Let's Paint Juicy Fruits! Learn Modern Loose Gouache OR Acrylic Painting Techniques | Yasmina Creates | Skillshare
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Let's Paint Juicy Fruits! Learn Modern Loose Gouache OR Acrylic Painting Techniques

teacher avatar Yasmina Creates, Artist & Creativity Cheerleader

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Trailer

      1:49

    • 2.

      Basics Refresher

      3:01

    • 3.

      Playing With Color

      2:50

    • 4.

      Some Fun Tips

      3:21

    • 5.

      Light & Shadow

      8:11

    • 6.

      Upping the Contrast

      7:39

    • 7.

      Playing With Style

      5:34

    • 8.

      Supplies

      6:17

    • 9.

      Lemon

      11:56

    • 10.

      Eggplant

      13:06

    • 11.

      Banana

      11:03

    • 12.

      Avocado

      12:39

    • 13.

      Watermelon

      13:49

    • 14.

      End

      1:49

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About This Class

Let's have some fun working loose with gouache (you can also follow with acrylic or acrylic gouache paint) to paint some juicy fruits using some awesome techniques! In this class I will teach you the basics of light and shadow, don't worry it'll be easy, and how to increase contrast in your paintings. We will take these skills and paint some super simple and magical fruits! The best part is you will walk away with a better understanding in some super important art fundamentals that you can use for all the art that you make in the future. You will also get more comfortable painting with your imagination and trusting your intuition! Also, like always, we will have lots of FUN! :)

In the Step-by-Step portion of this class we're going to paint:

  • Lemon
  • Eggplant
  • Banana
  • Avocado
  • & Watermelon!

But you can use your skills to paint ANY fruit you like! :)

Meet Your Teacher

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Yasmina Creates

Artist & Creativity Cheerleader

Top Teacher

I strive to make every class the highest quality, information-packed, inspiring, & easy to understand!

Creating is my biggest passion and I'm so happy to share it with you!! :)

Stay connected & in the loop by joining my Newsletter! (Also get 3 free coloring pages! :))

Did you know I have a book on drawing CUTE animals? Check it out!

See full profile

Level: All Levels

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Transcripts

1. Trailer: [MUSIC] Gouache, how beautiful you are with your bright and juicy colors and creamy layers. You are just so fun to mix and blend and play with. It wasn't always like this. I come from a watercolor background. At first I found gouache very frustrating. But by learning a few simple techniques and playing with the medium a lot, I learned how to paint loosely with it and how to do it easy. In this class, we're going to have so much fun painting some juicy gouache fruits. We're going to paint these very simple subjects, but by painting them, we're going to play with a lot of things like value, contrast, color, and light and style. You're going to get better at creating art overall. I'm going to show you everything you need to know from supplies to get started, to gouache basics refresher, how to play with color, the basics, how light and shadow works, and how we can use that information to add shadows and highlights from our imagination. Trust me, it's not as complicated as you think. We'll even dive into how to increase contrast for the most juicy look. Lastly, we'll touch on how to make small changes in how we paint, and how those small change will make very different results for some play with style. Then we'll take everything we learned and we're going to paint five step-by-step fruits that you can follow along with for a super juicy and vibrant look. The paintings done in this class may look complex, but they're surprisingly easy to achieve. It's just a couple of simple techniques and practice, but fun practice. You'll also walk away with some valuable skills that will help level up your other art. No matter what style or medium you create in, you'll not only trust your intuition more, but you'll also learn how to wing it without fear and pain from your imagination. Gouache is so forgiving with mistakes, so it's very fun to layer it and just to paint with freedom. Are you ready for super fun and for the adventure that will help you level up your art? Me too. Pick up your brush and let's play. 2. Basics Refresher: Welcome to the class. Let's start the class by quickly going over some important concepts that we should keep in mind. But if you're a complete beginner to gouache, I recommend you take my beginner gouache class that covers all the basic basics. But if you just need a refresher, this is the lesson for you. Let's start with opacity and the water to paint ratio. If you watered down gouache, it will look and behave a lot like watercolor. It will be transparent. Notice that as I add more paint, the color becomes deeper and more opaque, but the transparency is still there. It's not really opaque opaque. If you want a completely opaque look like when we layer it, it's important to only add a few drops of water, almost working with straight paint. This also depends on the brand you use, some are more watery naturally, and so don't need any water at all, and some are a little thicker and need a little bit more water to be workable. This is why it's important to get familiar with the gouache you have and test out your supplies and learn the right water to paint ratio for the results that you want. But don't worry about it too much, if you get it wrong, you can always paint over any mistakes. We're going for a loose look in this class anyway, and I just want you to be playful, so these are things to keep in mind, but they're not rules. Now, let's go over some layering tips. Make sure your previous layer is fully dry before adding the next one, if you want crisp edges, especially when adding white highlights at the end. Also remember that gouache reactivates with water, so be sure not to use too much water on subsequent layers if you don't want to disturb the paint below. But this feature also lets us blend out colors with a wet brush at anytime or you can have wet paint and let the colors mix together and get a more of a painted look at anytime. I call this the oil paint look. If you work with a wet brush with wet paint below it, or if you want it again, it'll also give a nice oil painting look. It's fun, loose, and beautiful, but do keep in mind if you want to add a very different color, the other colors will blend within. Sometimes that means muddy colors or the color won't be as pure as you want it. If you want to add a lighter color, especially, or a very bright color, be sure to let the previous layers dry. This takes some practice in getting used to, and you'll get better at judging it as you paint. But working wet on wet with your gouache, which is what I do a lot, is great for making subtle gradients in general. You'll see me do that. I want you to keep in mind that if you make any mistakes, there's no worries because we can always let the paint dry and then put something brand new on top of it. Another thing to keep in mind when layering is you can always start with a light watercolor type wash by using a lot of water and then build up your paint thickness as you layer. I find this makes it easier since less paint is used, the layers aren't as thick and it works like an under painting with the white of the page being covered. If we get some fun textures on the first layer, we can leave some of them for extra fun on subsequent layers by painting around them. You could even do a watercolor background completely if you like. I love this is practice,and this class is perfect for getting that practice time in with your paints and mastering the medium. Again, we are painting loose, so don't worry too much about it and have fun. Now, let's go over some more fun tips. 3. Playing With Color: Next, let's talk about color. You don't need to use the same exact colors that I do. I want you to feel free to play with your colors. You can use similar ones or do your own thing. Of course, a lemon is yellow and a watermelon is pink and green, but they don't have to be the same exact colors that I used to look good. The important thing to pay attention to is the value changes. Notice when I lighten or darken a color instead of focusing on mixing the same exact color. Also, you'll notice that I like to mix similar colors all the time so I pick out a couple of colors. I try not to add too many new ones, and if I do, I try to incorporate the ones I already used previously in my newer colors. It's just something I like to do and it keeps it more cohesive. Another thing you can definitely play with is backgrounds. See what kind of colors you want to use and how you paint the background so you can just change it completely. I highly recommend you use a scrap piece of paper like I will to test out your colors before you put them down the page. This really helps you to make sure that you're making the right judgment. You can always paint over a color that you don't like, if you don't like it, so don't worry too much. This is how I teach all my classes and it's because the only way you'll get good at picking your own colors and mixing is by doing. Don't be intimidated and just try it. There's just some simple things that you'll learn just by doing. For example, if you mix white into a color, it will make it lighter, but also less vibrant and more pastel. It's not always the best option. If you mix this complimentary color, which just means the opposite color on the color wheel, it will mute it more. If you mix a lot of the complimentary color into it, it'll actually make a really nice brown or black. If you mix a similar color, it will make a blend between the two. If you want a color that's a mix between two colors and it's two different kinds of green or a yellow and a green or blue blue and a green, something like that, just similar colors on the color wheel, colors that touch, I'll just make a mix between the two. Very easy. I mix my colors intuitively and wing it most of the time. If you're interested in doing some fun exercises and learning the basics of color theory, I have a super short class on watercolor that you can take, but the principles in this class can be used with any medium. You can also always pick your colors out ahead of time and even do a small thumbnail painting to test out how they look together. This is completely optional, but I recommend it if you don't think you'll get good results from winging it and are not comfortable with it, or if you're doing an important project and mistakes aren't an option. You can learn a lot by painting tiny paintings and they actually can look really good, and by trying out different combos, you'll see what works and what doesn't. You'll get better at having color intuition. We also have this color inspiration board on Pinterest you can check out, but color inspiration is all around you from the beautiful sunset or flowers or to other people's art. Keep your eyes peeled and have fun with it. You're going to build your visual vocabulary the more you pay attention to these things. Don't be scared of looking bad because you can always completely repaint any color that you want to change by painting over it or you can try again completely. No worries, just play and just practice. Now, let's get into some final tips. 4. Some Fun Tips: My next tips will help you to make sure that your paintings look their best. They're pretty easy and practical. The first is to squint your eyes. I know it sounds silly but when you squint your eyes, you can see contrast and you can see value changes. When you squint your eyes, you automatically group together lights and darks and your painting becomes easier to judge with light and shadow. This takes practice, but with time, you'll be able to see where more highlights or shadows are needed and if certain areas just don't look right or believable. We'll talk more about contrast and value and light and shadow in the next lessons. The next thing you can do is take a picture of your painting with your phone. Seeing your painting small helps you to judge if anything looks off or bad. Another tip is to flip your painting and this will help you to see if your overall shape looks good. I recommend you flip your painting right when you start with the shapes that you can tweak it if it needs to be tweaked but I won't be doing that in this class because I love the charm of wonky art. Another tip is to use a pencil to sketch this shape before you start. This will help you pick a shape you really like to center it on the page properly. I won't be doing this because I'll be painting straight on the page but I want you to know that if you don't feel comfortable with doing that, just use a pencil. You don't have to do what I do. It's just a personal preference, which way you prefer better. Another tip is to let your painting free by walking away from it. I know this is hard but gouache can be reworked at anytime with layers or water for blending, so you can walk away and come back to the next day with fresh eyes. I do this a lot in my art and there's so many times where I think something looks good and I walk away and I'm like, "Wait, that doesn't look that good." Especially if I feel like I've been staring at something for too long I just can't tell anymore. Usually when you come back to it, you'll be able to tell if something needs fixing or you're done. My last tip is to not worry about making mistakes. If you're always thinking about mistakes and are afraid to make them, you'll just keep making them and you won't get into the flow state. The flow state is what every creative strives for. It's a place where time stands still. You're in the present moment, there's joy and you feel like you can do it all day. It's that magic spot. You don't have to think about what you're doing, every brushstroke feels effortless and goes to the next one without you having to think about it. This comes from understanding a medium to the point of knowing what you're doing, which just means mastering the basics but also from letting go of fear and judgment and just painting. The great thing about gouache is you can paint over anything you don't like and if you don't like a piece that you make, guess what? You learned a ton making it and you can also try again. It's a great medium to get into the flow state with. In fact, I had to redo my paintings a couple of times because I wanted the pieces to look the best for this class. Here are some of my field recordings but it's okay, I learned a lot from each one and I did better when I tried again. Don't be scared of failures or mistakes, no big deal. Painting is hard and it takes lots of practice but the practice can be more fun if you don't care about results. This is something I had to learn over time. Silence your inner critic by reminding him that we're just having fun and guess what will happen? Your results will be better, you'll have more fun, you'll enjoy the process and you'll be in the flow state. So no fear, just play. I hope this class helps you to loosen up and to trust your intuition when you paint. Now, let's learn a little bit about light and shadow. 5. Light & Shadow: Let's talk light and shadow. Some some you may know me as a rule breaker because I like to just wing it and have fun. I'm not that different when it comes to making up lighting scenarios. I like to make up my own, and they aren't super realistic. All I care about is if they look good or not. This is definitely a different way to make art. Some art teachers will disagree with me, but I believe as artists, we have the creative freedom to play and add our own twist to reality. It is good to be aware of some basic rules of light, but guess what? It's complicated. It takes a lot of study to understand it fully. But we're painting simple subjects, and we can get away with winging it, and it's going to be a lot of fun, and nobody will call us out on it because it will look good. My method of making a plate is all about knowing some basics, and then playing with that information to the extreme. I am just stylizing it, and I'm just making it my own. Let's study some lighting scenarios to learn some basics. Don't worry, this is not that complicated. I'm just going to do the complete basics of basics, 3D spear, but as a lemon. Let's look at it with a direct light source from the top. Let's go over some terminology. We have the highlight, or you can call the specular reflection, which is just a fancy way of saying the white part. Usually it is white, but in some things that there is no white highlight. But we always add this in art because it makes the most contrast, and just makes it look really good. Notice how around the highlight, it's also lighter. This is also part of the highlight, and sometimes it's just a lighter color, like I said, without the white. This is just from the light bouncing off the object directly and making the lightest part. It's always facing the light. Sometimes it's at an angle depending on where we view it. Mid-tone is the base color of our lemon. If we paint our lemon cartoony with just one color, it would be this mid-tone color. Is the color in-between the highlight in a shadow. Then we have the core shadow, which is just the shadow on the lemon. Then we have this area that is much lighter, this is called reflected light. The light is being reflected from the white table, and is hitting the bottom of the lemon. It makes a nice little highlight in the dark part. Realistically this color is not as bright as the other lighter parts, but you'll see me use this concept as an excuse to add white at the edges of shadows, and just go crazy with it. Next we have the cast shadow, which we will not use in this class, but it's still good to know and you can always use it if you want to. Notice how hard the edges are because the light source is a direct light source. It's just like your shadow would look like when it's nice and sunny outside with no clouds in the sky. Now, don't worry about memorizing these words. Just notice what happens when I change lighting scenarios. Just observe. For example, but here, I didn't change the light, but I'm looking at the object from the top, and notice how there's much more mid-tone color. Notice how a smaller reflected light is now, because we just see the edge of that area. Now, let's look at it at an angle. Notice how similar it is, the first example, because we're doing really the same angle, the light is coming from the top. Now, I changed the light source to be from an angle. Which is how I usually like to do my light in my compositions, either from top-right or top-left for more interest. Notice how we still have all the same elements, but they just shift with the light. Pay attention to how our highlights and shadows follow the form of the lemon, this circle around it because it's spherical. We also have this one area that is darker than the rest because light is having a hard time reaching it back here. Where light cannot go somewhere, it's dark. Also notice how the shadow is at an angle now. One more thing to notice about shadows is if you do choose to illustrate them, that is not a solid color, as it's closer to the light source, notice how yellow and light the shadow is. That's because, you guessed it, the light is bouncing off the body of the lemon and hitting the table where the shadow is. More light is getting in because of how close it is to the light source. But it gets darker as we go back more and further away from the light. This is getting complicated for you, don't worry about it. Just let your subconscious absorb this information. One more concept to make sure to remember is if something is blocking the light, it will be in shadow. Just like the shadow of the lemon, if you ever illustrate people, you'll see this with the neck being in partial shadow, because the head is blocking the light. Here are a couple more places to notice where the light is being blocked by features of the face. When something blocks the light, it creates a shadow. This is what makes drawing people realistically so hard, because there's so many different types of forms or shapes on the face. But don't worry, we're just painting simple fruits in this class. Back to our lemon, here is from the top. Very similar as you can see, and the reflected light makes a nice halo around the dark parts. Now let's look at diffused light. This is different from direct light because the light is going through something that scatters it around. Like the sun being covered by a cloud. Similarly, here I have my studio lights which are covered in white fabric that diffuse the light. Here we have only one of my studio lights on, and the light source is coming from the top-right, like I showed previously. But notice how the value changes, which just means how dark or light the colors are much more gradual. There is less contrast, it's more soft. Notice how the highlights aren't as bright, and the shadow is blurry and less dark. If I turn on two studio lights, so the top run and the right one, look at how the value changes get even more similar. It's like we're turning down the contrast, also at how tiny the shadows became because the light is reaching more places. Now, I turn on all three of my studio lights and the lemon has become quite boring. This sliding scenario is great for lessening shadows, and making everything look nice and beautiful when I paint. But the shadows on my lemon are super small, and there's barely any contrast, and there's no major highlight. This makes my subject not interesting. Also notice how we don't have a light source in front of it, so it is darker in the middle but only slightly. This blend look is why I don't like diffused lights from my fruits. Diffused light is great for making perfect and even lighting, especially portrait photography, to take away those harsh shadows. But in this we want contrast. We are going to imagine direct light instead of diffused lights on our fruits. We're going to exaggerate it even more to make it cool. Just to summarize everything. Pick a mid-tone for your fruit, which is just like the basic color of our fruit. Then pick where the light is coming from, and make a highlight in that direction. You can do just a white dot, or you can do a lighter area and white to make it more 3D. You'll also see me do a bunch of sparkles here. Then you also just need to add a shadow which is darker, and of course reflected light, which is my excuse for adding even more highlights. If you want to, you can add a cast shadow as well, that's up to you. One more thing to keep in mind is flat planes behave differently from spears. Look at the avocado pit here, is behaving just like the lemon. But the flat part is almost the same color everywhere because it's all facing the same way towards the light. We just have the shadow coming from the pit. This is boring to me, and it's why I like to exaggerate things and make it up, because I just want to make it look even better than real life. Take a look at my finished avocado painting. This is not realistic. Look at the fleshy part having so many different values. But look how good it looks, it just pops off the page. One more effect that's fun to use is colored light. Here I have the same magenta color that I will use on my avocado painting for the background. You can see how it reflects into the avocado. Basing a technique I love to use on reality, when you take things from reality and make it your own, you actually will make things look better. Check out the bits of magenta I added into the avocado here. You can always add in some random color if you think it looks good, but I mostly like to just add bits of color from the background color, because backgrounds also reflect onto your fruit and change its color. But really, it also helps unify the piece more when you use similar colors in different parts in your piece. It's not really that much about realism. Light doesn't have to be complicated. Knowing the formula for what makes things look shining interesting, is what gives us the creative liberty to just wing it. I hope this gave you a better understanding of light and shadow, and don't worry about it too much if it didn't. Just know that you can play and exaggerate, and make your paintings look better than reality if you just base them off real life, and then just do your own thing. Now, let's talk more about upping the contrast. 6. Upping the Contrast: Now let's dive deeper into contrast and why it's so important for this class. Let's first look into what contrast is. Contrast is defined as difference. When we put opposite elements together, like light versus dark, we are creating contrast. That's what I'm mostly doing in this class. But it can also refer to large versus small shapes, or no texture versus texture. Any elements that are just different from each other being together makes contrasts. When we put opposite elements together, they make each other more interesting, and they make your artwork pop more. For example, if I have a black and white painting and then I make one area have color, that area will really pop out at you because of the contrast. Or if I take a colorful painting and make one area black and white, now that area will pop out at you because of the contrast, because that one area is different from the other parts. The differences make it interesting. Notice how if we make the whole image black and white, it doesn't have the same effect because there's no differences in there. The idea is to use different elements in art to create interests. In this class, we're going for juicy fruit look. This is best achieved by playing with contrast and value. Value just means how light or dark a color is. Don't confuse it with color, which is not value, but every color has a value. Take a look at how this rainbow looks when I make it black and white, the lightness and darkness of each color is value. Two different colors can have the same value. How do we see value in colored images? It just takes practice. I think the best way to be able to tell how much value changes are in your piece is, you guessed it, the tip I've already gave by squinting your eyes. When you squint your eyes, values get grouped together and this makes it easier to see how much contrast we have. Let me show you what I mean by contrast one more time with value. If I have this image and I make it just black and white, you can see it has a normal contrast range. That means that the different values in this image aren't that crazy difference. We just have mid-tones a little bit darker and a little bit lighter, and just some highlights. But if I up the contrast on this image, you can see what happens is the value changes become more and more grant. We have more darker darks and more lighter lights. If I lower the contrast, it becomes a low contrast image which just means all the values are very similar. There isn't that many darks or that many lights, and as you can see, it gets lost. For the juicy fruit look, we want the high contrast image. Let's take a look at this avocado. We will be painting this together in the future, and I want you to see what happens when I make it black and white. Look at all that beautiful contrast. It's making it really pop off the page and it feels juicy. But if I lower the contrast, look at how it's becoming more and more dull. But maybe you like this look, it's up to you. Let's also look at it in color. If I lower the contrast in color, you can see that it's also becoming more and more dull and it looks less juicy and vibrant. If I increase the contrast of it and color, it really pops out at you. But you can go too far. With juicy fruit, we want to have a nice value range. We want to have a nice darker dark, and then we use pure white to make everything pop more. That's what you will see me do a lot when we paint in the future lessons. I'm constantly increasing contrast until I'm happy with my fruit. But I do have a small warning about this that I don't think looks good. Try not to use colors that are just way too dark because it takes away from the realism. That's why I rarely mix black into my colors. I just try to darken them up and keep the vibrancy of the colors. I'll show you what I mean later on. But I never had a problem with adding liberal highlights with pure white. I don't want my pieces to be too dark unless an area requires it like the skin of the avocado. But even then, I wouldn't make it pitch black, I just mix a green and a blue. But here, for example, I used a dark color for the background of the banana, and this made it really pop. But even here, I'm not really using black, just the blue and green. It just makes it more interesting when you use color. These are just my personal preferences. What you do is up to you. Now let's look at an example of how I paint for more contrast. Here, I am doing a simple sphere. I always like to start with a light wash, and then layer on top of that. Now I'm going to go in with a darker color to define my shadows. I know the light is coming from the top left, so I'm just going to blend it out on the opposite side. I blended out the shadow with a lighter blue as I got closer to the light, and this so far it looks like a classical sphere. Not too much contrast but realistic. Let's see what happens when we take realism out of the window and we just keep adding contrast. I let it dry and I define more darks, and I even put some more closer to the way the light is even if it's not realistic, just for more contrast. When a very light color is just next to a very dark one, it grades. You got it contrasts and that's what makes it pop even more. The biggest thing to make your fruit look juicy and vibrant is adding highlights with white. Look how different it made it look just with a small touch. Just by darkening my darks and adding pure white, the whole piece has become so much more interesting to look at. Now it looks like a marble, which means it's still pretty realistic, but we're just making it look really shiny and reflective. Now let's use that artistic freedom to increase contrast even more by adding white where there would be reflected light. We are using realism with a twist since it's realistic, but it would not be that bright in real life. I add even more white in the darker area and little dots all around the highlight. At this point, it looks super magical all because of contrast in play. I keep squinting my eyes like always and I see that I need to darken this area right here, and I do so. But look at this, if I just add a simple shape at the top, it's now a blueberry. We've been painting a fruit this whole time. Now I go back and use the colors I already used to continue playing with what I painted. I like to use the same colors over and over again and just mix them together. I throw realism out the window and just keep increasing contrast but adding highlights and shadows all around. Doesn't it look so juicy? When I do this, I keep squinting my eyes a lot and see where shadows or highlights would look good. It just take some practice and trusting your intuition. But don't worry, you can copy me exactly in the future pieces until you get the hang of it, and then try it yourself. I continued increasing contrast by adding a contrasted background as well. The yellow pops off the page and it looks nice with the blue. I can also throw in some of my background color into the berry for more fun. I usually do this and I think it just adds that nice little highlight and pop of color. There are no rules set in stone so I encourage you to experiment when you paint. By introducing a third color, I increased the contrast even more. By leaving the leaves outline and not filled in, it adds even more interests in contrast because it has a cartoony and whimsical look versus the realism of the blueberry. Of course, you don't want to overdo it, but you will eventually learn when to stop if you have a tendency to overdo it. Don't worry about it too much, it took me years and years to figure this out. This is the gist of my process. I'm not really using any reference image because I think it's more fun to make it up and imagine the light source, especially since the fruits are so simple to make and they're just simple shapes. I encourage you to really play and, of course, you can use references if you want to, but if you do, just add contrast to make it really pop by using lots of highlights and darker shadows. You don't have to follow the reference exactly, do your own thing. I hope that explained contrast for you and how to play with values. Don't worry if any of these concepts seem complicated, you'll see me use them a lot in the future pieces, and I think you'll learn just by watching and by doing. It's okay if you don't understand it all completely, it's in your subconscious mind and you will get better understanding it as you paint. It's now time to move on to the next lesson. Let's dive into playing with style. 7. Playing With Style: Style, the thing everyone wonders how to find. This class is no exception with you being able to tweak the fruits into your own style or experiment with lots of different styles until you find the one that works for you. Style is something that comes with time and the only way to get there is to try lots of different things in play. Let's look at an example of how easily one can tweak how they paint fruits and change their style. Here, I'm going to paint a papaya in various styles. It always starts with observation, but how you tweak, and how you do things will give you a completely different look. Let's see what I mean by that. Let's start with realism. When you paint realistically, you're trying to copy a reference to the best of your ability. You are trying to make it look like it does in the photo or in real life. Usually, you start with the base colors and then add highlights and shadows like always, but the transitions are more gradual between colors and painterly like they are in real life. The strokes are also less noticeable and less loose and more precise. You achieve this look by observing your subject very carefully and this is where squinting your eyes comes into play a lot. But this time looking at your reference, because you want to see where the value changes are and copy them exactly instead of making them up. We're not going to be as liberal with highlights here or shadows so the high contrast look is not utilized here, we are going for reality instead of exaggeration. This is the most time-consuming style that I'm showing, but some people really enjoy painting like this, and if you do too, that's wonderful. You just need patience and you need good observation skills which just come with practice. This next style is super cartoony and loose. It's the opposite of the one I just showed. It's more playful and whimsical. We are not careful with our strokes and we play with the reality. Notice how even the shape was tweaked to be more fun. I also enjoy playing with the seeds by outlining some of them and varying the scale which is not realistic at all, but it's inspired by reality. Liberal highlights and shadows are added as well and at randomly, and look how drastically the look is changed if we just add some dark outlines. The style you'll see in this class is a mix between realism and this style, leaning more to this one, the more playful one. Notice right now how you feel about each illustration. Which one looks better to you? Which one looks right to you? Which one do you like more? This is a great indicator of the style that you prefer more. But of course, there's different variables and you can really tweak each style to do your own thing. It can be realistic and just a touch playful are super playful and just to touch realistic or anything in-between. This next style is super loose and it's low contrast, and it's washy and fun. In fact, notice how I don't add any highlights and just leave the white of the page in some parts. I use the gouache more like watercolor and this gives it a fun look of having fun textures and being light in color and fun blending. I only gave it a really faint outline this time so this is more of a 2D style. We're not doing a lot of shading and as you can see, it's just really loose and playful and the shape is very playful. This can be really fun to do, especially if you'd like to do patterns and it's also very easy to do. This style isn't for everyone, but it can be really fun. Now, this next one is a mix between realism and looseness, but the twist is that we're using this boxy brush, which is just a flat brush. It forces us to have fun with thicker strokes. We're going for an oil painting feel so I am using more paint here just to blend it out more. I'm blending right on the page, but I'm also trying to be realistic and this creates this nice and loose realistic feeling. But we still see all the looseness and it just looks really cool, doesn't it? Notice that even though my brushstrokes are loose, it still has order to it. When I painted this, I was trying to be realistic, but I didn't overthink it and I kept the looseness, I was just doing whatever at the same time and that's how I got this cool look. I especially love how I added the highlights to the seeds. I just did it really loosely with the tip of the edge of the brush. If you want to replicate it with a bigger painting, just use a flat brush and choose a size you feel is right for your piece. If you choose a bigger brush on smaller paper, you'll have less control and more looseness, but it will also be harder to do. But this is a really cool look to achieve and I've seen some artists do this really well with oil paintings and acrylic paintings, and you can definitely do this. Just follow the class with a flat brush if you want to try it and make sure it's a little bit bigger so it forces you to be more loose. This next look is done with flat colors. We're going to use flat colors overlapping to add dimension like a vector or logo on graphic design. It's a cartoony look. First I put down the base layers of colors and then I build up on top of them. Sometimes I do this with other paintings. You'll see me do this with the avocado. It's just easier to have base layers of color. But then as I add shadows, so notice how in the skin I use these lines, make it look a liney look. I don't know how to say it, but you can see this is just a flat color, but the way I'm painting it, it makes it look gradual so it's like a fake gradient. Then I use the random shape to add a darker part inside the papaya as well. The highlights are also made up of shapes and these highlights that are made of shapes are something I like to use a lot. I think it makes it really pop and it makes it look really cool. This style doesn't have the blending of the other styles. Instead, we are utilizing only flat shapes of color, but this style can be super fun to look at. If you like it, give it a shot. These are the five styles that came to mind for me, but I want you to just be aware of how making small changes will influence your style. There is an infinite number of ways to stylize your fruits or any other art you create so be sure to play with style and find what you enjoy doing the most. Find how to paint your cuties in the way that is uniquely you. I can't wait to see your unique style, but it's okay if you just want to follow me exactly too. Copying is a wonderful learning tool especially if you're a beginner or if you're new to gouache. I encourage you to copy, but if you're comfortable, I encourage you to try doing your own thing because it will be more rewarding. But either way, it doesn't matter, just have fun with it. We're almost ready to start painting, but first, let's go over supplies. 8. Supplies: Let's go over all the supplies needed for this class and some optional ones as well. First off, you will need gouache paint. Now, I will say that if you have acrylic paint, you can also follow along with this class. It just won't reactivate with water and some of the watercolor washy layers won't look exactly the same, but it's just fine to use. Another medium you can use is acrylic gouache, which is just gouache that doesn't reactive with water as well, but otherwise it behaves just like gouache. So any gouache paint you have is fine. This is the one that I will be using. It's great because all the colors are so easy to get to and they stay wet in this container as long as I seal it properly. If you have this gouache and your paint dries out, just add water to each pan, let it sit, and use a toothpick for each color to just mix it and reconstitute it. I've had to do this one time for all my colors and it's just like new now. But you can also use tubes if you have them, anything you have is just fine. Don't try to mimic what this paint set does by adding it to a palette. This one is sealed so that the paint doesn't dry out, because if your paint dries out, it will be hard to reactivate a normal palette and they will be too thin for the thick layers we are using in this class. It'll be more like watercolor feel. If you're using tubes, just take what you need as you go along for each painting. You can use a plain ceramic plate to mix your colors on to have more space for mixing. I will be using a cute little ceramic flower, but if you have less colors and need to mix more, a plate is probably the better option. As for paint brands, I go over some good brands and such in my gouache basics class, but just use what you have or get whatever is offered in your area. Cheaper gouache is harder to layer and is not as vibrant, but it's still good to use, especially for a loose class like this. I wouldn't consider the gouache that I'm using, which is Himi paints, which are pretty great, but I wouldn't consider them to be artist great gouache. They are definitely more like student great gouache, but I still love them. Don't worry about it too much, just get whatever you can. You will also need a brush or two. I will be using just one. This is just a cheap size 6 round brush with synthetic bristles. I find that the cheaper synthetic brushes are great for gouache because they don't hold too much water and keep their form. When shopping for a brush, just pull on it lightly and see if any bristles come out to make sure that they don't. [LAUGHTER] See how [inaudible] it is? If it comes back in its shape easily and holds its shape well and it's pretty strong, that's a good thing, but you don't want the straw brush. It should be just like these really thin bristles that are like hair. Just make sure it keeps its form and they're is soft and otherwise, it can be as cheap as you want it. I honestly prefer the cheaper kind for gouache. If you have those fancy watercolor brushes that are made from real fur or mimic real fur, I wouldn't really use those, they're a little too soft. You need something that holds the form better for this painting since we are going to be using thicker paint. I'll be using just one size 6 round brush, but if you want, you can use a smaller one for detail as well. Maybe a size 2 or 0, but it's not needed and I encourage you to try mastering using one brush because you can do anything with one brush, just use the tip of it for small strokes. Another thing you will need is paper. I'll be using Canson XL watercolor paper. It's 140 pound, which is great, especially if you will use more water on the first layers. But with gouache, we can get away with using slightly thinner paper. Just try to get watercolor paper for the best results because it will prevent warping. If your paper is less than a 140 pound weight, then use less water and more gouache paint even on your first layer and backgrounds to prevent warping. Some other essentials are two water containers. One to clean your brush initially and get the most color off and the second to make sure it's clean so you don't contaminate your colors. But hey, who am I to talk? I always contaminate my colors, but it's good if you don't, [LAUGHTER] so try not to make the same mistakes I do. You'll also need some scrap paper to test your colors, maybe backs of failed paintings, or if you cut your own paper, you can also use the scraps from that. I use a paper cutter to cut my paper to the size I want. We can also use scissors and a ruler, or just by the size you want, but I recommend you paint on smaller paper like I do, so that you won't spend forever on your paintings and instead can do a couple in one sitting. If you work smaller, you'll also use less paint and it takes away that feeling of perfectionism. When you work smaller, you can be more loose and not so concerned with the detail. Another thing that's needed is some cloth or paper towel to soak up excess water from your brush or to make sure your brush is clean before picking up color. The last thing is a palette knife. Now you don't need to go buy something, you can even just use a little plastic knife you get from restaurants if you like. The reason I use a palette knife is just to protect my paints from contamination. I like to pick up a color with it and then add it to my palette and then wipe it off on my damp paper towel. This way, I can always pick up more color without contaminating with the new color. This is an optional tool, but I find it helps me a lot if I don't want to clean my brush. For example, if I'm mixing a similar color that's already on my brush, or if my brush has a color that I'm going to continue using, that's very different as well. It's just nice to be able to pick up color whenever you want. Another thing that's optional is a little spray bottle filled with water to keep your paints moist on your palette. I find this helps the paint to stay nice and moist if I paint for long periods of time. You can also use Saran wrap to close up your colors and keep them moist longer if you're going to continue painting tomorrow, for example. Just spray it with a good amount of water and then cover it while without any air coming in and your paints should be usable the next day. One more thing that's optional is masking tape or washi tape. You will see me tape down all my paintings because it helps to keep it from warping, and even cooler is a nice little white border we get when we take the tape off. When you paint very loose backgrounds like I will, it adds a nice contrast of crisp and clean white outline. It makes it look more professional. But you don't need this, it's just something I like to do. You might also want to use a sketching pencil if you want to sketch out your shapes before starting, go ahead and do so. You won't see me do that, but nothing is stopping you and don't worry about your pencils being too dark since you'll be painting over it anyway with gouache and gouache is opaque. Just do whatever you feel comfortable with. If you need more brushes, go ahead and use that, if you want to work bigger, go ahead and do that. Anything I say is not written in stone, just use whatever you have and whatever you like to do. That's it for all that we need. Now, get out your supplies and let's start painting with a cutie little lemon. 9. Lemon: Let's start with a lemon. Do keep in mind that if you need to, you can pause this video at any time and that you can paint this in your own style and use my directions as loose guidelines. You may also choose to watch the whole lesson one time and then watch it again as you paint if that makes it easier. Just feel free to do your own thing. Let's study the lemon. You can look up references if it's easier but I had a lemon lying around, so let's examine it. We have a spherical shape and then this area comes out. It does so on both sides, but mostly on this one. I will add it to the top and bottom for more interests in my piece. We also have this fun texture of little dots I'll incorporate. Lemons are pretty straightforward, but I also wanted to add leaves which I don't have in real life, so I just googled lemons with leaves and I get a pretty good idea of what they look like. As you can see here, lemons can also be more oval in shape and some of these do have ridges on the top and the bottom like I will do it in my lemon. Painting from real-life is great, but if you want to get more ideas of different positions or lighting scenarios, or just different details in your fruits, you can always google them. I love Google, it's my best friend and seeing a reference from many different angles and really understanding a subject. To start, I'm going to use this nice lemony yellow color diluted in water to create a wash of a lemon shape. If you don't have this kind of yellow, any yellow is fine. If you dilute it, it should be lighter or you can mix a little bit of white into it to make it even lighter and more of the pastel color. I left more space on the top because I wanted to add loose leaves. Notice how it's just a longer oval with a little triangle on the top and below. I picked up some orangey yellow and mixed it with the color I already have and I'm painting right on the page with it. I'm starting to define the shadows. As you can see, I pick the light source to be the top-left corner. Usually, as I paint, you will see me mix new colors into already used colors for more consistency and for the colors to just blend into each other and have better transitions. Pick up some brown for the stem. If you painted on your scrap piece of paper and then put it next to your colors that you already have on the page, you can see if they look good together before committing. You will see me do this a lot to make sure the colors look right. Paint in a small stem. You can make it longer or shorter, or you can make it a different color like green, for example, if you want to. Just use the tip of your brush for a thinner line. I'm mixing the colors for the leaves. Feel free to make them any color that you like. I went for a darker greenish blue mixed with more blue. To make the leaves, I used the natural shape of the round brush by starting with the tip and then adding more pressure to make my stroke thicker and then tapering off the pressure which just means lightening the pressure until I'm painting with just the tip again. You can practice doing this on a scrap piece of paper first if you've never done this before. It just takes practice. I always do this when I paint leaves and it's just so fun to do. I'm going to do the same thing and I did it twice for a thicker leaf and you can always add onto your leaves as much as you wanted to make them thicker. Another option is to just paint the outline of the leaf and then fill it in. If you're not comfortable with this method, I like to use both. Notice how sometimes I just do an outline with just the tip of my brush and don't fill it in. I like this look of alternating outlines with filled-in shapes, it makes a nice contrast because we're using different elements that are together. Notice how I alternate by making big leaves where at the top of the stem, and then as we go down the page, they get smaller and smaller the further they go away. Playing with scale is also a fun way to increase contrast and make your composition more interesting and realistic. As you can see, I'm just playing here, but I'm also going slowly and seeing what looks good. I'm trying to keep the composition nice. This just comes with practice and with being able to judge your own work, but don't worry about it too much. If you messed a leaf up, you can always wait for it to dry and then paint over it, so don't be scared of that either. Because I have years of experience of overworking a piece or overdoing it, I know when to stop, which is now. Your leaves don't have to end up exactly like mine, but you can always pause and copy me exactly if you like. The lemon's initial layer is dry, so I'm going to go back in and define it. Be sure to clean your brush thoroughly and test it on your paper towel to make sure it's clean because you are picking up a very different color. I want to darken the shadows for more contrast, so this time I'm using this yellow ocher. If you don't have this color and want to make similar color, just mix a little brown into your base yellow color. I'm still thinking of it as a sphere and I'm defining it with a layer similar to the other one we did following the shape. It just wasn't dark enough before I'm adding the contrast, I also add little details here and there to make it more interesting. Just imagine where the light would hit it and what would be in shadow and remember to squint your eyes to see if things look right. Use what you've learned in the light and shadow lesson and especially since we did look at a lemon. I pick up the lemony yellow we used earlier and I'm mixing it right on the page for a painterly look and to smooth out the lines in the shadow towards the middle. When you're working with wet paint on the page with a wet brush with paint on it, I call this wet-on-wet and it makes this beautiful oil painting effect. Always try to mix any added color with the previously used colors for things to blend better. I keep adding the lemony yellow especially where I want it to be the lightest and continue smoothing out the ocher and lightening it. I just thought it was a little too dark. Notice how I'm following the shape of the lemon and making the highlight the same shape as the outline. I decided to be bold and throw in some reddish brown into the shadow. Realistically shadows are actually cooler and warmer colors are usually the mid-tone or things that are highlighted. But this is our artwork and we can do whatever we want. I'm picking up the color I already used in the shadow and blending it with the new brown right on the page. Since we're on the first layer that isn't watered down, we can add water at the stage for it to blend more and make cool textures, which I do to help everything come together. Notice how loose I was in painting all this and how I've blended right on the page. Just have fun with your lemon. If you don't like something, just let it dry and paint over it with a thicker layer. I want to add more detail, but first I'm going to let this layer dry so that it has crisp edges when I do. Let's start on the background as it dries. I really like the pink color and I test it out by putting it next to the other colors I already used and I think it's adorable. You can do the background any way you like or even keep it white, it's up to you. I wanted to keep it loose and I wanted a watercolor feel. I'm using a lot of water and I'm picking up more paint in certain parts and adding more water and others. This creates a nice texture and a fun look. Notice how I'm not careful with filling in all the white and I'm using quick brushstrokes. Also notice that I'm leaving white space around the subject to make it pop more and you'll see me do this with all future fruits because I love this look, and I'll define it more with white afterwards. We're being loose and quick here. I think seeing the brushstrokes and having them all in different directions with different speeds makes the whole background more interesting to look at than if it was just a one plain color. But you can do one plain color if you like, just go more slowly with it and make sure the consistency of the paint is the same everywhere. I also pick up some of the yellow we already used and splatter it right on the page by just tapping the brush on my finger. Make sure your brush is loaded with color and water for this to work. You can also use different size brushes for different effects. If you use a smaller one, the dots are tinier, and if you use a bigger brush, the dots are bigger. The parts where the background is still wet, it bleeds out and makes a fun effect and texture. You can splatter anytime in any piece for a fun look. If you don't want dots somewhere, just cover up that area with a small piece of paper towel first and then splatter. Just makes sure your paint is dry underneath the paper towel first. I want to start adding highlights, so I'm picking up the base yellow color I already used and then adding a white to it. I test that by color and wanted a little bit lighter, so I'm mixing some more white and then add in some highlights. I try to use very little water for a nice thick consistency of paint that doesn't disturb or reactivate the previous layers. Notice how I follow the shape of my fruit and I add one more dot below the longer shape. As you can see, just by adding highlights, the whole piece pops off the page now. I continue adding highlights, so at this stage, be sure to squint your eyes to see where it would look good. Just use your best judgment. I do this part intuitively, but just be careful not to overdo it with the highlights because you really can't and that's a lesson I learned a lot of times, but you can always paint over them if it doesn't look good for some reason. I'm going to use the same super light yellow color to add some details to the leaves. They aren't fully dry everywhere, so when I paint in my lines, it picks up some of the blue in some parts and I really like this look. I think it looks really loose and fun. If you want to wait till the leaves are completely dry, it will make a nice and opaque color without picking up the blue. Just make sure your paint is nice and thick. I add a line in all the leaves with just the tip of the brush, and this gives them more dimension. Ask yourself, how can I increase contrast? A neat trick is to outline your fruit, especially since we have a light fruit with a light background. Remember that we want more value changes, and if very different values touch, it makes the most contrast. Just keep in mind that when you outline something, it does tend to make it more cartoony, but I like this look. If you don't and you want to increase contrast, you can make your background darker to make the lemon really pop. This time I'm using the reddish brown mix with yellow ocher and adding in a nice outline. I don't let it touch all the way and I use some line variation which just means the line is thinner in some parts and thicker in others. You vary your line just by pressing down more for a thicker line, and then lifting off for a thinner line. I just add so much more cork to it. I want to add some more texture inside the lemon with this darker color, but I need to let my paint fully dry first or also blend out because I want those crisp edges. Notice how as it dries, the lighter highlights become darker. Gouache tends to shift when it dries with lighter colors becoming darker and darker colors becoming lighter. This is not a big deal and it's completely normal, unless you're using acrylic gouache, then it won't do that. Once it's dry, add in little dots with the tip of the brush to add the texture that's naturally found on lemon skin. I also add in some simple strokes to darken the shadows a little bit more. A little bit goes a long way in increasing contrast. Let's add in the final highlights to increase contrast even more. This time, we're using pure white without any water for the deepest white, but if your paint is very thick, it's okay to use a couple of drops of water. Just try to make it as thick as possible, but still workable. Add the highlights wherever you like, but the most obvious highlights should be right where the light source is hitting it, so the top left. Notice how I also put it on the opposite side for some reflected light and just little touches here and there. I also decided to add some detail to the leaves with simple lines to make it more textured and interesting to look at. This simple touch made them so pretty. Squint your eyes and see if anything else would benefit from more highlights. I add some more near the main highlight in a slightly darker color and then pick up your white to add more at the edges near the outlines to increase the contrast some more. Finally, it feels done to me. Here, I decided to use the previously used blue from the leaves to add little dots here and there, in the background as well. This is definitely my style and what I like to do so you don't have to do this, but it adds more flow to the piece, in my opinion, and more interests. Just be sure to space them apart and vary their size is a little bit like so unless you want a polka dot feel. Be careful not to overdo it, but if you do, just let them dry and paint over the extra dots with the same color you used for the background. As the paint dried, I noticed it wasn't as white as I want to be in some parts, so for finishing touch, I just added in some more white to make it lighter. Guess what, guys? It's done. I love how this turned out. Notice how removing the washi tape made super crisp edges that made it look even more professional. I hope you enjoyed painting your lemon as much as I did and this is the simplest fruit will be doing. I used less layers and less details and I will in the other pieces, but simplicity can also be fun and you can still be loose with it and we're still using the same basic principles. Let's move on and get a little wild with the eggplant. 10. Eggplant: Now let's do an eggplant, which is surprisingly a fruit. I didn't have an eggplant is setting, but I have Google. I looked up the word eggplant. As you can see, they come in various shapes and sizes. It's up to me what kind of paint. I like the look of a smaller purple one with a curve. Also I noticed how shiny they are, and that the leaves connecting it have a particular shape to them. You can always do a quick study sketch of your chosen fruit before starting to understand your subject better if you like. This is great advice for any illustration. Overall, it's a very simple fruit with a very simple shape. To start, pick your base color and make your eggplant shape. You can make your shape longer or thinner, or more like a little sphere, it's up to you. I think having the slight curve adds more interest. I use a lot of water since we're on the first layer and this makes a nice watercolor look, and I pick my light source to be from the top right this time. I tried to darken the area behind it and kept the area hit by light, lighter by using more water. You can also take this as an opportunity to play with color by mixing right on the page. I love doing this with playing with more paint and water and using random brushstrokes, it's a very watercolor you type field. I use some magenta and blue. If any of the original layer shows through, it would look pretty cool. But I usually cover everything up since I love to over layer with gouache. But you can be more careful than me and leave some of it's showing, especially in the highlighted areas. While I wait for that to dry, let's start on the background. I wanted a nice pastel color so I mix some white into the blue I used earlier. If I just used water, it wouldn't be as light. If you ever want to pass that look, be sure to mix white into any color you choose. I'm very quick and very loose with making the background. This one is similar to the last one we did. I just loved the loose painterly feel. I mix up some more paint, and a slightly darker so it makes them more fun value changes. I'm trying to have fun and play with it and create texture. Notice how I don't touch the eggplant everywhere and instead leave some of the white of the page to make it pop more. You can be more careful than me make it a perfect outline but usually I go back in with white to make it perfect. The background is very loose again, but like I said before, you can make your solid or you can leave it out or do whatever you like. Now I can be done here, but I wanted to have more variations, so I mix some white into my paint, and use it to lighten sub-parts and just make slight color differences. I think this looks nice, but it's a personal preference. It's just do what feels right for you. Notice how loose and random I am with where I paint. It's mostly intuitive. Don't overthink it and work quickly. If you don't like something that you do, you can always just paint over it. Even if you don't like the color, you can completely change it by just letting it dry and painting another color on top with thicker paint. Now let's let the background dry or use a hairdryer or heat gun to speed up the process. Let's add the stem, mix a color that you like. Remember that you can test out your colors on a scrap piece of paper before putting them down on the page. I mix blue with green and add a bit of white in the end. This makes a nice aqua color, one of my favorites, but don't be scared to play and do your own thing. Then just paint in simple lines for the stem and a little curved leaf shape around the eggplant top like we saw in the references. I'm just mimicking them, but I'm making them a little bit prettier. You can do outlines and then fill them in, or just painting the whole shape using the natural shape of your brush, like I showed in the last lesson, with the lemon leaves. Make sure your paint is nice and thick with little water since we are painting over the dark purple color and we don't want it to show through. Mine show through just a little bit and it's okay. I think it makes it looks nice and adds more charm. Now remember that I want the light to hit it here. Let's start adding shadows with that in mind. I mix some purple and magenta and dark blue to make a nice dark color for the shadow. I love to vary my colors throughout the piece, instead of just adding white or black, I tried to make variations. Since we're doing a darker color over a lighter color, I don't have to worry about being super thick, but if I was painting a lighter color over a darker one, I would have to make sure the paint is thick. That's just how gouache works. I imagine the way the shadows would look and follow the shape of the eggplant. Notice how I outlined around the leaf shapes as well since they're also blocking the light on the body of the eggplant. Also, notice how I added a nice dark line to the side with a light is coming from for more contrast, even though it's not super realistic. I also didn't touch the lines all the way on the bottom right of the eggplant for more variation. I don't like everything being super complete and perfect, I like it when it's a little bit messy. Now I picked up a lighter purple. If you don't have one, just mix some white into your purple and add a little bit of pink or magenta to make it warmer if you so desire. I mix the lighter purple with the shadow color, and I'm painting while the other paint is still wet right next to it, blending it out and making a nice gradient or subtle transition between colors. I'm lightening the color as we go in. I also do this around the leaves. Then I take more of the lighter purple and mix it with the color I used for the background, so very light blue to lighten it more. I painted right next to my last layer. As you can see, I'm doing the oil painterly feel by just working with wet paint on wet paint. I'm just adding more colors and just blend them right on the page. I also add a little bit on the right side to start unifying everything. Notice how I try to follow the shape with all my highlights and shadows. This makes it look more real. I also add a little bit more at the edges of the darker side to make it have more contrast and reflected light. Then I go back in and smooth out my transition between the new color and the previous ones. Notice how subtle the transition is, and how this has an oil or acrylic painting feel since we're painting on wet paint with wet paint and we're just blending it right on the page. I love this look and you'll see me do this a lot. It's great for you when you want subtle fun transitions. I think I took away too much of the shadow at this stage, but that's okay. I'm going to add it back in, in the later layer. We're just building up and we're going to change our mind a lot, that's just fine. Now I want to start defining the highlights. I pick up some light pink, which you can get just by mixing white into your pink. If you don't have pink, you mix white, into magenta, and if you don't have magenta, you can do so with red, but it will be more of a reddish pink. Just be sure your paint is nice and thick with little or no water so that your layer doesn't react to the previous layers and is nice and opaque. I'm being playful at this stage, and I'm squinting my eyes a lot to see where to add highlights. Notice how I add little bits everywhere. This is just my trademark style. I made the highlight too close to leaf here, so I just paint over it with the darker color to undo that mistake. I'm mixed our white into my bluish light color and I add even more highlights. Another trick for a fun look is just to continue adding and layering. This style is a little different from the lemon in the last lesson. We are doing more layers, more colors, more depth, more craziness I would say, but also more fun. Whether you like the simple style more or this one, which is more intuitive and whimsical, it doesn't matter it's up to you which one you do. But I personally like this one more because it's more fun to paint it. Notice how I'm adding dots and lines. This is how I usually do it. Also notice that the biggest highlight is where the light hits it and it follows the shape of the eggplant. I make the highlights even bigger and decide to add some light pink to it, loosely painting next to it so that the colors blend. I wanted to spice up the colors more. I also picked up some magenta and throw it into the Pink and place it around the piece. Look how loose and playful I'm. I keep squinting my eyes to see where I can put it to look good. But I'm not overthinking it at this stage, and I just keep layering because if I don't like something, I can just paint over it. This is the gist of my process is pretty chaotic and that's what gives you that super cool look at the end. Don't think about it, just vary your colors and values and keep adding. Squint your eyes to see where you should add things and if things look right. If I stop here, it looks pretty cool too. It's up to you when you want to stop your painting. I just get lost in the process so I just kept adding. Here, I blended out some of the colors with a nice thick stroke of purple. Notice how I keep mixing the colors I already have on my palette to keep it all cohesive. When I add a new color, I'm mixing two previous ones, and then I continue mix from that new color. I like to be choosy with adding new colors, and when I do, I mix it with previous colors. Now I squint my eyes and I can see any lot more shading. I take some darker blue and dark and the left side with loose strokes to define it more. I also add some to the middle planning on layering over it. But you know what, the plant looks pretty cool here too if I stopped, you can see there are so many stopping moments. Notice how I'm not using just purple for the whole piece or just blue or just pink, I'm using a lot of colors that touch each other on the color wheel. They're very similar, and then add in more depth and fun. I highly recommend you print out a color wheel and put it on your wall and you can see which colors touch. But really it's just about similar colors. They usually do look good together and it matches, and it makes it just more interesting. I also wanted to make my highlighted areas a little bit more blended out, so I use the little paint and lots of water to just blend out the edges. You can reactivate the paint at anytime with just water in any area that is completely dry and with a slightly wet brush, just blend it out. I love to do this too soft and hard edges. Now let's let the body of the eggplant dry and let's work on the stem. Notice that the contrast at the stem being flat, which just means it's just one color, and the eggplant painted with lots of colors and dimension is nice. I like this contrast, so you could leave it like this if you like. But I wanted it to be all dimensional, so I darken the paint I already had on my palette from the stem with a nice dark green, and then I go in and add shading, imagining what it would look like with my chosen light source. It's okay if I'm not a 100 per cent accurate, no one's going to call me out on it as long as it looks good. Just keep it simple when you do this and if you're not sure, just guess or do what looks good to you. Usually if you do it wrong, it'll look a little off and you'll be able to fix it. But I picked up some white and bright green and mix it into the base color for highlights. Notice how simple I kept them a little goes a long way, just do bits at a time and squint your eyes as you go, making sure it looks good. You could also add some yellow to the highlights if you like to make it even more interesting. I also added some to the edge to make it have more contrast. When doing this, just to find the form. I also took this color and add it in one part of the eggplant, just one part for a nice variation of a color highlight. Even if it's unrealistic. Sometimes I like to just put pops of color somewhere, and it looks fun. Now it's time to go back to the eggplant, but be careful if you see shininess, that means it's still wet so either wait for your paint to dry or use a hairdryer or heat gun. Remember if it's shiny, it's wet, if it becomes mud, it's dry. Now let's do the most magical finishing touch and the most fun part, white highlights. When adding white highlights, like always, I try not to add any water to the paint and take it straight out of the pan with just slightly wet brush so that it's as opaque as possible. But if your paint is thicker and a little bit of water. Don't be scared to overdo it at this stage because you can paint over any mistakes. But at the same time, don't put them everywhere [LAUGHTER] because they will lose their magic if their overdone, trust me. I added one big one and a tiny one, the light hits it, and then of course at all the edges to make it feel more shiny, even just with this much, it makes it look so good. Little dots here and there as well add to the magic. That's just my style. You don't have to do this if you don't want to. Same thing with the stem area, mostly at the edges and little dots too. I continue to add them here and there, I squint my eyes to see where you could use it the most. Like always the highlights really make it pop, and I just think they just make the whole piece so magical. Once I'm done, I want to add some more darkness to the area in shadow, so add a bit and even under the stem. You can always go to any area you like and tweak it. Just squint your eyes and see what needs work. I also outline the stem and leaves with the darker color to increase contrast. Then I picked up white again and add some subtle dots here and there for sparkling magical feel in the background. You can also do polka dots or stripes or anything you like. I also outline the whole eggplant on the outside in white and some parts to make it pop more from the background. You will see me do this with every fruit, I just love this look. As a finishing touch, I wanted to increase contrast in the stem and leaf so I pick up a super bright green, and I add it just a little bit to add more highlights. I also add a tiny bit into the body of the eggplant for more interest. The screen is like almost neon, so it really makes it pop. If you don't like bright colors as much as I do, you don't have to do this. It's up to you. You can even use very muted colors, I mean, colors just so personal. But I feel like the small touch of bright green really makes it feel vibrant and alive. I wasn't completely satisfied with the leaves, so I smooth out some of the edges and define them a little bit more. I'm done. Of course, being done a subjective, feel free to play more, or you could have stopped earlier, it's all up to you. The result is so fun and whimsical, and this is why I love layering non-stop and playing with lots of different colors and values, and just having fun. This is also why I like to throw realism out the window. My goal is to make my subject more interesting than the one in reality and just make it more fun to look at. I hope you have fun painting that. Now let's paint a quirky and fun banana. 11. Banana: Now it's time to paint the cutey banana. Keep in mind it's made out of flat planes, so it will be a bit different from the spherical shapes we just did. Remember how flat planes can look a little bit boring, even with strong light on them. We will have to really play, and make it our own to make it more interesting. Here I study the shapes of the banana. It has a nice curve to it and it's divided by many flat planes at touch. It also has a stem and a little brown spot at the end. Don't mind it being brown, I will make it yellow and you can look up a reference to see what it looks like. We can make it yellow-green, or green, whatever you like, or you can paint in the brown spots. It could even look fun with a nice texture. If you Google a banana, you can see it in different lighting scenarios. Usually one side faces the light, so it's very bright, like here, it's coming from the top, and then as the banana turns away, the planes get darker and darker set the bottom. The same principles of lighter being used as in the sphere is just a little bit different. I actually found a reference that looked a lot like what I wanted to paint it as. This one has the light coming more towards the middle, and you can see it makes this nice streak of highlights. This reference will be important to keep in mind when we play with highlights. Just find a reference you like, and then of course, you can stylize it, exaggerate it to the extreme. Let's start. I'm using the lemony yellow to make the shape starting with the stem and then curving it out. The stem is just a straight line and then we're just doing a curve right out of it. Notice how I'm just going to paint this whole shape with the tip and then I'm going to fill it in. The lower half is almost looking like a half-moon. The shape isn't fully realistic. It doesn't look like the banana I showed, it was more lawn, it was more straight, but I thought this would look better. You can always tweak your shapes of anything you draw or paint. As long as you keep most of the features, it will still be recognizable. This is called stylizing, and it's actually how things have their own personal style. But if this shape looks hard or it's not exactly what you want, just use a light colored pencil to sketch out the shape you want before painting to make sure you get a shape that you like, and feel comfortable with. If you start with paint like I do, and you don't like the shape you make, you can always paint over it or paint out of it to make it bigger if you don't like it. Here, I wanted to mix a nice brownish color to start defining the stem and tip, and yes, I wanted to make the stem brownish from our contrast, even though it's normally yellow. You can also do a grassy green for an unripe banana look, or any color that you like. Pink bananas aren't realistic, but not many other things look like bananas, so it still would be recognizable. I was trying to mix the perfect color, but I kept testing it and it just was too dark, so I lightened it, but then I ended up lighting it too much as you'll see, but I just add it to the stem and the tip. Sometimes when I painted in, it doesn't look great, but I'm like, that's fine, I'll just paint over it and the new colors will blend together, so it'll look really nice. Here I mix the warmer dark brown with some yellow and darken the colors I just put down. Notice how because the paint was still wet, the colors blended into each other and it looks nice. Next I'll outline the banana and outline where the ridges or where the flat planes touch as well. I don't always outline my fruits, but I think when it's a light color like this, it makes it a lot easier to see detail and it makes it pop more by adding contrast. Notice how my lines don't touch everywhere for a more fun look. When you outline, make sure to draw in the ridges following the shape of the banana for the most realism, just like I did. Now I mix a darker, yellowish, orange color and I'm starting to add shadows. We are building contrast. Notice how the banana feels cartoony, and unidimensional since we have no gradients yet and everything has done a flat color. This can also be a fun look if this is your style. You can just do cartoony fruits. I mean, anything you do is cute as long as you enjoy it. Now I go back to the lemony yellow and lighten it even more, and smooth out some of those hard edges. This time the light is coming from the right side. So I just imagine what it would look like, and add light and shadows to make it believable. I just squint my eyes a lot during this process like always to make sure everything looks right. As you can see with every fruit, I'm pretty much doing the same thing, and really my techniques changes depending on where the light source is coming from. If it's hard for you to imagine a light source, just use a reference photo with a strong light source in the reference. Then you can tweak it as you go and exaggerate it and make it different as you paint. But you can always start with the normal reference photo with a strong light source. I add in some white to lemony yellow to start adding highlights, and lighten up this area to increase contrast. I'm also smoothing out the edges more, and now we have a nice gradient, which is just a nice and soft transition between colors. I continue to just squint my eyes and I define the shapes and add contrast. Notice how it already looks pretty good, but I want to continue defining it and increasing contrast even more. But notice how we got to this really good look really quickly. It really doesn't take much. Just have your base color, add your shadows, and add your highlights and sometimes outlines. It doesn't matter what order you do these things in just as long as all of them are done. This time I mix a slightly darker color and I'm going to add in more shadows at the top, to the left, and below. I'm just defining the shape and I'm darkening my shadows. I added a little bit too much shadow right here and that's okay. I'm just going to pick up that lighter base color again, and I'm just going to smooth it out here by blending it out. Notice that I am working with wet on wet paint. This is what is causing everything to blend so well and give that oil paint look. I do this a lot. It's just beautiful. You can also achieve this look if your layers are dry, just reactivate them with more water. Unless you're using acrylic wash, then it won't work and you'll just have to do a new layer on top and then work wet on wet with that layer. Now I'm going in with pure white and adding highlights. This is one of my favorites steps. Remember to barely have any water on your brush with the thickest paint. I follow the shape of the forum and also add some to the edges and the shadowy side for a reflected light and more contrast. This looks a little too orange and beigey to me. I lost a lot of the yellow at this point. I'm going to add that back in by painting it near the shadows and lightening them. If you ever make any mistake, just paint over it while still wet if the colors are similar or you can wait for it to dry if they're not. Either way, it's just okay. Now let's let that dry before we add the finishing touches, and in the meantime, we can do the background. Since our banana is so light in value, I want to add contrast by painting in a darker background. You can do any color you like, but I wanted to do a greenish blue one. I started loosely painting with this greenish color, and I'm just loosely painting and then like always, but at this point I thought it wasn't dark enough, so I introduced a new color, which is the super dark blue, and I just put them in some areas and blend them out and then I just mix them together right on the page. I continued alternating those two colors and since they're similar enough, they look good together when they get blended out. It just add a little bit of interest. You can always use very similar colors and just vary them slightly for a fun look. Notice how like always, I left a white outline around the banana, and since the background is so dark this time, it's even more prominent, also having that gap between the dark outline and then the white and then the dark background, it really adds more contrast. Once I feel like the background looks good, I mix a nice dark color by just using the background color with the brown. This makes a nice dark color that matches with the colors I already used throughout the piece. I continue increasing contrast inside the banana with it, so add it to the stem and the tip. I also darken the outlines in some areas, just not too much or it'll feel too cartoony and won't be as effective. I love to make outlines have different colors. It just makes it look nice. We're just doing subtle touches here and there. Next I wanted to add some texture to the background. I did so by pressing my brush down with this darker color all around. I definitely increased contrast even more and added some interest. Notice how I just did little dots here and there. I didn't do the whole background in this color. I just used it to increase contrast and add the texture which adds more interest. Now that our banana is dry, let's define it some more and make some lemony yellow with white, and look how I went in with bold strokes to add highlights. I love using bold strokes for things like this. But if you don't, you can always take your time and just do little bit of time and see how it looks. I also added some small lines here and there around the edges and the outlines to increase contrast further. At this stage, I'm squinting my eyes a lot to decide what to do next and what needs more paint or definition. I darken the mid tone color with a little blue from the background and smooth out the edges of the highlights with it. This makes a nice green tint since blue and yellow make green, and that's fun because bananas naturally have green in them, and it also makes it more cohesive with the background color. I always try to incorporate even a little bit of the background color into my piece. Now it's time to make things really pop with some pure light. Pick up the paint, make sure it's thick, make sure you don't have too much water on your brush, and add little lines and dots all around, starting with the top and then into the banana itself. You can squint your eyes at this point if you're not sure where to put it, that's what I was doing here, but otherwise, just have fun with it, and don't overthink it too much. If you overdo it, just paint over it. I also use the white to outline the banana more and separate it from the background like always. This increases contrast even more and makes it pop. Just be sure your paint is nice and thick when you do this so you don't reactivate previous layers, like I did a little here in some parts, but it's okay since I'm being loose, and I'm not a perfectionist. If you want it to be perfect, just be more careful and take your time. Then I decided to add some more bold strokes of light. I'm going to do this at an angle to make it more interesting. A little higher on the right side and lower on the left, like we saw in the Google images earlier. I think I'm happy with my banana, but you take your time and stop when it feels right for you. Or you could have even stopped earlier. It's your art, so do what feels right to you. Now let's finish the background. I like the texture that I added with the darker color, and I thought I wanted more of that, so I just added more of it. Then I refine some of the dark areas since I painted over them with the lighter colors just a little. But then I thought that's a little too dark in some parts, so I refine them some more by adding a lighter color back in just a little bit. As you can see, I change my mind a lot and play with it. Just do what looks right to you. Next, I mix some lemon yellow with some white to make it more opaque, and let's add a funky pattern in the background. I'm using the same color that is in the banana for more unity, and my banana has little too much space in the bottom. This will also help it feel more balanced if I add something there. Here I'm making the star shapes using simple lines. Make sure your paint is nice and thick, and your background is dry for opaque stars and dots or whatever pattern you want to add. If the previous layer streaks through a little, that's okay. Just paint a second layer once it's dry. Mine did too, but I didn't mind it that much. I think it adds to the cork. As you can see, you can be super liberal with a das. Just make sure to vary their positions, group them together, and vary their sizes. As you can see, I randomly put the stars around the piece, and I just did what felt right and vary their scale. I decided to throw in some of the lemony yellow into the banana. I think some of it was lost with too many highlights. I'll just continue refining the colors a little bit and putting on the finishing touches here. Also, I thought one of the stars show too much of the background color, so I just did a second layer over it and now it's opaque. Once I feel like it's enough, it's done. This painting very much has a nice feel to it. I love the results, and I hope you do too. When we remove the masking tape, it looks even cooler with the sharp edges. Remember, you decide when you're done and you can paint over anything you don't like or try again. We learn with every piece we make, so just do it your way and have fun with it and just do what feels right. You'll get better at painting with gouache, with every painting you do. Now let's do a super cute avocado. 12. Avocado: Let's do my favorite fruit. I know it doesn't seem like a fruit, but the avocado, which is a fruit. Avocados are pretty simple. They have a nice dark brown spherical pit, a darken textured skin and the coloring on the green flesh inside changes from a light greenish yellow to a dark one at the edges. We also have this little woody stem at the tip, and notice the overall shape of the outline. It's a little bit wonky, so we can play with it as long as we keep in mind that it's mostly thinner at the top, and thicker and rounded out on the bottom. Also where we touch the stem, it dips in a little bit. When painting this fruit, you will see me change my mind a lot and layer and layer and darken and lighten. I think that's what gives it this finished look charm. Don't be afraid to over-layer or paint too much. You can always paint over anything you don't like. This fruit is the best example so far of how I like to paint with lots of play and trial and error. Just paint intuitively, and have fun. To me, there is no mistakes here, is just more and more layers and sometimes little pits show through, if I paint over something I don't like, and that adds to the charm. Use what I do as a loose guideline. Instead of following everything I do exactly, try to just get into the flow of it, and get an idea of how I paint and then fill it out yourself and trust yourself, you'll be surprised with the results. Let's start. Pick up a nice green that you can use for your base color. It does not have to be perfect, just any color since we'll mostly paint over it. Unless you don't want to paint over it, then maybe pick a lighter color like the one that's the majority of the avocado. Now start making the outline shape of your avocado. Remember there is a small indentation at the top where the stem is, and it rounds out to be much thicker towards the bottom. I didn't really like my first trial of my shape. Guess what? I just continued refining it and painted out, and made it a little bit taller since I left too much space at the top of the page. Try to center your fruit as best as you can. If it's hard for you, just sketch it out before you start. Since this is our first layer, nothing is stopping you from playing until you find the perfect shape. Once you're happy with it, fill it in using more water and less paint for a thin watercolor-type layer. I thought my base color was too dark, but no problem. I picked up some white and a bright light green and painted within to lighten the colors. This adds a nice color variation and I'm not going to paint the edges, get to keep that area dark like in the reference. I also wanted to plan out where the pit is and so I outlined a teardrop shape, which is how I saw some avocados having their pit from memory. I used white this time so that I don't need to pick up more color, and if I don't like it, I can easily change it at any stage. I'm just marking where it is. I continue lightening with white but also picked up some yellow for more warmth, and it adds some more realism since real avocados do have this yellow-greenish hue to them, but it also makes it warmer and more fun. Notice how since the first layer was wet and I continued adding more color on it and smoothing it out, it gave this oil painting effect that we love so much. Also, notice how I made some areas more white and some more yellow at random to add more interest. Just pick up the colors you like, and paint right on the page and blend it out. The more you blend out your painting and smooth it out, the nicer it'll look. Try to avoid touching the darker edges for more realism or you can add in a darker color at the edges if you don't have darker edges. Just make sure to keep that nice tidbit of information that we got from the reference. When you feel like you're done with the flesh and we'll come back to it, don't worry about it, mix a nice and dark color to add the skin, which barely shows, but we will make it show more to up the contrast a lot. Here, I mix a nice dark blue and green and make sure to test my color. One is super dark, so I use less water and more paint, and add a nice outline to the whole avocado. Make sure to just use the tip of your brush to keep it thin. You can choose one side and make it a little bit thicker like I did here with the right side. It makes it look like it's a little bit at an angle. Whichever side you put more on the side, it will look like it's facing in the opposite direction. This is not complicated, it's just an outline. Once you're done with that, pick a nice warm brown and paint in your pit. I made it a little bit bigger than I initially sketched out. Just do what looks good to you. Nothing is stopping you from making a super small or big or even upside-down heart shape if you like, anything you want to do. Make sure you have a good amount of paint and a little water for a thicker consistency so the grain does not show through. But it's okay if it does, we're going to keep painting over it any way, and I love having colors mix and mingle. It creates more unity and looseness if they show through each other. Notice now that we have these flat base layers and this is really good way to start your paintings if you're doing fruit. You just put down the main colors, you let it dry, and then you go back in, and you can define and add highlights and shadows. I did it this time because I want to layer more instead of painting everything in one shot while the paint is still wet. Let's let that dry and start on our background. I want a magenta background, but do whatever color you enjoy the most. You can do a teal or a super light green or even yellow. They'll all look good so it's up to you. I painted in loosely like always being quick with my strokes, and keeping it fun. I played with the water to paint ratio this time, and I rounded out the corners and kept it wonky in some parts of the edges. It's going to have a nice contrast to the sharp edges made from the masking tape. Notice how I didn't touch the avocado and a lot of places and I left the white of the outline like I always do. But this is your background, so just paint it any way you like. You can do stripes, you can even do a rainbow, whatever you like. But this is the same technique I showed you before. I'm just being really quick with my brush, and it's making beautiful textures. Once I'm done, I add in a simple stem with the brown I already used for the pit. It's good to use the same colors when you can for more unity. Now I picked up some yellow and the bright green and mixed them so I can start adding highlights. This time the light is coming from the top-left, but I will play with it to the extreme, especially in the fleshy part, which should be evenly lit like you saw in the light in shadow lesson. But we don't want that, we want super fun contrast. We're going to throw realism out the window and just have fun. I lightened the whole left side with a couple of brushstrokes. You don't have to make yours so big, but I enjoy the layered look. I tried to be bold with my strokes, and then continue adding more as I go. I also add some small lines to the edges on the other side, and I'm starting to build contrast. I love to add little dots too for more magic. Now I'm going to mix a nice dark green to start adding shadows. Make sure to test your colors like I did, and have your green match the green you already put down. I outlined the pit with it and darken the whole right side and bottom. I'm using bold strokes again. Now, remember that the pit will make a cast shadow opposite of the light source. I paint that in here to the bottom right, and I darken the color even more, using the brown I already have and I'll add more green in and define the shadow even more. Notice how loose I am with this, but later on I will actually paint over the top part completely and let in the rest because I do think it was a little bit too dark. Maybe make sure your colors aren't as dark as mine right here. But this is a good example of layering and changing your mind. You can always paint over things like I do. I continued building shadows and darken the edges with green and next I picked up some white and make the highlights even brighter and add more dots. Like always, make sure to pick up some pure white for the most opaque white. I also add some white to the shadowy side and it blends with the colors I already put down because they're still wet. I squint my eyes and I decide to mute the white with some yellow and add some to the highlights since it's a little too bright. Then I lighten the right side since it's a little too dark. Just squinting your eyes will show you what needs what and where, and why. It'll help you to figure out the values you feel right. There's no wrong way of doing this. We're just building up layers. Just do your best. On the bottom here notice I made a mistake. I painted over the skin. I'm going to go back in with a dark skin color and just redefine it. You can do this at any time and you can wait for it to completely dry for it to be completely opaque as well. I also darken the right side of the stem and the pit with the same color. Small touches make a big difference and then I decided to add more bright green throughout the piece. This is when I start to lighten the shadows but notice how I will leave little bits of darkness to show through. This adds a lot of texture. Now let's define the pit. I'm going to do something a little bit different here. I'm going to pick up some magenta from the background and mix with water. It's a lighter wash and I'm going to put that lighter wash on top of a thicker gouache and I realized when I do this, acts like watercolor in a future layer. You don't want to use too much water because you'll reactivate the previous layers. But I'm not making it super opaque so that the previous layer does show through. This makes a really fun texture, as you can see. Remember how colored light reflects and also light bounces around in general, this is actually pretty realistic. The brown showing through actually makes it look even better and just looks good and helps unify everything when I add the background color into the piece. Now pick up a highlight color for the pit. For me, it's this nice yellow ocher and I throw that in on the side facing the light. Notice how loose my strokes are, like always, and random. I like to do one big dot and the smaller one. I also add in some reflected light to the opposite edge, and then I add a little bit to the stem. I squint my eyes and it looks a little too bright in the shadow, I muted the colors with a darker green. Now, look at this, our avocado is starting to come alive. Now let's pick up some pure white again and make everything pop out. Make sure not to use any water or very little for a super thick paint like always. Notice how I'm putting lines and lines all around the piece, but I'm putting more on the left side since the light is in that direction and I'm adding it to the edges on the right side to increase contrast and to give that reflective light look even if it's not realistic with a flat surface. Just do this until it feels like it's done. Now let's add it to the pit. I'm doing two shapes and a dot below and look how good it makes it look. I also add a little to the other side and to the stem as well. Now, when you do this make sure all of the previous layers are dry so that you do put down a pure white. I continue eyeballing and make the left side even lighter. Then I mix a nice green with the previously used color and white, and lighten some areas that appeared a little too dark for me. I realize this by just squinting my eyes. Notice how throughout this piece when I mix colors, I try not to introduce too many new ones and I usually just use whatever is on the palette already. This really helps with that feeling of realism and for the colors to have slight variations. Here's an example of why you shouldn't be scared to change your mind. This top part was bothering me. It just look wrong, so I painted over it completely. Sometimes your paint also looks different once it dries and it just doesn't look right, so don't be scared anytime to make changes. Next, I picked up some pure white and I'm going to outline the whole piece for a fun effect like always. I already had an outline by just painting around it, but I wanted to make it more even and bigger. Make sure to use straight paint for the most whiteness and opacity, it's just a simple outline. Then I squint my eyes and decide to add just a few more highlights in some parts. Not realistic, but it looks so juicy and good. I also add little dots inside the pit for more magic. Just be careful not to overdo highlights at this point because you don't want it to lose their magic. I also let in some of my white highlights by adding a second layer of whites and sometimes I pick up paint by accident or reactivate a previous layer, or maybe my previous layer just wasn't dry enough. Look how alive and juicy the white highlights made it feel. Now, let's finish off the background with some simple sparkles. Just paint two lines intersecting and then make a diamond in the middle by connecting these corners. Or you can also draw a circle instead for a fun look, or you can leave them as crossing lines or put two more lines in-between. I always like to add little dots around it and I do so here as well, like the banana. This definitely gives a magical feel of sparkles or stars. If I had to do just one kind of background, this would be it. I just feel like it's so cute. Be sure to vary the scale for more fun and feel free to do what you like the most. You could do outlines of flowers or maybe little hearts. Backgrounds can be so much fun, so just do what you like. I finish off the piece by adding even more dots around the background and you can be done now if you want to, but I usually layer a lot when I do this, so I continue refining. It's so hard to stop. I didn't like how when I painted in the white it painted over the skin in some parts, so I added back in and I use a lighter color on the side that faces the light. I also define the shadow here more with a slightly different green and then go back in with super bright green and yellow to add more highlights. Notice how I do simple lines and dots. It really makes everything pop. It finally feels done, but I could honestly keep going. It's so hard to really just stop, but I'm going to do it, I'm going to stop. Just be patient with your painting and if you need to do more layers, if you want to change how something looks, just paint over and keep going. Just do what feels right until it feels done even if that means that you were done earlier than me. Without the washi tape, the result is so magical. This is definitely my favorite fruit so far and it's how I usually like to paint. I just changed my mind a lot. It's chaotic and intuitive, and I squint my eyes a lot and reevaluate my choices as I go for the best results. There's no wrong way of doing this. Just do what's fun for you, and I hope you enjoy painting this fruity cutey. Now let's move on to the next one, which is even more detailed, a juicy watermelon. 13. Watermelon: It's time to paint our last juicy fruit, the watermelon. Let's first look at a slice. I cut it in the shape that I'm going to paint it. Now let's look at the colors. We have this dark green going into white on the bottom and of course there are seeds inside the watermelon, but I will make mine black based on what most watermelons have for most contrast, it also has this nice subtle texture that I will exaggerate. The most important thing is the wedge shape, and I will show you how to make it realistic in 3D. I didn't cut mine perfectly, but I can use trusty Google to see what it looks like perfect and I will base my shape off these references. You can go through Google to pick any shape that you like the most, but I thought having this nice 3D look will give us more play with the shading. Here you can also see the darker seeds that I was talking about. This is what watermelon usually look like and it's their trademark feature, so I don't want to leave that out. Let's start painting. You can sketch out your shape first if you like. Pick a nice pink color if you're going to paint with me, and start with the triangle shape and notice how I'm putting it more towards the right side of the paper since we will make it look like it's facing to right and the left side will stick out. Make sure to use a curved line on the bottom, like a bottom of a sphere, just more gradual. Now, draw a line that's slanted in and then follow the other line as you go down and end it where the curve would end if it continued. Finish it off by just connecting it. Next, pick up a green to sketch with, and we'll continue the shape on the left and the bottom. We're just drawing the same exact shapes that we just did. We're just continuing them to make it lower. If something is not even, just refine it since this is the sketching phase. I actually decided that I want my slice to be thicker, so I just extended everything out on the left side, like so. Just make your shape exactly as you want it to be and don't worry about changing your mind. I do that a lot. We are going to layer, so you don't have to get it perfect the first time. If this is hard for you, just start with a pencil sketch, whatever makes you more comfortable. But just don't overthink things. I filled in the shape like always with a light wash by just using water with our paint and I'm starting with the front side. This time I'm going to have my light be super unrealistic and I just want to concentrate on contrast and play. I won't have one direct light source that's exact. I'll wing it and you'll see me do that. But I do want the right side to be the one that's facing the light in general, and the left will be in shadow for more dimension. I use the watercolor wet and wet technique to play and add some texture. With this one, I make sure to let some of that texture show through and not paint over everything for a fun watercolor/gouache look. I plan on doing that with the other ones, but I got a little carried away with layering. If you want to do this, just be mindful of it and make sure to pick an area that's going to show through depending on value your base color is. Here, it's very light, so part of my highlights will have this texture. Next, I pick up some magenta and do a light wash of the plane on the left. Like I said before, we want this left side to be darker for more realism and dimension. I'm using more paint and less water. Next, I mix some yellow with white and a touch of green to mimic the light greenish yellow color in the rind. I painted in and notice how I painted all the way to the bottom and then smooth out the edges with a wet brush. Next, I picked up the magenta I just used to make the transition more textured and fun. Notice how by adding the color while the previous layer is still wet blended the two and made it so quirky. This is almost like what I would do with watercolor when I'm painting loose. I use a lot of the same techniques in gouache. Now I pick up a darker green and make sure to test it to make sure it looks right. I'm defining the bottom of the watermelon. Look how this greatly increased contrast made it prettier. You can go even darker if you like, and you can also make your lines thicker if you like. Now I mix the whitish yellow green color with the darker green I just used and I'm using it to paint a transition between the two colors to make it look more dimensional. If you ever want to make a smooth transition between two colors, just mix them together on your palette equally, and then paint in between them. Now let's let that area dry and go back into the fleshy part and define the outlines. I'm going to use the same magenta as before. By adding outlines, we're going to increase contrast and it helps it to feel more defined. If you want that slightly cartoony look, always add outlines. But if you do want complete realism, try to avoid outlines. I personally love the in-between look of using both. I also wanted to add some texture and shading, so I use the natural shape of the brush to make loose strokes. When I said the light source is not realistic, this is what I meant. I'm just going to play with value all around and make huge transitions between light and dark for more shininess and play, just painting what looks good to me. The only thing I was realistic with is the face being lighter and the side being darker. I also picked up some light pink. If you don't have this color, just mix whatever color you used for your watermelon with white and added some of that lighter color in the same fashion of being loose with the brush. Here, I'm squinting my eyes a lot and adding what feels right. Notice the slanted shape I made up of light lines. It makes it feel so dimensional. This is what we did with the banana. It is a cartoony thing I picked up from anime-styled hair. I know this sounds random, but I think it looks really nice in a lot of illustrations. For reference, this is what I mean by anime-styled hair. Notice how the highlights are super bright and got an angle. As you can see, you can get inspired from anything around you and use it in a completely different medium and subject matter. Now I want to use the magenta again, but I need it to get a little darker for more contrast. But since the color that you see on the pen is as dark as it can get and I'd use it quite thickly, I have to darken this color to make it darker. I add in a similar color that is darker, in this case, ruby red. You can also use purple if you like. If you would have added black, it would make it very dull. That's not my style, but you can do that too if that's your style. Notice how the color is much darker and at the same time it's still vibrant. You can do this with any color. Just squint your eyes as the value changes the colors on your palette and pick a similar color that is darker. In this way, you can darken it but make sure to keep its vibrancy. Also, you'll vary the color, which is always fun. I rarely use black unless I'm darkening a brown like I will with the seeds. Notice how I use the darker color to define lots of areas, especially the left side, but even within the fleshy part, just sparingly and mostly at the edges. Now I want to add some seeds, so I mix black and brown to make a super dark brown, but my layer is still shiny, so that means it's wet. I dry it with my heat gun. You can also use a hairdryer or just wait for it to dry and now gently with the tip of the brush, add in some seeds. You have to let it dry first because the color we're adding is very different and we want the definition of the edges. The shape is just a triangle with a rounded bottom, like a mini watermelon, just thinner. I outline them first and then fill them in. I'm only adding four seeds, but you can do as little as two or three if you like. I actually recommend three more, but I wouldn't add more than four, it'd be a little too busy, unless you want to do tiny ones and make a little pattern. This is just one of those things I learned with experience with what looks good and what doesn't look good. Notice how the seeds are also randomly spaced and rotated for more interest. You can also make some of them lighter as if they are inside the watermelon, but I didn't want to be that fancy. Now, let's add some highlights. Pick up some pure white and paint it in-between the transitions of the rind, the fleshy part, but not everywhere, just like little dots and lines here and there to add some interest. This made it feel more shiny. Of course, like always, we are trying to increase contrast. But my white blended out with the color that was already there, so it wasn't a pure white and that's okay. I'll just add a second layer in a little bit. Next, I picked up some of that green color that I already used on the bottom of the rind and I darkened the left side to make it more realistic, since I want this whole site to be in shadow. This is where squinting your eyes comes in handy. It didn't look right when I did so. I also added more texture with it by adding little dots. Look how a tiny little detail made a world of a difference. I think it just made it look more alive. Now I went back in and picked up white with no water and redefined the white that blended out, but mostly use lines this time. It's all just intuitive. You can use lines or dots or just find your own way of doing things, maybe blobs. Don't overthink it and do what you like. Now I'm going to go in with a pure white and add highlights all around like I always do. Notice how I take my time and mostly do at the edges and then add little dots. I'm just doing what I always do with the other pieces. I'm very careful not to overdo it like always. I just add one and then like squint my eyes and then add the next one where it feels like it's [inaudible] and then squint my eyes and just carefully continue adding white until I feel happy with it. Add bits of white here and there, wherever it feels right. Now the seeds also need white to truly pop and feel shiny. You can add one or two dots in each one and be sure to add white around them to make them pop as well. Just two things; make sure your seeds are fully dry before adding white dots because if they're not, they'll turn gray and don't outline them all the way around, just randomly in some parts for more realism. I didn't like how these two turned out, so I just painted over them with the same color I used before. I let them dry and then I re-did the highlights. If I make a mistake, I just paint over it. I also picked up some magenta and added some dark outlines to the seeds with it on the sides. I don't have the white. Like I said before, I'm not realistic with the light. I was just doing everything at random, but it still looks really nice. This makes them feel solid and like they're inside the watermelon. While I have this color on my brush, I define the left side a little bit more. If you look at the watermelon now, you could say it's done. In fact, we're watching the video back, it could have been done for a while now. I want you to know that you have the freedom to stop whenever you want to or make it extra detailed like I did here. It's up to you. It's just hard to stop when you're in the zone and having fun. Now I'm just going to add finishing touches by squinting my eyes and playing. I add a few more highlights. I also thought this part of the watermelon was too bright. Since the layer below is very thin gouache like watercolor, and I am using a darker color, I just use a lot of water to make another watercolor type layer which keeps the texture underneath and makes more texture. I love the transparency that gouache can make and layering it like watercolor is also always fun. Now it's time to add the background. I use the light yellowish green color from the bottom of the watermelon to add stripes. But I wasn't happy with the color, so I tweaked it a little bit by mixing more colors, mostly yellow. But I still use similar colors to what's already in the piece. You can make yours any color that you like. Yellow would look good, or aqua, or even a very light pink. I ended up free handing these. But if you want to make them perfect, lightly sketch it out with a ruler first me, just make sure your paint is dry. If the ruler touches wet paint, it'll smear, but if the paint is dry, it'll be fine. You can also do a solid color if you like, or polka dots, or super thin lines, or watercolory wash with splatter, or just leave it white or add a simple cast shadow. Like I always say, you can do whatever your heart desires and whatever is the most fun for you. I enjoyed the fun look of the lines not being perfect. I kept messing them up and I just painted over them and made them thicker on one side and then made sure the other side was even and just made it fun. They're not all the same size either and I think that added to the quark. I try not to touch the watermelon while I'm painting the background like always, since I like leaving the white outline and I also use more water as I went higher for a lighter wash. It went from dark to light but not that much lighter. That's it for the background. I think it gives it a nice summer feel. It makes me think of towels at the beach and it doesn't take away the attention from the watermelon. This next part is completely optional because I like how the watermelon looks now too. You can stop here if you like. I just wanted to increase contrast even more. I picked up more white and added more highlights loosely and intuitively around the piece. I thought it would look cool on the left side, but I think I went a little too far away from realism. I didn't really look good, it just took away from the magic of the highlights. Yeah, it's toosy, but this is so unrealistic that your brain doesn't like how it looks, if that makes sense. We are wired to know if things look right. You'll see me decide to paint over this once it dries. I added a nice white outline to the watermelon, like always, to make sure it stands out from the background. I thought I could salvage the left side with more highlights, but I thought I'd just look too busy. I went in with a darker color and painted over all the highlights. Notice how it took me a second to figure out that it just didn't look good. I kept trying to make it work, but it just didn't. Sometimes you'll do that in art and that's okay and that's how you learn. Don't be scared to change your mind and redo any area you want to. In the meantime, I used a darker color to increase contrast, by adding little dots everywhere and darkening the dark parts. Then I realized I need to darken the left side even more. I mix some purple into my reddish magenta color to make an even darker color. This definitely helped to up the contrast. It added a lot more interest to the colors in the watermelon. It also made a nice shadow color without using black, so it only dealt did a tiny bit. Notice how I loosely painted over the left side and left some of the previously used colors too to not let it look flat. I'm not going to let it just be one color. I also added a small touch of the dark color on the right for a little bit more contrast. I squinted my eyes and realized I need to darken the rind and the left side and then added more contrast on the right with it as well. When doing this, I'm just using my best possible judgment. I'm constantly layering and increasing contrast. Then I lightened the colors and made the transition between the colors down here more gradual and then added more textures with the dots. Then I picked up darker green and defined the bottom part more to increase contrast even more. It was getting a little bit lost before, especially since I added the dark purple into the fleshy part and up the value changes. I had to do the same down here and now it really pops. You can also make it thicker if you like, but I decided not to. I also had a tiny little mistake right here and I fixed it just by painting over it. At this stage I thought, wait, the left side is a little too dark now. Again, I changed my mind and I took some light pink and I painted over it. I didn't paint over everything, but most of it. As you can see, I've changed my mind a lot with this guy and I really played. There's just so much detail and contrast. I made a lot of decisions just by constantly squinting my eyes and using my best judgment. It's not something I really think about. But if it's your first time painting like this, you will need to think a lot and learn to trust your intuition. Just like any other skill, it takes practice and time to get good at it. You have to learn also how to let go. I love how this watermelon turned out. It was so much fun to layer with and play with, and I hope you enjoy it too. Now, let's finish off the class. 14. End: You finished the class. You deserve a party and a medal for being super awesome playing with your paints. I hope you enjoyed playing with gouache and I hope that you learned that it's all about filling it out and being creative and playful and just doing what you like and not caring about results. The more you paint, the better you get, and you're going to paint more, if you allow yourself to paint more by not being so critical of yourself. Learn to quiet that inner critic voice and just have fun. I want to encourage you to share what you made in the project gallery, whether you did one fruit or all of them. It's always fun to share your work and get feedback, but it's okay if you want to keep it a secret in your sketchbook too. But either way, why don't you check out the project gallery and get inspired by the other students art and give them maybe a nice message to make their day? I also encourage you guys to give these techniques a try with your own favorite fruit and build on the techniques and find your favorite way of painting in gouache. I recommend doing cherries or a strawberry or a pomegranate for some fun juiciness, just play and have fun with what you do. You'll get better and better at using gouache, listening to your intuition, the more you paint. That's the end of this class. I have tons more you can check out, as of this moment, 24 other ones. The ones I recommend that tie into this class are Let's Play, which is all by intuitive painting and letting go of perfectionism. You Can Draw Anything, which teaches the basics of drawing anything you want using three simple steps. Watercolor Sweets, which is like this class, but in watercolor with lots of tasty treats. It's super fun and there's a lot more classes, so be sure to check them all out to see if there's anything that interests you. I also recently made a cutie book that you can check out. It's all about drawing cute animals. You can also keep in touch by joining the newsletter or follow me on Instagram. I just want to say, thank you guys so much for painting with me and I hope you had a blast. Just keep creating, keep growing on your creative journey, and have fun. Never stop learning and never stop growing. I'll see you in the next class.