"Mimose" Gouache Peonies Made Easy

1. Welcome!: Hi, and welcome to Mimos. In this class, we're focusing on form over palette, using gouache, but as always, you can use watercolor for this technique. I'm using hot press paper, but your favorite watercolor paper would be great for this class. I've chosen wisteria, but of course, you can choose any color you like. Working with just one color can be very freeing, and it will allow us to concentrate solely on the petal and leaf shaping. So what are we going to be doing together in this class? Well, firstly, we're going to mix up our color to get the correct value for this style of painting. We're then going to go through a few practice runs, exploring our focal, petal and leaf shapes. And also our cute little filler flowers and leaflets. The shape of the flowers is a little complex. For the longest time, I could not get the hang of peony shapes. It felt like there was a secret society of peony painters and I couldn't find the door. So in our practice runs, I'm going to share with you how I finally understood what the secret was. And it's all about bringing the brushstrokes up to one focal area at the base of the flower. I've designed this class for those of you who may have done quite a few watercolor projects now and just wanted to try gouache, maybe for the first time. And just a wee reminder, you can use watercolor for this. What we do is just use it in a thicker style. If you'd like to access subtitles from my classes, it's just here under the video next to the volume button. And subtitles are available in English, German, French, Portuguese and Spanish. I enjoy every aspect of making classes for you. By far, my favorite is chatting with you and seeing your work. So if you'd like to upload your project, you can find it in projects and resources underneath the class. Then on the right, you'll find submit Project. And I'm also on Instagram and following a lot of you. So please tag me in any work that you post as I don't want to miss anything. So let's move on with the class. 2. Materials : So let's start off with paper, and I'm using my favorite fabriano artistico, hot press. But any paper for this project would be great. This is a large pad, so I actually just cut it down and measured 20 centimeters by 30. I bought this cute pad from arch or arches, which is hot pressed as well, and I thought it would be really sweet to do the warm ups on it. If we look at color, I have the wisteria, which is Daniel Smith squash, and also titanium white. If you don't have white and you have buff titanium, that would be great as well. What I wanted to say here, you can do this class with watercolur. You really don't need to have gouache. And if you wanted to experiment further, what I would recommend is buying the titanium white, and then you can add your watercolor to it, and it will keep the properties of the gouache. But I often use all watercolor for this style. For those with allergies, I found that the Daniel Smith brand is actually tolerable. I have no problem with it. If you wanted to use a set of pan paints, you can't do that. It will just need a lot of working up so that, you know, you have a very thick consistency. I'm using this soap dish because I love them. They're just so wonderful for gouache. Because we're going to be mixing up a lot of pigment to last the whole project, it's a perfect little receptacle for that. And moving over to brushes, I have size ten, scoraPrao, which is my favorite brush and a size five memory point. You could go down to a size four or three, whichever you prefer. Just a smaller rounded brush with a tip would be great. 3. Paint Value Swatch: So I'm just going to put down some wisteria, and, of course, you can use any pink or any color. In fact. It doesn't have to be pink. And I'm just going to draw that out with a very small amount of water because I want to demonstrate what it looks like in its almost neat form, and it's very thick and very opaque. Then another drop of water. And let's see what that looks like next to the first swatch. And you can see it's just a little bit of paper showing underneath. Me water still. And you see even more. And at this stage, a lot of gouache painters like some texture and they like to see some of the background come through. Now we're getting into the watercolor range. This is the great thing about gouache is that you can use it, and it's very pigmented form or, as you would, a watercolur. Still more, and you can see that the paint is starting to travel across the page a little bit. And then just some neat water to pull it out. So we've got the very pigmented range on the left, slowly adding water until we get to very watery watercolor consistency. And we can drop in a little drop of paint there and you can see how much it's traveling now. I would normally use it around the first three swatches, depending on what I want, whether I want full coverage or a little bit of character. So you can see here that I've used it on these leaves in a slightly more watery consistency. So some of the paper does show through. But the second swatch, I think, is probably where I would start. 4. Paint Value: Petals: So let's try this with some petals. And I've got the very neat wisteria there. And I'm going to add the tiniest touch of water just to get it moving as we did with the swatch. And because of its thickness, I am having to work hard to pull the petals through. We could definitely use it at that thickness. Adding a little bit more water. And I'm going to spread out the bristles of the brush because what I want to see there is that I can actually do that. When the paint's very thick, it's very hard to spread out the bristles of the brush. And I think that's the consistency that I would probably work with as there's some freedom in the brush stroke. So a little bit more, and you can see it's getting a lot easier to pull the brush through. You get some page showing through, and sometimes I quite like that. Another drop of water. And you can definitely now see the page underneath. This feels like the midway between a very thick gouache and a watercolor. So I would say any of those first four flowers would be good for this class. And now you start to see the brush stroke more. You often see this with watercolor, where you start off and the paint collects in the middle of the leaf. And that's very common with hot press paper in particular. So you can definitely use gouache in a watercolor form. And you can use watercolor as a gouache. Using a gouache in watercolor form means you don't get exactly the same translucency because gouache is inherently opaque. And on the flip side, I've noticed when I use watercolor as a thicker gouache form, it's a little shiny. You kind of lose that lovely chalky experience that you get with gouache. And finally, loads and loads of water on this and very little pigment. So you can see that gouache works right from that very thick side of the spectrum right through to the watercolor area. So in terms of this class, I do feel the second third and fourth value is going to serve us best. 5. C Curves, Scribbly Leaves & Tiny Daisies: So I'm starting with my size ten round brush. And I'm just going to make some little curly petals. And I want to get a little bit of movement in these, but it's pretty much the tip down. Fan out the brush, and then up again to a tip. You can still get some small movements with the size ten, but I'm just going to move down to a size five now. A Just little sea curves. And then just some tiny little embellishments to these. So we just practice that on a smaller level, practicing the center of the flower and how we're slowly going to build up the petals around it, getting slightly larger. Here I'm up to my size ten again. These make lovely roses just as they are. And let's move over to leaves now. We're doing a very similar shape to the petals. So once you have the first one down, we're just following with successive strokes, leaving a little white space in the middle. And then we can go ahead and add our little stem. So if we do this again, but much more quickly, it's really satisfying, but also you find that usually the motif has a little bit more movement. Adding a little stem and some finishing touches. So sweet. I love these. I also really enjoy painting these little daisies. So these are just four or five petaled daisies. And then I do little Vs and maybe a dot or two. They're very cute for full of flowers. So you can turn your page around just to finish off these petals. Or you could do a mixture of strokes going up into the center and then out from the center. Then I do little three petal flowers, some dots, some little V shaped flowers. You can see how much they add to the leaves that we've just laid down. So pretty. 6. Pinnate Leaves, Dainty Leaf Sprigs & Broad Stroke Petals: So let's do some slightly larger leaves now. Tip down, fan out the brush, and up to a tip again. That's a quick movement, and here I'm going to wiggle my brush. Nice, longer strokes towards the bottom. And I'm just moving down the size of the brush for this stem. And I'm going to do really quick leaf here, and I really like the mixture of swift and slow movements here, of all the different leaves we have on the page. These are wonderful. Once you kind of get into the flow of doing them, they're really effective and they bring a lot of expressive movement. So for these nice fatter leaves with a blunt edge, we're going to really flare out our round brush. And flaring it out creates that blunt look. This is why round brushes are so versatile. So again, down, flaring the brush out, give it a wiggle, which will spread out the brussels even more. And we'll do something like this for our class project where we're interchanging between peonies and a looser shape like this. And just continuing to do these lovely broad strokes. Little dots in the middle. And if you want, you can always just add little petals. And I'm just adding some wiggly lines around a couple of the petals. So I'm going to do a three petaled flower here, which is facing out to the left, creating these lovely little brush marks by bringing the brush up very quickly at the end of the movement, and it almost finishes off the center for you. So just doing another take on the leaves that we did in the middle top there. And then these tiny little dot shaped leaves coming off the branch. Little filler flowers which will really be useful when we join our class project. And I'm just practicing a center here again, little dots and lines, curves. I'm bringing all the petals to that point underneath the center there. So I know I'm not going to go far wrong, and I'll cover this more in Part four. I'm just slowly building up the s curves upward movements. And I'm just going to add another one there in the middle. I often use these leaves as a way of curving round existing motifs. Super easy to do. Tip down and then actually run your brush along the paper. Just doing some little scribbly leaves. And some more of those very quick ones. Oh 7. Side Sweeps, Fronds & Two Stroke Leaves: So I'm going to practice a side sweep. And again, this brings about a slightly blunter shape. It's a very organic shaped leaf, and I often use the side sweep in my work. Adding a wee stem. I'm just adding an unhurried leaf here. So let's practice that again. And we can create these leaves with two strokes or one. Nice side sweep, round leaf there, and then pushing upwards to the stem. Okay you see, I'm just shaping the leaves and adding tiny touches to it. This time, I'm laying down the stem first. And I'm going to do these lovely loose leaflets, with the leaves going in different directions and little dots. Tiny leaves. Really a pleasure to do. And I find these easier to do upside down. So just scribbling with the brush, really. And I'm pulling some leaves out from the stem and some towards. I do like the dd dot or two. And I'm just adding some tiny little extra stems. And let's do one the right way round. They're very similar to the other leaves that we did where we were making descending brush marks, but more expressive. So laying down a stem first again. And let's do some two stroke leaves. I do love these. They remind me of grains, oats, and wheat. But they could be any plant you want them to be. And you can see we're building up quite a variety of different shapes here. And I'm painting the leaves just in slightly different directions. That always adds a sense of movement. So now let's move on to part four Peony flower heads. 8. Slow & Quick Peonies: So I just wanted to show you this really neat technique with peonies, starting off there with the center. Here, I'm going to make a little circle. And what we're going to practice is bringing all the petals to that circle. So even if they don't quite meet, they're going to be pointing towards there. This is the secret to painting a good peony. It took me a while to figure it out. I used to get a little bit overwhelmed with the complexity of peonies. But if we just practice this technique of everything meeting at that point, it just suddenly clicks into place. I'm just adding some sea cubs at the top of the flower here. And we're doing a mixture of the larger petals, smaller petals and little marks and lines. And here is a wiggly version of the petals that we practiced in the previous lessons. Little wiggly side sweep. Adding little embellishments. And I like to add on little petals to the existing petals, all leading to that point. So let's have a go at going really quickly now. So up to that point again, everything to that point. So practicing moving quickly prevents too much head chatter. We get an unfiltered access to the intuitive part of our brain. And each peony has its own character. You never really know how it's going to look at the end, and I love that. Just adding more s curves there, some little lines, some little extra petals. A popping those bubbles, and let's just draw down a little stem and do some very quick leaves in the style of the ones that we've just practiced. A couple of tiny little leaves and maybe a little sprig of leaves up here. You could decide for yourself whether you like a slower movement and just a slower pace, or if you like expressive very quick movements. And I'm just faffing about here with my petals, which probably don't need it, so there we have it slow and quick peonies. And there's that guiding point in the middle where we started. 9. Our Class Project - Part 1: So let's start off by making a sea curve, and we're just going to add these on top of each other smaller and larger strokes. And on some of them become wiggle brush just to create a lovely line. Now, we're bringing everything into that one spot. I realized when I was learning this technique that that's what I was missing, really, was that all of the base of the petals need to come into the middle there. So I'm going to have it facing downwards and then just slowly building up the smaller petals and adding finer details as well. Just using the tip of the brush. Now let's do the little center. Tiny little sea curves. I'm just building up the petals here. So if we turn a page around, let's do a few strokes together to make a three faceted petal, I guess we could call it. H You can see everything is pointing towards that main center of the flower. And we can just keep swapping between our size ten and size five. Let's do those little leaves that we practiced. And little throwaway daisy flowers. A few more little curves in a center. And I'm back to my size ten I'm just swapping because I don't want to get too small, too cramped. This whole project is about larger brushstrokes and then finer little details. So let's join this all up now. I just create the front petals there, which defines the direction of the flour. Now let's go into a very quick set of leaves. These are quite expressive, but you can take your time as well over them. And now let's do our second flower, and we're going to fan out the brush as much as possible, just to bring some larger petals in. So for this next petal, let's flare out our brush and then lift the brush really quickly towards the end of the movement, and it provides this lovely dry brush effect. It means that you don't actually need to do many details in a center because you've already laid down those lovely little brush marks leading into the middle. And I just want to add a few little details here into the center. Just extending some of the petals like adding lines and then doing little scribbles in a center. That's smaller than I think I wanted, really, so I'm just going to add a little three petaled flower here, and that will just increase its size a little bit. I just wanted it a tiny bit smaller than the first motif. I let's do some more of those pinnate leaves again. Just bringing in that glossary of leaves that we practiced. And then our little daisy type flowers. Now, I really like the dot on the end of that line, so I don't want to lose that entirely. Just these little throwaway marks, I think, that make the piece. And then a third motif up here. I don't want it to be too triangular, so I'm going to take it out a little bit. And I'm starting off with that very easy quick center of little lines and dots. And I'm starting off with the size five round brush and those s curves. I quite like adding on bits to the petal after I've done the first stroke. You can always embellish them. A few little lines, a few curves. Am I just going to slowly build up from the center going up to the size ten now so that we can put in some larger strokes. And although we are coming to the same point of the petal, the petals can change direction. The base of the petals are what we're looking for here, making sure that they're all finishing at or pointing towards that spot that we practiced. Nice big brushstroke here, similar to the second motif underneath. And then just pulling round smaller petals, little additions to the petals. Another big stroke here, flaring the brush right out. And then I'm just spending a wee bit of time bringing them right into the center. I find it easier to work quickly with these things. Otherwise, it becomes a little too practiced. So let's go really out here to do some very swift expressionful movements. And you can see just how easy it is to go around, add little bits of detail. And a beauty of gouache is if you don't like it, you can paint over it to a certain degree. Just wanted to bring out the flower a little bit more. So I'm just adding some petals over the petals that I've just done just to extend them. And I would just wanted them to be a bit larger and for this flower to be a little more open than the first motif. Okay, now let's go in with some larger leaves, flaring the brush out and just bringing those up to a nice little stem leading to that third motif. And then down again, I'm making sure that the direction of the leaves changes. And let's do some larger ones of these ones that we practiced. I do love these, and I'm going to make this one a little bit more sketchy, just to bring a little bit of free flow to the painting. I sometimes do find it easier to paint leaves upside down. U 10. Our Class Project - Part 2: So back down to the size five. And let's do a smaller version of the one that we've just done. These are like little echoes of motifs. They don't have to be exactly the same, but it's a similar technique. Almost scribbling, really here. So I'm just setting up some stems there and doing a small cluster of leaves here as well. You can do these in an expressive way or take your time. So what we're doing is really paying attention to the fact that we have our larger motifs. We have the medium sized motifs in the leaves, and then we have these little filler leaves and flowers. That's my favorite bit. Let's do some little daisies here. So I've got a little hint of these daisies up at the top, middle, and the bottom left. And now I'm just going to add some here so that the pattern is echoed. And I'm just adding some more of those four or five petal flowers and some Vs and dots. So I'm using the very tip of the brush here to do some fine stems. I don't feel like they all have to match up. Mm. And to finish those off, I'm just going to add a little wiggly leaf and some of those very gestural leaves here. And you can see, I'd like to go back into the main motifs and just keep adding details. And there I go again on just adding some finer details. So I'm just pausing to make sure that the leaves are all going in various directions. So mixture thereof, tip, flare, tip again, and a little side sweep. Just continuing to add some filler leaves. And I think I'm going to just flesh out these petals a little bit. I just want to do, like, a little scribbly line around the edges. So So you can see there's a composition forming. And let's do some wavy leaves here, the two pronged leaves that we practiced. I really love these because they really add flow to a painting, and we've got some tight little shapes there with the small daisies. So it's quite nice to alternate between more precise brushstrokes and very free flowing fluid ones. And it fills up that space beautifully. I think if we went in there and just carried on doing tiny little daisies, it wouldn't look as balanced. So this is just pushing down and flaring out. And what that gives us is a blunter shape, petal or leaf. So even though this is a round brush, when we flaring out like that, it gives us a very different shape. And let's repeat that two pronged leaf motif over here as well. I quite like the way that it works on the edges. M I think these are my favorite leaves to paint. Wiggling your brush every now and then, I think, adds movement as well. I don't want this to be too rigid. It's along the lines really of folk art. It has some elements of that, but I wanted it to be kind of a little more flowy, as well. Mm I'm just taking time to go around and add little gestures. And then here, let's do our little V leaves. We're just placing them randomly. And then we'll start to add some very delicate stems. You might even want to do this with a dip pen or with a very small liner brush. M, I'm just adding those little dots. So looking over again, I think it's always good just to pause. And what I'm doing now is I can see that this is forming into a rectangle, and I can almost envisage the edges now. So I'm working with those edges by adding some little daisies. And because to the right there, we have some medium sized leaves. We can get away with doing lots of little details now. A tiny little sprig of leaves. So at this stage of the painting, we can start to see whether there are any remaining gaps that we might want to add to. I can see a white space here, so I'm just going to do some more of those V shaped leaves. Some of the little dots. O. Just bringing down this larger leaf here, just to fill out that corner. It's the way of creating a painting without feeling you have to take things off. That's kind of a loose edge. I think they are my favorite thing to do these little daisies. And I might just bring a couple down towards this flower head. Neatening up the petals. So after looking it over, I'm not happy with the center of that first motif. I realize that the center isn't facing downwards as I'd like, so I just want to go in and add a couple of small brush strokes to the center there. I'm just color checking because I've just had to mix up a little extra. So to make this middle facing downwards, there needs to be more petals around the center. I just want to shape it. It's very difficult to go in and make these minor adjustments without doing too much. But already, I feel that's a little better, and I just want to now do some last minute adjustments to the inner petals. Just adding some tiny dots to the center. So because the third motif is a little looser, quite like that look. So I'm just going to get my size ten round brush out and just extend a couple of the petals. And you can see there that the consistency is not as thick as the original petal. So I'm just adding a little bit more wisteria. It would be easy for me just to demonstrate when things are going really well, but I think it's important to share these things because sometimes we want to make adjustments, things don't fall the way we want. I'm in danger of adding too much, so I'm just going to be very careful with each brushstroke. And I think that's it. 11. Thank You!: Thanks so much for joining me in this class. We've looked at how to mix squash to the right consistency for this thicker but fluid brush flow. We've practiced larger and smaller brush strokes with a size ten and five round brush. Explored the versatility of a round brush, not just for making rounded leaves and petal shapes, but also producing blunter shapes by spreading out the bristles of our brush. We've slowly built up a composition, and we've done this in most classes by keeping in awareness the 70 2010 ratio. Whereby, our composition is made up of 70% large motifs, 20% medium, and 10% small filler florets and leaflets. But most of all, I hope you've had fun. As always, my aim with all of my classes is to provide content which is informative, fun, and relaxing. So I really hope I've been able to do that for you today. So thanks again, and I'll see you over in discussions or on Instagram. Bye bye for now. 12. Giselle - Bonus Lesson: A Oh oh