you allow for it. There are ways to
have the paint create a beautiful
abstraction on its own with little to no
effort on your part. And those effects
look like magic. I call them special
effects of watercolor. I am Jen Bertha. I'm a watercolor artist and illustrator based in Slovakia. This is my studio where I create my artworks and also teach
live watercolor workshops. I have been working with
watercolor for over 11 years and the medium completely enchanted me with
its spontaneity. It's not very predictable, which keeps me coming
back to it and my process never
really gets boring. There's always a
surprise in the end. While creating my artworks, I channeled my emotions a lot. And watercolor medium
allows just for that. My original paintings are so Laughter By clients from
all over the world. But I also create illustrations for books
and publications. I also have a YouTube
channel where I share my process, art, journey, struggles, and lots of tutorials on how to
work with watercolor. In this class, you
will learn how to create special effects of watercolor and also how to
utilize them in a painting. We'll do a warm-up
exercise and paint this lovely feather while using many of the effects as
your class project, we'll paint a beautiful
watercolor wolf. First, we will create a sketch, or you can even skip
to painting right away and just use mine. We will paint this wolf
in only two layers. During the first one, we'll paint wet in wet and
apply the watercolor effect. And in the second
one will finish the painting by adding
a few details and final touches to
provide you with even more practice in
applying this technique, you can find bonus lessons
in the end of this class, and you can paint a front view of the
wolf along with them. The second Wolfe
portrait is even more intricate than
the first one. And I will take you through
every step of the process. You'll be able to learn
a lot from this class, no matter if you are
only starting with watercolor or already
have some experience. And once you've
completed this class, you will have a
good understanding of how watercolor effects work, but also how to incorporate
them into your own words, which will gain a
beautiful twist to them. And I can't wait to
see you in class.
2. Class orientation : Hi everyone and
welcome to the class. I'm so excited to show you all the fun watercolor effects. But first, let me briefly
explain how this class is organized so that you have
easier time preparing for it. We will go over the
materials first. I will show you
everything you need to prepare to be able to work
with me throughout the class. I will provide you with info on the specific materials
that I was using, but also suggest
alternative materials. You can download a PDF document that contains the list
of the materials, as well as the suggestions with links to purchase
them in case that you might find that useful and
you can download it from the tap Projects and Resources
down below this class. Next, I will show you
how to mix your colors. Even though in this class the
mixing portion is kept to a minimum as we are going to be using minimal color palette. In the following two lessons, I will show you how to
create watercolor effects, will create a simple
chart that you can use as your reference
for future paintings, will then do a simple
watercolor exercise on how to apply effects. This simple yet lovely
watercolor painting over Phaedra will be the
result of that lesson. Once you've
accomplished all that, it is time to start working
on our class project. First of all, create
a sketch together using the grid method
and my template. Or if you prefer to skip
to painting right away, you can always
download my sketch and trace it to your
watercolor paper. Next, we'll paint the
wolf in two phases. The first phase will be wet in wet approach when we
will also use a effect. And the second phase
will entail adding details and final
touches to the painting. You'll be surprised what a wonderful collaborator
watercolor effects can be. They will always enrich your
paintings and add that wow, effect without much effort on your part, which
is fantastic. If you love your class project and want to learn a bit more. There are three bonus lessons. Read step-by-step
instructions on how to create a little more advanced
watercolor painting. But that's still very manageable
even for any beginner. And the front view of
the wolf that will create as a bonus
painting in this class, it's really worth your while. Don't forget to check
the projects and resources tab down
below this class, you can find all the
additional resources in there, such as sketches
and process photos. And that will help you read a better overview of
the entire process. And now we're ready to start.
3. Materials: In this video, I will go over all the materials that
you'll need for this class. I will show you that
particular tools and art supplies
that I was using. And you can always find
alternatives as it's not a necessity to use the
same brands or even shade, will need some
irregular drawing paper for the sketches I just used copy paper for
painting will need watercolor paper that
is at least 300 GSM. And I suggest you
use cold pressed. This type of paper has some
texture and it will help us create watercolor effects
or dirt and smooth paper. My paper is called
Fabriano artistic, and it is a budget friendly, yet very high-quality
watercolor paper. I cut a large sheet of
it into smaller sizes. And that's how I save
a lot of money because watercolor paper blogs
can get very expensive, will lead pencils for
joining our sketches. You can use any
brand that you wish. And I recommend you find one
that has harder lead, HB, and then one with the
software and darker lead, for example, for v, will use each for a
different purpose. I use a knife and sandpaper to sharpen my pencil
to erase mistakes. I use kneaded eraser and then this pen eraser
for more precision, will need some
watercolor brushes. Minds are silver black
velvet number 68, or you can use any
round brush that can hold water and it
has a sharper tip, will need one
synthetics small brush with study of resource
to draw details. My knees, Da Vinci for
the basic number two. And you can just use any
cheap synthetic brush for white highlights will
need a white gel pen. Alternatively, you can use white gouache or acrylic paint. Even the white pencils
for pastels are fine. These tool is optional. Lastly, we'll need watercolor
paints, masking, tape, and some words to mount our watercolor paper to solve
that it doesn't buckle. I use white porcelain plate as palette and I like to mix my
watercolor paint this way, but you can use any palette
that you have at hand. And other optional
but very handy tool is this tiny spray model. It allows me to quickly wet
my paints and keep washes wet for long enough to create watercolor effects
will need salt. Mine is just a
regular table salt. Either use the one that has grain and he's not
completely ground. These influences how the
effects form on your paper. Paper towels come in handy when you paint with
watercolor too, as well as hairdryer, which allows me to
work a little quicker not having to wait for
washes to dry naturally. And if you have a ruler at hand, this will help us
in this class too. As my approach to
drawing the wolf demo won't be completely
free hand this time. And let's not forget a
jar with clean water. Those are all the materials
that we'll be using an AI complete list of them can be downloaded
from the tab, projects and
resources down below. In the following lesson, I'll
show you specific colors that we'll be painting with and how can we fix some of them? I'll see you there.
4. Color selection & mixing: In this lesson, we'll discuss particular colors will
need for this class. I picked a limited palette so
that you don't have to buy a lot in case this is your
first watercolor experience, will be using only four paints and one of them is
completely optional. First one is raw sienna light. I use this one by
Daniel Smith and any light ocher shade
you have is fine. We need something that is not bright yellow but
rather subtle shade more on the brown side, all watercolors become lighter as you add more water to them. Next color is Van **** brown, and I love this one by
shrinking horror them. Alternatively pick
any dark brown that you have on your palette. I like to use Van ****
brown because it is one of the darkest browns and it is
cooler than most of them, which I think suits
this class perfectly. Next one is Payne's gray
by Winsor and Newton. This is dark gray with
bluish undertone. It's one of my all-time
favorites for its versatility. And if you decide to buy this particular shade
even in a small tube, then you won't regret it. But in case you don't
have Payne's gray, you can pick something similar. Darker blue color is a much better option than
any type of black here. So please reach
for blue instead. Last color is this oxide
black by Van Gogh. It is an inexpensive
color and it is important because of its
granulating ability, it's worth this ladder G stands for when you
swatch this paint, the pigment will separate
on your paper and creates a remarkable
grainy texture. This is a watercolor
effect in and of itself and will help us
create the fur of the wolf. But if you can get a
granulating paint like this, do not worry and just use
the previous three colors. The result will be a little smoother than with granulation, but you will still be
able to paint them. Oh, well, I also suggested
alternatives from other brands and you can find them listed in the materials
attachment in the tab, projects and
resources down below. Let's do a little
mixing exercise to see what combinations can we get from some of these shades. Actually, we don't need to
mix too much in this class, two out of four colors
will be used as they are. I usually squeeze
a little bit of paint onto my porcelain
palette and then keep spraying them with my spray bottle as they
progress is to keep them moist. Most of your watercolor
paints will re-read easily even if they previously
dried on your palette. Just loved to watch her seat on your palette
for a few minutes before you try work the
paint with your brush. Most of our mixing in
this class will be width, one, **** brown
and Payne's gray. I gradually add more
of the gray into the brown and blue swatches as I go to see the color change, you might not see
the subtle changes on the video as much
as I do in reality, you will notice a
difference on your paper, especially if you
add more water to the mix to reveal
the color properly. This combination can create a beautiful steel
kind of cool gray, which is perfect for
the, for the wolf. I really love this color. We'll use the raw
sienna and oxide black as they are
in our painting. And so we don't need to
mix them with others. Now that you have all
your tools, colors ready, join me in the next
video lesson to do a few exercises
in which I show you a variety of beautiful watercolor
effects. I'll see you there.
5. Creating watercolor special effects: In this lesson, I
want to show you some really beautiful and
interesting watercolor effects that you can create within
just a few seconds, this exercise will help
you understand how watercolor effects work
in the first place. Repair a piece of watercolor
paper first and mount it to your board using masking tape so that the paper
doesn't buckle. If you are using
a watercolor pad that has papers securely
glued together, masking tape is not
needed for this step. However, we are going to be
using masking tape to split the paper within
four departments to try out different effects. Let's paint a simple
watercolor wash here. I'm going to be using mix of Payne's gray and Van
**** brown for this and just make sure
that the paint is watered down before you use it. Load the brush with paint and then color in the rectangle. Whenever you're painting
with watercolor, always make sure that the
paint flows a little. Your wash should still be
wet and shiny when you're done painting it and
not dry immediately. That is how you know that
you watered it down enough. Alright, now this
part is important. When your voice shines, that means it is wet,
That's all good. What we want to do
now is to wait for the moment when the
wash starts to be a little mat on the surface
but is not dry yet. Oftentimes you see it becoming mat around
the edges first, while the centre of the
rectangular steel shiny. Now, let's grab a pipette
or you can just use your brush for this
and add a few drops of clean water into the wash. Drops off
new wardrobe will now form this effect that's often referred to as
watercolor blooms. You might have noticed
that timing is very crucial for this
one to form nicely, because if you add the drops inside it totally
with worse than the new water just merges with the water that's already
sitting on your paper. So the effect doesn't happen. And obviously on an
already dried watch, the bloom effect
doesn't form at all. So you really need to look for that semi dry stage with this
one for the second effect, painting under wash and wait for the semi dry stage again, just like with the first wash, I'm going to be using an
alcohol for this one, this is a disinfectant
that is about 90% alcohol. So you can use something similar that you will find
around the house, add a few drops
inside the wet wash and watch the new effect form. This one is gorgeous and I
often use it to paint bubbles, flowers, nature textures, or just decorate backgrounds
in my paintings. Let's paint a third wash. But this time we are going to be working with it while
it's still wet. Grab the table sold we prepared and add a few grains inside it. You need to let
the salt there for about ten to 15 minutes for the effects to form
and look at it. So beautiful, you can use this in so many ways
in your paintings, but we're actually going to be taking advantage of
this as we paint our class project later on as the last effect I want to
show you is granulation, but I want to
compare the already granulating oxide black paint with a regular watercolor
that we forced to granulate. And you can do this by using a granulating medium and
mixing that with your paint. I'm painting the first
half of the rectangle with a mix of Payne's gray
and granulating medium. The second half is just
watered down oxide black. Now granulation is essentially when your watercolor
isn't smooth. But forums these
textured effects, while I said it is not a
must to complete this class, It's nice to know about it. And if you can get your hands on either granulating paint or a granulation medium to
mix with your own paints. It will definitely
help you to make the final class project
even more interesting. There you go. Let this
sheet of paper serve you as a sample of watercolor
special effects. In the next lesson, we'll
paint a simple exercise that will help us learn how
to use them in a painting.
6. Feather exercise: In this lesson, we
are going to be applying our knowledge of watercolor effects and using it to paint this
beautiful feather. So let's go feel free to grab a pencil and let's sketch a
very simple feather together. Nothing too complicated. Just make sure that you are not pressing the pencil against
the paper too much. We do not want referrals forming
in the watercolor paper. And in case that you make a mistake and wish
to using the eraser, the line should not be too bold, otherwise you're
going to risk that the line will show
through your paint. Those of you that do
not wish to sketch, bad one to skip to
painting right away. You can download my sketch
of the feather from the tab, projects and
resources down below. You can trace that sketch to watercolor paper and
just start painting. However, I always strongly encourage people to draw off and even simple things
as it helps build confidence in your skills and frees you up for expression. Now we are ready
to start painting, and I always add clean water to my paint
before every painting so they can moist in a bit and becomes softer, easier to mix. We're going to mix a transparent wash of paint and you can use raw sienna or just watered
down the Van **** brown. We are going to be painting a simple wet wash to the
entire body of the feather. But I want these words
to be super watery, meaning that it literally
has pools of water inside. This is because this gives
you so much more time to finish drawing those strings that the feather has all around. And for these, grabbed
the tiny brush and we are going to be
using the watercolor that is staying inside
this watch and just bullied outwards as
we draw the strings. I find this technique to
be the best way to draw the feather that has a
messy shape like this. While the watercolor
is still forms a seamless silhouette without hard edges dividing
parts of the feather. Of course, you can
take your time drawing these all around
the original wash. Just make sure that the edges of the initial wash don't dry. And if you need to,
you can just add more watercolor in it so
that it really stays wet. Now, look at the wash. When we're done drawing, it is still damp inside, which is just what we need to start creating some effects. First, will just be a plain
wet-in-wet technique. You can use any dark color for this and just place blobs of it inside the wet wash. You need to watch the paint and
how it behaves. Once you put it inside. If your wash is
totally watery than the dark paint will run
and run uncontrollably. If your wash is
semi dry, however, the paint will
still run a little, but mostly stays in one
place and forms a soft edge. This is how you control
watercolor by testing your timing and trying to add color in
different stages of wetness. You can also draw more strings
with the dark paint and also add drops of clean water
between the dark blobs. These will form the
watercolor bloom effect. And we can also add the alcohol. You already know how that's
done and it looks amazing. And to decorate the feather, I'm going to load my brush with transparent watercolor and let a few drops of watercolor fall all
around the feather. I liked this effect very much. And we're going
to let these dry. Wants the fader has dried. We can add a few
details and remember, details always need to
be added wet on dry, and that means painting on
a completely dry surface. You can use the hairdryer
to speed up the process. Just know that with
watercolor effects, they usually work
better if you let your painting dry naturally, the federal doesn't
need many details, but I want to add the darker
string to the middle. And for that I'm using a tiny brush to draw
in the dark line. You can then add
another layer of transparent paint too dark
and one part of the feather, once that is dry, the same on the other side, just leave that middle line
and painted and this will make it stand out as a
lighter part of the feather, which will make it
clearly visible. And there's the
finished feather. It looks lively and features multiple watercolor texture is created with the help
of special effects. I hope that you are excited
to what's coming next. Because now that we
know how to create these effects and already practiced to use
them in a painting. We are ready to paint
the final class project, and that is this
intriguing Wolf painting. In the next lesson
we're going to be creating sketch for it so that we can dive into
painting it right away.
7. The sketch: In this lesson, we're
going to be creating a sketch of the final
class project, the wolf. Our sketch will also
serve as a map or a guideline for not only the
shape of the wolf itself, but also how color and tone is distributed all
around the subject. And that will help us plan
the best painting approach. So let's get to it
for this class, I prepared a sketch template for you that you
can download from the TAP projects and
resources down below and then use as a guide to
follow along this lesson. This will allow you
to draw the wolf simplified and
proportionally correct. Then we can focus on the
watercolor painting. We are going to be
creating a sketch on a separate piece of paper, not the watercolor paper. I just used copy paper. I used a grid for this drawing. And it doesn't matter how
small or large your paper is. You can always
create a grid using your ruler in a two
to three ratio. For example, my paper is
rather small and so my grid is ten centimeters wide and
then 15 centimeters tall. Now when you have
the Grid outline divided into segments like
you see on the template, we're going to have four
quarters and each of those is divided into
another four quarters. And that makes a total of 16 rectangles that will serve as a grid to help us position the wolf silhouette
without much trouble. Once your grid is prepared, you can start sketching in the basic silhouette of the wolf with a
template and agreed, it is very straightforward
and it's not very hard to position each line
roughly where it belongs. The grid method is
very useful when you need to have a precise drawing and have a reference
that would be rather difficult to
sketch freehand. Alright, once the basic
silhouette of the wolf is done, now it would be
helpful for us to create a map of color tone. And what I mean by
that is to make a mark where there
are highlights, as well as where
the mid tones and the darkest darks of the
wolf are positioned. Don't always refers to whether the color
is light or dark. And if we blend the position of darks
and lights beforehand, it will be so much
easier for us to plan our watercolor layers. So let's do that now and use my template to find
all the areas. The lightest
highlights will be on the ear and then on
the cheek of the wolf, as well as underneath its mouth. Midtones are going to be
all around the place, actually on his nose, between nose and forehead. And then we'll be forming
the main mass of the fur. And the darkest darks will not be covering
such a large area, but there is a mid part in
its ear that is very dark, and the ear itself is dark. All around. Upper part of the
head is very dark. And then the eye, nose, and inside of his mouth too. You'll see shortly
how helpful it is to familiarize yourself with
the subject in this way, before you start painting
with watercolor scenes, we need to work
from light to dark because that's how
watercolor medium works. It is helpful to know
which parts need to be protected from the paint
straight from beginning. And then all the darks can be added as the last
part of the process because dark color can always go on top of the lighter color. So yeah, creating
a thorough sketch containing not only
the line work, but also a tone map helps
you greatly with painting. And I suggest that you
keep it by your side as a reference during
painting process. And now that the
sketch is finished, you can transfer it to your watercolor paper simply by tracing over the silhouette. I just used window for these
when there is a daylight, then you can see the sketch through your watercolor paper. Another option is using a light box or even
transfer paper. And we are not transferring the grid and not
even the tone map, only the silhouette of the wolf. The rest is just
a reference that we already have in
our mind a little. Now that we put so
much work into it, I sometimes tweak the sketch a little and make the
lines more visible. And then you can
mount it to the board or your table using
masking tape. Just make sure that
it is secured and really press it down
against the boards tightly. In the next lesson, we will dive into painting the first watercolor
wash. And we are just one large step closer to finishing our beautiful
watercolor Wolf painting. I'll meet you there.
8. Painting the fur: In this lesson, we are going to be painting the
first of the wolf, wet in wet and all
we need to create, the vast majority of this
painting is a single wet wash. Watercolor effects are exciting, and this painting definitely
demonstrates that. So let's go, Let's
prepare all four of our paints or
rewet them using a spray bottle and make
sure that you have the table salt also
prepared by your side. Always keep a tissue nearby when painting with
watercolor because that can really help you save
the painting in case that drops of paint get where
they don't belong. So we'll start by dampening the entire wolf silhouette
with clean water first, make sure that you only
wet the area where the wolf is placed and not
any parts of the background. Because we want to have
a clean silhouette. And now we can start
adding the lightest of our colors into the wet surface. And it's the raw sienna. Just make sure that you
water it down a little bit. It doesn't have to
be too saturated. I'm adding it to areas
between those that we marked as light and the
mid-tone is beautiful. Yellowish color will make
the wolf pop a little, Even though it is not the main color that we will
use for the mid-tones. Here, I like to use the combination of Payne's
gray and Van **** brown, but remember to water it
down because this is mixdown that we are painting now and
it can't be too dark yet. Here you can also refine
the edge of your rewards by drawing a few
individual first shrinks. Even though we are
working wet in wet, and this causes
our colors to have seamless transitions
between them. We tried to avoid
all the areas that we marked in our
sketch as light zone. You don't have to panic if the
paint accidentally bleeds. They're just tried
to lifted with a damp brush to keep
that area really light. But in general, I always make sure to have
the wolf silhouette, the damp and never dry, however, never filled with standing
pools of water because this will make it impossible
to keep color in one place. If you have pools of water on your painting at any moment, get rid of the excess
with your brush. Immediately, I
filled the rest of the midtone area on the wolves back with the
granulating oxide black. And look how nicely
the granulation shows. This effect already
reminds you of for, but we're not stopping here. Let's build the tone
a bit more towards more contrast while
the wash is still wet, just makes sure that the
wash doesn't dry on new. I'm using the same mix
of brown and gray, just adding more pigment
and a little less water. Now, still not the
darkest value yet. The thing with how the
color behaves in a wet wash is that even though it seems
very dark when you add it, which is almost scary. After a while, the color
starts fading away. It spreads inside
that wash and you'll notice that your
contrast is gone. And let's fill in the darker
areas around the ears, as well as the parts of the head marked as
dark on our sketch. Trust me, in a few minutes, we will have to add
more paint into the dark parts because this
one will really fade quickly. Now once your colors are placed, you can add table salt to the water and let
it rest for a bit. Maybe only a minute or two depends on how hot
is in your room. But we don't want the
world to dry just yet. Only get away from that
totally wet stage to the semi wet so that we
can add the darkest paint. I'm tweaking the tone
around the nose and mouth and now it's time to
add my darkest darks. And this time around, it's very intense and pigmented mix of Payne's gray and
Van **** brown. You should know
already where to place the darkest darks as we
have our tone map and hand. And by the way, this
mix doesn't need to contain so much
water because this time the paint is
supposed to stay dark and so it
can't be as watery. A common problem here is
to keep the light parts separate from the dark as they meet in this spot
around the ear. My solution is to
keep on removing the extra paint that blood
away with a damp brush. I even add clean water inside the light area which
prevents paint to leak in. Here you see me cleaning
up the light areas a little and let me stress
this one more time. Your wash cannot
contain pools of water that will make it very hard to keep coloring
in one place, rather, keep it
consistently damp, but not overly soaked. Here, I add more dark paint to create stripes
on the wolf's for, and also you can draw a separate first drinks in the wolf's belly
where your wash ends. Just like we did with
the federal exercise. This will create a nice
natural looking at silhouette. You can add more
salt to the wash Once you placed all the
colors where they belong. And it's time to let the
watercolor do its job. So just let it rest
and dry naturally, this might take even
up to three hours, depends on how hot
is in your room. And once our wolf is dry, I will meet you in the next
lesson when we'll finish it together by adding a few
details and final touches. You are so close. I can't wait.
9. Painting the details & final touches: In the final lesson
of this class, Let's finish our class
project together and paint a few details and final
touches to the Wolf painting. Look how nicely the salt
dried with our colors. It created a beautiful mosaic
that visually looks like differ and the
painting really isn't nearly finished at this point. All that's left is to add
a few tweaks and details. But before we
continue adding them, make sure that you remove
all the salt from the paper. Just brush it off with
a tissue or my hand. Let's first color in those dark parts on the
nose and the mouth. And you can use the mix of Payne's gray and Van
**** brown for this, this process is pretty
straightforward. We are painting on the
dry surface this time around so the paint is
not running anywhere. And I suggest that you can use a smaller brush for this part. Here I decided that the
nose was a little too light and so I added a thin
wash of paint to darken it. I'm also drawing in a few dots on the
wolf's nose and mouth. Here, you can paint his
eye and since it's closed, it will have a
very simple shape. Since the previous
wash was wet and all the colors bled
into one another, the ear of the wolf
isn't separated from the rest of the body with
a clear distinctive line. And the way we added
that separation is by painting in the dark
shadow underneath the ear. And once I draw in that shadow, the outer edge needs to be smooth and with a damp brush so that it will become seamlessly blended with
the rest of the body. Another nice detail, but
not completely necessary, is to draw in a few
individual strings with a transparent paint so that the year appears
to have a little more for around the white areas. You can also add splatters. I do this with
loading my brush with transparent paint and then
tapping my brush so that the excess watercolor
lens on my paper I don't want it drops can be
removed with a paper towel. Since the paper is dry, once everything is a 100% dry, you can slowly remove
the masking tape that holds your painting
secured against the board. And you're just made me
incredibly proud because look at the lovely watercolor
piece we created together. Hopefully yours turned out
even better than mine. And while your class
project is now finished, if you enjoyed this
technique and wants to experiment with it
a little further, look for three bonus lessons
in the end of this class. In those three lessons, we will paint a little
more advanced painting of the wall from the front view will be even more interesting. And you can learn so much by following along
that process too. But of course that
one is completely optional, though
highly recommended. And I hope that I
will see you there.
10. Final thoughts: I very much appreciate
all your hard work and effort that you
put in this class. I hope the class
encourage you to experiment with watercolor
effects a little bit. And then I managed to show you just how versatile and plan they can be if things did not
work out on your first try, you can always give
it another go. Remember, practice is key to building your skills over time. I really tried to live by the motto, practice
makes perfect. And if you share that sentiment, you can join me in the
following three bonus lessons during which we will paint
another wolf painting. This time is going to
be the front view, which is a little
more complex but still very manageable
even for beginners. And we will go through
the entire process from the sketch until the very
last detail of the painting. Make sure to take a photo or a scan of your final
class project and then upload it to the
project gallery down below so that I can see it
and give you feedback. Also, object classmates can see it and give you a comment. I always love to see
what you create. You can also tag me on
Instagram and that gives me the opportunity to reshare your work with all my followers. Any additional questions
that you might have are more than welcome. We have a discussion section
down below the class for just that purpose and to
keep in touch with me for the future updates and
new watercolor classes. Follow me here on
Skillshare also, so that you'll get
notified once I publish a fresh new
watercolor class, I really hope to
see you next time.
11. Bonus lesson - The sketch: In the first bonus lesson, we are going to create the
sketch of the second Wolfe. This time from the front view, you can skip creating
the sketch completely, download my template
and trace it to your watercolor paper to be able to paint the
wolf right away. Prepare your drawing tools just like we did with
the first sketch. I like to sharpen my pencil
with a knife sometimes and then use sandpaper to
create a really sharp tip. We're going to
create a grid again. I'm using a ruler for this and this time
around the greed, It's to have three
to four ratio, which means that if you have your grid nine centimeters wide, it needs to be 12
centimetres long as you can create your sketch on paper
of any size if you wish, just stick to the
three to four ratio. So this is the template I created for you and
you can download it from the projects and resources
tab down below the class. Just like we did with
the first sketch, these grid also needs
to be divided within four quarters and each quarter into another four quarters, leaving us with 16 rectangles. And those will help you find and properly position all
the important parts of the wolf's head. If you are unsure
about the position of those key elements
like eyes and nose, and you feel those
rectangles are too big to find eyes
quite precisely, feel free to divide those central rectangles
into more smaller sections, and that will ensure the
most accurate result. But here I want to encourage you to take your
time and not rush things as this is a portrait and symmetry matters
quite a lot. I like with a profile view
that we painted earlier. Attention to the overall
shape of the eyes, I would say that the
general shape can remind you of a triangle
that is carved into, but those eyes are really
curved down towards the nose. Now that we've positioned the most important landmarks
of the wolf's face. Let's map out which areas
will be a highlight, which will be part
of the midtone and which are the darkest. Use my template as a guide. So the lightest areas are around his eyes then cheeks,
very lightest. Also the part below wolf's
mouth and around his nose, highlights even though
little less important, will be also around the
middle part of his ear. Darkest darks will be his nose, and then some accents
around the mouth. Obviously, eyes
are very dark and then part of the fur on
the sides of the face, darkest darks that really stand out here are inside
of every year. And then there are dark accents all around his silhouette. Framing the portrait between his eyes will be
darker mid-tone, and everything between
the darkest darks and the light parts
will be midtone. Also, in this stage, I like to use precision
eraser to clean things up. Make the portrait sketch
as neat as possible to avoid problems with shape
during the painting process, it is better to notice problems here at the sketching
stage and fix them. Because once you start placing color on top of your linework, it is very difficult to
fix proportional mistakes, but once you are a 100%
sure everything checks out. It is time to prepare your watercolor paper and let's
trace the sketch to wait. You already know how to do this. You can either use a
light box like IM, since I have one in my studio. Or the most handy
method is just trace using daylight on top
of your window glass. Tracing paper works well
also, when it's done, I just lightly go over the lines again on my
watercolor paper to make sure that they will
be visible enough once I start painting
over the sketch. And you can now
mounted the paper to the board or table
using masking tape. And in the following
bonus lesson, we are going to paint
the first wash, and I'll see you there.
12. Bonus lesson - Painting the fur: We are ready to
start painting now and in this lesson we
are going to create the front of the wolf with the generous help of
watercolor effects, mainly using salt and
granulation process will be very similar to
the first wolf we painted. Only there is going
to be more areas of light and shadow
to focus on and you'll have to pay
more attention to preserving the light
areas. Let's go. We'll start by wetting
the entire silhouette of the wolf because the first layer needs to be painted wet in wet, this allows colors to bleed and merge into one
another seamlessly. I still need to remind
you to care for the amount of water you have
on your paper at all times? No pools of water, please. The surface needs to be
damp but not soaking wet. You can always remove the excess with your
brush if you need to. Another bad extreme
is dry surface. Try avoiding that to
keep the paper wet during the entire painting
process of the first layer, very first color is
a raw sienna light, and I placed it around
the light areas. It will shine through
the darker colors that we are adding later on. Second color that needs to go in right away is that granular, I think oxide black. Again, if you don't
have granulating paint, just use a watered
down brown color. This will represent
your midtones. I'm placing it everywhere
besides the lightest areas, so I'm avoiding cheeks, that part around the
eyes and ears that we marked on our
sketches light also this color does not belong below the mouth as that is
also a very light area. I'm even covering the
darkest areas with this midtone color because the dark accents can
always go on top of that. You can always add the darker color on top
of anything light enough. Just remember that
when you're at this stage of the
painting process, as opposed to the profile view that we did as our
class project. You will notice that
suddenly you are maneuvering inside a much
tighter spots than before. And that is because of
the delicate features of the eyes, nose, and mouth. And you are also
challenged to keep the paint more or
less symmetrical. If you add paint on one side of the portrait and not the other, it will immediately
look strange. So keep that in mind and
you really need to work on both sides at the same time
and focus on keeping them, even, especially
around the eyes. Important part of how I
keep the paint away from the highlights because it's wet surface and the
pain doesn't ask you, it runs straight into
the highlighted area. And so I guard them
with a damp brush and consistently remove
the paint from them, but try to do it the
way I do and not with a tissue that would
make those areas to dry and you'd get different kinds of
problems in your painting like Latinas and patchy
look in sports this way, the color that stays
around the highlights circles them nicely and
creates a soft transition. Here I'm adding
more mid-tone color to the nulls and a bit
to the mouth also, while everything is wet, don't forget to add table salt and we will let this wash dry. Now, I decided to paint it in two layers this time
so that it gets easier for you to add the darkest
darks and everything will not get blurred
into one watery mess. So now we wait while the salt crystallizes and
we will continue. Once everything is dry, you have to remove
the salt and then wet the silhouette
of the wolf again, the previous layer of paint
will and should stay intact. I actually didn't wet the ears, just did because I
wanted to paint in the silhouette that is
more or less sharp. And this way it gets easier. But when you add
color inside the ear, that one you can blur
slightly with a damp brush. I'm using the mix of Van **** brown and Payne's
gray for this one, as we are already adding
darkest darks here, these techniques I'm
about to show you is important to
adding details to any watercolor
painting and relies on you ending in the
color where it belongs. Then soften the edge of
the new paint to create a seamless transition between underpainting and the new wash. This is what you need to do, especially when adding new
paint to the ears to make the dark paint
nicely and precisely seed where it needs to
just look at our sketch. And that provides you
with info on where exactly the darkest
axons needs to be. You don't need to soften the edge of the new
paint everywhere. For example, that
outline of the ear is basically sharp on both
sides and it's fine. But inside of the
ear already needs to join in the underpainting
more suddenly. So that's where you should
try to apply this technique. Also, notice that there are areas we're just placing
the paint won't do. But we also need to
indicate that this is, this is the middle
part of the ear, for example, here is
a very dark space, but it can also show some
of the first strings. So I'm using the tip of
my brush to indicate that as you are adding color around the
edges of the wolf, the edge here cannot
stay straight either. We will have to make it
look like the edge of four. And we'll do that with the same technique we used
during the federal exercise. And if your brush
has a sharper tip, you won't even have to
switch to a tiny brush. I'm adding darkest darks
to the top of wolf's head. This is one spot where you won't have to worry
about symmetry, but be mindful of the edge on
top of this area will also need to suggest
the first strings with your brush just
like we did before. I'm also removing the
excess paint from below the ear area that's
on sides of the head. This area should stay
light if possible, otherwise, the head might
have troubles looking around. So just make sure that these
areas, there's light. Here. I'm adding darker paint to
the size of the wolf's head. We are still working into the wet surface so that the
colors can bleed a little. I have my damp brush to
help me push the paint back and forth and try my best
to keep it in one place. I'm also constantly adding water to the areas that seem
like they are about to dry to prevent
getting hard edges of watercolor inside
of the wolf's head. All we want here are
seamless transitions between areas of darker
and lighter paint. Another reminder is to keep on adding a bit of table
salt here and there. As the paint dries in areas, the salt should be already
crystallizing in there. Don't wait until
everything is ready. Every time you move the salt
crystals with your brush, they might stop showing a
consistent crystalline effects. So that is one thing that can influence how they affect shows. And that is why I keep on adding salt as I go into areas that I previously painted
and don't wait until all the color is in place. And other two common problems is adding the salt
into the dry area. The effect really
needs water to show, so that will
influence the result. And the last one is adding
salt into too much water. If you're salts, seats
in pools of water, it also won't show
the effect because it will melt before
the water evaporates. Here is a good example
of how to paint the Fourier silhouette
width, tinier brush. And another trick to keep
certain areas light and prevent color bleeding into
them is to add a bit of clean water
into that area. In my experience,
the new water helps to push the pigment away
from the light spot, but always try to observe
what your paint does, how it behaves, and
act accordingly. Painting into the wet surface is quite an advanced technique and they take some practice,
but mainly patients, even a beginner when patiently observing the behavior
of his watercolor, can progress so quickly
with this method. But to help you feel
more at ease with this, I want to emphasize that when your paper is sufficiently wet, it will let you
work on this layer for at least 20 minutes, which is quite a lot
of time for you to make as many adjustments
as you might need. The real stress is only
when the paper isn't wet, keeps drying on you. So that is my biggest tip for you when dealing
with this layer. And let's paint in one more dark area and
that these nose area, my paper is a little
bit dry in this area, but I will soften
the new paint with a damp brush to
seamlessly blended in. And after lots of
corrections and adjustments, I think we are ready to sprinkle last bits of salt
into the wet paint and loved the
portrait rest a bit until the salt
crystallizes again. In the very last bonus lesson, I will show you how to finalize these beautiful wolf
portrait so that you can enjoy the results
of your hard work. At last, I will see you there.
13. Bonus lesson - Painting details: I now you get a lot of
work on our second Wolf. And in this lesson we're going to finish the painting together. We will be doing a
few final touches and then adding details of the
eyes, nose, and mouth. I will also show
you how to decorate the wall painting
with splatters. After the firm has dried, I was not quite satisfied
with how the neck turned out and thought it was missing
and under Pope of paint. So I'm adding another
layer of color here, but only to this area, adding salt and letting
it crystallized, jet-lagged in the
previous layer, I think now the face
itself might pop even more because this contrast
will definitely help. It's time to fill in those
dark parts of the eyes. I'm doing this with tiny brush and always on a dry surface, we want a nice
sharp detail here. The nose itself will also
need to be filled with color. But note that the
darkest one just yet I mix was a little
darker than mid tone. Here I'm adding a
bit more color to the wet nose area to
get it a little darker. Here I'm grabbing the edge of the yellow circle with
a damp tiny brush to get those edges
merger Lidl and that will create a nice
soft transition. And this technique
I'm about to show you is called lifting. I use it to create additional highlights
on the Woolf's Nose. I just rub a small area with a tiny damp brush and then lift the pigment
with a tissue. Now the nose is ready for
those darkest darks and I'm adding them with a tiny
brush color in the nostrils. And I joined those two shapes into one darker
shadow below them. You need to pay attention
here and be more precise. Try coloring within the
lines as well as you can. Here I'm painting in the mouth. It really isn't all that dark, but I'm trying to create
a soft transition. Make it stand out a little from the light area next to it. This is how it should
look like in the end, the bottom part of the mouse
needs to be painted on dry surface to preserve
that hard edge. Hairdryer is the biggest helper. When I paint the details, I keep it by my side
at all times to be able to quickly
make any area dry. Laugh. Touches include
drawing in the pupils, emphasizing the
line of the mouth. And I also added those tiny dots that whiskers usually grow from. There are definitely
a nice addition. Probably the most
challenging detail is drawing in the whiskers
with tiny brush. My best tip for this
is to draw a thin line with paint that is more
transparent than to dark. This way, if you are
satisfied with the shape, you can draw over it
with darker paint. And if you mess up the line, it won't be visible too much. I always get a little nervous when painting in
details like this, knowing that once I draw
them with watercolor, I can't quite get rid of
that paint and correct them. It might help you to
draw them first with pencil and then just
color in that shape. Final batch are those
lovely white highlights in the eyes and a
bit on the nose end. Adding them with my gel pen. Here I'll show you how to create additional decorations
to this painting to make the final effect loop a bit more playful and emphasize
watercolor medium. But this is completely
optional as some of you might like
the clean portrait more. I load my larger brush with
a transparent paint and have a bit of excess paint
drop on my painting. Then I blow into a
few drops to make the splatter explode in
multiple directions. You can practice this first on a spare piece of
watercolor paper. I liked this effect so much, but if any splatter,
it doesn't look good. You can just get rid of it with a tissue if you act quickly now only to let it
dry and then we can safely remove
the masking tape. If you go to this point
in my class and finished, even these advanced
bone is less than congratulations to you and I'm really impressed by
all your hard work. It won't be long before
you're mastering the watercolor medium with all its magical
quirks, it offers us. I hope you are mesmerized with both simple effects
like using salt in your watercolor can
do for your painting and that you will find a place
for it in your own works. And I really hope to see you
in my next watercolor class.
Jane-Beata Watercolor, Watercolor artist & teacher
