Master Watercolor Techniques: Learn to Paint a Pink Watercolor Rose

1. 1. Trailer: Painting in watercolor is my life, it's the reason I get up early in the morning, it's the reason I work late at night, it's my daily meditation. Watercolor is an incredibly beautiful medium to work in and it's a joy to use. My name is Luis De Mesi. I'm a professional artist from Australia. I have a degree in education and I've been painting now for over 20 years. I paint lots of birds and animals. But I particularly loved painting flowers. In this class, I'll demonstrate how I painted this pretty pink rising water color. I'll walk you step-by-step through my entire painting process. I'll show you how I take the reference photo, how I transfer the drawing onto the watercolor paper, and how I begin the painting. I'll paint wet on wet and wet on dry. You'll learn how I keep my colors fresh and clean by blending them on the paper and not on the palette. I provide you with the line drawing of the rose and the reference photo so you can paint it along with me. If you're ready to start painting in watercolor with confidence, then join me while we paint this beautiful rose together. 2. 2. Supplies: Hi everyone and welcome to the class and welcome to my studio. I'm eager to get started on the rose, but before I do, I want to show you all the supplies that I use to complete my painting. Now like always, you don't need to go out and buy new colors and brushes to complete this painting. You can if you want to, but it's not necessary. In this video, I'll show you what I used and hopefully you'll have something similar. Here are all the colors. The first and main color that I use is permanent rose, which is a transparent paint that I use often when I'm painting flowers. All of the paints that I used are from the Winsor and Newton range. This one is Opera rose, which is a really vibrant transparent pink. This one is quinacridone red, which is a transparent red that's not too overpowering. I used Winsor violet, which is another transparent color that I often use, and this is Winsor blue, which is also transparent. You could also use cobalt blue or ultramarine blue. This is permanent sap green, which is the green I use more than any other. This is Davy's gray. This is a very pale color that's semi-opaque and I used a small amount of burnt sienna. Now for the paper that I used, this is Arches, hot pressed watercolor paper. Note it's quite thick. This one is 640 gsm in white. It's white colored. I didn't stretch these paper, but I recommend stretching anything under 640 gsm in weight just to stop it from puckering. Now for the brushes. This is a da Vinci Maestro round brush. It's a series 35 and its size is a number three. I like this one because it has a really nice little point on it. This is the one I use to get into all the nooks and crannies. This is a Da Vinci liner brush. It's a 1526Y and its size is number one. This is a short flat bright brush by Winsor&Newton. It's a number six. I use it to remove paint after it's dried. I use this ceramic palette to put my paints on. I like to use this one because it has the sloping wells. I talk about why I use this palette in the initial washes video. I used a water spray bottle to wet the paints, an HB mechanical pencil, any HB pencil will do, and an eraser to remove the pencil lines. I like to have a hairdryer plugged-in nearby when I'm painting, so that I can draw the painting quickly. I use my trusty water container to wash my brushes and I always have an old tea towel right beside me when I paint so that I can wipe my brushes on it. I use some tracing paper to trace the rose photo, and I used a sharpie to get a thick black line so that I can see through the paper. I also used a metal ruler and a sharp knife to cut the watercolor paper to size. 3. 3. Preparation: We're almost ready to start painting but before we do, I'll show you the steps that I take to get my drawing onto the paper. People often ask me, how do you get your drawing onto the paper? Do you hand drew it on? Do you transfer it on? What do you do? In this video, I'll show you a quick and easy way to get your subject onto your watercolor paper. I have this really dainty little pink rose in a pot on my deck and it always makes me happy when I see it's pretty pink flowers. So I decided to capture one of its roses in watercolor. I like to work from photographs when I paint because I take a few days or sometimes even a week to complete a painting. In that way the light stays constant for me and the bloom doesn't change. I like to take the photos of the flowers in the sun. That gives me lots of contrasting live and I get some lovely shadows and some really vibrant highlights on the flower and that always works well in a painting. This is the photo I've chosen to paint. I chose this one because the center of the rose is not too detailed and I don't think it'll be very difficult to paint. It has good contrasting color values and I think it'll make it really nice simple painting. I've printed off the photo onto a standard size A4 piece of paper, and then I traced it onto a sheet of tracing paper and now I'll show you what I did with the leaves. I used the leaves here and then I thought I could do with some leaves up here. So I used that same set of leaves and I traced them up here and this little one here I just hand drew. I'm going to paint on Arches, 640 GSM watercolor paper and it's really thick and I won't need to stretch it. But because it's so thick, I won't be able to see through it to trace on my rose. So I'm using a black Sharpie to draw over the tracing just so I'll be able to see it when I use my line box. I'll go ahead and do that nil. There it is ready for me to trace. But before I do, I need to cut my paper to this size I want. I've got a metal ruler and a sharp knife ready. I rule a couple of straight lines for myself first and I've got my cutting board ready and now I use the knife to cut the paper. I always press lightly when am cutting paper just to lightly graze it and then I go over it a few times until I finally cut through. There's my paper ready for me to trace the rose onto it. My paper is 22 centimeters by 30 centimeters or 8.6 inches by 11.8 inches and you can make your painting as large or as small as you like it's up to you. So I just traced the rose onto the paper using a light box. Now, I can use my pencil to come back in and define it further and make sure that everything is where it's supposed to be. This is just an HB mechanical pencil and there it is. I'm ready to begin painting now. 4. 4. Initial Washes: [MUSIC] Are you ready to start painting? I know I am. In this video, I begin putting the initial washes on the rows. Before I do though, I'll show you how I put my paint on the palette. I talk about these in all my classes. The reason I do is because it's important to the way that I paint and it's been important to my success as a water colorist. Watch this video. Listen to what I tell you. If you're a little unsure at first, I'm sure as the class progresses, you'll gain a better understanding of what I'm talking about. The first paint I'm going to use is a Winsor Newton color called Permanent Rose. It's a lovely transparent pink that I use quite a lot. Here's my palate. Now, remember, it's got sloping wells. When I put my paint on it, I always put it on the highest point of the well. I squirt my paint onto the top of the palate well, and then I give it a squirt of water. Then after an hour or so, the paint at the top goes hard because it's not sitting in the water and it stops it from going all sticky and gluggy. I can change the color value by mixing more paint into the water. When I want a lot of pigment or a color that's dark in value, I can wipe my wet brush over the hard paint at the top of the power. When I want a light color, I use the watery paint at the bottom of the pallet well. I'm going to use my Da Vinci round brush. This is a maestro number three, and I paint some water onto the petal right at the top. You can see the amount of water that I have on my paper here. Now I'm going to use the watery paint. But it's always a good idea when you first start to make sure that it's not too dark. This is just a piece of scrap watercolor paper, and down goes the watery paint. It's pile or lighting value for this initial wash. The water on the paper keeps the edges of the paint soft and it stops any hard edge brushstrokes from drawing on the paper. I'm wetting the rest of the petal, but I leave the areas that are white without any water on them. You can see that the water disperses the pigment, I just push the paint where I want it to sit. That's the initial wash completed on the very first petal. Now I'm going to jump over to this one because this one's still wet and I don't want to disturb it while it's drying. Again, on goes some water. Where I see pink on the reference photo, that's where the water goes. I'm not going to wet down here yet because it will dry and before I get to it, dab off our brush, I pick up the watery paint and I dab off my brush again. Then I paint the watery paint onto the damn paper. I don't have to rush because I know the water on the paper gives me extra time and it keeps my interest Mohsen soft. Now for some more water on the rest of the petal and some more watery pink paint. I'm zoomed in here for you so that you can see how much water there is on my paper. This big petal over here doesn't have a lot of color on it. So I'm just running some water down the edge. Now I dab, I pick up the watery paint, and I dab again. Then I can run it softly down the edge. There's a little bit of pink on this one up here, but I can paint them on drawing paper because it's only small, and Memphis some water on this big pedal at the front. You can see the water on the paper here. It hasn't sunk down into the paper yet, there's still a shade on it, and on goes the paint. I placed the brush on the darkest area of this petal first so that as I work my way across the petal where it's lighter, I'll have less pigment on my brush. You can see here that it's darker on the left side of the petal. This one over here only needs water along the edge. The paint at the top of the pallet it's gone hard. Now I can wet my brush, and I can run it over the hardened paint so I can get some darker pigment, and then I can run the brush down the edge of this petal and the color is slightly darker. More water on this one here, and I paint the water just as I would the paint, so I'm careful where I put it. I know that wherever there is water, that's where the paint will go. Watery paint again, but I've mixed some more pigment in it because it's a little darker now. Now I'm removing a highlight with my damp brush to stand through the center there. I've got a little bit of paint here on this petal where I don't want it, but I can remove that lighter, and some water on this petal here. Moving in closer for you here, and some watery paint here. Again I've mixed some more pigment into it to make it slightly darker. Careful of my edges when I paint them. Now I've dabbed my brush on the tail and I'm removing some paint to form a highlight. I'm just dabbing my brush on the paper towel as I do it. 5. 5. Completing Initial Washes : Welcome back. It's so good to get some paint on the paper. But we've got a long journey ahead of us, so let's pace ourselves. In this video, I'll complete the initial pink washes on the rose. I've included a photograph that you can download that shows you how my painting looked after I've completed those first initial washes. On painting, watery paint on damp paper here, but I want to leave a little white edge paper against that adjacent petals there. There you can see that I've left a little strip of white down the edge of width. This one with water also and I'm using the watery paint again and leave a little section of white paper over the top there. I've just done the same thing with this one here. This one here is really large in color, so I'm painting on some water first, and then I'm only going to put a very large sprinkling of color over the top. The paint is very pile and I'm leaving areas of what papers showing. I'm not completely covering the paper with paint. I'm just patting on dabbing the paint on with my brush. In the center here I'm painting watery pipe straight onto the dry paper. I haven't wet at this time because there's no need in the middle there. This area in here is painted on dry paper as well. It's just a solid mass of color, so I didn't need to wet the paper first and draw a pipe or in this little area here, again, just the watery pine and the same here. So watery paint on dry paper. This one's on drawing paper is, well, I'm painting all these petals on dry paper because they're really small and I can paint them quickly in this no soft edges that I need to worry about. I can just fill in the petal. To this draws paper again too. Now, I've tried it off with a hair dryer, and what I'm going to do is remove some of those pencil lines because there will be distracting and I don't really need them anymore. That's looking a bit better. There's the first washes completed and I've included this photo for you to download. It's called Initial Washes Completed. 6. 6. Cast Shadows: I introduce two new colors onto my palette because I'm going to start painting some of the cast shadows that are on the rose. I dropped the colors onto the wet paint and I let the colors merge on the wet paper. I prefer to do this rather than premix my colors on the palette. I think it helps to keep your colors vibrant and fresh and it adds visual interest to your painting. Whoops, that went everywhere. This is Winsor violet, it's a new color for my palette. I place it at the top of the pallet well and then I give it a squirt of water. This is a transparent violet that I often use in my paintings. Another new color is called Opera rose, and my tube's nearly empty because I use it quite a bit. Opera rose is a really bright color, really sings, it's semi-transparent pink. What I'm going to do is use a small amount of the Winsor violet in these cast shadow areas, these ones here. Then I'm going to use the Opera rose on the vibrant pink areas that I see on the reference photo. On this big petal at the bottom, I'm going to wet the area where the shadow sits with some water, and this will keep the paint soft and luminous and I won't have to rush. This is watery permanent rose and I paint it onto the wet area. I'm looking at the reference photo as I paint just to make sure I get the shape correct. Then I dab, pickup some watery paint, and I dab again, and then while the pink paint is still wet I drop it in to merge with the pink. I'm going to let that do its own thing, I'm not going to fuss with it too much. I'm just drawing a line to follow where the other shadow sits, and I've just painted that shadow shape with some water and now I'm painting on some watery Winsor violet. I've just dabbed my brush on the towel because I've got enough paint there that I can move it around that section. A little bit of paint goes a long way. This is some watery permanent rose and I'm just dropping it onto the wet violet. This shadow actually runs down beside this petal, so I'm painting on dry paper here and it flares out at the bottom. Now, I want to go water on my brush. I'm just moving the paint where I want it gently, and now some more of the watery permanent rose just dropping it into the wet paint. There's a cast shadow here but I can't paint it until this one here dries. There's a little cast shadow down here that I'll paint now. This is watery permanent rose straight into the dry paper. This is a little bit of the Winsor violet just dropped onto the watery rose. There's also a little shadow up here. There's enough paint on my brush I don't need to reload it. As I paint I'm just looking at the reference photo to make sure I get the shadow shape right. I'm painting on dry paper here. Now, I'm going to put a little bit of water up on that shadow that I painted earlier, and this is some Winsor violet. That's fairly dark so I just washed my brush and now there's just water on it and I can spread that violet out softly over the pink, it just deepens the color. This shadow here on this petal needs to be a bit darker, so I wet the area with some water where I want the shadow to sit and this will keep my edges soft. I paint the water on carefully and I kept glancing at the reference photo as I do it. This is watery permanent rose, I've only got a little bit there on my brush and you can see that a little bit of paint goes a long way. The water on the paper keeps those edges soft. Now I'm dropping in some of the watery Opera rose to brighten this area down here further, and some of the watery Winsor violet up here. Back to this area, this is some more Opera rose, but this time I use my wet brush to touch the pigment at the top of the palette, it's fairly dark. 7. 7. Deepening the Colour & Painting the Cup.: [MUSIC] In this video, I'll be deepening the color on these large petal, this side of the rose, and there's a cast shadow that I'll paint as well. I'll also deepen the color on the cup part of the rose. I need to get into little nooks and crannies. I'll begin using my liner brush as well. I'm going to deepen the color on these large petal here. I wet the paper where I want the paint to go. Now, I'm going to do this petal in sections because the paper might dry before it get to it. This is watery, permanent rose, and this is a touch of watery winds of violet. I just moved the paint where I wanted over the top of the rose. I'm just tidying up the edges here. Now, I wet this middle section and then a touch of the watery, permanent rose onto the wet paper. As I demonstrated in the initial washes video, I dried my brush to get rid of the excess moisture before I pick up the watery paint. This is some watery violet onto the wet paint, and then I use my damp brush to move the violet around. Now, I've just extended that shadow down further under this other petal, just in the same way that I've been doing it. [inaudible] first, then a touch of the watery permanent rose. Back to this petal that I couldn't work on in the previous video. I wet the shadow area first with water, and then I dip my brush and pick up some of the watery permanent rose. Then some of the watery violet just as before. This just gives the pink a blue hue and adds interest to the petal. Turn to this large petal at the bottom. My petal is a slightly different shape to the reference photo, but I'm not particularly worried about. What I'm going to do is bring in a little shadow underneath this area here. Now, because this area is so small, I don't need to wet the paper. All it needs is some watery permanent rose. Now, it's time to deepen the color on this petal. I'm just putting some water on it. I've zoomed in here so you can see the water better. It's not sopping wet, but there is still a shine on the surface of the paper. Then I dip my brush, pick up the watery upper rose, and I dip it off again. Then that one goes onto the white paper and just paint it wherever the water is. Now, I'm going a little darker in color. What I've done is, I've walked my wet brush over the hard paint at the top and I'm deepening the bottom corner. I've dipped my brush, pick up some watery violet, dip again, and then I drop that onto the wet paint. This is a Da Vinci liner brush. It's a series 1, 2, 5, 6Y, and I'm going to use it to get into a tiny corner of the rose. I'm wetting the corner area with water using the Maestro Brush and then using my liner brush or whether it with water, dip off the edges and then I pick up the paint from the top of the pellet. Then that's what I'm going to paint with and that goes onto their damp paper. I can get run up into the corner with it. Then I wish I had the paint and I damped the brush in a towel and I can use the damp brush to soften the edge. 8. 8. Deepening the Colour with Opera Rose: Let's get some more deep color onto the rose. Let's start creating form with a rose begins to take shape instead of looking flat on the paper. I give opera rose a bit of a workout in this video. You'll see that there's lots of paint on my brush, so I pick up that rich color by wiping my wet brush over the paint at the top of the palette. This area down here needs some more color on it, so I wet the area, I want to put the color on with water. I'm back to my maestro brush now. This is upper rose from the top of the palette, the area is quite pink on the reference photo. Now I have some of the watery opera rose on my brush because the color isn't quite as intense as it moves away from the right edge. Then my brush is just damp with water and I can use it to soften the edge of the paint, and I can tidy up the edges with it too. Now wet this area up here with water. Then I switch back to my little liner brush and I use opera rose from the top of the palette, brush it onto the damp paper. I've switched to the smaller brush so that I can get right into the corner and have good control, and I've left a tiny bit of the underwear showing to form a small turn back or rolled part of the edge of the petal. Back to the maestro brush now and I'm putting some water on this area here. Then some opera rose from the top of the palette on my little liner brush. I run it carefully along the edge of the other petal. Now I just have water on my brush and I soften the edge of the paint. We can push it up further into the corner. Now I have ordered a permanent rose and I'm painting on dry paper here, which is glazing over the top of that other first layer, the same thing here. I'm painting tentatively because I'm looking at the reference photo trying to work out where to put the paint. This is just water on my brush at the moment, and I'm softening the edge of the paint. When the paint is wet, I can deepen the color slightly by using the paint from the top of the palette. Switching to the maestro brush now, and I've only got water on it and I can tidy up and soften the edge further. Now I want to push the color up a little higher here, so I use the hard paint from the top of the palette again. I'm cleaning up the edge again with the damp maestro brush. Now I'm deepening the color in this area here. I'm using watery, permanent rose on dry paper. I'm just glazing over the top of the first layer of paint. Now I'm deepening the color around the cup of the rose with some opera rose that I took from the top of the palette. I'm using my little liner brush so that I can get the paint hard up against the cup of the rose. Then I switch back to the maestro brush just to soften the edge of the paint, it's just water on my brush at the moment. 9. 9. The Centre: It's time to paint the part of the rose that I dislike painting the most, and that's the center. I do this with a color called quinacridone red. I'm always glad when I get the center of the rose painted, because it can be a bit tricky to get right. When I first start painting the center, I keep the color light in value, because I'm trying to get everything placed where it should be. If I make a mistake, I can easily remove the paint if it's light in color. I sneak up on it. So when I'm happy with the way it's looking, then I can add more pigment. There's also a little curved part on the edge of the cup of the rose that I'm not very happy with, so I'll show you how I correct that. Continuing on with the color deepening now, I wet this little skinny petal here with some water, and this is opera rose. Now I want my wet brush over the hard paint at the top. Just deepening the color here. Now, I wash the paint off my brush, and I just use the damp brush to soften the edge again, like I've been doing all the way through the class. Now, for the areas that are red color, as there is down here, I'm going to use quinacridone red. So I put it at the top of the palette, and I give it a squirt of water. Now, quinacridone red is a pretty transparent red hue that's not too bright. I use it when I want a red that's not going to overpower the other colors that I'm using. So I'm going to begin painting this center of the rose now, and I'm using watery quinacridone red on dry paper here. Just looking at the reference photo as I paint. I start off light in color value at first, and when I get the color where I want it, I can then apply the paint deeper in color. Just in case I make a mistake and I'm going to try and remove it. So now the paint is slightly wet, and I've picked up some paint from the top of the palette. This is still quinacridone red, and I can just deepen some areas with the color. This is opera rose now and again, I've taken it from the top of the palette, and again, I'm painting on dry paper here. This is opera rose, but it's watery this time, and now there's just water on my brush, just softening the edge again. On this little side section of the center, I just want to take a bit of paint off, because I'm not happy with the way the petal curves around there, so I'm rubbing softly with a damp brush. This is quinacridone red again, it's watery and the paper is dry, and you can see why I need this tiny little liner brush. This is watery opera rose, and now I've just got water on my brush again. I've got my pencil now, and I'm just trying to draw in that edge again for myself. I'm going to try and tidy up this area, and I want to continue the coloring on the front of the petal to create that turned back edge. That's better. So this is opera rose again, and it's fairly dark, so I've picked it up from the top of the palette with a little bit of water, and now, there's just water on my brush, I'm just spreading it, softening the edge. Some water over the front of the cup, and this is watery permanent rose. I want to paint it along the turned back to create the edge, and then I could just draw it down softly over the cup like this. Just increasing the color slightly here. This is watery permanent rose. The paper's dry here. I'm using that brush right up on its tip. Just defining that area just a little bit further. Now, there's just water on my brush, softening the edge. A little tiny bit of water here, and this is opera rose from the top of the palette. Just deepening the color. So now, what I want to do is deepen the color in the center here. I want to push these petals back down into the rows. So I've dried this off carefully with my hair dryer and this is watery permanent rose that I'm painting straight onto the dry paper. It just pushes those petals down into the rose. 10. 10. Deepening Colour & Tidying Edges: I continue on with deepening the color on the rows and places. I use the paint to define the turned barks. I just generally deepen the color in the shadows. One of the edges of the shadows on one of the petals has dried to a sharp or a hard line which I don't like. So I take my bristle brush and I gently remove it. I'm using my depth bristle brush here just to remove some paint along the edge where I don't want it. I'm creating a shadow in here now with some quinacridone red. The paint is watery, but I've got lots of pigment in it. The paper is dry here. Now I've switched to watery upper rows. I'm just blending it in with the quinacridone red. I'm taking it up further along the petal, up to the top edge. This is dry paper still. I didn't need to wet the paper because this edge here is hard. All of the other edges I've been painting are soft. Now I'm increasing the quinacridone red color dye in the corner. The pink paint is still wet. Now I've just got water on my brush and I'm just pushing it up further into that pink paint to softening the edge of it. Now you can see in this center here that the quinacridone red that I painted earlier has dried a bit later than I anticipated. I'm just going over the top with another layer of it. This is just watery quinacridone red on dry paper. Now I just want to deepen the color down in this little corner section. So I'll put a little bit of water on it because the edge of the shadow is going to be soft. This is the quinacridone red from the top of the pallet. I'm just keeping my edges nice and tidy. You can see how that water has kept at paint soft on that edge there. Now I want to define the tone back to part of the petal along the edge of the cup here. I'm wetting it with water. But I'm careful that I leave the turned back part of the petal dry. Now I've switched to my liner brush and this is watery permanent rose. A tiny bit more color now. It's running along under that edge. Then I can pull some little strokes down over the petal softly. I want to deepen the color on the side of the cup. So I wet the area with some water. This is quinacridone red from the top of the pallet. I'm painting the darkest color on the outer edge of the cup. This is watery permanent rose. Now I only have water on my brush and I can use it to blend away that hard edge. The paint edge has dried and left a hard edge up here that I don't particularly like, so I'm using the damp bristle brush just to soften the edge of the paint. But just rub it gently. That should soften the edge of it. 11. 11. Painting Edges: I use my liner brush to define the edges of some of the petals. I wet the edges with water first and then I run the paint along the edge. Because there's water on the paper, the paint gently flays across the edge, creating a softer face. I've just wet the edge of this petal with water. Now I'm using permanent rose from the top of the pellet just to run along the edge with my liner brush. Now I'm going to do the same thing along the edge here. This is permanent rose again. Now I have some watery Winsor violet on my brush and I'm deepening the shadow here on this petal. I'm painting on drawing paper here. Just bringing it down the edge of the other petal. Now I want to deepen the color on the edge of this petal. So I'm wetting it with water. I want the paint edges to be soft, not hard. Now on the edge of the petal at the top that I just painted, I used the hard paint from the top of the pellet. On this one, I'm using watery permanent rose because I don't want the color to be quite as dark, and I want the paint to spread a little further along the petal. I've just done exactly the same thing along the edge of this petal, water first and then the watery permanent rose. Now I'm painting some order along this petal as well. This is permanent rose again. It's a little darker than the other side, so I've picked up some paint from the top of the pellet this time. This petal up here needs a bit of color along the edge as well. Doing this helps to make the petals look more rounded rather than flat. This is watery permanent rose and I'm using at the moment,. I'm doing the same thing along the edge of these petal too. Now we have moved down to the front of the rose. I'm just painting some water along the edge of this one. Now I switch to my liner brush and this is permanent rose from the top of the pellet. I'm letting it bleed up onto the surface of the petal from the edge. Just like all the other ones that I've just done. You can see that it's quite dark. The paper has dried too much here, so I'll re-wet it. I'll soften the edge of the paint at the same time. I've just wet the shadow area with some water and this is water Winsor violent that I'm running along the edge. Now I'm just softening with a damp brush. 12. 12. Shape Following Strokes: When I paint roses, sometimes I like to paint little fine soft lines over the petals in places. When I paint them, I follow the shape of the petal with my brush to try and indicate the roundness of the petal. I paint these lines on dump paper to make sure that they're fuzzy and blurred rather than sharp and hard. Watch this video and you'll see what I'm talking about. I want to deepen the color of this petal here, so this is just a little bit of water. This is upper rose from the top of the pellet. Am using my line and branch because I want to get the pain hard up against the edges of the petals that touch this one. Using it right up on its tip. I've got some watery permanent rose on my brush and this will just blend with the upper rose. A little bit of water now on my maestro brush, and I just soften the edge of the paint. The color needs to be deeper on this petal here, so I'm using my maestro brush to put some water on it first. This is permanent rose from the top of the pallet and I've switched brushes again back to my fine brush. Just pulling it up under the petal. Now there's just water on my brush because there's enough paint there and I can just push the paint wherever I like. A little bit more paint down here. This is the watery permanent rose again. The paper is dry here. I'm going to work on these pale petals that don't have a lot of paint on them yet. So I'll get some clean water and here you can see the application of the water on the paper better. I paint with the water just as I paint with the paint. I've got some watery permanent rose. I've switched to finer brush and I'm running it along the edge of the petal. The water will make it get bleed up onto the surface of the petal. Now that I've done that, I can use the paint that's already there and I can pull it up on to the petal in the form of fine strokes. I'm just trying to follow the shape of the petal with the strokes to create roundness. I need a bit of color along there as well. This is watery permanent rose. I can pull a few strokes down the other way. Some water on this petal at the front and some watery permanent rose on my liner brush. I'm going to turn my painting around because I always find it easier to pull strokes towards myself rather than away from myself. A tiny bit of paint on my brush. Just pulling those strokes up like I did with the other petal. You can see that the water on the paper keeps those strokes soft. It doesn't give you a hard line. I've got some permanent rose from the top of the pallet, I just want to deepen the color along the edge. Now I'm just reinforcing some of those strokes. Let's have a look at that. If you think that you've overdone it at all or if something looks a bit stiff, just get your wet brush and just wipe it off. We've got some watery paint here. This is watery permanent rose and I'm just going to deepen the color along edge. Just pull it up a little bit further. 13. 13. Final Stages of the Rose: In this video, the rose will be just about finished. I deepen colors again, and I paint all those last minute details. There is a little highlight on these petal and I want to bring him back. I'm rubbing the paper with my damp bristle brush, just to remove some of the paint. Now, I'm wetting the petal with water because I want to paint some of those fine shaped following strokes over the top. This is watery permanent rose again, and again, if there's any marks that you've made that you don't like, you can use it damp brush to remove them. I just want to deepen the color under here again. So a little water first and then some moderate opera rose a little bit more here. Now, I just have water on my brush and I'm softening the edge of the paint again. Now, I've just wet this petal and I'm applying some watery permanent rose. I'm just deepening the color a little bit further and just here, I want to go deeper in color as well. This time I've got operands from the top of the pellet to be darker and little bit of the opera rose is applied onto the other petal, I'll fix that in a minute. Now, I only have water on my brush and again I'm softening the age of the paint and then I can use the damp brush to pull out paint down that accidently went onto these petal. A new color for my palette, this is burnt sienna and I only needed tiny bit of it. When you know, there's a big blob of paint that I don't need, I hate it when that happens. So a quick squirt of water and I'll show you what I'm going to do with it. I want to run it down the age of these petal. I wet the edge carefully with water and then I use the paint from the top of the pellet to run along the watery edge. Now, I'm going to put a little bit on the corner of this one too. I wet it first and then some burnt sienna from the top of the palate using my liner brush. A little tiny bit more up here too and you'll be pleased to know in the next video, I'll start painting the leaves. 14. 14. Beginning the Leaves: It's time to start the leaves. I painted three little thin leaves that stick out underneath the rise in this video. There's two new colors to use; one of them is Davy's gray. If you don't have Davy's gray you can mix up a nice gray from a blue and a ready colored brown that you might have. I sometimes mix burnt sienna and ultramarine blue to mechanize gray. I base these leaves in Davy's gray and then I paint some other colors over the top. Some new colors for my palette, the first one is Davy's gray. I don't need much of this color, and the second color is permanent sap green. I'll put this at the top of this little circular wheel and a squat of water for each. Davy's gray is a semi-opaque pale gray green color. It's quite pretty. Sap green is a transparent green that I often use. It's usually the first green I reach for when I'm painting leaves. I'm mixing some of the Davy's gray into the water and I'm going to use these watery paint to paint onto the leaves. I'll start with this one on the left-hand side, I'm using the watery Davy's gray on dry paper here, and I'm going to leave the tip of the leaf without any paint under it at the moment, same on this one here. Now I'm dropping in some of the watery sap green to blend with the gray. Some watery Davy's gray on this one too and a few drops of the watery sap green. Now I'm moving the green around a little just to give it a helping hand, and I'm going to let the three of them dry before I move on. I'm using some of the watery sap green on dry paper to paint the tips, they're dry now. I've switched to my liner brush, so that I can get nice point on the leaves. While that green is wet I can use some of the sap green from the top of the palette just to deepen the edges. Some watery sap green on this tip and also on this one over here. Now I've dried the three of them off with the hair dryer and now I'm wetting this one on the right with some water. I want to paint some detail areas of darker green onto the leaves, but there's not a lot to go by on the reference photo, so I have to do my own thing with it. This is sap green from the top of the palette now. I've just wet the tip of this one with water and I'm using sap green from the top of the palette and I want to put a little bit more over here on this one while the surface is still wet. Just deepening the color. I'm wetting along the front edge with water and this is burnt sienna from the top of the palette, I'm painting it along the edges of leaf, just as I painted along the edges of the petal in an earlier video. I've also put it along the tips. My brush is weird and I just warp it over the top of the hard paint at the top of the palette, and I'll do the same thing on the edge of this leaf. A little bit of water on this one over here, and I do exactly the same thing. Now I've got some watery sap green with a fair amount of pigment in it and I'm doing this on dry paper. Now this is water in my brush I'm softening the edge. I wet the side of this leaf again with water and this is sap green from the top of the palette, I'm just deepening the color along the side of the leaf. 15. 15. Washy Leaves: In this video, I'll paint the four washy pale leaves at the side of the rose. I paint them lighter in color and with less detail than I'm going to paint these three at the front. I want them to look like they're further away from these other leaves. These four leaves on the right side of the rose, I'm going to paint in a soft and washy manner. I don't want them to stand out as much as the leaves at the front of the rose. I'm going to keep the colors soft and the detail to a minimum. This is Davy's gray on wet paper here. It's a watery Davy's gray. There's no need for me to completely cover the white of the paper with gray because I'm going to be adding other colors. This is watery, permanent rose and I've switched to my liner brush. I'm going to repeat the colors I've used on the rose to tie it all together and create color harmony. Now for some watery Windsor violet. I'm trying not to fuss too much with it because I don't want to create a [inaudible] mess. I'm trying to let the water on the paper merge the colors rather than me disturbing the paint with my brush too much. This is watery Windsor violet enough, and now for some watery sap green. Some water on this bigger leaf now. Here you can see the water on the paper better. Now for some watery Davy's gray. This is where I establish the shape of the leaf. I'm taking the paint right to the edges of the leaf. Some watery Windsor violet now. I'm just pushing the color around with my brush. Now for a touch of permanent rose and some watery sap green. You can see that there's a lot of white paper still showing through the paint. Here, I'm defining the edges further with some more of the watery violet. I've dried it off with my hairdryer and I'm erasing some of the pencil lines just to tidy it up. Now I'm painting some water onto the right side of this big leaf because I want to paint a soft vein down the center. This is watery Windsor violet, and because I have water on the paper, the paint softly bleeds across the right-hand side. Now for some water on this little leaf. On goes some watery Davy's gray just as before. I've switched back to my liner brush, and this is permanent rose and some Windsor violet. Now for some sap green. All of the paint I've used on this leaf has been watery. Back down to this little one, remember I dried it off before. Now I'm re-wetting it with water. I'm defining the edge of the leaf now with some watery Windsor violet. This one up here is dried and now I'm re-wetting the top side of it. This is watery Windsor violet, now running along the edge. I'll paint a little center vein down that one too. The paper is wet here and this is watery violet again on the edge of this bigger leaf. Now I'm softening the edge of the paint with [inaudible] brush. I decided to put some more Windsor violet on this little leaf interest. Then I could soften the paint with just water on my brush. As long as you're working on damp paper, the damp brush can wipe off most transparent paint, if you're not happy with the marks that you've made. 16. 16. Leaves at the Front: It's time to finish off the leaves now. I painted three leaves at the front of the rose in this video. You'll see me create some deliberate watercolor blooms, and I'll use my round brush to pull off some color to create the veins. I'm wetting this large leaf at the front of the painting with some water, and this is sap green. I'm painting these leaves darker than the other ones, so this time I've mixed more pigment into the watery mix. Just watch that you haven't got too much water on your brush. When you pick up the paint, give it a dab on some towel before you pick up the watery paint. I've left some white paper. I'm going to put some Winsor violet there. This is watery Winsor violet. I'm using some watery burnt sienna just to paint in the stem of the leaf, so just it touches the leaf to the flower. The paper is dry here. I've switched brushes and I'm using my my liner brush to deepen the edges of the leaf with sap green. I've picked up the sap green from the top of the pallet because I wanted it to be fairly dark. This is some watery permanent rose. It's dried a little, but it's still damp. What I want to do is deepen the color along the edges further. This is sap green again from the top of the pallet. I can start to paint that center vein into. The paper has dried even further, so I'm just reinforcing that vein. I have my damp Maestro brush, and I'm removing some paint to form the vein along the top-half of the leaf and also some side veins. The paper is slightly damp still. I wouldn't be able to do this as well if the paper dried. I wipe my brush on the towel, and I re-wet it as I go. Just add another little one up here and on this side too. Now, I wet this one with water. This is sap green. I took this paint from the top of the pallet. I've left some white paper there for some Winsor violet and also some permanent rose. I've just got water on my brush because there's enough paint there and I can just move it around. I've switched to my liner brush now and this is burnt sienna, just on the edges of this leaf. Here's a closer look. There's still a bit of shine on the paper. It's too early for me to remove any highlights, so I'm going to drop in some water to create another bloom. You can see that bloom now. There's little drops of water dispersed the pigment that was drying. It was starting to dry, but it wasn't completely dry. This just creates interest on the leaf. I'm removing the top of the center vein here with the damp Maestro brush again. It's time for this last leaf now. Some watery Winsor violet and there's a small amount of white paper still showing. Some permanent rose onto the damp paper, and some Winsor violet from the top of the pallet. I'm just using my liner brush on the edges of the leaf again. A little bit more of the violet now, and some watery permanent rose dropped onto the damp paper again. This little one is nearly dry but there's still a slight shine on the paper, so I'll put a few little drops of water to create another blue. The painting's dry now. I'm going to paint some water over the top of this leaf at the front just to soften the edges of the highlighted veins, and this is a touch of permanent rose to finish it off. 17. 17. Last Minute Details : This is the final video where I'll finish off the entire painting. I painted a few more details onto the leaves. and then I go back up onto the rose and I do a few more final things on it. I'm coming back up to these little leaves. I'm using my liner brush to define the edge further with burnt sienna. I'm painting on dry paper. The same thing on this one over here. I'm just deepening the burnt sienna that I painted before. Steepening the tips a little bit on the edges is one two. Now I'm softening with water. I'll deepen the color on the stem as well. I'm painting on dry paper here. Back up to the rose now. I want to deepen the color on the cup here, with the area with water, and then I use Quinacridone Red from the top of the palette. I've got my liner brush here, so I can get into the little fun parts of the rose. Now I want to deepen the color here too. This is watery permanent rose. I made a little bit more coloring here. This time it's opera rose from the top of the palette. Now I just have water on my brush and I'm softening the edge of the paint. Something is bugging me with the front of the rose. I think it's that the cap of the rose looks like it's sticking out above the petal below. The cap of the rose looks like it's sitting in front. This petal below should be sitting in front of the cap. I'm going to remove the base of the cap with my damp bristle brush. Just gently rubbing. Now I'm painting on drawing paper because I dried it off with my hair dryer. This is a touch of watery permanent rose softening with the damp brush now. A little bit here on this petal as well. Then I can drag that color down over the top of the petal. Time for one last color. This is Windsor Blue. I need a tiny little bit of it. Really, you could use any dark blue color for this. I've just wet this area of the leaf. Now I'm using some watery Windsor Blue. I can pull it up onto the center vine as well. I'm going to put some on this leaf at the side. Watery Windsor Blue now. Again, over here in the shadow I'll just wet this area which is deepening the shadow. Open a little bit on the edge of this leaf as well. Watery Windsor Blue. Now I'm softening again with my damp brush. I think it needs a little bit more. Again, watery Windsor Blue. A little bit under heat to create a shadow. I'm painting on dry paper here, softening the edge now. I think I'm done. It's time to put my brushes down now. Here's a photo of my final painting. I've included this for you to download. We're finished. How does you go? I hope it wasn't too difficult for you. Thank you so much for joining me in this class. I love to hear how you are going with your painting. Please feel free to join my group on Facebook. I'm looking forward to seeing your beautiful rose paintings.