Transcripts
1. Welcome: Hi, and welcome to the
Skillshare course. Were together, we're going to learn how to make line and wash watercolor paintings of
silhouettes of people walking. My name's Avraham, and I'm
a professional artist. I'd like to show you
that even though some people think watercolors a little challenging
to work with, that if we use a
subject of silhouettes, then it makes things so much easier because then we're
just blocking in colors. You don't have to worry
about all the fine details and different color variations. And then we'll also show you that when you add in
these line as well, on top of it, it adds
so much more dimension and interest to make your
pictures really come alive. In this course, it's
really designed for everyone at
all skill levels. All you need are some
paper, watercolor brushes, and, of course, some pen
to draw in afterwards. We're going to go through four different
watercolor examples, starting something easier and progressively working to things a little more complicated. By the end, you should feel
much more confident in doing silhouettes of people walking
in line and wash technique. If you're ready to get started, I'll see you in the
next video. Mm hmm.
2. Class assignment: The assignment for this
class is to create your own line and wash watercolor of a person
in a silhouette. You can either create one
following along with me and the examples I'll
be showing or from the resources in the project
and resources section. Or if there's an example
that you want to do particularly,
feel free to do it, and then just upload
to the projects and resources
section afterwards, where I'll be so happy to
review and give some feedback.
3. Materials: For materials, you really
don't need so much. You need some paper, and
I'll be using a sketchbook, which has a little
bit thicker paper. It's 110 grams. It's a little bit
thicker than your average laser print paper, which is helpful for
absorbing the water and laying your page stay a little bit wetter
without buckling. You can also use regular
watercolor paper or even mixed media
sketchbooks, things like that. Actually, this might be a
mixed media sketchbook. In fact, watercolor
paper is even thicker, maybe 140 pounds, 300
grams, things like that. But this is totally fine. I've done plenty of
sketches on it and watercolors, things. It's great. Besides that, you
need your paints. I do have a set of Daniel
Smith essentials watercolors, which I use an awful lot. But for what we're
doing with silhouettes, it's enough to have
just one color. It does not be any of
these colors, in fact. Using pains gray
is perfectly fine. And for what we'll be doing, I am actually just going to use this kid set that I have
here I got for my kids, and you can see I
use it as well, and it works really amazing because you don't need anything super advanced for
what we're doing. Um, the one thing that I do recommend is
important is brushes, not to use the brush
that comes with it, though you can
definitely do that. Um, I recommend using a bit larger brush around that can hold a
little bit more water. I have two here. One
is from **** Blick, a size eight, and
it's a nice one. My preference though, is
this Princeton round size ten because as you can see, it comes to a
little finer point. And so if you want to get into the details, it's
much better for that. So both hold, you
can see the barrel. It holds a lot of
water or paint, so you can paint for a longer
time and comes to a point. So that was my recommendation. The last thing that
we need is for line and wash is how
to do our lines. So for that, I have
this Tambo set of pens which I really like.
There's two versions here. It comes with a hard
a hard tip, this one, and this is just a
regular it's a tip that seems consistent with
or weights when you use it. Then the other one is this
one called a soft tip, which I guess looks pretty
much similar to the hard one. But when you draw
with it, it has thicker and thin lines because the tip is actually flexible. If you press harder, there'll be harder lines and lighter, you'll get a little
thinner lines. I prefer like this one because of the flexibility gives
and the variation. Sometimes you want really
thin lines or thicker lines. This one is better. I prefer this one.
And with that, we're ready to start.
4. Finding reference photos: For references, we have
lots of options online, and one place I like
looking at is Unsplash. Over here, you can
see that I put in searching for
people walking and it gives a lot of
potential options here. You can search for
people walking or maybe crowds of people, street photography of people, things like that will
give you the options. In my other course for
drawing silhouettes, I mentioned other
resources for finding lots of pictures and you
can check that out as well. I've picked out a
few array that I like and we'll go through those.
5. Preparing your paints: The first thing you're
wanting to do is prime your paints, which means taking some
little spray bottle and spring the color that
you're gonna be using, in this case, black, right? Or you could take your
brush, dip it into water, and then just also lightly
tap it on the the color. That way, just activates it, so it gets a little bit wet and you can start
using it much better. If you start right
away, it could be a little bit too heavy the pigment and too dark so that when you later
add in your line, you're not going to
see it so well because it's so dark the paint adding. So what I like to do
is mix it or just add some water and dull
it down just a little bit so that we can paint
and we'll be able to see gives us room gives us the flexibility to
add the line afterwards.
6. Silhouette 1: Let's start off with
this first picture here. I'm choosing photos that
have good silhouettes. One of the things to
consider when you're picking a photo is that you want strong defined contours of the people and their limbs, so the viewer can
read it easily. Over here, you can see the
two people are distinct. They're separated by this nice
bright area between them. The one on the right particular, you can see how
his right arm also has a little gap
where his elbow is so you can define the
shape of the arm very well and the legs, obviously. What I'm going to do is I'm going to start with their heads, and I'm just looking
at the general shape. So, um, so I see that it's
this large oval shape here, this is a very nice
level of darkness for the color that's coming out on my brush, so I'm
very happy with this. Opportunities. You'll
have the head here. I'm leaving that little
gap I see here that I have for the highlight on the
ear that looks very cool. Then we're going to take
the next thing to think about is the direction
of his shoulders. That adds a lot of
um, body language. We're going to start
over here and I see it comes up at this
angle about this far. Like that. Then comes down. I'm going to fill in this space
with this neck over here. Then on this angle,
it's like this. I think we can come out a
little further over here. It's not so important
to be so uh, exacting, because it's a silhouette and it's watercolor and it's
supposed to be loose and fun. Don't get too hung up
about the details, you want to get
the general shape. I'm coming down this large
body here and trying to make this outline on the border
of the silhouette a little bit varied because I see his shirt is
not straight down, like a perfect, you know,
rectangle or anything. Then over here it comes
out again, right? And then sort of around here, we've merged now
into his pants area, which you have to
remember for when we're going to bring our
lines afterwards. Here's the pants, it
comes in, comes together. You have to remember about
where his legs split. We have here and down to here. That's about where his legs start over here, I'm
going to put in. What I like to do for
the legs actually is do this back and forth thing to hint to the folds that
are happening in the legs. We're going down like this,
and then we have his foot. That's one side here
this is still damp, so I can just pull it
down and it'll be good. Still looks seamless.
We want to make a very thin area
between his legs here. Even his little gaps, okay? Can see I'm pulling back
and forth a little bit. And then his other leg comes
out sort his other foot, sorry, it comes out
sort of like this. Okay. There we are. And so that would be person one. I'm going to reload
my brush here, get a little bit
more darkness on it. And start with person two. Now I'm just thinking
about relative heights. His head looks just slightly less a little bit lower
than the first guy. I'm trying to gauge the space between the two of them so I can fill in using the negative space to determine where
I'm putting him. It looks like I'm going to start his head
right around here. And again, you know, no one's going to see the original unless you
share it with them, but no one's going
to see the original painting or source image. So if it's not exactly
like the source, so that's also all right. You know, um, so we have here
his head and neck and then his elbow and
shoulders come very close to this coming in here, touches and coming around, let's figure out how the length of his shoulders go around
here, slightly higher. Now filling the space. My brushes feeling it needs
a little bit more water. Let's put the water in, add a little more
pigment and then come down because I want to be
one flowing shape here. Okay. A more pigment back
to the top where his arm is so I don't have
any more of a line there, and then continue
with his shirt. So it comes in like this
and his pants over here, little bulge by the
pocket looks like. Okay. I think it shirt comes
to around there and here, let's get that arm in
also, finish that off. It comes out and then in, we have a nice
seamless merge here, it's all wet comes
together nicely. With the bottom here
just so we can continue. It's good with his pants legs. We can do this little back
and forth a little bit. Angles in just a little
bit more than I'm doing. Let's try to accentuate that. Here now put in his
foot. Like that. Then over here on
the other side, we want to pull down. My it could be a little
bit wider on the side. Over here, I see on top, it's running, it's fixed up
so it doesn't bleed so much. We have a culiflower there,
so let's fix that up a little bit coming down. Finish up your leg here. These little gaps just add a lot more sophistication.
This looks really cool. At least to my eye when it's a straight shape
silhouette blocking in. I think also that's the benefits of adding in the line
work afterwards. Because when you're
doing the lines, it brings it makes extra separations between
areas in the painting. So we want make sure
this is perfectly dry before we start putting
in the markers. You can also use other
things instead of a marker, you can use a pen or you
could even use a stick. I took this stick which I
whittle down and then use some inks black magic waterproof ink and you can also use
that to draw with. Now that these figures
are completely dry. Even though the first one was already dry before I started talking about using a stick. But now we can go and
add in our line work. So what I want to
do what I try to do when I'm doing line
work is looking again for the main shapes that
I want um to accentuate. So in this case, on his head, we have um the hairline. I have here, I see it's
coming around like this and then coming loosely
around here, right? Try to cature ear brightness a little
bit there and then come down for his shirt. There's something like this
and sketching his arm here. And it's very dark this silhouette that
we're using as resource, so you have to make things
up a little bit here. But I'm going to just draw a general idea for a shirt
doing loose sketchy lines. Then here, this
thing comes around. I I don't know what sure
there is exactly, but here. That's we'll say more
or less the shirt idea. Then for his pants, we have here the bulges, so I'm doing these curvy
lines to represent the folds in the pants and we do something similar over
here on this side. Lots of little loose
sketching work here. Loose, and come down,
just comes out, follow the contours and the feet straight
line for his shoe and straight line also for
that part of the shoe here more of the uh, swirly lines around his
pants and then coming down for a straight
line shoe over here around it and
something like that. That would be person one. Now for the guy in the left,
we can do something similar. We have a I'll draw his
whole head this time, we have coming in like this
and his air for his ear, we got this hand area,
something like that, his neck and the
shirts same idea. I'm going to come down here
filling in where the arm is then this arrow here is highlighting the break part of where the sun is hitting
his top of his arm, and then coming down like this. On the other side,
we have shirt here coming in I'm
constantly checking to the source photo as
I draw each section, to make sure that I'm doing the contours as I see them here. And here like that, got what his shirt could
look like over there. I'll getting to the pants
again so we just draw some sketchy lines
coming in like this. It's light, easy and fun and you don't have to
worry about exact being so exact because it's all dark
and, um, hidden information. You can sort of make
things up as you go along. Then the other side swirly
lines for his pants. Sometimes going inside of the right through the silhouette and watercolor,
sometimes going outside. I adds in this nice
contrast and variations, so it keeps it interesting. Then coming down here,
the shoe is, like that. Here we are. We've just now done a pin and wash sketch
of this silhouette.
7. Silhouette 2: This next one here has
a lot more detail. This woman here, we can see all the details
of her outfit, unlike the previous one was very much just black and white. So the previous one
was easier just to focus on just to identify
where the outlines are. This one might be
slightly harder, but I think it's
still very doable. The one thing we have to
consider is what we're going to do also about where her belt is hanging down over her pants because there
we could just um, paint the whole thing or we could sort of hint
to it by doing slight variation with our wash. So, um, I'm not sure how I'm going to handle that
just yet, but let's go. I'm going to rewet my brush to make sure it has some that's next to the damp and then
pick up the black again, it's pretty much dried out, so maybe you have
to reactivate it. I'm seeing right
now you can see, this is a lot darker than
the last time we did it last time I put
down my mixing pad, so I know it's going to
be a little bit too dark, so we're not going to
get this very nice lovely opportunity
to add in the lime. What I'm going to do is I drying my brush
just a little bit, add in some more water,
and then sort of pick up over here. Now there's a nicer consistency for what we're trying
to accomplish. It's a matter of getting
used to the brushes and how much paint
is in your brush. Just have fun experimenting
with it. Don't worry. Even if it's too dark, it's not really in the end
of the day a problem. So, let's go take her and
again, start from the head. I like starting from the head just so you get a sense of scale because you have a person's seven head heights
or whatever it is. You can say if a person's
head is like this, so much how big is the
rest of the person? But you really could
start anywhere. It's just this is
how I like to work. I'm going to go and try with
same type of height here. Um, I mean, size of her head. I'm seeing I'm
feeling that my brush is a little bit too
much water on it. You can see how much
cooling things here. So I'm just going to
dab the bottom of the brush a little bit
to draw some water. And then you can see
it now soaking back up a little bit I felt
a little too heavy. Now for her, that was
her head and try to simulate into where the
hair might be, right? Leave a little gap over here, and then comes out like
this, maybe like whatever. We're going to fill
it in more later. Then we have her
neck area like this. Even though I'm
filling it in later, you're not going to see it, but you can see that I've made the shape of where
her neck line is. We could do this
and we could even maybe leave a little gap here, if you want, come out. Was the angle of the top of her shirt looks like it's
coming this her hand over here. Then it continues to
flare out a little bit. We have that purse of some sort. I'll leave that here,
we'll merge it together, and then it comes in
her shirt like this, and then we have this. Okay. Pick up a
little more water for my brush. It's
not drying out. You have here coming
around like this and here's the bottom of
her shirt meets her pants. Then coming in like that. Now the rest of her
hands coming here, again, the same way I was
doing it on her pants. I can do right here,
it's a little bit of variation on her sleeve. Makes it little bit
more interesting. It's coming out, flares
ever so slightly over here. I'm trying to see how long is this arm compared to
where her shirt is. It's going lower. I don't know if I can get it that much lower though because I think this looks
reasonable for her hand. Even though in the picture, it's going a little bit lower, but from what I'm
seeing right now, this looks more realistic,
if you could say. I'm going to stop
right here with that. Now drawing in her pants. I'm going to leave a
little bit of a gap here. We'll see how that
works and so it's behind and here will be this
little area for that belt, I come in here and then her
legs are basically together. So that's I'm going
to get this for her, I'm going to draw a little smoother lines because the pants aren't as crinkly as
in the other picture. So it's come down
here like this. Coming out now for her shoes, since they're white shoes, maybe we're going to leave
them a little bit more empty or open to fill in
the silhouette of the shoe. We're just going to this. One shoe and another
shoe like that. That would be her silhouette put here just a little bit hint
to where the hands would be. I think that's
looking pretty good. I do want to add in
just one actually, the part of her shirt belt or something
comes out like this, so it's going I use a point to make it a little bit come to a point, beautiful. Now, time to bring back our lines or add
in the lines here. Starting with the head, we
here since her face is to us, we might add in the
eyes, potentially, I'm not sure yet,
but we're going to start with letting her face. I really fine stroke here, see how gentle it is
here and her hair. Coming around. Okay. I don't want to
overwork anything or get too attached to anything. Is this supposed to be
an easy, nice, sketch. Let's pull down here
and comes in like that. Top of her a collar for her
shirt maybe comes like this. Then we have street line for that purse
thing in her hand. So we have that. Then over here, I see that part of her
dress comes like that. Then again, like this. Okay. Then here we have to accentuate the waviness on the outside of her shirt. I'm going to do some lines
like this straight here, and then her end of her sleeve, part of her hand you can
see here, curve the line, curve line for the fingertips, and then the way her
shirt comes in. Okay. Then we have here just
coming in like this. Now we have to draw the belt
part that's hanging down, just a simple line, suck that for bottom pants over here with this and
how I'm going to do the belt I want to come in and just a little line just hint to where the belt
is and this comes around. See the belt really
should be closer to the back of her pants, but this is fine. Coming in, coming
down like that, and then here I'm going
to put a little bit of a wavy because that's what I see is happening
right where her knee is, come back out and then come
straight down like this, maybe add another little wave to make it interesting
and then come here. And then finish up her pants
over here for the shoe, we're going to do something very thin and subtle because again, it is white, so we keep it like this and
have your other shoe, I think there's another
shoe over there. So let's just do that. So we have that. Then maybe we try adding in
something for her face. So we'll just add in
line over here and here. We get that and then
maybe that for her nose. There we have that. That's another silhouette
and this time, we had a lot more
details to work with. So here more than that.
8. Silhouette 3: Okay, so here, this one, we have a really
lovely umbrella scene. Umbrella scenes are always fun, because we have the shape
that we add as a prop. And then we have the
people here as well. So we'll um I think I'm seeing here
four in the foreground, but I think I want to
just leave it as three. We'll have the couple
under the umbrella, and then we could have
the boy behind maybe, or we could just leave out the boy go with the two of them. Um, let's see. So let's go back here
and I don't think I have enough space here
in the top right of my paper to do it at the
size that I'd like to do. I can do it smaller,
but when it's smaller, then you sort of lose out
on some of the details. So I'm trying to do it larger. You can see here that I have
been doing smaller ones, and they come out pretty okay. But for this demonstration, I want to show you, um, larger. So it's totally up to you how big or small
you want to do things. I'm trying to focus on a
little bit larger so I have more time to put in a little bit more details with the linework. So anyway, watering
rewetting the brush and getting some more
pigment on the pan. So, I'm looking at the what type of color I'm
getting when I test it here. It's sort of like
testing on the paper, you know, about testing
it here. All right. So let us first. So um, there actually
three people in there. Let's see. In any case, what I want to start off with is if I want
to start with the heads, it's a little bit
challenging because I don't see them so clearly. Let us start off with the umbrella part and
change it up that way. We're going to go
with the umbrella. I'm taking just the angle. It comes up to here and then switches to this
type of angle line. It's going to come
down a little bit and let's go and smooth out. Instead of just doing
the tip of the brush, if I press down in the middle, you can see it makes a
much more subtle edge. It's also a way of
making variations here. An umbrella comes through here, it's a little darker
on top like this and then coming down, right? And here until about
that distance, let's figure out at the bottom. What's going on here?
Something like that. Then we have another
line like this. And let's go here. That's looking okay for me. I just want to merge these together so it's not as distinct where the umbrella starts and ends and add a little bit more. Another line here, maybe this is definitely when we
do the line work, I want to accentuate
a line coming down over here and maybe
even over here. Anyway, here's our
brush, our umbrella. Now let's try to merge it in or seamlessly add in
what I see is a head, try to get a head
over here shape. I'm gauging the negative space right now since I don't
have much to go on here. It's a negative
space chain the back his back and the underside of the umbrella it looks
about around here. Add a little bit more water to my brush because it feels like
it's starting to dry out. I always want to water
the bottom here. I have an active edge to continue working from here
and then coming down. And I'm gauging the
distance here like that. He comes around to here and then his elbow shoots
in very strongly. Then for the rest, I can just now bring
his back like this. I'm going to keep in a little
gap for the underside of his chin and his shirt
or his jacket here. Actually, this is
probably too low. I'm thinking, but we're
just going to go with it, and we'll see how
it comes out later. Merge these things back
together here and drops pants, where his jacket ends. Now from here, I want
to merge it right into this other person
that's next to him. I see this hat and how far
is it beneath the umbrella? It's probably a little bit lower than where
I'm drawing it. I mean, I'm drawing
a little too high. But again, we're just
going to go with here this and here
a little pigment, water it down, and
then come in here. Now I want to has this arm
coming through, like this. You can almost see
that I've lost the uh it's almost too dry
there to put them together. Almost quite here then
something come out like this. I'm not sure what
she's holding exactly, but some fairly white thing, and then her skirt comes
together like this. Then here, I guess since
we're on this side, we're going to put that together this something like that, and then her legs extend from beneath
the skirt like this. Then we have the shoe. And the other shoe is
a little bit higher. It's just like that.
Then whose shoe is that? I think there are
too many people in this picture. I don't
know what's going on. Anyway, so we have that. I'll just leave that there
have another shoe here. Then for his legs, we have
coming down like this. Try not to overlap
because since it is dry, it's going to look a
little bit different. I see that overlap here coming in a little back and forth, where the knee is,
his other knee comes out like this
it looks like, and then we have Okay.
Somewhere like this. I think I've drawn just a little bit too much negative
space here relative to where this shoe and that
shoe are supposed to be. So, uh you know, it's not a perfect version, but, um, we can maybe
try to bring this down to here more to bring
them a little closer. Okay, so that would be the um, the wash part of the drawing. And now, by this point, the umbrella is already dry. I don't have to worry
about that. You could just test it just to
make sure if you want. This area still looks a
little bit too damp for me, so I do want to
leave a little time before I get over there. If you draw an area
that's a little damp, so the ink might end up bleeding a little bit
and not being as crisp. If you see the lines we have up here are very crisp and sharp. If you put it here, it's going to the ink is going to start
to spread out a little bit, which is an effect
and it's a look, and in fact, you could do it. We're to vary up
the line as well. Even if you're using this
other brush this other one, which is the hard tip, you can make things
variations by taking some water
and just dabbing the brush the line you drew and it will make it a little bit
interesting as well there. As long as things aren't looking so rigid and consistent
all the time, it adds a little more life and fiber and see the pictures, and that's something
I like to do. That's again one of
the reasons I'm using this soft tip because
it has that variation. Let's start with the umbrella and I'm going to do
these lines here. See here this curvy line
here and another one like that over here and over here. On this side, trying to
figure out the right angles. I curves a little bit like that. So here and then
that one more here. There is a little tip on top, so it's just seem like that. And it's all dark. It's extra dark up here. I'm going to add a
few more strokes for the pen to show that. On the bottom, you
can try there's a little catch light
here so I can see it up. So make that see if
that worked. Okay. Now for the head,
we're going to just fill in over here
for hairline, I see. And then make that for
the front of his face. I see again, it looks like almost two
different people here. One's turned away and
one's turned side us. Is a portrait, it's a little bit confusing
what's going on there, but I'm just going
to go with this and the viewer will make
of it what he will, take here shirt comes
in a little bit. Crinkles wrinkles like this, creases and try to capture texture a little bit as these little
bubbley things going on. I make this shirt jacket like
that the arm comes around here and then comes in and then it comes
through to this side. It could be he's holding
the umbrella over here. It's a little bit hard to
make those details out. We're just going to hint to them and let the viewer fill
in the rest of details. It's good Amano his
legs, Ray, his pants. I might come back
actually fill in some more details
in his jacket area. But right now, I'm just
going to continue here. And then I was
talking I'm trying to capture a little
bit of the light on the inside of the drawing, it shows a little
highlight coming in. These other needs coming
through like that and then coming for anything else in
his jacket I want to do, I think that's looking okay. I do want to try
to capture that. There's a little space
between their arms, but we'll see if
that can pull it off as I get there's her hat. She's got some thing
going on here. Uh, and then coming in here with his jacket and elbow,
and then her hair. Now I'm capturing or trapping light on this
side by making it a little bit darker where her hair is that helps bring
out that distinction. Then her hair again like this, then I'm not sure
again what that is. I'll just draw some
random squiggly lines. It's all good. So scarf things she's wearing and then more squiggly lines over here. We see a part of the dress
looks like it's like this and then it comes down across here and then more like that and
her legs coming in, extending from the
dress over here. We have these little
squirly lines the scarf she's holding, and then the dress comes
again down like that. Then for the shoes
that she's wearing, I think these are actually
where her shoes are. So I have that and then it's probably a little
kid or something. It's probably a whole
family over here and all huddling under one umbrella
on this rainy day. So I'm just going to leave that. I'm not going to draw in the chute that's over
there because I'm only showing two
people here and we'll just leave that as it is, it could be a shadow
or something there. So over here, is there anything
else I want to put in? I think I want to try to
show more of his arm, so we're going to darken
this area as well. And that will help
separate the two, right? And then here. Right. All right. So here we are. I think that's pretty good. This line down the middle sort of has lost the idea that
she's wearing a skirt. It looks like she's
almost wearing these really baggy pants
right now, but, you know, it's still a nice effect, and if people aren't looking
at this source photo, they're not going to
know anything about it. So I think we're okay
leaving it like this. And I think it's really
came out pretty successful. I'm very happy with
the way the Uh, um, the umbrella has these different tones
as well, right? These hard and soft shapes. And the little bits of light
air is showing through. So it was like the glistening of water perhaps on
it or something. It just keeps it interesting
as opposed to it was one flat shape of color. Um, like we have here by
the silhouettes, right? Here, there's very
uniform tones, which is totally fine, right? It's a different
type of look.
9. Silhouette 4: For the last one
we're going to do, I want to focus on
these two hikers. So they again, are
very distinct. You can see their limbs
are fairly clear. If you have these poles
or add a little bit of visual interest as
well to the scene, and we have these large
hats and sunglasses. So we can add in some cute sunglasses
as we're going along. So we are going to wet our brushes and pick
up some more paint. I'm going to add in a
little bit more water to my mixing tray here so I can just get a little bit
more water into the brush. Okay. So I'm going to start
with this head of guy on the left side and leaving space for where I
see his hat as well. This time, let's see.
I'm going to draw this here to his head and then curve up this large hat above him, comes around, comes in, leave a little space where they meet it comes down
to around here, it looks like That's a big hat. Then on the top,
somebody like this. Now we have that and we're
going to continue putting his hat and has together and try and follow the
contours of his body. I see that the sleeve flares out just a little bit over here, so we'll try to capture that. Then I'm not worrying
so much about his pack. We're going to draw that in
later using our line, right? That's good always
to be aware of it as you're doing the sketches
and the silhouettes. I'm always trying to figure out where the shapes of things are. To know, to gage the size of
the person you're drawing. Okay, so I have this. His
arm is coming out here. I'm going to leave a little
bit of space for some of it to distinguish
it from his body. Then his arm comes down here, it's going to merge at
some point, probably. So here, his pack comes
out a little bit as well. I feel my brush is
getting a little bit down drying up so I want to
add a little bit more water. Okay. Let's go add in
his arm on this side. Comes out at this angle, training I'm just
checking the angles and directions and length of the different parts
of parts of his body. Then from there, hopefully everything is going
to fall into place. I see here the arm relative the bottom of
the shirt. That was good. More more ink to my brush, and let's go up now with
his continue his pants. Here the arm and let connect. I he's got his pocket he's
got a phone or something in his pocket I can see,
which maybe we'll draw. We'll see. Then
here comes around. Using those little
caps and pants again, maybe it's
a style of mine. I don't know. I happen
to like it a lot. It gives things a
little more interest, and it's not just
one straight shape. Now it looks like this pants angle turns
here for some reason, on this side, we continue, we see almost lost it there, where it dried up a little bit. Okay. Come down if you can see where the areas
in the watercolor touch, it's still not the worst
thing in the world. More. And now we want to get this line for his
pole that he's using, which again, I'm going to
definitely do with marker. But right now, I have this and I don't want to draw
for here because, um, I just want to draw it's already covered in a sense
by where we already did our watercolor wash. I just want to add in
the area that is new. Then when you do the line work, we can add that in afterwards. Here we have his shape. And now we're going to go
and do his traveling buddy. We get in litre my brush, get some water into it, and now he's about
this distance. Where's his head.
If I look where the sunglasses are,
it's about the same. Looks like the sunglasses are
pretty much matching up and distance wise it looks like I should put his
head around here. He's a sharp angle for his
nose coming in like that. His hat just drawing where his head meets where
the hat is here. Chin coming in like this a
little bit rounded. Okay. Fine. Now it's looking a little bit heavy,
as we did before, I'm just siphon off a little bit of water
here and come back in to lighten up just a little
bit so that when we do the ink work afterwards,
we can see something. I just pulling this down here, the angle of his shoulder and how far is it from his friend? Around there on this side,
it comes around like this. He looks like a little
bit thinner his body. My his arms are drawn in
closer also from the way he's doing holding his poles
and position of his body. We have that coming
in. His arm sleeve ends around there
and then we have a bit of a mess of
this foreshortening of his hand and pole and arm
and everything like that. But that's, I think what
it looks like to me. I'm just going to
continue on with that. Here also, we can leave a
space maybe and try this out. We're going to put leave the negative space
for his arm here. I'm going to just
draw the bottom, maybe a part of his
hand like that, then continue on down for here. And his shirt ends just a little bit higher
than the other guy, so maybe I drew his shirt
a little bit too low. As you know, this is
all going to be fine. Going to leave a
little white space for where the pole is right there and come down like
this, close it off, get a little bit more
water in my brush, and continue on damp in the bottom so that
we don't we still have nice watery edges and can continue in
a seamless fashion. Here this comes overlap for a bit before disengaging about
where about this far down, and the angle looks to
be around like this. I'm just going to continue. There's a little too many
white spaces in his pants. I'm just going to fill
those in also as I come along here and where's
pants leg end. It's right around
here. It looks to me. I'm going to finish
this off here has interesting texture wobbles at the bottom of his shoe. I'm going to siphon this off just a little bit to make it not as strong and then come down to this side.
Can I pick it up? Just met it. Pants
leg coming up like this and his knee is
bent so it's going to end his leg is going to end a little bit
higher up, you see that? Here and then we have his shoe. That's a sandal thing, maybe actually this direction. Then space for his
toes, like that. That's representing his shoe. Then this one also,
I'm just going to do the strap and another strap. And then do the space
over here a little bit, but I'm a shoe and we'll
draw that in later. Anything else in your draw here? We need to get his pole. I wear his hat,
never did his hat. Let's do the pole first. Comes this angle. It's supposed to get
thinner as it goes down. Step manage to do that.
That's pretty thin. For his hat, you can see
this is totally dry here. It's going to be a little
bit different type of look. It's very light in the picture. Okay. And somebody like
that. That's da off. I think we could do the underside of his
hands a little bit darker. And that looks pretty good. In reality, the hat is tilted a lot closer to
the top of his shoulder. The negative space
that I put in here is this large area and over
in the real picture. It's a lot smaller. But again, this works out fine. In my opinion. Okay. Now, again, looking back at these pictures, they all look really fine. You know, if you're looking at the original picture
and how you drew it, you might see some differations and variations and you can beat yourself up about it
like many artists do. I do. But I'm just trying to say
that in the end of the day, it's not as critical
as you might think. Okay. So now let's get on to
drawing u'sraw the line work here and see if we can go with
start with the sunglasses. Let's try that out.
Have a line across his head here for the
sunglass here and come that. And something like this. All right. So nice sunglass
shape coming in here. Okay, so that's his sunglasses
and we'll do the hat. I get a large circle,
that'd be nicer, but I don't have the it's
not working out for me. I have a hat like that
and on the underside, his hair a little bit
filled in in space, his chin coming in like this and then his
shirt comes around. Now let's try to
get in the buckling of that harness he's
wearing his backpack. I comes in and down,
comes around like this. And then we have some
lines here for a shirt. Shirt comes in here
and then we have some cool creases and wrinkles. It's getting a little bit
complicated over there. It could be that
it'd be hard for a person to understand
what's going on there. So we have to dial back and do a little sparing in our linework. I'll
see if I can do that. They have here. Shirt the buckle, it's a loop for his backpack cut and ground like this. Okay. And other half of his shirt, actually just finished
his shirt here, so it continues on. On this side, we
have some spaces here, shirt comes like that. His arm comes out and down. On this side, we
have a little bit of this gap between his
shirt and his arm. It's trying to keep
make sure we save that. And here is the pole. It's interesting that it looks like it's probably
the strap that's showing up on top of
his arm, his fingers. Because normally if
you're grabbing a pole, your fingers would
be on top of it, but it looks like the way
that is showing up, there's maybe the strap that's facing the viewer
and so it's covering up the tips of his fingers. In any case, let's
go pull this down. Let's go add in our pole making a little squirgy marks where it's a little
wider like that. Adds a little depth
and interest. Now, his shirt and the pants, we have a pocket going
on here, back and forth. I see something his pants, legs look a little bit
different color here, but I think that
would be a little bit hard for the viewer to understand
what's going on there. I'm just going to draw the outlines and contours
as I'm seeing them. Then the other part of his pants comes in and out like that. So squiggles over here. Squil here, squiggle there, like that. Anything else? Maybe add in some sin
lines here for pants, creases, and then some shape, small shape to show
the curve of his hat. We have that then
some dark over there. That's pretty good. I can add in the dark knit glasses a
little bit. There. Okay. I'm pretty happy with this. Okay. I think that's good. Yeah. And for his friend, when
we have his glasses, let's start with that maybe. Okay. And coming in right here, trying to get his hat. In the back of his head. He's
got a beard going on there. So let's draw that in. His
shirt comes down here. We got lots of wrinkles, but let's try first the
contours and again, if we add too many wrinkles, it's going to get confusing. So we're just going to say what the basic
outline the shapes are Um and over here, this area where he has
this foreshortening, try. I think we're going to
go with the pole first. We have the whole pole, but I'm going to show
his hand a little bit and continue the pole below. Then the same idea we have is
thin lines and thick lines, and that is one pole. On the other side let's go and figure out
where his shirt ends and looks like this, over here we have also just a little bit of a
gap that his arm and shirt are separated
arm in like this. We have again, some
area for his hand. And we said that
this is the pole, it looks like that
and then coming down comes to the outside
of his foot there. His shirt, something like
this, and then the pants. So nice squiggles
here. Just have fun. And here also into my strap. That for his foot,
hopefully, looks reasonable. Then the other leg can come in. Be a little bit close
compared to the original. And I drew the pole you can see inside his foot leg though in reality
it's on the outside. But I think it's
still working. Okay. Yeah. And maybe just a little
more shirt here. Define that leg where the
two legs are a little bit more and fill in his sunglasses. I would expect to do that. Sunglasses here,
sunglasses there. Yeah. Okay. Here we have four different studies of
light and wash doing figures.
10. Thank you!: Thank you so much for joining me in this Skillshare
class on how to use line and wash techniques to create silhouettes
in watercolor. I hope you learn so much about the technique and
gain some skills and confidence about how you can use watercolors and line and wash to create
silhouettes of people. I'd be so happy to see the
project and what you've done. So remember to upload the
project and resources section. I'll be sure to
give a comment with some constructive feedback to encourage you to keep going. Thank you again so
much for joining me. I look forward to seeing you
another Skillshare class.
Avraham Nacher, Photographer & Procreate Artist
