Loosening Up with Watercolour and Ink - Fast Foxes

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Nadine. Thanks for joining me today, we're going to do a little exercise designed at loosening you up. So if you're getting a little bit tense, a little bit tight in your painting, this is a really good exercise for letting you relax. It's really quick. So we've got a couple of minutes sketching, 5 minutes chops painting. Very, very easy class. And what I want you to do is see that you're using some ink first up to get a few solid lines in, then when you come to your painting, you don't have to worry about staying within the lines and being really careful about the shapes. You can just throw some paint down, leave some white paper, get some wet and wet, get some hard edges, get a real mix going on on the page. And I want you to see the lovely kind of effects you can get when you let the paint mix on the page rather than mixing up a flat color in the palette. So really fast paint. We'll go through quick little pencil sketch with then some ink over the top and then really, really fast paint after that. So there isn't really much to say about this one. We'll get into the sketch. 2. Materials: Okay, so materials for today's class. First up the reference photo. I've actually taken two from Unsplash and I have removed the backgrounds and pasted them together. I've got this for you to download straight from the Skillshare site, but I've also included under the materials the links to each of these individual photos with their full background, which you might want to have a look at. You can put the brightness up and down so you can see any of the details that you can't see on this. The foots cut off on this one, but it doesn't matter because we're doing it with a single stroke, don't get too hung up on the detail here. I'm painting on 300 gram Arches cold press paper. I'm painting on a board, but I'm not taking it down and I'm painting flat. I've used HB pencil for the sketch. I haven't used an eraser because if there are any messy lines, I'm just leaving them in. I'm not rubbing out any of the pencil lines with this. The other thing that you will need is a black pen. I've got, what is this? It's a water-fast favor Castle pen. This one's a 0.5. It doesn't really matter what you use other than you want it to be watertight. You don't want it to spread when you put water on the page. Then in terms of paints. I've just the four. I've got a red and yellow from Daniel Smith. Actually, I've got all Daniel Smith today, Hansa Yellow medium. Pyrol red. I've got some Indigo and some Transparent Brown Oxide or you could use some burnt sienna, or you could use van **** brown. Doesn't really matter which dark you use for that. For the brushes, I'm just using two, big one to wet down the page a little bit and get the ground in and then this smaller one. I've picked this because this shape of the brush gives me this nice stroke in the foot. That is this. Test out your brushes and make sure you've got one that will give you a nice round bottom and a nice single stroke for the foot. The only thing that I'm using that I don't normally use for this one is I've got a little spray bottle. This one is from the art shop, it doesn't have to be a whole bean spray bottle. You should be able to get these from the $2 shop pretty easily. We're just going to move a little bit of water around on the page with this. Other than that, you'll need your collet, some jar of water, and I don't even think I use any tissues in this one, so pretty simple today. We'll move on to the sketch. 3. Pencil and Ink Sketch: Okay, so here's the sketch. And what I'm going to do, you won't be able to see it very well with a pencil, but what I'm going to do is go over a little bit of it with a black pen. And so I want you to be careful in the areas around the face. Doesn't matter so much around the rest of the body. So say here in the tails, I just want a few strokes. I don't I don't want you to draw the full line. We're just trying to get the rough outline. I will be careful on the ear shape. On the feet, that's going to actually be a whole brushstroke. I just need where they end really. The tighter you draw this, the tighter you'll be when you paint it. Try and not get too hung up. Now for the eye, I'm going to just pop in a little dark. Now, this bit is important. Is the mouth and the stripe, that little white stripe. Be careful on that bit and then I'm going to put in a bit of a nose. What's happening in here? That's a foot. That's the other foot. That's about all I'm going to do for that one. Same thing on this one, being careful around that nose shape because I want that white. Drawing the nose, careful of the shape of the head, a bit of the eye, just a bit of a dark bit of a ruffle around the face and then again, not too fussy around here, bit of an indication of where the tail is. Now, the legs are a little bit hard to see on that photo. I'm just roughly putting in. Again, this will be more on the shape of the brush than anything on the back leg. There's another one in there somewhere. So we'll just about that. That's really all the ink that I'm going to put in. I have that up as a template if you want to use that, but just keep it nice and loose. I'm not going to bother rubbing out the pencil lines. I'm not worried about those, so we'll get on and paint. 4. All in One Go: Okay. So I want this to be really fast. And I find for me, having just those few inclines in, they're almost like a guardrail, it gives me permission to be loose, and it doesn't stress me as much as when I'm using a pencil drawing and trying to be loose. So initially, I'm going to wet down a couple of areas messy with some water. So I've got my big brush, and I'm just going to throw a little bit of water around on both. I'm staying out of the little white bits under the mouth. I'm not too stressed about keeping fully in the lines, but just to get me started, where are we? There. Just throwing a little bit of water. Then I'm going to go to my smaller brush. I'm going to start with some Yellow and some red. I want this to mix on the page. This exercise, I want you to get an idea of what the pigments do when you let them mix on the page. I'm not coming to all the lines, I'm just throwing it on. Both working on both at the same time. Chuck a bit in the tail. If there's no movement, there's not enough water, I can throw a bit more water on. I want to leave some gaps, and I want to mix on the page. Coming into the face, because I want to be I want to keep that nose shape for both of them. Really messy chucking in a bit of red. Now I'm going to go a couple of things we're going to do. First of all, I'm going to see if I can flick. I've picked up some red and yellow in a fair bit of water, and I'm going to click some paint. I'm tapping my brush. Now, some people I'm doing it with one finger. Some people really struggle with that. You can tap it with the other one. You've just got to have enough liquid on there for it to be able to move. I want to look at these feet. I'm going to pick up a bit of pretty solid. I've got some transparent brown and some Indigo. Going to push my brush down and pull up. Foot, this one. So you can see why I didn't bother too much with the drawing. Oh, I've had three coffees and my hands are shaking. Right? Okay. And then in the ears, same color. If you can't this brush is brushed might be on, it's okay. You can move to a smaller brush if you find it hard to get the ears in using this one. And don't worry about the bleeds. I'm going to pop a bit of that in the tail as well. Then I'm going to get my big brush again. I'm going to paint some water, a bit of a ground underneath. I'm going to come up and touch that one and then give maybe I'm going to throw. I've just thrown a bit more pigment underneath. There wasn't enough movement there. To help suggest that this one's off the ground, so I can put chuck a little bit more dark in there. Get back maybe a bit more going to chuck into that web page, a bit more red on this one. I'm just wanting them to balance up a bit. I've got some red here, I've got some red there. I think I'm on a bit of red in the tail. Maybe this one too. If you put it on nothing much is happening, you can also get a spray bottle and just spray a bit to get a bit more movement. Alright, so as you can see, it doesn't matter if it comes out of the line. I sort of helps with the movement of it. I'm just sitting back. Just sitting back and I might just chuck a little bit more red underneath now. Yeah. And then I'm just going to grab. I'm going to just do a few more now that I've got some of that page, we, bit wet sprinkling, flicking paint really forces you to not overthink it. Alright. I might just strengthen up that little bit on the other side around the face. And then before it's fully dry, I'm going to take a little bit of that dark, my blue and my brown. I'm just going to add just a little bit into that web page just to get a little bit more of the leg in. I think that's probably all I'm going to do. I rec that fit. I 5. A Final Word: Okay, so that's about as fast as it gets, but I want you to remember while you're doing this. Don't draw a whole lot of heavy lines, concentrate on a couple around the face. Don't be afraid to leave white paper. Make sure you let the pigment mix on the page, and don't feel you have to stay completely contained in the lines. So do it a couple of times. You'll find that it looks different each time you do it, but I want you to see how the pigments interact, and it's really helpful for your larger paintings to see, you know, these sort of bleds that you get by allowing the mix on the plage wet and wet and then going on to the sharp hard edge lines onto the dry paper are really effective and a really nice thing to have a handle on. But this is meant to be fun, so please enjoy it. And when you're finished, upload a couple of photos for me to have a look at under the project section so I can see. So thanks for joining me.