Transcripts
1. Welcome to My Class!: Hello everyone. My name is relaxed and welcome to my second
Skillshare class. I've been a
professional watercolor artist for many years now, exploring many
different subjects, from wildlife paintings and portraits to cityscapes
and countrysides scenes. I've been lucky enough
to take part in many exhibitions around
the world and then won awards from well
respected organizations such as Winsor Newton, international
watercolor masters, and the international
watercolor society. For this class. I'll be guiding you through a complete beginners
watercolor painting. Watercolor can be quite intimidating medium
for beginners. So my aim is to allow you
to relax and have fun while learning it's medium and hopefully ending up
with your own painting. Today we'll be
painting run a duck's. And I've purposely chosen this exercise because
it's great for beginners. It's simple to draw and allows for experimentation
and mistakes. Didn't you? Freedom to explore this medium without stress? And most importantly, it's been, in my other videos, I go over many
different techniques of watercolor in this class
intended for beginners. However, I'll try not
to overwhelm you by going through all the
different possibilities of techniques and effects. But rather, I'll give
you a basic instruction throughout a complete painting in which you can learn
at your own pace. You can return to redo this
painting whenever you want to practice or explore
a new technique that you've been
wanting to try out, but are too intimidated to try it on a more
ambitious painting. In this respect,
not just beginners will find this worthwhile. Learning to incorporate
techniques is a great way to build knowledge and comfort
in this medium. And this exercise is a good opportunity to
test out new things. This is a fun way to experiment and learn
about watercolor. While still ending up with a nice painting you can
hang up for yourself, will give us a
present to someone. Also unexplained,
which suppliers I use, including my color palette, paint brushes, and paper types. We'll start off with a
light outline drawing to set up the composition before
we put paint to paper. When you enroll in my class, I'll give you a variety
of photo references, including a high
resolution photo of the painting and
painting today, which you can use as a guide when you're painting your own. I'll even include
my colored charts, which are an invaluable tool when it comes to choosing
and mixing colors. I'll be splitting
everything up into short videos so that
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 down in
the discussion thread. And 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 up top. This means you'll
be the first to know when I launched
a new class, post giveaways, or just have some cool announcements to
share with my students. Also, to see my latest works. You can follow me on
Instagram at reversed. And so do you want to create your own work of art or was having some fun
learning about watercolor? Well, I'd love to
have you in my class. So click Enroll,
and let's begin.
2. Your Project: First of all, thank you so much for enrolling in my class. I really do appreciate it. And we're going to
have a lot of fun. And we're going to learn a lot. As seen in the
introduction video. We're going to paint
some run a duck's today. It's a nice simple
painting. Beginners. It gives you many options
to play around with. And we're not going to do
anything too detailed. The style we're
painting in today doesn't really rely
on technical drawing. Which means there's less stress. Which means there's more fun. And which ultimately
means you'll learn more and end up with
a better painting. It's almost close to
painting a cartoon. But of course, you can
choose to paint as loosely or as
detailed as you wish. With this project,
we're not going to rely heavily reference photos. I'm not going to be copying from one specific photo reference. I'm just going to look at a few reference photos of running ducks just to get a general
idea of what they look like. And then I'll come up
with my own composition. Welcome to copy my
drawing and follow it exact or experiment
with your own. I've included the reference
photos that are gonna be using in the resource section, which you can find down below. You can also use your own
if you find one you like. I'll also put two of my rubber duck paintings
in the resource section, including the one
I'm doing today. You can use that as reference
throughout the process. If you're feeling confident, you can use it as an opportunity
to practice techniques seen in my other videos or any other techniques
you want to try. Such as using dry
brush to create some small feather
textures or even salt. To create interesting
small details, you can explore what
different textures you can do with the sponge. Well, if you've
never used masking fluid and want to
know how it works, you can test it out on this, or even simply if you've just
bought a new tube of paint, I wanted an excuse to use it. Whichever way you
use this class, I love to see your results and the paintings you have
created in this class. I'd also love to
give you feedback. So please take a photo
after you've finished and uploaded into 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 love to hear about your process and what you
learned along the way. Once your project is uploaded, it will appear in the
student projects gallery. You can view all the other
students projects here. And I really encourage
you to like and comment on the other
student's work. And it was great to have
a good support network. We spend so much time putting
effort into the painting. Why not share it with the world and help each other
out along the way? Now that you have a good
idea of this class, Let's get stuck into it. Starting with what supplies
and materials I'll be using.
3. Materials & Supplies: Let's go over the materials and supplies you'll need
to follow along. We'll start with
the paint and like most materials will
be using today, it's a lot to do
with preference. I don't use any
particular brand. I have 12 stable
colors in my palette. I fill them up with tubes. And they are cadmium
yellow, yellow, ocher, burnt sienna, cadmium red, alizarin crimson,
ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, cerulean
blue, violet, radiant, neutral tint, which is basically
black and white gouache. These colors you can get
from almost any brand. I personally use,
Daniel Smith, Winsor, Newton, and Holbein paints. But it's just a preference. So let's move on to brushes. To keep things simple. In this painting, I'm only
going to use three brushes. First. Is this da
Vinci mop brush, which I use for
large brush strokes to fill up areas quickly. Next up is this size
eight Skoda Perla brush. This brush allows for more precision because
it has a finer tip. For even more precision. For final touches
such as highlights, I use this green synthetic
size 0 da Vinci brush. That's it for brushes. You're welcome to
use your favorites or whatever you used to. Just to keep things
simple for Beginners, I'm going to stick to
those three 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, such
as cotton base paper, not only allows you to rework mistakes over multiple times, but because the pigment
react so much better on it, the chance of mistakes
are a lot lower anyway. I use arches paper because it's what's available in
my local art shop. Next, some various materials that will come in very handy. Of course, you'll need a pencil and I use a
mechanical pencil. It always has a fine tip, which is perfect because we
only need it for the outline. And I use potty rubbers
rather than regular rapid because they don't leave residue that will
stick to the painting. And hairdryer, of course, is very useful for speeding
up the drying process, especially if you're
painting in multiple layers. A water container,
which is relatively large and it's either
transparent or white. In order to distinguish
how clean the water is. Also, the larger it is, the less often you have
to replace the water. It's also useful to have an
old t-shirt or an old rag, which you can use to
clean your brushes before definitely in the water. The paint that I use
is very thick and sticky and wet and it would
contaminate the water. And by cleaning off beforehand, it means you have to replace
the water less often. Also, sometimes you
may have loaded your brush with water and
despite tapping it on here, you can draw out
some of that liquid so that when you
touch the paper, it doesn't get overloaded. Reward and create
horrible marks. Also, it's always useful to have a tissue and your hand
whilst you paint, because you never know when an unwanted splash
or drip might occur. You might need to quickly
wipe it away in an instant. So it's always useful to
have one in your hand. And lastly, masking tape, which of course is just to
hold the paper down still on the surface so it doesn't move or slide whilst
you're painting. And that's it. Everything ready to
go onto the painting?
4. Quick Tips Before Starting: Before we start
with the painting, I'll just go over
some quick tips that can help you along the way. Of course, there are endless
tips and tricks you'll pick up along the way on
your watercolor journey. I still discover
them to this day. However, there are a
few important ones, but I think a beginner
will find very useful. One of the things I see
a lot that holds people back is simply that their paints or too
dry in their palette. Ideally, the paint in
your palate should be the same consistency as it is when it comes
from the tube. Similar to acrylic or oil. Often people start painting
watercolor the same way I did with buying or receiving a
painting set with Pan Xin. Similar to this as the pigment in the pens are
completely dry already. It's understandable to
keep them that way. However, when they
are dry like that, they're very
difficult to activate and it's difficult to pick up sufficient paint on the brush to create vivid
bold brushstrokes. Before painting. Whilst
watching this, even, you could drip some
water on each color in your palette to loosen up the pigment ready for
the painting stage. As I paint most days, I actually have
this water dropper, which I use to keep the
paints moist enough. Here's another tip about paints, and this one can save your
storage space and money. In the supplies video, I list all the colors
that I use in my palette. Well, these colors match the colors that I use
in my watercolor chart. They are available in
the resource section, and I highly recommend
you use them by mixing each color
with every other color. These charts show you all the color combinations you can make with a basic palette. You will discover that although paint manufacturers have
hundreds of pigments available, the majority of them
can be mixed by yourself with just
a few basic colors. Saving lots of money
and storage space. Not only that, but using
them as a reference can help you choose
what color to use, where and how to mix it. In fact, just looking at all the different possibilities
of color choices is very inspirational and can influence your future paintings. Another piece of advice that's important in
watercolor is how to avoid back run marks
or cauliflower marks, as they're sometimes known. Most importantly, don't
overload the brush with water as excess water on the paper can lead to
it drying unevenly. If an area starts to dry before you have
finished filling it in, you could get unwanted
uneven marks. The key is to apply the
brush strokes quickly or at least as quick as you can while still being in
control of the brush. Sometimes it can be difficult if the area is larger or intricate. Often you have to plan on which exact section
you're going to paint and where you're
going to finish before you even put your
brush to the paper. Well, I'll be sharing more tips as we go through the painting. So without further
ado, let's start.
5. Lightly Sketching the Basic Shapes: We're going to start
off from scratch, breaking down the shapes into the simplest forms and
then painting on top. So I'm just going to start
doing these circles. I'm just going to use
a mechanical pencil. Is if the base of the ducks, they're almost like
ten-pin bowling pins. This can be very
loose to begin with. Quite simple shapes. And it's fun because you can put a bit of
variety in them. In fact, drawing them
in perfect Lean, like having a few mistakes, makes it more interesting. So I'm doing the pencil markings quite likely to begin with, and then add a bit more detail. If you can see at this stage they just look like
ten-pin bowling. Then we don't need to worry
about detail at the bottom. We'll just kind of merge
it with the grass. I'm holding my pencil not list, just because I find
it easier to draw these rough shapes like
this rather than like this. This is just for the
precision later on. Draw some peaks is too, they're overlapping. One going in that direction.
6. Adding Details to the Drawing: Now I'm gonna go in
with a bit more detail. Not too much detail. You don't have to worry. With this kind of painting
I'm doing, we're doing today. It's not about details, more about bit more expression. And then getting
the shapes right. Because it's gonna be quite
obvious that they're ducts. Just not realistic ducks. Funny-looking ducks. This is a nice excuse to practice watercolor
without having to worry about drawing
things, right? And they tend to look
quite happy ducts, especially when their heads have popped up like this
and there waddling along. Of course, if you want to go
straight to the painting, you can skip ahead. I decided to record the whole process for people who wanted to go through the whole drawing
and painting with me. Like I said, there's
no right or wrong. This is just about having a good time. I'm not putting these ducks
in any search in position, just overlapping them, sometimes having
some face that way, some face the other way. One more dark here. We just have this duck quacking, have his mouth
moving a little bit. That's good enough. That side. It looks a
bit funny chap here. So if you do see something
that looks wrong, you can correct it if you want. But they all have their
different characters. And that's what I like about
this kind of painting style. Even the ones that
look a bit funny, it just adds to that character. If they look a bit goofy. So be it. So in duck, so goofy. I think wildlife. It's probably the best subject to try and paint when
you're learning watercolor because you can get away with more mistakes than if you
were painting people. Marx heating the grass. I'm not even going to
draw the feet. The next. When it comes to
painting, we don't even need to keep
to these lines. Okay. Wait, some of these
loans soften them up. Now let's get onto the painting.
7. Starting the Painting: It's my palette. I rarely washed my palette because already I can tell that I'm going to
use some of these colors, but they're not difficult
colors to make. In fact, you can use whichever color you want
for these, for these ducts. As long as it feels quite
normal, you could use green. You can use, while we'll be
using orange for the beaks. Blue. As long as it's muted, as
long as you mix it with gray, it should be fine. So basically we're
going to start here. We're not going to
paint the bills yet. The beaks were just
going to very casually. I'll mix some gray here
for this first one. I'm just using this mop brush. I'm just going to fill in it, fill in what we just
painted, simple as that. Go over the lines. I'm not
being careful at all really. Bring it down. If it's too dark, you can add more water. And a little bit
of another color, some blue there. Why not? Free flicks? Very simple. No pressure at all. I use a summer screen just
because I have it there, but you can make my own
green just to show you, obviously, blue and yellow,
I use yellow ocher. You can use a bit of cobalt blue there. You picked greener. Bit brighter green.
Flicker that green there. Good. And then we can
move on to the next. Now for the next tech, I'm going to make it a bit
careful with that gray. But instead of putting
blue in this time, I'm going to add a warm color. Like a tiny bit of red or brown. Burnt sienna. Think it redder. I want a bit lighter now, if you want a bit lighter,
just add a bit more water. Without having fun. Experimenting with watercolors
can do benefit green. They're plotted, they're going to take this water by itself
and flick it on that brown again. For this next stuck. When you can start learning
about watercolors, you can start with one color. And then if you want, you can add another color
into it like this, blue in it merges into it. You can start flicking.
It can be quite messy. I'm implying some grass here. Now. There's two trucks here and the ducts that
are a bit behind. I'm gonna go with cool colors. So I'm going to kind of put this blue horse, it can go in there,
bleeding there. That need to be afraid
of that. More blue. One thing that
should be careful. I want that beak
stand out there. But it's okay if
you get a tissue and just very carefully, the habit, because
we're going to paint the beak yellow and
we want it to stand out. And they'll say, Hey, I'm going to keep a little bit of white
there, barely noticeable. Click a bit more green in there. Okay, back to that brown. So like I said, you can paint along this complete composition just like me trying to do
exactly as I'm doing it. Or if you're feeling a
little bit more confident, you can paint these ducts with whatever way you want or
whatever position you want. Brown, I think I think I'm gonna do this one. Last one. Blue again. But maybe not that kind of blue. Let me just fill it out. I'm going to go. But we're not gonna go. Might seem a bit weird, but
I'm going to do this kind of greenish blue,
this turquoise blue. You could use either,
I'm using some blues, you could use orange.
8. Adding Texture & Grass: Flickers of green. They're not even worried about the green
coming out here, in fact, might be quite nice.
Flickers of green. Now I'm going to move to a
bit of a thinner brush here. I can do just because I want to bring these shapes into
thin pieces of grass here. Nice trick of avoiding to
paint the legs and the feet. But I think it's still
visually acceptable. Now I get some I'm just
using this dark pigment. Pigment for any dark permanent, you can use some
black, pure black. Getting it quite wet
and just dabbing it at the bottom area of these pieces of grass where it's wet so it
bleeds into where it's weighted. At the bottom. You can do a few flicks. Be careful and you
don't make flicks. Go on to the main part of the image is at
the bottom here. And just while it's still wet, I'm going to start
separating these a bit. I'm going to add a
bit more just to indicate that there's a
separation between those ducts. The ducts. So very loose. Not
much pressure or tool. How painting should be. Remove flickers of water. Some grasses the other way. Now we can let that dry. Before we go into the beaks. You can use a hairdryer.
That's what I'm going to use.
9. Painting the Beaks: Now it's dry and we can
start doing the beaks. Go from left to right
because I'm right-handed. But if you're left-handed, you can always go the other way. Looking at my reference images, I can see that there's
basically two types of beaks. You've got the yellow orange
beaks or some brown beaks. I'm just going to where
I've painted over. I'm just going to
dab it reward here because I don't want there to be a hard line is not
absolutely necessary. I'm just wetting
it and softening. You don't want to spend
too much time doing it, then this is not
an essential tool. Okay? Now, I happened to have, because already mixed here
that I think I'll use. Well, actually here,
I'm not gonna use that. I'm just going to
use this yellow, which is that yellow there. But I already have
on my palette, even though it's pure pigment. I'm literally just going
to fill in that shape. Coloring, coloring it in. And then if you want to save yourself from washing
the brush each time, just use another brush. And I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna just go a bit ahead of the beak with pure
water and it will bleed into the rest of it smoothly. And then going to get a bit of red and put up on the bottom
there. While it's still wet. Maybe a dab. That little
hole on the peak. That's fine. We can
move on to the next. I'm going to paint
this one next. I'm going to do that. That one, yeah, that one
brown coloring this one in. So this is a good
exercise for a beginner. But I'm not so much talking about the materials I'm using all the brushes, I'm using all the colors. This is more about the technique
itself to the exercise. Debra Brown that next, next week I'll do right here. Covered up behind
the other ones. Just have to indicate
the shape there. I use burnt sienna
and a bit of red. You don't have to be
as nice. I wouldn't say this is particularly neat, but if you're a beginner, I'm
just getting used to them. The worker, although the manner of watercolor, any distress, wetting that bill, dabbing
it with a bit of paper and filling it in March. We'll do that one last. I've got it loaded. Just nicking a bit. Burnt sienna from
the other bill. Little dot there for the whole he's got his mouth open there. It is. There concern that middle middle
beakers spilled too much. I'm just going to adapt it. You can always bring it out
and go back over it again. Now I think I'm going to
go and do the brown beaks. Beaks. I'm just going to
use this burnt sienna. And I'm going to turn it
down a little bit of black. What I'm gonna do here actually. So I've painted that billion. I'm going to let it bleed
into the rest of the list. Not being afraid
of any messiness. Do that again with that one. Diving. I think more pigment at one end. And then I can put pure
water there and drag it out. I'm going to use the
hairdryer again. Then all we've got
left at the eyes. A bit more of this
duck's mouth open there.
10. Painting the Eyes: Now for the ducks eyes, I'm just going to take pure black and just put dots. Thoughts like that. Starts in the general location of where eyes are meant to be. And once we've done that, we're just going to
put some highlights on the eyes and just gives that extra feeling of eyes. Makes them look a
bit more realistic. Even though it's not
a realistic painting is just a little detail
that we can add. No trouble at all. Couple of holes and the beak. You can rub out the
pencil markings when everything is dry. I'm just going to pin it
a bit more yellow here. Make it a bit, look a
bit more like beaks.
11. Making it Pop with Highlights: Then going to put some dots. I've got some white
here or you can, if you don't have
that on your palette, you can just take it
directly from the tube. And you want to put a white dot about two-thirds up on the top. So you have to be quite
accurately going to take your time just to put a dab and make sure the
paint is thick enough. Because white always looks stronger when it's wet
and when it's dry. And they didn't need
to be too big at all. When you any leftover white, you can always, in fact, I'm going to turn a
bit of white just to separate one of
these tucks here. And if you feel like you need to I didn't feel
like it's necessary, but I'll do it just to show. You can add a few
more darker leaves. Leaves, grass. I'll just take the tape off.
12. Final Thoughts: So I've taken the tape off. Let's have a closer look
at the finished piece. I hope you have your own
painting as well to look at. If this is one of
your first time was painting and you're not
happy with the result. Don't worry. Watercolor is a
medium that takes a bit of trial and error
to get to grips with. Sometimes it has a
mind of its own, and even the best Masters make mistakes and create bad
paintings every now and then. What's important is that you took the first step
and gave it a shot. This is a great exercise for beginners because you
can really practice and experiment with different
mark makings without doing anything too technical
or without much pressure. The goal ultimately at
this beginning stage, is just to have a
bit of fun exploring the medium and getting excited by all its
different possibilities. It can be easy to feel
a bit stressed if the paintings not going that way and there's a
bit of a struggle, but ultimately, keeping
safe and remaining happy really helps
out in the long term. If you'd like some feedback
on your painting or like any advice about the
painting process in general, please share your paintings in the student projects
gallery down below. Well, if you prefer, you can share it on Instagram, tagging me at will Ellison
as I would love to see it. After all that effort we
put into painting it. Why not show it off? Remember, please click
the follow button up top so that you can
follow me on Skillshare. This means that you'll
get a notification as soon as I've
published my next class. Or have important announcements like free giveaways or sharing some of my best student artwork uploaded to the project gallery. Thank you so much for joining
me in this class today. Please leave a comment below
in the class discussion. If you have any question or
comment about today's class. I hope you learned a lot and are inspired to paint more in
this wonderful medium. Thanks a lot for
joining me today. I hope it's been useful for
you and see you next time.
Will Elliston, Award-Winning Watercolour Artist
