Transcripts
1. About this Class: Hi, and welcome to this class. Thank you so much
for joining in. My name is Sophia, and I paint in watercolors
and color pencils. Today, we're going to paint
this fun golden Mickey mouse, and I'm going to teach
you, first of all, what it means to paint gold
and what colors to actually use because we are not going to use metallic gold
pigment for it. And second of all,
I'm going to show you that this really
cool looking, stunning illustration
is actually a very beginner
friendly painting. And I'm going to show you how
to break an image like this down into little bits and
pieces, small segments. And then you'll see that all it really is is just
paint by numbers.
2. Materials: Let's have a quick look
at all the materials. I'm going to show you
the list in a minute. You'll only need cold
pressed watercolor papers, a set of watercolors, a couple of brushes,
big and small. I sometimes also use an eradicator brush and your set of colored
pencils from which we'll only need a black one and just a water container and a pencil sharpener
and an eraser, and then whatever
material you use to trace the outline onto
your watercolor paper. So you can hit
pause and make sure you have everything
before we get started.
3. Masking the Highlights: The very first step, usually, before I start painting is I take a needable
eraser like this one, and I try to erase some of
the outlines of my painting, especially here because we're painting with light
ochres and yellows, those are very
transparent colors, and it'll be almost
impossible to erase the charcoal from the tracing paper once
the colors are down. And I don't want the
outline to shine through so much because that just
makes it look less realistic. Um, so I did that. I hope you
can still see the outline, though, through the camera. And I just looked at the
reference photo again, and I realized that I did
miss a couple of lines. So I'm just drawing
them in right now. You're welcome to do the same. And I usually have a piece
of transparent paper there to rest my hand on so that I don't get any
smudges on my paper. This is the masking
fluid that I'm using. This is one by Daniel Smith. And I'm just masking
of a couple of highlights where we do want to preserve the
white of the paper. So I don't know what kind
of masking fluid you have. If it comes in a jar and
not a tube like that, you can use an old brush to
apply the masking fluid. Just make sure that you clean it off with soap be
after you've used it. Otherwise, it will be ruined, even for the purpose of
using it for masking fluid. Um, so this applicator
is quite handy, but it's also not because even though I
don't shake the bottle, there are still some air
bubbles that come through. So sometimes I need to dab it off on my paper towel
to make sure I don't get any air bubbles in the masking fluid
and onto my paper. So here I'm just looking
at the reference photo, and I'm trying to
identify the very, very brightest and
whitest highlights, and I'm masking those off. So since this is a
metallic object, the reflections in
it are pretty random depending on how the light hit it when it was photographed. So therefore, you can't really get them
wrong, so to speak. Do try to place the masking fluid roughly
where I place them. In a minute when I'm
done, you can hit pause, and when my masking
fluid has dried, it becomes a bit more yellow and easier for you to see
exactly where I put it. But even if you
don't get them in exactly the same spot, it
doesn't really matter. Nobody can tell you where they should be in this painting. Um, so this is also why gold
and reflective objects, also glass are actually quite beginner friendly
things to paint, simply because
there is not really a right or wrong
way to paint them. You can do them better
or worse, of course. Like, you can do anything
better or worse. But it's not like
anybody can tell you, Oh, the reflection in this piece of the glass
should be different. And now that you've
got it wrong, it doesn't look
realistic anymore. So that doesn't happen. Because of that,
you can get away with a lot more mistakes than, say in a landscape painting
or a botanical painting. Again, I was looking at
the reference photo and realized that I've missed
a little detail here, just with the shoes,
but that's a quick fix. And then I'm just continuing
with the masking fluid. I'm trying not to get any
air bubbles onto my paper, but it's even with this applicator, it's
really difficult. I thought it'd be more handy.
I just purchased this one. It's fairly new. Here, I'm just doing some random strokes roughly in the direction or form that I see on the
reference photo. H so I'm almost done
with the masking fluid. If you've kept up with
me, you're good to go. If not, you can hit
pause in a minute and fill it in where
I've placed it. Now that it's mostly
dried on the paper, it's pretty easy to identify
through the camera. I just missed a little spot
here on this right ear. And then when you're done, let it dry completely. Let it dry for at least
10 minutes before you start with the
first wash of paint because if it's
still a little wet, it's going to ruin
your whole painting and you'll need to start
from the beginning. I'm also going to
let mine dry for a good 10 minutes
before I continue.
4. Colour Mixing: I always get all
of my colors and color mixes ready before
I start any painting. Right now, I'm just
wetting my colors. This is optional. You
don't have to do it. It just makes it easier to
pick them up with the brush. The color mixes
for this painting is pretty straightforward. And this is a beginner
friendly painting, and we're not going to use
very complicated mixes. Right now, I'm just getting some pure yellow
ochre on my palette. This will be the base
color for the gold. Gold in general is not actually
metallic gold pigment. You can buy metallic colors
like silver and gold, and it's sparkly on your
paper and all of that. But when you look closely, you'll see that to paint gold, you are actually
painting in ochres, browns and grays and blacks. So that's what
we're going to do. Here I'm just testing out
the intensity of the color. We're going to use
the yellow ochre more diluted and more
concentrated depending. You'll see when we
start painting. I'm also going to show you the list of color
mixes in a second. Here I'm mixing up
some burned sienna. And I'm going to need a bit
more concentrated color. I'm just looking at
the reference photo and I'm trying to
match the colors. So this is burned Siena and
then some cadmium yellow. If you don't have
cadmium yellow, you can use any medium
yellow that you have. And then neutral tint
is the gray I'm using. We're going to need it quite dilute and transparent
like this. And then I also use
neutral tint as black. I don't have an
actual black color in my palette because I find when I use
neutral tint very concentrated and also
in like two layers, it looks as if it's black, and that way I have to have
one color less in my palette. So here's the mix of colors. Again, you can hit pause, make sure you have
everything ready, and then we'll start with masking fluid before
we get to painting.
5. Layer 1 in Watercolor: The first step to painting this golden Mickey mouse is to put down a base layer of color. For this, I'm using
a big mop brush. You can use just the biggest
round brush that you have, preferably one that comes to a fairly fine point
when it's wet. And what I'm doing
is I'm just putting down water across the
whole mickey mouse. So here you can see that I'm
really wetting everything. I'm being quite careful
that I don't paint with the water outside
the lines, so to speak. You should always be as careful with your water when
you're painting wet and wet as you are
with your colors because wherever the water goes, the colors will go in a minute. And if the water is
outside your lines, that's where the color
will go, and then you have a bit of
untidy painting. So I'm just making sure that
my edges are nice and clean. And I'm applying
the water across the whole mickey mouse
because we're going to use a transparent mix of
yellow ochre in a second and paint the whole mickey
mouse with that one color. So and I'm making sure I'm covering
everything quite evenly. I don't want to have a big
water puddle in one area and then an almost dry
patch in the next area. And if that means that
you need to go over the whole thing two or
three times, that's okay. Better safe than sorry. It will make painting easier. And now also with a slightly
smaller round brush, I have transparent yellow ochre. You can see it's
really transparent. So I mix the yellow ochre in my palette with quite
a bit of water, and I'm just painting
it all over. The fact that the
whole Mickey mouse is wet just means that it
gives me a lot of time. It gives me enough time
to paint thoroughly. Here you can see how
careful I am with my edges. And also, feel free
to turn your paper. It's always easiest when the tip of your
brush hits the edge, the outline of
your illustration. So this is the lightest color of the entire illustration minus the little spots that we
mask off with masking fluid. You can see how painting
wet and wet allows me to really be thorough
with my first base layer. I have a lot of time
because the feet are still wet and it's
giving me an even wash. I'm not getting any
hard paint lines. So wet and wet is really my preferred method for
the first base layer. So I'm just covering the feet. This is still yellow ochre. And it blends into
the body right there because the body
is still a bit damp. And then when you're done
with this in a second, let everything dry completely. You can maybe dry it off with a hair dryer if
you're impatient. Otherwise, let it sit for a good 20 minutes before you
continue with the next step. My mickey mouse has
dried completely, and I'm now continuing with
a slightly smaller brush. This is a size four. I have pure yellow ochre
on my brush again. It's slightly more concentrated. And I'm filling in
this little segment here at the top
of the right ear. This is on dry paper. I started painting
from the right side, and then I dabbed
off my brush and I'm picking up a bit of color
on the left side there. I want a bit of a gradient, and now while it's still wet, I'm dropping in
some neutral tint. This is quite transparent
neutral tint. It has more water than pigment, and you can see
how the colors are blending into each other
while they're still wet. And then in a
second, I'll drop in some more neutral tint
at the bottom here. Dab off my brush and then smooth out the color
again to get a gradient. Just making sure everything
is nice and smooth and even. Picking up some more color here where I feel
there's an excess. And then I have a small brush. This is a size zero brush. Again, this is yellow ochre. Just picked up a little water droplet that tends to collect, and I'm painting
this segment here. And while it's still wet, again, I'm dropping in
some neutral tint. This is on dry paper as well. Cleaning off my brush again, picking up some excess color, smoothing everything out to make sure I have even gradients. Now over to the left ear. This is the size
four brush again. Same method, pure yellow
ochre on dry paper. This is the top segment.
Always do look at the reference photo
so that you see what I'm doing and what
I'm trying to achieve. I'll make much more sense to you if you have the
reference photo next to you. So maybe print it out
if you get a chance. Again, I'm cleaning off my brush on my
paper towel and I'm picking up some of the
yellow ochre from that side, and now while it's still wet, again, I'm dropping
in some neutral tint. Again, this is a
fairly watery mix, smoothing everything out,
picking off excess color. And I'm dropping in a
bit more at the bottom, just to increase the
contrast a little bit. And then with a smaller brush, I'm picking up some
yellow ochre again, and I'm painting in
this little segment like we did on the other side. And this is neutral tint. I'm just making sure that I don't paint outside of
these little segments. Untidy edges, I would say, are what will usually
ruin paintings like this where you're
painting a golden statue or a piece of glass or
a piece of jewelry, a diamond or something. It's usually when your edges
and segments are untidy a little bit that it takes away
from the realistic effect. This again was yellow ochre, quite transparent and
a bit of neutral tint. And here I'm painting with very concentrated
neutral tint. So I did not practice this
painting before I filmed it. I thought, I'm just going to try it and film it right away, and if it turns out
nicely, all the better. So here I thought, I'll go in with very
concentrated gray right away because the ears are
going to be black mostly, as you can see in
the reference photo. So this is the first
layer of dark gray. But then I'm not going to continue this throughout
the rest of the painting because the thing with gray is that so that's for neutral tint and also
paints gray, especially. If you paint a very
concentrated dark layer of it, you can do that, of course. But then if you
still have to paint right next to it,
and by accident, you re wet that area, it just lifts the color and bleeds into other
parts of the painting. And that's something
that we don't want here. So this is a bit
of an experiment. And I'm continuing with
the size four brush because I thought I would save you some time
during the painting. I thought, why do something in two steps if I can maybe
do it in one step. But then I realized, Okay, it might be a bit more
difficult for you to not touch that area of dark gray once
it's down on the paper. But the effect in the end will
be more or less the same. So here I'm just
making sure I'm not touching any of the light areas. And you can see that the gray almost looks as if it's black. Here I'm adding even more to
get a very uniform surface. I don't want any
gradient in that black. If you look at the
reference photo, it's just an even color except for the areas
with the reflection. So this does work.
If you want to paint in the black
areas this way, meaning right away in one go, go ahead. By all means you can. There's nothing wrong
with it. If you prefer to be a bit more careful
and you don't want to risk touching
the dark gray areas with a wet brush and then risking the color blending
into other areas, you can do what I'm going to do for most
of this mickey mouse, which is painted in
different layers. So it's totally up to you. And I'm completing the second
year in the same fashion. This is my size zero brush, concentrated neutral tint, and
I'm painting on dry paper. I'm trying to get the color onto the paper fairly quickly
so that it doesn't dry while I'm still
painting because I do want this to be an
even smooth surface, and I don't want to get
any hard paint lines. So I'm trying to work quite fast here using the belly of the brush to get more
paper down quicker. The upside of me changing
my mind about how to paint the black areas in this painting is that I get to show you two
different ways of doing it. So this is two different
painting techniques, and we're gonna stick with the second one that I'm going to show you in a little bit. I could have switched
to my bigger brush here to the size four brush
or size two brush, maybe. Still working fast and trying
not to get hard lines, and then I'm going to drop in some more colors
starting from the top here while it's still wet. I'm just being careful
with my edges, and the rest I just
want to cover quickly. And then we'll move on to the head of the Mickey
mouse and we'll paint in much lighter colors again with the transparent yellow ochre and just a little bit of
transparent neutral tint. And that will be at a slower and maybe more relaxing pace. Two. My ears are painted in, and I've let them dry because I don't want
to accidentally touch them with the
palm of my hand and then smudge the gray
paint all over. And I'm continuing with the
eye part of the mickey mouse. I put down some clean water, and now I have pure
yellow ochre on my brush, and I'm just dropping it in. This is my size zero or size one brush I
can't really see. I'm dropping it in on one side, then cleaning off my
brush on the paper towel, and I'm moving my brush alongside my paint
so that I can smooth it out and achieve a smooth
gradient across this section. And then I'm dropping
in a little bit of gray because that's what I see
on the reference image. What we're doing here
is actually just paint by numbers, no more no less. And this is also why I love painting these
artificial figures, these metallic objects because it allows me to switch off
my brain a little bit, because I can just
super calmly and easily paint exactly what I
see in the reference photo. The only thing I need to do is analyze the different layers. So what's my lightest
color? Put that down first. What are my mid tones, paint those in, and
then at the end, paint in the darkest colors. That's all I need to identify and think about before I start. And then it's really
just paint by numbers. So here I'm putting
down some clean water because this is also
a wet and wet area, and then I'm dropping in
pure yellow ochre again, just alongside here.
And down here, And then cleaning
off my brush and just smoothing out
the color a little bit so that I don't
get any hard lines. And then this is some
neutral tint again. So for the rest of this
layer and this chapter, these are the only colors that we're going to
be working with, and this is the only
technique we're going to use. So I'll just continue to paint in transparent
yellow ochre, and here and there, just a
little bit of neutral tint. And then I'll make sure that the two colors blend into
each other, like, right here. And there's not much more explaining that I
need to do at this point. So just going to paint and you can paint
along with me or you can watch me paint and then hit pause and then paint
at your own pace, however you wish to do it. So you can turn on some music
or maybe a Netflix show, whatever you prefer, and I'll be back with more instructions
in a little bit. We're almost done with
yellow ochre parts. And in a second, we'll continue
with neutral tint. This time, a bit more
concentrated to give the Mickey mouse a better
shape and form already. So here I'm looking at the
reference photo and I'm seeing gray but a fainted gray towards the edge of the figure. So I'm putting down some clean
water and then dropping in some neutral tint from
the bottom part of this little area so that it
fades out towards the top. Here, I'm just making sure I
don't have too much water. Otherwise, I won't be able
to control the paint. And here's the neutral tint, and I'm just painting alongside the lower
line of the segment, and you can see how the color
fades out towards the top. And then with a
cleaned off brush, I can just smooth over that
paint and it'll give me a nice gradient, just like that. And then I'm dropping in some more concentrated neutral tint. And again, I'm just running
my brush along my paint line. And it gives me that
nice smooth surface. This is very watery
neutral tint. So again, we're just
doing paint by numbers, and now I'm just identifying all the gray and black areas. And I'm starting
to put those down. This is still a little bit the orientation phase
of the painting. And I prefer to work with light washes and watery
diluted pigments in the beginning because it will just give me an
idea of what goes where. Because when you start a
painting like this, I mean, this is not the most
detailed that you can do with gold and
reflective objects. But the more detailed you go, the more overwhelming it is, especially in the
beginning because you're looking at 1,000 different unrelated
geometric shapes and surfaces and segments, and you're like, Oh, my God, I don't even know
where to start. So the easiest way to
start is to identify one color and then paint it in quite dilute very lightly
wherever you see it and then work your way across
your painting like that. So here I'm doing the
same thing that like I did on the right
side, water first, then watery neutral tint, smoothing out my color
and then dropping in some more concentrated on the lower part of this
little segment. Applying the same technique
over and over again during one painting is a good
way to practice a skill. So this is also why I
think that these kind of objects are a good
way for beginners or advanced beginners to hone their skill
because you just do the same thing
over and over again until it becomes second nature. Here I'm painting on dry paper. And this is more
concentrated neutral tint because looking at
the reference photo, I can see that this is
really a black area. So I'm a bit more
confident with my mix. This is a stronger mix, stronger version of the gray,
and I'm painting it in. Again, I'm just
making sure I don't paint outside my areas. I do have an
eradicator brush that helps me correct when I
make little mistakes, but the darker the color, of course, the harder
it is to erase it. So you can only do that
to a degree, of course. So I'm letting that dry and moving over to this
side. Same thing. Uh, and I'm going to continue to do this for
the rest of the Mickey Mouse. It will be neutral
tinned on dry paper. You can watch me do it like you did before or paint
at your own pace. You're also very welcome to look at the
reference photo and paint it in by yourself and not follow my tutorial
for a little bit, and then check in
with me at the end of the chapter and compare
my progress to yours. It's also a very
good way of learning to not just paint after the
teacher or the instructor, but after the actual
reference photo. So you're welcome to
do either or both. And I'll be back with instructions in a
couple of minutes. When you look at the
reference photo, you can see that the feet and the mouth have a lot of detail. There's a lot of
lines with, like, Bnciena and black and
yellowish colors, and we're not going to
paint all of them in because it would be too
much detail and too crazy. And I also don't
want the feet to become the focal point of
the whole illustration. But I can see that I will need a lot more
color in this area. So I'm just painting in some
more of the yellow ochre, and then we'll get back to it in a different chapter
with more color. Here I'm painting some
more neutral tint because I can see that the mouth will be
completely black as well. So I'm putting down
a first layer, and then with a second layer of concentrated neutral tint, this will be nice
and evenly black. And wherever I have
black on the edges on the outline of the illustration on the edge of the
golden statue, there is a bit of a
gradient because of the reflective light that
hits the mickey mouse, meaning the color fades out
toward the outside edge. So I'm trying to fade out the
color here a little bit as well and create a gradient like we did a couple
of times before. So I started with a bit
more diluted neutral tint and then just dropped in
some more concentrated, and I'm using my brush again to smooth out the
color a little bit. And I'm going to paint in the same way over
here and then as well on the other side,
on the left cheek. So this is clean water. And then I have diluted neutral tint and will drop in some more concentrated
neutral tint in a second. So the main shapes and
colors are painted in, and I can clearly see the
Mickey mouse taking form. I can see what goes where, and I'm starting to
paint in a little bit of detail already this time
with diluted burnt sienna. Again, I encourage
you to look at the reference photo for
yourself and identify the areas and colors that I'm using that will make it easier for you to
follow my instruction, but also you'll get an
idea of how to paint after a reference photo
if you yourself actually look at the reference photo
while you're painting. I didn't do that for a long
time when I learned how to paint and realized a bit too late that this just increases your painting
skills much faster. I'm just looking at
the reference image, trying to see where I need to paint in some more
burned Sienna. And there's a bit
more down here. This is on dry paper. Over here as well. Tiny area. Like I said earlier, the feet and mouth are quite similar. We don't want all
the detail here. That's in the reference image, but some of it just to give a hint at the reflection and
the overall form and shape. This again is watery
burned Sienna. And I'm just adding
some lines here. Sometimes it's hard to find
that balance of adding enough detail to make it
look really realistic and overcrowding a space
with just too much, and then it gets
confusing for the eye. So I'm trying to find that sweet spot of just
enough and not too much. And then the soles of the
feet are also a bit darker, and I'm already painting
that in a little bit. And I'm just adding the
last bits of color here. And then we're done
with this chapter. We're going to
continue to paint in details with another
layer of watercolor, increasing contrast,
increasing the color, creating more of a
three dimensional form. And then the last chapter will be refining with color pencils. At this stage of the course, your painting should
look somewhat like this. If it doesn't hit pause and
paint in all the details that you're still missing before you continue with
the next chapter.
6. Layer 2 in Watercolor: We're going to continue
painting some details, and I'll start at
the feet right here. Again, I have some semi
diluted neutral tint on my little detail brush here. And what I'm going to do
now in this chapter mainly is to really closely look at the reference photo
and try to paint in as much detail as I possibly can without overloading
my own illustration. So this is neutral
tint on dry paper. Now, I'll work on the
belly a little bit. There's already
some yellow ochre on this spot right here. Right now I have cadmium yellow on my slightly
bigger brush, and I'm painting that
in on dry paper, and then using the damp
brush to smooth out the paint edges like we've
done so many times before. Now I have neutral tint
on my brush again and I'm going to work on the
trousers a little bit. There is a gray line right
here that I'm painting in. And some more detail
on the inside seam. Coming down to the feet
again, I've said before, there is a lot of
detail in this area, and we want some, but not
all of it on our paper. Here I have neutral
tint still on my brush, and I'm painting in
some very fine lines. And bear in mind, there's also some masking fluid on there. So once we rub that out, we'll also have
white in that area. So it's really like three
or four different colors in a very small segment, and we don't want
to overload it. So this is what it
looks like now, and for the time being,
I'm quite happy with it. Coming down to the legs, I'm realizing I need
actually a bit more gray here and on this side as well. So most of this detailed work, I'm using my finest brush. I want to encourage you to use the brush and always the tools that you're most
comfortable painting with. So say I'm painting with a size two brush in some
area and you realize, Okay, this is actually
too big for you. You don't have
enough control over your paint in your illustration and you need a smaller
brush to tackle this particular part of it. Then by all means,
pick a smaller brush. You should always use
the tools that you need. And whatever I need is it's supposed to be a
good orientation for you, but it's not a musk. You should always
do what you're most comfortable with because that will give you the best results. And what I also want to do now is make sure that my black areas are actually black or
almost black at this stage. So I'm going to go over all the areas in the Mickey mouse that are supposed to be black in the end. And I'm going to do
this on dry paper with a more concentrated
version of the neutral tint. And I'm going to continue to do this across the whole figure. And I think you can
just paint after me, and I don't need to
explain anymore. You can put on your
favorite playlist, and I'll meet you with more instructions in
about ten to 12 minutes. So to create the illusion of this being a three
dimensional object, we also need to
intensify the black that fades out towards the
edge of the Mickey mouse, meaning I'm not painting in my dark gray towards
the very end. Instead, I'm using a damp brush. This is the size two brush, and I'm feathering out, smoothing out the color
a little bit towards the edge because I still do want that small strip of reflective light on the very
outside of my illustration. So it's important that
you keep that in mind. Here I am painting on dry paper, but then I'm using my
slightly larger brush to smooth out the color
and create a gradient. And that goes for the top of the head as well
as the other side. I So again, this is concentrated
neutral tint, and then a clean brush size two to smooth out the
color and make sure I have a soft and not a harsh gradient because this is a smooth
round surface that we have. So we don't want any
hard paint lines or hard edges because the figure
itself doesn't have it. Same thing over here. I continue to paint
on dry paper, and then I will smooth out the color towards the
edge of the cheek there. It's faster to do
this with two brushes rather than one because if
I only used my small brush, I'd have to really
clean it out in water and then use it again, and then I might
lose some time and the paint might already
start to dry on my paper. So it's easier to do
this with two brushes, one to paint with, and one clean to smooth out
the paint edges. And this is the
last bit of detail. Looking at the reference photo, I can see that the
bottom of this year has a gradient in
the gray color. So I'm painting that in and
then I'm dragging the color down a little bit,
just like that. So whenever a surface is not completely perfectly
smooth and even, like glasses, for example, I imagine this mickey
mouse is maybe made of plastic and plastic sometimes has a little
bit of a rough surface, then the reflections
are slightly interrupted towards the
edge of the reflection. So that's what I'm
painting in here just a few little dark gray dots and super fine lines to break up that
reflection a little bit, because that's what
I see in the photo. Make these very
small and very tiny. They're not a big detail, but it's just a small
detail that helps make the Mickey mouse look
even more realistic. So that's just what
I'm adding in. And then we're almost done
with the watercolor part of this illustration and the
painting overall in general, because all that's left to do is just intensify the
black areas even more. And I'm going to do this with
color pencil because there is a slight risk that if I paint over the dark
gray or black areas again with another
layer of watercolor, I might lift the gray that's
already on the paper. And that would be
unfortunate because that might really ruin
the whole illustration. So going to let everything dry and then paint all the black areas with
my black color pencil. That way, I'm safe. I know I'm not going to disturb the watercolor that's
underneath it, and it will help me finish off the painting without the
danger of ruining it. So here I'm just adding
a bit more color and then smoothing it
out with my damp brush. So your painting should look somewhat like
mine at this stage. If it doesn't hit pause and paint in and finish
everything you need to finish, and then we'll meet
in the last chapter.
7. Details in Colored Pencil: Welcome to the last chapter. I'm thrilled you're still here. We're almost done
with this painting. Now we just need
to do two things, remove all the
masking fluid and add a little bit more intensity
with a black colored pencil. So to remove the masking fluid, I'm using a rubber cement,
I think it's called. It's completely unnecessary
to use this thing. You can just use your fingertips and rub off all
the masking fluid. I am actually using
my finger to check the surface and see
if I miss anything. So I'm just doing that. And when the masking fluid comes off, you can see that the
white reflections just make the illustration
pop a little bit more, give it a bit more life, which is exactly what we wanted. And then all you need is
a black colored pencil. The brand doesn't matter, make sure it's nice and sharp. It hasn't been that much
masking fluid, has it? I feel like it's a lot. Okay. Bear with me. I just want to make sure I
get every little piece of it. Okay, we're good to
go. So like I said, we are just going to go over not actually all
the black areas. The ears we already did
all with watercolor. And now I'm just using small circular
motions I don't need that much pressure to get the right amount
of color down on the paper because the areas
are already quite dark. So the more work you
can do with watercolor, the less you need to worry with the color
pencil, of course. So here, I'm going over some of the lines that I feel need
a bit more darkening. This is just to
increase the contrast. And sometimes when you
increase contrast, it's just the last final
step to really make your illustration
come to life and appear a bit more
three dimensional. So here I'm just drawing over these These areas of the pants need to be
completely black. And this is really
a very quick job. And then here some finer lines, which is why I said, make sure your pencil is nice and sharp. If it's too blunt, you'll have a hard time painting
over the small lines. You can use a paper smudger
to smudge over the areas. I usually do that
to make sure that my color pencil is
really nice and smooth. In this case, I had it ready, but I don't think I need to use it because looking
at my illustration, I find that all the black
is really nice in uniform. It's smooth. Here I'm zooming
in a little bit more. I'm just really quickly, almost roughly painting
over the black areas. I'm not painting over
the outside edges because I don't want to lose the gradient and the reflective
light that I have there. And then we're pretty much done. So I hope you had fun. I hope you learned how to paint gold, and you're not afraid
to tackle pictures that have reflections and
metallic surfaces in them. And I would really love to
see a finished painting or even just a progress photo if you didn't finish the
whole thing after all, if you could just take
a very quick picture and upload it here in
the project section. I would really love to see your work and that also
allows me to comment on it. If you do want feedback, I'm very happy to
give you feedback. Just upload it in the
project section and I'll comment on it or you
can even write me a message, and I'll give you more detailed feedback, whichever you want. So, this is the
finished illustration. Thank you so much for joining me and for painting with me. I hope you're happy, and I hope to see you
in my next class.
8. The last Step: Thank you so much for joining this class. I hope
you enjoyed it. I hope you finished
your painting, and you're happy with it. I would also really love to
see your finished results. So if you feel like it, just
take a quick picture of it and post it here on the platform so that I
can give you feedback. If you have a second or two, please do give this
class a rating. It helps the course
stay on the platform, and it helps me
more than you know. I'm also happy to
connect with you on social or via email,
via my website. If you have any questions,
always happy to answer them, and I hope to see you next time.
Sophia Neumeister, Watercolour Artist. Published Author.
