Transcripts
1. Welcome To The Class!: Hello, everyone. My name is Will Eston and welcome to
this Skillshare class. In this class, I'll
be taking you through my process of painting
this colorful woodpecker. You'll learn something new, whether you're a
beginner to watercolor, and follow me each step. Already have some experience. I want to add your own
interpretation to this painting. I'll share plenty of tips
throughout and you'll learn new ways to improve
your painting skills. Join me in discovering more exciting watercolor
possibilities. I've been a professional watercolor artist
for many years now, exploring many
different subjects, from wildlife and portraits to cityscapes and
countryside scenes. I've taken part in many
worldwide exhibitions and been lucky enough to win awards from well-respected
organizations, such as Winsor and Newton, the International
Watercolor Society, the Masters of
Watercolor Alliance, and the SAA, Artists of the Year Award. I also have collectors that buy my paintings around the world. Watercolor can be
intimidating for beginners. My aim is to allow
you to relax and have fun learning this
medium step-by-step. Hopefully, by the end, you'll surprise yourself
with a nice painting. At this class feels too
intimidating or too simple. Please check my
other classes as I have them available
across all levels. My approach to watercolor
starts off loose and expressive with no fear
of making mistakes, because we're just creating exciting textures,
the underlayer. Then as the painting goes on, we'll add more details, bringing the painting to
life and making it pop. I tried to simplify
complicated subjects into easier shapes that
encourages playfulness. I've purposely chosen
this woodpecker as a way to explore
vibrant colors. We'll see how these
colors relate to each other and how you can make
your paintings really pop. The approach we'll be
exploring in this class is adaptable and can be used with other birds you
may wish to paint. When combined with
the techniques demonstrated in
my other classes, you're painting ability
will improve dramatically. When you enroll in my class, I'll give you the
high resolution image of my painting to
use as a guide. Today's focus is about
painting rather than drawing. I have included templates
you can use to help you sketch out the
drawing before you paint. I'll also include
my color charts, which are an invaluable tool when it comes to choosing
and mixing colors. Throughout this class, I'll be sharing plenty of
tips and tricks. I'll show you how to use
mistakes to your own advantage. Taking the stress out of the
painting and having fun. I'll explain which
supplies I'll be using. So you can follow along exactly. I'll also cover how to choose
and mix harmonious colors. I'll be splitting
everything up into short videos so it's
easier to take in. You can also pause at any moment if you want
to take more time. If you have any questions, you can post them in the
discussion thread down below. I'll be sure to read and respond to everything
you guys post. Don't forget to follow me on Skillshare by clicking the
"Follow" button at the top. This means you'll
be the first to know when I launch a new class, post giveaways, or just have an interesting announcement
to share with my students. You can also follow me on Instagram to see
my latest works. If you'd like to create your
own colorful paintings, all whilst learning some fun and exciting watercolor
tips and tricks. Please enroll as I'd
love to have you in my class. Now, let's begin.
2. Your Class Project: Before we start, thank you so much for joining
me in this class. I really do appreciate it. We're going to have a good
relaxing time exploring watercolor and achieving
some really nice effects. As seen in the
introduction video, today we're going to be
painting a woodpecker. It's a great subject
for exploring vivid colors because it's
open for interpretation. You can use my painting as a guide and follow it exactly, or you can experiment
with your own colors. Don't think about
trying to represent a woodpecker as
accurately as possible, but instead, how far you
can push the color scheme. It'll be great to
see a whole range of different colored birds in
the student project section. You're welcome to copy
my drawing and follow it exact or experiment
with your own. I will put my painting in
the resource section so you can use it as a reference
throughout the process. There's also a template
you can use to trace and transfer
it onto your paper. Don't feel guilty
about tracing when using it as a guide for
learning how to paint. It's important to have the under drawing correct so
that it doesn't inhibit your ability to practice and learn the
watercolor medium itself. Whichever way you
use this class, it would be great
to see the outcome and the paintings you
create in this class. I'd love to give you feedback, so please take a
photo afterwards and share it in the student
project gallery. You can find the gallery under the same project
and resources tab. On the right, you'll
see a green button that says Create
Project. Tap that. Once you're there, you'll
have the option to upload a cover photo and a title and
write a little description. I would love to hear about your process and what you
learned along the way. Once your project is uploaded, it will appear in the
student's project gallery. You can view other
projects here, and I'd highly encourage you to like and comment on
each other's work. We put so much time and effort into creating our paintings, why not share it with
the world and help support each other
along the way. Now that you have a good
idea of this class, let's get stuck into it, starting with the equipment
and materials I'll be using.
3. Materials & Supplies: Let me go through the
basic materials and supplies you'll need to
start painting watercolor. We'll start with
the colors I use. Unlike most of the materials
we'll be using today, is a lot to do with preference. I have 12 stable colors in my palette that I
fill up from tubes. They are cadmium yellow, yellow ocher, burnt sienna, cadmium red, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, cobalt
blue, cerulean blue, lavender, purple, viridian,
black or neutral tint. At the end of the
painting, I often use white gouache for
tiny highlights. I don't use any
particular brand. These colors you can
get from any brand. Although I personally
use Daniel Smith, Winsor & Newton or
Holbein paints. To keep things simple, for today's class, we'll only
be using these two brushes. They're both Escoda
Perla brushes, size 8 and size 1. But I'll show you the
other options as well. First is this mop brush. Mop brushes are good for broad brushstrokes and filling
in larger areas or washes. But they also have a tip
for some smaller details. So they are one of my
favorite types of brushes. Next is this,
Escoda Perla brush. I use various sizes, but for this painting, I'll use size 8. These brushes allow for
more precision because they have a finer tip and
last quite a long time. For even more precision, when painting final
touches or highlights, for example, I use a
synthetic size 0 brush. All brands have them and
they're super cheap. This here is a solid
brush or a rigger brush. It's quite long but thin. It's only used for
very small details, much like the size 0 brushes, but it holds more
water and pigment, saving time and
effort refilling. The only drawback is it's more difficult to control
as it's more flimsy. That's it for brushes. You're of course welcome to use your
own favorites as well. Onto paper. The better
quality your paper is, the easier it will be to paint. Cheap paper crinkles easily
and is very unforgiving, not allowing you to
rework mistakes. Good quality paper, however, such as cotton base paper, not only allows you to rework mistakes over multiple times, but because the pigment
reacts much better on it, the chances of
mistakes are a lot lower and you'll more likely
create better paintings. I use arches because it's what's available
in my local art shop. Next, some various materials that will
come in very handy. A water spray is
absolutely essential. By using this, it
gives you more time to paint the areas you
want before it dries. Also, it allows you to
reactivate the paint if you want to add smooth
lines or remove some paint. Lastly, masking tape. Of course this is just
a whole paper down, still onto the surface to stop it from sliding
around whilst we paint. That's everything you
need to paint along.
4. The Drawing: Let's get on with the sketch. As always, we'll
be starting with the broadest biggest shapes, starting very lightly just
to map out the composition. Rough lines, and I'm using
a mechanical pencil. This is with a free B grade lead because it's not too
hard, it's quite soft, so we won't mark the paper
if we press too hard and we can achieve a line without putting
too much pressure. There's quite a lot
details in this painting, but if we break it down into
these big shapes first, it's much simpler to work out. I'm aware of the
camera and whether it will be able to pick up the faint lines that I'm drawing. For the purposes
of recording this, I might put more pressure, draw darker than I usually
would if it was for my own sake because the camera is not very good
at picking up fine lines. At this very early stage, you only really want to draw just so the lines
are barely visible. But of course, it's almost pointless me filming
that if it's not picked up on camera so that's why I'm adding a bit more pressure. So the legs there, and you can always
crop the paper after the drawing if it doesn't
completely fall in the center. That's probably what I'll do. Or if you're tracing
it with the guide that I've put in the
resource section, there'll be a much easier way to work out whether
everything is in line. Good thing about drawing
to a wildlife in general is it doesn't have
to be completely accurate. You can get away with a
lot of inaccuracies or anatomical differences
because most people were not specialized in birds, won't be able to tell as
long as it looks natural. The colors in this painting
certainly won't be natural, but I like that. I like to make it more colorful than how
it is in real life. That's the basic shape now, and then a bit darker
of a line now that we know that it's
basically correct. Don't be afraid to
use the rubber. I've got a potty rubber here
and the mechanical rubber , if it's incorrect. I'm just going to go
around the outline and then I'll go in
and do the details. I'm coming close to finishing the silhouette then we'll go
inside to do the details. Here, instead of
drawing the feet, I'm going to plan to
do splatter effect. I'm just going to imply the direction to
put the splatters. I'm not going to do
anything specific there. Now, I can go and add
some various feathers. Some interesting movements and rhythms going on with the
feathers on the head. Circle for the eye
and then a little dot there for a highlight that I'll add in some Some guides. I've put in some
lines parallel to each other to imply
direction when it comes to painting in
those details and then adding feather
shapes. That's a guide. When I'm drawing, I'm thinking
about how I'll paint it, not just to wherever
it matches the photo. Blocking out sections that I'll paint in different colors. Thinking of turquoise,
blue, purple. Now, everything is basically
done with the sketch. I'm just going to use my
rubber to rub out some of the fainter lines
just so that we have an outline you can
paint over it. If I need to I'll
tidy it up again, if I rub out too many lines. Let's get on with
the painting stage.
5. Starting The Painting: Everything is now set
up ready to paint. I've got my free Escoda
Perla brushes here, which I'll try to
do the painting just using these three, but if something else comes up and I have to use another
brush, I'll let you know. Here's my palette.
I'll also be trying to use a limited palette
during this painting, mainly using blues,
greens, reds, and yellows, and the rest of the colors are just
personal preference. I might use this
little influences over them every now and again, but that's a personal
choice and that can be up to your
personal taste. The first thing we've
got to do is look at the painting and where
the lightest parts are, we'll do the underlayer. Starting at the top and
working our way down, we'll start doing
the underlayer. I'm going to start
with the beak. I'm going to use this
mid sized brush Size 8. I'm going to use my cadmium
red here, only a little bit. This black bar here is my leftover paint from
previous paintings, which I just put it into one little pool at the
end because it's still good paint and I'll probably be using that later for
some of the darks so I don't have to keep on going back to my black,
it's already there. There's a small bit of red and then I'm going to
blend out to a bit of blue so my cerulean
blue, I'll mix there. This painting is a slightly
different style to my other paintings because it's going to be a
bit more detailed, or a bit more controlled. The other ones are a bit
looser and more expressive, not necessarily more difficult, just a different approach. Starting off there, and then wiping away,
cleaning my brush, wipe it on the towel and then
starting at the end with the blue and merging
it together. Blue and orange are
neutral colors. They neutralize when mixed together because
they're complimentary. Then underneath, maybe I'll
use some yellow to begin with. It's a little bit. I'll merge that into the red. Well, I have a little bit more
blue up at the top there. Now, moving down. You don't need to
worry about the edges of these because
blue will be going over with black or
very dark pigment to cover those edges. I'm just thinking about the
underlayer at this stage. Now, I can use
this yellow ocher, I think or I could
just use yellow and turn it down a bit
with a bit of purple, but I'm going to
use yellow ocher, and fill in this bit here. Again, we're still painting
the underlayer at the stage. Grab a bit of that dark pigment there, it's a bit brownie. Like you can use burnt sienna
or burnt under for that. Just stop being so vivid, this bit doesn't need
to be so bright. I'm thinking go into a bit
of a green as it comes down here, I've already enough. Got my tissue because I just
did a little splat there, that's why it's good to
have a tissue in your hand.
6. Painting The Under-layer: Then here's a bit of purple. You could of course mix red and blue to make
your own purple. But as I use it
quite frequently, I have my mix there. I keep on dabbing this towel there in case my
brush is too full of water, I don't want it to spill
out and overdo of water. Here's quite a liberating stage, quite relaxing because you don't need to be so detailed
because you're going to go over it again later with more detail covering
up some mistakes. This allows you some
freedom at this stage. Right up there, that's the lightest
section up there. Now I'm going to move down here. I'm thinking, I'll
get some yellow, mix tiny bit of green, just to make it a lime yellow rather than a
reddish yellow and orange. Some of this yellow ocher. Put it in here a bit. Then get some of
my viridian green. Mix it with some
[inaudible] to make it too [inaudible] Add
some bit of water, make sure it's quite watery, tap some of them there. I can now blend that out. As it's drying I'm
just going to flick some pure water for
a bit of texture. I can do that out there too. Now we can wait for it to dry. But actually had a spotted
another area we can do. Once you're at this stage
and you've got a few colors, you can see what's there and see what you can
mix together to create a color scheme that works
well together rather than creating lots
of different colors. Getting overwhelmed,
you can just add what you've already got
on your palate. Color in some of
these bits here. It might look quite organized, but it's quite impulsive and I'm not planning
it out that much. Was doing it in
fairly random places. I can see that there's little
textures that I'm going to go over and leave out. I'm just doing the under layer. It doesn't need to be perfect. Likewise here, I can do
that lead to splatter. Now it can dry. It's
important to note that it has to be completely dry
before you paint on it again, because some of these
parts, especially here, has to be a very sharp line and if it's still wet,
it will bleed out.
7. Starting The Head: Going to add some
more yellow there, because I know the top part is dry now so it won't bleed out. The red at the bottom. As it goes up, it can
blend into our yellow. While we're waiting for
the other bits to dry, if you don't want to
use the hairdryer, you can fill in some
of the other gaps. I know this bit will
be a bright red, so I'm going to
paint that in now. I might even do the
big red crest area. Before you got to think
in different sections, and before you even put the paint to the paper or
the brush to the paper, you got to think where
your next checkpoint is. If you start touching it, it will merge into
different parts, so you're going to plan
the whole section. I'm going to start
with yellow there, then it's going to merge to red, and when it comes to
the edge down here, I'm going to have a
smooth edge to it. We're starting off with this
yellow. Be a bit thicker. Clean the brush, and I want
this to be a nice vivid red. Going quite strongly
and go over that. Now this, my reference image, the actual bird, the
green woodpecker, is definitely not as colorful. But I'm okay with that because my philosophy is it's
watercolor not water data. Even if it's not honest
to the actual subject, I want to make it
more exciting by adding a nice variety
of different colors. I'm using my artistic license. I actually won artist of the year painting this
original painting. It's acceptable to use your
artistic license even if it's not following the
exact reference. I'm repainting a painting
I previously did. This red can actually come down to here because we will
be painting over it again. See how it's very subtle, but that yellow has
turned into a orange now, and as it goes down it gets a little bit cooler
with more purple. Creating the sharp edge. The text is rather there. The rough leaves. It's not a clean, smooth
edge like the top here. I'm adding implying that
this feather is there. Using some Alizarin Crimson, which is a very cool red, I'm going to draw it out. If you look at my palette, you can see all the paints are very moist, wet.
They're not hard. You don't have to use
water to activate them. I always make sure that my palette is wet enough
before I start painting. This is not completely dry yet. It's dry to the touch, but I can still feel
the paper is moist. Has to be completely dry before you interact
with it again. That's okay because
there's other things we can do while
as we're waiting. With this approach
we're doing today, there is no
particular order when we are doing that underlayer
and then we're doing a few details and we're doing the underlayer again,
different sections. There is different ways
you can work watercolor. This is another example, a different technique
with a different outcome. While it's why I'm
going to use some of this dark pigment to drop
around the bottom there. We can pickup, dry the brush, pickup some liquid at the top. That's how we manipulate the pigment to dry
how we like it.
8. The Darkest Darks: You can experiment
with different colors. I've chosen red in these
areas, yellow, green, blue. But they don't necessarily
need to be in that order. You can add green there, red there, blue there, and add different sections
and different colors, you can experiment
and see how it looks. You can have your
own unique bird. Now, we're going to add some darks here. For the purpose of
this demonstration, I'm not using a hair
dryer, usually, I'd have used hair dryer and then worked on the next
stage and the next stage, but I'm showing you
how you can work on a different area
while other areas are drying because if you happen to be out
and about painting, you won't have a hairdryer, so it's useful to see how
you can get round it. Usually, hardly these
details to the very end. But there's actually
no reason not to. Dry brush, I can take this dark pigment,
it's basically black. If there's anything
wrong with it, it's brown at the moment and I didn't particularly
want it brown, so I'm going to add some blue to the brown to neutralize it. If it was too red
you'd add green, if it was too purple you'd
add yellow, and vice versa. Looking at my color charts, you can see how to manipulate different colors
to different textures. Now it's going to
get quite thick. I'm very careful to
protect that eye. This style of painting feels
a bit more like illustration than the other techniques of applying thick pigment first and then
letting it wash out. It looks a lot darker while
it's wet but when it dries, it will get lighter
and look more natural. Now I'm going to move
to my smaller brush so I have a bit more control
with where the water goes. Instead of adding any more
pigment now I can just lift up what I've already
gotten my palette here. A bit of green. At the moment I've only got water on my brush, I'm just going to create
a little line of water. Over time, as it's drying, the water will seep
down that line, the pigment will seep
down the water line. Trying to show you a
bigger example of that. That's water. Fill it up, draw it into there, flows out. So purple mix it with some blue. Some more dry brush textures. Add more black there, just around the edge,
refine that eye. Then as that black
paint is drying, first of all, I'm going to
create a very thick pigment. Just tap various parts
where it's nice and thick, just so that it melts
into the drawing pigment. More dry brush here. Now as it's drying I'm going to take this brush and flick some water
on the drying paint. So I'd like some texture there. You'll add such fine texture, it will look small textures that will look like tiny little hairs,
tiny little feathers.
9. Starting The Body: Now this is dry again, so we can go back to that stage soon once I finish
this bit here. A bit too dark, those lines. I'm just going to put
about with tissue. I'm going to keep an
eye on that black bit as it's drying because I'm going to add more water as it
gets close to the drawing. When it's 90% close to drawing, I'll splat a bit more water in there and keep on
doing that as it gets closer and closer to
drying to create more texture. You can use this lavender
here by Holbein. This is more of a gouache
pigment because it's opaque, it's not see-through
normal watercolor. Adding line in while
it's still wet, we'll have it melt
into there as well. You can see that I love this technique that
we're doing today. It's not so much using washes
and being so expressive, it's more about doing details and using lines to
fill out spaces. But if they all flow together, the lines, then they do
look visually appealing. Now, we're mentally prepared, plan out, rather not
so much prepared, but figure out how are
we going to do the body. I think we're going to
start here and work our way up and then around,
like a circle. Start here with the hard edge. Go up, there's various
hard edges around that. Then blend it out into that, and then keeping an eye on where the hard edges are
going to be so that we can create them. The soft edges, you have
more time to react to them, but the hard edges, they need to be
accurate straight away. I'm going to mix
some green there. Mix some cerulean in with
this green I've already got. That cerulean and yellow. You can add some
viridian in there too. Time to splatter a bit
more water on there. That pigment needs
to be thicker. Some blue there. Now I'll also have a
water spray on hand. One or two sprays just
to keep it moist because I don't want any hard
edges except these ones, so I need to make sure it's still wet enough to manipulate. Tabs of dark here. Clean the brush. More green. Adding a bit more blue. Splatter some textures at
this drawing, like that. Very blue here. Going
into cobalt blue. We can come down just a bit. It can be a good opportunity to use different
colors you like. I'll be wanting to test
out this cobalt teal blue, for example, I think this
would go nicely here. You can experiment
with different colors. I'm just going to take it
directly from the tube here and add it in here. Get some purple here. Gradually, blend it
into the green there. Starting off, I'm not going to directly go
from purple to green, I'm going to influence
some blue into it. From that blue, you can turn green.
10. Experimenting with Colour: Again, some dark pigment
and negatively paint , some feathers here. This can merge out
into the rest of it. The tops of the
feathers are dark like this and they emerge
out into the light, and I'll do a similar thing
when it dries down there. Clean the brush, a
few more splats. Even to large drops of water. Soften this line here
a bit by mixing it up. I love these brushes
because they've got such a fine tip you can do, so versatile because you can
fill out lots of spaces. But it also has a very fine tip, and they're not that expensive. You can even get cheaper
versions of these. If I find an example, these Van Gogh painting brushes
are virtually the same. They've got a very
good tip on them. It's a slightly better quality. That's because they're
more expensive. The other ones are cheaper, but they didn't
last quite as long. But they still do the job. Sometimes the angle will be such that it blocks out
the camera lens, but I'll try and get
round at a different way, using a smaller brush. There's something
to be said about the contrast between
the tightness up here and looseness down here, they work well together. What you can add pigment
again mount into. Bring back this
cobalt teal blue. I'd love to see your different
interpretations of this using different colors. You can make all of
them unique depending on what your color
preferences are. Now, I don't want the spatters
to reach different areas, so I'm just going to cover
it with this old cardboard. Splatter it in like that. I'm going to bring
back a purple. Cerulean, is direct pigment from the palette
straight to the paper. I like to mix the colors on
the paper a lot of the time. Now we've got to
be careful here, I'm merging it down. I have a little bit of
bleed, pleasing it out. Discovered that I can
mix this color just using viridian and
cerulean blue. That's quite common with all these pigments that
you see in the art shop. A lot of the time, you can
just mix them yourself. Some of them have
different textures that you wouldn't
be able to achieve. But that's another reason why color charts are
a useful thing to do, to see what possibilities
you can do. Using a tissue to make
it a bit lighter here.
11. Boosting Vivid Colours: There's a nice burst
of color here, but a trick to make things
seem even more colorful, is to make another part of
the painting not so colorful. I'm using this brownish-yellow to counteract that and that will really make
it pop the other side. That's one of the
main principles of making art is that
those contradictions, that yin and yang, the balance, and the
play of relationships. You've got vibrant colors playing with dull
colors or muted colors. Then you've got dark
right next to light. You've got complimentary colors; green with red, yellow with
purple, orange with blue. You got hard, sharp textures up
here with more fluid, softer textures down here. It's all about learning
those different elements and then working out, with your own personal taste, how you want to
put them together. Of course, there's the
technical ability that is often the first step is to work out how to manipulate the watercolor and master
the medium in its own right. Then after that, the
biggest challenge, the one that I found more
challenging in my career, is how to compose your own paintings and
order them yourself. How you choose to
interpret the principles, how you arrange the
complimentary colors, where you put the darkest
darks, what you leave out, what you put in, that's when the personal taste
gets involved. It's like I was saying before, you start dark up there
and then you get lighter. I'm going to, again, negatively paint the
feathers down here, merge them downwards, I could even do a
slight splatter there. As it's damp, dry the damp. Influence some more splatters. I'm working my way down leaving out some of the
wing textures here. There's more intricate
feather patterns here. Spray to activate the
paint on my palette again. Having all these materials
like the water spray, a tissue in your hand, a sponge, or a towel, are just elements that make everything a little bit
easier for your painting. It doesn't hold you back. A lot of things that
hold beginners back, which is perfectly
understandable. It took me a long time to figure out what exactly the
right setup was for me, is that it's figuring
out your right setup, making everything
comfortable to paint. Now I can see here
that somewhere along the line I've splashed or rubbed
pigment onto the paper, which is fairly common. I have a special
brush, a rough brush. This is a very cheap from just an art shop or
even every day store. It's got rough
bristles. I wet it. It can really just
bring out the pigment. These watercolor brushes
have too soft bristles. To get these marks off, you need a rough one. I usually do that at the
end because there might be more splashes to come. Start painting this
lag or branch or doesn't really matter
what it is as long as it can get away with it looking
right, it's good enough.
12. Painting The Tail: It's going to create more of this turquoise color. Little green, little blue, bit more blue. Get a smaller brush
actually fill out the water and draw it out in blue. I just jump around different colors and go
blue here for a change. Once you understand how to blend the colors
and control medium, then you really free to experiment with what
colors you can use. It's already dark colors here
could really make it pop. Cobalt blue here. Mixing the cobalt
blue with some green, painting around that feather. Add more green here, back to the blue. I'm going to start
influencing some purple here. I paint the two
parts separately, make sure it's wet
enough and then, bit by bit, by dabbing
back-and-forth, going back to the other color, typing down there then
you can merge them. That still hasn't dried
there, but that's okay. I want just keep on tapping it. Green lights textures, now you can see
over the space of this whole painting is gradually
getting more textured. If some parts are too wet, you just have to wait. I want to do a lot
more texture here, but it's not ready yet. I need to give it time.
13. Adding Details: We'll go back to
smaller brush again. I just realized we haven't
even used this 12 brush. So far we've just done the
painting with a size 8 and one brush and we'll no longer need to use it
anymore. I can put that away. I think these colors
go so well together. The way just green merges
with the purple, the blue. It's such a magical way. This part is easy to overwork, putting in these lines. Often I get very over excited with them and I
overdo it basically. While I feel like it
looks good in that area. When I look back at the whole
painting, it's overworked. While you're focusing on the
area you still have to be aware of the bigger picture. What I'm doing is when I'm over a blue or
purple, I use green. Whenever I go over a
green, I use blue. The quality of your
paper is very important. For many years I was
using cheap paper, which definitely had its
purpose when learning. Because when you're
a complete beginner and you're learning
the very first ropes. Looking at this
painting now and seeing the textures that are
created on it organically, organic textures
like here and there. Those kinds of textures
are impossible to achieve on cheaper paper. You need cotton base
paper for that. I understand it's
a bit more pricey and it's not always possible. I still use cheaper
paper nowadays if I just want to play
around and have fun. But after you get to
a certain level where you are a bit more confident
in your paintings, using better paper will make it that much more
satisfying for you. With good quality paper, all these splashes can
be easily wiped clean. I don't know whether
it has to do with the fact that it's
made out of cotton, not wood pulp, or however
regular paper is made. But if you're using
regular wood pulp paper, the stains from the ink or paint and pigment will
remain quite significantly. [NOISE] Blocking out the rest of it because I'm
going to splatter some water with a little
bit of pigment in. All of that trouble we've saved for having
these tissues there. Here we've reached the moment where we're just
adding small details. These aren't so important, or rather they're not
so difficult to do. They're just little
feather textures. Let's take a bit of time. You can put on some music
and have fun and relax. Now I'm going to take
some white gouache and put some in there in there. Mix this white gouache, a little bit of this lavender
I think, doesn't matter. It could just as
easily be green. Just my personal preference. I'm going to add a few
highlight lines here. You've got your main
colors that you use, which obviously you can see
here are green, red, blue. Then you've got your
secondary influence colors, which are much more to do
with personal choice and which direction you want
your artistic vision to go. That doesn't rely on
the reference at all. That's more to do with
your own understanding and mental image of what
you want to achieve. Maybe I'll mix it
with green now, just to show you that it
doesn't really matter. I come down here
and do that there. A few of the colors I have in my palette shortcuts, rather than actual
pigments I've bought. This pigment here
is just white mixed with the burnt
sienna, yellow ocher. I use it so frequently. I mixed it myself and
just filled it up. Same with this lavender
has a mix of purple, blue.
14. Finishing Touches: I'll blend these feathers
in by going the other way. Before, we were using dark
pigment blending and now we are going to the dark side and using white pigment
to blend into the light. Instead of coming back
to do these white lines, I'm actually going to leave
out a small little line here, which is basically the
same thing anyway, visually the same. You can take these details as
far as you want them to go. You don't need to go this far, I'm just showing you
what I do personally. For while I'm waiting
for things to dry, I fill it around like this. I guess that's also a dangerous area because you might overwork things that way. If you see here where
the leg comes out, I'm going to try and do a
splatter that fades out. It's going to cause
a bit of a mess, so I'm going to bring out
these cardboard protectors. I'm going to activate
this bit again. I think I'm going to
use this purple and put my finger there and just
letting the pen brush-drop. [NOISE] Then you can now add
some artificial splatters, [NOISE] cut for ones that are
a bit too far out. To give them a
sense of direction, you can just drag
them slightly in. They're bit too dark,
so I lift them out. This bit has actually dried, so I'm just going to tap, wait a few seconds,
and then rub. [NOISE] That's pure
water on my brush. [NOISE] Tap, wait a few
seconds, rub. [NOISE] When you start getting to a point when
you're looking for things and struggling to
find what you can do next, then that's probably when
you can call it done. I think that is the
point that I'm at now, so this is done. Let's have a close up look
and sum up the class.
15. Final Thoughts: Welcome back. Now hopefully
your painting is finished, let's have a close-up look
to see what we've explored. In this painting, we explored how different
colors can work together, whether it be by blending
them on the paper and creating appealing transition
from one color to another, or using muted colors to boost the vividness
of other colors. I try to encourage students to discover their own
interpretations, and everyone has a
different vision, which should be explored as part of their journey
as an artist. Of course, when
trying new things, there can be a bit
of uncertainty, but the magic of watercolor comes from its
unpredictable nature. Learning watercolor is about
pushing the boundaries, and to do that, you have to be willing
for mistakes to happen. So if you're not happy
with your progress, don't be so hard on yourself, be proud of yourself
for putting paint to paper and challenging yourself. Learning the
techniques and how to manipulate the medium is the first step in
learning to paint. After learning the how, the most important
step is learning when and why to use
the techniques. It's then you start developing your own unique style and take your paintings
the next level. If you would like feedback on your painting, I'd
love to give it. Or if you'd like any advice
related to watercolor, please share your painting in the student projects
gallery down below, and I'll be sure to respond. If you prefer, you can
share it on Instagram, tagging me @willelliston
as I would love to see it. Skillshare also love
seeing my students work, so tag them as well
at Skillshare. After all that effort
we put into it, why not show it off? Remember, please click
the Follow button up top so you can follow
me on Skillshare. This means you'll
get a notification as soon as I publish
my next class, we'll have important announcements
like free giveaways or sharing some of my
best student artwork uploaded to the project gallery. Thank you so much again for
joining me in this class. Please leave a comment below
in the discussion area if you have any questions or
comments about today's class. If you have any
subject, wildlife, or scene you'd like
me to do a class on, by all means, let
me know about it in the discussion
section down below. If you found this class useful, I'd really appreciate
getting your feedback on it. I hope you learned a lot and encouraged to paint more
in this fun medium. Until the next
time, bye for now.
Will Elliston, Award-Winning Watercolour Artist
