Master Main Basic Botanical Watercolor Techniques

1. Introduction: Hi, my name is add a little color and I'm botanical watercolor artist based in England. Watercolors, my favorite medium. And I'm mainly known for very realistic and detailed botanical paintings. In this course, I wanted to share with you all my basic main techniques that I use for every single painting. So those would be like wet on wet, wet on dry. And most important for me, the dry brush technique. I have many projects planned for my Skillshare community. And so I wanted to have some basic technique classes in one place where I can refer my students too that are not familiar with the basics before I attempt all the more challenging watercolor projects. So without further ado, let's get started. 2. Materials: So for this class you're not going to be needing a lot of materials. What you will need is watercolor paper. If you're using heavier than 300 grams, then you are ready to paint. But if you're using 300 grams or ladder, I would suggest you stretch them onto the board to prevent it from Brooklyn. For that you will need come tape and sponge to apply your water onto the paper. If you would like to know how to stretch your watercolor paper on a board, go to my first-class, watercolor iris, but where I show you how to do that and choose the class accordingly, then you will need a pencil, hey, eraser, your favorite brush, and your palette. You can mix a color and then any pigments you would like because this class is for exercise purposes, so you can use any pigments you want. I will be using some philo blue and some green. So let's get started. 3. Wet on Wet Technique: So I would like to start with, most widely used technique is wet on wet. And that is technique when the paint is applied onto the wet paper. So grab your favorite brush with good point and draw a few simple shapes. We can practice this technique. So on the first leaf, I would like you to show a very simple wet on wet with a single pigments technique. So first of all, the way we start is load our brush with clean water and then drop it straight in the middle of our shape. Lots of water. And then I'm using the tip of my brush to push that water up to the pencil line. The most important thing when painting with wet on wet is to have a very even glaze. Meaning there are no puddles collecting in either size of the shape or there are no drying patches. So you always want to make sure the entire shape Glisson's evenly. The best way to avoid it wants to cover your entire surface with clean water. Just like so. Then dab your brush onto the kitchen towel or towel they use for your painting to take the excess amount of water off your brush. And then just sweep through the shape to collect all the excess water that is on the shape and at the same time, re-wetting the patches that might be starting to dry. So you want to have an even just like so glistening. And usually before I start to paint, I let that water to soak into paper just a little bit, just for few seconds. Because if you come with a color just to quickly, your paint might just run into the edges and you might end up with very hard outlines. So to avoid that, I let the paper just to soak up some of that water and keep looking at that. That's shine. Any patches started to dry? I just run my **** brush over those parts. But if my Glaser still seems to be evenly glistening and I can see the texture of the paper. And so I load my brush with pigment. And again, as I did with water, I drop it in the middle of my shape. And then as they have a little bit less pigment on my brush, I run that brush along the edges because I noticed if you start from the edges with a pigment, then you might end up again with very hard outlines. And I personally don't like it. Of course, you can always remove those hard edges once the glaze is dry. But just to avoid it, you can just start from the middle and run around along the edges with a little bit less pigment on your brush. And so you cover entire shape nicely with the pigment. Then again, I dab my brush on the towel just a little bit so that I can collect the excess amount of paint on that shape so that I end up with even glaze and tidying up all the edges and just very light flickers while the glazes damp. And that's it. And now we can leave it to dry completely. Once it's dry, you can paint on that area again and layer your pigments. So on the next shape, I would like to show you how we can do wet on wet with more than one color. So I'm going to use two colors and see how those two colors join each other on that wet clay. So again, as we did on our first leaf, we load our brush with clean water and cover our entire shape evenly. I dropped it in the middle of my shape and then I'm pushing that water up to the pencil line with the tip of my brush. It's important to cover the shapes evenly and nicely all the way to the pencil line because the pigment goes where water is. So if you went over the line, that's where the pigment is going to follow. So you always try to be precise and within their boundaries. So I covered my leaf with water. Now I dab my brush on the towel, take the excess amount of water, and just sweep through gently to collect all the excess amount of water. And all the petals. Can see it listens evenly a nicely. Now I load my brush with pigment while I'm letting the water to soak into the paper just a little bit. And I will imagine that this leaf has a shadow here on the side. So I will put a dark red on half of my leaf. Again, I'm putting in a middle of the 1.5 that I want these colors to be a little bit short of edge and then with a little bit less pigment on my brush, then I move that paint all the way to the pencil line. I'm not doing to the other side. Just letting that pigment to flow into the leaf. And then painting wet on wet. I apply no pressure whatsoever. I'm just letting the paint to fall off my brush very gently. No pressure needed. If you apply some pressure, you might start maybe lifting the paint off the paper. So now I clean my brush and I pick up my second color, lighter green, and do exactly the same thing in the middle of that shape that is left and painted. And then with a little bit less pigment on my brush, I run it all the way to the pencil line. And then very gently letting that pigment to meet the other color. I clean my brush. I take the water out very well of my brush by dabbing it on the towel and then just flick it through where those two colors meet, letting them join each other. Very gently. Decided a little bit more pigment to cover the white spots. And is Flickr again gently with the tip of my brush. And that's it. And now we'll leave that shape to dry completely. And that is wet on wet with two colors. I'll see you in the next video. 4. Wet on Dry-Glazing Technique: So on the remaining leaf, I would like to show you a wet on dry technique. I normally use this technique to layer the pigments in order to build the tonal value. The way this technique works is you pick up the pigment and start painting onto a dry paper. What you will notice is that when you paint wet on wet, the pigment dries lighter than as it looked when it was wet. Wet on dry, the pigment will dry darker. Therefore, I'm using more water and mix, so I water my mixes down when I paint with this technique, you need to have a little bit more water ratio on your pigment then when painting wet on wet. So I started with loading my brush with pigment, a little bit more water, watery pigment, and start from top to the bottom, and constantly dragging that wet paint across the entire shape before it dried. If the pigments starts drying, you will be left with lots of watermarks. So you want to keep pushing and dragging that paint while it's still wet across entire shape. Don't let it dry. You need to keep moving. So using this technique, you need to be very fast. That's why I don't use this technique on big shapes. I usually use it for smaller shapes or I'm using it to build a tonal value on my paintings. So I would normally start with wet on dry as my initial layer. And they build a tonal value and color saturation with wet on dry. And shortly I will show you what I mean. Right? So we've covered the entire shape and now we have to leave it to dry. We don't want to do anything to it. When painting with this technique, you need to completely let it dry before coming in painting again. So this was wet on dry. So now I would like to show you how I use this technique to build up my pigments and tonal value on the paintings. And I will show you that on the first leaf where we painted wet on wet, because that's how normally I would paint. I will start with initial layer using wet-in-wet technique. And then I would build that color using wet on dry. So I load my brush with watery mix of color and they glaze over a little area. Let's say, I think this leaves top part is in a shadow and then I need to build up some color. So I make a little glaze just like so. And then quickly clean my brush, take all the water out of my brush, dab it on the towel. And then I run across the edge, just with the very tip of my brush catching the edge of that glaze so that it appears softer. And I'm left with very hard watermark. Just keep softening that edge. And so I would do that over and over again until I'm happy with the tonal value of it. Here I'm doing the same thing on another leaf. Little glaze of wet on dry. Then cleaning my brush, taking all the water out by dabbing it on my towel, and then running that brush across the very edge of that glaze to soften it. And if I want a darker while it's still wet, I can add a little bit more color into it. And then again, running along the edge with clean damp brush to have a soft transition. Here my first glaze have dried and I can glaze over again with pigment on dry paper and then softening the edge. And so that is the process of it due to layer my paint and to build up that saturation that is wet on dry technique. So draw a few shapes and practice this technique over and over again until you feel comfortable. In the next video, I will show you my favorite technique, dry brush. So see you in the next video. 5. Lifting highlights Technique: In this class, I will show you how you can lift your highlights in two main ways. So first would be while the glaze is still damp, meaning when you paint wet into wet, while the glaze is damp, you can leave some highlights. Or the second way you can leave some highlights once all of your glazes and layers are completely dry. So demonstrate the first way we need to paint in. Firstly, if wherein, just as you would do in a painting, you lay a nice even glaze of water and you apply paint onto damp surface, spreading it nicely and evenly across the entire shape. So if want to lift off some soft highlights, you do it at the beginning while the glaze is pretty **** so you can reveal some soft highlights. Let's imagine this is the highlight where I want it to be. So first you clean your brush, you take the water out on your towel. You need to clean damp brush and then just press it down and with the belly of the brush, collect the pigment. And you can see your brush soaks up some of that pigment. That's what the brush has to be drier than the glaze on a paper. And you collect some pigment to create a highlight. And then you create those kind of highlights, softer highlights. You need to press the brush down and just apply a little bit pressure and collect that pigment with the belly of the brush. And the pigment are going to run into that highlight again because the whole glazes dam. So you will have to keep an eye on your highlights throughout the painting while the glaze is still settling to see if you need to sweep one more time. And as the glaze is drying and settling, you will be collecting a sharper highlights. So I'll do one in the midrib as well. We can see if you don't press your brush a bit more firmly, you don't really collect any pigment while the glaze is wet. To really need to press it down. And with the belly of the brush, you will collect the pigment. Now, if you want to create sharp thin highlights like for example, veining, there's a specific window at which you can do that. So when your glaze is almost to the point of completely drying out, but it is still a little bit them that's when you can create those sharp waning highlights. So what do you need to do? You need to wait for the glaze to start drying out and lose that shine that you can see at the beginning. It's really is a little bit hard to know when that time is right. So you will learn with experience and he will teach yourself that instinct. But if you're not sure whether it's time now to reveal those sharp highlights, you clean your brush, take all the water out and you just test it. Just try to make a couple of lines and see if it's happening. Although I can lift off a little bit of pigment, It's not really the result that I'm looking for, so I need to wait a little bit longer. I'm going to keep trying. And you can see those highlights. I just not popping up and the pigment is way too wet. So you need to give another few seconds. You have to really make sure that you don't bring any water into the settling ways because you can see if my brush was a little bit too wet and had some droplets at the very end of those strokes I the water kind of bleed. So you need to make sure your brush is clean and damp. You need to take the excess water out of your brush. So as my glaze is drying, now you can see I can create sharper, thinner highlights and you have to clean your brush and take all the water out after each or one or two sweeps. Because if you can do it with the dirty brush, you would be contaminating the glaze and you would be bringing their colors. So you can see as the glaze is drying, we can create sharper highlights and they don't bleed to the sides as those first ones that so that way you can create nice veins while the glaze is still wet. And if you want to create a little bit of texture, on the other side, you just flicker like so quickly and it will create a textured surface. You can do a very similar thing. Once your glazes are completely dry, those veins dog gonna be much sharper so you can really create soft, thick highlights, but you can create some veining and you can lift off some veining. So I have here a glaze that Let's completely to dry. It's completely dry. And so now I clean my brush there, called the water out and again with a clean damp brush, I can gently just scrub the area that I want to have a highlight. And then I have a kitchen towel in my hand. And I dab the area that I just rubbed off to collect that pigment that I have lifted off. So you might need to have a little bit wetter brush than what you did when you were lifting highlights on our wet glaze because moving that water on a glaze is what starts lifting the pigment of the paper. So now, when doing so, pigment and paper plays a role. Some pigments are very heavily staining, so they wouldn't be lifting off very well. But greens usually are quite forgiving and paper as well. Some papers that have a little bit, a heavier sizing would be easier to lift off pigments. So we need to really be for each painting, each project, you need to test your paper, your pigments to see if that is the technique that you want to use on that particular paper and those particular pigments. So we need to always test it out to see if this is going to work out for you. You also can to lighten up some areas on a dry clays. It's already, for example, right here, the very top will show you it won't be as light as you are to lift off while the glazes well, so, but if you want to lighten up just a little bit, just a tonal too, you can still do it. So I load my brush with water and they glaze over an area that they want to lighten up. And you can see now I have quite a lot of water on my brush, so I will let that water sits on that part a little bit and you can gently scrub, but I'm not sure how easily it's going to be lifting off of this particular paper with these pigments. So I'm not scrubbing too much. I'll repeat process once again if it is not light enough. So couple of few gentle sweeps. And then I will be dabbing with a kitchen towel to collect that pigment. And you can see it lightened up just a little bit. And if I need to lighten up a little bit more, I just repeat the process. And this time I can rub a little bit harder because I'm using here sound disorder foot pit paper and it's not lifting off as well. If I were to use Melinda ROI for example, it would be lifting way easier because of its heavy sizing. So now I'm applying a little bit more force and I'm scrubbing a little bit harder than the first time. Again, I'll dab the kitchen towel to remove all the moisture and the pigment I lifted off here go so it did the job. But mostly when you need to reveal any highlights is better to plan ahead and to either collect them while the glaze is still wet or paint around them to live wire of the paper. So you need to always think about your highlights before you start to paint. So yeah, so those are two ways you can leave some highlights of your glazes and I will see you in the next video. Bye bye. 6. Dry Brush Technique: Welcome back once again. And the last technique I wanted to show you is that dry brush technique. And this is a technique I spend most of the time using, I would say, and it's my favorite and I think is the one that really transforms the painting and really can just bring every painting you have to the next level because not only it's smooth all the surfaces, but it also sort of fixes their mistakes and watermarks. And so, yeah, so for this technique, we need two rectangles. And the reason we need to is because I wanted to paint them both the same way and I want you to see them the difference that dry brush make. So we're going to dry brush only one of them. So let's just quickly paint those two rectangles. Same way. I will start with wet on wet. Choose your favorite color. And I will try to paint him in a way that first half, the top part is darker and then lighter at the bottom so that when you dry brush, you can create this really seamless and smooth transitions and graduation. So, right, so why don't worth, and then I'll give a couple more layers with wet on dry just to get that color a little bit darker. So I'm going to use my smallest brush. I have, usually for dry brush shoes number 0 or one, but I want to try my new Rosemary and cold brush, but I only have a smallest number two. So I'm going to try use that because I'm now trying lately to test those brushes. So far, so good. So I'm going to buy a smaller number 01. If you have smaller than number two, then use either one or 0. So the way I use dry brush technique is for two main reasons. First, to enhance and dark and the darks. For that part, I would use cross hatch technique. Just like so. I'm showing you own a piece of paper. So I have fairly dry paint onto my brush. And I change the directions of the strokes to create the cross hatch technique. And that way I build up the color. So this technique is when you want to build up your darks to make them really dark, really bright, and especially for our shadow areas. So I would use that cross hatch technique. And you see that I don't leave any droplets, so I don't have much water onto my brush. The best way to know if you have the right amount of water on your brush is to pick up some color and dab it onto the towel that the tower can absorb the excess amount of water. And then you only left with the pigment as dark as you need it, but without too much water. Because if you have too much water on your brush, venue, dry brush onto the existing layers, you would be lifting off that color of the paper so that you don't want it. You want to add a color, not start lifting and disturbing the glazes you already put here. So I tested a few, few patches on my piece of paper. See how that brush is behaving. Now, before we start our smoothing technique, we can build up our shadows. So let's say we want to really darken our shadow. So we would use this cross hatch technique. Before I do that, I quickly tidy up my watermarks and edges that I have a little bleed on the sides. Because when I start the dry brush stage of the painting, usually you'll not only build up your tonal value and you do the smoothing technique, you also tidy up all the edges then all the curves and making everything really neat and tidy. Rights I'm taking back my brush. I have a small piece of paper right next to me so I can test to see the consistency of paint and water I have on my brush to always have a piece of paper where you can test it out. So I fill my brush so in the darker areas to use thicker mix and in a lighter than the mixes. So here I start building up the shadows. So when I refer to my other tutorials smoothing technique, so this is not it yet. Right now. I am intensifying and darkening and building up the value of the shadow, the dry brush. Because especially if you want really dark color in some paintings, you can't really achieve that without any dry brushing. So let's imagine that for this rectangle, we want the shadows to be a little bit more intense. So this is the technique of reducing cross hatch. So I will change the direction. So important thing to know is although you use the comics on the shadow area, you still wanted to keep pretty light. So when you dry brush, you don't really see dark lines. You barely see the color there. But the venue layer it in a different directions. It slowly builds up, but it builds up in this very smooth, nice way. Rather than seeing clear lines, although you are making lines right now, but they're very subtle. Tone enhancement that they appear very smooth. So that is what we want. I will use this technique on my shadow area only. I am not going to try to go into the lighter areas. So this is just to build up the shadow. And so you see now I'm starting to change the direction of my dry brush. And so I will do this technique until I get the darkness that I'm after that it has the value that I'm looking for. This is not yet a smoothing techniques. So when I get my darks as dark as they need to, them to be, then we will go into that monic technique. So if your glaze is not looking completely smooth yet, don't worry about it. We can fix in the next step. So you see right now I'm changing even into the other direction so that I fill in those gaps that I left. When you when you dry brush only one way. So that's why we use cross hatch technique that this glaze would appear smooth. Because when you change the direction of your brush strokes, you fill in those gaps. This is what you would do when you draw with your pencil. Right? So now my darks are as dark as I need them to be and now will be the fun part, the smoothing technique. So now this process, this process is purpose, is to make the glaze seem really smooth and to have this sort of airbrushed look. Now if you look at your glaze, you see the graduation from darker to lighter. We want it to have very, very seamless and nice graduation. And so when you look at a glaze, you can see those tiny little lighter gaps into your Glaser that are uneven. And so those are the parts that you will be filling it with a tiniest brush strokes over and over again until your glaze appears really smooth. So here you see I've filled my brush with watercolor and I dab it on a towel to take the excess water because It's very important not to have water, too much water on your brush. So you need to make those kind of a really light dry brush strokes to always have a piece of paper that you can test it out to see the consistency that you have on your brush. But if you just pick up the color and then dab it on the towel, you will always have the right amount of pigment and not too much water. So you start from the darkest area using thicker mixes and Daniel, the lighter, your glaze is the lighter pigment you will use. So here I start by filling in the main, most obvious gaps. And so once we fill in those main parts, main biggest gaps, then we'll go from top to bottom, from their darkest to lightest gradually. So here, picking up the color and I'm filling in those gaps in the glaze. And if you see that you live in too wet mark, then dab it on the towel again to just make sure you don't have too much water because as I mentioned, if you have too much water on your brush, you will be lifting out the color from that glaze and that's what we don't want. Once I fill in the bigger, the most obvious gaps, then I go back to the very top and I start then from the top down from the darker, lighter, that smoothing technique, tiny brush strokes. At this point, I usually do it in a direction of a form. I don't often use cross hatch at this point. You can sometimes do use brushstrokes in a different direction depending on the gap that you see. But generally, that would be in a direction of a form. So at this case, at this rectangle, it would be straight strokes, very few, doing a petal or circular object, then you would curve your brushstrokes to accommodate the shape of your object. While doing that smoothing technique. Now you see I tidying up all the edges and that is what I would do when I paint the flower or any other object while dry brushing, I tidy up every single stroke and line and curve and outlined to make it everything. Because this is the stage when we make everything perfect. This is the step that we do. Usually, they're almost at the very end of our painting. When using dry brush. To make a graduation from darker to lighter appear smooth. Think of it as though you are filling the lighter spaces with lines or dots to fill in the required shape. So the goal is to have an even value and smooth graduation so that the surface appears really smooth and airbrushed. I'm starting with little lines and those lines will get smaller and smaller. The smooth ER, my glaze is at the very end. I might end up using just dots. Now I slowly move into the lighter areas and I will use lighter, more diluted mix is always tested. So if you're not sure, even though when you try it on your piece of paper, if the color is red. So that's tiny little strokes on your glaze and see what market it's making in. If it's too obvious and it's too dark, then you need to dilute your paint a little bit more because you want to make I'm barely any mark there. So when you fill in the gaps in the glaze, they appear the same color as overall glaze. You don't want to make a darker line than what the paint is on your paper. So you want the same pretty much cooler than your glaze on the paper so that you fill in the lighter areas. I hope all of that makes sense. So as I go down my shape, I see the transition here and here are just too rough and too hard, so I need to fill in that middle part and the bottom part, the dry brush to make the glazed look smoother and not to have those very obvious gaps and lines. Now I'm picking up some color and I'm giving a little bit longer brushstrokes to fill in the slider cap here in the middle. So now I want to use the technique that I used to darken my shadows. And you can see how subtle color I give to my glaze. You, you barely can see any paint on my brush and that is important. That's what gives that smoothness. Because if you use a little bit stronger colon, a bit more saturated, then you will be leaving really obvious lines. And that will give a complete new look. So very pale mixes and you build up that layer slowly and patiently. And it can already see how that second rectangle looks different and smooth and even finish it. So by the end of it, it will be a real difference. I would like to mention that this process can take as long or as little as you want. Some people would paint and think that while they are ready to leave with, were the first rectangle is. But if you wanted to take your painting to the next level and to have really smooth appearance, then this is the technique to do so. And sometimes they can spend, it's from few minutes to hours doing that. It depends how much time I have and the longer you do it, the smoother the glaze will appear because as you fill in, you start with a little brush strokes filling those little lighter gaps. But then as you are glazed, gets smoother. You then use even smaller and smaller brushstrokes, even to the point where we can just use only dots. So that is not necessarily to the point you need to go, but that is an option. You can take this dry brush technique as long as you want to and you can stop at anytime, because that really depends on the level of patients they have and what time you have. And I am a mother of two kids, so I don't have all that time. So because this technique I really, really loved says My favorite part of painting and I could spend hours doing that if I could. So here I continue further to fill in the lighter areas and my glaze until I finish entire rectangle. When I finish with a smoothing technique at the very end, I give this very gentle diagonal brush strokes with very, extremely pale mix just to kinda give this last attempt to even everything out in case there are a bit too strong lines. Only one way in this case if I was making a straight little lines. So those just very gentle, very pale mix diagonal brushstroke is just to even things out, but the very, very pale mix, barely any paint on my brush whatsoever. And so this is the very last step, and that's it. And my rectangle is actually finished. And now you can clearly see what the difference is comparing to the first one. And now we can make a decision whether you would like to learn this technique or not. And if it is worth practicing, in my opinion, this is the technique that can take every single painting to the next level. Because whenever you paint it and you think, Oh, I messed it up the painting, it looks so uneven and so many watermarks. Well, with this technique, we can fix any kind of painting in any kind of damage that you think you did and make it look just like this here, smooth and perfect. So I hope you enjoyed this practice and place. Give it a go and I would love to see your result. And if there's anything I see there, you can do better. I will let you know whether you use to strong pigment or not. So the end result is obvious need to make it look as smooth and even as possible. So please practice this because this technique I use in every single painting. So I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you in the next tutorial. Bye.