Learn to paint an EASY starfish

1. Starfish Introduction: Hi everyone. I'm Krista. I have been teaching hundreds of people how to paint and my in-person painting events like paint instant parties, birthday parties, mom's night outs, and church events. Well, I have taken my family on the road to explore the country and our RV. I call myself a wandering artists. I guess. I couldn't leave my love for teaching people how to paint behind. So I set up a mobile studio to offer you my easy step-by-step painting instructions online. I will provide you with current to trend artwork lessons, holiday lessons, abstract lessons, and even some lessons for the kiddos to my instructions will have a full list of all the supplies you will need, where to find them, how to use them in detailed instructions. On each stage of the painting, I have a unique style and easy approach and I know you will be proud to hang your artwork on the walls and not hide it in a closet. So grab your brushes and follow along and let's go paint. 2. Part 1 Painting Background: All right, Today I'm going to show you how to paint this abstract. Said sunflower, star fish painting. We're going to use a combination of brushes. We're going to use this big flat brush for our background. A smaller flat brush for different part of the background. A fan brush for our splatters are angled brush for our Starfish and this round brush for the highlights. So that is a number eight round brush, a fan brush. Number. Elizabeth doesn't have a number, a medium-size flat brush, a half inch angle brush, and a one-inch flat brush. And the color is, we're going to use our this midnight blue antique parchment. Cameo pink, pink blush, navy blue. Alright, let's get started from this slide is one over push paper here. Okay. Take your flat brush and dip it into the midnight blue. You're going to start here in the corner and work your way in. You can see that we're just focusing on this outer area. I'm going to add a little water to my brush to make it a little more transparent as I get. That changed, it makes it really transparent, thinner. Now, these first layers are going to be, you know, you're gonna be like what are we doing? Just looks terrible. Um, you just have to keep going and just trust it. Add more water to my brush. Now I want to start thinking about my Shoreline. I wanted to kinda just naturally happen. What I don't want to do is go make it all nice and perfect. Shores are never perfect or the beach line is never perfect. So I want some areas of some areas of water and some areas of the deep blue, some areas of the dark blue summaries of the light blue, which we're about to add. Oh, I forgot the light blue. Here it is. Cabana stripe. I'm not even going to clean my brush. I'm just gonna go right in and start applying the balloon. And I kinda want them to mix and melt. Okay. You want to keep the lighter color in this area and you want the darker to be over here, but you can still blend them. You just don't want to overplan does what I'm saying. I dipped my brush back into my dark because I want to keep that corner dark. I do need it to be a little more mixed. Can also add a little bit of water to your brush that would help them to get your canvas too wet though, because then it'll take forever to dry for the next step. So what I don't like to see on this particular background is this strokes. I don't. For this background, I want it to be relatively smooth. So I'm just gonna go over it in one direction. And just do that. For this next part. What I'm gonna do is I'm not even going to use a brush. I'm actually going to dip my fingers into this green, the Cabana stripe, this light green. And I'm just going to come around here and follow this edge. I'm just going to model it a little bit, just dabbing, smashing it around. I'm bringing some right up to the edge of this blue line that I created with my brush. You can bring some back in here too. You don't want to do separate little fingerprints of course, but just smoosh it around. I like to say the word smooshed. If you get too much paint on your finger, you can just dip it in paint and then just like dip it on a rag real quick. Hello friend. Sorry about that. Drag that back. I have just a tiny bit of paint on my fingers. Okay. I'm going to let that dry for a minute. 3. Part 2 Painting Background: We're going to move on to the sand. So I'm gonna get my smaller flat brush and dip it into the caramel color. My gosh, this right here, classic caramel. Got to tell you that one too. Okay. Now we're just going to put on some paint. Now, put some water on your brush so it extends the life of your paint a bit. And you're going to just come up to the blue, but not all the way up to the blue. We're just gonna go almost there. Sure that you guys can see. Now, I love to paint abstract paintings because it can be sloppy, it can be messy. It does not have to be perfect. I don't do anything perfect. Anymore. Paint. When you're working with paint and you're putting some on your palette. I just have this paper plate. Super cheap, doesn't have to be fancy. When I had my studio, I actually had this big slab of glass which I loved. And I can't wait to get back there and use it again. But for this purpose, this paper plates, since I'm traveling, I can throw it away. It's lightweight because weight is a problem and I don't have to worry about it anymore. Worried about breaking or I can just when it gets dirty, I can just replace it. Also when you're working with painters, the whole reason why we started talking about paint, I got distracted. I got distracted. Don't use globs and globs of paint. Like just that's the size of a dime. That's all I used and I'm going to have leftovers. So you can always add more paint, but you can't take it away. And paint is expensive and we don't want to waste our stuff. It's always better just to not do that. So see that white line. That's gonna be our shoreline. When we're, when we're done, we're going to come back and put in with our fingers again, a smudgy layer of that white paint. Or it's actually going to be the the antique parchment, which I'm going to go ahead and do right now. Am I know should I go into that now? Okay. So I'm gonna make sure that I have no brown on my fingers and I don t, We're good. We're just going to the image are C Now, I feel like that's too much paint, so I'm going to dab it on my little rag here and then go in. And I'm just going to follow this white line. I can go over it. Into the blue, into the brown. We're just following him. That's way too much pink, but that's okay. I'm just work with it. You don't want to make any kind of pattern because then it'll just look to Maggi. Maggi. I'm wiping off my finger because I got into that blue paint that was still wet and it's turning my phone turning my waves of foam color, which is good. They sometimes our phone colors and didn't want that. That's okay. Don't stress. We're just let it dry. The key that happens, that's, that's the key. It's something like that happens. You just let it dry and then you can go over it again. You cannot go over it and fix it with wet paint that just makes a hot and muddy mess. Wet paint just moves wet paint. It doesn't. You'll just end up mixing it and getting all frustrated. Did I do it again? No, I didn't. Okay. And so just let it dry or you can sometimes use a baby wipe to actually wipe off paint. It was a fun fact for, you know. Baby wipes can sometimes do that. So if that happens, you can try to use a baby wipe. I don't know. It just depends on the situation. If you're comfortable using baby wipes in that fashion or not, then that might be something you could do, but I typically just let it dry because honestly, I don't have babies anymore. I'm done. Now. I know you're thinking, well, that just looks like a hot mess and it kinda does. But when we add our final touches, you'll see again, I'm just kinda coming on this backline and just smudging it into that bluish areas so that it doesn't look so spotted, I guess is the word I'm trying to be used. Okay. So I have my angled brush here and I don't know if you can see, but it's kind of fuzzy, which because I smush a lot with it and that's what we're gonna do now. I'm going to add a little bit of this cream paint to my brown and see how it's marbled. We're just going to smash that paint into my brush. And we're going to put some texture into our sand. Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to come up to this shoreline, but I don't want to come all the way up to it because it will create a shadow. And I'll show you on this painting if you can see it. Um, do you see that right there, that shadow line? So that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna come up close to that area, but we're not gonna go into it. This is weird. It's like a canvas papers the first time I've ever used it. I don't know if I like it or not. I think for certain things I like it, but I don't maybe if I'm going to frame something in a firm frame to keep it its shape. I would use it, but I like these £180 paper better I think anyway, squirrel. Okay. So we're going to start down here and we're just going to work our way up. If you feel like your sand is too light, just add more brown and fix it. Again. I'm not using any special technique. I'm literally just going smashing my paint down because I want the sand to kinda have a little bit of texture. But I don't want it to be all smooth, cl close. I'm getting to that line and it's okay if you do touch, that's fine. Sometimes my hands passes out. You know what? I'm going to rinse my brush because I'm seeing pink paint from my other painting and dig a second ago. I don't want pink, Stan. Is that a thing? Thank. Sandy beaches and others. Black sand and white sand. I think there's red sand in Maui, but pink. Something interesting. Okay. Alright, so I'm just going to follow this wavy line. It is a wave. So what I did there. Okay. As I get closer to this corner, I'm gonna be adding more brown because I want it to be shaded over here. Like shade here and shade here just gives the painting kind of a movement in a dimension. Smushed mush, mush. Sorry, I get bored. A little earlier it was storming and my dog is afraid of storms. So I had to literally the storm to go away because he's whining was so loud. I couldn't record anything. I'm probably moving the table. I'm sorry. I didn't think about that until just now. You're getting dizzy yet? I normally would use my GoPro because I love it. It's actually quite amazing I've just discovered in, but it's passing out right now. I'm a little frustrated with my GoPro. They're expensive and it's not working. And I feel like if I'm going to spend that money on stuff, I want it to work. I feel like my sand is a little too white right here, so I'm just adding some more brown to get that list creamy, look out of there. Okay, see how it looks more like a wave. It has a little bit of a shadow underneath it. So the fun part is coming over here with your fan brush, dip it in some water. And you're going to dip it into this foamy green color. Right? Now. This is where we get really messy and funds. So make sure you are in an area where like your surfaces are covered. We're just going to flick it onto the watered area. Then we're going to do the same thing in the white. And you don't even have to rinse your brush. And we're going to click it right around the foamy area. And it's okay if some gets on your sand. You can do this as much or as little as you want. You'll find that is alright, so next step is the most boring step of all. We got to let it dry. We're going to let this dry. And then we'll do the starfish. 4. Painting the Starfish: Okay, one thing you're going to learn about me is I'm super impatient and I hate to let things dry. It's just the way I am, but I think that's dry enough. Okay, so what we're gonna do now is work on our Starfish. So we're gonna get this pink blush color. Put a little bit on your palate about a dime sized. Get your let's see. I use my angle brush earlier, but I feel like it was just a little too big. So maybe we'll use this guy first this time. So this is your six round brush. I struggled with that. On my other painting, I feel like my starfish was too fat. Okay, anyway. So now what you need to decide is where you're going to put your starfish. I like to have things hanging off the page, especially when you're doing an abstract, I just feel like it creates movement and interest in your picture, in your painting, but you don't have to. You can make a little star fish right here. I'm going to make a bigger starfish with the center being about right here and an arm coming here, maybe an arm going there, an arm there and an arm going out and an arm going off. That's just the way I like to do things. So I'll give you an example. I'll show you the example I should say. So see how he just kinda went off the page. I like to do things like that, but again, you don't have to and you can make them a little smaller. You can do this whole shape of a starfish, or you can do the long round starfish. The one with a longer arms. That's completely up to you to do whatever you want. It's your painting, right? I'm going to do, let's see. Maybe I will show you. I think I'm gonna do the long arm starfish. I haven't done that. I've always done the big fat armed one, so we'll do the long arm, see how it goes. And if I don't like it, we can always paint over it, right? Alright, so I'm going to start here. Now you'll notice it's a little opaque and that's okay. This is just our first layer. It'll get better. Let's see. They don't all have to be perfectly rounded or straight line, I should say. Probably looks better if it's a little organic looking. I think I will do that on this one too. Just make him a little less perfect. There we go. I'm going to turn my page. There'll be afraid of doing that. Let's see. I want this guy do I want him to come down here or go out this way? I think I'll come down here where he's almost off the page. Okay, now, these guys are going to want him to go straight up and down. Let's think. This guy, this arm first, pretend we're going out, will come back in. My browser, made him way too big. So I'm just putting in another layer of the same pink over what has already dried so that he's not so a pagan. We don't see that. Ocean underneath them. There are some colors that are really transparent. Yellow is one, oranges another. Sometimes pink. I guess. That's happens when you use cheap paint like I do, right? I'm gonna make this guy a little better right there. We go. Starting to thunder again and the distance. He's going to freak out again. I don't like this arm. Do I let me look at it without the glare. Know what, it's fine. Okay. So now we're gonna go into our candy. Hey, cameo pink, sorry. And put some highlights on him. He doesn't have to be dry. So this is the cameo pink. So we're just going to kind of outline him a little, give them a little highlights on his arms. You don't want to carry the stripes into the center. Because then he starts to look weird. If you do that accidentally, you can always go back with that dark paint and fix it. I made that one a little brighter because I want your eye to go down. Okay, so for this big old fat guy, what I think I'm gonna do is just bring the highlight in a tad and let's see if that helps. And also take some paint off. That's better. So what you can do is just take your same paint and go into the Antique White and just give him some dots everywhere, like some random little dots. Not you don't have to do his entire body. Just make it real. Dog is growing in his sleep. Now, take that same parchment white and you're gonna give him even more highlights. A little light, a light hand this time. Just kinda around the edges. You don't want to do too much in the middle since your dots are there. Okay? Now what I like to do is come here and put the darker. I'm not going to rinse my brush. And I'm just going to make him have some texture on his back. I'm going to pick up a little bit of the white. I moved my risk because everything was sideways. So I'm just going to pick it up, pick my brush up and just dab. You can carry it down into the arms. Just to give him a little bit of texture. I'm gonna go back into my dark pink and just do another layer of that just in the center because I want the center to be darker. And remember, your paint will dry darker it as well. Alright, so I'm happy with the starfish. What I am going to do is get my fan brush again and go back into the Antique White paint with my wet fan brush and put more splatters on the starfish. Have splatters. Okay. Ready? That was probably a little a little much. But you know what? There you go. In like what, ten minutes we had a painting rather than dry time. Alright, so I hope you guys enjoyed it.