Loose Watercolor Cacti + Succulents

1. Welcome!: Hi, my name is Kolbie and I'm a self-taught watercolor artist. If you are interested in learning how to paint really fun and whimsical and quirky illustrations of watercolor cacti or succulents, this is the class for you. In this class, we are going to go over basic watercolor techniques and how to use them to paint loose and fun illustrations of desert botanicals, mostly focusing on cacti and succulents. As we go through all the different elements, we're going to end the class with two different projects. This misty watercolor piece where the cacti and other desert botanicals are blending right into the ground and this desert botanicals watercolor wreath where we put all of the different elements that we learned into a fun floral design. If painting either of those two projects or learning how I like to paint and doodle desert botanical sounds fun for you, then I would love for you to join me in this class. See you there. 2. What You'll Need: Before we get started, let's talk about the materials we're going to use for this class. First, paint. I'm using artist-grade watercolor paint from a tube. The brand that I'm using for this class is Mijello and it's the mission series, which is their artist-grade series. I'm going to be using this color palette, but I will say that you can use any color palette you want. If you want to stick with deserty colors, I would recommend having some greens, maybe yellows, and oranges. I like to mix things up with having some other contrasting colors like I am using indigo. Let me just show you all the different tubes I'm using. I'm using indigo and I'm using Vandyke green, which is this dark green, and I'm using sap green, which is this lighter green. Then I'm also using yellow ocher and violet gray, which is this purply color. I'm also using this coral color which I'm mixing together using bright opera and yellow-orange. Bright opera is like bright pink and yellow-orange to mix this really coral color. If I had to choose two colors that I would use, if I only had to choose two out of these six, I would choose this coral color that I mixed with bright opera, yellow-orange, and sap green because I think that for a desert theme, this green and coral really help make each other pop. That's a color scheme that I would use most often. The greens and the blues over here are mostly going to be the color of the cacti and succulents we're going to be painting, but I also included these other colors which you can use for the different filler leaves or florals we're going to use or you can use to paint the cacti as well. Remember, this is loose watercolors, so you're not bound to realistic color schemes here. You can use whatever you want, but this is my dusky, deserty color scheme that I'm going with using these Mijello Mission series paints. I'm also going to be using some Dr. Ph. Martin's bleed proof white, which is white gouache to add some white accents. Then I have a sucker Gelly Roll, white gel pen as well just for ease of those. Next, let's talk about paper for practice. I always like to use student-grade papers, so I'm going to use this Canson XL watercolor pad, 140-pound cold press watercolor paper. That's what I'm using for the practice sessions when we practice all the different desert foliage we're going to paint. Then for our final projects, there are two of them. I'm going to use some 100 percent cotton professional-grade watercolor paper. I have this Blick premier watercolor block that I'm going to use for one project, and then I also have sheets of Arches watercolor paper, which I'm going to use for another project. For Arches and for Blick too, but if you go on blick.com you can order large sheets of watercolor paper and just cut them down to size. I find that to be the most cost-effective way to purchase watercolor paper. If you find it a little pricey, it saves you a few bucks. That's paper. For brushes, I recommend having a round shape brush and I'm using Size 6 and Size 0. This Size 6 is Princeton brand Aqua Elite, which you can recognize with the black handle. It's a velvety feel to it. Then the Size 0 is this Utrecht synthetic Sablette series, also with a black handle but it's more shiny. Both of these are synthetic, which means that no animals were harmed in the process of making these paintbrushes. They are excellent for holding their shape and holding water. Just some final things. I always like to have a mixing palette on hand. This is a handmade ceramic mixing palette that I picked up from a small business artist. Her business is called Sylvan Clayworks. If you keep your paints in a plastic mixing palette, you can definitely use that. Then off to the side I have two cups of clean water. One of them is going to stay clean because as we're doing some color blends, I want to make sure I don't muddy it with some dirty water, and then I have some paper towels off to the side. Those are the materials I'm going to be using today in this class. One more plug for you that you don't have to use the exact same materials that I'm using. You can use whatever you have on hand. As long as you have a paintbrush, paper, and watercolor, I'm sure you can create beautiful things. Gather all your materials and let's head over to the next video. 3. Watercolor Techniques: Before we get started painting, let's briefly go over the basic watercolor techniques. The first technique that you need to know is the wet-on-dry technique. Wet-on-dry is when you paint with wet watercolor because watercolor is always activated by water. You paint with wet watercolor on a dry piece of paper. Wet-on-dry is characterized by these crisp defined lines that you use to paint subjects the way that you want them to look. Watercolor is activated by water, so when you use the wet-on-dry technique, it means you're only allowing the watercolor to go where your paintbrush goes because your paintbrushes the only place that has the water that has the ability to lay a path for the paint that you are using. That is in contrast to the wet-on-wet technique, which is when you paint with watercolor on a wet surface. When the surface is wet, when you start painting, watercolor is not bound by where your brush goes. It can go anywhere that's wet and it wants to. The wet-on-wet technique is how to create color blends and how to create blooming textures just like this. The wet-on-wet technique is going to be important for our painting cacti and succulents because we're going to use the wet-on-wet technique to blend colors together in a really pretty texture. One of the things we're going to talk about when we paint cacti especially is layering on color to create depth and shading in the cacti we're painting. We're going to do that by layering color in terms of how light or dark they are. Like if I start with a light shade of yellow or just a lighter color, and then while that color is still wet, if I add on a darker color, I can create a shading effect on whatever subject I'm painting with no paint lines, so I can create a subtle gradient which is a shift from one color to the next with no paint lines and having these just pretty blends and blooms of these colors together and still create this shade and depth and complexity to the pieces that we're going to paint. We're going to talk more about that when we paint our cacti in the next videos. But I just wanted to talk about that with the wet-on-wet technique because that is what makes it possible. The reason we can create shading like this with watercolor is because if our subject is still wet, the wet-on-wet technique will allow the paint to blend together with no paint lines and create these really cool watercolors shaded effect. That is my brief little introduction to the watercolor techniques that we're going to use. Then the way that we're going to use the wet-on-dry technique is first we're going to use that to lay down and make the shapes. But then once everything is dry, we're going to layer on another layer of paint to create some details like the needles. We need to use those different layers of wet and dry paint to build our cacti from the bottom up. That wraps up our little intro to these techniques and how they apply to this class. Now let's move on to painting the watercolor cacti. 4. Cactus Doodle 1: First up, we're going to learn four different ways to paint a watercolor cactus. Now, because this is a beginner class, I'm not going to go into the specifics of this is what kind of cactus it is, because I think sometimes it's just easier to recognize shapes and because I'm not a botanist. For the purposes of this loose beginner's watercolor class with easy cactus shapes, I'm just going to show you the basic shapes that I recognize and that you'll probably recognize too. The first shape, I think, is by far the most recognizable cactus shape and it starts with a long, I'm not exactly even sure like an arch, like a filled-in long arch, just like this phallic but that's how you start painting a watercolor cactus. A lot of the different variations actually of the cactus that we're going to paint have this base shape to it. I guess it's like a half-circle, but it's stretched out like a half oval, like an arch at the top and then straight at the bottom. Then to continue on to paint the basic cactus shape that I think we all recognize the most, we want to paint two more shapes like that jutting out from the side. But the key with doing it with watercolor is to paint these while they're still wet, so that way you don't have any paint lines between the first little stretched-out half circle that you're doing and then the two half circles that bend toward the center. I guess arms if you're going to say like that, you're creating the arms of the cactus. If you paint these while the cactus is still wet, then you can create a whole-looking cactus without having any paint lines. The key to doing that is to make sure that your paint has a lot of water in it and that your paintbrush has a lot of water on it when you start painting. This is one of the basic shapes. Another way that you can expand on this basic cactus shape is instead of just doing like a thicker, stretched-out half circle with two little arms, you can do a thinner version with multiple arms coming out of it. If I'm doing like a thin version with wet paper, I'm using my Size 6 brush for this so that I can get the small details but also have a big wash, I can paint that first stretched out half circle and then this version, instead of having just two little arms, has multiple arms coming out of the center and even arms on the arms. This is another cactus that you see in real life. Cacti that have lots of little arms protruding off of the first one. You can have a lot of fun with shape and composition and as you're exploring this shape with the stretched out arch with arms coming out of it, I would recommend trying different sizes, trying different placements, and just letting loose and not really worrying about where the right place is to put your arms to just paint and if as you decide as you're painting along that maybe one version you don't like as much as another, then take note of that and try again. I think that especially when you're learning to paint and to doodle little things like this, you need to not be so hard on yourself for not being super realistic or maybe for painting things that don't look quite like you're intending partly because, especially if you're just a beginner, you need to put into practice if you're going to want to be the painter you know you can be whether you see others are but also if you limit yourself by only painting perfect things, if you only want to paint perfect cacti, you're not going to stumble upon the imperfections that will make your work unique to you. That will make you stand out amongst others and will help to shape your creativity. I really, honestly, in my own life and in witnessing other people's art stories, I believe that it's the "mistakes" or the errors or the pieces that maybe you thought were uglier, things that you unintentionally did, those are the keys to unlocking your creativity and figuring out exactly what your style is. I'm going to get off my soapbox a little bit there and just come back to these cacti and say, as you're painting this basic shape just with the stretched-out half-circle with the little arms or skinnier ones with lots of arms. Be mindful of the fact that there is no right way to do this and especially since we're doing loose watercolor cacti, loose watercolor desert foliage, there is no need for it to look exactly realistic, just to put the color on paper and see what happens. This is the first shape that we're going to practice and now let's move on to the second shape. 5. Cactus Doodle 2: Shape number 2 of these basic cacti shapes we're practicing is very similar to shape number 1. In fact, it's probably a little more basic. We're doing that stretched out half circle again, but we're not going quite as big. It's just going to be a small little stretched out so-called half circle, oblong shape here. Some cacti just stop right there. Then this is where you add the needles and some of them, like sometimes you see cacti in pots like this that are just as basic half circle shape. Then sometimes they even have just like a little friend plopping. They're right on top like a little head, but in the same shape. This is pretty basic. Once you add the details, which we're going to do in a separate video, then it all comes together. But this cacti shape is also commonly, has a flower on top of it. We're going to talk about how to shape the flowers in the flower video, but I'm just going to show you what it looks like right now. This is the second basic cactus shape that you can paint. Having a variation of a smaller, more simple shaped cacti is useful when I am trying to paint wreaths and when I'm trying to paint pages full of foliage or little patterns, which is what we're going to practice for our projects. There's basic half circle shape, and then instead of little arms coming out of it, you can either leave it the way that it is and I'm going to demonstrate that as well so you can leave it the way that it is and then wait for it to dry and paint the details on top of it. The needles and the lines, or you can add a little head on top of it and a little flower. Either way. This is the second basic cacti shape. 6. Cactus Doodle 3: Welcome back. Let's talk about the third basic cactus shape. This is similar to the second in that you end the first even in that we're going to layer things on top of each other while they're wet. But instead of that oblong, half-circle shape, we're going to do more of a cutoff teardrop shape. This is the kind of cactus that, if you were to look at it in 3D, would be pretty flat. It wouldn't be round and boldness like these other cacti are in real life. It is more like a disk almost. But we're just painting in 2D, so we're going to paint this disk almost like a cutoff teardrop. Like your painting an upside down teardrop but instead of painting the point right here, we're cutting it off. Then while it's still wet, similar to the other shapes that we did, then you're going to paint more cutoff teardrops just right on top of it. The further up you go, the smaller you're going to get and you don't have to just do one little arm, you can do multiple jutting out like this. These kind of cacti are really fun to paint because you can just go to town. You can have them be really small. You can have only one or two jutting out. Basically, these are growing everywhere on top of each other. You can experiment with shape and size, and wherever your imagination takes you, you can also layer more on top of them, just like that. If this cactus was in a field of cacti and there was just this layer of cacti in front of it with this cactus behind it, let your imagination go wild. But to demonstrate that one more time, we're doing this disc style. It's like a cutoff teardrop, almost like an oval or a circle that's tapered and flat at the end. Then while it's still wet painting smaller versions of the same thing, just right on top of each other. Once again, don't worry about whether it's perfect or whether it's realistic. If you really want it to look realistic, then you could pull up on Pinterest reference photos to try to replicate what you see there. But I would recommend learning these basic shapes first so that you can have these drills, these practices in your mind. I also honestly think that reference photos aren't always needed, painting realistically isn't always necessary. It's not always as fun. That's why, for this class, for this very basic beginner's class, we're just going over these basic shapes. This is style number 3. Then next we're going to talk about number 4. 7. Cactus Doodle 4: Welcome back to our fourth style of watercolor cactus. This style is similar to the first where we painted this oblong stretched out half circle shape. But instead of a half circle, we're going to do a wobbly rectangle. Obviously, I am a professional and have very accurate terms and scientific terms for these shapes. But basically, I'm painting a rectangle shape, but wiggling the sides, creating this wave along the sides just to create texture. That is pretty much it. After this dry, we're going to, on top of it, put the needles. This can also have a little flower on top if you want. But some cacti just look like this, just stand alone and have weird wavy shapes like that. They can be long and skinny, or they can be short and not even so much like a rectangle, but short and still oblong. Either way, some cacti just stand alone and have these funny bulbous wave shapes along the side. These are really fun to doodle and paint as well. That wraps up our four versions of cacti. Then in the next video, we're going to draw and paint all of the details on these loose watercolor cacti that will pull them together. 8. Adding Details to the Doodles: Now that we have these watercolor cacti, the base layers of color, let's add a few little details to pull everything together. First, I'm going to talk about how to use white gouache. I'm using Dr. Ph. Martin's bleed-proof white to paint some needles right on top of the cacti that we're using. I'm just going to take some of those white gouache and put it on. Sometimes I like to use the lid of Dr. Ph. Martin's as like a little palette. This gouache usually is really pasty. You have to use a smaller brush and wipe off some of it on a pallet in order to maintain the small points that you want to use. But once you have the white gouache on your small paintbrush, then go ahead and pick a cactus that you want to paint. I think I'm going to choose this rectangular version first. Once you have the white gouache on your paintbrush, then it's time to paint the needles. There are a few different ways to paint needles on a cactus. The first way that you can paint needles is to paint like a clump of three thin lines all in one spot and then paint that clump everywhere on the cactus. The reason that I like to use white is because typically pine needles, I paint pine trees a lot. Pine needles, that was an automatic response. These cactus needles aren't usually white, they're usually like a beige color often. But we're using white because it's easier to get a gouache, which is an opaque paint in white rather than mixing your own like beige color, and this is a beginner's class. If you just paint pine needles, pine needles again, cactus needles and these clumps of three, that is one way to get a fun realistic-looking needle on your cactus. Another way to do it is to instead of painting those clumps of three, you can just do little crosses. This makes your cacti look more doodly, so more like a fun illustration rather than if you're trying to make it look more realistic. One way to do this if you're not sure where to place the needles is to paint the lines on the cactus first in this white gouache. If you start from the top, usually when I'm painting lines to add texture onto a cactus, I start from the top middle and I do one side first that's stretched, arched slightly to one side, and the other side that's arched slightly to one side, and then I do one down the middle. Sometimes I paint these three lines. Sometimes I will do four or even five, so maybe I'll do five on this one just to use an odd number. I like using odd numbers and then do the same thing for these arms. You can just have the lines go straight into the body of the cactus. Remember, this is just loose illustration. We're not trying to create super-realistic cacti by any means. If your lines just disappear or stop, that's totally fine, especially as you're just getting used to it. I'm painting these watercolor cactus lines, and honestly, I'm on purpose embracing the messy because it's okay if this doodle is a little imperfect. I painted some of these crosses beforehand. But normally, if you're going to paint the lines, I probably would paint the lines first and then just paint some x's and crosses along the lines on the cactus. It doesn't even have to be on the line specifically, but it is noted that most of the time when you see needles on a cactus they're in the little crevices, the folds of the cactus, which is what these lines are supposed to represent. Just make sure also to try to put some lines on the outside of the cactus as well as in the middle, and my best piece of advice also is to try not to make it look too much like it's a pattern. When I'm painting these crosses on a cactus, sometimes a similar thing happens as to when I tried to manually paint stars on a night sky. My mind naturally turns it into a pattern. So if you're noticing that you're spacing out your crosses in a pattern or in the exact same way, then I would try to take steps to not do that. But I know that it can be difficult so just go with the flow, be kind to yourself, and just put these crosses all across the lines on this watercolor cactus. That is one way to add in these small details of the cactus to make it look slightly more realistic. Another way that we can use this white gouache is to, instead of adding needles, you can add dots. That's one of my favorite ways to add details to these more, smaller, simpler cacti, is to just add a bunch of dots onto them. You can leave them as dots, just like this, or you can add dots and then also add a few needles to them. When you add the dots, you can either add the three-pronged needles that we did over there before, or sometimes I just even do like a little V on top of the dot. That is another way to add some detail to these loose watercolor cacti. Also, you don't have to just stick with white when you're adding the detail to your watercolor cacti. You can use darker colors as well. If you have a dark pen like an archival, permanent, fine liner, or micron pen, you can use that or you can just use a darker color to add the same or similar details that we added in white. I'm just using indigo, a highly pigmented indigo, to add some lines to this cactus. Then I can do the same tricks that I did with the white, just like these three-pronged needles along the outside using a darker color and that will work too. Don't feel like you are limited by only using white. I like to use white sometimes, especially when I'm doing desert foliage doodles. I want it to look like more cartoony or illustrated like this instead of fine art because I think that white really makes the colors pop. But yeah, definitely don't feel limited by it. You can use dark colors and you can use pens and whatever you want. This is how this cactus would look with this dark paint and then I can also use the dark paint to paint dots in a similar way, including to make sure to have some dots along the edges of these disks, these circle discs that I have to help give the effect that these cacti have spikes all around them, not just like on the front where we can see. That wraps up this lesson on adding details. You can add little v's or you can add these three-pronged needle lines or you can crosses. Then if you're going to paint lines on the cactus, if it's the half-circle one, make sure that you start from the center and arch downward. One last thing is you don't have to use white gouache. As I mentioned before, you can also use a white gel pen to add some of these white lines or dots. Sometimes that is a more fun way to add the details to this. If I just dot some of these white dots with my gel pen and then add a few of these spikes in that V shape, that's a fun way to add this texture. Then I can also add like some of these white lines striping down the cacti as well. In addition to just in the era of not being perfect, you don't have to get the lines exactly on the cacti. Sometimes it can be fun to go just outside and have a more sketchy style as you are adding that detail. That wraps up adding detail to these watercolor cacti. It can be fun to mix and match, and not really care about what kind of detail is supposed to go with which version of cacti you're painting. Just have fun with it and experiment and I will see you in the next set of lessons. 9. Succulent Doodle 1: Welcome back. Now that we've practiced watercolor cacti, we're going to practice a few different versions of loose watercolor succulent. This first version utilizes white space and the basic shape of the leaves in a watercolor succulents so that we can give a loose geometric deconstructed version of a succulent if you're looking at it head on, from a bird's eye view. I'm using a small detail brush, by the way, to paint these succulents because succulents are small. The details that we're doing, the methods that we're using are going to be better served if you have a smaller paintbrush. First, I'm going to paint the center of the succulent. Basically, my center of succulents are always a little circle, sometimes with a white space in the middle to show some detail there. Then we're going to built the succulent from the middle outward, like a spiral in a circle and forming the leaves around the first center that we've built. This deconstructed version which is version 1, we can do with the leaves in two different shapes. The first shape is this cone-like, it has some rounded edges, it's a triangle with rounded ballooned-out edges. We're going to paint these triangle-like shapes that have edges arched outward all the way around. I'm going to paint all the way around the center. As you're painting, note the point is not super sharp here, but it's still a point. Once I have those first four, I'm going to overlap or put the next ones sometimes in-between the previous layer and sometimes not. It doesn't have to be exactly like a perfect pattern. If there's anything that you've learned from this simple watercolor, succulent, and cacti class is that I much prefer a loose, imperfect style to a perfect watercolor pattern. That's what I'm going for but if you want to your own pattern, feel free to. Notice that I'm using white space to separate these leaves of the succulent and to show the complexity and the depth of the layers of the leaves that make up the shape of this plant. I'm still doing these cone shapes all the way around. Sometimes they're touching each other, sometimes they're not. Either way, there's always white space in-between the leaves and the leaves in one layer and in-between the different layers. You can just keep going until you feel like it's done. At the end it will look like a little deconstructed flower with a bunch of white space. Just to show you the stroke that I'm using on this one, I'm going to do a bigger triangle, like a cone with a rounded point at the top, with a flat edge. You can do this, deconstructed style in multiple ways with multiple shape leaves because there are lots of different kinds of succulent. You can do leaves that are shaped like this cone shape that we spent a punch of time painting, you can paint leaves that look more like this. Also, a cone triangle shaped but, more tapered at the top and then tapered again at the bottom. It's like painting a bracket and then filling it in,a bracket that looks like this, if you've ever used that kind of bracket in math or in shorthand or whatever. If you paint a bracket and then put a line on the bottom and then fill it in, that is also a loose succulent shape that you can use. And then the third one that I like to use sometimes is this rounded shape.That's like a squiggly or a tilted teardrop shape almost. It's tapered at the end right here, but it's all rounded so we don't have any corners or any points. Just this rounded, tapered at the end. Honestly, this looks like a comma or an apostrophe. Like a big apostrophe or upside-down comma. You can use any of those shapes to form this deconstructed, open-faced succulent. Here's how I would do it with the bracket form. If I do this squiggle for the middle, and then I have these bracket leaves kind of layered on top of each other, I would just keep painting it the same way that I painted the first one, starting with this layer of four leaves, and then building my other layers on top of that. If I was going to keep building out this, I would probably expand it a little bit more, but that's a demonstration of how to use that bracket shape. One last demonstration on how to use that comma apostrophe shape. None of these are perfect or super realistic looking, but they are a really fun way to approach loose watercolor succulent. Just using white space and these shapes to make a deconstructed succulent plant. This is version 1, and in the next videos, we're going to discuss two other versions. 10. Succulent Doodles 2 and 3: Welcome back. In the previous video, we talked about how to form these deconstructed loose freehand succulents. Now we're going to use some of the same techniques, but instead of having them be open face like we're looking at them from the top, we're going to form them from the side. Similarly, we're going to use whitespace to separate the leaves, just like we did with this first version. But instead of building from the middle out, from this top, we're going to build from the middle out on the side. Let's just use that basic cone shape we used in the first one, so I'm forming the succulent to be kind of large ish. If I just formed this first cone shaped leaf, I would start with one whole one, and then I would form more of these shapes but like they are layered on top of each other. I'm taking a bite out of one on the side where it's supposed to be layered behind this first one, and I would do that on both side. Form the same cone, except paint it with a little separation. Note that you can still touch the first cone and some of the places, like in some places, but just make sure to leave at least a little bit of whitespace behind so that you can tell the difference between the two. Usually when I do these succulents, I do two on either side, then I do two more, where it's pointing outward, where the point instead of pointing upward is pointing outward. Sometimes two more, maybe even just one more. I think for this one I might just do the one on that side and then continue with the whitespace version. Paint the tops of the leaves that are in the background layers, not the background, but just the back layers. I'm basically just painting the points of the leaves just like the top third, and then leaving the whitespace between these tops that I'm painting along, that would go on along the bottom and leading whitespace in-between the other leaves in the background layer. Then I might paint a couple more just small background cones to complete that layer. This is another fun way to use whitespace and a loose succulent concept to paint a little doodle of a succulent that looks really fun, and the different layers and the whitespace between adds texture. It's pretty fun and easy. Similar to the shapes that we used over here, like this bracket shape and the cone shape, you can use those shapes to form this succulent as well. I did this first one was that like cone-shaped and then if I could do it with brackets also. Here's that pointed bracket shape for the succulent. Then if I wanted to do that same method, I would just form the similar shape and then cut out the side of it to create the illusion that it's sitting behind this first one. Maybe I'm just going to make this one a little smaller, just to show you don't have to have necessarily all of the layers just a few are fine. There you go. There's another loose watercolors succulent from the side, and then if you wanted to try to do this other version, this rounded version, then this is how I would do that. I would paint one of these, and then just keep forming this rounded version. Sometimes facing each other, sometimes not, but just paint. Instead of having the tips, have your layers be these rounded leaves to form this watercolors succulent. I think that this shape works a lot better with the open faced, loose watercolor, but it still works with the side version as well. There are types 1 and 2 versions of these watercolors succulent. In the next video, we're going to do the third version. 11. Filler Florals and Leaves: In this video, we are going to talk about what I like to call the filler flowers [LAUGHTER] because one of the projects we're painting is a wreath using the desert foliage that we've practiced. It's important for all wreaths to have like leaves or filler objects so that you can fill in the spaces in-between the larger and more important subjects in the wreath. For desert botanicals, those filler subjects come in three different versions for this specific class. My first filler leaf that I like to paint is an agave leaf, and an agave leaf looks like this. It is like an elongated version of one of the petals that we painted for the succulent and so you can paint it with a size 6 brush or with a smaller brush. It's long and it's pointed and it has some like, how do I say maybe spikes along the outside of it. After you've painted the general shape, I just like to add a few dots on outside while it's still wet to showcase those spikes. Agave leaves sometimes are long and straight like this and sometimes they are long and bend like that. I think that when you're painting agave leaves, one of the most important things is to just lean into this loose style, have some of the leaves bend sometimes. But we do want them to look relatively stiff, so we don't want the leaves to look like they're super flowy in the wind like I would normally with normal green leaves. So my best tip for that is to mostly keep your bends slightly more angled, not like super geometric angles with lines, give them still a little bit of roundness, but don't give them the same loose flow necessarily that you would a different leaf. That might not make a ton of sense and in which case, just ignore it. Just go with the flow and recognize that sometimes the agave leaf will slightly bend at the top, sometimes it will be straight like this. But either way, the agave leaf is a really cool filler flower or filler leaf to have when painting a desert wreath. Next up, let's talk about eucalyptus. There are a lot of different versions of eucalyptus and I'm only going to talk about one this time. This is called the silver dollar eucalyptus. Basically, I've formed it by first painting a stem. I paint a line for the stem, and then I paint just these round leaves that go on either side of the stem. Sometimes they're around like this. You don't have to be perfectly round obviously, but sometimes they're around, and sometimes they're more flat like this. They can go across the stem or off to the side and the flat versions just showcase what it's like to look at this round silver dollar eucalyptus leaf from the side, so it's like it's staring up at you almost. When you are forming these eucalyptus plants, these eucalyptus stocks, I think, generally, with any kind of flower or foliage, it's important to add differences and complexity so that your mind doesn't get bored as you're looking at it. But it's changing the shape and perspective of the leaves on this eucalyptus plant is one of the coolest ways you can do that. Just by painting either the circle that's sitting on the side of this eucalyptus plant or painting more of this thin rounded blob or either sticking on the side or even going across the center as if the leaf is on the side and staring up at you just like that, is in a fun and easy way to paint these eucalyptus leaves. Then finally last but certainly not least, we're going to learn to paint just like a super easy layered flower that can either sit on top of a cactus or it can just be another subject in your wreath. The way that I do these layered flowers is pretty easy. I just paint these blobs with my paintbrush by tapping and then I use whitespace to layer more blobs just on top of it. Sometimes I have like these three different layers. I start with just a little blob-like this. I hold my brush at an angle and just do a circular motion so that I leave behind this kind of blobby texture. Then I lay on another set of that same thing leaving behind this line of whitespace and then I do that usually three times until I have this textured looking blobby desert flower. My favorite color for painting these flowers is this coral color, but you can also use yellow or violet gray that we have. Either way, this is how I paint these flowers and it's a fun rustic way and loose way to add a floral element to a mainly green desert scheme that we have going here. That wraps up the filler flowers. Now, in the next video, we're going to talk briefly about shading and color blending and then we're going to work on our final two projects. 12. Colors and Shading: Before we move on to painting our final projects, I just wanted to talk a little bit about color and shading. We briefly mentioned this in the techniques video where we went over watercolor techniques like the wet-on-wet technique and the wet-on-dry technique. We used the wet-on-dry technique and glazing to form the details on our cacti and to form the layers on our succulent. Like in this slightly layered more realistic watercolor succulent, we use the wet-on-dry technique and a form of the wet-on-dry technique called glazing to form these layers, and we also use the wet-on-dry technique to paint on the details of our cacti after they dried. Now, I want to talk just a little bit more about colors, so there's color palette we've chosen, and how to use the wet-on-wet technique to create shades and to create shading and more details on the cacti. Now, I'm not going to go super into color theory, but I do want to say that if you're trying to blend colors together, it's important to know how they're going to blend together. If you don't know much about the color wheel or color theory in general, I definitely recommend looking up YouTube videos about it, or some of my other classes have brief rundowns of the color wheel. But basically, one thing to know is if you know where colors orient themselves on the color wheel, you can know which colors blend well together. Colors that are next to each other on the color wheel are called analogous colors and they blend really well together. If I were to take the sap green that I've been using and blend it with some yellow ocher, which is another color in this color scheme, sap green and yellow ocher blend really well together, and they're going to come up with a color that looks pretty good because they're next to each other on the color wheel. But if I were to, say, blend sap green with that coral that I was using, it's going to come out more brown. That's not to say that brown is bad, it just maybe is not exactly the color blend that we were looking for. Although in a desert [LAUGHTER] color palette maybe brown isn't so bad. But the reason that green and pink, like this coral color, don't blend maybe as nicely as green and yellow is because green and red are complementary colors. Complementary colors, that's complement with an e, are when they blend together, they basically neutralize the pigment and so they form neutrals or brown, as opposed to another colorful color, like yellow ocher and sap green made this olive green yellowy green color. When you're blending colors, it's important to know that. Honestly, the best way to get a feel for which colors are going to blend well together and which ones aren't, especially if you don't really want to look up videos or whatever on it, is to just experiment yourself. Test out the colors that you want to use and paint some of them on a paper, leaving them really wet, and then combine them together and see what colors that you get when you mix them up. I put this gray violet together with indigo, and then I got this cool violet purple color, and so I know that those two colors blend well together. You also can use a mixing palette to blend them together, you don't just have to try to blend them directly on your paper. Like for example, if I were to try to blend some sap green and I put it on my mixing palette and then wash off my paintbrush and pick up some more of that gray violet and mix it with the green, it does neutralize it, but I get this darker, more sage color, which is a pretty cool color honestly. I definitely recommend experimenting with color recipes, meaning what happens, what color do I get when I mix two different colors together, and run your own experiments in that way. We're not going to focus too much on color theory or much more on color in this class, I just wanted to give a little rundown of how I would experiment with that and how to know which colors blend well together. Then the rest of this short tutorial, we're just going to expand on what we practiced in the technique section, where if I want to add some shading to a watercolor cactus that I'm painting, then I would start with a light color for the base. Similar to how we started with the third version of the watercolors succulent, we'd start with a light value color, but instead of waiting for it to dry, we're going to keep it wet and add a darker color. In the techniques version, we added a darker green to add some shading, but you can also add, because, again, this is loose, I'm adding a darker indigo here instead of green. Adding indigo to this sap green is going to make the result mostly still look green, but you can mix and match your colors as you're shading here. I'm just adding to this cactus right on top of it. While it's still wet, I'm putting a darker color. Then I'm going to wash off my paintbrush and just manually tap with this clean water on my paintbrush to form a more even blend between the two colors. Then if I feel like maybe I want to add an even lighter version on one side to highlight the contrast between one dark side and one light side, I would take some water, so just some clean water on my paintbrush, and use it to push away the paint on one side. This is a way to add some highlights to this cactus and add more contrast between the dark and the light. One trick to making a cactus look rounded is to have that contrast. One side is going to be in shadow. To add those shadows, we're going to use the wet-on-wet technique, like we talked about, to layer on shadows that blend in with the cactus. Then to make those shadows look even, add even more elements and more complexity and roundness to this cactus, then you can use water or a light color to make the other side of the cactus lighter. We do this while using the wet-on-wet technique so there are no dried paint lines so that it all just looks really smooth and seamless. When I form cacti, especially if I'm trying to form them slightly more realistic, then my shading technique is like a back-and-forth between, sometimes I'm adding more dark and sometimes I'm taking more pigment away by lifting it with a clean brush with water, pushing the pigment away. It's just a dance. You can decide when you want to stop. There's no right or wrong. The more you paint these, the better you're going to get at figuring out which is your preferred method. I also want to say you don't have to keep your cacti this green color, you can also paint them different colors if you want. For example, if I wanted to paint a cactus that started off as this violet gray color maybe, maybe I'll add some of this Vandyke green. Then when I add the green to the violet, it actually turns it purple or blue, which is funny. I can do the same thing with different colors. That's the beauty of using paint. Being an artist is you don't have to stick with the traditional colors that cacti come in, you can choose whatever colors you want. But knowing some basics of color theory, like which colors blend well together and which don't, that's going to help you as you hone your technique and experiment with different colors. But this is what it would look like if I'm basically doing that same thing just with a different color scheme, with this violet gray, gray violet. This is Vandyke green that turned blue once I added it to the purple. Anyway, that is just a brief rundown of colors and shading. One thing I also want to say, I'm not going to paint really in my final project any of these succulents because I think they're a little tricky, more advanced than this beginner class, but some succulents also you may find do have a natural shading of purple to green. Their leaves are green, but then they have these purple stems to them. You can use the wet-on-wet technique to form those as well. Like if I formed a green leaf and then just added purple to the stem, just like that, then I would use the wet-on-wet technique and water to blend those together to get that cool transition from purple to green that does naturally occur in some succulents. That's mostly all I'm going to say about that. Maybe in a class in the future where I do a more intermediate level or advanced level of desert foliage, I will focus on succulents that look like this. But for now, I'm just going to stick with this basic shading technique and the loose watercolor succulents and cacti that we've practiced. I hope you found this helpful. Let's move on to the final projects. 13. Misty Desert - Final Project: Welcome to Final Project Number 1. For this first final project, we're going to put just a few of the cacti that we've practiced and paint them in a misty row. If you know anything about me, [LAUGHTER] if you've taken any of my classes before or if you have seen me on Instagram, you know that I like to use this line of Misty trees technique. I thought for this class, instead of painting misty trees, we would try the technique for a row of misty cacti. In order to start, the first thing you need to do is get some clean water and just paint probably in the bottom half, bottom third of your paper. I'm using just a sheet, a five by seven sheet of arches watercolor paper. Paint a large swatch, not running the whole length of the paper, but large enough that it covers how much, where you're going to want your cacti to be, of clean water and we're going to want to keep this wet most of the time. Then once you've painted that swatch of clean water, you're going to want to move fairly quickly. I would recommend if you're painting along with me, then feel free to use the shapes that I'm using, but if you're just watching this before you start painting, have in mind the shapes that you want to paint before you start. That might be easier for you. I'm just going to paint a bunch of these watercolor desert shapes that we practiced before. Here's a watercolor cactus. Then I'm going to paint it right into this wet swatch that we have at the bottom. I'm just going to extend this a little bit because I like it better tall, I think. I do that all the time. [LAUGHTER] I start painting and then decide I want it a different way. We're going to paint it right into the water. That is what is going to cause this misty effect. It's like the cacti are blending into mist or water. Then I'm going to take a different color, this time I'm going to take indigo and paint another cactus. Like one of those wavy rectangular cacti. I'm just going to paint the basic shape, the basic outline of these cacti. Then I'm going to wait for them to dry before I start doing the outlines, similar to how we practiced before. Then I'm going to paint one of those disk cacti. This time, part of this cactus is blending into the other one and that is a technique I wanted. I did that on purpose. I really like using the wet-on-wet technique and this loose style to blend my objects into each other and encourage color blends I think are fun, and work really well. I'm just going to do a few of these little disks popping out before I move on to my next watercolor cactus. At this point, I'm just going to take stock and make sure that the space underneath is still wet. If it's drying, then I'm going to add more water to it. Now I'm going to use some yellow ocher this time and paint a little batch of, maybe one of them will be yellow ocher, [NOISE] another one will be this indigo color, just some of these small cacti right next to each other. I might even do one behind, just like that. Again, I didn't really have a plan when I put this together, I'm just putting paint down however I feel like it. If that's not your jam, that is totally fine, but I would recommend putting together some plan before you start painting if you're not comfortable free styling or if you just don't really like to freestyle. That is a completely fine and great way to paint, to plan first ahead of time. Then I'm going to paint another one of these. I'm going to paint like a long skinny cactus. First I'm going to paint the middle of it and then I'm going to paint these arms, but I'm going to paint a bunch of them. I'm going to use different colors for the arms. Some of them might be, I'm going to use this indigo color. [NOISE] I'm even going to use a little bit of this gray violet color on the outside of this here. Especially when I'm just experimenting, I like to mix and match my colors, to explore my creativity a little bit more. I think that's good for that cactus. I'm going to take another quick stock of my wash of water. [NOISE] For my next cactus, I think I'm going to do another disk one with a flat bottom, and I'm using indigo. Then this one I'm going to make all indigo, except I'm going to try to use only the pigment from that first one. I washed off my paintbrush, and I'm only using water and picking up pigment from the inside here to paint the outsides, the disks, as this cactus grows upward. I'm going to blend in that top disk with this arm on the other cactus. Because that's how I like to do things. [LAUGHTER] Now I'm going to do another blobby cactus, like this. Maybe a little higher. One of those blobby, rectangular cacti. Then to just wrap it up, I'm going to add a few little strands of agabi leaf. This is mostly a cactus piece, but I'm going to add some agabi leaves, just in and around the different cacti to show some diversity, complexity, just to add a little elements. Like I talked about before, I often use agabi as [NOISE] just like a filler plant when I'm doing these desert pieces. That's exactly how I'm treating it this time. In order to paint these agabi leaves, I'm doing just this thin, thick stroke, and painting the leaves just like that. Then finally, I'm going to go back in with some clean water. I'm just push some of the pigment from the cacti that I've painted down. I might even add a little bit even more of my own pigment, just to get some of this nice, fun, blendy colors along the bottom here. I'm just going to add some of my own pigment down here. If you find as you're doing that, that the pigments stops or astride, then you just have to re-wet it but be careful of creating dried paint lines. I'm going to add some yellow pigment here. Then I may even add just a touch of purple in some places, just for the fun of it. [NOISE] Then I'm taking more water and blending it into the wash of water that I had before, so that all of these desert pieces blend in together. Now that this is dry, I'm going to take my white gel pen because a lot of these are small and I think that using a gel pen is a little easier than using a paintbrush sometimes. I'm just going to add in some fun quirky little details, some lines on the cactus here. I'm going to go through and add the lines where I think they go first and then I'm going to add the needles where they go. I took my white gel pen and I added the lines on some of the cacti and then sometimes I added the three-pronged needle. Sometimes I added the V, Sometimes I added the cross on the lines. Then sometimes I added some little dots, even some dots on these lines. I put some dots on the agabi leaves. That's how I finished up this misty desert foliage piece. I like the details. I'm, only used a white gel pen this time, but you can also use another pen or a small brush with dark color if you want to add in those small details too. I wanted to keep this more doodly and fun, so I kept it just white and I think it looks pretty cool. Then I just mixed and matched the details. Sometimes I put dots, sometimes I put other things but that is the Final Project, Number 1. One final thing to finish up, I'm just going to add a little flower on top of this cactus right here. Just that layered floral technique we practiced before, just to add a little bit of texture, a little difference, a little pop. There we go. That is Final Project Number 1. Now let's move on to Final Project Number 2. 14. Desert Wreath - Final Project: Welcome to final project number 2 of this class. For this project, we're going to paint a desert wreath using all of the elements that we've practiced so far. Just in this class, we're going to paint a little wreath. To start, I took a bowl that I have just outlined in pencil to give myself a general outline, you definitely don't have to give yourself a perfect circle outline. When I'm done, the wreath probably won't look like a perfect circle, anyway. But I like to have this guideline just because one trick to is, if you find that your pencil is too dark, because if your pencil is too dark, it will show underneath the watercolor because watercolor is transparent, and you can't erase it after. So I have this nifty thing called a kneaded eraser, which is just like a stretchy eraser, basically. I use it to roll on top of pencil and it lifts up some pencil while leaving it behind, so I get this lighter version so that I can still see it. But when the colors on top of it, it will likely disappear. First things first, when you're painting a wreath, my number 1 rule is to start with the biggest objects first. For us, that means starting with cacti. I'm not going to paint necessarily all of the different kinds of cacti that we have because this wreath is probably going to be pretty small. But I am going to paint one large-ish cactus on the side. I almost always start on the upper left-hand corner. I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm going to paint a large-ish cactus off to the side. For this cactus, I'm going to practice the shading techniques that we practiced in another video. I'm going to start with sap green, and then I'm going to add indigo to the side of it, and just make this fun, blended, and shaded cactus. Then I'm going to take some clean water, a clean brush, and just push some of the pigment away off of the other side. Lift it away so that I can create a highlight down at the bottom to create that contrast even more. Then I'm going to, on one side, on the darker side, I'm going to paint an arm that is dark. Then on the lighter side, my arm is going to be lighter. I'm going to take a lighter value of sap green and paint the arm that is a little bit lighter than the other side. That's going to help enhance the effect, the contrasting effect. Just to contrast these arms even more, I am going to make the side that's dark, right here, a little bit darker just to create that small gradient. Then also on the other side over here, push away some of the pigment. I'm creating two little mini gradients on this cactus as well. Like I tend to do, that cactus just didn't feel quite tall enough for me. So I'm just going to extend it, and it works to extend it while the paint is still wet because I can extend it without creating any of those dried paint lines. There's my first cactus that I've painted, so it's a little bit more shaded. I'm going to paint two more. I'm going to paint at least two more big ones. I'm going to paint one cactus that's like the wavy rectangular cactus right here. I'm going to make this one multicolored. I'm going to paint it with indigo and also with this violet color that we have. Just blend the two right together on the cactus, which is not super realistic, but I like blending colors on these loose styles. Then I'm also going to take some clean water and just create some highlights in here. Mostly to not to try to get any kind of realistic shading, but to increase the fun watercolor texture. There's that cactus. Then I'm also going to paint a little clump of smaller cacti, just this half elongated half-circle cacti but with no arms. But I'm going to paint them like they're in a little clump or, I don't know if garden is the right term, but I'm going to make one that's thicker. Then I'm going to take some indigo and paint one next to it. I'm going to paint three in the background and then two in the foreground. The background ones will have to dry first. Then I'm going to go back and paint two more right on top of them right here. Now that we have some of these cacti going. Next, I'm going to move on to succulents. First, I'm going to paint a succulent in this violet gray color, and I'm going to do one of those deconstructed succulents. Let's take my size 0 paintbrush. Just next to or just under this cactus, I'm going to start this succulent. I'm going to do, I can't say the word "gonna." I'm going to do this bracket-style, and I'm also going to use that violet as well as Van **** green. Sometimes, my leaves might mix together and use both colors. I'm doing that on purpose to create a multicolored, loose deconstructed succulent. I'm not trying to go for that realistic look where some succulents have that violet tip. That's not what I'm doing. What I'm instead doing is creating this deconstructed, succulent, alternating colors that I know will mix well together in order to create a cool blend. This violet gray and Van **** green blend to create almost like a gray-blue color. Which might not be, like if you like more bright colors, then I would probably go for a different combination. But I think that this combination can be pretty cool. I'm just going for these loosely deconstructed bracket shapes for this succulent, and then I'm just going to go until I feel like it's good enough. I think I'm going to do just one more layer of this along the edge here. Almost done. This succulent has a lot of layers, but I'm done with it. As I've picked up more color and denser pigment, notice that more color shifts are happening with the leaves, which is pretty cool. I think this is going to be my last one here. You could keep going and going and going, but I'm going to stop right there. That's one succulent. Now I'm going to do one to the side. I'm going to use yellow ocher and sap green as I'm painting it off to the side. I am picking up some sap green, and I'm going to put this succulent right here. I'm still going to do that deconstructed version where we use the whitespace. But it's just going to be from a side angle. Here's my version of that. Then I'm going to alternate between picking up some green and picking up some yellow ocher. Then just to show you that I'm going to use that other succulent method that we've used in the past, I'm going to paint a layered succulent just right at the bottom here. I need to start with a white layer, and I'm going to use this light violet, and form the outline of the crown here, and then I'll fill it in with paint. This is my first layer, and then I'm going to build even more layers on top of it. Then after I build that layer, I'm going to fill in the rest of the wreath with more succulents and maybe a couple more cacti, and then we will stop from there. The most important thing to know as I'm painting this is to go from large to small. Start with the biggest things first because they take up the most space and then fill in the space as you get smaller. We're going to talk a little bit more about that as soon as I finished painting a few more succulents. I've added a few succulents here including this layered one, a few more deconstructed ones. Now I'm just going to add a couple more smaller cacti to fill in some of the spaces a little bit better as well. We're going to start with adding the darker layered ones on top of this little bunch right here. I'm just going to add two darker, more defined cacti in front of this layered little garden of cacti right there, and then I'm going to add maybe one right here to go in front of this cactus, and one right here to go next to this succulent, and then I think this one I'm going to add a few of those. Maybe I'll make this one more of a flat disc version. I'll add a few prongs, a few disks going on top of it, and it's okay if the layers go in front of succulent, just generally it's okay if some of the elements layer on top of each other. It just adds a little bit more dimension complexity to the piece. One more like that, and then I'm going to add another little blobby cactus right here, and one more in soft green. I'm just going to add another smaller cactus with arms just right here. Now that we've added the base layers for these cacti and succulents, now let's add in some of the filler leaves. I'm going to take some sap green. First I'm going to do some eucalyptus. I'm going to paint just the stalks of where I want the eucalyptus leaves to go. They should normally be pretty straight. I'm just going to paint the stems and then start painting the circles for the eucalyptus leaves. Especially if they're small like this, they can just be circular type blobs on either side. This is loose watercolor. I'm not paying so much attention to how realistic it looks, I'm just trying to paint something that I think looks cool, and that I have fun painting. Even if some of these eucalyptus leaves aren't as circular as they normally would be, or if they're smaller, that's okay because we're just going for fun and cocky, not so much realistic here. I'm just painting the straight stalks, and then painting some circles and other flat blobs on either side to represent those eucalyptus leaves. Then I'm going to paint one more stalk of eucalyptus leaves over here I think, just to balance it out a little. Maybe I'm going to have one that's going behind this cactus right here. This time with the eucalyptus leaves, I'm going to have the leaves be this violet color just for fun. Sometimes the leaves connect with each other, sometimes they don't. Either way, here is a stalk of eucalyptus leaves. Maybe just one more because I like when the eucalyptus leaves cross like that. One more behind this cactus here, then I'm going to paint a few of agave leaves as well. Maybe I'm just going to paint this agave leaf right in front of this one, and I'll have another one that's straight like that, and one behind, and I'm going to paint one over here. I'm just going with the flow, I don't have a rhyme or reason really, which is, as I've stated before, more of my style. If you'd like to have more of a plan, then you could go ahead and sketch this out before hand. But I like to paint, use my eyes to figure out where I want to go next, that kind of thing. Now I'm going to paint an agave leaf behind this succulent just like that, and then maybe have it coming behind it like this, even crossing over into the eucalyptus right here, and an agave leaf right here, and then I'm going to do one more agave leaf that just crosses in front of these cacti right here. I added my agave leaves, and now I have mostly all of the spaces filled in, so I'm just going to add a few flowers now. Some of the flowers I'm going to add on top of the cacti, and some of them I'm going to add in spaces, where there are any left. I'm just mixing my coral color. I'm going to add a flower on top of this cactus right here just with the layers of dots, blobs that we practiced before, and I'm also going to add a bunch of flowers right here, still just using this dotted layer effect, and maybe a few right here and here. Flowers might even be a loose term, you could even say I'm just adding some dotted texture that could look like a flower, just to fill in some space, add in some accents. Almost done. I added in some flowers and that coral color just makes everything pop, and that is again, because pink is an excellent contrast to green. When pink and green are mixed together, they just lift each other up. Mixed together meaning composed with each other to accent each other as opposed to when you mix them together wet on wet, they just make brown. Next, I'm just going to let this dry, and then draw in some details. I finished up this piece using my white gel pen to add in some details on top of the dried wreath, and now it's done. This is one of my favorite ways to use this fun loose watercolor desert botanicals style to put it all together in a really whimsical and fun wreath. I hope you had a good time painting with me. That wraps up all of the painting we're going to do in this class. We're going to talk a little bit more about just recap what we've learned in the next video. I hope that you really enjoyed yourself. If you decide that you want to post any of the projects that you have made, feel free to post them to the project gallery so that I and the other students can give you a shout out, let you know how awesome your art looks, and if you decide to post this to Instagram, please tag me. My handle is this writing desk. I would love to see your work, and I would love to see all of the progress that you've done in your watercolor journey and cheer you on. Thanks once again, and I will see you in the next video. 15. Recap: Thank you for joining me in learning how to paint easy watercolor, cacti and succulents and other desert botanicals. I had so much fun creating this content for you. I can't wait to see what you've created. Just to recap, we had two projects for this class. We painted this little misty line of cacti, and other desert elements. We also painted this fun quirky watercolor wreath using different cacti and succulents and florals as well. I had a blast coming up with these designs and sharing these techniques that I've honed over the years with you. If you want to share any of the projects that you have created from this class, I would love to see them. I would also love to see if you have any feedback for this class. One of the best ways that you can do to support teachers, especially if you loved classes like mine, is to leave a review. If you are willing to do that, I'd be so appreciative. Also, if you want to post any of your work to Instagram, please feel free to. My handle is this writing desk. Make sure to tag me so that I can see your work, and cheer you on. Thank you once again for joining me and I will see you next time.