Transcripts
1. Course Introduction: Do you love the look of line and watercolor wash artwork
and are perhaps looking for a beginner
friendly course that can help you get
started on the right foot. Or perhaps you've
already started on your journey with this awesome combination of art mediums. And you're looking
for a course to help you progress your techniques and your overall method so that you can arrive at
better results. Do you enjoy sketching
and painting birds and would
like ideas on how to create awesome looking
artwork of this type of animal using line
and wash. How do you create unique artwork
that has your style in it stemming from a
reference photo and what does the mosquito
information and best tips that will
help you stay away from overworking or over
describing your subject in a mixed media art work so that you can arrive at a
well-balanced piece. My name is Erica, and I'm an artist
working with a variety of traditional drawing
and painting mediums, ranging from graphite to pen and ink to watercolor,
acrylics and more. And I love continuing to grow my skills with all sorts
of different subjects, ranging from landscapes to
botanicals to still live, to animals and more. This is what I share online. My days revolve around creating original art and selling
art on a local level. I'm also constantly creating new helpful content to
share online that is aimed towards beginner and
intermediate artists who are really looking to level up
their knowledge and skills. I'm always working on
mu helpful content for artists that I share it
via my YouTube channel, via my different social
media platforms. And also of course, I create exclusive content that I share with my
membership group. I have over 15
years of experience working in creative
and artistic fields. After obtaining my BA
in graphic design, I first worked at an
advertising agency as a graphic designer and
later as an art director. After that, I worked for over seven years of teaching art in the
school environment. During those last few years, as I continued working at that regular full-time
teaching position, I started growing my art
business on the side, selling artwork and also
I was starting to teach people of all sorts of ages
in my own home studio. Over time, as my small art
business kept growing, I was able to leave that
last full-time position and dedicate all of my
time and effort to continuing to grow it. That's when I decided to take
what I was doing locally to the online space in order to
reach and help more people. So this is what I do full time today and I am the
happiest I've ever been continuing to develop
my own art skills as I simultaneously help others
in their own journeys. In this course, I am taking
you through my entire process for a pen and watercolor wash piece of
a son collinear parrot. I take you through how I create my preliminary pencil
sketch freehand, stemming from a
reference photo to how I add texture
and detail using different pen and
ink techniques to finally bring the piece to live through adding bright,
vibrant watercolor washes. So by the end of this course and going through this
process with me, you have created your
very own line and watercolor wash sunken
your parent piece. There is so much must know
information packed into this course that will
help you advance your skills during the
pencil sketching process, I am sharing must know tips
that will help you arrive at better proportions and
shapes when you're drawing free hand during
the pen and ink process, I am sharing secrets
that helped me arrive at much better line
weight variation, which is key when you're
drawing with pen and ink and during the
watercolor painting process and also sharing must
know information that is going to help you
create better paint mixtures, create beautiful gradients and transitions between your colors. And that will also help you stay away from overworking
your piece. I've also added an extra classes in which I explain what to look for in a reference
photo in order to arrive at a believable look, essential things to pay attention
to for greater success. Another one on how to simplify feathers and how to draw
them with pen and ink. And another one in
which I explain how I choose my
colors stemming from that reference photo
while bringing in my artistic license to change
the mood before jumping in, I do want to remind
you that I have a full watercolor 101
course here on Skillshare. I would highly recommend
going through if you're just getting
started with watercolor. And I also have a full and
super thorough line and watercolor wash flowers
course for you to enjoy. Alright, that is
gonna do it, uh, for this intro video. I am so excited to get
started with our first-class. So whenever you're
ready, See you there.
2. Art Supplies: Hey everyone and welcome
to class number one, where I'm gonna be
sharing all about the supplies that are used to create this pen and watercolor
wash son pioneer piece. I always wanted to encourage
you to use what you have. You don't have to use the same type of pen
that I'm gonna be using, or even the same colors
that I'm gonna be using for the watercolor washes. But I do want to explain
some important things in relation to y. I am picking
this specific type of watercolor paper to work with some other helpful notes and tips when it comes to
the other supplies that I always make sure
to have on hand so that you can have
these things in mind as you're choosing your own
supplies in order to have a smoother process and
a better final outcome. Alright, so to begin, I'm gonna be using one of these eight by ten inch
ready cut watercolor sheets from Strathmore. This is going to be
cold press paper, and this paper is 100% cotton. I really like this
paper when I'm gonna be bringing in pen and ink because one of
its sides has very, very little texture to it. It's almost like hot
press watercolor paper. And as we know when
we're bringing in drawing supplies like
pen and ink or pencil, tip can certainly skip over that tooth or texture
of that paper. And if you don't
want that to happen, if you want to lay down
relatively smooth lines using paper that is less
textured is very, very helpful. So I would recommend
cold pressed paper that has a very small
amount of texture to it or go in with
hot press paper if you're looking for paper
that is completely smooth. If you've checked out my watercolor 101 course that I shared here on Skillshare
a few months ago, which I would highly,
highly recommend. If you're just getting
started with this medium, then you're probably
already well aware that cold press paper is
right in-between, hot press and rough, so it usually has a
midweek texture to it. However, different brands of cold press paper have
different amounts of texture. So it's really going
to be up to you to explore different brands
of paper until you find the ones that you like for
the specific tools and the methods that you like to
use for my watercolor paint, I'm gonna be using this
palette that I have prepared with
Daniel Smith tubes. I'm gonna be using a total
of eight different colors. And these colors are
chiral Scarlett, new gamboge, hence
a yellow light, phthalo blue, undersea green, neutral, tint, yellow,
ocher, and burnt umber. I always like reminding you
guys that there is no need to use the exact same colors
that I'm gonna be using. I'm going to be
swatching out all of my different colour
mixtures before getting started with
the painting process for you on a scrap piece of
watercolor paper so that you can see what these colors look like squashed out on paper. And you can just choose
whatever you have on hand. That's most similar to these colors and
you're painting is going to turn out great in
terms of my paint brushes. I'm going to be using three
rounds in different sizes. Largest one is a size 14, the medium one is a size ten, and the smallest
is a size three. For my pen and ink process, I'm gonna be using one of
these pigment liners from Sadler and this is
in 0.3 tip size. I also have a B grade
drawing pencil on hand. Usually I like creating my preliminary pencil
sketches using an HB, which is slightly harder
than the B grade. But because I want you to
be able to see what I'm doing when I'm creating that
very light pencil sketch. I use a, B sometimes or even a tube when I'm filming
these tutorials for you, whatever pencil is going to help you create a nice, clean, light preliminary sketch that your graphite drawing
doesn't dominate at the end. And you're able to easily
erase mistakes and refine your drawing as we go go
with that pencil grade. I also have a regular eraser on hand from favorite Castile
and I have a kneaded eraser, which is that blue chewed
up bubblegum looking. While I'll think on
the screen there. And my other supplies
that I have on hand are things I always have in
my watercolor tutorials. Have my blue Scott
absorbent towel on hand, which is essential in
order to stay on top of water control throughout
the painting process. I also have a few
scrap pieces of watercolor paper on hand
to test out color and transparency before going into my painting with
those color mixtures because it's very difficult to fix mistakes when you're
painting with watercolor. So you certainly do want
to have something that is going to help you test
out your color mixtures. You're also going to
notice that I have taped down my watercolor sheet
onto my black cutting mat, which is what I'm currently
using as a backing board. And I have used regular
three-fourths of an inch masking tape to tape
my watercolor sheet down. However, it's not necessary to take your
watercolor sheet down for this piece because the background is
going to be minimal, we're gonna be bringing in
a vignette style background where that paint doesn't really reach the edges of the sheet. And if you do decide to
taper watercolor sheet down, whatever it is that
you decide to use, whether it's artist's tape
or regular masking tape. Make sure that you run
your pieces of tape over your clothes a couple
of times before taping your watercolor
sheet down so that you can soften that
adhesive and make it a lot less likely
that you'll damage your sheet at the end when
you remove that tape. And finally, I also have one
container with clean water, which I'm gonna be
changing as I move along. I'll let you know when I do. It's very important to
work with clean water, especially when you're going
for vibrant bright colors. And you might even want to have two different containers on
hand so that you can use one of them to rinse
out your paintbrush bristles so that the
majority of that paint stays in that first
container and then use the second container
whenever it is that you need to bring out
clean water into your color mixtures to water
them down a little bit more. Or you need to do
pre wedding with clean water in certain
areas of your piece, which is something
that we're gonna be doing for our background today. Or you simply need to go in with just water in
your paintbrush. It's completely up to
you if you want to use one or two or even
three containers. But whatever it is that
you decide to go with, make sure that
you're working with clean water and that you
change it whenever it starts becoming murky
because this can certainly affect the look
of your vibrant colors. Alright, and just to finish up, I do want to remind you that in the projects and resources tab, I have left a few
downloadable available for you that you can use as you're moving forward
with your process, you're gonna be able to find the high resolution
reference photo that I use to get loosely
inspired by my outline sketch, which you can transfer
onto your sheet of watercolor paper using your
favorite transferring method. I like using tracing paper and my watercolor 101
course also includes a full class on how
to use tracing paper as a transform method in case you'd like to
check that one out. Even though I do share in
this course how I create my preliminary pencil sketch completely free hand
for the sun collinear, before moving on to the pen and ink and then the watercolor
painting process, I did want to make
sure to include my downloadable outline
sketch for those of you who want to skip over the
free hand sketching process, I want to jump straight into the pen and ink and
then the watercolor. I've also included a photo
of my finished piece which you are free to use as
reference as you're working, and a downloadable supply
checklist just so that you can make sure that you have everything you need
before getting started. All right, friends,
that is gonna do it, uh, for this first-class. I look forward to seeing you in the next in which
I'm going to be explaining about
the course project that we're gonna be
working on together. So whenever you're
ready, See you there.
3. Course Project: Welcome to this very brief
class in which I'm going to be explaining about
the course project that we're gonna be
working on together. By the end of this course, you're going to have created
a pen and watercolor wash mixed media piece of
a sunken your parrot. I'm gonna be sharing my entire process with you won't be holding
anything back. Have broken everything
down into phases. And each phase, I'll be taking you through everything
step-by-step, but I'll also be explaining things that I make sure
to have in mind and also best tips for success in phase number one for
this course project, we're gonna be
working on creating a preliminary outline
sketch in pencil freehand, stemming from our
reference photo, focusing on re-creating believable proportions
and shapes. Phase number two is
all about pen and ink. So we're going to be
bringing in our drawing pen. We're going to be
defining edges, creating textures, and adding
details into our drawing. I'm gonna be sharing all about these specific pen and ink mark making and shading
techniques that I like bringing in for this piece. And finally, in
phase number three, we're going to be bringing
everything to life with bright, vibrant
watercolor washes. I've added in three
extra classes in-between these larger phases. And I would recommend not skipping over them
because I will be providing lots of super-helpful information
that will not only help you succeed
with a drawing or painting process that
is coming up next. But this is also key information that you can take with you to other similar pieces that you may decide to work
on in the future. The first one of
these extra classes, we're going to be
taking time to observe our reference photo before
putting pencil to paper. This is incredibly important for our success and something
that I would highly recommend getting into
the habit of doing before jumping in through observing
that reference photo, we're able to take note of the things that might
present a challenge for us so that we can create strategies to move
forward more effectively. We can decide to bring in our artistic license
and change things, which I do want to remind you that just
because we're using a reference photo doesn't
mean that we have to create a carbon copy of
what we're looking at. We always want to bring in our
artistic style, our voice, and our knowledge of composition in order to make the
piece more interesting, to look at and make
it more harmonious, more well-balanced,
and simply bring in more of ourselves
into the piece. And in this case, because we're drawing of them painting a specific
type of bird. We want to make sure
that we take note of the specific birds
characteristics so that then via our drawing
and later our painting, we're able to adequately described this bird
so that at the end, this can actually look like a sun collinear and not
another type of bird. Another extra class that
I've added in for you is called how to draw
feathers with pen and ink. I would highly, highly
recommend going through that exercise before getting started with a pen and ink
phase of this project, understanding the specific
mark-making techniques, the specific shapes, how we
are going to be creating the illusion of
overlapping feathers, et cetera, is important before jumping into
the final piece, because pen and ink
is a permanent medium and you're not gonna be able
to correct your mistakes. So in that special class, I'll walk you through how to draw all of the
different types of feathers we're gonna
be adding into this bird. And then finally, the
other extra class is right before we jump into
the watercolor washes. And in that one, I
walk you through my color selection and how I
prepare my color mixtures in order for me to not only
know which colors I'm gonna be using throughout the bird's body
as I am painting, but also to set myself up for success through preparing
a good amount of my first color mixtures
before jumping in and also making sure that those color
mixtures have a consistency. So a paint to water ratio that is going to be helpful
for me because I want to be able to load
up my paintbrush bristles well and paint quickly so that I can arrive at Fresh,
loose, expressive results. And in order for me to do that, I must have a good
amount of paint for me ready on my palette. And those consistencies of my color mixtures have to be good for what
I'm trying to do. Alright, so that is it
for our course project, the major phases and also
the minor exercises and prep work that we're gonna be doing in-between
the larger phases. With all this said, let's go ahead and
jump straight into our next class where we're
going to be observing our reference photo together and take note of all of the
things that we want to make sure to bring in or to change so that we can end
up with great results. Whenever you're ready, I'll
see you in the next one.
4. Observing Our Reference Photo: Welcome to this class, where we're gonna be
taking a few minutes to observe our reference
photo together. I know how exciting
it can be to want to jump straight into the
drawing or painting process. But I promise that
taking time to observe that reference photo
or whatever it is that you have in front of you
in real life that you're drawing or painting
before jumping in can have a huge
positive impact on your process and
your end results. So really start practicing
this and bringing it into any kind of artwork you may choose to
work on in the future. It's going to help you
tremendously, alright, without much further ado, let's go ahead and
jump straight in. Here is this beautiful
photograph of this sun paneer parrot that was taken by photographer
Kevin Mueller. And this is what I'm going
to be constantly looking at throughout this drawing and
also the painting process. Now, even though I'm looking
at a reference photo, it doesn't mean that I can't bring in my artistic license. A drawing or a painting is an interpretation of
what I am seeing, whether I am looking at a reference photo or something that I
have in front of me. I am drawing or painting
from direct observation. I'm going to take the visual
information present in this reference photo to bring in the level of realism
that I'm looking for. This way, I don't forget important details that I might want to
decide to bring in. But at the same time, I am going to take
artistic liberties throughout all of these different
phases of this process. I definitely want the sperm to look like the sun
coming year at the end, different birds have different
characteristics and it's very important that we take note of the specific characteristics. Set this type of bird
apart from other birds. And the type of feather, length of the feather and feather shape are just
part of this mishmash of characteristics for
this particular type of bird that you're
drawing slash painting. There's also the size
and shape of its speak. There's the combination
of colors and patterns throughout its body, its
proportions overall. How big is its tail
compared to its body, compared to its head, compared to its legs. All of these things
are important that we pay attention to and
even take notes on. If we want our final
piece to look like that type of word
that we're trying to portray in this photo. We can't see a large portion
of the bird's wings. The middle to lower part
of its wings is being covered by shadows and this branch that
is in front of it. And we know that a
bird's wings and also the feathers in its wings are quite important to understand. Wings and feathers not only distinguish birds
from other animals in the animal kingdom, but they also change
from bird to bird. So something that
I find incredibly helpful when something
like this happens where I feel that I'm lacking a certain amount of
important visual information is I look for other reference photos to
complement that main one. This photo here, e.g. is excellent because
I now can see what a sunken year looks like from
a different perspective. I can now see it in
more of a profile view. And I can see the full wing and all the feathers
present in the wing. You can also get a
better understanding of the animal's body
proportions, et cetera. So I want to encourage you whenever you feel it
might be helpful for you to look for extra
reference photos or maybe even watch videos so that you can get
a better understanding of that particular subtract
from different perspectives. Maybe even get a better idea of what it looks like
when it's movement, whatever material or
resources you feel might be helpful for you so that you
can inform your work better. Make time to collect
those references. If I didn't have this
reference photo present to see and to observe
throughout this process, I might very well forget about
important characteristics. I'm going to be drawing or painting things the
way that I think they look like and not what they actually look like in real life. And I can run the risk of this bird not actually
looking like a sun. It's also up to me to decide how much detail I want
to actually render and what specific techniques I'm
gonna be using with pen and ink and watercolor to
bring my style to life. So it's not just about taking a reference photo or
whatever it is that you have in front of you in real
life and trying to replicate a carbon copy of that, it provides a base for
you to jump off from, but you do have to bring in your critical thinking skills as an artist to think about what the toes you're
going to be bringing in, what you're gonna
be leaving out. What techniques and overall
process are going to lead to the effects on the
outcomes that you're after. In this course, we're
working on a pen and watercolor wash
mixed media piece. And there is a certain amount of simplification that has to come in in the editing process and also in the
watercolor process. Because if we overly
describe with both mediums, we can create a
piece that is just overdone when we're combining
two or more art mediums, we want to make sure
that we're balancing them out and using each mediums and using each medium's strengths so that they can play
off each other. If we overdo the detail
with both mediums, it's very likely
that at the end, our piece is going to
lack that freshness, that looseness and that level
of expression that we're usually going for
when we're creating pen and watercolor wash pieces. So as artists, we
have to bring in our critical thinking
skills to simplify what we're seeing in the
reference photo to a certain extent
while bringing in the specific characteristics for this type of bird that
we just took note of. So in other words, making sure that we're
bringing in what matters but simplifying
the rest and not being afraid to
remove the things that aren't as
important and not being afraid to change
certain things or use specific types
of lines or marks, or even make certain
colors brighter. If we want to, in order to bring more of
ourselves into the piece, different artists might choose different kinds of lines
and marks to describe those feathers or different alternative
shading techniques in order to develop some shadows throughout
the bird's body. Or they might even
decide to mute the colors and the bird because
it's part of their style. But as long as those major, most important
characteristics of sun can ears are brought in, then this will look
like a sunken year. Alright, that is
gonna do it, uh, for this class on observing
our reference photo, it is now time to move into our preliminary pencil sketch. I am so excited to jump
into that one with you. So whenever you're ready, I'll see you in the next one.
5. Pencil Sketch : Welcome, welcome. In this class we're
gonna be working on creating our preliminary
pencil sketch. It is incredibly important to take our time in
this first phase of the process because
this is the base and foundation for everything
that is coming up next. And if our proportions
and shapes are not believable
in our sketch, then no amount of
detail or shading or addition of color is going to make our bird look believable. We also want to make
sure that we're using our drawing area effectively so that we don't end up with a sketch
that is way too small, has tons of negative empty
space around the bird. And we also don't want
to make our bird sketch so large that part of
it will be cropped off. We want it to fit in
our watercolor paper. Alright, one quick tip that
I want to provide is if you feel that you're going to be erasing way too much on
your watercolor sheet, or you're afraid
that your sketch might end up being
a little bit messy. I would definitely work on my
sketch in a sketchbook and then do my transferring onto my sheet of
watercolor paper. You can use a tracing paper for your transferring or you're transferring method of choice. I'm going to sketch right
on my watercolor sheet because I have lots of
practice drawing birds. And I also have enough practice withdrawing lightly
so that I can erase my mistakes very easily
and I'm not scratching or damaging my watercolor
paper with a pointy pencil. But whenever I'm
going to be creating a preliminary sketch that
I'm going to be moving on to painting with watercolor
that involves a subject or an object
that maybe I haven't drawn before or is quite complex and requires very
specific proportions. I do sketch it somewhere else. Trace over my sketch with
tracing paper and do my transferring onto my
sheet of watercolor paper. A lot of people
seem to forget that you can use tracing
paper to trace over your sketches and not
just to trace over photos. I do this all the time
to make sure that I'm continuing to practice my
drawing and also my painting. And this is important
because we want to maintain our watercolor sheet clean and we don't
want to damage it with our pencil or
with too much erasing. Just as a reminder, if you do decide to go
down that route creating your sketch on a sketchbook and then doing
you're transferring. I do have a class on how to
use tracing paper for you're transferring in my
watercolor 101 course that I have here on Skillshare. Alright, so let's go
ahead and jump in. There are three things that I always make sure to do when I am creating my preliminary
pencil sketch doesn't matter what it
is that I am drawing. One of these things is
I always make sure to draw lightly so that I can
easily erase mistakes, refine my drawing
as I go so that I don't scratch or damaged
my watercolor paper. And so that I don't see my pencil work through
my paint at the end. Another thing I always made
sure to do is I always simplify what I am looking
at into simple shapes. The third thing that
I always make sure to do is I always work from general and make my way towards specifics by doing
these three things. I'm not only able to arrive at a cleaner looking scattering, also able to arrive at better proportions
and a better use of my drawing area using my
B grade drawing pencil. What I am starting out with
right here is actually the little branch that
the bird is sitting on. In this case, the branch really divides the bird
into two halves, or very close to two halves. So we can use this branch even though
it's at a slight angle. We can use it as a sort of visual guideline to
help us get the height, the total height of that
bird's body, right? Getting that height right, or the length of its Hill in relation to the upper part of its body is important
in order to get the bird's body
proportions right. So I find it helpful
to start there. I do my best to replicate
the angle of that branch that I see in the
reference photo to the best of my abilities. And as you see, I already
started incorporating some irregularity along
the edges of this French. Once the branches in, you're going to see me use
the envelope method to start drawing the body
shape of this bird. The envelope process is a method or technique that I
oftentimes share in my drawing or sketching tutorials that has
really helped me arrive at better proportions and shapes when
drawing freehand, all the envelope method is, is, I imagine a blocky envelope
shape around the entire bird. You can see how I
didn't try to go in and immediately start creating
perfect curves or shapes. Actually laying down
straighter lines and creating a blockier, more geometric E-type shape, which is referred
to as an envelope. After proportions look right. Then I go ahead and
refine this envelope and turn straight
lines into curves and add slight nuances along
those edges that I see in that reference photo
that I actually simplified out in
this first part of the sketching process. But first, I am focusing on
the general largest shape. I'm tuning out all the details. I am simplifying everything
as much as possible in order to focus first
on getting proportions, right, I am just
noticing major angles present in order to arrive
at that big envelope shape. Once that big shape and that
envelope looks good to me. And I have compared the total height of
the envelope as well as the widths of the head
section, the body section, and the tail section with the bird in that
reference photo, it's time to start adding in the medium-sized shapes
and smaller details inside of this envelope
and continue doing any refinements that need
to get done with this one. I started with the bird's head. I added in the beak
and I also added in the eye observing that
reference photo very closely. And I would recommend doing a zoom in to that
reference photo, observing the birds had very closely when
you're adding in. And the eye makes sure that the total width and
height of the beak, the angles created by the beak, the shape of the beak are recreated as best as
possible in your sketch. Because as I said before, different birds have
different types of beaks. And if you want
this to look like a sun collinear than it is very important that we get
the characteristics for this particular bird's beak, right in our sketch. And the same thing
goes with the, I. Notice the location
of the eye inside of that head shape in
that reference photo, notice the distance
between the top edge of the bird's eye and the top
edge of the bird's head, the bird's eye and the back of its head and the bird's eye and that back edge of its beak and try to get it in that location. Also notice the size
of the bird's eye. This is something that I often struggle with two of the day, if the size of your eye is
a little bit too large, it might end up looking
like a cartoon bird, but you don't want it to be
too small either because that also is not going to be right when it comes
to proportions, right here you're gonna
see me start adding in the tail feathers for the tail feathers because
these are longer, larger feathers, I did count them in that
reference photo. Made sure to add in that amount
of feathers in my sketch. When it comes to the
smaller feathers though, I didn't count them. Notice how I've already divided
that tail shape into to have a left and a right
half with a vertical line. It's not a perfect
vertical line, but it helps me divide that larger tail shape
into two-halves. Once that has been
divided into two halves, I then divide this shape
again into halves, but now into top and
bottom halves by adding in those curves created
by the middle feathers. So I actually observe that bird's tail in that
reference photo. And I noticed that R5 long
feathers in each side, five large overlapping feathers throughout the
length of that tail. And what I do to simplify the process for myself
is I start with the middle feather
because then once I get back curve for the
middle feathers in, I have divided that large
tail shape into two sections. And I know that two more
feathers have to fit on top of that curve and two more feathers have to fit below that curve. So dividing things in halves, whether it's a top
and bottom half or left and right half, is always very helpful. I do try to incorporate some irregularity and imperfection throughout
Lewis tails. If I get in all of those
shapes in a super perfect, straight organized pattern and equal distance from each other. Way. It's not going to
look very natural. It's going to lead to
a very stiff look. And that's not something
that I'm after. I finish up with the
tail by adding in that last long tail
feather at the bottom. That is all by itself. And I do end up doing some
refinements in the tail. I decide that my shape is
too straight into perfect, and I decide to make
it a little bit more curved or more at an angle. And this is again, to stay away from stiffness. What I move on to next
is I start dividing a beak shape into top
and bottom sections. I observe that very dark shape, negative little shape in-between the beak sections and try to replicate that in
my sketch as I am separating out the top
and bottom sections, you can see me add a little bit more height
into the bird's beak there to make it more
similar to what I'm seeing in that reference
photo right here. I'm going to work on
some refinements in the bird's head and also in
the shapes of its wings. I continue comparing my sketch to that reference
photo and really noticing if any
changes need to be made in my sketch
before moving forward. And I'm going to start
adding in the bird's eye. To add in the bird's eye really zoomed in to
that reference photo. And I am observing that
I very, very closely. I added in the shape
of the birds pupil. So the black circle in the eye, and I also start adding in a little bit of an indication of that tear line that birds
have around the eye. That is a section that
at the end I want to make look like it's
an off-white color. So I'm starting to incorporate that very important shape
around the eye into my sketch. Another thing that you're
going to see me add in just a bit our little
highlight shapes inside of the pupil. You can see those
bright white highlights in the eyeball in
that reference photo. And those highlights
are going to be very, very important that we
incorporate into our artwork. Highlights are super-important
to incorporate into animal drawings or
paintings because they really make the
animal come to life. Notice how at this point
I'm also starting to add in a little bit
of a feather texture like flyaway feathers coming out along the edges
of the bird's body. And then I move on to adding in the only thing that I'm missing really for
the bird's body, which are the little
feet and claws. So even when it
comes to the clause, which are very small shapes, I simplify everything
as much as possible. Notice how I add
in the clause as just one single line initially, and then I close that nail or claw shape by going in
with a simple curve, I'm making sure that the length of the claw
is what I want it to be and the curve is what I want it to be before
turning that into a shape, when I draw the little
birds feet and clause, I'm really focusing on making
sure that these shapes are not too big and
not too small when I compare them to the
rest of the bird's body, if I make them too big, calling too much of the viewers
attention towards them. And I definitely don't want the little feet to be
the central point or to distract away from
the beautiful parts of the bird's body, which are the feathers and
the colors and all that. So make sure to
keep proportions in mind when you're adding
in the little birds feet. What I move on to next
is I start adding in the feathers in
the bird's wings. Inside of their wings they have different types of feathers. I just simplify the wing
into three sections. In the top section you see
shorter or smaller feathers. In the middle section, you have a medium feathers, and in the lower
portion of the wing there are longer feathers, which we could very
clearly see in that extra reference
photo that I shared in the previous class, even though it's not
necessary to get in every single feather present in that reference photo
in your sketch. You really wanna make
sure that you are observing how those feathers change in terms of shape and size throughout
the bird's wings. So that in your sketch, you can represent that with different shapes to the
best of your abilities. Really notice how
these feathers are overlapping on top of
each other as well. And make sure that the shapes
and lines that you add into your sketch transmit
that overlapping. Once I have added
in those feathers, in one of the bird's wings. And I'm happy with
how they're looking. And I think they're a
good representation or interpretation of what I
am seeing in that photo. I go ahead and mirror those shapes and lines that
I've created in that wing. On the other wing, there can be slight imperfections
and irregularities. And in fact, I would recommend
that those shapes are not incredibly perfect
because that would also, again lead to things looking
very unnatural and stiff. But to create that
mirrored or flipped object or sensation for these
shapes in this other wing. After I've added in those feather shapes
and the bird's wings, you can see how I am now moving on to adding
a little bit more of those flyaway feathers coming out of the edges of
the bird's body. And a few little indications of feathers here and
there throughout its chest and head and belly. Even though later I'm
going to be adding more little feather textures
with my pen and ink. And I might even decide to ignore some of these
lines that I am adding in with my pencil at this point by adding them in
with pencil first, I am already deciding shapes, some lines I'm going to be
using with my pen and ink later in order to describe those feathers
throughout the bird's body, It's very important
that when we go in with pen and ink that we
know what we're doing. We know exactly what types
of shapes or lines or marks we're gonna be using to describe the different feathers throughout the bird's body. So going in and adding those shapes and lines
and marks in with pencil first helps us visualize what
those blinds and shapes and marks are going to
look like later on so that we can decide if
that's what we want or not. Go in and add that middle line in the
tail feathers as well. I'm also start adding in lines and marks throughout
that little tree branch. They're going to help me start describing that wood texture. And same thing goes
for the branch. I add in those lines and
marks to help me start understanding what
lines and marks I'm going to bring in
with my pen and ink. And I'm definitely going to be adding more with my pen and ink later on than what
I add with my pencil. But this helps me visualize what specific lines and
marks I'm gonna be using. And if I liked them or I
want to change something. After doing this, I'm
gonna be adding just a, a few more lines and marks for feather textures throughout
the bird's body. And just make sure
that everything is exactly how I want it. And then I have a
pretty good idea of how I'm going to be moving forward with the pen and ink process. A lot of beginners
rushed through this preliminary
sketching process and I want to encourage you to spend as long as you
need to on it because this is the base and
the foundation for everything that is
coming up next. If proportions, shapes, and
everything don't look good, no amount of detail and
color is going to fix this. I go ahead and lighten
my sketch with my kneaded eraser by just doing some gentle tapping
over that graphite. This is an order to remove any excess graphite that
might be floating around on my paper that might
create smudging and that might muddy
up my vibrant color. Alright friends. And with that,
we're all done with this class and we're
ready to move into the next in which I'm going to
be explaining how to draw different types of feathers
using pen and ink. This is going to
be great practice that I don't recommend
skipping over because it's going to help
us be much more successful in the next larger
phase of this process, which is going to be
the pen and ink phase. Whenever you're ready, see
you in the next class.
6. How to Draw Feathers With Pen and Ink: Hey there and welcome
to this class where we're gonna be practicing
these specific shapes and mark making techniques
that we're gonna be using to draw our different
feathers with pen and ink. It makes a huge difference
when you have a strategy, when you know exactly what techniques are gonna
be using throughout the drawing or the painting
process because you're able to go in more confidently. And this definitely shows
in the final piece, especially when we're
working with pen and ink, we want to know what
we're doing because pen and ink is a
permanent medium, we're not going to be able
to erase our mistakes. And not to mention through getting this warm-up
and this practice in, before getting started with our pen and ink worked
in the final piece because we're able to go in more confidently and more swiftly, were able to arrive at a better line weight
variation in our drawing, which is going to look
a lot more dynamic, a lot more interesting. And we're going to be
able to stay away from heaviness, flatness,
and stiffness. I'll be delving deeper into
line weight variation, what it is, how to arrive at a better line weight
variation in the next class. But for now, let's
jump into our planning and our exercises for all
of these different shapes, lines, and marks that
we're gonna be using to describe the different feathers throughout the bird's body. Alright, so in the next
part of the process, which is going to be
the pen and ink phase, we're definitely
going to be using different mark making
techniques and shapes to add in texture
into the tree branch, into the skin, in the bird's little feet and
claws into the eye, et cetera. However, when it comes to birds, knowing how to draw feathers
is incredibly important. It's one of the main
characteristics that set this type of animal apart from others
in the animal kingdom. And in my opinion, when it comes to drawing
birds or even painting birds, being able to describe feathers, they're different shapes,
how they overlap, the visual textures
they create, etc. is perhaps the most
challenging thing behind drawing or
painting a bird. So this is why I wanted to
add in this extra class. And you can certainly take this information and
these exercises with you to any bird drawing that you may wish to
work on in the future. So what I want you to observe
right now in this photo are the different types of feathers throughout
this bird's body. How many different types of feathers does it
have noticed and separate out the
different types of feathers considering
their shape, considering their
size or length. And you can even consider their texture or their color
for this particular bird. On screen right now I see at least five different
kinds of feathers. We have shorter feathers in the bird's head and
chest and belly area. We have three different types of feathers in the bird's wings, and then we have the
longer tail feathers on the wings are partially
covered by this branch here. But I'm able to see that the smaller or
shorter feathers and the upper part of the
bird's wing are different from the feathers in the
middle section of the wind. And those feathers located in the middle section of the
wing are different from the longer feathers
which are located in the middle to lower
portions of the wings, we can definitely
see those longer, lower feathers in
the wings better in the second photo that
I shared with you before. Alright, so let's jump into our prep and practice work here. I'm going to make sure to use the exact same pen that I am planning on using
for my final piece. I want to start
getting used to it. I want to know how it works. And it's also a
great opportunity to just check that it
has enough ink. It's not going to
run out throughout the next large important
part of this process. So I take a scrap piece of paper and it doesn't even have
to be watercolor paper. It can be any paper you want. You can see that this
paper that I'm doing, these practice little
drills and is way more textured than the paper that I'm using for
my final piece. And this is just because it's the first scrap
piece of paper that I grabbed that I
had in my studio. And I am practicing all
of these different types, lines and marks and
shapes that I'm gonna be using to describe the
feathers in the bird. So if you took time on your preliminary pencil
sketch and really observe that reference photo and
you're already going to have a pretty good idea of
what shapes, lines, and mark making techniques could be helpful
when it comes to drawing these feathers with
pen and ink for my smallest, teeny tiny feathers,
I'm just going to be using tapered strokes. So single tapered lines going down and slightly
curving off in different directions
and overlapping in different ways to create a tapered lines with
your drawing pen, you wanna do a quick flicking
motion with your wrist. This is going to help
you make that base, that root of that feather a little bit thicker and
darker and it's going to become lighter and
thinner as you move away from that root and
that base of that feather, it's gonna become
thinner and thinner. At the end, I'm gonna be
using these teeny tiny marks in the bird's
head and for flyaway, little feathers
along the edges of its body and other places
throughout its body, where I want to add
in a subtle hint. Feather texture, but
maybe I don't want to go all out and draw
an entire feather. The second type of
mark making that I'm gonna be using for
the feathers is for the short feathers
that you can very easily see in the bird's chest and belly in that
reference photo, they end in a type of wide
curve like the smile almost, but there is a lot of irregularity
throughout that curve. It's not a smooth curve. The sections of that feather kind of separate
out a little bit. And this is why I added in those very irregular marks along the edge of
that slight curve. And finally, there is this shape that I'm
gonna be using for the bigger feathers in the
wings and the tail feathers. And this I see as more of a shape even though
it's not closed. Many of these feathers have that visible shaft or
line down the middle. And I'll be adding this shape in different sizes depending on the feather that I'm drawing. When it comes to drawing
and painting feathers, it's very important to have in mind where the root or
base of that feather is, the direction that it
is growing towards. You want to make
sure that the lines and the marks that
you are creating are communicating that direction that the feather is
growing out towards you. And one other thing
that I want to mention is especially when drawing these longer feathers
in the wings and the tail, makes sure that you're overlapping of your
shapes. Make sense. Observe that reference photo. Zoom in and really
pay attention to what is happening
with those feathers, which feathers are overlapping, which makes sure
that the shapes that you have drawn in pencil and the previous phase
makes sense before you go in and start tracing
over them with ink, pay attention to which edges of your shapes are being
covered by other feathers. And finally, even
though I'm not going to be developing a wide range of values using alternative
shading techniques because I'm gonna be bringing in watercolor
and I'm gonna be developing some
values with paint. And I definitely don't
want to overly describe or overdo it with the detail that I add in with
my pen and ink. If I'm gonna be bringing
in another medium, I am going to be
using a little bit of hatching to darken
certain areas, but I'm going to do
so very minimally. But all I'm going to
be bringing in for very dark shadow
areas is hatching. All hatching is is laying
down parallel lines side-by-side in order
to cover up some of that brightness of the paper
and develop a darker value. These parallel
lines can be going off in any direction, any angle, as long as the lines are
parallel and they have a consistency in
that group of lines. The closer your lines are drawn, the more paper you're
going to be covering up, which means you're gonna be
developing a darker value. The wider the spaces you
leave in-between your lines, the more paper is gonna
be left shining through, which leads to a lighter value. These are usually the
different types of shapes and mark making techniques
that I personally like bringing into pen and
ink drawings of birds. Feel free to use these
in your own pen and ink drawings or come up with
your own shapes and mark making techniques are
going to help you describe those different feathers
in a way that you enjoy. Always paying attention to
the information present in your reference photo
or whatever it is that you have in front
of you in real life. Especially whenever you're going for mid to higher
levels of realism. That is gonna do it, uh, for this planning
and prep class, I really hope that
you found it helpful and I want to
encourage you to spend as much time as you
need practicing all of these different
techniques before moving onto the next class. And whenever you're ready,
I'll see you there.
7. Pen and Ink Drawing: Hey there and welcome to this
class where we're gonna be working on the pen and
ink drawing process in this final piece. So if you've been
following along with this course at this point, you already have your
preliminary pencil sketch ready to go showing believable
proportions and shapes. And you've also planned and practiced the specific
lines, shapes, and mark making
techniques that you're going to be bringing in
with your pen and ink, especially those that are gonna be used to draw the feathers. I'm going to walk you through my entire pen and
ink process here and explain all of the key things that helped me arrive
accurate results. So what I'm doing right
here is I am starting to trace over my pencil work, noticing the highlights
in that reference photo. I am drawing in those shapes and I am going to start
filling up the pupil, which is that dark circle
in the bird's eye, making sure that I
am working around those highlight areas
where I want to leave that paper
shining through, standing in place
for my highlights. After I filled in
that pupil shape, I'm going to go ahead
and start adding in the tear line around the eye. And notice how I didn't create a perfect outline circle around the eye or
anything like that. I just hinted at that
tear line by adding in a couple of lines around some
sections of the eyeball. If I go in and trace a perfect
ring around that eyeball, that is going to
look very cartoony. So I avoided this by just
tackling that tear line with a couple of imperfect lines to hint at that tear line shape. I've zoomed into that eye area in my reference photo
and notice where the thickest points
and that tear line were when seeing the bird
from this perspective. That's where I added
in those lines. And then I went ahead
and added in that off white shape that I'm going to be developing around
the bird's eye, which is a very
important characteristic for this type of bird. Notice how I approached tracing that shape around
the eye in sections. In some sections, those lines
are not even connected. And I am doing this on
purpose in order to stay away from that cartoon
or coloring book page, thick outline kind of look. That leads to a lot of flatness. And through tackling
the tracing over my graphite work in sections and keeping it
moving, keeping it flowing. I'm making sure to develop more line weight variation
throughout my drawing, meaning certain sections of my lines and marks look
thinner and lighter. And other sections of my lines
and marks look thicker and darker after the I
tackled that beak. And you can see how
I used hatching short little parallel
lines that are very close together to develop
that very dark value that I see in that reference
photo inside of that beak. Then I continued doing my line work around
the bird's head. Notice how I started
incorporating those flicking marks
in some sections of those edges around
the bird's head to start describing
that feather texture, irregular edges are very important when you are
drawing or painting textures. And I'm making my
way downwards from, they're really trying to
avoid touching any of this work that I've done in
order to avoid any smudging, I've started adding in some of those lines and marks
that I have chosen for the shorter feathers in the bird's head and
chest and belly. And I'm also starting
to trace over the larger feathers
and the bird's wings. You're gonna notice that I am bringing in some extra marks and shapes for my feathers
that I didn't actually pencil in before. And in other cases, I am ignoring the pencil
work that I've done. As I continue drawing these
longer feathers in the wings, I am really being very careful and observing
that reference photo, understanding which feathers
on top of which feather, because I don't want
to start trying any edges of feathers
that really shouldn't be visible that I wouldn't be
able to see because it's actually being overlapped
by another Feather. Be careful with that when
you are using pen and ink because you're not gonna
be able to erase that. Also notice like curves that are happening
in those feathers. Those slight curves
are very important to integrate into our drawing so that we can stay
away from stiffness. Notice how I am keeping it
moving, keeping it flowing. I am embracing imperfections
and I'm not trying to go in and fix everything that
doesn't turn out perfectly. I know that if I
try to go in and fix every little imperfection, I'm probably just
going to end up making that very stiff or
more noticeable. I'm continuing to jump
around the entire piece and never spent too long
in any single area. I'm bringing in some more extra little teeny
tiny feathers with those tapered short strokes around the eye and
along the head. I'm keeping the feathers
that I add into the head smaller so that they don't distract away from the
bird's eye and beak. I want the bird's
eye and beak to be the main things
in the bird's head. And if I add way
too many feathers, especially near the
eye and the beak, I run the risk of the eye and the beak getting lost
and all that detail. So it's always very
important as you're adding in these feathers
it take a step back and see the entire piece
as a whole and asked yourself if more detail
is actually necessary. Oftentimes, less is more. And remember that we're
bringing in another medium. In this case, we're
bringing in watercolor when you're creating a mixed media
piece like we are today, and you're combining two or
more different art mediums. You don't want to do too
much with any of them. You have to think of a balance that you're
gonna be creating with the two mediums so
that they can truly shine. And so we stay away from overly describing
our subject here. As I am continuing with
my pen and ink work, I am making sure to keep it
moving, keep it flowing. I know that if I am
overly meticulous or overly perfectionistic and
start working way too slowly. My lines are probably
going to end up looking very stiff and very
heavy for night, can even create stop
and start marks throughout those lines that
I definitely don't want. So by working a little
bit more quickly, I am ensuring that again, there's line weight variation
in my lines and marks. And it's going to look way
more dynamic, way more flowy. At the end. I'd much rather have imperfections throughout
my lines and marks, but have them look lighter
and more dynamic than to have very perfect lines
that lead to stiffness. You develop line weight
variation by making use of mainly for
different variables, these four variables that
you want to keep paying attention to when you're
drawing with pen and ink, or the pressure that you're
exerting on your pen, the angle that you're
using your pen in, the speed that you're moving
your hand and arm West, and of course the pen tip size as well is going to
have an impact on your line weight to
take note of how buy you shifting and changing
these four things, you develop thicker
lines are thinner lines, and it all has to do
with how much ink is able to flow down that tip of
that pen as you're drawing. Just like when you're
drawing with pencil, you never want to use
your drawing tool just in one single way with
one single grip, one single angle,
one single speed, you gain mastery over
your drawing tool and you shift and change
the way that you're using your drawing tool depending
on what it is that you're doing in that given point in
time in the drawing process. And depending on the
effects that you're after. After I've added in those
lines and marks that I have created for describing that
wood texture in the branch, you're going to see me
start to do some hatching, especially along the
lower edge of the branch. This is going to
help me round out the branch a little bit more, enhance that sensation
of shadow in that lower portion of this
cylindrical structure. I also added in some short tapered lines in that section in the top
of the bird's tail. And you're going to see
me go in with more marks, especially along the middle vein of these long tail feathers. Notice how those are
not straight lines but irregular marks that
I am very quickly adding on top of that weaker middle line that I had already created
for that middle vein. And I'm going in here
with more hatching. Some sections where those
feathers are overlapping on top of other
feathers and creating a shadow on the
feather below it. I'm observing that reference
photo and noticing deepest, darkest shadow areas
that I maybe want to push a little bit
more with hatching. I add in some quick hatching in some sections in
the birds feet that would have shadows
in them and also along the inner
edges of its wings. Alright, I'm almost done with my pen and
ink process here. And I'm just seeing everything
as a whole at this point. Noticing where I want to add in some final details and
really asking myself, what kind of line or Mark or shape should I be
adding into this area? If I am looking to
add in more detail, what am I trying to describe? Is it a texter? If so, do I want to add in teeny tiny feathers or is it larger feathers that
I want to add in two, I want to describe a values, meaning do I want to add shadows and just
certain sections? And in this case I am
sticking with hatching, which is a technique
that I chose for my alternative shading, e.g. right here I'm adding
some hatching to develop a shadow effect along some
sections of the bird's beak. So in this case, it's value that I'm trying
to develop, not texture, but I continue to come
back and see everything as a whole to make sure that
I'm not doing too much, but I'm not overly describing
or overworking my piece. Alright, I'm pretty happy with
how everything is looking. And I allowed everything
to dry completely, which the ink in these pigment liners from
stabbed or dries pretty fast. I've never had an
issue with smudging, but makes sure that everything
has completely dried. You might want to wait for five, 10 min to make sure that all of that ink is
completely bone dry. But what I'm doing
right here is I used my soft eraser to go in and erase out all of my graphite work from
under that pen and ink. And this is important to do at this point if
you're gonna do it, because once you have
painted over your drawing, you're not gonna be
able to erase it. You've probably noticed
that when I do any erasing, instead of using my hand to
dust off those eraser bits, I use my absorbent
towel that I'm gonna be using for my watercolor
painting process, which is of course completely
dry by this point. But this is helpful
because if I use my hand to desktop
those eraser bits, I can run the risk
of leaving oils on my watercolor paper or
graphite that I have under my hand or lotion or
anything like that. And that can certainly
affect the way that my watercolor paint
settles into the paper. It gets absorbed into
the paper and you can be left with splotchy
***** or moneyness. Alright, we're all
done with the pen and ink part of this process. I am excited to move into
our watercolor washes. But first, I'm gonna be
sharing an extra class. What we're gonna be working on, planning and preparing
the specific pink colors that we're going
to be bringing in, as well as preparing our
first color mixtures. Whenever you're ready,
I'll see you in the next.
8. Planning Colors and Preparing Paint Mixtures: Hey, and welcome to this class where I'm gonna
be taking you through how I plan my
specific pink colors that I'm gonna be using
a for the piece on hand, as well as how I prepare my first color mixtures
that are going to help me get started
on the right foot, color plays such an
important role behind making a visual composition
look harmonious and cohesive. And if we jumped in without having given thought
to what colors we're going to be bringing in
in order to develop not only a variety in hue
throughout our piece, but also perhaps even
different values throughout or peace in order to create different light and
shadow effects, it's highly likely
that our final result is not going to look very
cohesive and well-integrated, but also along the way, we can run into trouble
creating colors that we don't want or
even muddy colors. So I highly, highly
recommend going through this process of
planning your colors, swatching out your colors, maybe even trying out what different colors will
look like together when mixed. If you're planning on mixing
them in your final piece and taking five to 10 min
to do this prep work, especially if you're just
getting started with painting, because it's going to make your painting process
go a lot more smoothly and it's
going to help ensure a much better final result. So here's what I personally
like doing before jumping into any
painting process. As you can see, I do have one of my scrap pieces of
watercolor paper on hand right here so
that I can swatch out all of these color
mixtures for myself, but also for you, so that you can see what these
colors look like on paper. And you can choose
whichever colors you have that are most similar to the ones that I'm
gonna be using. I do want to remind you
that you don't need to use these exact
same pain colors. As long as you use
something that is similar, you're going to arrive
at great results as I move along choosing
my different colors. I am constantly observing
my reference photo. I am getting ideas for the
hues that I am bringing in based on the colors that I see throughout
this bird's body. This said, I am certainly taking artistic liberties
and making some of these colors brighter
and lighter. This all comes
back to what I was talking about in one of
our previous classes, where I was explaining
how if we want this to look like a sun
collinear at the end, we want it to look believable than we do have to
make sure to bring in those most important
characteristics into our artwork. But we shouldn't be afraid bringing in our artistic
license and changing things up if we're looking
to bring in more of our style or to change
the mood of the piece. Because in this photo, there is a certain level
of darkness and I want my final piece to be
happier, to be brighter. So the main colors
that I see throughout this bird are yellow, yellow, orange, orange, red, and a very dark cool
blue in the tail, almost a grayish
blue, of course, are also the neutral as
the grays and browns present in the
little birds beak I, the branch and also its feet. I'm going to be creating a
vignette style background. And I'm going to change the
color of the background from this very dark grayish
color to blue. I'm going to be creating
my warm color mixtures on this left portion
of my mixing area. And for my cool color mixtures, I'm gonna be using
the right side of my mixing area that I'm
going to be creating, my brown color mixtures in the upper portion of
this mixing palette, which is actually
the back of the lid. I'm using my size ten
round brush to prepare my different colour
mixtures because it's a very comfortable size two, take that paint from
my wells and bring that paint out into
the mixing area. You can see how I'm
taking a little bit of water at a time
from my container. I'm bringing that
water into my paint, struggling my
paintbrush in my paint, and bringing a little bit
of paint at a time into these mixing areas and
repeating that process over and over until the color
is what I need and also the consistency of
my color mixture is where I need it to be. I'm going for a coffee to
milk like consistency here. So around 50% water, 50% paint. And I'm making sure to
clean out my paintbrush, bristles in-between
my different colors so that I don't
contaminate the next. It's very helpful to keep your
warm colors separate from your cool colors because if
they start mixing together, vacant, start
getting desaturated, or you can start
creating browns. And for this piece
we're looking for very bright, vibrant colors. Alright, so right here
in this left section, the first little puddle
of color there is pyrrole red with water added in. After creating my little
puddle of pyrrole red, I created a little puddle
of new gamboge and water. New gamboge is a warmer
yellow that goes more towards the orange
or mustard each side. Orange in the corner is
a mixture of pyrrole, red and new gamboge. And finally on top
of the new gamboge, I prepared a cool
yellow and that's Hansa Yellow Light
with water added in. You can see the difference
between the new gamboge, which is a warmer yellow, and the hansa yellow light, which is a cooler yellow. And I wanted to bring
in both yellows because I see warmer
yellow areas in the bird and cooler
yellow areas in the bird on the right
side of my mixing area, I am preparing my cool colors. So first I made a little puddle of phthalo blue plus water. Then I created a mixture of
phthalo blue plus undersea green so that I could
have a blue-green color. And finally at the bottom, I mixed together a fellow
blue and neutral tint so that I could
have a very dark, deep rich blue for very
dark shadow areas in the bird's tail and other deeper shadow areas that I might want to develop
as an painting. I'm also going to be using this dark blue color mixture
to paint my sky. Only. I'm going to be using it in a very watered-down state
so that it looks lighter. Hello, blue is an unnatural
blue for the sky. So by adding in just
a little bit of neutral tint or even
a Payne's gray, you can mute that bright
blue down a little bit. And especially if you use it
in a more water downstate, it can look like a very
nice blue for a sky case. I'm going to swatch
out these colors for you before moving into the browns that I'm
going to be creating for the branch on the top left, I have new gamboge below that. I have my hands a yellow
light to the right of that. I have my orange, which I created by
mixing together my pyro scarlet and
my new gamboge. Below that, I have plain pyro scarlet with
water added in. For my cool colors, I have my plane, phthalo blue with
water added in. My mixture of fatal blue
plus undersea green. And finally, my fellow
blue with neutral tint. You can see how dark it looks. It looks beautiful,
almost like an indigo, because I'm also
going to be using this darker blue for
my sky behind my bird. I make sure to test out what
this darker blue looks like. It's more watered-down
translucent state. So all I'm doing is I'm going in with some water and
my paintbrush and I'm doing a little bit of pulling
of that pigment out to get an idea of how this looks
when it's most watered down. Over here in this other
mixing area, in this palette, I'm gonna be preparing
my two browns, my lighter brown and my
darker brown that I'm gonna be using to paint
in the little branch. So my lighter golden brown is plain yellow ocher
with water added in to the right of this puddle. I'm gonna be preparing a puddle
of lane burnt umber with water added in by preparing
to different browns, a lighter brown and
a darker brown. I know that I am
setting myself up for success to be able to develop a sense of dimension in that brand because
I'm gonna be able to develop different
Brown values in light and shadow areas. I'm going to test these
out for you right here so that you can see what
they look like on paper. And with these last
two colors, ready, I am ready to get started
with the painting process. Now, the paint that I have
in my mixing areas is by no means all of the
paint that I'm gonna be using throughout
this painting process, I'm gonna be making
more as I go, maybe even altering
the ratios of the colors in my color mixtures that have two different
colors in them. Adding more water
into color mixtures. If I need to use that color in a more translucent, pale state, more paint into my color
mixtures if I need to make them darker and more
saturated, et cetera. But I'm going to
make sure to only use these colors
that I have planned. Alright, so with all this done, we're now ready to
get started with our bright watercolor
washes before jumping in, make sure to change your
water and once you're ready, go ahead and join me
in the next class. See you there.
9. Watercolor Washes: Bird and Branch: Hello and welcome to this class where we're finally
going to be working on bringing our piece to
live through adding bright, vibrant
watercolor washes. I've separated this last part of a process into two classes. In this first part, we're gonna be working on our
washes inside of the bird. And we're also going
to be painting in the branch and in
our next class, which is the final
class in this course, we're gonna be
working on creating a beautiful vignette
style background and also painting
in final details. I want to encourage
you to embrace the irregular organic effects
that watercolor creates. Don't try to go in and fix every little single texture
that happens that you weren't intending to create
because this is going to lead to
overworked results and to flatten us the
less moving around of paint that you do after
it's been placed on paper, the better your
piece is going to be at the end and the fresher it'll look also as you're moving along in your
painting process, having to create more of your
different colour mixtures. Make sure that you're
setting yourself up for success and
creating nice, juicy puddles that have both a good amount of water
in them and a good amount of paint in them so
that you can load up your paintbrush well
and paint quickly. And finally, always remember that when we're
painting with watercolor, we are using the whiteness and the brightness of the paper, as well as the mediums
translucency to create lighter value
areas and highlights. When we're painting
with watercolor, there is no need to bring
in white paint because the whiteness of the paper stands in place for
our highlights. So whenever you're trying to
give something to mention, you're trying to create a
sense of light and shadow. It is very important to incorporate the paper
as part of the piece. Notice right here
in this picture how that top of that beak has that highlight area
where the paper is shining through and there is a very small amount
of pigment there. And I also incorporated
little teeny, tiny sections of paper that I left unpainted all throughout the bird to create little highlights,
shapes, and effects. If you're looking for a more in-depth explanation
about This mediums characteristics that you should
definitely know about in order to advance your
skills much faster. And you're looking for specific
exercises on developing your water control and using different paint consistencies to develop different values, I would highly
recommend checking out my watercolor 101 course
here on Skillshare. So with all this said, let's go ahead and jump
into our printing process. So after having prepared
my initial color mixtures, I went ahead and
changed my water because my water was
already pretty murky and I want to make
sure to start with a container that has clean water in it with my size ten and my size three brush in my hand, I'm going to get started
with my painting process. Here you can see me prepare
my size ten paintbrush, which is what I'm going to
be going in with initially, I take a few seconds to observe my reference
photo before jumping. And I noticed the
different colors in the different parts
of the bird's body. So I'm going to get started with the head and I'm
gonna make my way down to the chest
and the belly area. So focusing on the colors that I see in the head and
the chest and the belly. These are the warmer colors, the yellows, the
oranges, the reds. So I always got started with the lightest color of the bunch, which is in this case a yellow. And I mostly see warmer yellow hues throughout these parts of the bird's body. And the cooler yellow is mostly
at the top of its wings. So I'm going in with a warmer
yellow, the new gamboge. And you're going to see
me make my way down working quickly because
I'm working wet on dry, which means that the
paper is going to start drying pretty fast. And if I work too slowly
than I can be left with sharp defined edges around the shapes
that I'm painting in. And I don't want that to happen, so I have to keep it moving. I also have to work pretty
quickly because I want nice soft transitions,
my different colors. And in order for this to happen, I need to drop in
my second color on top of that initial layer of color while it's still wet, otherwise, that second
color is not going to expand into that
previous color. So I'm using my warm
yellow as a sort of base hue that I am making my way down the
bird's body width as a first layer of
paint, if you will. And wherever in the
bird's body I want to drop in red or orange, like a rounded speak or I, or in certain sections
of its belly, I go ahead and drop in that
second color on top of that. New gamboge, warm yellow
while it's still wet. Once I get to the midway
point in the bird's belly, I started using more
of the orange that I created by mixing
together the pyro scarlet and the new gamboge and continuing to quickly
make my way down and wherever it is
that I want to add in a second color
on top so that, that second color creates a nice soft transitions
into that lighter orange. I go ahead and drop it in while that light
orange is still wet. When you get to that point
that is super close to the birds little
feet and clause. You might want to change to
your smaller paintbrush in order to have a little
bit more control as you're doing your painting, everything is still
pretty wet and workable for me at this point. So I take advantage
of the fact that I can still do a little
bit more work before my paper starts
to dry and I drop in a little bit more
color here and there. If you have to do
any lifting and any areas that maybe you
dropped in way too much color or things are looking
a little bit too flat and you want to remove
a little bit of color to reveal more of that paper underneath to add dimension
back into that area. You can also go ahead
and do that with either the clean and
slightly damp bristles of your paintbrush or with your absorbent towel
just makes sure that your paint is still wet so that you can do
you're lifting. Once I'm done with
painting the bird's belly, I go ahead and paint in
the top part of its tail. And for this, I use
a red orange that I create by simply bringing
in a little bit more of my spiral scarlet into
my orange color mixture right here you're
going to see me remove this red orange for my
paintbrush bristles. And I'm going in with a clean and slightly
down paintbrush to do a little bit of lifting along the edges of this upper portion
of the bird's tail. I thought there was a little bit too much color in that area. Things were looking a
little bit too flat, so I removed some of that color. I used the clean and
slightly damp bristles of my paintbrush as a
little absorbent sponge. I am about to start
painting the bird's wings. But before that, I just
want to slow the video down just so that I can point out a couple
of things here. First of all, notice the range
of both color and value or translucency that I
was able to develop so far in this section
of the bird's body, I have some areas that
look like a light orange, other areas that looked
like a reddish orange, other areas that look red. And I also have some areas where that color appears paler
and more translucent, and other areas where that color appears darker and
more saturated. And this wide range of color and value or translucency
creates dimension, creates the sensation
of light and shadow throughout
the bird's body. And the second thing
that I want to point out is just like with my sketch, I am taking ideas from
that reference photo, but I'm not really
fussing about getting everything exactly the same
way that I see it there. I took those major clues as to what the main
colors of the bird are in these parts of its body and where I should
create transitions. But I balanced out using those colors with
working quickly and embracing the natural
organic effects that happen when I
paint with watercolor. And I did my best to allow that pain to do its own
thing and not go back in and try to get rid of all the little textures and effects that happened as I was
doing my painting and dropping in those
colors and everything. And I want to encourage
you to do the same. Hold yourself back from
unnecessarily going in and trying to get rid of these effects and
textures that happen. Because that is going
to make it a lot more likely that you're going
to flatten everything out. You're going to start overworking
your piece and you're not going to have
fresh looking results. So if you're gonna
go in and help that color move around after
you've placed it on paper, make sure that you're doing
it gently and minimally. Okay, it's time to
get started with painting in the bird's wings. So I removed all of those previous warm colors from my paintbrush bristles and still using my size
ten round brush and working from the top
and making my way down, I started with the
lightest color that I would be
using in the wings, which is my cooler yellow. So my Hansa Yellow Light is
what I am using initially. And with that, hence, a yellow light in, I started dropping in
some of my blue green. This is the blue-green
that I created by mixing together phthalo blue
and undersea green. Again, I am taking clues
from that reference photo, noticing where the
color transitions happen throughout
those wings and dropping in my color
of approximately in those areas where I see
those colors changing. You can see me here working
on the opposite wing. Once I painted in that hansa
yellow light at the top, I started painting
in the blue-green in the lower two-thirds
of the wing. And then I remove
that blue-green from my paintbrush
bristles and I dropped in a little bit more of
my Hansa Yellow Light in that transition
section by dropping in a little bit of that
hansa yellow light on top, while that blue, green and
the yellow we're still wet, I created a bright green
in-between the two colors. Alright, so I finished painting those top portions of the wings, and I still have to paint in those triangular
bottom sections. I paint in these lower parts of the wings with my blue green. Then I drop in a
little bit more of that blue-green woven
initial layer is still wet to darken little
shadow areas and create at least a little bit of
a variation in values, even within these
very small shapes at the ends of these wings, these shapes are way smaller
than the large body shape, but I would still recommend
working relatively quickly so that that paint
doesn't start drying on you. Especially if you're looking for those soft transitions between your colors and you want to stay away from lines that are created by those edges of
your shapes trying on you. Because we're working
on dry paper. Dry paper is very thirsty. So immediately that pain starts getting absorbed
into that paper, as opposed to when you do pre
wedding with clean water, which is what we're gonna be
doing with our background. We have a little bit
more working time when we have done pre wedding, but in this case, we want to keep it moving. And wherever you want to
drop in another color or create any merging
of two colors, make sure that you do it while that initial layer or that
initial color is still wet. Once I'm done there,
I get started with painting in the bird's tail. And the bird's tail is blue. Initially, I go
in with my plane, sale of blue and water
mixture and wall, that initial layer is still wet. I drop in some of my
darker blue that I created by mixing together
fallow blue and neutral tense. And I drop that into shadow areas right
below that bird's body. And in-between these
long tail feathers because I dropped in that darker blue while that initial lighter blue
layer was still wet, I'm getting these
nice soft transitions between my two blues. Once I added in
that darker blue in those shadows sections
that I wanted to darken. I immediately continued making my way down to make sure that that initial light blue
layer all throughout the tail feathers before that light blue edge at the
top started drawing on me. And once I made my way down
with that lighter blue and I covered up all of the
tail feather shapes. I then go ahead and drop
in a little bit more of my darker blue and shadow areas that I want to push
a little bit more. Now, if you turn this video
back just a few seconds to the moment where
I first started dropping in that darker blue, I immediately stopped what I was doing once I
dropped in some of my darker blue and remove that darker blue for my
paintbrush bristles. I noticed that that blue
looked way too dark, way to start and contrasting
against that lighter blue. So what I did when I noticed
that I was dropping in way too too much of
this darker blue color. I immediately remove
that color for my paintbrush bristles
and I went back in with just a damp paintbrush to absorb some of that color backup
and soften that dark blue by pulling it a little bit more into the lighter
blue areas and distributing that
very dark blue color among a larger area to
make it look softer. Right here you're
going to see me go in and do a little bit of lifting with my clean and
slightly damp paintbrush, once again, using the tip of my paintbrush as a
little absorbent sponge. So I am going to switch to
painting the bird's beak. So because the bird's beak is
a pretty small shape and I have to make sure to stay in control in this
very small shape. I switched on over to my
size three round brush. And the bird's beak is gray. So what I do is I add
more of my neutral tint into my fellow blue plus
neutral tint color mixture. Get it more towards
the gray side. Notice how I'm testing out this new color right
here on a scrap piece of watercolor paper to
make sure that it's the color that I need
before going in. And initially, I go in with just a teeny tiny
small amount of this gray in a very watered
down state that I am taking from the edge of my puddle layer so
that I can get in that initial light layer
making sure that I'm keeping highlight areas protect that especially in the upper
section of the beak. Taking clues from
that reference photo. Once this light gray
layer is in and I have a little highlight
there on top of the beak. I go ahead and take a little
bit more of this gray now from the center of the puddle so that
I can drop it in, in a more saturated state
to push darker areas, shadow areas within the beak. And this is again,
in order to develop a range of values in a range of translucency all throughout
this bird in order to create dimension in all these parts of its body to add light
and shadow effects, I did a little bit of lifting to pull up some excess paint. And notice how I'm using
my absorbent towel. I have it right there with
me that I can stay on top of water control in
these very small shapes. And taking advantage of the fact that I have
my smallest paintbrush in my hand and I've already created this gray color mixture. I go ahead and paint in a teeny
tiny bit of this color in a very watered-down
pale state in the inner corner of that off white shape around
the bird's eye. I made sure to test
out this gray on my scrap piece of
watercolor paper to make sure that it was super, super light and water
down and translucent, especially for that
shape around the eye that I want to make
look white at the end, if I go in with a very dark gray or I paint in a lot of
gray in this shape. This shape is going to end up
looking gray and not white. And the third thing
that I'm going to paint in with this gray are of course, the little birds feet. Even in the birds feet, I want to make sure that I have some lighter gray areas and
some darker gray areas. So I do this by
initially going in with my gray in a very
pale water downstate. And once that initial light
gray layer is in there, I then drop in a tiny
bit more of the gray in sections that I want to
darken in shadow sections, these are very
teeny tiny shapes, so make sure that
you're not going in with way too much
water or paint in your paintbrush and
continue helping yourself with a clean and slightly damp bristles of
your paintbrush. Use them as a little absorbent
sponge whenever you need to and also help yourself
with your absorbent towel. I'm constantly
dabbing the tip of my paintbrush on my
absorbent towel. Okay. So after doing that, it is time to paint in
the little tree branch. So I switched them back to
my size ten round brush, made sure that it was nice and clean before going
into my browser. Right here, I am reactivating and making
a little bit more of my two browns
because they were starting to dry on my palette. I'm simply adding a
little bit more paint and water into these mixtures every time that I am reactivating my colors or making more
of my color mixtures. I am making sure that the consistency of those
puddles is gonna be helpful for me if you have any doubt that your colors are going
to end up looking too dark or too light
for what you need in that given point in time
in the painting process, I would highly recommend testing out your
color mixtures on your scrap piece of
watercolor paper before using it in your piece. And then you can add more water if you need to
lighten that color. Or you can add more
paint if you need to darken it or make the
color more saturated, always remember that is going
to be way easier to go in and darken than it is
to go in and lighten. So start nice and light. And I am going in
initially with, of course, my lighter golden brown, which is my yellow ocher. Using more lateral or
horizontal brushstrokes, I paint in that light layer. First, I go in with this yellow ocher in a
pretty watered down state, creating irregular edges along the left and right
sections of the branch. I'm not trying to fill in the branch perfectly because I'm going for a vignette
style for this piece. So I want my color to get
lighter and lighter as it moves away from the bird and
closer towards the edges. I don't want any of my
color at the end to reach the edges where
my masking tape is. And then I take some
of my darker brown, which is my burnt umber, and I drop it into sections of that branch that I want to make darker when it comes to
creating a cylindrical book, it's very helpful to darken
the upper and lower edges and leave the middle portion
of that branch lighter. This is going to bring forward
that middle portion of the branch and make the
darker sections recede, creating that visual
cylindrical look, I'm making sure to
work quickly so that the browns transition
softly into each other. And right here I am
softening the left and right edges of these brown
shapes that I have painted in. I want the color to
become paler and paler. And essentially for the
color to turn into the white of the paper
has the color gets closer to the edges
of the piece and farther away from this
focal central point, which is the parents. So all I did after having painted in the tree branch was I removed that brown
for my paintbrush bristles and with just
water in my paint brush. I went in and did a little
bit of pulling out of a little bit of
that brown pigment towards the left and
the right edges. And that creates a
natural gradient where that brown turns into
the white of the paper. And I just kept those
edges very irregular. Okay, so we're now done with over half of this
painting process. All that is left is creating our vignette style
background and also adding in some
final details. We're gonna be doing
that in our next class. So whenever you're ready, I'll see you there.
10. Watercolor Washes: Background and Final Details: Hey there and welcome to the
final class in this course, where I'm gonna be
teaching you how to create a beautiful vignette
style background. And we're gonna be adding final details into our piece
to paint the background, It's going to be essential
to work with a larger brush. I'm personally going
to be using a size four round brush to paint
in this background, you can use something
slightly larger, but I wouldn't recommend
anything smaller than a size. Well, this is important so that you can load up your
paintbrush bristles with a good amount of
paint and water and go in and paint quick
without much further ado, let's go ahead and
jump straight into the last leg of this process. After painting in the branch, I changed my water
again because it is going to be time to paint
in our background color. And for this, it's
very important that we have clean water
in our container. We're gonna be doing pre
wedding with clean water and then dropping in
our color right here, I am preparing my size
four round brush. This is a relatively larger
brush that I'm gonna be using for my pre wedding and my dropping in of color
in my background. First, I use my size ten
round brush to make sure that I have enough of
this dark blue color that I'm gonna be using for
this large area because I definitely don't want to run
out of color along the way. So you can see me prepare
this large puddle of my fellow blue and a little
bit of neutral tint. And this is again
to make it look a little bit more natural
than neutral tint, mute this very bright
blue down a little bit. And here I'm going to test
it on my scrap piece of watercolor paper to make sure that it is the blue that I want. If you want to add
less neutral tint or Payne's gray or whatever it is that you're
using into your blue or use your blue as is. You can go ahead and do that. But make sure that you
have a good amount of that blue on your
mixing palette. And that the
consistency is helpful, which I am going for around
50% paint, 50% water. So somewhere between
a coffee to milk white consistency for
that color mixture. Alright, so with my color
mixture ready on my palette, I went ahead and
changed to my size 14 round from what I
am doing right here is I am doing pre wedding of this lower right portion
of my background. I'm gonna be approaching
the background in sections just so that I can give myself a little bit more time, not have to worry about racing against the
clock too much. So I'm gonna be doing the lower right corner and
then the lower left corner, and then the entire
upper portion together. So the trick here
when you're doing your pre wedding is you're
taking a little bit of water at a time
from your container and painting that
water into this area. Making sure that you go
over everything a few times until you arrive
at a nice even sheen. Take your time with
it, be very gentle. You have to go over everything
a three to five times to make sure that nothing starts drying on you way too fast. I have my size ten round
brush in my left hand, just in case I need to switch
between my larger brush and this medium-sized brush in those sections
nearest to the bird, where I want to
paint in this water very carefully what
I'm doing my wedding, I made sure to reach all
the way to the masking tape because even though I don't want my color to reach
the masking tape, I want to make sure that
I have evenly pretty wedded this entire
section so that that paint has space to expand
out because I want those nice soft
transitions where the blue turns into the
white of the paper. I want to give those gradients enough space for them to happen. I want a deep dark
blue nearest that bird to transition
into a lighter blue. And then that lighter blue, I want it to turn into the
whiteness of the paper. So I need that space
right after I arrived at that nice even sheen
all throughout this lower right
portion background, I started dropping in my blue color mixture
nearest the bird, where I want that color to appear darker and
more saturated. That's where I start
dropping in my color. And once I feel I've
placed enough color in this nearest
section to the bird. I remove that color
for my paintbrush bristles and I go back in
with just a little bit of water in my paint
brush to help that color expand out a little bit more and create that soft
natural gradient. The blue becomes the
white of the paper. Because I've already prepared the paper with some
amount of water content. That water is going to do
half of the work for me. So I'm not trying to overwork
the piece or do too much. I'm embracing the effects
that happen naturally, but I did minor work there
just to make sure that I help that paint just create that
transition that I want it, the gradient that I wanted. Remember to do just
minimal work here. If you need to help
that paint move out. Be very minimal,
be very gentle and don't do more than
is truly necessary. Embrace the organic effects that happen when you're
dropping in that color. Otherwise, your painting
is not going to end up looking as fresh and loose. You can also use your
clean and slightly damp paintbrush to help you
create that irregular, organic outer edge
to this blue shape. But my advice is
to not overthink it and don't try to
overly control anything. The great thing about taking your time to do pre
wedding with clean water before starting to
paint large areas like these is not only that, that water content is
helping you create those nice soft transitions and gradient effects and
nice soft edges. But also that you buy yourself more working time before
that paper starts to dry. So if once you have created
that initial layer of blue, you want to go in
and drop in a little bit more blue to
deepen and jargon. That blue nearest the bird. You can go ahead and do
that and you're still going to have that
nice soft effect or that darker blue turns into the lighter blue next to it. You have prepared that
paper with water, so it's no longer as thirsty as it is when the paper
is completely dry. This means that the paint
is going to dry much more slowly if you do your
pre wedding effectively. So right here you can see
me do the exact same thing. Only now I'm working on the opposite corner here
on the bottom left. I took my time with that
prereading process. I cannot emphasize enough
how important it is for you to take your time with your pre wedding
after I'm done here, I'm going to do the same thing. But now in this
larger area on top, and because this top section is double the size of the
work that you just did. You want to make sure that
you are really taking your time with that entire area. What I'm doing here is
I'm getting started with the right side and then
you're going to see me make my way towards the left. I advance a little bit
more towards the left, maybe an inch or two, and then I go back to where
I started to continue wedding those areas
and make sure that those areas
don't dry on me. Then I make my way
back towards the left, advance a couple of inches more, and then I go back to
where I started too, moisten that area a little bit more and make sure that
it's not drawing on me. I advanced a little
bit more than I go back to the area where
I started and so on and so forth until I wet the entire upper
half portion here, making my way carefully
around the bird. Remember that you can change to your other smaller
paintbrush if you need to, to get those sections
around the bird, if you feel you need a
little bit more control. But it is very
important that you use a larger brush when you're painting larger areas like this, especially if you want to facilitate the process
of working quickly, because working with
a smaller brush in these areas really not
going to be helpful. You're going to have to reload your paintbrush over and
over and you're not gonna be able to paint quickly if you are going to be using
that smaller brush, makes sure that you switch
between them as needed. I made my way all
the way down and reached the branch
in this left side. And then I'm going over everything at least
three to four times. It's really going to depend on the environment that
you're working in. If you're working in
a warm environment, a cold environment, the humid environment, they
dry environment. If you have a heating
system on a fan, on an air conditioning unit, on all of those things are
going to have an impact on how quickly or how slowly your paint or your water start
drawing on you. And these conditions are
going to change day-to-day. As someone working
with watercolor, it's, it's very helpful
to take note of the current conditions and make sure that you're spending
longer on your pre wedding, or that you are turning off your fan or doing
whatever it is that you need to do that is going
to enable you to paint more easily and arrive at the
effects that you're after. Personally, I live
in a very warm, almost always a dry environment. And I know that I
have to turn my fan off before painting
large areas like this. Otherwise, I risked
getting splotches, lines, textures, things like that that I'm
not really looking for. I'm glad that I get to share these real-time painting
processes with you guys because this way you can
actually get an idea for how long the pre
wedding takes for me. I'm just now done
with pre wedding, this entire upper portion here. Okay. So after I took my time
doing that pre wedding and I arrived at that nice even sheen all throughout this upper half, I am getting started with
dropping in my blue. And you can see how I
am dropping it into these areas right
next to the bird. Because I am looking for the color to be
more saturated and darker in this section nearest to the subject
or the focal point. Once I feel I've placed
enough color around the bird, I go ahead and remove
that color from my paintbrush bristles and
going in with just a clean, a slightly damp paintbrush. I'm doing gentle
moving around of that color that I've
already placed on my paper. And I am creating softer transitions where that blue turns into the
white of the paper. If I feel that I am pulling way too much color out towards
the edges of my piece. I again remove that color
for my paintbrush bristles, and make sure that I'm going in with a clean and slightly damp paintbrush and continue my
work with a clean brush. You want to make sure
that you're not pulling too much color out
towards the edges. And you can see how I am really playing with how I'm
using my paintbrush, moving it around
in different ways, changing the angle at which
I'm using my paintbrush. Because I know that
all of that is going to help me arrive at that irregular organic outer
edge to this blue shape. Remember that we're not painting the wall of a house here. We're not going for a flat, even finished almost at any point when we're
working with watercolor. So just like what I was doing
inside of the bird itself, I am going for a wide range of blue values and
translucency in the sky. And I just continue playing
around here until I arrive at very organic, irregular blue
shape that I like. And I make sure that
the transitions are soft into the whiteness
of the paper. And if I feel I need to darken certain sections
around the bird, I go ahead and drop
in a little bit more blue into those areas. While that initial
layer is still wet, really trying to hold myself back from doing too
much because I know that I'll get rid of those beautiful watercolor
organic effects. I'm all done with
that background. I don't wanna do
anything else or I risk overworking the piece. All I am doing here is I'm
cleaning up some edges where that blue maybe went into the bird shape
a little bit. I did that by just going in
with my size ten round brush. It was perfectly clean. I just very gently
did a tiny bit of scrubbing over that blue
that I wanted to lift out. And that helped me get rid of that blue inside of the bird. And right here I am moving on to the very last little
thing that I'm gonna be doing in this watercolor
painting process. And this is just going in wet, on dry and darkening
certain shadow areas inside of the bird. For this, I am using my size
ten round brush and I am looking to create very irregular,
abstract shadow shapes. And these are just some
areas that I feel needs to be pushed a tiny bit more because watercolor tends to dry lighter than how it
looks when it's wet. And so sometimes
it's very worthwhile to come back after
everything has dried. And notice if you just want to very gently and
in a minimal way, push some shadows sections
a little bit more to add a little bit more depth
and realism into the piece. So you can see how I added a
little bit more of a deeper, darker red with my
payroll Scarlett, in the triangular
looking red shape at the top of the bird's tail. I just steepen and darken
this sections right beneath the branch that
would have a little bit of shadow right there created by the branch and
the top of the bird's body. Then I remove that read from my paintbrush bristles
and I'm going in with my orange that I created by mixing together and
my new gamboge and my pyro scarlet and with a very small amount
of watery orange, I'm just creating
very irregular, abstract shadow
shapes below some of these feathers in the
bird's belly and chest. So I'm imagining a little shadow shape
beneath the feather. And in a very abstract way, that's when I am painting in. I also add a couple of
quick shadow shapes with this orange below the bird's
beak and below it's I. Finally, I'm just going to push some shadow shapes
in the tree branch. So I am going in
with my burnt umber and I am mostly just
adding in a little bit of shadow along the
upper edge of the branch and a tiny bit in the
lower edge of the branch. Just a moment ago, I reactivated that darker
brown on my palette, which I had a very
small amount of, and it had already
started to dry. And I just activated again and made a little
bit more of that brown. Once I have that little
puddle of brown created, I go in and start painting in this dark brown along the
upper edge of the branch. And then I also darken some portions of the
lower edge of the branch, especially in the
central section of the piece nearest the subject. And once I have painted
in that dark brown, I remove that color
from my paintbrush bristles and you can
see me right here, go in with a clean, a slightly damp
paintbrush to soften those edges of those brown
shapes that I just painted in. Because they look
a little bit to find because I just
painted them on dry paper. Notice how I made
sure not to darken that central section of
this cylindrical form. If I darken that
central section, I would flatten everything out and I definitely
didn't want that. And with that,
we're all done with our pen and watercolor wash. Sun can year if you
made it to this point, congratulations,
that is so amazing. I hope that you
learned something new, that you enjoyed
this process and that you're taking
tools and tips with you that you can
take with you to future pieces that you
may decide to work on. It's definitely not easy
to push through and create something from scratch the way that we did
in this course. So congratulations, I'm so
proud of you and I hope to see you in the last closing
video for this course.
11. Thank You: Thank you so much for
joining me in this course. I really hope that you
enjoyed working on this line and watercolor wash
sun can earpiece with me. Don't forget to share any of
the work that you did during these classes in the Projects
tab here on Skillshare, I am so excited to see your
work and to cheer you on. There is also a class
discussion section. You can leave comments
and questions and I look forward
to helping out with. And finally, don't forget to follow me here on
Skillshare because I have lots of new courses in the works that I am
super excited to share. This way, you can receive a notification that will let
you know when a new class has been launched or
whenever I am sharing other helpful resources for extra inspirational and
helpful art content. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and check
me out on social media. I'm on Instagram and Facebook. I wish you tons of
progress and enjoyment moving forward in your
journey and see you soon. Bye.