Loose Lemons in Watercolour

1. Introduction: In this class, I'll be demonstrating how to paint these lemons hang on a tree in watercolor. I'll take you through the steps to create the sketch and also apply the watercolor paint in a really loose and expressive way. I like to use this technique in sketchbooks to capture subjects and quick sketches. This class is great for beginners and also artists of a more advanced level. If you're looking to loosen up and create artworks in a really fast and expressive way, then this is a great class to pick up some really good tips. 2. Materials: To start with, I'm going to run through some basic information about watercolor, as well as a few simple techniques to get us started. If you're already familiar with watercolor, then you can probably skip through this part. However, if you're totally new to this medium, then I do suggest watching through this little demonstration video to begin with, just because I'm going to cover some basics. What is watercolor? Watercolor is basically just a powdered pigment that has been combined with a water soluble binder. You can make the paint more transparent by adding more water or more pigment by just picking up more paint. Most watercolor paints are transparent, meaning that you can build up layers of color over time. Watercolor comes in two main formats. There was something called a pan of watercolor, which is a pre dried. Um filled up little container of water color, and you can also get watercolors in tubes. Now you can purchase empty pans and purchase a tube of water color and then pour it into the pan and dry it out. I often find that to be the most economical way of using watercolor. It just depends on your personal way of painting as to whether you choose the pan or out of the tube version. Personally, I prefer painting out of dried pans. I feel as though it's a lot more of an economical way of using the water color. Sometimes I find that we use the watercolor squeezed out from that in its wet form. I tend to use a lot more watercolor. So I tend to go through these tubes a lot quicker when I squeeze it out into a palette and use it wet as opposed to using it dry. That's just my personal preference, but there are a lot of artists that do prefer to use it the other way around. So once you become more familiar with watercolor and play around with a few different techniques, you'll probably find a way that suits you personally better. The fantastic thing about watercolor is that it is incredibly versatile and also really portable, it's fantastic for sketching on location, for taking away on holidays, for sketching and sketchbooks. And you can use it anywhere. It's fantastic. So aside from the paint, the next most important thing that you're going to be thinking about with watercolor is the paper that you choose to paint on. Again, there is a wide variety of good papers, bad papers, expensive, cheap, and sometimes it does take a little bit of trial and error to find what you like the most when it comes to your style of painting. My personal favorites are hot pressed papers. I prefer to paint with watercolor on a smooth surface. So there's a hot press paper and a cold press paper. Cold press paper tends to have a bit more of a texture to the paper, whereas hot press is a lot smoother. Watercolor paper also comes in different weights, some are thinner, some are thicker. I use watercolor mostly in my sketch books. So when I'm choosing sketchbooks, I do make sure that I choose books that are suitable for watercolor. This is my current favorite. This is a Strathmore mixed media, and it has a nice, smooth, hot press paper. It's quite thin. It's actually not too heavy. I think it's only let me see if I can find it written. I think it's only 180 GSM. So it's not super bulky. But it works really well with watercolor. You can use a lot of different mediums with it and it doesn't bend or warp. This is a block of watercolor paper. This is actually the brand Bohng, which is made in China. This is a very affordable cotton watercolor paper, and it comes in a block. The block is gummed all the way around the edge, except for one little section, so you can see a little finger in this section. To remove the paper from the block, you just get a palette knife, poke it in, run the palett knife around and the paper will come off. These are some of the loose sheets that I've taken off this watercolor pad. So working in a block is really great because it will keep your watercolor paper fairly flat when you're working on it, it won't lift up too much or bubble too much. And then when you're finished, you can just pull it off. Pull it out. Yeah. There we go. This is a watercolor pad of paper. This is the brand fabriano. This is just a pad of sheets of watercolor paper. Again, this is a hot press, 300 SM paper, and the pad it's gummed on one side, so when you finish your painting, you can just pull it off. There is so many different variations available and papers that you can use. It really depends on what you're wanting to do. Last thing I'm going to mention is brushes. Watercolor brushes tend to be quite soft. Usually, you can get different varies of acrylic and natural brushes. You can also use these rice paper type brushes, I think they're called. There's a lot of different varieties. I am not dedicated to a certain brush brand. I purchase a lot of different brushes depending on what it is I am doing and what I need it for. There is some mop kind of brushes, some flat brushes. These ones are really great because they hold a lot of watercolor water and color in them. These ones don't hold as much, so you may find that you're dipping back into the water. For washes and things, you could probably use this, but for details this. Whatever you have available is great, make sure it's nice and soft. 3. Loose lemons , part 1 - Lay the first wash: So what is sketching with watercolor? Sketching with watercolor is what I do in my sketch book the most. So essentially that just means making rough thumbnail sketches and studies using mostly watercolor. Some of these do have a bit of pencil in them, but they are essentially mostly just watercolor studies. And I find these really helpful when I'm trying to get an idea out, or I just want to play around with color or composition, and I don't want to work with my main medium, which is acrylic paint. So I will create these little watercolor studies ins and it's a really fun way to create a loose effect with your painting as well. Because watercolor very much has a mind of its own sometimes. These random things will happen that you don't really plan, and you can build up on those and make the most of them, and it pushes you to be really creative. Some of these are actually, so I'll skip through some of these. But this is a sketch that I did with watercolor. This is a sketch from life that I did, and I started with like a pencil sketch, and I've just built it up into this watercolor. It's very loose and expressive. Some more studies here. Again, this is another study that I did in watercolor. This is in a hotel room when I was a bit bored. Same some cat studies. Here, this is another sketch with watercolor. This sketch here was painted with all watercolor. I didn't sketch anything down to begin with, I actually used the watercolor paint to sketch, which is something that I am going to show you and demonstrate how to do. Sometimes I will sketch with pencil first and then color it in. Other times I will just sketch straight with the watercolor. See what else we have here. Here are some more watercolor sketches that I've done where I did pen first and then sketched it in with watercolor to create some studies. Again, some more fun. Let me find some more watercolors. These are Gach, I believe. I think that's it for this book. Let me find another sketchbook for you. Yeah. Here is another sketchbook with a strap more watercolor. This is actually cold press paper, so I'm not sure if you can see or not, but you bet to see a bit more texture on the actual paper compared to the hot press. But again, these are just watercolor sketches. These are just random abstract sketches that I did where I just build up layers of paint and color. So swatching. Again, these are all watercolor. These were some sketches on location that I did. Those are acrylic acrylic. But, this is how I use watercolor in my sketch books. I create very loose and expressive sketches using the watercolor as my main medium. I find it easier to use watercolor than acrylic paint when I'm out and about in the world sketching because obviously, acrylic paint, it is a challenge to have out on location. You know, you have to have a lot of water to clean up with. You have to set up a palette. It can be, not exactly the most intuitive thing to take out. Was watercolor, you can have quite a small palette with you, this was a limited palette of just three colors that I used. That was these three here. So we have new gamboge, gnacrodon, lilac, and ultramarine turquoise. That's a little color wheel that I did with those. And so this sketch here was created just with this limited palette. So you could have just three colors and take them out with you and create a sketch on location that you can then take back home and use as inspiration. So This is the kind of thing that Is that I do in my sketchbook with watercolor quite a lot. Ha some little birds, some figure studies, some portraits. You know, there's all sorts of things that I do with watercolors. So what I'm going to show you first is how I would basically color in a sketch with watercolor. Because that's probably going to be the most approachable way for a lot of people stepping into watercolor painting. This is how this is going to be the most easiest way to approach it because you're essentially going to be creating a sketch and then coloring in that sketch. Think back to coloring books. That's what we're going to be doing sketching and using it as a coloring book, which is a really mindful and relaxing way of using watercolor paints. That's what we're going to do for our first project. Okay, so I'm going to use this reference photo of the lemons in my garden to work from because it's quite a simple reference photo, and it's going to be very easy to loosen this up. Remember, when I'm not interested in painting realism. I'm really wanting to push you to express yourself and be very loose with your painting style, which is I'm guessing why you're here. So I want you to not worry too much about making it exactly the same as the reference, but we're just going to create a loose painting inspired by this. So I am going to sketch this out first. So even with our sketching process, I'm going to make sure that it's a very loose sketch, and I don't put every single detail in. I'm just going to make it really expressive and only really sketching the most important things, which is this collection of this collection of lemons. Sorry, I lost my brain there for a moment. The collection of lemons that I have here. Okay, I will put the reference rot up on the screen. But for now, I'm just going to put it over to the side so I can see it. So this is just a five by seven hot pressed paper. And I'm going to start by Let's just place this first lemon, the scale of that lemon in here. This is a creative color megagraphe pencil. You can use any sort of gray led pencil you like. I like this because it's big and chunky. I'm going to sketch out These lemons. There's one behind here as well. Another one here. Back in, I'm just going to suggest that one. And then a smaller one here and here. There's a big leaf that's cutting off those ones. There's another leaf jutting out here. And here. Okay? Then there's a leaf that comes out here. And here, I like these because they're sort of framing framing the lemons. Okay, maybe some branches and things as well. Okay. So it's a very a very loose sketch. Comes in co. Suggest a couple of things around here as well. Okay, so I'm going to use a really is a I'm sure what it's called. I think it's it's a really floppy quill brush, I think it might be called. I don't know. These are really great for getting really loose marks, and not worrying too much about, you know, where the paint is actually going. So I'm going to start with a light Yellow. I think it's obviously ironically, I think it's called lemon yellow. A nice puddle of color. And I'm just going to use that to block in anywhere I can see lemons. So really loose, don't worry about sticking to the lines. Maybe a little bit around the background as well. Okay. And while this is wet, I'm going to introduce a little bit of green. Anywhere I can see in the picture where the lemon gets a little bit green, I'm going to going to pop the green in. Again, because this is wet, we're working wet on wet at this point, so these colors are all going to squirm and blend into each other. And create some ne. Effects. So there's a bit of a darker color in here. I'm just going to pop in as well. Now, I will have all the colors that I'm using. I will have listed in the description, but because this is in a palette, I don't know exactly which color I'm using at the time. I'm going to be one of those really annoying artists that doesn't tell you every single color that they use. Just because I don't actually know individually what they are. I've got it written down, but in front of me at the moment, I can't remember. But you can see how I'm just adding in touches of different warmish color. I had a bit of that green color. I'm now coming in with a bit of this warmer orange because some of these lemons have a bit more of an orange hue to them and touching it in while this is still wet. The colors that I'm adding in are all going to blend in together. Now that I've done this area, I'm going to let this dry and I'm going to move on to some of the leaves. Let's get these leaves are a bit of a bluish green. Let me just get a I think this is alo green and a little bit of I think that's cascade green as well, which is the Daniel Smith color. Again, starting with quite a light wash. I'm going to plop in where some of that green is. Keeping it loose. The messier the better at this stage, we will refine as we go. For now, I want it to be quite slap dash. Maybe a little bit of philo blue, can drop into some places as well. Just let the water color do its thing. Just drop some colors in here and there where you've added added that green, add some different color greens. There's some darker greens and some lighter greens that I'm adding in here. Again, I'm only working loosely from this reference. I'm not copying it exactly. Now I've added in some greens. The next stage is going to be bringing in some background color, but I do want to let this dry just a little bit first because I don't want all of this yellow to bleed into the background. I want to keep these lemons quite solid in the middle. If I added background color in around this area here, for example, that little pool of yellow will possibly run into the purple. Don't want that to happen. I'm going to let it dry. This is where the patients of water color comes in a lot. You do spend a lot of time waiting for things to dry in between. Even though I do work quickly, you still have to dry things. So this is the first layer that we're going to do though. So let's get this down first. 4. Loose lemons, part 2 - Add in contrast: Okay, so now that this is all dry, we're going to come in with the background and create a little bit more of a contrast. So I'm going to come and a dark purple. So let's get some blue. Ultramarine rows or rows of ultramarine, I should say, a bit of magenta, I want quite a dark color because I want to get some contrast. I'm going to use that to just really loosely block in the background around some of the edges of these lemons. I'm going to leave a nicely that little edge that I'm leaving around. I'm not coming all the way up to the yellow, leaving a bit of an edge around there. Same with the leaves, to leave a bit of an edge on some of those leaves. Still being loose. I'm not focusing on perfection or making it exactly the same as the reference, but anywhere where there's a bit of a dark area around and a bit of the background showing, I'm going to pop a bit of this. Now, the reason I love these really loose floppy brushes is that it's very hard to be precise, and you often get if you tap the brush a little bit, not going to hap now there. See, you'll get like these real drops and splashes and things happening, which can create this real random, whimsical effect. And a bit of an unplanned happy accident moment will start to happen. Someone coming around there as well. Maybe some of you here. Might mix up some more purple into some of these, make them a little bit more some more reds in here instead of the blues. Just change it up. Like you can remember, you can at any stage, you can drop color in to a wash. If you want to add a bit more another value, like for example, if you want to make this a little bit more of a pinkish purple, I can just add a little bit more of that magenta into this mixture. And it will come out a bit more of a magentary color. Okay. Now I'm going to get rid of the floppy brush and I'm going to go into a more flat harder, not harder, but a stiffer brush. While all this background area is drying, I'm going to come in and add a bit of shadows in between these lemons, just to add a bit of definition. I'm going to come in with some of this color, a little bit of orange. I think this is Azie re gold, and maybe just a touch of blue. I want it to be a bit of a dirty color. I'm going to use it to paint this lemon that's in the back here. With a bit of this shadow and push it back a bit. Maybe a bit of a shadow in between these two as well just to define two separate lemons. This one as well. There's a bit of a shadow down here. I can also come in with a bit more of a yellow wash. Again, because these are transparent. You can add washes a transparent color if you want to emphasize an area. Maybe this one down here needs a little bit of a yellow pops a bit of a. Okay, what else? Let's go a bit more of a brownish ale bit of this ocher color in here as well. It's going to bleed, it's going to move, but that's okay. We don't mind that. We want a bit of craziness happening. We don't want it to be too precise. I can give a bit more definition to the leaves as well by doing the same thing, coming with a bit of a darker version of the color that I started with. I've just added a little bit more al blue. Let's see, there's a bit of a darker branch there. This leaf here is actually quite a bit darker, so maybe we can add in a touch. You can even add in these little leaf striations. Is that what they're called? I don't know. I don't know the technical name for it. Make one side a bit darker than the other. This one here, there's a bit of a shadow here and a shadow here. Again, I'm looking at the reference really loosely to help me determine where some of the details are. But I'm not being slavish to it. I making sure that I get every single twig and, you know, and branch in this painting. It really doesn't matter that much. I'm just trying to get the essence. So there's a bit of belief here as well that I might add in. Now I want to add in this lemon here just to create something a bit of a different look. I'm going to pick up a little bit more of a greenish color. Just add a touch of green. If you want to blend and smooth the edges of some of the paint, just add a bit of a clean water to it and it will blend and smooth. You can also add clean water and brush over the top of something if you want to remove it. If you've decided that you put too much color in there, you can take it away again by doing that. Okay. I'm going to dry this off again and I'm going to zoom in and show you who had to get some of these darker details happening. 5. Loose lemons , part 3 - Finishing Details: This has been dried off now. Now you'll notice that as the colors dry, they dry a lot lighter than what they are when they're wet. There's a few patches here of that dark purple that's still a little bit wet, and you can see how much darker it is compared to the middle section that's dry. Generally water color will dry, a few shades lighter. The first color that you put down might seem very dark and frightening, but remember that it will dry lighter, and you will often have to go back in and add deeper details constantly because you need to keep boosting up the value of your shadows. I'm going to come in and add in some darker shadows in and around and in between these lemons. I'll go like this darker brown color. I'm just using twist over to a finer liner brush just to get a little bit more detail. And just going to brush in between some of the edges of these lemons, just to define where they join and meet each other. Yeah, I can also add in some darker details in between some of these leaves as well. Little shadows and things. Some of the stems in between. It's still important just like with any other type of painting to remember your contrast and to make sure that there is a nice range of ducks and lights. The thing about lights with watercolor is you have to retain them. You can see how I've left this edge of white around some of these lemons, and I've also made sure that there's some patches of white paper showing through. I've made sure that I've done this because I can't add white back into this unless I start introducing acrylic paint or gouache. I can't really bring whites back in. I need to make sure that I maintain some lightness of the paper. By having some lights shoving through still. I'm just adding a few touches here and there of some of these darker use move bit of a shadow on there. Okay. Now we have this little lemon study. I'm just going to bring the camera down a little bit closer. These are the gaps in the paper, the white that I was just referring to. See how I have left some white, and you can see, let me zoom in without losing focus. You can still see my original pencil sketch as well and my guidelines. I really like the fact that you can see those. I think it adds to the overall looseness of this sketch. I just love how you get these. Sorry, I'm just don't get mine camera to focus. These balloons of colors that happen. This is because the paint was still wet as I was adding bits and pieces in. So you get these really interesting shapes happening.