Transcripts
1. Intro: Hey there and thank
you for joining. I'm an artist based
in Denmark and you learn my main
focus is sculpting. My first love was
drawing and painting. Portraits will always one of my favorite subjects to work on. In this class, I'll
take you through the process of creating
a watercolor portrait. I'll go through the
materials you will need. Column mixing for this project, creating and transferring
your sketch, some basic techniques and how to apply those for painting
facial features, as well as show you
the entire process of painting this girl. This is a first-class
in a small series. In this class,
we'll dip our toes into creating
watercolor portraits. We're not going
to focus too much on likeness as much
as we address on having fun and practicing
leering to create depth in our paintings and
in upcoming classes on going more in depth with each of these
different areas, from drawing faces to call mixing and painting more
detailed portraits. I encourage anyone who's
interested in learning how to paint watercolor portraits
to join me in this class.
2. Materials: Let's go with the materials
we'll be using in this class. First, you're going to need
something to paint on. I'm using two types of paper. The first one is
just any plain paper for creating new sketch. I'm using a plain,
cheap sketchbook. The most important one
is the paper you'll be using for your painting
and exercises. I recommend using cotton paper out of all of your
watercolor materials. The one where the
quality can really make the biggest
impact is the paper. Again, I'm using a sketchbook, but one that has really
nice paper in it. You can use hot press or cold press for this
demonstration, I'm using cold press. One of the main differences
is that due to the texture, cold press can hold more water. It takes longer to dry and will therefore give you
more working time. You also going to need
some watercolor paint. The paint I'm using
is by shrinking, but you can use any
watercolor brand, student or artist quality. It doesn't really matter. Winsor and Newton Cotman, which is Sarah student line, is a great place to start
if you're a beginner. The calls I'll be using
magenta, quinacridone, gold hue, helium, turquoise,
and Payne's gray. No need to worry if you don't
have these exact costs. We'll talk about
that in the class. I'll be using white
gouache for highlights. Wash is basically
opaque watercolor and works much the same way. If you don't have
this, you can also use white watercolor on
white acrylic paint. Some brushes, I'll be using two brushes
for this painting. For the main brush
I'm using this one. You will want a
brush that can hold enough paint and
water to be able to cover the largest section of your portrait with
an even flat wash. If you're working with a
brush that's too small, you can easily end up with hard edges or uneven
layers of color. Even though my main brush
has a nice point to it and could work for the
details on this painting. Details are usually
easier to control and create with a brush that
holds slightly less water. I'll be using this one for some punch just to make
my life a bit easier, to transfer my sketch
onto my watercolor paper. I'll be using this
tracing paper. If you're working on a loose
sheet of watercolor paper, you can also use a
window or unlike bucks. But if you're working on
a pad or in a sketchbook, you'll need some kind
of tracing paper. Or you can sketch directly onto your watercolor
paper if you prefer. You will need one
or two pencils. I'm using a mechanical
pencil for sketching. And then I'm using a soft
graphite pencil in order to transfer my sketch using
this specific tracing paper. As for erasers, you can
use any ratio you want. If you're going to erase pencil from the watercolor paper, It's recommended to use
something like a kneaded eraser. Something soft so you don't damage the surface of the paper. For the last few things, you'll need a pallet
to mix your paints. It doesn't have to
be anything special, but you will need to be able to hold at least some
amount of water. And then you'll need
some water, cloth, awesome tissue for
wiping your brushes, as well as some tissue and all Q-tips to help lift paint
from your painting. Because I'm working on a
smallest size portrait, I'll be using Q-tips to
help with precision. Okay, let's get started.
3. Creating and transferring the sketch: Even though we're not going
to be focusing on how to create the sketch for
portrait in this class, I still wanted to include
a shorter version of this. I'm just going to walk you through one of the ways you can approach sketching from
F photo reference. I usually keep my
references on my phone next to me so that
they're nice and compact. I don't have to worry
about printing them. And I can easily zoom in to get a bit of a look at the
details if needed. So to begin, the first
thing you want to do is to simplify the
face in your mind. Look at the larger,
more basic shapes, but try to follow
the ankles you see. Just create something that roughly represents the
shape of the face. From there you can add the scalp or the remaining shape
and portion of the head, as well as an approximate
placement for the ear. At this stage, don't
worry about the details, but try to capture
the larger shapes and the proportions of the shapes
in relation to each other. Next, we can begin
breaking down that launch main blob that is going to be the face into small sections. You can begin by placing the vertical center
line down the face, which because your
face is at an angle, is not going to be
exactly in the center. And then play some guidelines
for the eyes, nose, mouth and eyebrows, focusing on the ankles and the
distance between them. The eyes are going to be halfway down the head and the nose is going to be about halfway down
from the eyes to the chin. From here you can begin
placing the eyes, nose, and mouth, and also start adding some more
shape to the face. A child that's
strong wind are not making any extreme expression, doesn't necessarily
have a lot of these, what I call anchor points. So that will be something that tells you where in
the face you on something that helps you break those launched shapes
into small sections. The basic features, so
that will be the eyes, nose, mouth, and so on
are all anchor points. They all help you break down that empty face into smaller,
more manageable portions. In sketching
something like this, I always look for
these anchor points. On this particular picture, she has a fairly dramatic shadow going down the tree
on the right side. So that too can help you
break down that cheek into small sections and make it so that you can better
judge the distance from, let's say the nose to the
outer edge of the face. Hopefully that makes sense.
On a different face. This could also
be something like birth marks, dimples,
pronounced lines, or wrinkles, backs on the eyes, anything that helps you break those shapes into
smaller portions. The rings I placed around the eyes going up
to the eyebrows after placing the eyes themselves are also some
of these anchor points. Just a rough just off the
shadow surrounding this area, which will help me better visualize if the distance
between the eyes, ALL from the eyes to the other sections of the face needs to be adjusted
any further. Once you decide that
you about happy with the placement and
proportions of everything, you can begin defining the shapes and adding
in some more detail. Because an empty line out of a face is often
not too appealing. I did add in some rough shading for the sake of
this video, though, for the vast majority
of the time, if I'm making a sketch just for the sake of creating
the base for painting. I usually don't bother because I'm really only
interested in getting those proportions down onto the paper so I can get
started with the fun part, which while painting is, well, adding the paint
for this sketch, I'm just drawing on an
empty page in a sketchbook. With that, choose to make the sketch on a separate
piece of paper on directly onto the
watercolor paper usually depends
on a few factors. Some of the pros of sketching on a separate piece of paper is that once you're ready to trench foot onto the
watercolor paper, you can make sure
that the placement is exactly where you want it to be. Whereas if you're sketching
directly on the surface, you're going to be painting on the face in this case may end up sitting high on
the paper or more to one side than you intended. You'll also have
more room for error. Even though watercolor
paper isn't generally damaged by light sketching
and some gentle erasing, you do run the risk of damaging
the surface of the paper. If you're going to do
a lot of sketching and erasing on your
watercolor paper. This can affect how the paint
is going to behave or even limit you in some of the
techniques you can use. Because you might have
to be more cautious about not damaging that
surface any further. However, if you are
going to sketch directly onto your
watercolor paper, just keep it light and
use something like a kneaded eraser to
correct any mistakes. I definitely encourage you to try making a sketch yourself. This class is not about creating an exact
portrait of this girl. Her family's not
going to come after you if you don't get
it exactly right, Just have fun with it. But if you're not
in the mood for sketching or even if
you do choose to sketch this girl and still just feel
like completing the rest of this class with the
same outline as me. I have added the
lineup from my sketch to the projects
and resources tab. So feel free to use
that if you prefer. To transfer my sketch
onto my watercolor paper, I used a sheet of
this tracing paper. Admittedly, this can be a bit tedious because you need
to go at a couple of times and the result can be a bit rough depending on
how thorough you are. Basically how this works is sad. You place it on top
of your sketch and trace the lines you
want to transfer. Then flip that over and use a soft graphite pencil to add graphite to the back
of those lines. You can also use soft pastel
or at graphite stick, but just be aware that some of the residue will trench
fall onto your papers. So make sure you're
not using something that's going to create
too much of a mess. You can then place it
onto the surface you're going to paint on
and trace the lines. Once again, because
I wasn't very thorough and didn't add
quite enough pressure. I didn't have to go
at a couple of times. One of the downsides
to this method. Of course, if using this method, one of the things you want
to be aware of is also to just not add too much
pressure when trench firing. Because this two can damage
the watercolor paper. Now, I just only trends with a very basic
lines of my sketch, which meant that I then
have to go at yet again to just make sure everything was
the way it was supposed to. But I am going to just
vary from seeing that. As I mentioned, you can find this final sketch in the
projects and resources tab. If you don't feel
like using your own.
4. Color palette: You're going to need
just a few colors in this class because we're taken to a limited
color palette, not only to keep it simple, but often that's all you really need when choosing your
colors for this class. Don't worry if you don't have
the exact ones I'm using, you will need some variation
of your primary costs. So that will be a red, a yellow, and a blue. In my case, I'll
be using magenta, quinacridone, gold hue,
and Helio turquoise. Not a palette I put together specifically for this
image or painting. It's just a palette that I really liked the result
off when mixing. I'm also adding in
some Payne's gray, which is just a deeper, more neutral blue as
opposed to the turquoise. I'm choosing to add this to
the palate because not only are some of the calls in the background of
our reference photo, pretty much this exact shade. But this is also a great
call-out for mixing some of those more neutral shapes
which we'll be using for her hair and the deeper
tones in her eyes. We're not going to be discussing too much about color theory. But one thing you want to keep in mind when selecting the calls for your palette is to keep
them within the same tone. So you'll want either three
warm or three cool tones. This will give you the
best results when mixing. One fairly easy way you can check to see
if your costs are going to work well together is to create a
basic color wheel. Place your costs so the
red, yellow, and blue, and then mix them together to
create the secondary cause. If you get green,
purple, and orange, and they all look pretty decent, you should have a palate
that'll work well. Sometimes one of
these secondary costs will end up looking
kind of muddy. But doesn't mean you can't use that color palette
for a painting. But for this project, try to use calls that
are capable of producing at least some version of the
secondary colors as well. If you mix together the red and yellow, you'll get orange. And orange is pretty much
the base for any skin tone. Maybe unless you're
making an alien, you can go for an orange
that leans more to yellow or one that leans more to read
depending on your subject. If you've been
mixed in your blue, you're going to get a more toned down or more muted
and more neutral version of the skin tone, which is great for
the shadow colors. More concentrated paint mix will give you a
darker skin tones and more water down mixes will give you like a skin tones. It's always a good
idea to familiarize yourself with a color palette
before we start painting, just to see what it's capable of and which college
can produce from it. Some of them mixes may surprise you and
could end up being your new favorite calls
for future paintings. One of the clear pros of using a limited
palette like this is that all the
college who mixed from it are going to
go well together. You're not going to get
any clashing of costs for the portrait will be
working on in this class, I'm mostly going to be using
for wealth on my palette. For the top-left, I'm adding
Payne's gray and magenta. Other than for the background, this will be my
main color choices for the white of the eyes. On the top right, I'm mixing the lighter skin
tone using magenta, quinacridone, gold,
and turquoise, and blue that I'm mixing my darker skin tone using the
same cost but also adding in a touch of the Payne's gray just to neutralize it and
tagging it up a bit more. On the bottom-left, I'm
adding just the turquoise. This is mostly to use
for the background, but can also be used for
tinting your other costs. Throughout the class,
I'll be mixing a couple of other cause, brown and black. Both of these are made
by mixing together different amounts of
these phone calls. But these Falwell's will be the main color palette
for this painting.
5. Exercise: Basic techniques: We can do some simple exercises. If you've already got control of your watercolor techniques
and know how to do flat washes blending, and you used to
working with a brush. Go ahead and skip
to the next plot if you want. I'll stick around. I'd love to have you here. In this part, I'll be
demonstrating some of the basic techniques I'll be using throughout the
painting process. And in the next part we'll
be going over how to apply those techniques when it comes to shading facial features. Such as thought off, we're just going to get some paint onto our palette to do
a basic flat wash. Get your brush nice and
soaked in the paint mixture, and then fill in the area
you want to paint starting from one corner or side and
then fill it out from there. If you're appending
a large area, you may need a lot of brush. All you will need to work fast. If your brush that's
running out of paint, just quickly grab some more from that same mix and continue. Which you don't want to
do is soak your brush in the clean water and then
they put into the paint mix. Because that is going to change the ratio of paint to water in the mix and therefore
also change the value. You also don't want to
leave a dry edge behind, which is what I'm
demonstrating here. I'm purposely working
slowly and instead of going from one direction and filling
everything in on my way, I'm coming in from
random directions, giving those edges
time to start drying, which will result in a messy
or splotchy looking wash. Now let's make it
worse by trying to quote unquote fix it. I'm picking up some
water and trying to blend some of those
uneven areas. But what can end up happening
is that you're adding more water to a pot
that's already drying. All this is going to do is that the water will
push the pigment, making the problem much more noticeable and more
difficult to fix. The best thing to do if
you have those uneven bits in your painting is just
to leave it to dry. It's always best to work in lighter washes than what you want your finished
painting to beat. Because then if you
do have some of these problems in
your first layer, once you start adding
more layers on top, you're most likely
not going to see it. Or at least it's not
going to look as bad as it did when you just
have that one layer. Another way of
creating a flat layer on wash of color is
to work wet on wet, wet your paper and then go
in with your paint mix. Even though I'm not
being particularly careful about
covering everything, the pigment will flow and
spread across the surface. Let's say you want to lift
some of that pigment. Here. I've let the paint dry
for a bit and then cleanroom brush and wiping it off to get out most
of the moisture. Now, even though you can
lift paint like this, it can still create
those harsh edges in water pushing the pigment. Instead, what I'd
recommend if you know, you're going to
lift off some paint in one area where
maybe wanted to highlight is to lift the paint or pigment
while it's still wet. So apply your paint, quickly clean and
wipe off your brush, and then lift the
pigment from the paper. Because the area is
still pretty wet, you're not going to
add in more moisture than there already
is on the paper. If you want to create a
cleaner area or sharp edges, you can go in and
pick up some of that pigment with a
tissue or a Q-tip. Using tissue on Q-tip is also going to soak up
not only the pigment, but also a lot of the water. And so because that area is
now going to be more dry, the pigments surrounding it, it's not going to flow
back into that area. You can also create a gradient by placing paint in one area and going in with either a
brush with some clean water, all by adding one more water to your paint mix and placing
the first blob of water on a dry area and then combining the two sections rather than continuing from the
same edge I lift off. If you're not used to
working with a brush, try drawing a couple of
different shapes and filling them in just with a
flat wash of color. This is a good way to
practice brush control. You can also practice your
paint to water ratio. Create a row of squares or circles in varying shades
going from dark to light. Knowing how light or how dark your washes of paint
are going to be. It's one of those
simple things that can make your life so much easier. Finally, use your brush
to just play around, create lines, different
types of strokes. That's anything like this
is going to help you gain control and confidence when applying these techniques
to a painting.
6. Exercise: Blending shading and shadows : I'm going to
demonstrate a few ways to add the layers
for the shading. I've got basics consume mix as well as magenta
and the turquoise. Usually start with a flat layer
of color here on the eye, I'm applying the paint
on dry paper like in the first flat wash in
the previous segment. Once I've laid down the paint, I can clean my brush, wipe it off, and use it to pick up some of the highlights. The other option is a
wet-on-wet technique. This will help the
pigment spread evenly without any hard edges. If the paper is soaked
or just very wet, you may see hard edges
forming around the outside. Once completely dry,
this edge can be solved in by gently scraping
it with attempt brush. Though it's best
to try and control that edge before the
paint settles too much. Though, if you're working with a very light wash of color, these edges are usually
not a big deal. And again, I'm just
picking out some of those highlights though for this one because there is
more water on the page, I'm using my Q-tip to help
dry off those areas so that the pigment doesn't flow back
in and ruin our highlights. For the nose, I'm applying
the paint wet on dry, but for this one I'm just
demonstrating what you don't want to do off applying
the wash of paint. I'm first picking
out a highlight with my clean wiped off
brush, which is fine. But then going back
in with a wet brush, which is going to add
too much water to that paper and therefore
push the pigment. Because this is just for the
sake of the demonstration. Instead of letting it dry, I'm just going to
go ahead and wipe that off with my
dried off brush. But don't do this usually it's much better to
just believe it. For the inside of the eye. I'm again just placing
the paint wet-on-dry. But here I'm choosing to add in another color to get a
soft gradient effect. You can do it this way
or you can wait for the blue shade to dry before adding in some of the magenta. We're going to go over how to blend wet on dry in just a bit. For the shading and the shadows depending on the
result you want. All the techniques you
find the easiest to use. You can build them up by either using the wet on wet technique, the wet on dry technique. For softer shadows like here, I usually wet my paper first and then go
in with my paint. This is going to create
nice soft shading, clean and wipe off the brush, and then go around the
edges to control the shape. You want to keep an eye on it until the water and
pigment is no longer spreading so you can get rid of any hard edges forming
around the outside. For the darker areas
or harsher shadows, I usually go in wet on dry. Once the paint has been applied before the edges dot drying, clean and wipe off your
brush and then blend it out. You don't want your
brush to be too dry because you will
need some water to help create that
gradient effect going from the painted area, choose a clean paper. On this case at gradient between the new layer
and the previous layer. Then while that
paper is still damp, I'm picking up some more
pigment and placing that along that top edge
of the eyelid. This will create a soft
gradient line because the new paint is spreading just like the clean
water would happen. Placing a couple of more
shadows wet on dry. Then right here under the eye where I'll first
shadow has now dried. I'm wetting the paper but only using a small
amount of water. Because the paper's only damp, the pigment won't
spread as much. So this technique is great for more control shading
in smaller areas. Definitely do play around and practice these
different techniques. So you can pick and choose
whichever method you prefer depending
on your subjects. From here, it's just a matter of building up those shades
and shadows layer, bi-layer to create beautiful
depth in your paintings. Just to show you one more time, this is what the
G techniques look like on the plane. Paypal.
7. Adding the base layers: The first step in the
painting process, we're going to add
app-based layer, just a nice flat brush. I'm just wetting one part
of the painting or paper at a time and then adding
a light wash of color, starting with background,
her clothes than her face, neck, and lastly, the hair. It doesn't really matter in
which order you do this as long as each layer is allowed to dry before you add the next one. There shouldn't be any bleeding of the colors or at
least not a lot, especially not when the
layers have been watered down this much because the paint will go down into
the deeper layers of the paper and there won't be much excess pigment on top
that could switch off lead. But just in case going in with the more concentrated
on deeper tones, laws like the hair can help
prevent this if it were to happen as long as low surrounding layers
have dried already. Although if you want
your painting to have a more loose and
expressive feel, you could wet the
entire page or a piece of paper at once and put down all the base cause allowing
them to bleed and intermix. That is one of the
beautiful technique you can use with watercolor, allowing some pots to be very
soft and blurred out almost abstract and then focus in on a more rendered
send a point. In this case that
will be the face. In this class though
I am going to keep it as straightforward as I can, but do feel free
to play around and explore different
effects and results. For the background I use just about the same cause I
see in the reference, but I kept it very loose and didn't pay too
much attention to the exact placement of each color in
relation to her face. Not all the details and nuances. We wanted to get a sense of
her being in a location, but it doesn't really
matter if it's a window, a sky, or an entire
beach scene behind her. But this light wash of
color can really help give a sense of time and space
and help tell a story. Having established a background rather than just
having the white of the paper show can also help explain the rest of the color
choices in the portrait. Or help explain why the light and shadows fall in
the way they do. You'll notice that
I went over there, is that I almost
white in the photo due to the light coming
from behind her. We're not going to worry about all those little
details in the photo. I'll main goal is to create
a nice relaxed painting and practice creating shape and
depth using water costs. While putting down these
initial layers of paint, keep an eye on the edges. If you see some harsh edges forming where you
don't want them, you should clean them or even wet brush to
help blend those out. If you do end up getting
some harsh edges where you didn't mean to,
it's no big deal. The final clips of this segment, you'll be able to see that my base layers are
nowhere near perfect. If you get some light bleeding, most some harsh edges, some light lapping
of cause it's okay. These little, I guess, imperfections you can
call them and can be caught up when you add the
following layers of paint. And even if you want to
leave some of them visible, that's kind of the
trauma about watercolor. This unpredictable expressive
flow off the costs. As you're seeing here, I did use my clean damp brush to
help lighten the forehead, the bridge of the nose, and part of one cheek, as well as go in with a Q-tip to just lift some of the pigment. This is just to keep
those areas ever so slightly lighter
than the rest. Because this is very
early on in the process. It's not going to make much
of a difference in the end, as we will be building up the
college using more layers. But it's a simple way
of giving her face some shape right
from the get-go, even if it is very subtle. But this is also not something
you have to stress about. You'll get plenty of
opportunity to add shaped or her face as
the years progress. You also don't have
to worry about avoiding the white of the eyes. If it makes you feel more
comfortable to you, of course, feel free to paint around them, bought a wash of paint. This light is not
going to affect the eyes on the final piece, because the eyes aren't
kept mostly in the shadows. For the hair I mixed
together matt, Genetech, quinacridone
gold and the Payne's gray. This going to give
you a nice gray or even black in a more
concentrated form. To mix up black, you
just have to mix, add back purple and then add
a small amount of yellow. Throughout this painting per
hand will consist of some mixed between this gray tone
and some more brown shades. Finally, for those wispy bits of hair, just keep it loose. You don't have to worry about the exact placement of shape. We just wanted to
make the suggestion of them being present.
8. Establishing shape and shadow: We're going to start adding
some shapes to her face. Now the very first
thing we're going to do is adding some
color to the eyes. For this, I'm using mostly Payne's gray with
some added magenta. The exact amounts
on unimportant. You wanted the white
of the eyes to be a bluish tone with some purple. And yet the inner corner for
irises I'm adding at Brown makes the reason
for adding color to the eyes this early on is that
when you think of a face, your brain kind of
knows that logically the white of the eye is going
to be the lightest part. That's not always the case. In this photo, her eyes are
kept mostly in the shape, while portions of her skin
and hair hit by bright lines, even though we're not going
to accurately portray, is exact lighting conditions of the photo in our painting. This is a great way to tell our brains that we need to add more color to the skin and other areas
surrounding the eyes. I know that a lot of people when they're first starting out uncomfortable when it
comes to adding in heavier or more concentrates
layers of paint, especially to
something like skin. Because the whole thing
about watercolor is that traditionally you go
from light to dark. Once it that color
is on the paper, you can't go back to white. The color is there
to stay. Okay? Yes, there are ways of lifting color or adding some signal like watercolor
ground to take you back to a white background. But generally speaking, once you put down the
color onto the paper, it's there and you just
have to work with it as is. Now having a backup shown
in what your mind would logically see as being the
lightest part of the face, means that your brain
is going to have a much easier time adding
in those darker shades. Because you'll no
longer be comparing the skin to a wide
or very pale base, but instead, you now
know that you have to amp up the rest of
the costs to match. You'll be able to see throughout the next few seconds
of this class that even though the white of the eyes look very
dark at the moment, in reality, you actually end up having to darken
it up even more. After adding some
color to the eyes, you can go in and
fill in the nostrils and add some very basic
shading around the notes. For this, I'm using a mix of the two skin tone
mixes for areas like this where I want to be
able to control the paint. It mostly stays on one
side of the pencil line. I usually like to
work wet on dry, adding the paint,
mix too dry paper, and then using a wet brush
to help blend it out. You can do this whichever
way you prefer though. If you prefer working wet
on wet and then using a dried off brush or even at Q-tip on tissue to heal,
control the paint. You can do that as well. Just like I did with
the bottom center of the nose where I added
the paint to paper as I was already wet from blending out the shadows on the
sides of the nose. Every now and again, you'll see me go in with my pencil and add some darker lines to the
eyebrows, all other features. It will be working on
the shading of the skin. Faint pencil lines
that are already there are going to be more
and more difficult to see. I'm doing this to not lose sight of the sketch completely. The reason why I don't
often want to have a very dark sketch or outline before you start painting
with watercolors. Once you add those
paint layers on top, the pencil is almost locked in and it only erase the way
you'd usually be able to, even though it's okay
to keep the sketch darker around these
areas where I know you'll be covering it
up on your notes not going to affect the look
of the final painting. You want to especially have
a light touch around areas of the face that don't
usually have a hodge outline. Like the Joel line on this girl, which appears very software. The face meets the neck. Technically the face doesn't
have any outlines at all. You can also use some of
your skin mixes to add a touch of color to
the eyelids and lips. At this stage, we still
keeping the values lighter than they will be
on the final painting. You can go in with as many or as few layers as
you want and feel comfortable with using
more concentrated, almost wanna down paint mixes. It's all up to
personal preference. This is also referred
to as glazing. Each layer is going to make small adjustments to the
depth and value of the call. So that would be how light
or dark the color is. All make changes to the tone. So if you have an area
that is too yellow, you can go in with a
watered-down wash of blue or purple tone that bound
and make it more neutral. If making it neutral
issue goal, of course. To really get a sense
of shape on this face, we need to begin adding
some of the deep shadows. For this. I'm wetting the paper first
and then going in with mostly the darker
skin tone makes on the right and the lighter
skin tone on the left. You should clean dried off brush to help control the shape. The paint spreads more
than you wanted to. On the right side, right at
the tail end of her eyebrow, you can see that I have this rather sharp corner or the letter paste
meets the shadow. This is caused by
me not being very attentive when
blending the edges. If this happens, don't worry. This is skills solely
on the process that it'll be covered up when
building up more layers. If this happens later
on in the process, changes on that you'll
be able to blend it with a damp brush without
too much of a hassle. If not, there are ways
of getting around it, such as going in at
the very final steps when adding the final touches
and just adding dry on dry. So going in with
a small amount of a dry up pink mix to just
cut off a tiny area. Even though we have a
reference photo to go by. I'm not trying to get the exact
color I see in the photo. These calls are going
to vary any way depending on the
monetary you're using. Or if you choose to print out
the reference, one or more. So use of reference
as a guide or a suggestion. It's
your painting. If you wanted to add a more
golden tones, the skin, maybe want her cheeks to
have more plush and do that. That's completely up to you. Maybe want to dress to be green. There's no wrong answer. Just a fun and make it yours. We don't want to
forget about the neck. So adding that shadow
on the right side. Now at some trading to the bottom portion
of the forehead, try to look at each section of the face as individual
planes or shapes. The forehead, the cheeks, the chin, and so on. All protruding and curving
outwards in varying degrees. So perhaps most visibly
on the forehead and chin. In this picture, you'll have the center of each of
those shapes be lighter. And the sides are edges
all the way around. We'll be doggone. Even if the changing value
isn't very chromatic. I added some more
paint to help cover up that sharp corner I
pointed out before, right at the eyebrow and
deepening the color or shading on the right
side of the nose as well as the right islet. Since this is the
opposite side of the face from where
the light hits, all the values on this
side will be dongle. You may also have noticed that already the white of the
eyes no longer peers all that dog anymore. Because his strengths
of the call or the value around this
area has increased.
9. Building up layers and contrast: Now that we've got at least
some shape to the face and everything no longer
looks like one flat layer. We want to build out
more layers to add more contrast and
deepen the values. This time I'm starting
with the hair because this is one of the darkest
areas of the reference. So deepening this color here
can make this year to judge how much data you want to go
with the rest of the face. Though, I'm still
keeping everything lighter than I want the
finished painting to be. Because we're still
keeping everything fairly loose and there's not too much change
going on and being brave and speeding the
video up just a bit more. You should hopefully
you still be able to see what I'm doing. But since we aren't
just going over the same areas like we
have been previously. I know this can end up
feeling a bit repetitive. Once you've deepen the
color of the hair, you can add additional layers
to the right side where the ureters as well as the neck. Then once all those areas have been given an
additional layer, you can build up more
layers on the face. I'm starting at the top of
the face and going down. Once I've added
paint to one area, I let that dry whilst
working on a different area. If working on areas
or features of the face that are located
right next to each other. Just be careful
about not going over the previous layers
or areas that haven't fully dried
yet before you add water and paint to
the one next to it. Because this can cause the
paint to lift a move and create uneven textures due
to the water pushing it. Every time you go in and
add these new layers, you want to pay close attention
to not only the value, but also the shape of these
different shapes that you see on the face and how
much space they take up. Use those different
anchor points. We've talked about C,
where a new shade or shadow on the face
thoughts or stops. At this stage, you
want to be a bit more cautious of where exactly
you are adding more paint, because although we still
have more layers to add, we are slowly approaching
the right values. Some mistakes may not
be as easily hidden. With that being said, relax, once again, we're
just having fun. This is an opportunity
to practice how to go about painting a
watercolor portrait. If you make mistakes,
don't get discouraged. I know how easy it
is to sometimes get upset when things don't pan out. But try to look at those
mistakes as gained experience. Each mistake you
make will give you new knowledge of what not to do. All want to do differently
the next time round. If a painting
doesn't go to plan, try to still finish it. You may end up really
liking the result. And in the worst-case scenario, you will learn something. What a terrible thing. We're really starting to see some proper shapes and
dimension to the face. So just continue adding
washes of color to evenly shade and contoured
the face throughout. This is one of the
most relaxing parts of the painting process. To me. You've already established
the basic shapes and shadows and now it's
all about just following the guidelines those
previous layers give you and refer
to your reference to keep you on the right
track and to see where you need to
make any adjustments, take your time, allow the paint to flow and settle
on your paper. And you should brush
like a tool to carve and shape all those little
curves on the face. The one thing you don't
want to do is to rush it. If you want, you can use
a blow dryer to help dry the paper in-between so you
can speed up the process. I usually like to
put on some music on movie in the background
to help make any gaps of time worm blankly
staring at paint dry feel less significant. Although I quite enjoy getting
lost in thought as well. Almost like a form of
distressing or meditation. There's no exact
it as to which of the skin tones you
want to place where. By that I mean that you don't
have to worry about placing the exact skin tone mix that I place on the nose
in that same area. For the most part,
you just want to keep the darker mix for the areas on the face that have the
most shading or shadows. I'm using the lighter
skin tone mix for the shading that
looks less like shadow and more
like what would be her normal skin tone under more, I guess, average
lighting conditions. You can also intermixed
the two sheets. If you need a shade
or color in-between. You're the bottom of the
painting on the left side of her neck as well
as her clothes. I'm being much less careful
about blending all the edges. And instead I'm
purposely leaving very visible strokes
from my brush. This just helps to add to
that overall loose feel and also make it feel
more acceptable to leave bits very non rendered. Generally speaking,
whether you're working with watercolor
or different medium. I personally really
like when some parts of the painting and allows the paint to just
look like paint. Sometimes it adds motor
painting to leave something out than it does to finish
every tiny little detail.
10. Final layers and class project: In this video,
we'll be finishing up our watercolor portrait. For these first few minutes. I'm just going with the
same shadow areas of already established
on the painting, deepening the values and adding hints of pink on her cheeks. This method of glazing
over the painting with so many thin washes of color may not be the fastest approach, but it gives you
great control and it's a good way to practice
confidence when it comes to painting with
watercolors because you don't have this 0
to 100 effects. Whereas the next one brush
stroke changes everything. You get to gradually
see the changes and consider and decide what
your next move will be. With that being said, I do have one final exercise for you
at the end of this video. Passing two major,
just another small way to practice confidence
and decision-making. Let's take a second to just talk about confidence when
it comes to painting. A lot of the time,
what holds us back from doing something
is a fear of metal living up to our own
expectations with fear of a painting not turning
up the way we want it. But as I mentioned previously, what's the worst thing
that can happen? We learned from those mistakes. I know Pablo also lies within the idea of
wasting materials. You spend good money on getting quality supplies and you
just don't want to waste it. But remember that as long as you've learned
something from it all, as long as you've enjoyed
yourself in the moment, the materials and Emma
wasted, just have fun. And if you do want to create a safe space for
practicing painting, I'd honestly recommend getting a sketchbook if you
don't already have one. For this purpose, you can get sketchbooks
like the one I'm using, which will come with the same quality of papers that you'll find in the artist
quality watercolor paths. All you can take as
standard sketchbook and paint over the pages
with watercolor ground. The paints may not react the exact way it thus on
the normal cotton paper, but it still allows you to
practice brush control, column mixing, shading, etc. We spelled community
fairly loose. You don't have to worry about details of things
that may not be accurate when comparing the
painting to the reference, but focus on creating
by mentioned by adding the different values. At this point I started making adjustments and
adding more detail to the features to get
that contrast in before adding the
final layers of paint. Adding some more contrast
and call to the eyebrows, the eyes, the nostrils,
and the lips. I also deepen the shadows and the color at the top
of her forehead, right at the heroin with those wispy baby
Harris meet the face. This is the stage of the
process where all their lifted do is really just to
make those final adjustments. You can keep it as
simple as you want, ot you and take it much
further than I'm doing. The more we're getting
to the stack of values and the more contrast with
getting onto the painting. And you'll notice that
I'm starting to mix in more of the
other paint mixes. So even the dark brown that
we mixed for the hair. Although I did try
to have as much of my palette visible
in this video as I could so that you
can see what I'm doing and which colors I'm
picking off with my brush. Please don't worry
about picking up the exact column
mixes I'm using. The reference photo and the
painting are not monochrome, but they don't have all
that much color going on. So pretty much all the college you've mixed are going to work. As we talked about in the part
of the class where we went through the color palette because we are using
a limited palette, you can't really go wrong. All the calls you're mixing aren't going
to go well together. So all the colors
you've mixed can technically go anywhere in the painting without
looking too strange. You could even add in
some bolder strokes or shades of color onto her
face or onto the hair. So maybe some bright strokes
of turquoise or pink. You don't have to
follow the reference. There are no rules. When you have an
opportunity like this where the goal is to just play around, have fun, and practice. Welcome that into your life. Use it as your playground. Experiment with ideas you have
or techniques you've seen, or things you want to try out. Because honestly we get way
too few of these moments. And it's important to remind
ourselves that everything doesn't have to turn into
some grand masterpiece. It's okay to take
time just honing a skill and improving
on your techniques. Now in traditional
watercolor painting, you go from light to dark. You avoid painting over
the highlights by ether or masking them off using
something like masking fluid. You carefully paint around them. While it often does give
you the best result On the most clean result depending on what
you're painting. I'm far from opposed
to adding whites. This is exactly what we've
got the white quash for. You can use this to add
highlights to the eyes, but you can also use it to suggest some of
those highlights on her skin and hair
that are caused by the light coming
from behind her. Obviously, I'm still keeping it very basic with my strokes, but if you want feel
free to spend time getting in more
of those flyaway, always be strands of hair or any other detail
you want to adjust. I'll add highlights to. I chose to add a few
random white dots, which just add some more
interest to the painting. This is of course a matter
of personal preference. Before we get to the end of the video and the
final exercise, I want to talk about
the class project. The project for this class is to practice adding
shading to a face. You can paint the
reference that I've provided in the projects
and resources tab. You can paint from a
different reference, whichever one you feel the
most inspired to paint. Practice getting smooth
gradients on the skin and add shading and shadows
by building up those values and contrasts. If you don't feel like
painting and entire face, Feel free to add shading to individual features instead
of painting a face, you can also practice on an
eye and nose and a mouth. I would love to see
what you create. Remember a few minutes
ago, went and told you, I've got one last
exercise for you. Don't worry, it's
nothing too dramatic, but this really is a
great way to practice confidence and courage when
it comes to your paintings. Imagine having a painting
that you've spent some time on and you're actually quite happy with the result, then you do something silly. What I'd like you to do, and you don't have to if you
absolutely don't want to. But try picking
up good amount of paint and just make
a few bold strokes. You can place them
anywhere you want. This may not seem like
a lot, but too many, including my past self, this would have
been unimaginable. My brain would have
gone crazy and told me that I was
running the painting. But in actual fact, it turns out that I really liked this effect and it
taught me to experiment. Try it out for
yourself, be brave. I really hope this
class motivates you to practice portraiture
in watercolor. If you have any questions, let me know and I'll
do my best to help.
Tanja Jensen, Artist - Sculpting, drawing and painting
