Line and Wash for Beginners

1. Intro: Hello, hello. I am so glad you are here truly. Thank you so much for joining me. We have what is going to be both a fun and beautiful class in front of us. As you can see, we are going to be working with ink and watercolor, otherwise known as line and wash. Now I have always been intrigued by this art form and although I will be the first to admit that it is not my expertise, what I do have to offer is a unique approach. So we're going to dive in. We're going to learn how to make beautiful, loose illustrated art. We're going to learn all about our supplies in the next video. So go ahead and park yourself somewhere, cozy, grab yourself something to drink, and let's get to it. 2. Supplies: Before we begin, let's go ahead and briefly discuss the supplies that we'll need to complete the class. Beginning with paper, we're gonna be using legion 140 pound cold press paper today. A little different. We've used it in a previous class. However, it's been awhile. Typically we use our Canson 140 pound cold press. But I've chosen this paper for us today because it has a really nice tooth to it that's going to, the watercolor is going to pick up that texture and it's gonna be really beautiful. Since we are not going to really be focusing on the watercolor aspect, but rather the combination of detailed pen lines with loose watercolor. I thought it would be a nice change to have a paper that's just a little bit more gritty into the for us. Feel free if you do not have this exact paper to use a substitute or something close to it. For paints, we're going to be using a variety of paints. I've always a covered my preferred brands in previous classes. So you can look back. The paint brand is so long as it is an artist grade paint, I am happy. It does not need to be a specific brand, but if you do want to achieve the exact results with the color blends and whatnot, then I will obviously give you exactly what I'm using. I'm going to be using Sennelier, blue, indigo. I'm going to be using Daniel Smith undersea green. And then a variety of my merry blew, this is Rose lake, this is yellow ocher, and this is sepia. And we're going to be mixing all of these colors together to get a variety of different u's. I tried to keep it simple for us. Keeping it five might use another color for our white. We're probably going to use a lamp, black. I'll cover that when we get there. But you should have whatever colors we're gonna be using in your toolbox. I'm not going to be using anything outlandish today. So for brushes, we're gonna be using a variety of Princeton brushes in round and filbert. Any variety is great. I love for you to have some duplicates, so size 6.8 rounds is great for filbert. I like fours and sixes. And then I'm also going to be using this tiny little filbert here. It's a size two for our lavender here. But again, you can use the tip of this round brush for pretty much the same results again, because this is not gonna be focused on watercolor and it's mainly going to be about the pen work. Or the watercolor is going to be secondary. So whatever brushes you have on hand will work great. I'm going to want you to have a pencil. I'm using favorite Castile. I like their brand of pencils. I'm gonna be using an HB because it's very easy to erase. And when we're all done here, um, we wanna be able to erase the pencil lines. So what I've done here is you'll find in, you'll find the worksheets for this class, which is going to be all the sketches which had been done in pencil. And then you would go ahead and print those out, trace them on a new piece of paper with pencil. And then you'll be able to then at the very end, use your dust free eraser to erase all of those pencil lines. So it's just the pen and the watercolor. But the pencil that you can see is really beautiful too. So there's many options here. It doesn't have to be pen, it can be left pencil. I love the look of graphite and watercolor too, so I wanted to give you both. So you can do this class in pencil and pen in marker. There's so many different ways you can use the material today, but we'll focus on pen. So speaking of pins, we're gonna be using Micron. The first pen here is a graphic pen and you're not going to need this. This is really just an example. I'm gonna be showing you the different looks that have previously been covered in classes that I've either taken or just work that I've seen. Because I want to be able to show you the difference in the pins. So we'll have this kind of graphic pen to show an example of what it looks like traditionally. And then for my approach to this style, we're gonna be using the, the Pigma Micron 05 and the 01, That's the 0.4, 5.0, 0.25. And then I'm also going to be using the sepia. So if you have if you just have the black ones, that's fine too. I have the black here off to the side. A lot of people like the black. I think the brown just kinda adds a little bit more of a vintage touch, the overall look. So that's why I typically like to use this API a pin, whereas the black is just a little bit more. I wouldn't say harsh, that's not the right word, but it's just a little bit stronger of a look. And I feel like the brown religious kinda makes it look a little more gentle. So you will need both varieties of the micron pen, the 0.2, 5.0, 0.45, because we'll use both of those. Other than that, you'll need a cup of water, you'll need a palette, and obviously a paper towel to block off in between. You can have a device such as an iPad if you want to be looking at reference pictures, but they're absolutely not necessary. What I've done is I've saved all of the reference pictures to a Pinterest board. I will provide that link in the class description so that you can see where I pulled inspiration from. You'll notice that I've definitely taken some liberties. But you can get the basic concept for the drawings that I'll be showing you today. Alright, let's go ahead and move into the very first portion of our class. 3. Exploring Micro Pens and Loose Watercolor Washes: Before we begin painting our illustrations, I want to help you get familiar with the pens that we're gonna be using. We're really going to only be using these two today. However, I did put this one in the supply list just so that you can, if you like the look of it, purchase it, and use it in your explorations and creations. So we're going to start with the Pigma Graphic. So that's going to be the boldest of all of the pens that I'll be showing you. So let's go ahead and just, I want you to use full pressures. You can really see what this pen is capable of. So that's about as thick of a line is you're going to get with this. And so if we were to do a flower, it would look something like this. And then if we were to add a stem to it, we have something that looks like that. The next pen that we are going to be using as the micron pen, the 0.45. So that's the next boldest pen. And you have a stroke that's going to look like this. So you can see it's significantly thinner than what we have here. This is very graphic. A lot of illustrators really love that, that pen. So doing the same thing here. We have a flower and then if we were to add a stem, we have something that's quite a bit thinner. Then lastly, we have our 0.25 micron pen, very thin little stroke. This one is great for initially sketching the outline. And then what I, what I like to do and we'll enter that in more detail, is adding fuller pressure strokes to add in some of those boulder richer aspects of the design. You start with some dots and then begin to outline our flower and adding a stem. So there you can see we have three pretty different looks. This one clearly looks much different, not only because it's black, but because it's thicker. And then you can see that there is some variation between these as well. So I just wanted you to kind of get familiar with the pins. You can see what they're capable of as we go into working from start to finish through a sketch and then pending it and then painting it. You'll see how these two really works so beautifully together. So the next thing I wanted to do was show you three different approaches to washes. There are more approaches than even what I'm going to show you. But these are the three that I am most familiar with and that I have occasionally used within my own just creative pursuits and exploration. So we're gonna get out our primary blue rows lake. And just dab a little bit on the palette here. We'll be using that later so you can give yourself a generous amount. And then I'm going to use one of my Princeton round brushes. And I'm just create a really light wash with broth consistency. So that's going to be about 90% water, 10% paint. So the way that we can go about this is a couple of different ways. We'll multitude of different ways, but the three that I'm going to show you are essentially a very loose, almost as though we're just kinda splashing color onto the design. And then there's an in-between where we're working within the design and the framework. But we're also taking care not to be so painstakingly precise with our, our wash. And then there is the third way which is to fill in the line work essentially and to not color outside the lines. I'm going to show you those different approaches. So if we were to just splash color on a design, it would look something like this. It's very loose. It doesn't really have any sort of shape. It's circular I suppose. But it's not really being mindful of the shape, it's just splashing color. The second way is to lay color in within the framework, but also being okay with going outside the lines and then possibly leaving parts of the design open and available to just being as they are. So you can see we have a floral shape here. We're working within the framework, but we're not being mindful to stay inside the lines. And we have something that's just a little bit more formed than this. And our third option would be to color in the design. So here, we're being careful to stay within the framework. Using our brush to gently guide the watercolor only into the pond area. So if you've taken any of my classes, you know that I am a huge proponent of giving you options. I do not like to teach and say that this is the right way to paint, draw, whatever and so forth. I like to say these are the ways that I've enjoyed painting. And I want you to find the way that's most nurturing, nourishing to you. So there is no right way. None of these are the right or better way. I would love for you to find which one most service your creative process. So this middle one is where is my happy place? I like this. It's formed, but it's also loose. It's just sort of in the middle. But you may really like just this look of splashing color on the flower. Or you might, you might be one of those rule followers. And were you just want to keep the color exactly where it's supposed to be. And that's completely okay too. So it's completely up to you what it is that you want to do and how you want to move forward with this art form. So the next thing we're gonna do is I'm going to just splash a little bit of undersea green onto my palette. And we're gonna do the same thing with the leaves just to give you an idea. One thing I don't think I've mentioned yet, a lot of people are always so excited to hear that there are pins that don't bleed with watercolor. So if this is a new kind of an eye-opening experience for you, yes, there are pins that you can use with watercolor and they will not bleed. And then in fact, once everything is dry, if you are using pencil as we will, you can go in and erase all of the pencil lines and your pen work will still be there, your water color will still be there, and it's so beautiful and so much fun. Um, I try not to assume everybody is on the same level. So if this is a new concept to you, just know that not all pins are capable of doing this. That you need to make sure that they are bleed proof pens micron is a great brand for this and then also Winsor and Newton makes a brand of pens that I've used and I've tutorial. They're called fine liners, so you can look that up as well. Okay, so doing the same thing here with the undersea green. Same concepts when a splash color. And here we'll just do sort of an in-between. And then here we will fill in the lines. Okay, So that should, that should get you pretty familiar with our pins and what they are capable of. So you might gravitate towards one of these more than the other. And that's great. I really just wanted to let you know what they're capable of doing as we move forward and begin to do a sketch from start to finish. So let's go ahead and move into the next portion of our class. 4. Sketching a Sunflower: I have found us a lovely flower and inspiration flower on Pinterest. And I did want to mention now that all of the flowers that I'm teaching in this class, I've saved on a board marked Skillshare on my Pinterest account. So you can see, although it's not necessary, because I will be providing all of the pencil sketches which are then yours to print. And you can either pen and paint directly on them or you can trace them, which is what I would recommend that way you can erase the pencil marks later. So those will be provided. But I thought it would be nice just for you to have the inspiration pictures so that you can pull from those reference images later on if you want to do the work again or if you just want to try it differently. I'm obviously each artist sees something different in each picture, so we're gonna go ahead and use our HB pencil. If you don't have an HB pencil, just something that's light is great. I used this pencil much firmer when I was doing the sketches for you so that they would show up when I scanned. But typically when I sketch, I do sketch lightly because really the sketch is just it's the groundwork. I really don't rely on the sketch so much, but I've also find the more detailed and the more accurate that it is, gives me more freedom. And I find that I have more liberties, or at least the room to take them when it comes time to actually pin it out. So you'll see, I'll, I'll draw and then I'll have petals, but then I will break away from what it is that I have actually sketched out. Intuitively. I am very much an intuitive painter and there are a lot of artists that will say, draw what you see, not what you, would you imagine or what you feel. And I'm, I'm quite the opposite. It doesn't always look, I guess anatomically correct would be botanically correct is the better term. But it's where I find the most joy being able to take those liberties. And it may not always look exactly as it does in nature, but it's not supposed to be. My style is very gestural and it's supposed to intimate at the subject matter, not capture it exactly. So you'll see that in my approach to this style, I'm not really looking to capture every single detail. It's really to get the essence of what IC. So that was a bit of a preamble, but I do want you to understand the why behind my choices and then also give you permission to do differently. So I'm going to take from this inspiration picture just the concept of the shape. And I will be making some pencil markings. But then later on as I pin, you will see that there'll be times where I just don't go exactly over that area. So looking at the sunflower, I see that it's at a slight angle, which is why I chose this. We can always do as sunflower that's face on. But I really like being able to, I like choosing flowers that have just a little bit of movement to them. I feel like that gives them a more life-like appearance when we go to the pen work. So let's start here with just a center. I like to adopt that. And you'll see that this is very, this is a very rough and messy process. I use my eraser a lot if I haven't already told you, go ahead and grab your dust free eraser because what I see, It's sometimes doesn't always translate when I'm putting it down on paper. So just a nice big sunflower shape here in the middle. We have, it's sort of like a sideways all men here. If it's not showing up, I'll try and pin it or excuse me, sketch it a little bit darker so you can see. That just gives us room. It gives us a shape not to intrude upon as we are creating the petals, I like to start working from this direction and then filling in this way as I go. Just to give myself an idea of how wide the petals need to be. We can see that they are longest this way and they are shorter down here. Let's go ahead and just begin sketching out the shape. Again. Feel free to take liberties with the shape of the petals. Some I will make a little bit thinner. Some will be wider, some will have pointy tip, some will have more of a rounded shape to them. It's really entirely up to you. The little too long. So I'm gonna go ahead and erase that. Typically a sketch like this can take me anywhere 5-20 min if I if I'm not warmed up and I'm just not really getting the shape of what it is that I'm trying to capture. So if it takes you longer, you are more than welcome to completely turn off the video. Use this reference image. You don't have to follow along with me. If you feel like you're not able to catch up, I want you to have a pace that feels good to you. Here. I'm going to take some liberties and I'm not going to fold the petals over so much here. Just kind of a gesture. The little too long. Again, you can see that I'm just sort of rushing the pencil up against the paper. I'm not pressing too hard and I'm not really aiming to like permanently pencil down anything because I haven't decided yet how I how I like it. I'm just sort of looking, sketching, looking sketching make other changes. And I just wanted to walk you through this from start to finish just on one. Because this is not a how to sketch from reference images or live nature. This is a ink and watercolor class or linework and wash. But I didn't want to at the very least just provide you with one from beginning to finish so that you have an idea of how I worked through this process. So now I'm just kinda looking at what I have and I'm gonna go back through and just make sure I feel as though I've captured the shape well enough. I already feel like these right here are not quite at an angle enough. They're not giving me that sense of the sunflower being on its side. So I'm gonna go in and just make a few modifications. Must have picked up a little bit of color here. It's not coming off, but sometimes I use this with my pastels and it picks up color as I work, so disregard that stroke. Alright, so now I'm just going to kind of deepen some of these pencil marks. Again, we're going to be erasing these at the end. So you don't want a pen too dark, but you also want to be able to see what you've done. The shape of these are looking a little bit too similar to me. So I'm just going to kind of break it up here with some different shapes. Having more of a daisy feel to it to me. Then also one of my favorite thing to do is to leave a gap somewhere within the flower. I feel like it really brings in this lifelike feel. So I'm going to create a gap right here between these two petals just to break it up. And now I'm really feeling as though, okay, We're on our side here. I'm not really loving those two, these two petals here. I think it works when it's being painted. But with pen work, I think it's gonna get sloppy here because we're really going to accentuate the details of this center. I'm deciding to omit that completely. You do not have to, but it's just what I'm going to do this time around. So I'm just taking one last look at what I have. I feel pretty confident about this now and feel as though I'm in a pretty good place with it. So I'm willing to continue working around the Sunflower by creating the stem, which kinda curves out here. And we'll just imagine that it's kinda coming down, finishing off there. And again, I'm just creating the framework here. Nothing permanent. And then I'm going to sort of break it up with some loose lines. Do that, but just kinda wiggling the pencil so that it doesn't look so stagnant and so streamlined. Then I'm not going to go all the way up to the pedal either. I'm going to leave some room here. I find that it just looks a lot more natural. If I do it that way. Then I'm going to start to create some leaves here. And I'm not going to follow exactly what I see. I'm just going to sort of intuitively look and then make decisions. Don't love that, So that a little bit better. And then I'm gonna do one kinda coming down in this direction, connecting the leaves to the stem here. And I'm feeling pretty good about the shape of the leaves. They have these kind of pretty curves in the body of the leaves. And they really actually have a lot of ridge work here, which I don t think it's going to come out so well in the pen, but we'll put a little bit of it in there. We'll see how that goes. I like to lay down initially the shape and then go back in with my pencil and create those little ridges by just coming in a bit rough that up a little bit too. So we have something that looks a little bit more like a sunflower leaf. Okay, so I'm just taking one last look. I feel pretty good about this. So I think the next step is to get out our pin. So we'll do that in the next section. 5. Penning the Sunflower: So this is where things really began to take on a stylistic approach. I feel like it's this next portion that might set what I create apart from somebody else who does line and wash work. It's really how we interpret the material and what we see in an intuitively what we add to it. So when I create something like this, I never take my pen and simply just outline what I have done in pencil. I feel like that's definitely very therapeutic for people to just be able to mindlessly work the pen around. But I like to be able to add more vintage, a soft, and I have no other word to describe it, but shaggy appearance to whatever it is that I'm I'm outlining. You'll see as I work, I almost moved the pen is though it's a paintbrush and I'm really trying to just use words that help you get an idea because you'll see how I'm working. But I want you to get a sense of what the pen is doing. So later on, if there's any questions about this approach, please feel free to reach out and ask me I'm more than happy to address any questions. The only downfall with pre-recorded classes is that nobody can raise their hand or speak up. That's why I love live workshops so much. But I'm always here after, after the factor, if you're working through the material and something's not making sense, I am always here to answer your questions. So the first thing I really like to do is to use the 0.25 to begin really framing what it is that I'm doing. So I just kinda look to see where my pencil marks are and I began making gesturally accurate marks. So I'm going to begin here with the center of the flower, and I'm going to make some lines in between the petals where I saw and I've taken the picture away because I really want to intuitively just work now and not have anything competing with what it is that I want to create. I'm going to intuitively put in some markings in-between the petals where the center is sort of emerging from the middle. I'm just taking my pen and I'm just sort of using it as I would a paintbrush, just laying down some quick small strokes. I'm not doing it everywhere. I'm not going to do the whole center and just kind of intuitively placing it in between where the center is emerging and the petals are extending outward. And you can see with the brown, it really is such a lovely color. I can't emphasize that enough. You know, the black, the black can be very striking, but I just really do find myself gravitating towards the brown. Okay. And so once I have that done, then I'm just I step away and then I'm going to move into a different part of the flower. We'll come back here adding more details as we go. But again, I'm going to start here. And I'm just gonna begin really lightly working over the pencil mark. But I'm also one thing to keep in mind is I'm not going to completely outline every part of the pedal. I'm going to leave intentional little breaks within the flower. And so I'm modifying the pressure as I work starting light and then pressing down a little bit firmer to get a darker line here. And then completely breaking away from the paper to leave an intentional break. Sketching, sketching firmer pressure at the tip, coming back down from her pressure. And concluding back at the center. I will not do the same thing on each petal because I want there to be variation with each petal. So this one I'm going to do just very lightly. Starting here lightly taking a break here, firmer pressure, pressure back to the center. Lightly coming off of my original pencil marking here. And back to center. I'm going to switch positions here so that you can see me from an angle. Now I wanted you to have some overhead so you can really see what's happening in this part of my hand, but I also want you to be able to see coming at this direction. So we're going to do that too. So coming from this angle, you should be able to really be able to see the pen as it's being applied to the paper. Roughing up the edge of that puddle here, coming back to center, pressure, lighter, pressure, light, really kind of shaggy strokes here. Pressure light. Coming off with my original pencil here. Trading a little bit of a fold in that pedal and finishing off here. And then we will head into the stem now. Again, not coming completely up to the petal here. Just shaggy strokes here. Being mindful of where the stem is connected to the leaves. Can you hear pressure creating these intentional little grooves within the stem, these imperfections that really make it feel lifelike. And then we will work our way out now into the leaf. And just beginning lightly, lightly the paper a bit. So I can get a better angle to show you connecting these stems here. Lightly, lightly creating really loose gestural pen marks here, really swooping the pen in here, adding pressure at these grooves. Okay, so we can see that we have clearly outlined our flower. And now it's time to move in with our 0.45 pen for some more, some stronger details to really lift out the parts of the sunflower that we want to draw attention to. So I'm gonna move you back. No more overhead. Okay, so we have slightly more overhead, but I still want to come in at an angle so you can see what's happening between pen and paper. So I'm going to take this pen and I'm just going to look for areas where I can really accentuate the beautiful pedal shape and also within the center. And then we will head into the center as well for some details. I'm going to start here with these intentional little marks that I've made and I'm just gonna kinda pull them out by making them bolder. And I won't do this at every area just intermittently. Then heading into the flower, you can see pressure. And then I'm lifting up on the pen here for something lighter. Pressure and lifting. Darkening within here. Making some outlines along the edges. Darkening these areas where the petals are overlapping. I try not to overthink it and move a little bit quicker. If you come off of your lines, that's okay. Even encouraged. It's supposed to feel loose, it's supposed to feel shaggy. The more exact it feels, it starts to, it starts to just take on a very inanimate feeling. Anyway, I won't do it to every single petal or this, I'm excuse me, I won't do the same markings to each petal. I really make it varied so that each petal really does feel like its own personality. Just looking at what I have. And then what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take my pen and I'm going to make some grooves within the petals where there are grooves naturally within the sunflower. Taking the pen and just lifting it up towards the middle, sort of flicking it towards the top. You don't have to do it on every petal. Can just be some. Then you can darken in some of those areas to give it more of a bold, accentuated look. I'm pretty satisfied with that, so I'm going to move into the stem, creating some really bold markings. Not every spot, but just where I want to pull out the details of the design. Really just sort of flicking my pen around the way I would a brush. Making little loops and gestures. You will get into a rhythm as you're not Watching, to repeat every single line that I'm making, you really find your way with the pen and it'll start to feel like an extension of your hand. Which is why I like intuitive anything. Because as you look and you study what it is that you're trying to capture. I feel like you can gain accuracy that way, but I feel like you lose the flow. So that's why I like to be as detailed in my pencil work using a reference image and then pulling away from that reference. When it comes time to add in those details. Just darkening up some areas where I want to draw the eye. And I'm pretty satisfied with where I'm at. So I'm gonna go ahead and erase the pencil marks now. So take your desk free. Nothing should be wet so you shouldn't have any issues. You can just start moving over the entire flower and it will lift out the pencil. Haven't decided yet if I'm going to put those veins back into the leaves, I don't want something overly detailed, so we'll see how that goes. All right, so I've pretty much lifted out all of the pencil, so I'm gonna go ahead and add a few detail veins. Same thing over here. Flicking that pin around, creating some bolder areas. But nothing to botanically correct. Okay, last thing we're gonna do is we're gonna go into the center here, adding some markings. I'm taking this, I'm taking my pen and I'm just making these little half c marks, these little half circles. And then darkening up certain spots as well. I don't wanna do the entire thing because I want to leave work. I want to leave areas to work with the watercolor. I'm feeling pretty good and happy with the balance between detailed and loose. Just going to darken up a few areas. And then head in here one last time to really darken up in-between these petals and pull out the framework. Okay, There we have it. Our pin, this sunflower. So in the next portion will go ahead and lay down some watercolor. 6. Painting the Sunflower: So as I mentioned before, we're really going to aim for this middle ground as we did is a crude representation, obviously compared to what we've just done. But we're going to aim for this middle version where we are taking care to paint within the framework but also being loose with the watercolor and allowing it to, you don't have a mind of its own. So let's go ahead and get you to dip into your yellow ocher and add a bit of water to that. So we're at I am a broth consistency. Then go ahead and grab one of your other round brushes you should be using to round brushes and get your step you're ready. Again at broth consistency. Be doing a little wet into wet here. Splashed a little. What I get for having the palate and the splash zone. So I'm just gonna begin to making intentional strokes within the petals, but also leaving areas open and white. And you'll find that this is the least time-consuming of this process. The pen work and the sketching obviously takes much longer. The watercolor is really secondary is to accentuate, but it's really to emphasize what we've done with the pencil and the pen. I find this part very therapeutic. I'm going to pick up a little water now so that this petal is just slightly lighter. And brush off some of the paint as well and just continue getting a little lighter here. And then again picking up a little bit paint, darkening this area so that we have some really beautiful variation of color here. I'm not going to go all the way up blotting off a little bit of the paint so that I have mostly water here. Picking up a little bit of paint. You can see it's already coming to life in such a beautiful way. This is really truly one of my favorite processes when I'm trying to take a creative break from whatever else it is that I'm pursuing at the moment, It's always feels good to come back to line and wash and blotting off a little bit. And coming in with cough syrup consistency. Little bit darker. Here at the base. Working my way up, blotting off. And we're going to head into the center here very lightly, leaving some areas of white. And then at broth consistency, dipping into your sepia and coming along the perimeter. Some beautiful wet into wet here. You can pick up a little more cough syrup, darken it in some areas. And being mindful to leave a nice whitespace can come in with a cough syrup consistency for a little bit more sepia coming along the perimeter here where this area is still wet. Darkening up those areas. Beautiful, right? So therapeutics, so rewarding to watch it come to life with the watercolor. I find this process again. I know I'm repeating myself, but I find it just so therapeutic and just so beautiful. It really is just such a beautiful way to use watercolor and pen. So let's go ahead and continue working. We're going to blot off our brush and pick up a little bit of the Daniel Smith undersea green. And do the same thing here with our stem. Rinsing off a little bit of the water here. Taking cough syrup, darkening up, maybe one side of the stem here. Maybe darkening at it in as we go into our leaves. Then rinsing off a bit as we move into the leaf. And I'm just going to gently lay in the watercolor, putting a lot of water on my brush now, coming outside the line here to create a new shape. So this is the extension of the leaf here. Coming in, cough syrup at the vein. Letting that water, excuse me, that paint to spread, do what it loves to do. You'll need a lot of water to achieve that, so it makes sure that there's enough water on your brush. Let's do the same thing here, really laying on the side of your brush and pulling it through. Coming off the line here bit, picking up a little bit more paint, cough syrup consistency. Coming in here towards the center of the vein, adding a little more color here as I see. And our last leaf, cough syrup consistency here at the center. Pulling it out just so that we have something a little bit different here, but have a darker feel. You can do that with any of the leaves, doesn't have to be just that one. You can darken up areas as you see them come to life on the page, it really is up to you how dark or how light you want to leave things. You can see that our paint is already drying here. So if you wanted to, you could pick up a little more sepia in that cough syrup consistency, lay it in one more time. You'll see it's still pretty wet here. And we can darken up these areas. Taking my brush, rinsing it, just guiding that color along a little bit. There you have it. Our complete sunflower. I think it looks beautiful. I hope you're happy with yours too, but if not, you can always give it a go again. So let's move into our next flower. 7. Penning the Coneflower: Alright, next up we have our beautiful cone flower. I chose this one to come after our sunflower because it is the most similar. So I just want you to continue gaining confidence as we move forward and feeling like you're really able to grasp the whole concept. Again, if, if, if line and wash is completely new to you, it's a learning curve. It really is trying to marry and blend this idea of outlining something without outlining something completely. And it really takes a mental shift to really begin to feel as though you have this flex and flow of both pen and brush. So give yourself grace and patience as you work through the material, it will come together as you become more familiar with it. And let yourself intuitively work within your, your sketch. So you can see I have a pretty detailed sketch. I also have a very dark sketch. I would never again sketch this dark, but because I wanted to scan to be as clear as possible, I did intensify it. So we'll do the same thing we did before, beginning with our 0.25 micron pin. And we'll start here at this smaller cone flower with the outlines Coming here in between the petals making some intentional grooves. And then as you'll see, if you do visit my Pinterest page and look at the reference image, you'll see that it has these, these little spikes that come out from the top. So we're going to capture that here. And I'm going to move a little differently here, working within the middle. First before we go into the petals. One of the reasons I like to sketch lightly too, so that I can tell where the pen is emphasized. If my pencils too dark, it will look a lot more bold than it actually is because I'll end up erasing those lines and not to say, you can't go back after you've erased the pencil and say, I don't like that. In fact, even at this point I can say, Okay, I have enough down to get the concept. Let's erase that. Now you can see it really looks much lighter than what was there just a moment ago. So if you need to rewind and go back, you can see it looked completely filled in and looked very dark. Now that we've erased the pencil line, you can see it's very open and airy and beautiful. Okay, So I'm going to begin now moving through the outline of the petals. Again with light, scratchy, shaggy, and then intensifying the pressure. You can see we move a whole lot quicker. Now that we're not working through the sketch. Sometimes what I'll do is I'll sketch out a bunch of these so that when I need to or feel like I need a break, I can just lay them all out. The watercolor and it's really such a, I can be creative without feeling as though I'm wasting paper or wasting time, whatever it is we artists tell ourselves when we're not doing the thing that we think we should be doing. It really is such a mental game, isn't it? This is such a fun way to just let loose and not take it so seriously. Because there are just no, there are no mistakes. It doesn't matter where you're making. Your bold lines are your light lines. It's all about how you interpret it and what you gravitate to as far as just aesthetics. I'm going to come here at the stem and just rough, leaving some spots where it's open. And I'm gonna come down here. I know I'm working a little bit different. I don't want you to feel like you have to work in the same order each time. This is supposed to feel good. Supposed to feel as though you're just flowing within the composition. Guiding the pen work. Backup here. Okay, but now I feel ready to move on to this flower. We're going to do the same thing, making some markings down here to anchor ourselves into the composition. Coming out here with our spikes. I'm gonna make these a little bigger because this flower is a little bigger. And it will naturally be where the eye is drawn. Coming in here towards the middle, darkening up these areas that I've done in pencil. And again, we'll erase that in just a moment so you can see that it's really not quite as dark as it's looking. I love these pens because truly once you lay down the Pen and ink, you can erase it without smearing. Okay, now looking at what I have, making a few modifications and adjustments, really coming out with those those spikes, darkening here down at the base. And then I'm ready to move into the petals. We'll start here on the left. Remember, you'll be going in with your broader tip pen in a moment so you don't need to create super bold lines, but you can increase the pressure in certain areas. You also don't have to use both pens each time. You may like the look of just the initial 0.25 pen, which is completely fine. Or you might like the broader tip initially and you can make some thinner strokes with it. You just have to be careful about how lightly you're pressing it really is a pressure process. I'm not going to add the grooves into the petals this time because they're already quite busy because the petals are smaller. So that's my why behind my choice here, you start to add in those lines here. It's going to get very detailed, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I feel as though we lose a little bit of the looseness to this style. I'm gonna come back here and finish up with the leaves and the stem. Just gradually dragging the pen through the pencil work lightly. You can even use dots as a representation. So you can see here just kind of intuitively I added some dots rather than lines. So let's try that again. Dots, line, line pressure, Dots, pressure, pressure, dots, lightly pressure. Moving within the framework here of my pencil. Little bit more pressure here. Moving here over to our leaves. Dot, dot, dot, pressure, pressure, lightly dots pressure, lately. Pressure, dots. Shaggy, curvy, shaggy. Hopefully this helps you as I'm working to just kinda see the difference in each little bit, it all contributes overall to what we get at the very end, which has a varied, complex, not complicated, but complex and intricate design that also bears a loose this and a light of hand appearance. Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead and now fully erase everything. See what I'm left with, see if there's any areas where I didn't capture what I feel like I should have captured with that initial pen, but usually not. Usually, it's just a matter of going back in with the boulder broad tip. Make sure you lift up as much of that eraser as possible. Just because it is a little bit trickier to erase. Once you lay the watercolor down, sometimes the watercolor will lift a bit. So I find that if I erase thoroughly here, then I don't have to press quite as hard when it comes time to erase if there's still pencil left. Okay, So picking up our 0.45 and then to do the same, just kinda looking around to see where the overall composition might be benefited from some bolder marks. Again, I don't do it in every area, is just taking the pen to a few areas. I really try and draw out the details within a certain part of the flower and then leave other parts completely open. Coming down here at the base where the leaves and the stem meet. Just darkening things up a bit. Roughing up the edges here with C shapes and zigzags. Pressure, light pressure, pressure here. I feel as though it gives us this various serial old-world field book almost appearance. I love old field guides. Would I go to the thrift store? I hunt for them. I love weeds and I'm constantly what I dropped my daughters off from school picking up flowers and between the cracks in the planners. There's some of my favorite flowers to be honest. Alright, so I'm feeling good with where that's at. Again, take a look at what you have if you feel as though there's some areas that need to be modified, go ahead and do that now before we lay in the watercolor in the next segment. 8. Painting the Coneflower: Okay, so we're going to mix up a couple of colors here on our palate to create a pink cone flower. So we're going to use the rows lake. And we're going to make it look nice little pile. Move this over so I can show you nice little pile right here for our rows lake. And then I'm also going to start another pile here. And I'm going to dip in to my step yet it just darken up one of the piles to create a more cough syrup version of it that we can add in when we do wet into wet. So it's still very pink but it has a bit of that sepia in it to mute it. If you follow any of my classes, you know, I love muted vintage tones and I have a line of color guides on my website under artists resources, if you're interested in learning more about that all sorts of vintage and muted colors that you can use then that I use in my professional work. Make sure your brushes are rinsed off from our last lesson with the sunflower. And I'm just going to make sure I have a separate pink here that it's not combining too much. Then I'm also going to have a little bit of the yellow ocher here off to the side. It's okay if it mixes with your pink a little bit and then add a bit of sepia in there as well. So that we kinda pick up a little bit of a peachy orange. We'll be using that mixture of colors when we do our garden rose, but I'm also going to use it here. Within the center of our cone flower. Create a little divide. Here. We go. Now we have two distinct colors. Let's go ahead and start with our smallest cone flower. I have three brushes that I'm working with. I have them all preloaded with different colors. So I have the sepia and the rows Lake in a cough syrup consistency on this brush. It's the round eight. And then I have the rows lake in broth consistency on the six. And then I also have the yellow ocher and the pink on this other six. So three brushes that I'm working with, you're welcome to do things one at a time. I just find that preloaded brushes really does help. Just for the concept of flow. Going to lay a little bit of color in and then just move it around. And then had n with broth consistency. My rows lake, letting that lead into my wet media here at the center. I'm going to rinse off a little bit more to get even more pale wash and even more renting, renting to get a even paler wash. So you can see we start with dark living too light, leaving some areas of white here. And we can, if we want to take our brush with the sepia and rows lake and darken up this area here at the base. And we can, if we like, even add some strokes here very lightly that aren't even pinned. Just some gestural, really lovely markings. Okay, we're gonna do the same thing, starting with our yellow mixture. Laying into the side here, blotting off the brush so that it's mostly water. And coming back in with our rows lake, you can start to see it's coming to life so beautifully. Really aiming again for that mixture between just slopping color on and trying to get every bit of paint into the nooks and crannies of the flower. Heading in with the rows Lake and the set B at the base here. Pulling it down can darken things up here too, if it's still wet and it will get significantly lighter as it dries. So you may need to do this a couple of times before you feel satisfied with the results. So pretty It's something you really can keep poking out for a long time if you let yourself came in to rinse off my brushes here, there's not too much paint on them, so I don't feel like I need to really, really rinse everything off too well. But you want to try and have the majority of pink removed from your brushes. I'm going to pick up the Daniel Smith green and I'm going to add a little bit of the sepia to it this time just to kinda change up the green. I will show you what that looks like in just a moment. As soon as I've finished mixing it, we have something that looks like this. And I'm going to use it beginning at broth consistency. So very light. Will start with the stem. I'm going to start down here at the base. Rinsing off a little bit, bringing it up. And through, adding a little bit more, bringing it through. Rinsing off a little bit of paint. As I come through here, getting a lot of water on my brush as I began to lead through the leaf. Same thing. Lot of water on my brush following through with the stem lately. So as to differentiate from where the leaf is and where the stem is. Coming back in with a cough syrup consistency. Darkening these areas. Heading back in with broth, dragging the brush through, guiding it down, picking up the paint and cough syrup consistency. Intensifying the color here at the edges. Again, it will get significantly lighter. So if it's feeling too pale to you, you can always go back and re-wet the media and make it darker, but I like where that's out right now. So I'm going to pause watercolors, a lot of just sitting back and pausing, seeing what it's doing and then making your modifications. But I'm happy with it. I love where this has dried and she'll really good with it. So again, just take a look at what you have and see if there's anything that you want to change before moving on to the next segment. 9. Penning the Cosmo: We have our Cosmos flower app. Next we are going to do the same thing that we did with our two previous flowers beginning here at the center with our 0.25, just kinda carving out the shape of that cosmo darkening in some areas. But also knowing that we're going to head back in with the broader tip and just a moment. And then I'm gonna begin to outline. You can see this is a lot more streamlined than some of my other ones. I really wanted to make sure the scan came clear. Again. I just want to make sure you have those to draw from. Alright, so beginning to cover my pencil, really loosening things up. I don't want these very stagnant graphic lines. I want it to be rough. And I want it to be more pointy and square, not so rounded. Really just allowing the pen to flick kind of all over the place. Pressure, lifting up here, pressure. And then I'm going to leave that spot right there open so that there's a little break in the pen work. Like I said before, I feel like that's a really beautiful thing to do just to give, give the eye some rest within a composition. Sometimes I like to choose the points where I'm going to apply the most pressure and then work out from there as well. So starting here and then coming out a little bit lighter towards the edge. Same thing. Starting with the pressure and then flicking the pen. If I say brush, when I mean pen, you know what I mean? I'm so used to teaching with watercolor brushes. Very, very rarely do I teach with pen. Now working our way through the stem and the leaves, we won't go all the way up. Dot, dot, dot, pressure. Roughing it up. Same thing, not going up all the way. Light, light dot, dot, dot, pressure, pressure. Coming here through. Light. Cosmos have these very thin, needle-like leaves that are really beautiful. I'm trying to capture that loosely. Pressure moving through. Coming off my pencil, just slightly darkening up here at the base of the leaf. Again, I will erase to see what I have before I go in with my bold. Let's go ahead and begin over here. Pressure and then just roughing it up, leaving breaks within the leaf. Dot, dot, dot pressure. I'm gonna come down and work my way up now, pressure, shaggy. Pressure. Dot, dot, dot. Really sketching here with the pen to create the shape dot, dot, dot. And finishing off case next, I will erase everything just to see what I'm left with before heading back in with the other pen. I'm really having to work here to erase because it was so dark initially. You probably won't have to work that hard to erase if you've sketched lightly, spray, clear off the debris, see what we have. Looks pretty good to me. Okay. Just a few little areas that need touch ups. And now I'm ready to go in with my 0.45. Start here at the middle. I'm really going to emphasize the middle of this Cosmo by coming out and darkening up the center here. And then we'll head into the middle using some circular marks, loops and small little lines that curved slightly. I really want the focus to be on the center with this flower because the leaves are, excuse me, the petals are a little bit, they're bigger and they're wider. There are simple. And so I want the center, the eye to be drawn here will work within the pedal framework. Darkening up some areas, roughing up the edges here. Going back over the areas where I have left in bold. To really accentuate the petals. I'm going to create some dots here now. Along the outside, along with some lines. Just to give it a little bit more variation. Just using dots to represent seeds. Part of the center. A really beautiful Cosmo coming together. I'm gonna do the same thing now here with our leaves. Really looking at where I've left it light and where I've intensified the pressure, resisting the temptation to darken everything. I think that can be, sometimes we get a little happy with the pen and we just, we start making every little detail shine in which essentially means that none of the details shine because everything is at the same level. And add some points to these leaves so that they are a little bit more needle-like sword like the way they appear in nature. Just sort of working my way around. You can see I just sort of pop all the way around. I really don't feel like you need to stay in one area. You can work intuitively. As you see things. Darkening up some areas here and feeling pretty good about where we're at. So we'll go ahead and mix up a new batch of color and began to paint. 10. Painting the Cosmo: One of the reasons I wanted to be so detailed within the center here is that we're going to be painting this Kosmo white. If you've worked with me before, you'll know about white watercolors already. But for white, we use tones of gray, brown and sometimes green and yellow to create what we call white watercolor. For this particular mix, I'm going to use a little bit of lamp black and sepia, and then we're really going to water it down. So we'll start here with a color, the lamp black, and then adding in a bit of the sepia just to warm it up a little bit. That lamp black is very cool this up yet just warms it up. And then I'm going to pull out a new pile. And lightest consistency so that we have something that's really beautiful. Warm, not too cool. Began to lay in our color. Really lean into the side of the brush. These are white petals you can even use. In fact, you know what, we're going to break it up just a little bit. We're going to use our filbert brush. I put those in the supplies because I intended to use them. But sometimes as I work through, I stick to that same brush if it's working well, but I want to give you a whole different look. So let's go ahead and pick up our six filbert and make sure you have your pile mixed up to the right. Consistency should be lightest consistency. It should look like this. Let's go ahead and begin to lay in the color. We'll start here at this petal. And we'll do a nice big stroke, rinsing off a little bit of the paint. And working our way around the flower. Really laying into the framework here at the center, and then pulling out towards the petals. You can use this side of the filbert to get some really pretty lines. Which kinda helped to give it that Kosmo feel where it's a little bit more ruffled along the edges and not so streamline. Same thing here. I'm going to come up on what is the tip of the filbert using a little bit of a darker wash now, to come here at the center and lean into my center a bit. Coming back here at the edge on the tip of the brush. Can see we really were intentionally here with painting. One of the puddles almost completely solid and then leaving white-space along here. I feel as though we've created a really balanced look here between paint and pen. That feels good to me. So I'm gonna go ahead and pick up my round six now using the same mixture is before that, undersea green and sepia. And we'll go, we'll go ahead and start with the leaves over here. A little bit too much water and paint. So I'm going to blot off. There we go. And just kinda begin to flip the color into the leaves here. Coming off of my pen a little. So as not to paint it exactly on the line. I come down here at the bottom now, worked my way up, rinsing off a tiny bit lighter through here, adding a little bit more paint. And then coming through to do the leaves. Flicking the paint through and add a little bit more paint in cough syrup consistency along this branch here and through this stem. And then also here at the base. Just gently dabbing it in. We have what I feel is a really well-balanced flower. Again, is going to lighten up as it dries. It's always best to start lighter with watercolor. You can always lift out color with it is a little bit too dark afterwards, but I find that if you start light, then you don't have to do so much work. Post dry. So that feels good to me. Go ahead and check and see if there's any other areas that feel as though they need to be modified. You can also take a look at the pen work and think to yourself, okay, did I do enough of darkening of the lines as it feel as though it's not quite as intense as I want in some areas. So again, as it dries in 15 min or so, you may see areas where you just want to lift out more of the details of the flower, either in the center or in the petals. So again, completely up to you. So we'll move on to the next couple of flowers. 11. Penning the Garden Rose: So I've drawn the next two flowers on the same piece of paper, although we'll do each one step-by-step painting, painting, painting, painting. I thought it would be fun for you to just kinda see what they look like next to each other. How darling they would be if you were to create a set of five note cards, you could use obviously each one of the compositions to create a whole variety packs. So again, just trying to give you options, these would be darling, also in a pattern. If you wanted to make a really simple motif using the compositions, that would be great as well. One note before we head into the roses is that less is more roses I typically stay away from when I'm doing pen because it is such an ornate flower that with lots of overlapping petals and curling of the petals that I find that when I was too detailed with it, it just ended up looking overworked. And so I find that especially depending on the rows like this is a garden rose, it has less petals than those roses that you might find. The ones that are more oblong shaped, long stem red roses. Those just do not ever end up looking very aesthetic to me. The garden roses are much more amenable to the style. And then wild roses as well that look very much like a Cosmo, work really well as well. So just a little note, moving forward, trying to save you some frustration. You obviously are welcome to have a go at it. It's just that's been my experience. So alright, let's go ahead and we'll start with the center of our rows here, making a few C-shape marks to intimate here at the center of this flower you can see I have a framework in here, gesturing toward a center. But I'm not going to do too much crazy pen work because I really just want to again, capture the essence of this flower. The smaller petals really should just sort of be indicative that there is a center of the rose and not overworked. Start here, moving our way out. Less is more like, I know I've already said that. But, and softer is more as well. Start soft. You can always bold things later, but pen is pen. You cannot erase it. So it can be frustrating if you spend all of that time to get a really beautiful sketch. And then you end up making a line that is just feels way too thick. Again, you can see I'm coming off my sketch here. To rough it up a bit. You also will want to erase the pin so that you can see what you're left with. My sketch is quite dark, so it's feeling very heavy right now. But in actuality it will be very light. Trying to combine some of the more like pointy aspects of the puddle with the softness of the round petals as well. Getting into those grooves there. Feel like those are really what make this flower, those little variations and the puddle, those rips those tears the way it curls. I try not to capture all of it, but just some of it. To give an idea of how the flower is just overall laying, rounding it out a bit. And then I'm going to just leave this little break here for now. I may go back with pen to increase it. But for now I really like just having that open look. But I am going to take the eraser now and just work through the design. If for some reason you are able to pick up the sound in the background at this moment, there is legitimately a murder of crows. That's what they're called when they gather like this outside my window, there's about 45 of them and they are circling a palm tree and making the most ruckus I have ever heard. There must be like a little baby or some sort of predator. But boy, are they at it? It reminds me of I don't know if anybody watches **** sheets creek, but Moira does this movie where she is in a Crowe movie and it's just it, it makes me laugh every time I hear crows, I can't I can't see anything other than Catherine O'Hara is face. Like they're gonna be at it for awhile. Okay. So I love where we're at with this. But I obviously see some areas where I just want to intensify, going a little bit deeper. So I'm gonna go ahead and take my 0.45 pen and do that now before I work in with the stems and the leaves. So here at the center, just indicating that it's a little bit darker through here, just making the line a little bit thicker. So I'm really not creating new lines. I'm just making what what's already been previously pinned. A little bit thicker, heading into these grooves and then coming out. Again, that's shaggy. Combination between rounding the softness of the puddle with the point minus that combination. Looks really, really nice together. Darken the crease here where you would imagine that this is the deepest part of the petal coming out to these petals folding outward. There's been times where I've really tried to intensify this area because this is where it would be in nature darkest and it just ends up looking so overworked. So again, just trying to save you a little bit of pain and suffering. Alright, that's coming along. I'm going to darken it up over here. Bold, bold pressure. A little bit of pressure here. Darkening here. A little bit darker in there, just to indicate okay, that is the center. That's where it's darkest and coming along here. And then I thought it would actually, it might be fun for you to see what it would look like if we were just to use the 0.45 pen on the leaves. So not doing the double. The reason I like the double is because you can get to thicknesses of lines and that combination together is just really beautiful to have a thinner line and then have a heavier, thicker line over it. But I did want to show you that it is very possible to just use the one pen to create something that's similar. So not that you would be in a hurry or need to rush this process, but some people don't like having to use two different pens. So let's go ahead and do that now. So I'm going to start with just some initial lighter lines. I don't know if you can still hear them. My goodness. There's got to be 45 of them and they're just, it looks like the Wizard of Oz. They're just like, It's like stormy out there. They're just like launching towards this tree. Like goodness, I hope everybody's okay out there. Scary times. Okay, so making some light lines, pressure, pointing here. Let's turn it around so you can get a better angle. And some thin lines here. Let's work our way down here. And moving through pressure, light area all the way up and then down here where the two stems connect, I'm going to make it darker. And dot, dot, dot. Then let's come back through here to finish off this dot, dot, dot. I really loved the dots. Dots are my favourite. Light, light sketching here. And sketching lightly. Really roughing it up. Coming through to the middle here, do a little vain work. We'll put in a couple of more veins to our leaves as we finish up. And lightly coming through. Dot, dot, dot. I find that this is the area I really liked to accentuate this beautiful stem and then be lighter in loser within the leaves. So I'm going to erase now to see what I'm left with. And then we'll make our modifications. Again. I'm going to have to push pretty hard because this initial sketch was pretty happy. One of my favorite parts though, is taking the pencil out and seeing what you're left with. I think I got most of it. So I definitely see some areas that I want to make a little darker, starting with this line right here, I'm going to darken that up and continue so that you can see that this leaf was folded over. And then I'm just going to begin to darken up the areas. So I'm still going to move over the lines that were initially drawn. So those light areas, I'm going to intensify and double up so that there's a thin and a thick doing the same thing over here, creating that thick line right around the thin line. And then also adding in some veins as I move along. Finishing off here, heavier dots working in the veins, thickening up these leaves. And obviously you are more than welcome to keep these loose and light or really go heavy, It's completely up to you and I feel like you don't really know what you love until you've done it both ways. So give yourself again that permission to to do that. I'm just kinda looking to see what I have. There is just areas where I'm like, okay. I feel like that could be a little bit darker. Right around here in the center, I'm going to add a little bit of detail, but not too much. This leaf over here, I think, could benefit from just a little bit more shaggy hiding in the veins. I feel pretty good about that. I feel like it's a really nice balance between detailed and loose. So I'm gonna go ahead and take one last look. Darken that up just a tad. Alright, I'm happy with it. Okay, So take one last look yourself and see where you're at. And we will see, I'll see you in the next section for painting. 12. Painting the Garden Rose: Okay, so we're going to use a really pretty peach color. So I want you to go ahead and dip into your rows lake. If you have a little bit of sepia on your palette, go ahead and mix that into there. If not, pull out a little sepia. So it's nice, it's a nice muted pink here. And then we're going to pull in a little bit of the yellow ocher. I want something really light. And you're going to have to play around before it's not pink and not yellow but peach. So just keep playing with it. You can get it as dark as you need to really figure out what color it is. And then you can draw out a separate pile too late in the wash. So this feels like a really nice peach to me. Not too dark. I am going to add just a little bit of water because you don't know until you put it on paper and starting light is always best. Alright, go ahead and move that off to the side. We're going to use our filbert brush. I'm using a size six. All of this is in the supplies and the materials list. But just in case this is the Umbria series. And let's go ahead and start here at the center and we're just going to make some light marks. Nothing too detailed. Don't even feel as though you need to go over the pen. Just creating a little bit of a center here, using the tip of the brush. And then gradually we're going to move our way into the petals. Move slowly. Don't feel rushed. Look at what you have. Think about the shape. Think about what shapes you want to achieve. Leave whitespace. I cannot emphasize that enough. Leave whitespace. Whitespace is magic and watercolor. The pen work will shine no matter what. You don't need to emphasize that with the watercolor. The watercolor is just meant to be the cherry on top. Going to come out here, the very tip with some light, light wash. Again, coming in here with a little bit of a darker color now, not darker color, darker version of the same color. So that happens by just adding, picking up a little bit more color and not blotting off before moving on. Remembering that things are going to try two to three times later. You can darken some areas if you feel like it needs it. Adding in a little bit of dark. Connecting here. For some bleeds. I had here. That is one of my favorite colors, this beautiful peachy pink. As I said before, take your time mixing it up. You don't want it to be pink, you don't want it to be yellow. Is that beautiful marriage between the two colors? I use it all the time. It's one of my favorites. I believe it's in my sunset series. With the vintage color guides. I can't don't don't quote me on that. I think it might be, but if not, you already know the recipe, so enjoy it. Okay, So I am happy with where we're at with the rows. I'm going to go ahead and add in color to the leaf. Now we're going to continue to use our undersea green. This is my favorite color combination, undersea green with this peach. I saved it for the rows because I love Roses. Roses and peonies are my favorite. Well and a little bit of camomile like you can't get me quoting my favorite flowers because then I will, I will, I will end up betraying myself with just a little later on when I paint something now, oh no, that's my favorite flower. Now. The filbert brush is really great for these wider flowers because what we can do, or excuse me, wider leaves, we can start at the tip and then gradually turn the brush and pull the stroke downward so we can start here at the top and then gradually pull that stroke downwards. Make sure it's not too dark initially, you can always go darker. So just make sure that whatever you've mixed up is at that broth consistency and being mindful of not trying to color in everything. So it can feel like a lot to keep in mind as you're working. You can always do a little test. Because what is on the palate might look completely different. So if you want to take whatever you have, you can say, oh, yeah, that's too dark. Take a little off. That's much better. Alright. Bute to full. Probably my favorite so far. Really just a one stroke leaf here, not trying to add in too much detail. Go. I'm continuing to work our way through flattening out those bristles, coming to the tip. We have a good balance between what's covered and what's not. And then let's go ahead and let those two colors run together. That peach in that green, you can do more and more of that as we work. Papers should be staying pretty nice and wet. I'm going to blot off a little color because it's a little dark. And I love that so much. I feel as though it's just, it incorporates all of the beautiful facets of this style. I'm gonna go in with a little bit more concentrated color. The undersea green and the sepia. But not too much because I really like how light and airy everything is. Just here at the base. I'm going to add a little bit more color because I know that this is going to dry lighter. And I really love what's happening here. The wet into wet of the leaves and the petals. Let's intensify that, bring attention to it. I'm going to leave this whole stem white and let the leaves just speak for itself. I feel as though these are the areas that really mark your art is yours. It's what you don't necessarily do in a painting that speaks volumes. It's where you don't paint. Negative space is a statement. So keep that in mind as you are sketching, as you are painting and painting, a lot of what becomes your style are the things you choose to omit. Take one last look, feel it, feel good about where you're at and then go ahead and clean off your brushes as we move into our very last flower composition or lavender. 13. Penning the Lavender: Okay, again, I've made my sketch really dark here because it just was not coming out when I was scanning it. And I wanted you to be able to see all of these beautiful little lavender details. I'll have to work a little harder as I erase, but no big deal. We will begin with our 0.25 pen. I'll start here at the top over here. And these are just beautiful little, they're just loops there. Almond shape loops. And I'm not going to go over each one. But I wanted to just get the overall shape of the lavender. Again. The exact reference image that I used is on my Pinterest board, on Skillshare or excuse me, is on my Pinterest board and marked Skillshare. Keeping in mind that I'm going to head back in with my darker pen or my broader tip pen. The tip, I think when doing these marks, is to put the next loop in-between two of these petals. So if you lay down a petal here and a pedal here, let your next one rest in between the two of them. And feel free to just use lines to indicate a pedal as well. So it doesn't have to be a circle. You can break it up and do some lines and some loops. It's all it really is. When we're approaching it this way, lines and loops. It won't have that generic feel. If you are keeping in mind the two petals and then placing that, that next one in-between off to the side. And then obviously you want to interchange the width of each one as well. So do some that are really thin, and then do some that are thick and really come out. Another really beautiful part of this plant is the stem. It is very streamlined and we're going to honor that when we get there. But in our own way. So you can see two petals, one in the middle line, line, small, small, big line, line, small, small, small, big, small. That even helps to just say that out loud. I think sometimes it does because we're just getting ourselves along. Don't feel as though you have to connect every single part of it as well. That's another big. You don't have to circle the whole thing. You can just circle half-life that and then come down for the next one, make some small marks. Do big one, make some small marks. And the middle, small, small, small, big line, line. Big, small, big, small, small. Also, you can feel free to just put me on mute. I will not be offended. I know some of you probably do. And you just work along as you see. That's fine too. I'm here to guide you and help you feel more capable and confident. But once you feel you're at that point, you can always just turn me off and work. Finishing up here lots of little details on this one line, line, okay, Now we're going to be very careful with this stem. I do want you to be careful here, because if you encroach on the inside of the line, it really does lose its look. So let's go slow. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, line. I feel like with the lavender, the stem is so much a part of of it. It just really, because kinda ties it all together. Okay, bringing it down, dot, dot, dot can leave some intentional breaks in here. Dot, dot, dot. Be mindful of the leaf here. And finishing it off here at the end. Coming back up, bringing it through. Getting thinner and thinner as we head towards the flower. Again, you may need to, once you erase things, see what you're left with and began again. Okay, I'm actually going to do it in reverse now I'm gonna do stem first. Start here at the bottom. Dot, dot, dot. Intentional break. Again, intentional break to honor these little leaves coming out of the stem. Line, dot, dot, dot, coming back here. Coming off my pencil line because it's encroaching here a little bit. Honoring the space here, in this space here. And this space here. Keeping that open. So as to merge into the leaves. Line, dot, dot, dot. Finishing it off here. Okay. Let's go ahead and start at the top here. Same thing we did before. Combination of loops and lines. Some lines moving my way down. Intentionally left room with the stem here. So that is the petals could overlap on top of it, makes it look more natural. Can do the same thing on the other one if you feel like okay, they're stems just sort of floating there. You can a little pedal on top of it. You'll do that with your last look. I always like to give final last look liberties to my students. Like I said, don't feel like you have to connect every single line. You can do some some M's. Who's kinda what I'm doing here m work. The only thing to keep in mind is that these petals do move in an upward position. Okay, go ahead and move into the leaves, starting with these beautiful little scrolling tips. And just begin to lightly sketch out their shape. Really feeling loose with these gestural strokes here. Am I taking liberties here to cross over into the stem? I feel like when you honored some spaces, you can have a little bit more freedom to get messier. That's what I meant when I said, I can take more liberties like this because if the sketches super detailed, then I know where I can just be a little bit more loose and free form with the pen. I'm gonna go ahead and erase now and see what is left. Okay. I'm pretty happy with what I see, but I am going to still had back in with the 0.45 and darken up some areas. We'll start here at the top. I'm gonna be very mindful of how much I'm doing because I want there to be areas of white because we're gonna be adding in color. So just darkening and not even doing full loops, just kinda coming in between. The marks that I've already made. Darkening up some of the lines, leaving areas of white. It's really looking so beautiful. That combination between those thin lines and the thick, the lavender I think is probably my second favorite. You'll see that when we do the watercolor, It's very secondary, but it just, it brings it to life. It goes from being remote and field guide to really feeling like a true illustration. Darkening up as I go. Same thing over here. Going slow, being careful not to encroach. Just looking for areas where he feels though it could benefit from something a little bit thicker. Not too many, honestly. I love this little crisscrossing here, so you'll want to make sure you honor, that. Don't go too intense here. You'll lose where those lines meet. And I really went gestural here with these leaves, nothing to shapely like our rose leaves. Trying to give you different approaches with each new flower composition. Okay, I love that. I think it looks absolutely marvelous. So we will meet back in the next section for one color. 14. Painting the Lavender: Okay, We will mix up a new batch of color in just a moment. But I did want to bring your attention to how this dried and the rows. It is just absolutely beautiful. I hope that you're feeling that way as well. If not, again, you have those sketches, you can have as many goes at it as you like. But those bleeds here just really worked so magically. And I hope that you're feeling good about it. To the next color we're going to do is a beautiful purple we're going to mix together, or pink arose lake and our blue indigo. I'm going to be using my little baby filbert here. This is the size too. It's called the mini detailer. And I'm going to pull out a little bit of the row sleek and little bit of the blue indigo and make a pretty purple. Little bit more of the row sleek. And pop in a little bit of the sepia just to mute it a little bit. And we will use both of these colors. So we'll have one that's heavier on the sepia. And then we will have one that is more of your run-of-the-mill crayon box purple. So go ahead and leave both options. Let's go ahead and start with our muted purple. We'll begin to lay it in. Budding off a little bit here. Remember it is going to dry a lot lighter. I'm really not being super mindful of where I'm laying the color. I'm not trying to get the dots or the circles are the loops are the lines. I'm just brushing in color, rinsing off a little bit of the color. So that what I have is very pale. Line work really speaks for itself in this one. And then heading in with our traditional purple. To add a little bit of variety to it. I'm going to add a little bit of pink to it just to really differentiate between the two colors. There we go. So I have a color that looks like this now. Pinky purple. You can see there's a nice strong difference between those two. Can use your little mini detail there for some beautiful little fine lines. Really get the shape of the lavender doing it that way. You don't have to stay on your pen lines so you can definitely come off of those. There we have it. Beautiful. Okay, we're going to mix a little bit of the blue indigo with the undersea green for a new green color. If you like that color as is kind of a turquoise, green, blue. Go for it. You can just keep it like that. I'm going to add a touch of sepia because I do love my muted colors. And that's going to make it a really beautiful gray green. Okay, try not to overthink this part. Just laying in the color. Blocking off a little bit here. Lying it in here. Love this color. One of my favorites. And going in for the stem, I really like where certain areas where it's left white. So I'm going to try and honor that. And some of the spots just being mindful, connecting every little bit. Hunting back in with a little bit of the cough syrup consistently consistency now in this color and darkening up some of the areas. There we have it. Beautiful lavender. So beautiful. I can't say that enough. It's just, I, I get so happy when I get to play with this style in this process because it's so different from what I usually do. So I'm hoping that it's the same for you if you felt stuck or created, creatively blocked. We'll just open up the channels and just allow you to feel very free, form and loose. So that concludes our five unique compositions. We're going to pull it all together and make a really beautiful bouquet. Would be perfect in time for we're just about at Mother's Day, but would be perfect for summer too, as we come into these months, at least where I'm at, obviously, you'll be watching this whenever you watch it. But I wanted you to have something special to make as we roll into the different seasons. 15. Class Project Part 1: Welcome to our class project. I'm so excited about this. We have a really beautiful whimsical vintage ask bouquet on our desk. And if you haven't already, you will definitely need to print this out either onto watercolor paper or printed out and trace it onto watercolor paper, which is obviously what I suggest. Just so you can remove the pencil marks. As you can see. Again, my pencil marks are very dark, but you'll see even in the scan, there are some areas where the pencil does not show up quite as significantly in some areas. But you will be able to obviously to fill in those blanks since we've learned all of that material in her previous segments. So we're gonna be doing this together. We'll use all the same concepts, everything that we've learned in our previous videos. We'll pin everything first in both pens and then we will lay in the watercolor at the very end and watch this bouquet come to life. You're welcome to use this composition and any way that you like there is no copyright on it. It is yours. You can make cards from it. A pattern. I wanted to give you something that you could play with and improve upon, add to take away. It's completely up to you how you would like to use it. I'm going to go ahead and begin with my point two-five pencil. You'll also see that I've added a couple of new flowers. I wanted to do something a little different. I didn't want to do just the same flowers that we did from our previous section. So you'll see that I've added a little bit of forget me nots and just some other flowers here. We still have the sunflower and the rows. But I wanted to bring in some fresh new concepts so that you can continue learning and continue growing using this style for any other flower that you might want to create with this approach. Let's go ahead and begin here at the very top. Outlining our pencil. Beginning with those circular marks will be some areas where I lift off of what has been drawn in pencil. Just to give it a little variation. The pencil work again, like I said, I've said before, is really just to lay the framework down so that you can feel confident about adding to it or taking away. The petal shapes that I've created are very generic. So there are places where I am changing the entire shape of the petal. Now that I know which direction I want the flower to be pointing in, a lot of that is really that initial work is just to have an understanding of what direction is the flower facing isn't an open face flower, is it on its side? And then once my brain knows that, then I can intuitively began to change that just slightly to create something that just feels a little bit more unique, a little, little looser. Roughing it up a little bit here. We'll be going in with our our 0.45. So we'll have time to just make it a little bit looser, not so geometric. I suppose. Let's go ahead and jump down here to our rose. Creating this as our center. These are all flowers I drew intuitively. I did not use any reference pictures, so there will be nothing in my Pinterest for this bouquet. This all just out of my head. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This little illustration just kinda flew out because I've been obviously working with you and using the pen and watercolor. I was very ready to create something for us to do in our class portion. So sometimes it's like that it just comes out, it's quick. And it is exactly the way that we hoped it would be. And then sometimes it takes a lot longer. Alright, so anchoring in some detail lines here. And creating and carving out the center of this flower. Forgot a little bit of this rose petal right here. So I'm going to add that in. Layering here with these two lines. Creating some darker parts of the flower. Jump up here. Some darker areas over here off to the side. We'll pop over here to our sunflower. Carving out a really nice round space. This is more of an open face on flowers. You can see we're looking at it head-on versus these two which are clearly on their sides. And this one. This really plays into the whole composition aspect of I'm designing something. Anytime you're working with multiple subjects matters, it's so important to have things in different sizes and facing different directions and different shapes. Those are the key ingredients to any well-balanced composition. Putting in some of those lines, being really loose with it. Just looking at what I have, making sure that it's ready for the next step. And come in here and start adding the stem. Dot, dot, dot. Just moving through being mindful of where the stem is and connecting it to the farmers and to the leaves. Leaving breaks within the cluster. Come down here. We're cutting or leaves. Again because I have the framework. I feel like I have a lot more liberty and can make those gestural markings come up here. Then let's create some stem work in here. There's a lot of stem happening here, so it's best to go slow and to make sure that you feel good about where each thing is connecting. I have these three connecting to a larger stem down here. Pressure, lightly, coming over here, roughing it up along the edge. Leaving those intentional breaks. And then honoring where there is overlapping, overlapping happening. Tongue twister, dot, dot. Now we are free to connect this one is it lays over the other stems and some really gestural leaves here. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and erase and see where I'm at. And then I will head back in for those detail markings. Everything's gonna lighten up significantly because it was so dark from the pencil. Just a little note whenever I'm making original pieces that I plan to put in the shop or if their commissions, I always use a paper towel to brush that way, whatever oils are in my hands are not left on the paper. When I scan things, all of that so erased. Any markings or yellows that might have been in my hands and have been touching the paper. But when I'm doing original pieces and if you are doing original pieces, you want to make sure that your hands are touching the paper as seldom as possible, just because it does pick up everything, even if you can't see it. It will affect the overall age and how the piece holds up to and preserves. 16. Class Project Part 2: Okay, let's go ahead and head back in adding little details at the center. These details look small, but they, they leave a really big impact. It, the illustration goes from looking just very clip art to something really special and unique. When you add in just that little extra step and you go the extra mile. Just increasing the pressure here. Really FlipKey overlap lines so that there are two lines here. And in many instances it will look like the petals ruffling or it's curling, which only benefits the composition. Adding a little bit of veins there. Then we'll head back in first stem, pressure, pressure. Just overlapping here. Mindful of that intentional break that I had left. Darkening up these lines. Careful not to encroach into the petals of the sunflower. And then we'll begin to darken up the areas of the perimeter. Really stretching these lines along the edge and then working our way with these sea marks. These little circles into the center. Being mindful of the direction. Curling them inward. Using dots and little C shapes. And then beginning to outline darkening up the veins here using really scratchy, quick FlipKey gestural markings. Just kinda looking over what I've already done. Seeing areas that might need some help. Looks pretty good to me. I'm going to continue with the stemming dot, dot, dot pressure, overlapping. Pressure, overlapping. Take one last look at it. Sure. I have the areas that I want to lift out, evident and apparent, but overall, I think it looks absolutely fantastic. So let's go ahead and begin the painting portion. We're gonna go ahead and start with the forget me nots by picking up a little bit of the blue indigo and mix that with sepia. I'll show you what that looks like in just a moment. So it should be a really nice, dusty blue. The blue indigo. This up, yeah. We'll start with broth consistency. You may need to even add a little bit of water to it if it's looking too dark. And we'll begin to lay in the color. Try to be careful about coloring every little detail in and religious kinda grasping. Overall flower. Will watch as this illustration comes to life. Okay, we're going to pick up a little bit of the yellow ocher and pop that into the middle of some of those flowers. Can it doesn't have to be exact and it does not have to be on all of them. Then let's go ahead and mix together our rows lake and our yellow ocher for a beautiful peach for our rows. Same color we used for our rows earlier. Make sure you test the color on a scratch piece of paper. See if it's too dark, too pink or to orange. It's a little dark, so I'm going to add some water to it. And just making sure I have the right consistency. You're going to see how the blue and the pink look really beautiful together. The pH, I should say. Using our filbert to just guide the colors through the petals. Leaving whitespace. Whitespace is always key. Let's go ahead and move into these lovely blooms. Don't really have a name for them. They were kind of intuitive. We're going to mix up the sepia and that lamp black to get a really beautiful warm white. We'll lay in or filbert just taking the toe of the brush and then also laying in the side. Do it again for this flower up here. Remembering you don't have to color in every single detail. Then I'm going to pick up a little bit of yellow ocher, mix that with the sepia and add that into the middle of that flower. Okay, now we're going to use straight yellow ocher, so rinse off that filbert brush, or it's going to end up looking like the middle of that flower. And like I was saying, with composition, variation between color, shape, size, and positioning, those are the magic components of composition. I have a sketch and palate guide on my website that goes into this in more detail about why we make the choices that we make when composing a piece and how one benefits the other. Alright, so yellow ocher right here off to the side. It's gonna be a little dark at first and then I will blot off. After a few strokes. Beautiful. Add a little bit of water to it. Now, just intuitively filling in the space, can see how beautifully muted and vintage this is looking. Can use our round brush to pop in a little bit of brown and yellow ocher into the middle, little bit darker. And then we can pop that into the perimeter as well. If we want to have some darker areas of the flower as coming along so beautifully, I'm going to pop in a little bit more color here to just to darken the center bit. And then last but not least, we will head into the undersea green. And the sepia. You should have a mixture that looks like this. We will begin with our number six round brush. For these little details up here. I'm getting splitters. That's all right. Taking my time. Gently guiding the watercolor into the general area. Be careful of your hand not to put them into anything wet. And it does happen. If you wanted to use a different green for each part of the bouquet, you could do that and that would add just one extra layer. You could use a green gold or you could use a sap green, and those would look really beautiful. So you could do these more in this evergreen gray green and then you could do the leaves and more of like a, a verdant grass green. It's completely up to you. Just guiding it through. Come over here. And I'm going to put my round brush off to the side and work with my filbert again for these bigger leaves, I feel like the filbert really is more conducive. It can start at the tip and then just work that stroke down. Then flicking the brush up. If we want to get some more shape. Can we can turn our paper that always helps to start at the tip here and then drag coming to full shaft. And just pulling the brush through. You can see how it went from being just very clip art to a lot more detailed of an illustration. And then you lay in the color and it becomes absolutely magnificent and beautiful composition. So it doesn't have to be done here. This is just a very quick initial first wash. You can always wait till things are dry and then go in with more color or detail. You can always decide after that you want things to be more bold to take your pen, go back over certain areas. It's really up to you. There's so many different options. I hope I've given you a lot of things to think about to work through. And I hope you will revisit this material as you approach different flowers. I had so much fun I truly did teaching you. I look forward to our next class as always, and I thank you so much for joining me today. Have a wonderful day.