Master Watercolor Painting Techniques: Paint a Juicy Pear

1. Welcome to Class!: Imagine being able to create breath thinking, What color paintings that capture the essence of nature's beauty. In autumn, picture yourself effortlessly blending colors and infusing life into your artwork. If you've ever dreamed of mastering water colors, you're in the right place. Hello creative friend Melina, a passionate Cal artist from Bulgaria with five years of experience in the world of what color autumn is my favorite season and it inspired me to embark on countless artistic explorations. These journeys led me to experiment with different color palettes and techniques on in pursuit of capturing the essence of this enchanting season on paper. In this class, you will learn how to use different color painting techniques to create a stunning masterpiece featuring a ripe just peer surrounded by the warm hues of autumn foliage. You'll dive deep and solidify what you know about color mixing, layering, glazing and lifting. You will learn how to paint a background that makes your main objects stand out. And how to recreate the soft and warm light of an autumn afternoon. Learning these skills is crucial for expressing your creativity and connecting with the beauty of the natural world. By the end of this class, you'll be able to paint confidence, master essential what color techniques, and understand how to create vibrant, realistic, and captivating artwork. This class is created with intermediate to in mind. But both beginners and seasoned artists may find valuable insights and techniques to elevate their art. The highlight of this class is your class project. You'll create a stunning what color painting featuring a luscious sphere and the vibrant colors of autumn. I'll guide you through every step, ensuring your final artwork reflects your new found skills and creativity. Let me also share with you what inspired this class. Earlier this fall, I used a generated images to create a series of autumn fruit paintings. I share them all on Instagram and received lots and lots of compliments and requests from my students. And this is how the idea for this class was born. I'll share with you all the photo references that I used so that you can try and paint them too, and create your own autumn fruit collection. Are you ready to embark on this artistic adventure? Let's dive into the world of photo colors. Together, explore the beauty of nature and create mesmerizing art. In the next video, I will give you a more detailed look on the class structure and the final project. See there. 2. Class + Project Overview: In this video, we'll take a quick look at how this class is structured and what you can expect to learn. Let's Devin, first and foremost, this class is designed to help you master wall painting techniques. And it does so by guiding you through the creation of a beautiful peer painting along with its surroundings. The class is divided into several videos, each focusing on a specific aspect of the painting process. We'll cover everything from sketching to adding details. You'll find separate videos dedicated to materials and colors, helping you understand what you'll need for this creative journey. By the end of this class, you'll have finished artwork to showcase your newfound skills and creativity. Don't forget to share your masterpiece in the project section of the class. It's a fantastic place to connect with fellow students, Share your progress, and get feedback from me and the community. In the resources section, you'll find the photo reference and sketch for this project. Additionally, I've included photo references for automaton fruits. This means that after completing the project, you can explore, painting other fruits, and create your own auto fruit collection. It's a wonderful way to applaud your newfound skills and keep your creative juices flowing. And that's a wrap for this overview video. In the next video, we'll go through all the materials you'll need for this class. See there. 3. Materials: In this video, we'll explore the materials you'll need for this class. I'll mention the supplies I'll be using and offer some alternatives. Let's start with the paints. In this class, I'll use watercolor tubes from various brands. You don't need to have the exact same colors. In the next video, we'll take a closer look at them and all suggest substitute for each color. I'll also be using white gas for adding highlights, but it's optional so don't worry if you don't have it. The paper I'll use is underwater for it's 300 GSM and 100% cotton, which is crucial for many techniques I'll demonstrate. If you don't have cotton paper, you may have difficulty following along completely. The paper size is approximately a four. I'll take my paper to this cutting using paper tape as a makeshift port. As for brushes, you'll need at least one large brush for waking your paper. A larger soft brush for backgrounds and larger areas, and a smaller one for details. Additionally, I'll use two flat brushes, one large and one small for lifting. If you're unfamiliar with the lifting technique, I recommend watching this short video from my class from good to great, intermediate at color techniques to quickly catch up. Now let's discuss pilots. I'll be using a ceramic pilot to mix my paints, but you can use any pilot or even a dinner plate. You also need paper or cotton towels to absorb excess moisture from your brushes. An eraser and pencil for sketching two jars of water. One for leasing brushes and another for clean water. And a spray bottle, which is optional. We'll use it for waiting areas if they start drinking too quickly. These are all the materials you'll need for this class. In the next video, we'll take a closer look at the colors I'll be using. See you there. 4. Colors: In this video, I'll introduce the specific colors I'll be using for this project and provide insights into each one. The colors I'll use today include Arelin, burnt Tianna, green, sepia, and two optional colors, Roy blue and paints gray. Let's discuss them one by one. First, Aureolen from Jackson's will be used for creating the warm glow, the leaves and the peer. It's a transparent color that helps recreate soft light and glow. Any transparent yellow will work and you can warm it up by adding burnt sienna if needed, which is what I have done here for this part of the pier. This is our next color. I used it to paint almost every element in this painting. The background leaves, the shadowy part of the pier. I'm using the burnt sienna by yellow, which is a little bit different than the burnt sienna from the other brands of the market. Let me show you here in my Swatch book here, you can see that it has a slightly warmer tone than the others and it is also transparent, which as I already mentioned, help us to create the light and translucent look of the entire painting. It kind of reminds me of this red occur actually. So if you have it you may try using it instead. But if you don't just use whatever burnt sienna or warm brown that you have, I'll use green pie white nights for the leaves, often mixing it with yellow and burnt sienna. Choose a warmer green if possible, rather than an emerald shade like this tree on top. This again is the green that I'll be using today. More dark and muted Pa will be used for the background and some details. If you lack Pa, try mixing paints gray with Persia or burnt on bird to darken it. If you have Pa, then paintsray itself is optional and used sparingly. Lastly, royal blue is optional, but provides a nice contrast to the warm tones in the painting. Don't fret if you can find these exact colors, find similar ones, and don't hesitate to experiment. In the next video, we'll move on to sketching our final projects there. 5. Sketch: In this video will create the sketch for our painting. Typically, I would use tracing for a quicker and easier process. This time, I lightly marked each element to ensure the proportions are accurate. You can find the reference image in the resources section of the class, so feel free to download it if you'd like to follow along. Museum mechanical pencil with two millimeter to be lead. This allows me to avoid pressing too hard, making easier later on. Here we have a leaf. I decided to simplify the reference photo by removing some leaves. You can choose two, leave just one if you prefer. The painting process for both leaves is the same. Now on to the second leaf. The great thing about this sketch is that it doesn't need to be perfectly precise. Per sand, leaves come in various shapes and sizes. Even if it looks a bit crooked, that's perfectly fine. In fact, such imperfections can enhance the natural and organic lock of your painting. Next, we have the branch continue like this. Finally, we arrive at the pier. This is my sketch. You can post a video here to copy or recreate it, or you can download it from the resources section of the class. Now I'll remove the excess graphite with my soft as. Let's take the sheet to the border to keep it in place and prevent any buckling. We're now ready to start painting in the next video. We'll begin with the background. 6. First Wash: Let's start painting. In this video we'll paint the background. Let me just quiz each of the colors here on my palette. And I'll place the paper tape here like that so that my board is at an angle and water colors will flow down instead of pulling on the paper surface. And I'll start by wetting the paper. I'll wet everything except for the per itself. You can also use masking fluid to make sure that no color will go over your fruit. It's actually how I painted all my autumn fruits. But I wanted to make this class simpler and accessible for everyone. So we'll paint it without the help of masking fluid. And because the shape of the fruit is pretty simple, it won't be that hard to paint around it. Make sure that your paper is well moistened. As you can see, I'm going over it multiple times until it absorbs the water very well. This will ensure that the paper will stay white for longer, allowing us to work for as long as we need on our background. Now I'm switching to my size 12 and I'll start by taking some yellow. It seems that my brush wasn't very clean, so I got this dirty color. If this happens to you better, white it and start a new. It's important that we keep the yellow pure. It will give our painting warmth and transparency. Once again, I'm adding some water to the yellow and I make water mixture. I'll add it here, painting spots of yellow instead of covering the entire paper. This will make our background more complex and rich. I reached about the middle of the paper and now I'll switch to burn Sienna. I'm adding enough water to it so it's not very thick, but it's also not as watery as the yellow. I'm adding it in the upper right corner. And from there I move downward, avoiding the leaves. Of course, because the paper is wet, some colors will flow over. But try not to add dark colors there. So I'll try to go around the leaves in the pier, of course. And now I'll mix some sepia into it to make it colder and darker. I'm adding a few spots with that color too, mostly in the bottom half of the painting. This way will recreate the light that we see shining from the upper left corner in the photo reference. Let's now add some of these blue accents just here and there. If you're using paints gray, now's the time to add that too. I'm washing my brush and now I'll make sure there are no white spots like this one here. I let more burn here because it looks too light. Some darker spots here. Now I'm washing my brush very well and I take just a little bit of water, burnt sienna on the tip and I'll use it to cover the white spot here. We want this part to be white, but not completely white With the clean brush, now I'm blending the colors, the next time wiping the sides where water and paint Half cutters. Here's one of my favorite techniques for achieving a smooth background. Tilting the board while the paper is still white, this way the colors will flow into each other and create very natural and soft blends. Just keep an eye on the sides. Whenever you see liquid guttering there, you need to wipe it. At this point, my paper is still weight, so I can take advantage and fix some areas like this one here that lacks some color and this one here that is very light. I'll also blame those blue spots with the rest of the colors because they stand out too much. At this point, I bet your background looks different than mine. Try to assess whatever it needs. Does it need more dark tones at the bottom or maybe some more saturated colors around the pier? I think mine needs more darkness, so I'll add more spots with PM. Once you're ready with the colors and if your paper is still wet, you can take a flat brush, washing clean water, and start wiping the colors from the leaves and the branch. This will help us to keep them lighter. I wipe my brush, on my paper towel, Each time I pick up some color. This may also look different for you because the different colors settle differently into the paper, so are easier to lift. And some are cold staining, which means it's almost impossible to lift them. Don't get confused if it looks different on your side. Also, make sure you're not introducing water to the paper. You just need the brush damp, not dripping wet. Wash it whenever you feel you have picked up too much color. Now is the time for splatter with clean water. It's one of my favorite effects, especially for soft backgrounds. The drops of water push away the pigment, and this way the background becomes much more interesting. If your paper is too wet, the drops will just mix with the rest of the liquid, so you won't see much difference. If it has started to dry, it will create spots with a hard edge. So make sure your paper is glistening and you don't have too much liquid sitting on top of it. You can also splatter some yellow. Here's that hard edge that I just mentioned. So I take my size 12, I wrap it on my towel and now move the pigment with the tip of the push to smooth on this area. Some more splatters, you see that? I try to concentrate those on the upper part because they create a feeling of light. You can also drop some clean water directly with your brush, creating larger spots here. Again, I have a nasty water mark and it has started to dry. I'll spray some water on it to reactivate the pigment. I didn't do a very good job of covering the pier. Now I need to blow the paint that has gotten on it. I think now's a good time to stop. Don't worry if you're not happy with your background. In the next video, I'll show you how you can correct it there. 7. Second Wash: Okay, my background is now completely dry. In this video, I will show you how I painted all these moot and warm backgrounds for Mouton fruit series. As you can see right now, it doesn't look very homogeneous. If you're happy with how your background is looking, you can skip this step. I'm preparing here a diluted mixture of burned Tianna. Now I'll take advantage of that warm tone it carries by leasing it all over my background, I have this very transparent mixture. I add even more water starting from the upper right corner. I'll cover my entire background. You can already see how this adds warmed in such a lovely glow, but it also reactivates some of the paint below and it makes everything so much smoother here, close to the upper left corner. I'm adding more water in order to keep that area light. And then I continue downward again, I'm covering the leaves, but once again I'm going around the pier and notice how I leave lots of liquid on the edge when I move towards another area. This way the paint won't dry while I'm working, so I won't get a hard edge on myself. Background, my board is still tilted, so this also helps. Here I can start adding more paint to the mixture in order to make a stronger contrast between the upper and lower parts. You see how this glaze made everything look so much smoother and unified. Now you can stop here. I would usually do the same when painting my autumn fries. If you live like that, you should get a super smooth background. But let me also show you another way in which you can make an interesting background a bit more dramatic. I'm just going to add more spots with burn Tiana here and there. Here my paper started to dry, so I'll spray some water on it. I'll add more yellow too, so splatters again. You can also splatter yellow or burn Tiana. I'll blame those drops because they stand out too much. Let's add more spots with burnt sienna to create the impression that there are some leaves through which the sunlight is filtering. I'll add those accents with the blue again because I lost them. Some splatters with Bernina and now I'll make it more dramatic by adding some spots with P. By going with that color around the pier, it will make it stand out more but don't outline it entirely, just here and there. I'll tilt my board. My per, lost its shape. So now it's a good time to fix it. And I'll use my size four and just a little bit of water to blend some of the spots with the background. I think more of that are out blue. If you want to smooth a specific area, you can use a large Enb brush. Just make sure it's clean and wipe it to take off the excess moisture. You can use the tip of it to move the pig mint and blend the colors. Let's add more spotters now. We'll finally leave the background in peace in the next video where we'll do some lifting. 8. Lifting: In this video will lift some of the colors and will smooth on the edge of the peer. If you haven't tried lifting before, I hope this video will convince you that it's worth it. It's actually one of my favorite techniques and I enjoy doing it because I can got my own pace and the chance of spoiling something is very small. Here's a quick before and after so that you can get an idea of why we're doing this. Sometimes it's harder to see the progress because the results are very subtle, but I think they make a big difference. I'm preparing a clean napkin. I have my clean water and my flat brush. And I'll start with the branch. I can actually barely see my pencil marks. So this will also help me to bring packet shape and it will make the process of painting the branch later more easy. It will also allow me to use lighter colors because I'll have a lighter base. We're basically scrubbing and then we're blotting with the paper towel. I'll move to the Live. Now remember that the different colors live differently and it also depends on the paper you're using. So you might have something that looks quite different and that's okay here for the stain on the leaf, I'll use the smaller brush. I want this part to be very light so that it stands against the branch. Same for this one here. And switching back to the largest brush, lets bring back the shape of the other leaf. Sometimes it's easier if you turn your paper. I try not to do it a lot while filming, but you can position your paper however you feel comfortable. Let's move on to the pier now. Usually when we paint around an object, we get this very harsh line. It is often crooked. And if we go ahead and just paint the object like it will often look like we have cut it out and glued there. By scrubbing around the edge, we soften it, allowing the object to blend more naturally with the background, making our artwork more realistic and polished. This process also helps us to fix the shape of the peer. Remember to use clean water and to blot with a clean paper towel, and that's it. Here's once again, before and after. I hope you give this technique a try, and I'll see you in the next video where we'll paint the branch. 9. Painting the Branch: In this video will paint the branch and the stem of the pier. Let me just try to lift a little bit more color here so that I have a nice high light. There it is. I'll start by waiting the small area here above the stem of the leaf. I'll use my flat pre for that. Now I'll switch to my size four. I take some concentrated sepia and I'll paint a line over here a little bit below the middle of the branch. This is where the core shadow is. Then now switch to burn sienna and not here washing my brush. And now I'll just blend it with some clean water. Let's fix the edge here. I'll add just a little bit of burn. Tianna, I got a hard age so I'll try to fix it. Let's move on to the other part. We'll repeat the same process. First weight, Aria, then some sepia for the shadow, some burnt Ena. The hard part is to make it match the part that we already painted. This looks okay. And finally, this part here, first waiting. Non sepia. Son burn Tiana. Ah, let's, I'm here again, lending everything together here. We can even add some of that real blue for their reflected light. A nice little touch. Let's now paint the stem of the pier. I take some very concentrated CPR. I paint the lower portion of the stem with it because the paint is very thick, I get this drift and now it's on burn. Anna, I'll repeat the same process I used to paint the branch here. It goes like that. Some small lines here to define the ship. More sepia here for the shadow. And that's it, we are ready to paint the leaves. See you in the next view. 10. Painting the Leaves: Let's now open the leaves. I'll just correct once again the shape of the stem a little bit, that's better. I take my brush size for now, prepare a mix of ao line and burnt sienna. I get this warm yellow or ocher color. I place it on one side of the stem. I try to keep that high light on the left. Now let's paint the shadow part with some burn senna. And finally, I'll take some spa and paint the very edge of the stem. This way we get a nice, realistic looking stem. I'll use the small flat brush to make sure the highlight part is clean. And now for the leaf itself, I add some yellow to my green, some burned Anna, I got this nice olive green, and now I add some more water to the yellow. I wash my brush and he'll cover the area of the leaf with some clean water. First, started with the yellow. This will make our leaves warm and glowing. I'll drop some green. Make sure to add some both in the middle and around the edges, but don't outline it entirely. Finally, I'll mix some of that green with sepia to get a darker tone. And I'll add some spots with that color too. And now with just some water on my breach, I'll blend those colors some more dark spot. Now I'll take some concentrated burnt sienna. I need to squeeze more. And with that I'll add some spots around the edges. I left them press my breath slightly, I'm not outlining it. Some spots on the inside too. You can add as many or as little as you want. And finally, some lines for the vans. If you don't feel sure about this, you can skip this step. We'll add more details on dry in the next video. You can even splatter some clean water for additional effects. And now I'll repeat exactly the same process for the other leaf. Okay, this one is ready to, you can leave them to dry now. And let's meet in the next video where we'll add some details to make them more realistic. 11. Painting the Leaves pt2: My leaves are now dry. I will now at some details and try to make them look Morial. If you want, you can leave yours like that, but you'll see now how with just a few strokes we can make them look morial. I'm taking my brush size four and I take some burn. I will let the shadow here, some veins. I'm using just the tip of my brush and I lift it every now and then for a more natural look. I don't have a lot of water on my brush, so I get these textured lines. I think the veins on the other side now, as much the veins I just made with the downs. I'm just blending those lines so that they do not stand out too much. By the way, I have a class where I teach you how to paint six different leaves in combination with six different mushrooms. It's one of my most popular classes. If this is something that you want to learn, go ahead and have a look. It's in the form of a challenge, but you can take it at your own pace. And now let, set some dots and spots. I'll go over the central vein once more with the tempers. Now let's add some details with sepia. I'm just adding some spots here and there. And that's it. We are ready with the first leave now, let's repeat the same process for the other one. Okay, we are now ready with the leaves. Now, it's finally time to paint the pier. See you in the next video. 12. Pear - First Wash: Welcome back. Let's paint that just per, I'll start by a waiting the entire shape. I take my time with it. This will allow me to work on it for longer. Now I take some of the yellow and I'll add it where I see the brightest color on my reference. I'll leave this high light on the right. It will make our appear look real and three dimensional and it will help us convene the light in our painting. I'm adding some yellow on the left as well. I wash my brush and I wiped the area of the highlight, making sure no paint call there. At least for now I can now start adding more intense color to the pier, slowly building its volume so I intensify the yellow in this part of the pier. I keep an eye on the highlight and whenever I see some color creeping there, I wipe it with a clean brush. Now let's mix an orange color. I'm adding some of the burn, Tiana to my yellow. I get this muddy orange color. I'm adding it here, making sure I'm not covering the yellow entirely. Some here on the left as well. Our peer is starting to take shape. Let's add some here on the edge as well. Using the tip of the brush, I make sure the colors are blended very well together by going over some areas a few times. Because I'm simultaneously working on all areas of the pier, the paper stays wet and allows me to add more colors as I go wiping some of the paint around. The highlight again, here on the highlight on the left, we can see in the photo reference a green new once I add some deleted green light now adds on pure burned Tiana to the pier, I add it wherever I see shadows on the photo reference. I'm washing my brush, I wipe it and now I'll blend it with the rest. I lost the grain here, so I'm adding it again. You can see that I'm constantly watching my brush before switching to a different part of the pier. I do this because I don't want to transfer some of the darker colors to the lightest areas. I keep blending the colors and dragging them across the paper until the blends look smooth and natural. Wiping the highlight again to make sure it stays super light. Here we also have a highlight. I'll try to wipe some of that color too. I am now satisfied with how everything looks. We need to add more shadows to the peer. But I will let it now in order to have more control when I do that. See you in the next video. 13. Pear - Second Wash: My pair is now completely dry. I will do a second wash which will make it more realistic. I will weigh the entire area Again, I start from the highlight because otherwise I is dragging darker paint on top of it. And same as with the background. Whenever we go over the initial layer with the brush, it reactivates some of the paint underneath, and this all leads to a more smooth and uniform work. I will start again by adding some yellows and that we have deeper and richer hue, some more burnt sienna in the shadowy part. Now it's time to make those shadows colder and darker. So I will take sepia, I led it to the places where they see the deepest shadows on our photo reference. This is very, but I will distribute it with a dump brush and blend it seamlessly with the rest washing my brush and I take out the excess moisture from it and I use it to distribute the color more evenly. Some more burns end here. So bring that darker color to cover the entire shadowy area and I still feel the shadow needs more depth. So I will prepare a mix between burns and Pia. I added again to the areas where the darker shadows are. I'm washing my breath again and I will use it to blend the colors and I'm happy with how it looks. I will leave it like that. We can now add some spots. Walled paper is still wet. I'm taking some burned Tiana with my burst size four. And I will just drop it here and there. You can even make sound splatters. So with clean water too. Let's leave it to dry now and in the next video we'll add some details. 14. Pear - Details: Now what is left for us is to add some details and our project will be complete. I'll start by fixing the small white corner I have over here. I'll just cover it with some diluted burnt sienna. Some here for the shadow of the pier. Now let's paint this part of the peer main line with burnt sienna. And then I'll soften the bottom edge. I'm drop some sepia and has the shadow with very delighted AP. I'll try to fix the shape of the per some yellow here. Now lets add those hair like structures here. Below I concentrated Pia and I just paint some wavy lines with the tip of my press. And since I already have it on my brush, I can add a few dots with it. I'm just whirling my brush here with what is left of the burn sienna. I get a transparent brown mixture. I'll add some dots with that too when they come out to pronounce. I smush them with my finger. I'm adding some hairs with this lighter color as well. Now let's try to bring some highlights here. On the left side of the pier, I'm taking my small flood brush and a clean napkin and I start to, I managed to lift some of the color, but I want to have a more pronounced highlight, so I'll use my white cash. I take some of it straight from the tube and I add it here. Now with some clean water, I'll soften age. I find it hard to make a highlight with a white quash look natural somehow. You can always tell that this part is somewhat different. Now for the other highlight, I'd be in the same process. Now I will often the outside tage. Very lightly too. I still don't quite like how it looks, so I tried to fix it by activating some of the question and trying to blend it. And finally, because it's too wide and crisp, I will add a very thin layer of yellow on top of it. Let's fix the shadow underneath the leaf, and there you have it. Our golden, juicy peer with a glowing background is ready. Let's wrap up the class in the next video. 15. Wrapping Up the Class: Congratulations on completing the class. I hope you've enjoyed this exploration as much as I have. From the essential techniques to bringing a vibrant note on peer and foliage to life on paper, you've made incredible progress. If there's one thing I hope you take from this class is the confidence to keep exploring and expressing your creativity through what colors. Please share your beautiful class projects in the project gallery. I can't wait to see your unique interpretations of the Autumn Peer. Plus, it's a fantastic way for our creative community to connect and inspire one another. If you post your project on Instagram, don't forget to tag me so that I won't miss your work. Don't forget to follow me here on skill share for updates and future classes. And if you enjoy this class, consider leaving a review. Your feedback is so precious and it helps other students find the class. You can also follow me on Youtube when I share real time tutorials and process videos. Thank you once again for choosing to paint with me until the next time. Happy painting.